During the month of August, I took an entire intentional month off from reading books. I’ll write a separate blog post about that, but for now I will just mention that it has taught me a lot about the books that I choose to read. When I look back on this list that I read through most of the summer, I’m not sure I can recommend most of them! Still, I am here for these book recaps and as always, my honest reviews! There are several books on this list that I do highly recommend, so don’t skip over the entire post!
Year Down Yonder
Goodreads Synopsis: Mary Alice remembers childhood summers packed with drama. At fifteen, she faces a whole long year with Grandma Dowdel, well known for shaking up her neighbors-and everyone else. All Mary Alice can know for certain is this: when trying to predict how life with Grandma might turn out . . . better not.
My Review: This was a short and easy to read YA book about a young girl who spends her summers in the “boonies” with her grandmother. As the readers, we get to journey with her coming of age story as she learns how sometimes even people with a rough exterior have a soft interior. It’s a sweet little story, but I have to say that it was hard for me to relate and get into it.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Goodreads Synopsis: Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now . . .
My Review: I did not like this book. I did not get it. I felt like I was left in the dark for 99% of the book and just felt like I was missing major pieces of the plot that I wasn’t supposed to be missing. What happened? Why are they in this situation? Why is there a wall? Who are the surgeons? Basically, this book raised more questions than answers and I found myself going “huh?” the entire time. I suppose some would find the building of this type of plot interesting, as it does bring up many questions and requires thought in order to answer them. I have heard reports that the TV show is far better (and built much differently) than the book, but I still don’t think I’m even going to give it a try. Harsh review, I know. But I just didn’t like it!
Long Bright River
Goodreads Synopsis: In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don’t speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling. Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey’s district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit–and her sister–before it’s too late.
My Review: This was just the book that I needed in my life right now. It was un-put-down-able; it was mysterious, but not gory or graphic; it dealt with race and police and so many current cultural issues, but I didn’t feel like it was SHOUTING at me with every turn of the page. And right when I think I had it figured out: PLOT TWIST. If you like mysteries and you liked The Mother In Law, this one felt of the same genre. Great character development, no idea what is going to happen until the very last page, and some gasps throughout the story. I highly recommend this one.
Jacob Have I Loved
Goodreads Synopsis: Esau have I hated . . . Sara Louise Bradshaw is sick and tired of her beautiful twin Caroline. Ever since they were born, Caroline has been the pretty one, the talented one, the better sister. Even now, Caroline seems to take everything: Louise’s friends, their parents’ love, her dreams for the future. For once in her life, Louise wants to be the special one. But in order to do that, she must first figure out who she is . . . and find a way to make a place for herself outside her sister’s shadow.
My Review: I actually overall enjoyed this YA book about a twin who is trying to find herself in the world. She is constantly misunderstood and compared to her twin, who is just all around a more compelling person. I could relate to much of her teenage angst, as I always felt like the “lesser” person growing up. I think most of us have experience with this feeling, which is also why I feel this book suits the YA audience so well. I really enjoyed the happy ending to this story, although there was an entire paragraph about breastfeeding on the very last page of the book….which I felt was a bit odd for a YA book. Ha. There was also a weird crush situation with an older man throughout the story, but nothing inappropriate (more a young girl discovering what it is like to begin to feel for the opposite sex).
A Lady’s Guide to Gossip and Murder
Goodreads Synopsis: Though American by birth, Frances Wynn, the now-widowed Countess of Harleigh, has adapted admirably to the quirks and traditions of the British aristocracy. On August twelfth each year, otherwise known as the Glorious Twelfth, most members of the upper class retire to their country estates for grouse-shooting season. Frances has little interest in hunting—for birds or a second husband—and is expecting to spend a quiet few months in London with her almost-engaged sister, Lily, until the throng returns. Instead, she’s immersed in a shocking mystery when a friend, Mary Archer, is found murdered. Frances had hoped Mary might make a suitable bride for her cousin, Charles, but their courtship recently fizzled out. Unfortunately, this puts Charles in the spotlight—along with dozens of others. It seems Mary had countless notes hidden in her home, detailing the private indiscretions of society’s elite. Frances can hardly believe that the genteel and genial Mary was a blackmailer, yet why else would she horde such juicy tidbits? Aided by her gallant friend and neighbor, George Hazelton, Frances begins assisting the police in this highly sensitive case, learning more about her peers than she ever wished to know. Too many suspects may be worse than none at all—but even more worrying is that the number of victims is increasing too. And unless Frances takes care, she’ll soon find herself among them . . .
My Review: Well, this book is called a “cozy mystery”. In a cozy mystery, there is a murder with NO graphic details, there is a small town society member who serves as a detective to solve the mystery, and there is usually some kind of romance, but as with the murder, NO details given. So, basically…I found this book boring. Ha. It was fine. The plot was fine. The characters were fine. The story and writing were fine. But, overall, it just didn’t catch me. I can see myself picking up another one in the series during a Christmas break where I just want to read and not think too deeply, but overall I found this book easily forgettable.
Keeping Score
Goodreads Synopsis: Both Maggie Fortini and her brother, Joey-Mick, were named for baseball great Joe DiMaggio. Unlike Joey-Mick, Maggie doesn’t play baseball—but at almost ten years old, she is a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Maggie can recite all the players’ statistics and understands the subtleties of the game. Unfortunately, Jim Maine is a Giants fan, but it’s Jim who teaches Maggie the fine art of scoring a baseball game. Not only can she revisit every play of every inning, but by keeping score she feels she’s more than just a fan: she’s helping her team.
Jim is drafted into the army and sent to Korea, and although Maggie writes to him often, his silence is just one of a string of disappointments—being a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in the early 1950s meant season after season of near misses and year after year of dashed hopes. But Maggie goes on trying to help the Dodgers, and when she finds out that Jim needs help, too, she’s determined to provide it. Against a background of major league baseball and the Korean War on the home front, Maggie looks for, and finds, a way to make a difference.
My review: Another YA book! Even though I have almost no interest in baseball, this book was sweet and very well-done! It deals with some huge topics (war, PTSD, women’s rights) that are often difficult to discuss, but brings it down to an understandable and relatable level, even for young adults. Overall, I did enjoy this book and found it to be enlightening and a good read overall!
Mom Enough
Goodreads Synopsis: Are you mom enough? The cover of a popular magazine asked this haunting question in bold red letters that hung over the startling image of a young mother nursing her four-year-old. When the issue hit newsstands, it re-ignited a longstanding mommy war in American culture. But it turns out this was the wrong question, pointing in the wrong direction. There is a higher and more essential question faced by mothers: Is he God enough? This short book with twenty-four short contributions from seven young mothers, explores the daily trials and worries of motherhood. In the trenches, they have learned how to treasure God and depend on his grace. The paradox of this book is the secret power of godly mothering. Becoming mom enough comes as a result of answering the burning question above with a firm no
My Review: This is a repeat read for me, which says A LOT about how good this book is. I rarely ever reread books, but this is a book that I bought and put on my shelf so that I can reread it over and over again. It’s written by several different authors in a series of short, blog-like posts. It reinforces the idea that as mothers we will never be enough to do all the things and be all the things. Instead, we have Christ. Who is all things and leads us in ever step of the motherhood journey. I HIGHLY recommend this one.
Native Son
Goodreads Synopsis: Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright’s powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.
My Review: Woah. This book. Woah. I went from feeling deeply imbedded in the eye-opening concepts contained in this book, to feeling near rage for how vehemently I disagreed with some of the themes that were being presented. It was a little bit of everything. It was very graphic (murder, rape, masturbation) and quite dark and heavy. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in talking through race, and is ready to really dig in and get their elbows dirty in discussion. This was not a fun book to read for pleasure. But it did cause me to think deeply about some of the issues in our country right now. Part of the deepness of this book is that it was written by a Black man in 1940. That perspective is a valuable one to have, although it’s a very challenging read.
A Year of Biblical Womanhood
Goodreads Synopsis: Strong-willed and independent, Rachel Held Evans couldn’t sew a button on a blouse before she embarked on a radical life experiment–a year of biblical womanhood. Intrigued by the traditionalist resurgence that led many of her friends to abandon their careers to assume traditional gender roles in the home, Evans decides to try it for herself, vowing to take all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible for a year.Pursuing a different virtue each month, Evans learns the hard way that her quest for biblical womanhood requires more than a “gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4). It means growing out her hair, making her own clothes, covering her head, obeying her husband, rising before dawn, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church, and even camping out in the front yard during her period.See what happens when a thoroughly modern woman starts referring to her husband as “master” and “praises him at the city gate” with a homemade sign. Learn the insights she receives from an ongoing correspondence with an Orthodox Jewish woman, and find out what she discovers from her exchanges with a polygamist wife. Join her as she wrestles with difficult passages of scripture that portray misogyny and violence against women.
My Review: Well, this one was interesting. Unfortunately, Rachel Evans passed away unexpectedly 2 years ago and I found myself reading this book through the lens of someone who is now living in eternity. I found that many of my theological views disagree with Rachel Evans (she was extremely liberal and I am extremely conservative), so many of the main points of this book were not the right fit for me. I found it interesting how she applied certain principles and the conclusions that she arrived at. I did enjoy her sense of humor and imagining her experiencing some of the things that she did made me chuckle and think deeply about why I believe what I do. I didn’t love this book, but I didn’t hate it, either!
100 Days to Brave
Goodreads Synopsis: Dare to spend the next 100 days discovering
How to be the best version of you
How to extinguish fear so it doesn’t hold you back
Your unique gifts and how to establish daily habits to keep you mentally strong
My Review: I have enjoyed listening to Annie Downs’ podcast and think that she is a special social media giftedness. Surprisingly, this is the first book of hers that I have read! It is a 100 day “devotional” type book that gives a short inspirational message, a verse and a challenge. I did enjoy this book, but would probably use it for a motivational coffee table book and not a devotional. Overall, it was fun and gave me some good ideas!
Queenie
Goodreads Synopsis: Queenie Jenkins is a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth.As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her.With “fresh and honest” (Jojo Moyes) prose, Queenie is a remarkably relatable exploration of what it means to be a modern woman searching for meaning in today’s world.
My Review: Um…I hated this book. There, I said it. I kept reading because I thought the plot would get better and something interesting would happen. Instead, this was a book about a black woman who has a rough breakup and goes from one man to another. These men continue to take advantage of her, rape her, mislead her, and generally mistreat her. It was ugly. Eventually, she seeks out counseling and begins to get better and build healthier habits for herself. That was it. I felt…confused by this book. I felt like I should like it and it should be giving me insight into our current cultural climate, but instead it was a huge turn-off for me. It was graphic. I wonder if I was not the intended audience and I should just leave it be without leaving a less than stellar review. It has fairly good reviews on Goodreads, but I really cannot in good conscience recommend this book. Does anyone have recommendations for NOVELS written by Black authors that also have Black main characters?
During the month of August I didn’t read any books so I will be back with my monthly book reviews at the end of September!