It's April! I currently have windows open, it's sunny, and we saw a total eclipse in the sky yesterday. Right now, life feels much better than it did a few months ago (or even last week) when it was much colder outside. Amazing how much I feel like a different person in the spring.
I'm very active on Goodreads here, somewhat active on Instagram here, and linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy on the 15th!
Other book posts this month:
Everything else I've been reading:
Family Family by Laurie Frankel
I heard that this book was about adoption and that is what made me want to pick it up even though I was a bit leery because of the feelings we have invested in adoption. When I heard that the author had adopted her own child, I felt a bit safer with the book because she would understand some of the nuance of it all. The story centers around a famous actress who is in a movie containing an adoption story and the actress says in the press that she doesn't agree with how the adoption was presented, that maybe it's not always a sad story. Well, that ignites a furor and she has people rally around her to show the press that she's not a terrible person. This includes a daughter that the actress gave up for adoption as a teen as well as the actresses two current children. This book had some twists but I appreciated all the adoption conversations it contained, even if I didn't always completely agree. 3.5 Stars
Right on Cue by Falon Ballard
Romance, enemies to lovers, forced proximity. Former teen actors got off on the bad foot a decade-ish ago and then are thrown back together when she writes a movie that they are both going to star in, as romantic leads. Also, a super dreamy wintery setting (New England I think?). This was fun and I flew through it. I always appreciate a good romance between some heavier reads. Emily Henry level of steaminess, I'd say. 3.75 Stars
Rewind by Lisa Graff
This is the book that sparked by recent Time Travel list. Pre-teen or early teen jumping from right before the pandemic to the early 90s. I think she thrown back to being a 6th grader in 1993 which was memorable because I was a 6th grader in 1994. She's classmates with her parents and her friend's parents and it was fun to revisit that time period, at an age I nearly was! 3.25 Stars
The Last Love Note by Emma Grey
First, this cover is fantastic. Second, it has to do with a woman who lost her husband after he developed a very early onset dementia, in his 30s, that left her a widow with a young child. I happened to finish this book the night my husband was at a hockey game with the boys, right after I finished watching The Notebook and let me tell you...that double punch of losing a spouse to dementia was not fun. This woman is trying to get her life back on track after caring for her husband and the grief of losing him, she ends up on a work trip with her boss and tries to work through some of her issues. It's set in Australia and was really sad at times but ultimately hopeful. 3.75 Stars
Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl by Renee Rosen
The novelized story of Estee Lauder and how she got her personal care items carried in Saks Fifth Avenue, 80 some years ago. I knew very little of Estee Lauder as a brand and nothing of her as a person. I've never shopped at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York (I own one pair of shoes from their website) and never used any Estee Lauder products. But Estee Lauder the person sounds like she was a force, working hard, while married with a young kid, to be taken seriously because she really believed in her products. I've read some previous books by this author and enjoyed them, seeing women work hard in New York, in the past. I can't say a book about Estee Lauder would have been one I would have picked up otherwise but she was fascinating, at least as she was presented here. 3.5 Stars
All That is Hidden by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles
Throughout 2020 I read the majority of the Molly Murphy series and it was just delightful. I specifically remember going to our main library branch the day they announced they'd be shutting down for an unknown amount of time, to stock up on a bunch of these. Now the original author's daughter is writing them with her and it's just always fun to revisit what Molly is up to. She's a detective of sorts, somewhat retired but married to an actual NYC detective in the early 1900s. I didn't realize this came out until recently and now have the latest, #20, waiting for me to pick-up at the library! 4 Stars
Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen
I was expecting this to be a bit more of a humorous and "we're all suffering through this together" kind of book about how exhausting life can be. But the first 2/3 of it was deep into stats about the economy, how college degrees were strongly encouraged, student loans, the 2008 recession, and other cheery topics. Maybe I just got lucky in that my parents never pressured into me filling my high school time with things "to look good for colleges" although that was mentioned a few times to me, maybe we just had well-rounded enough lives??? I am also an elder millennial in that I was a few years out of college, with a full-time job, in 2008 so the recession didn't affect my job search. There was also a lot about the gig economy that many millennials have been a part of, patching together something near full-time job but spread over many things so no full-time benefits. The part I could relate to was near the end, about the struggles of being a parent sometimes, how it can be exhausting but maybe not to the extent the author complains about (to the point where she said she won't have children because of the parenting burnout). But a lot of that has to do with childcare and that has mostly not been a problem for us since I wanted to and got to stay home with our kids until they were both in full-time school. I had VERY mixed feelings reading this, it was tough and a downer. I know I've been blessed in many areas of my life but I really haven't experiences many of the negatives to being a millennial that this book covers. 2.5 Stars
Woke Up Like This by Amy Lea
This one ALSO could have been on my time-travel list but I didn't know that was what it was until after I wrote that post! This is flashing forward 10 years from the end of high school to being nearly 30 and now, somehow, about to marry the guy she thought was her nemesis in high school. They flash forward together and are thrown by what their lives have become in the past decade. Time travel aside, why would high school seniors make a time capsule to open when they are 30?? Shouldn't it be on their 10th reunion or something? Unless they randomly plan to gather when they are all around 30? This was romance too, low steam from what I remember. 3.25 Stars
The Uncharted Flight of Olivia West by Sara Ackerman
I have decided that I have about reached my max of World War II novels for now but with exceptions for a few authors I have really enjoyed, one of those being Sara Ackerman. Like all the rest of her books, this one partially takes place in Hawaii but also in California and in the air between the two as teams of pilots and navigators are taking part in the "Dole Derby" a real race sponsored by Dole Pineapple in the 1930s to see if someone could fly from California to Hawaii. In this story, one of the navigators is a women although no women navigators (or pilots) were in the real race. Fascinating story and makes flying back then sound terrifying (although when we went to Hawaii I was so not a fan of the looooooong part of the flight over the ocean.) 4 Stars
A Guide to Midwestern Conversation by Taylor Kay Phillips
This was a fairly quick read that had me chuckling in many places...because it's true. I've lived my whole life in the Midwest, entirely in Indiana besides college in Ohio, and so much of this sounded SO familiar. Do people on the coasts and the south just....leave??? They don't exchange niceties for 45 minutes, lamenting how much they really need to get going before they finally, actually, go?? I don't even know how to do that. 4 Stars
All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown by Sydney Taylor
I've heard this series mentioned over the years by a few people I take book recomendations from and finally read the first earlier this year. This is the second in the series timeline but apparently not the second published, it all sounds a little confusing. Anyways, all that to say, I came to this series about 5 sisters and their baby brother, living with their parents in Manhattan around 1900 (very Samantha Parkington vibes except in the city). This one was a bit darker with the girls befriending a neighborhood boy who lives in the slums and loses his mother but also eye opening to what things could be like then. I find this series to be very charming and sweet, especially growing up with a bunch of sisters of my own (although, no baby brother and not in NYC although we were all born in the 1900s...not around 1900). 4 Stars
Read with Sam
The Wild Wolf Pup and The Playful Panda by Amelia Cobb
I am continuing to read the Zoey Rescue Zoo books with Sam, he's received a few of them for Valentine's Day, his birthday, and Easter, since our library doesn't have nearly all of them. They are charming and Sam enjoys them. Plus, short so we can breeze through one pretty quick if we are committed to reading it nightly (we also mix in picture books too so it's not always just chapter books).
What have YOU been reading lately?
No comments:
Post a Comment