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The Sunday Post is a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, tell you what I’m reading, and share news. It’s hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Readerbuzz, and Book Date.

The Sunday Post #344

On The Blog Recently

• Books To Read In Fall
• Reading Ideas For Spooky Season
• Year-End Reading Goals
• Best Books About Extreme Weather
• The End Of The Year Book Tag

In My Reading Life

I finished After The Eclipse: A Mother's Murder, A Daughter's Search by Sarah Perry. This is one of the saddest memoirs I've ever read. (If you're more intelligent than me, you probably knew it was sad from the title.)

When the author was a child, she heard her mother being murdered in the middle of the night. She was too scared to leave her bedroom, so she didn't witness the murder. It took the police 12 years to solve the case. During that time, Sarah was passed around to different family members and repeatedly interrogated by cops who didn't believe she'd stayed in her room while her mother screamed.

The author writes beautifully about a horrible subject. The reader really gets to know the author's family, especially her flawed but incredibly loving mother. She's also excellent at writing about grief and people's expectations of it. She had a hard time living with family members after the murder because they expected a sad child. They didn't know what to do with a frightened, angry child.

For me, the most interesting part of the book is the author's observations about how American society uses crime as entertainment. She can't even run on a treadmill without seeing crime on the gym's TVs. She has to pretend she's not bothered by fictional TV shows or by her coworkers discussing whatever murder is in the news. Society's obsession with cops and killers means she can never escape the memory of her mother's death. It made me realize how much crime is in the media I consume. It's on TV commercials, in the headlines when I start my computer, and in the books I read. The author is right. It's a societal obsession that's hard to escape.

This book's pacing drags in the middle, but it's worth reading if you're interested in true crime. It might give you a different perspective on the genre.

Speaking of crime-as-entertainment, I read Flowers In The Attic by V.C. Andrews. I now understand why so many people were traumatized by this book when they were children. This novel is nasty! Young people need to stay away from their parents' bookshelves.

Okay, Flowers In The Attic is about four children who are locked in an attic by their neglectful mother and grandmother. Melodrama, plot twists, and incest/rape happen. I'm not even sure how to summarize the plot because everything is a spoiler! Before I started reading, I knew this book was a modern classic and very scandalous. I'm glad I didn't know more. I got to be shocked by each disturbing development. (And there are a lot of disturbing developments.)

The (golly lolly!) overdramatic dialogue made me roll my eyes so hard they nearly fell out of my head. Once I learned to cringe my way through the dialogue, the story became weirdly addictive. I even downloaded the audiobook so I could listen at work. I was desperate to find out how the children would escape from the attic. It's a tense, high-stakes story for sure.

It's rare that a book leaves me speechless, but here we are. I don't know what to say about this one. Is it a well-written book? No. Will I read the sequels? No. Did I enjoy it? Occasionally. Am I glad I read it? Heck, yeah! I feel like I've joined the club of readers who have been forever disturbed by this novel.

Then I read Destination Truth: Memoirs Of A Monster Hunter by Josh Gates. Josh Gates is the host of several TV shows on the Travel/Discovery/SyFy Channels. He's one of my favorite humans because I love his sense of humor and his curiosity. He always seems like he's having a good time on his travels, which makes them fun to watch.

This book is part travel guide, part memoir. Josh writes about the years he spent filming a monster-hunting show called Destination Truth. He traveled all over the globe to investigate sightings of strange creatures. I think I've seen every episode of Destination Truth, so it was fascinating to learn about life behind the scenes and how difficult it is to film in remote locations. There's even a perfect explanation for why I love Josh's TV shows so much: 

"We traipsed through some of the planet's most harrowing environments and let the ensuing adventures dictate our story. It's supremely difficult to make television this way, to stake a narrative on the idea that interesting things will happen simply because the world is an interesting place. I'm just glad that it worked out and nobody lost a limb."

Josh's TV shows (and his book, honestly) are captivating because they're not overly organized. He just goes to a place and hopes to find interesting things. It leads to a lot of humor. One of the funniest moments in the book is when Josh's team finds a possible bigfoot footprint. They have no idea what to do about the print because they never expected to find actual evidence of the monsters they were hunting. They thought they were just making TV. They didn't believe in monsters.

Like most celebrity memoirs, this one is probably only worth reading if you're already a fan of the celebrity. You won't get much out of it if you haven't seen Destination Truth. If you're already a fan, I recommend the book!

Since it's spooky season, I went to the library and picked the scariest book I could find. It was The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. Yes, I read a romance. I honestly couldn't think of anything scarier.

I know this book has millions of passionate fans, but friends, it's terrible! Everything about it is terrible! It opens with an elderly man reading a romance story to his sick wife. The story is about a woman who goes to her ex-boyfriend's house to tell him that she's engaged. The woman ends up cheating on her fiancé with her ex. She falls in love with her ex again. Quivering loins and crying ensue.

I'm way too dead inside to enjoy this book. The author tried with all his might to force me to feel something, but nope. The characters are flat. The writing is sappy. Alzheimer's is temporarily cured by a man's love. It's a "No" from me.

In The Rest Of My Life

Five things that made me happy recently:

1. This photo. Baby Brooklyn came home from school and announced she was "tired of people." Here's what it looks like when a four-year-old is tired of people. I promise I left her alone after I took the picture.

2. Work was boring, so I went on patrol with one of my coworkers. We blasted this song inside our cop car and sang along. I'm glad the park was empty because it would have been awkward if we had to do actual law enforcement during our "Dial Drunk" sing along.

3. People on Pinterest love to leave mean comments on the book recommendation pins I create. I delete the comments that are racist, homophobic, irrelevant, or overly nasty. I came close to deleting this one, but then I was like, You know, maybe Mary has a small point about my reading tastes . . .

4. It's Secret Santa sign-up time! This is my favorite bookish event. Please consider signing up for maximum holiday cheer.

5. Since my work hours have been cut down to a reasonable number, I'm actually able to read books and take boxing lessons again! It's nice to have hobbies.

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Take care of yourselves and be kind to each other. See you around the blogosphere!