March was busy for us with birthdays for both our sons', their big joint birthday party for grand & godparents, a family wedding, the culmination of my months of work on our school's dinner/auction committee (actually having the dinner/auction), and leaving for a trip. Just a lot going on and my reading definitely reflected that, not as much time to read as I would have liked. Trying to soak up a little more calm in April before MAY (although April has already brought another family wedding and Easter soon).
I'm very active on Goodreads here, somewhat active on Instagram here, and linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy!
Back After This by Linda Holmes
I have liked all 3 of Linda Holmes' books, including this one. It's about making podcasts which was fun to get a bit of the behind of the scenes of, even a fake one. Cecily is asked to do a dating podcast where she's set up on 20 blind dates by this influencer and then give her honest things. Some things about the whole influencer culture in there too. It had some real romance, outside of the 20 dates, and was enjoyable to pick-up. 3.25 Stars
Gentle: Rest More, Stress Less, and Live the Life You Actually Want by Courtney Carver
I did not find as much to appreciate in here as I did in Courtney Carver's book, The 333 Project but it was still mostly a good read about being gentle on yourself and your expectations for yourself and your life. Most people could probably do with some stress reducing and appreciated some of what she said while I was reading it but remember none of it a month later. 3 Stars
Lucy Checks In by Dee Ernst
This had been on my TBR for awhile, it mostly didn't get cut because it was under 300 pages (shorter books are less likely to get cut). A woman moves to France somewhat in disgrace from her NYC hotel job (she didn't do anything wrong but was affiliated with someone who did) and gets a job completely renovating a hotel in a small French town with a motley crew of helpers. She's older, in her 50s at least, maybe early 60s and even though I am still firmly in my early 40s, it was nice reading about someone older than 30 restarting her life in a way and making a change. It was enjoyable but not something I rushed to pickup each time. 3.25 Stars
Adrift: The Curious Tale of the Lego Lost at Sea by Tracey Williams
This is a book that I requested that the library purchase which they finally did. It's mostly about a cargo boat that capsized off the coast of England in the 90s (I think) and among the items on board were many many pieces for Lego sets, largely ocean themed. They were headed from Europe to the US where they would be put into sets. These pieces still continue to wash up on the shores of mostly England but also other places. It's about the tragedy of waste in the ocean but also about the magic people would feel when they found the washed up pieces, how they are still being found (although not as much), the science of which pieces were more likely to be found, the damage they sustained from years or decades of floating, and about ocean litter in general. It was a fairly quick read but very interesting. 4.25 Stars
We Are the Brennans by Tracey Lange
I specifically picked this to read around St. Patrick's Day, solely because of the clovers on the cover. Turns out that was good picking because it was about an Irish-American family in the bar business and their lost sheep of sorts daughter who comes back home after a time in LA. There's some romance but mostly a family story, very much in the vein of Marrying the Ketchups. I enjoyed it. 3.5 Stars
The Art of Danish Living: How the World's Happiest People Find Joy at Work by Meik Wiking
I am still a bit perplexed by this title because before the subtitle there is no hint about this being about work. And it seemed like it should be from a series about books, each titled "The Art of Danish Living" and then about different aspects of life. Or called the "Art of Danish Working". I don't know, the title doesn't make sense to me. The book was fine. I've not worked full time in a dozen years (almost to the day!) and so I'm not really working to change my work up to be more satisfying or more Danish. But it was still interesting in just a anthropologist way. 3.5 Stars
The Ladies Rewrite the Rules by Suzanne Allain
This is regency set which isn't a time period I am super interested in, I never watched Bridgerton, which seems to be where that interest started for many. But I was mainly drawn to this because a main character is named Diana AND it was under 300 pages. The "ladies" in the title are all women who, somehow, have some money which wasn't super common in this time, mainly because they had rich husband who died. The rules they are rewriting pertain to how they are supposed to behave (such as at a ball if you refuse one man's invitation to dance you'd have to refuse all the following ones, you couldn't say no to just one gentlemen) and more taking matters into their own hands. It was entertaining enough but also glad it wasn't much longer. 3 Stars
When Doing it All is Undoing You: Meeting God in Your Unmet Expectations by Alyssa Joy Bethke
There were parts of this I could relate to more than others but I've read many books by Alyssa Bethke and always appreciate her take. Probably a book that would be best read slowly, over a week or two instead of trying to rush through for a library due date. 3.75 Stars
Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do by Eve Rodsky
This is a book I had on my list for quite awhile but was waiting to read until Matt was out of school since there wasn't much household work we could redistribute while he was in school. So I finally got to it and I certainly had some issues with her plan (she'd talk about how you might be in charge of paying bills but don't worry about making sure there are stamps to mail those bills because that falls to someone else! As if there were 80+ people in a household to split tasks between instead of just a couple) but I appreciated the overall idea. I would have liked more about how to evenly split when one parent mostly stays home and one parent works full time other than "figure out something that feels fair to both". It certainly sparked some discussions with Matt and I certainly felt less alone in some of my feelings after reading it. But this is probably more applicable to households where both parents work full or nearly full-time. 3.5 Stars
Read with Luke or Sam
Skylark by Patricia MacLachlan
The second book in the Sarah, Plain and Tall series. I have fond memories of reading these as a kid but didn't remember how short they were until I reread them with the boys (also fond memories of the tv movie which I should try to find). Both boys have gotten more into these books than I expected and they are so well written, telling about how hard life could be on the plains. Educational about that time in history but also engaging. I think I got through the 4th book with Luke, want to finish all 5 with Sam. 4 Stars
The Worried Wombat by Amelia Cobb
We will never finish the Zoe Rescue Zoo books, or at least it feels that way, since we have to buy them since the library won't and they also won't do an interlibrary loan for them. We've been reading these on and off for a year and a half and Sam still wants to give every single one 5 stars. We've read around 25 of them at this point. 3.5 Stars
The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli
Our 3rd homeschool lit book with Luke (6th grade). He did not like this one. I thought we could breeze through it because it's relatively short number of pages BUT there is A LOT of text on each page and the old English way some characters spoke slowed us down. I think there is definitely some good lessons here and it was a nice introduction to the medieval time period but the language made it harder, as accurate as it might have been. (I apparently read this in homeschool too but I remembered nearly nothing about it). 3.5 Stars
What have YOU been reading lately?
