booksandbraids's reviews
1863 reviews

I’m intrigued by the story so far and I enjoy the drawing style

I absolutely love Emily Henry. This was yet another fantastic book. Everything about it was perfect.

Random thoughts while reading…

- 22% this book is hilarious. I am so in love with this author and these characters that I cannot even begin to express myself. I am praying to the book gods that this level of awesomeness persists throughout the entire book. 
- 53% I find myself looking at random VRBOs in North Carolina. It’s close enough to be a perfect long weekend destination. I feel the need to binge the remaining Nicholas Sparks books that I have not yet read and run away to a small coastal town. I’m not going to lie, I already had a Nicholas Sparks inspired list of places to visit on a sticky note in my planner thanks to the last NS book that I read. So this idea isn’t exactly a new one. 
- 75% Libby just collapsed. If she freaking dies I will be PISSED

Going into this book I did not realize that it was a nonfiction book or that it would include basically the complete origin story of the Mormon faith. I saw that it was being made into a show starring Andrew Garfield and just checked it out from the library automatically without reading the synopsis. Based on the show trailer, I assumed it was going to be a fiction story about a murder having to do with Mormons. Wow was I wrong haha. At first I was sort of disappointed, but then once it started branching out to include information about Mormons in general and how the religion was founded, I became more and more interested. It is fascinating how this one guy, Joseph Smith, had such an impact on the world and essentially created this religion from scratch. I’m glad that I read this book because it taught me a lot. I knew very little about the Mormon faith prior to this book. 

As an extremely stupid aside, I will comment that I now better understand some of the lyrics in the musical The Book of Mormon, haha! 

If you are a religious person, maybe do not read this book unless you are willing to question your faith and every other religion in existence. 

I am just going to copy and paste the notes I took while reading the book below.. 

- This book got me thinking way too much. First of all, these people are insane. The whole religion is insane and makes no sense. I feel the need to read the Book of Mormon just like I did the Bible out of a sense of curiosity and to give myself fully the right to critique/doubt said religion. 
- That got me thinking about how all of the major world religions were created because basically some man was charismatic enough to influence enough people to literally start a religion. And people were crazy enough to believe them. And people are still following what this overly charismatic men declared hundreds of years ago. It blows my mind. Maybe it is worse in this particular case because Mormonism was so recently created and we have a lot of documented information on Joseph Smith’s life etc… but still. 
- And now that got me thinking about how Stephenie Meyer (the author of the Twilight series and The Host) is a Mormon. I always knew that but I didn’t really know enough about the Mormons for that fact to make me think twice about it. I know people pretty much universally mock the Mormons but I always just sort of thought of them as a strange branch of Christianity. They are not. They are a whole other thing. And now I completely do not understand how a Mormon woman could write an entire romance series about vampires. Or how she could write The Host which is a romance about worm-like aliens who implant themselves into human bodies and take over the species. She got the idea for Twilight based on a dream. Based on how Mormons feel about dream prophesies we are lucky she didn’t start another branch of Mormonism that believes in the coming of an advanced race of people. Do the Mormons approve of her writing? I feel like vampire and alien romances must be looked down upon by the religion being described in this book. With all that said…. I still absolutely love her writing and adore the Twilight series. 
- I’m now convinced that all religions are insane. I’ve often joked saying “wouldn’t it be funny if Mary was just some girl who got knocked up before she was married and was desperate to dig herself out of that hole in any way she could?” It seemed like plausible theory after reading about Muhammad and the start of Islam in college… another religion whose origin story leads me to doubt the whole thing. The idea that Christianity is completely made up seems even more plausible after reading about the origin of Mormonism. What makes the ridiculous aspects of Christianity any more plausible than the ridiculousness of these other religions? 
- 93% Dan Lafferty is most definitely insane and he believes in some crazy stuff…. But he said something that I agree with… “Organized religion is hate masquerading as love”. That is part of the reason I started turning against religion. Yes, the things religion claims are ridiculous and that is part of why I have turned against religion… but it also is a hypocrite. Most religions claim that they promotes love and compassion for one another, yet at the same time it shuns those who have differing beliefs and it is often used to justify violence. And because it is religion and “God”, people are less likely to question it. My mother-in-law attended catholic school in Baltimore back in the day, and relatively recently it came out that all of these men-of-power within the school and Catholic faith were sexually abusing the young female students. Her fellow classmates were being abused for YEARS and it didn’t come out until now, when all of these women are reaching grandmother age. Part of the reason that that was able to happen to the extent that it did is because it was happening under this umbrella of religion. How can you trust religion in general when the leaders of the faith are are awful as that?

I really enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. I like how it covered the history of nuclear power in general, as well as all the details surrounding what happened at Chornobyl. 

Following my recent trend of being too lazy to compile my notes into a real review, I am just going to copy the things I jotted down while reading below…

- There was a nuclear testing facility in Georgia?! I will need to look into this Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory in Dawsonville…
- My dad’s family is from near Harrisburg PA. I remember hearing stories about my aunt evacuating with my at the time ~1 year old cousin to go camping out of state “just in case”. I will need to ask them more about that. We still drive by the nuclear towers whenever we visit my one sister in law who now lives up that way. If I lived in that part of PA I think I might feel inspired to move after reading this… just in case. 
- This whole thing is basically just a series of unfortunate events where everything that could go wrong went wrong in the worst way possible. Why are the majority of these people so stupid?! How could they possibly think they could hide this. I’m so glad I do not live in Russia (or I guess technically the USSR) because these people clearly have no respect for the lives and wellbeing of their citizens. Sure! Let’s allow the children to play in radioactive dust. WE WOULDN’T WANT TO EMBARRASS OURSELVES LIKE THOSE STUPID AMERICANS! No one is going to notice the cloud of radioactivity spreading across Europe. They won’t be able to trace it back to us! 
- 55% I think my favorite “everything that could go wrong has gone wrong” event just happened… it was so avoidable and stupid of a mistake that it is almost humorous. THEY DROVE OVER THE HOSES THAT WERE CARRYING RADIOACTIVE WATER?! They broke the hose in 20 places. So that means that didn’t run over it just once but NUMEROUS times. WTF is wrong with these people. 
- The guys having to make expeditions into these tunnels full of radioactive water, not really knowing what is up ahead, is like something straight out of a Sci-Fi movie/book/show. The whole idea of battling this invisible poison known as radiation is sort of Sci-Fi when you think about it. 
- 77% what is wrong with these people. Just accept your losses and abandon the remaining nuclear towers! Turning any of them back on sounds like the dumbest thing they could do. 
- And now they are building a new town?! Where families will live?! In the midst of this radioactive disaster land?  WTF. Honestly. What is wrong with this country.
- I can’t believe they literally drafted people to their deaths to fight this disaster. I guess there was no other way but still… that is awful. Worse than war. 
- 88% OH YES! it is definitely improper farming methods that are causing cows to be born with no legs and pigs to be both with two heads! There is NO WAY that it could be the poisonous radiation that still impacts the land. The fact that these people are still spewing this garbage after everything that has happened so far truly disgusts me. I can’t stand liars. This people are nothing but liars on a national scale.
- And now they are selling radioactive meat?!? Serious “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair vibes…. 
- Epilogue: This guy’s explanation of why the disaster was the plant operator’s fault is complete bullshit. He says that you wouldn’t blame the makers of a car for a car crash if the driver of the vehicle turned the wheel wrong and ran into something. Sure- if that is how it really happened. BUT if they turned the wheel to the right expecting to the vehicle to turn right and the car instead went left… then you would definitely blame the makers of the car. Just like how these people responded by doing what they were told would cool the reactor, when in fact it did the opposite. 
- I can’t decide if the people who survived Chernobyl and then continued to work in nuclear energy careers are brave or just stupid…

I read this book as a buddy read- my first. This book was not on my TBR prior to the buddy read so I am glad I was invited to participate because this was a very good book! I had some issues with the initial setup (the fact that the media basically destroyed Julia's career AFTER she was deemed innocent by the courts), but I got over that pretty quick. I quickly fell in love with the characters, especially the relationship between Julie and Alice... and the relationship between Julie and Max AND the relationship between Ellie and Cal... and Peanut- I loved Peanut too haha. 

I absolutely sobbed when George took Alice/Brittany away. It was bad enough that my husband heard from across the apartment and came to investigate. His exact wording when he walked into the room and saw me sobbing over a book was "I figured this would be the case but I thought I should check to make sure you didn't hurt yourself. This is why you shouldn't read" 😂 

I'm really happy with the ending, although it seems like the father gave up a little too soon. It is great that Alice went back to Julie so soon-- it was probably a lot less traumatizing for her that way-- but George seemed so deadset on trying to make it work to only give up after a matter of hours.

I’m intrigued but not hooked just yet. I’m not a huge fan of the drawing style, so that is hindering my ability to truly get into it… but hopefully I will be able to overcome that.

I read the Shadow and Bone series before this, and I was super disappointed in it. I did not particularly like the characters. I did not particularly like the universe. It did not live up to the hype at all. BUT I am glad that I read it because it helped set me up to read this. THIS book was so much better. Not obsession-worthy, but very good. I liked the universe a lot more in this book than I did in Shadow and Bone. I really liked all of the characters involved. I feel like they were well developed and all very likable in their own unique ways.