This month I read... June

Little I has dramatically cut down the length of her feeds and now we only have one 20 minute night feed. As a result my reading has suffered! At best I am managing to read about half an hour a day. So I have less to report this month!

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell - our latest Book Club read.

It is 1935. Gerry Durrell is 10 and his well off family consisting of Mother and 3 grown up siblings decide to up sticks and move to Corfu. And so begins Gerry's memoir of their five years on the island told through his encounters with the Greek wildlife.

I found this book incredibly funny. The stories of Gerry's latest animal finds causing chaos in the house are hilarious. My favourites include the 'Magenpies' trashing the party table and the water snakes in the bath. Oh and the baby scorpions in the matchbox. And the dog being carried everywhere on a cushion. I could go on...

The whole book must be exaggerated as his family seem like charactertures of people rather than real personalities but that only helped make it funnier. At times the book got a little slow with the descriptions of Gerry's encounters with the Greek wildlife but just as he was about to loose you he pulled it back to another hilarious anecdote about the family.

Overall the book was very easy to read and I was impressed with the writing and the storytelling. I'd like to know what happened to the family after they left Corfu and luckily there are 4 more books so I can find out!

4/5

Untouched the second book in The Girl in the a Box series by Robert J Crane

Sienna Nolan is 17 and hasn't left her house since she was 5. Her mother has kept her prisoner, locking her in a metal box when she steps out of line. One day her mother leaves for work and doesn't return. Two men break into the house and Sienna discovers she has extraordinary powers. She escapes but is pursued by more than one agency whose motives are not clear. What is she? Who is her mother? And who are these people trying to catch her?

These books are pretty short and I read the second installment pretty quickly. Sienna's powers fully develop revealing not only her super strength and regeneration powers but she has an exceptional power; she can suck the life force from people via touch (X-men Rogue parallel). Interestingly the soul of the people she kills somehow transfers to her body and she can hear them talking to her in her head. When they start to take control of her body she realises she needs to find her mother quickly to find out how to control this power.

The storyline is taking some interesting turns but the lead character is still whiny and annoying. I am finding my enthusiasm waning slightly. Hopefully the third book will pick up a bit.

3/5

On my Kindle app I am reading Soulless the third book in The Girl in the Box series by Robert J Crane

In paperback I'm reading The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

For Book Club we are reading my choice of book The Girl Who Saved The King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson

This post is linked to #ThisMonthIRead with mutteringmummy.wordpress.com #readwithme at mamamummymum.co.uk #triedtested with thefamilyfever.co.uk and goingonanadventure.co.uk and AllAboutYou with mama-andmore.com