One of my best friend’s and I started our little two-person book club, and I’ve toyed with the idea of starting an online book club (plus a lot of you have asked for it). But since I haven’t gotten around to actually doing that, nor do I know if I want to, I have just tried to share the books I’ve been reading that I enjoy on here.

I always look to other’s “What I’ve Been Reading” as inspiration for what to pick up next. And I always find some fantastic books. So, today I wanted to share what I’ve read so far in 2018.

I always love picking up a book or two to read when I travel, and I was torn between getting two or three books with me to Sri Lanka. I ended up choosing two, but I wish I would have brought three.

There was a lot of laying outside in the warmth reading. It was delicious and such a nice treat after being burrowed up in Iowa.

So, the two books I brought with me were both about WWII (I didn't do that on purpose), and I can’t recommend the both of them enough.

The first one I read was, We Were the Lucky Ones, which is about a Polish family torn apart during the war, fighting to survive, wondering what the fate of their family was and working to reunite after the war.

We’ve all learned about WWII in school, the holocaust, concentration camps and the awful things that happened. But I learned so much in reading this book about the horrors outside the concentration camps. How everything changed before, how people didn’t believe it was going to get that bad. How friends who had grown up together turned their backs on their Jewish friends.

It’s one of those books that pulls you apart and then puts you back together again.

It took me only a few days to tear through the first book, but after I finished that I reached for the second book I brought along, Under a Scarlet Sky.

This one was about a teenage boy in Italy during WWII. He was a privileged kid who ended up being involved in the war in a few ways that didn’t involve going to battle.

Before reading this I never really knew much about Italy during the war, and I felt like I learned quite a bit. It also makes me think of myself at that age, how much I’ve matured since then, and what would have happened if I were put in that position.

He became a driver for one of Hitler’s Generals in an effort by his family to keep him off the front lines when he turned 18, which was basically a death sentence at the time.

Who knows why I was drawn towards two books about WWII, but I’m very glad I went with both of them. I learned so much and got different perspectives I hadn’t heard known about before.

I started reading the free excerpt from this next book while I was still in Sri Lanka. I’m not sure why but something about buying a digital copy of a book vs a physical book doesn’t feel the same for me. I like physical copies of things.

Anyways, I started reading the first 65 pages of The Girl With All the Gifts during our last week in Sri Lanka, and when I got home I checked it out from the library. It was like not getting to finish a movie on the plane ride, you have to find a way to finish it just to know what happens.

This was actually a pretty quick, easy read. I could pick it up and read a few chapters before bed without really having to use that much brain power. And I was finished in just a few days.

I’m normally not one for zombie plots, but this one was different. I won’t say much more about it because I would start giving stuff away. I don't know how people normally become zombies in other plots but this one was through a type of fungus. This story combines trying to survive with working to find a "cure".

And I wasn’t expecting the ending, but I also wish they would have gone a bit further with the ending. It just felt a bit abrupt, and I wanted more explanation.

All in all, it wasn’t the most thought-provoking read, but it really wasn’t bad either. (Like I said I'm not normally a zombie story person). Sometimes it’s nice to just have an easy, entertaining read in between more difficult ones.

We Were the Lucky Ones was probably my favorite, but was followed closely by Under a Scarlet Sky. If you're looking for a good book to read I recommend both of those.

Any favorite reads from this year so far?