September 2021 Reading Highlights

I used to share short reviews of every book I read. Generally, I read about 4-8 books a month, so that task wasn't greatly daunting.

And then the C-word hit in March 2020. The first few months, I floundered when it came to reading. Anxiety kept me from being able to focus. My mind raced all the time. And the small people were home almost every second for most of 6 months.

My reading has changed a lot in the last 18 months. Around July 2020, I went from those 4-8 books to a month to reading anywhere from 12 to 17 books a month since then. Why?

• I'm escaping real life through books. This equals reading more.
• I've read a lot more YA and romance, which are much quicker reads.
• Around November 2019, I figured out how to fit audiobooks in my life more. About a third of my reading is now via audiobook. Sometimes this means I don't listen to podcasts as much, but that's OK with me.

All that said, I hope to share about reading here again, but it's definitely going to be the highlights. I'm always happy to talk about every book I read, though, in comments or by email.

Favorite Book of the Month

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride by Cary Elwes - ON AUDIO - If you grew up on The Princess Bride, this book is for you and you should go RUN to listen to it right now. Sure, you could read it on paper, but why would you do that when Westley himself will read it to you, with the help of other actors and directors from the film? I loved every second and had to go watch the movie right after I was done.

(My beloved author Jenny B. Jones commented on my Instagram about As You Wish that the audiobook is absolutely the best audio ever created and is unrivaled. So listen to her if you won't listen to me.)

Favorite Romance of the Month

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun is a sweet debut novel taking place in a Bachelor-esque reality show. Producer Dev is pretty newly out of a long-term relationship that almost burst his fairy-tale-loving bubble. Charlie, the new star of the show, is trying to rehab his image and make it through the weeks of filming. Both struggle with mental health, and the novel deals with that in such a lovely way. When Charlie finds himself more attracted to Dev than any of the women trying to win his heart, it's more than a little complicated.

Favorite YA

What I Carry by Jennifer Longo not only has an insanely gorgeous cover it also contains a pretty fantastic and heartfelt story. Muir is 17 and has bounced from house to house to house in the foster system. With less than a year left, she finds herself at the home of Francine, a single, retired woman, on an island outside of Portland, Oregon. Muir has so many walls up and knows what she wants: to walk outside, often, and to just make it out of the foster system.

Slowly throughout the novel her walls are pushed by Francine, new friend Kira, and Sean, the boy who is just a little too perfect for her. (This is my one complaint about the novel - truly, he's just too perfect.) It's a beautiful story inspired by Longo's own daughter.

Here are the other books I finished in September!

• Cookoff: Recipe Fever in America by Amy Sutherland [from my shelves, hardback] (4 stars)
• Flash Fire by TJ Klune [audiobook] (4.5 stars - this is the *third* time I've read this book ... I ADORE this series and wanted to listen on audio because Michael Lesley, the narrator, is so fantastic)
• Truth or Beard by Penny Reid [digital via Hoopla] (3 stars)
• Love, Jacaranda by Alex Flinn [audiobook] (3 stars)
• Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase [from my shelves, paperback] (4 stars)
• Float Plan by Trish Doller [Kindle via library] (3 stars)
• Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk [read aloud] (2 stars)
• Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner [audiobook] (4 stars)
• Fault Lines by Emily Itami [paper via library] (3.5 stars)
• Full Flight by Ashley Schumacher [digital ARC via Netgalley] (4 stars)

What was your favorite book you read in September?

A Whole Summer of Book Reviews

I’d like to blame a lot of things for having three months of book reviews to post.

The fact that we bought a new laptop for me to use but it has a glitch and now we can’t get it charged.

Having a really fun, packed summer.

Having four kids and getting three of them back to school.

But we all know we have time for what we make time for. (Like reading, for example!) And I’ve made more time for trying to start a little bit of a business on Poshmark instead of writing. And while both are good, I miss writing more! I’m trying to find a happy balance as we work our way back into a schedule.

So I’ve decided I can spend one hour and I will write ALL THE REVIEWS. They can just only be two sentences. I will try to flesh these out over time on GoodReads, so follow me over there. 

June

And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman – I absolutely love Backman’s style. This novella feels more My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry and less Man Called Ove – kind of fantastical and slightly confusing but still beautiful.

Still Me by Jojo Moyes – I’ve heard a lot of people say they loved this third book in the Me Before You trilogy, but I can’t agree. The situations felt super predictable, and I didn’t hate it but it wasn’t love for me.

The Read-Aloud Family by Sarah Mackenzie – See my post about reading aloud with my kids here. Loved this treatise, and it encouraged me to keep on the read-aloud path as my kids grow.

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman – Backman’s intense understanding of human nature and ability to convey it on the page is perfect. Five stars.

The Supremes Sing the Happy Heartache Blues by Edward Kelsey Moore – I was hoping for more considering how much I adored The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat (review here). Enjoyable, funny, and quirky, but not the original.

My Southern Journey: True Stories from the Heart of the South by Rick Bragg – I’d tried to read this maybe a year ago, when it was a new release, but it wasn’t the right time. The right time was at the beach on Tybee Island, where I delighted in the foibles of Bragg and his South (other than the sports essays).

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan – I’m sorry I haven’t seen this all over the web, because it is a fantastic debut YA novel chronicling the life of half-Taiwanese teenager Leigh after her mother commits suicide. (Not a spoiler – trigger warnings, obviously, but suicide is a MAJOR trigger for me and I did OK with this book.) 

July

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak – Reread for me, and so glad I did. Still amazing, still cried like a baby.

Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan – Excellent, Newberry medal-winning book with intersecting stories from around World War II. Loved the fantastical element in it, and the young heroes and heroine.

Home by Marilynne Robinson – For some reason, this appealed to me much more than Gilead. Heartfelt spiritual struggle, familial relationships, perfect prose.

My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul – Memoir through books, based on the fact the author has kept a running list of what she’s read since high school (!!) (wish I had!). Not my favorite, but some good insights and fun book nerdiness.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before / P.S. I Still Love You / Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han – I had a really good binge on this trilogy during our Great Road Trip in late July. Thought the first one was great, the other two were pretty good, although what does it mean if you’re rooting for the other guy to win the girl? (Shrug.) (Definitely read the first one if you watched the movie. So much not fleshed out in the movie!) (Also I went to high school with Jenny Han.) (Six sentences because it is three books.)

I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter – I had really high hopes for this YA spy school start of a series, because several of my online book buddies have raved about it. Alas, just not for me, and now I know. 

August

Still Waters by Lindsey P. Brackett – Sweet Southern romance on Edisto Island, which reminds me of Tybee and I felt like I was there. Realistic family relationships and romances, while not being too angsty. Looking forward to the sequel. (GoodReads long review here.)

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander –
How can this author
Use so few words
And still make me feel
Right there in the midst of his tale?
Perfect poetry
and I cried, of course.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell – Two women are sending emails at work, and one man is reading them all … and finding it hard to detach. Rowell is so witty and adorable and I loved this.

I’d Rather Be Reading: the Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel – A series of short essays from my beloved Anne about books, reading, bookstores, and of course, You’ve Got Mail. My only complaint is that I wanted more in each essay so I could keep reading! (This book was provided to me by the publisher as part of the author’s launch team. Full review here.)

Nice Try, Jane Sinner by Lianne Oelke – Snarky teen finds herself on a low-budget, community college reality show after a life crisis. While hilarity often ensues in this book through journal entries, the underlying spiritual questions are really very interesting.

____________

Twenty books over three months! It’s amazing what you can do when you just don’t clean your house. 😉 I hope you had a fantastic summer of reading, and I’d love to hear about your favorite title.

This will be added to Quick Lit at Modern Mrs. Darcy.

What I Read: May 2018

Yes, I’m fully aware that it is July 11. I’m playing catch-up (always, it seems), and I read too many books in May and June to squish them into one post! So here it goes. 

Empire Falls by Richard Russo – My short, initial review was that I give this a 4.8 stars. I LOVE Richard Russo’s writing. He does an excellent job building the town of Empire Falls and making you fall in love with its people. I don’t think it’s a mindset-changing book for me, but it’s an excellent example of a great novel. Two thumbs up. (Just beware, there’s an unexpected twist and if certain types of violence are a trigger for you, you might Google what it is before you read. I hope that’s not too spoiler-y.)

Rebound by Kwame Alexander – I didn’t realize when I started reading this that it is a prequel to The Crossover, probably Alexander’s biggest book (and a Newberry medal winner). I picked it up off the YA table at the library because I’ve heard of Alexander but never read anything by him. I started reading the novel in verse while my kids were picking out books and was engrossed enough 10 minutes in that I needed to take it home and finish! Charlie, a young teen who has just lost his father, is sent away to his grandparents’ house for a pivotal summer. I have to say, I love books in verse. They go fast but pack a punch, and this one is so vivid to me. A great read, and I am definitely going to find The Crossover and Alexander’s other books.

The Summer of the Great-Grandmother by Madeleine L’Engle – In this, her second of the Crosswicks Journals, L’Engle writes both about the last summer her mother was alive and the history of her mother’s side of the family. An only child, L’Engle had an exceptionally close relationship with her mother that continued until her mother started suffering from dementia. Raw, open, and lovely, L’Engle writes passionately about her family history and the gaping wound of losing her mother piece by piece.

Occasionally the Kindle set of the four Crosswicks Journals will go on sale for $2.99 or so, and they are so well worth picking up. I have read the first two and just adored them desperately. 

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison – I half listened to this on Audible, half read it on paper (because I am so slow with listening to audiobooks, I always pick podcasts!). It was a fantastic audiobook and I kind of wished I had listened to the whole thing! Much of this is wholly disturbing, but it’s a super important book in the history of books and especially books about race relations in America. Ellison’s memoir follows the disillusionment of one young man, as he travels from the South to Harlem and becomes a public figure. The rhythm of the sentences isn’t quite Jazz by Toni Morrison but it captures the fast pace of the city and the times. I don’t know that I can say I LOVED it but I can see how it is important and well deserving of all attention and awards.

Rich and Pretty by Rumaan Alam – I feel kind of ridiculous even putting this next to a classic. Had I read any reviews before picking this up, I would have stayed far away. It has awful ratings on GoodReads and Amazon and they aren’t wrong. While the idea of this book is interesting – can your childhood friendships grow with you? – and the writing isn’t bad, the book doesn’t seem to go anywhere. It was too racy for me in places, unnecessarily so, and just not great. 

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman – In a way, this feels a lot like A Man Called Ove (my review here). Odd, misfit, grumpy protagonist. Learns to become somewhat normal socially. But it’s also completely different. Eleanor had a childhood trauma, grew up in foster homes, and is still not sure how to function among normal people. When she falls fast for a musician she sees in concert, she wants to figure out how to make herself more appropriate for him. Through the novel, we see her transformation and find out whether it sticks. It took me longer than I thought it would to sink into this story, but once I did, I couldn’t stop reading. I stayed up late to finish it. Honeyman’s quirky writing voice is a little humorous in places but goes to gut-wrenching really fast.

Wires and Nerve Volume 2: Gone Rogue by Marissa Meyer – I love everything in Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles universe. This is her second graphic novel that takes place after the series, mostly from the point of view of Iko, Cinder’s robot with personality. In this one, we find a little bit more about Iko’s back story and a lot about the gang of former Lunar mutant wolves making trouble on Earth. It’s a quick, fun read that made my heart happy.

_________

Those were my reads for May! June coming soon. Hopefully before July is over. I read so much great stuff in June I can’t wait to tell you about.

The Joy of Reading Aloud

 

This is the year we started to take reading aloud seriously. 

It’s not that we haven’t always, always, read aloud to our kids. It’s been our practice to do so every night before bed as long as they’ve been able to sit and listen. We’ve had months and years where we read Bible stories. Times when it was picture books. And lately – for the last year plus – we read the entire Harry Potter series. (We finished last weekend!) 

But after an episode of What Should I Read Next?, where a mother and college-aged daughter talked about their reading times together, I decided maybe a little extra reading was exactly what my daughter and I needed. 

She turned 9 this past fall, and our relationship has always been a little challenging. We both have hot tempers, and it felt like we were having a lot more fraught times than tender ones. We needed some one-on-one time, and with six people in the house that can be hard to come by. So one afternoon I asked her to come to my room and just let me read to her. 

She fought it. She thought it was a trick, I suppose. But, her trust won, she gave in. We started reading Frindle by Andrew Clements; it was new to both of us, and we were charmed. 

Quickly we realized the afternoon reading time was probably not going to work most days for our family, but I turned to reading just to her before bed. We’ve traveled through Ramona’s Oregon, Pippi Longstocking’s crazy home, the dollhouse home of a family of mice, the fantastic world of Arlo Finch, and more. 

Some time during these nights, I suggested my husband read to our sons, who share a room, during this same time. Their books are vastly different, but also much beloved; my husband is mainly trying to hook our 7-year-old on new series that he can devour. (And it’s worked!) 

We have loved this, and it’s been a wonderful point of connection for us with the kids. I feel closer to my daughter than I have in a long time, and the fact that I can simply mention that I see her “tattletale cloud” and it makes us both laugh is delightful. (And she loves that her brothers have no idea what we’re talking about. It’s a Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Magic reference.) 

I didn’t really understand it all, though, until I started to devour The Read-Aloud Family by Sarah Mackenzie. Her thesis is that reading aloud to kids, all the way until they leave the home, is the best way to create family connection. Reading aloud is proven to improve grades, writing, and more, but her first point is that it makes a family culture. You have a whole series of “inside jokes” and references. You have stories to discuss and love and reread. 

It clicked for me. I love having those points of connection. Talking about books is basically my favorite thing in the world, and to do it with my kids makes my life so much more enjoyable. Our memories of reading Harry together will last a long time, and I’ll remember how much the kids enjoyed running around putting unforgiveable curses on each other when they are far past that phase. 

I love that my 9-year-old wants me to come to her room each night and read to her. I hope we’ll keep doing it another 9 years, until she graduates. And maybe even past then. 

It’s our own family book club, and I treasure it.