Signed, Midwestern Redhead

As the final night of summer lingers in the air, memories of the last 3 months nurture you to sleep. The new school year is less than a day away and with it, new challenges. The emotions are fluctuating between teenagers, ranging from mock pity that summer is taking a curtain call to exhaustion from cutting back their wake up time a couple of hours. Take a couple of minutes to appreciate what you enjoyed this summer and anticipate what will happen this school year. This summer was one of the craziest ones yet. I've never hung out with my friends, old and many new, so much. From crazy adventures around town to chilling out in our freezing cold basement, I never cared what I was doing with them as long as we were together. Another thing I realized was that I'm a true family girl. Not long after my summer started, my grandpa passed away from lung cancer. As heartbreaking as it was for me, being together with my family to share our grief and cheer each other up made me realize ho...

Books have a way of compelling us to read things that we wouldn't normally read. Gravity pulls us towards something that we would never usually tend to pick out. Last year, about a month before Christmas, I was walking at Barnes and Noble and all of sudden, this book with a wintry background with a lone boxcar and the words The Orphan's Tale  on the cover appeared in front of me. I had never heard of this book, so there was no hype or movie that spread the word about it. All of the reviews on the back of the book had raved about how amazing it was which can sometimes be a scam, but once I had finished the book, I totally understood why everyone liked it. The Orphan's Tale  brings together two separate stories of women who forge an unlikely alliance, but the secrets that are held between them could tear them apart. Noa Weil is a 16 year old girl working at a train station after being thrown out of her house from becoming pregnant by a Nazi soldier. When a train car appears...

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Figuratively and literally, this is true. Sometimes I've found books with amazing covers that I've heard remarkable reviews on, but I usually tend to say "Not today." (Most is in part with saving my money.) During one of my weekends at my lake cabin, I noticed my grandma had the book Me Before You. I had recognized the cover because of the photo of Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin from the re-release of the book due to the movie that had come out recently because of it. By recently, I mean I found this book this year and the movie came out in 2016. I was a little late to hop onto the bandwagon, but I still caught the wagon, and what a journey it took me on. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes is about 26 year old Louisa Clark, a native of London whose led the same boring life since she was born. No travel, crazy athletic competitions, or a hectic work life. It's been waitressing at a small cafe, spending time with her f...