*goodreads page linked in cover*

Goodreads: “Mike is a tattoo artist running his own shop, and Deb is the piercing artist he hires to round out his studio’s motley crew of four. The last either expects is romance, but that’s what they get as they follow their off-kilter careers and love lives into complete and total disaster. When Mike follows a growing trend and tattoos the ashes of deceased loved ones into several customers’ tattoos, he has no idea that it will one day provide the solution — and solace — he will sorely need. And when the life of a serial killer tragically collides with the lives in the tattoo shop, Mike and Deb will stop at nothing in their quest for revenge, even if it means stepping outside the known boundaries of life and death. Ink that is full of crematory ashes, a sociopathic killer, and pain in its rawest form…this is going to hurt.”

A Good and Useful Hurt by Aric Davis. I thought it was going to be hard to find a book written by an author with my initials, especially an audiobook. I was adding Kindle audiobooks to a wishlist to find them easier later and I decided to go through all the books I added; one of them happened to be a book by an author with the same initials. I was excited, because I thought it was going to be hard to find one, especially an audiobook.

I personally loved the book. It was different and so interesting. I tend to keep going for the serial killer/murder type books lately. The love story thrown in the mix was also really great. It wasn’t too much, like most books are these days and I really liked that. It had its laugh out loud moments, its teary eye moments, its OMG moments, and even some scary moments. There are also times where you will get angry. The characters were great and the background stories were nice. I loved the closeness and friendship the characters in the book had with each other.

There is a serial killer on the loose and he is killing women. Mike and Deb are trying to catch the murderer before he murders again. I love how it all came together and the use of the tattooing and the cremated ashes. It also had some paranormal stuff in there too. It was so different from anything I’ve read so far. I’m trying not to give away too much, because I really want everyone to read the book. I loved it so much.

One of the things I took from this book is that life is short and you never know what can happen. Live, be happy, don’t take things for granted, tell the people you love exactly how you feel any chance you get. Here is a quote from the book that I loved: “I just need to accept that some bad things happened and that I can move past them. I need to learn to be thankful for the time I had and not be so angry about the time I lost.” – this can be for anything in life. Things happen and you move on from them. If you don’t, you lose so much time in the now and you let life pass you by.

Unrelated: The boyfriend and I took Dax to the dog park today and he was so happy. He ran around like crazy with all the small dogs and the big dogs. He had the time of his life it seemed. We haven’t been able to take him in so long, because the boyfriend works a different schedule than I do and he usually doesn’t have weekends off work. I also went to Target today (I need to stop going to Target) and spent money on things I didn’t need (of course) and ended up buying two books. Ughhh.

I decided not to buy anymore books for awhile, unless someone else is buying for me or I have gift cards. I’ve spent way too much money last month on books and it’s kind of crazy. I have a library card, so I need to use that more! I also have Kindle Unlimited and there are tons of books on there that I want to read too, so I might as well just read those. I have about 50 books at home that I’ve probably only read ten of the 50. I also have about 10 books I bought on Kindle that I haven’t read/started, but didn’t finish and a few I got approved for from Netgalley. So I have plenty of books I can read that I already own. Let’s see if I can actually stick to not buying books over the next few months. Let the book buying ban begin! *with the exception of book club books if I can’t find them for free anywhere*

To end the post: here is a picture of Dax after the dog park. He was so happy! And the two books that I bought today.

The Young Elites by Marie Lu
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

I’ve been kind of slacking with reading (besides audiobooks at work; I believe I mentioned this in my last post), so hopefully tomorrow I can make a bigger dent in The Glass Arrow. Sometimes I go through this and a lot of my TV shows are starting back up. I can’t blame Supernatural anymore, because I am all caught up! Anyway, the boyfriend is playing COD, so I think I’ll start reading some. I’ll start back on the 30 day book blog challenge on Monday. I think I’m just going to do the posts Monday-Fridays and take a break on the weekends. The post got pretty long, oops. I hope everyone is having a great weekend! 🙂