2018 Reads: Books 76-80

David Hedge's finds his life coming apart at the seams. His rental house may be going on the market, his boyfriend left him, and his job seems more exasperating than ever before.

In the middle of his low point, he hears from Julie Fiske, his ex-wife who he hasn't spoken to in decades.

After taking a trip across the country to the Fiske home, David finds himself redefining what it considers home to be. Julie's life hasn't turned out to be all that she imagined, either, but the second David walks back into her life they pick up right where they left off and redefine home together.

Greer Kadetsky is trying to find her way, and her voice, when she meets Faith Frank - a woman who has been working to redefine the feminist movement for decades.

Through a chance encounter, Frank ends up taking Kadetsky under her wing. Together, the two women work at a feminist-based nonprofit working to provide more resources and opportunities for women. Faith makes Greer's life feel like it's everything she ever wanted it to be... until she finds herself questioning everything.

Oh, Ove. Ove is a grumpy old man who is stuck in his ways.... until a friendly young family moves in next door.

Throughout the novel, Ove develops a relationship with his lovely young couple and their children as the reader discovers more about the circumstances that made Ove the grumpy and strict old man he's become.

It all makes for an adorable read that will have you appreciating your family and falling in love with Ove.

One of the Boys was a random Kindle download one night when I needed something new to read and, wow, it was a great choice.

Magariel's debut novel completely captivated me in the best and worst ways. Two brothers are left with their father after the war... the only way their father refers to his divorce from the boy's mother. What seems exciting and a bit exotic at first quickly turns dark and even dangerous after their father moves the boys from Kansas to New Mexico and then falls into the depths of drug addiction.

The boys are left to fend for themselves against their father, who gives from loving to violent, from manic and neglectful. Neither boy is never named during the book, which makes it all the more eery but also all the more possible for the boys to be anyone.

I've never had more respect for anyone than I do for Anthony Ray Hinton. He spent more than three decades on death row for a crime he didn't commit.

For a crime that, in fact, there was ample proof he couldn't have committed. Hinton sat mere feet from the execution chamber at an Alabama prison, literally smelling the burning flesh of the men marched down the hallway to die.

He didn't speak for the first three years of his stay. Once he chose to end his silence, though, he found himself making deeper connections with the other inmates but also with himself.

Hinton's story is one of hope, positivity, redemption, and struggle. He's an amazing man with an even more amazing attitude.