September Reads

I cannot even explain how excited I am that I am writing a book review post that only includes ONE MONTH! Hallelujah! These can be really time consuming to write, so it helps ME when I can be on top of it and not wait three months and try to recap 40+ books. Yikes.

This month past month I read 10 books.

4 Nonfiction

6 Fiction

Average star rating of 4.15

2 books I disliked

6 books that were in the middle

2 books that I LOVED

Let’s dive in!

The Heir and The Crown

Amazon Synopsis: For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The chance to live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon. But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her, and leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn’t want.

Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she’s made for herself—and realizes that the life she’s always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.

In The Heir and The Crown, Princess Eadlyn becomes the first ever princess to hold a Selection of her own—but she doesn’t believe that any of her thirty-five suitors will capture her heart…

My Review: These are the last two books in The Selection series. I started the series back in the winter of 2022. I loved the first book, dove right into the second book, which I liked, then picked up the third book and did not like it at all. So I completely forgot to go back and finish the series. I snagged books 4 and 5 from the library and read them both in one weekend and really, really enjoyed myself. They are a bit cheesy and lean slightly juvenile, but this also means that they are clean and don’t require too much brain focus to read them. Overall, I really liked the series and I don’t feel embarrassed to admit it!

The Lazy Genius Kitchen

Amazon Synopsis: You want your kitchen to be the heartbeat of the home, but you’re overwhelmed and out of breath trying to make it happen. Meals are on a never-ending loop, and you don’t have time to prepare dinner, much less enjoy it. Popular Lazy Genius expert and bestselling author Kendra Adachi is here to help! 

Packed with proven Lazy Genius principles, the book will teach you to: 
• name what matters to you in the kitchen—whether that’s flavor, convenience, or something else entirely 
• feed your people with efficiency and ease 
• apply a simple, actionable five-step process—prioritize, essentialize, organize, personalize, and systemize—to multiple areas of your kitchen, empowering you to enjoy your kitchen the way you’ve always wanted 

You don’t need magical recipes, fancy gadgets, or daunting lists to follow to the letter; you just need a framework that works whether you’re cooking for one or for twenty. 

Straightforward, strategic, soulful, and a little sassy, The Lazy Genius Kitchen will turn your hardest-working room into your favorite one, too.

My Review: WAH, so disappointed!! I really like Kendra Adachi and I LOVED her first book, The Lazy Genius Way. I felt like that was the first self help book that I had ever read that I could apply most things to our lifestyle (first responder husband, working most weekends/evenings, having small children with me at all times, etc.). I truly felt like she GOT ME with that book. But this one? I felt the opposite. I felt like I had no idea what she was really talking about. There were concepts, and there were rules and there were routines we were supposed to apply Lazy Genius concepts to a certain order of things and I just felt SO OVERWHELMED. I couldn’t follow! There were some nice tidbits here and there, but I will admit that I did not like this one at all.

This Tender Land

Amazon Synopsis: In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota’s Gilead River, Odie O’Banion is an orphan confined to the Lincoln Indian Training School, a pitiless place where his lively nature earns him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee after committing a terrible crime, he and his brother, Albert, their best friend, Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.

Over the course of one summer, these four orphans journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.

My Review: This was a Modern Mrs. Darcy summer reading guide pick, and I also saw so many great reviews on Goodreads! It seems to be based loosely on Huckleberry Finn, but I guess I haven’t read that one (!!!gasp!!!) because this didn’t ring any bells for me. The nature writing was beautiful, the story was compelling, and I did learn quite a bit from the historical fiction elements of it. However, I felt like I really had to suspend belief throughout the whole story, which made it harder for me to connect that it was supposed to be historical fiction. It felt too made up and impossible, if that makes sense. So, it wasn’t a terrible book by any means, but it was just not the type of book that I connect best with.

Kind of the Wind: The Story of the Godolphin Arabian

Amazon Synopsis: He was named “Sham” for the sun, this golden-red stallion born in the Sultan of Morocco’s stone stables. Upon his heel was a small white spot, the symbol of speed. But on his chest was the symbol of misfortune. Although he was swift as the desert winds, Sham’s pedigree would be scorned all his life by cruel masters and owners. 

This is the classic story of Sham and his friend, the stable boy Agba. their adventures take them from the sands of the Sahara. to the royal courts of France, and finally to the green pastures and stately homes of England. For Sham was the renowned Godolphin Arabian, whose blood flows through the veins of almost very superior thoroughbred. Sham’s speed — like his story — has become legendary.

My Review: I have slowly been working my way through the Newberry Medal winners, and this was the winner in 1948! So far, the Newberry Medal has not steered me wrong and I have given at least 4.5 stars to every book that wins that award. This was no exception- I loved it! Yes, it’s an early readers chapter book, but I found so much of the content connectable as a an adult! The story was heartbreaking but it made me cheer for the underdog and just know and be encouraged that it will all turn out alright in the end. Loved this one, and also loved that I could read it through in one afternoon.

Laundry Love

Amazon Synopsis: Doing laundry is rarely anyone’s favorite task. But to Patric Richardson, laundry isn’t just fun―it’s a way of life. After years of running Laundry Camp at the Mall of America for thousands of eager learners, he’s ready to share his tips, tricks, and hacks―bringing surprise and delight to this commonly dreaded chore.

Sorting your laundry? It’s not all about whites and darks. Pondering the wash cycles? Every load, even your delicates, should be washed using express or quick-wash on warm. Facing expensive dry cleaning bills? You’ll learn how to wash everything―yes everything―at home. And those basically clean but smelly clothes? Richardson has a secret for freshening those too (hint: it involves vodka, not soap).

Changing your relationship with laundry can also change your life. Richardson’s handy advice shows us how to save time and money (and the planet!) with our laundry―and he intersperses it all with a healthy dose of humor, real-life laundry stories, and lessons from his Appalachian upbringing and career in fashion.

Laundry Love will make you wonder why you ever stressed about ironing, dry cleaning, or (god forbid) red wine spills on your new couch. No matter the issue, Richardson is here to help you make laundry miracles happen―wrinkles and stains be damned.

My Review: This book made me laugh so hard at how different my life and his life are. We could not be more different. He had so many great tips for doing laundry- if you live his lifestyle. But if you have more than two people in your household, if you wear mostly jeans and t-shirts, if you don’t own anything cashmere and aren’t likely to spill wine on your clothes….this one is probably not for you. I just had to chuckle because there is no way 85% of his advice can be applied to someone who lives on a homestead. Anyways- this was a not a terrible book! But it was a terrible book FOR ME.

Something Wilder

Amazon Synopsis: Growing up the daughter of notorious treasure hunter and absentee father Duke Wilder left Lily without much patience for the profession…or much money in the bank. But Lily is nothing if not resourceful, and now uses Duke’s coveted hand-drawn maps to guide tourists on fake treasure hunts through the red rock canyons of Utah. It pays the bills but doesn’t leave enough to fulfill her dream of buying back the beloved ranch her father sold years ago, and definitely not enough to deal with the sight of the man she once loved walking back into her life with a motley crew of friends ready to hit the trails. Frankly, Lily would like to take him out into the wilderness—and leave him there.

Leo Grady knew mirages were a thing in the desert, but they’d barely left civilization when the silhouette of his greatest regret comes into focus in the flickering light of the campfire. Ready to leave the past behind him, Leo wants nothing more than to reconnect with his first and only love. Unfortunately, Lily Wilder is all business, drawing a clear line in the sand: it’s never going to happen.

But when the trip goes horribly and hilariously wrong, the group wonders if maybe the legend of the hidden treasure wasn’t a gimmick after all. There’s a chance to right the wrongs—of Duke’s past and their own—but only if Leo and Lily can confront their history and work together. Alone under the stars in the isolated and dangerous mazes of the Canyonlands, Leo and Lily must decide whether they’ll risk their lives and hearts on the adventure of a lifetime.

My Review: Ah, Christian Lauren does it again. They write books that have unique (but predictable) rom-com plots, that are compelling page turners and that always make me feel happy after I have read them. Just what I needed in the middle of a busy September back to school season. It’s not life changing or my top favorite book of all time, but I give it a solid 4.5 stars just because I truly enjoyed reading it so much.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Amazon Synopsis: One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose of­fice she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients’ lives — a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can’t stop hooking up with the wrong guys — she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.

With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is rev­olutionary in its candor, offering a deeply per­sonal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly reveal­ing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.

My Review: Well, add this to top five books I’ve read this year and maybe even top 10 books EVER? I LOVED this book. Everyone needs to read it. It reads like a novel, but it’s non-fiction. The characters come so alive and I immediately bond with them. We get to see their brokenness and humanity and we also get to see how they are healing. It’s such a beautiful book and I cannot recommend this one enough!!!

Dancing at the Pity Party

Amazon Synopsis: Tyler Feder had just white-knuckled her way through her first year of college when her super cool mom was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Now, with a decade of grief and nervous laughter under her belt, Tyler shares the story of that gut-wrenching, heart-pounding, extremely awkward time in her life—from her mom’s first oncology appointment to her funeral through the beginning of facing reality as a motherless daughter. She shares the sting of loss that never goes away, the uncomfortable post-death firsts, and the deep-down, hard-to-talk-about feelings of the grieving process.

Dancing at the Pity Party is a frank and refreshingly funny look at what it’s like to grieve—for anyone struggling with loss who just wants someone to get it.

My Review: I have NO IDEA how this book got onto my TBR, but I’m glad it did. It’s actually a graphic novel but it’s for sure geared towards adults (although many teens could handle it- but I had to be careful that my 3rd grader didn’t find it and think it was for her since it was a graphic novel). This is the true memoir of a young lady who loses her Mom to cancer. She details the process of losing her Mom (so, yes- trigger warning) but also the emotions surrounding the days, months and years later. She writes/draws about what helped her heal and what did not help at all. I have a very good friend who went through the same situation and this book helped me so much to think about how to help her. I don’t know that I would recommend it to her directly since it would be so raw- the content isn’t exactly happy go lucky. But if you know someone going through this type of situation, I HIGHLY recommend that you read this one.

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency

Amazon Synopsis: This first novel in Alexander McCall Smith’s widely acclaimed The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to “help people with problems in their lives.” Immediately upon setting up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. But the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witchdoctors.

My Review: I finished out my month by grabbing the first book in a mystery series. I felt like I wanted to spend some time this fall reading through this series! I have read several books from this series before, but I wanted to start over at the beginning. As someone who grew up in Africa (although a totally different part of Africa), I love the homey vibe this gives me. Although this time around I do notice the irony that these books set in Africa are written by a British white man. I also know that this is not my favorite book in the series, as it spends a lot of time introducing us to the characters and kind of just setting the scene through mostly short stories. The rest of the series picks up with a specific mystery each book. I enjoyed this one!

And that’s a wrap for my September reads! I tend to breeze through a lot of books in the summer and then slow down in the fall as things get really busy with school, then in December over my Christmas break I pick the lightest and fluffiest, cheesiest Hallmark type romances and just go through like one a day. HAHA. Reading is just the best! I have so many great books on deck and I feel like I don’t have enough time to get to them lately!! What are you reading lately? Have you read any of these or are you adding any to your TBR?