We're through summer reading! I always have dreams of fitting in WAY MORE reading over the summer...and then that rarely happens. There is just A LOT going on in the summer, July especially for us. And when I started running before my boys are awake a few mornings a week, that cut into my previous "read before the boys are awake" habit, quite a bit. (There were a handful of days I could run, shower, and still have time to read before they woke up!). Finding a little more routine to my reading now that school has started up again although there are plenty of things I could be doing besides reading!
I'm very active on Goodreads here, somewhat active on Instagram here, and linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy on the 15th!
One other book post this month:
And everything else I read!
Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand
Elin Hilderbrand's final Nantucket set book (at least for now)! Her books have been a staple for me since 2011 and I have dutifully read her newest every single summer since (and went through her whole back list as well). They aren't always super memorable BUT they are always page turners and I've always been happy to have her newest to read. A lot of characters from past books pop up but prior knowledge of them isn't strictly necessary. There are rich people getting into real problems (fire! missing people!) on Nantucket and other people maybe not telling the full truth. I ALWAYS end up googling Nantucket pictures (pretty!) or rentals (out of my price range!) after reading one of these and I'll be sad not to have a new one next summer. 3.75 Stars
Ready or Not by Cara Bastone
A surprise pregnancy after a one night stand, set in NYC, a woman's BFF's older brother who steps into help her. (I have read MANY books this year about falling in love with a best friend's brother.) I remember reading this but do not remember why I only gave it 3 stars on Goodreads. There must have been something I didn't love about it but don't remember what that is now! 3 Stars
ADHD is Awesome: A Guide to (Mostly) Thriving with ADHD by Penn and Kim Holderness
I read this because I live with someone with ADHD and I would like to understand his brain a little better. This made me hopeful and also a bit more understanding I think? At least has helped me have a little more patience with sad individual and some of the quirks of ADHD. Highly recommend if you have ADHD or live/love someone with it! Very helpful to see some of the benefits and areas where they might need help. 4.75 Stars
Memory Lane by Becky Wade
I was 100% drawn in my the color of this blue cover and the camp imagery. Both are very temping to me. THEN I find out it's set on Maine, which I also enjoy as a setting. Man pulled from water with no memory, woman who finds him reluctantly takes him in until he's strong enough to go somewhere else. She lives a quiet and fairly solitary existence. They have to figure out who he is and where he should be, since it's not floating in the Atlantic aimlessly. Could have been 100ish pages shorter and still gotten the story in but I did like it. 3.25 Stars
Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams
Another author I read regularly every single summer (although for not as long as I've been reading Elin Hilderbrand). All or nearly all of her books have had a split timeline, telling something about an intriguing woman from history contrasted with some relative near current day. The flashback here was Cario Egypt in 1951, a time and place I had read nothing about previously. Current day was a New England island and bringing up old romances after a kid's kidney emergency. I liked this more than many of her others recently. A page turner and interested in both story lines, which doesn't always happen. 4 Stars
The Ballad of Darcy and Russell by Morgan Matson
A fresh out of high school boy and girl meet after a music festival, stuck together at a bus stop. They decide to walk around instead of waiting for a fixed bus and the book mostly follows their 24ish hours together. There was a twist I didn't see coming and that did draw me back in when I was losing interest. This was maybe the best YA I read this summer but I definitely wasn't like these teens that age, in a way that I sometimes roll my eyes at them. 3.25 Stars
The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin
I know I was reading this on the Outer Banks and took it in the beach bag to the pool at least twice, once actually reading it there. But enough that it sustained some water damage that I then had to pay for my 1st adult book when I returned it from the library. And I was mostly mad because IT WASN'T EVEN GOOD. I've read all of her books and some are great (Something Borrowed) but this one wasn't NOTHING HAPPENED. Three college friends getting together for a summer in memory of their friend who died in college a decade-ish earlier (this happens on about page 5). I think it would have worked better if there was a dual timeline, showing WHY they were such good friends back in college, instead of dismissing all those bonding years in the first 10 pages and just moving forward. Reading it was a waste of time and having to PAY FOR IT was even more of a waste. 1.5 Stars
Until Next Summer by Ali Brady
This one was so much fun and definitely redeemed my vacation reading. Two girls spend every summer together at sleepaway camp, with the goal to work there together once they are old enough. One girl makes good on that promise and the other doesn't which drives them apart until the camp is about to close and adult campers come back for one last summer before the camp is no more. The not adult women, one of whom runs the whole thing, are together for the first time in years. I only ever did a 2 night sleep away camp (and that only twice) but I still LOVED the camp setting, the adults rallying together to save camp, friends coming together, romance, all of it. So much fun to read. 4 Stars
All of a Kind Family Uptown by Sydney Taylor
I've been reading through this series as I can this year and it's been delightful to pop in with this family every few weeks. Set in the early 1900s, New York City, with a family of 5 girls and now a son. Originally published in the 1950s I think and I continue to be amazed that we never read these growing up. Just sweet and charming (also, I can read one in about an hour). 4 Stars
The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center
This is the book I picked for Matt to give me for my birthday, so it went to the Outer Banks with us but I didn't finish it until after we were home. Katherine Center has been very reliable for me and I always enjoy picking up her newest (have also read most of her backlist). Emma has been caretaking for her father for many years, passing up her own dream of being a screenwriter. Now she has a once in a lifetime opportunity to write with her favorite screenwriter, she gets care for her father, and flies out to LA, only to discover the screenwriter has a huge ego and doesn't want her help. But somehow he relents and they work together. Just fun to read, perfect for a summer (or anytime) read. 4 Stars
Read with Sam
The Super Sloth, The Curious Kangaroo, and The Little Llama by Amelia Cobb, illustrated by Sophy Williams
Sam and I have been working through this series for the last 10 months now and still aren't done (there are a lot of them! and we've read other books too). I think Zoey is a bit precocious and gets away with a lot (she has a baby seal sleep in her bed with her, without her mother's knowledge, in one!) but Sam really enjoys them and I like reading them with him. I think he particularly liked the kangaroo one. 4 Stars
What have YOU been reading lately??
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