Below are the three contenders, taken from your recommendations on the PBF Facebook page.
Please vote on the book you would most like to read below! I will announce the winner on Monday morning and on November 15 I’ll dedicate a post to the chosen book with a review and discussion questions like I did last time with Room.
- Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.
The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.
- Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwartz
Christina Schwarz’s suspenseful debut pivots on two of the lost “virtues” of the past: silence and stoicism. Drowning Ruth opens in 1919, on the heels of the influenza epidemic that followed the First World War. Although there were telephones and motor cars and dance halls in the small towns of Wisconsin in those years, the townspeople remained rigid and forbidding. As a young woman, Amanda Starkey, a Lutheran farmer’s daughter, had been firmly discouraged from an inappropriate marriage with a neighboring Catholic boy.
A few years later, as a nurse in Milwaukee, she is seduced by a dishonorable man. Her shame sends her into a nervous breakdown, and she returns to the family farm. Within a year, though, her beloved sister Mathilde drowns under mysterious circumstances. And when Mathilde’s husband, Carl, returns from the war, he finds his small daughter, Ruth, in Amanda’s tenacious grip, and she will tell him nothing about the night his wife drowned. Amanda’s parents, too, are long gone. “I killed my parents. Had I mentioned that?” muses Amanda.
- American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
A kind, bookish only child born in the 1940s, Alice Lindgren has no idea that she will one day end up in the White House, married to the president. In her small Wisconsin hometown she learns the virtues of politeness, but a tragic accident when she is seventeen shatters her identity and changes the trajectory of her life. More than a decade later, when the charismatic son of a powerful Republican family sweeps her off her feet, she is surprised to find herself admitted into a world of privilege. And when her husband unexpectedly becomes governor and then president, she discovers that she is married to a man she both loves and fundamentally disagrees with—and that her private beliefs increasingly run against her public persona. As her husband’s presidency enters its second term, Alice must confront contradictions years in the making and face questions nearly impossible to answer.
Time to vote!!
[polldaddy poll=5581263]
![\"Quantcast\"/](\"//pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-1e3-7hOJ_U8Bg.gif\")
I read Unbroken a couple of months ago, and it’s pretty unbelievable that someone went through all of that. One thing that is either a plus or a minus depending on your personal outlook and background: there is a definite Christian bent to the narrative. But whether that’s in line with your beliefs or not, it’s a pretty inspiring story.
I already read Unbroken so i voted for American Wife, but Unbroken is by far one of my favorite books. You can’t put it down, and best of all, it’s all true! Louis actually came to my hometown the other week and I got to hear his story first hand! He is an amazing man, with an incredible journey. The “Christian bent” as Cammy put it, is not put on, it is his actual story along with his coming to know Christ which really happened so should not be left out or make it not a contender. It’s the best read i’ve had in a long time.
Louis Zamperini from “Unbroken” came and spoke at my church last month! I hope that book gets chosen!
I JUST finished Unbroken (like earlier today!) and it was AMAZING! I would suggest you read that next, I could not put this compelling story down!
I highly recommend Unbroken! Louis Zamperini came and spoke at our chruch! (maybe the same as Maggie from Houston above) But my husband went and said it was an amazing story and he’s an amazing old old man with so much wisdom!
I read American Wife a few years ago…it’s suppose to portray some of Laura Bush’s life. It was an okay book, but a lot of very crude parts. I personally wouldn’t recommend it.
I think I read on Eat, Live, Run that American Wife is good!
American Wife is AMAZING! Although since I read it, I’m voting for another one haha. 😉
Unbroken is amazing! I couldn’t put it down. American Wife is really good too. The whole time I couldn’t stop thinking about Laura Bush, because it’s loosely based on her life.
Unbroken was literally the best book I have read in years! It was so inspiring and I usually hate nonfiction
I’ve been wanting to read all of these! However, I picked American Wife, purely because I already have the book waiting to read 🙂
I am really excited for another book! I didn’t make it in time to read Room before the dicussion began, but I read it anyway. It was truly amazing! I expect this next pick will be just as good.
American Wife please. I have read half of it already, so I am ahead of the eight ball if it’s chosen. Yay!
American Wife was fantastic; while reading it I would constantly Google facts to see if they occurred in Laura Bush’s life. So many did!
I really did not enjoy Drowning Ruth. I think I would be interested in reading Unbroken, as it sounds really interesting, yet is much different than the type of books I normally read.
I really hope you read unbroken someday!!! It really is one of the best books I have ever read… along with Immortal life of henrietta lacks and emperor of all maladies.
🙂