The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I'm a Catholic so as you can imagine this book might have caused controversy with me but believe it or not I couldn't put it down. A good writer knows the difference between fiction and non-fiction and what many readers of this book fail to realize is this book is a work of fiction. Of course there are some real facts that make it believable like the symbolism and myths of the Holy Grail but it's a work of FICTION, and that is why I read it and ultimately really enjoyed it.

This is definitely one of my favorite brainy thrillers. To keep up with Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu is a thrill of a lifetime and I enjoyed every page of it. I've heard many different stories considering this book and I decided to finally take the plunge and it turned out to be amazing. The trick to this book is to read it with an open mind. You have to open the book and leave your religion behind and just explore a little and you would be amazed as to where this book leads you.

P.S. The little part of Da Vinci's Last Supper seems very true to me. Looking at the picture myself I saw not 13 men but twelve men and one very feminine looking one forming the V of the chalice...

The Choice by Nicholas Sparks

No one has any idea how happy I am to finally find a book that had me reading through the night. I haven't read a book like that since the Deathly Hallows (the last Harry Potter book). I just couldn't help falling in love with Travis Parker and Gabby Holland just as fast as they fell in love with each other. I'm used to Nicholas Sparks' romance stories and used to the same old thing that he always does but The Choice was different. Maybe it was because I felt really connected to Gabby because she was very relatable to me, or maybe it was because I was completely attracted to Travis. All I know is this book was so sweet, so romantic, and so uplifting that it just made me smile and of course eventually cry throughout the book. I even had to restrain from laughing out loud in some really great moments. For all romance lovers out there, this is definitely something that you should pick up. It would lift up your spirits and truly make you believe in true love again. This was an amazing read and I thank Nicholas Sparks for sparking my love for books once again.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

I am a huge fan of Jane Austen's work, especially Pride and Prejudice. That book was absolutely amazing for me and such a touching story. Her first work though didn't catch my attention as much. It took me three tries to even get to pg. 120 of Sense and Sensibility and I'm sorry but I can't go on any longer. I'm sure the rest of the book is fantastic but keeping up with 1811 language is tiring. Austen's use of big words and fancy ways of saying things is something that I expect but this was too much for me. I would find that I spent 10 minutes on a piece of Elinor's dialogue just trying to figure out what she was trying to say. I love my classics and I love Jane Austen but this book just wasn't enough for me. I even feel bad feeling this way but I do. It pains me that this wonderful classic just isn't for me (which by the way rarely happens). If you love this book then hats off to you but for readers who have a short attention span, don't even bother buying this book, you won't even last past the first page.

On a better note, I loved the characters, well from as much as I got to know them at least. Elinor and Marianne were absolutely marvelous and I couldn't help but fall in love with Willoughby as much as Marianne did. I'm sure if the language was simpler and there was just a little more oomph, like in Pride and Prejudice, I would have liked this book just fine. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. I still love Jane Austen and applaud her writing but this book wasn't her best work. Then again, it was her first and as Pride and Prejudice showed me, she got better with age.