It’s book review day!! As always, I have a totally eclectic assortment of books to review today. Some brand new releases, some very old ones, some under the radar ones, and some that left me with a LOT to think about…
Some stats…
- 11 books total
- 4 nonfiction; 8 fiction books
- 3,966 pages read
- Seven 3 star reads; three 4 star reads; one 5 star read
Here we go!
Navigating Early
Synopsis: When Jack Baker’s father sends him from his home in Kansas to attend a boys’ boarding school in Maine, Jack doesn’t know what to expect. Certainly not Early Auden, the strangest of boys. Early keeps to himself, reads the number pi as a story, and refuses to accept truths others take for granted. Jack, feeling lonely and out of place, connects with Early, and the two become friends.
During a break from school, the boys set out for the Appalachian Trail on a quest for a great black bear. As Jack and Early travel deeper into the mountains, they meet peculiar and dangerous characters, and they make some shocking discoveries. But their adventure is only just beginning. Will Jack’s and Early’s friendship last the journey? Can the boys make it home alive?
My Review: Eh, this one was just ok. It obviously is geared more towards children in grades 4-8, so even if it wasn’t my favorite I can totally see where the appeal lies. I did find it fascinating how the author portrayed a young boy who is on the autism spectrum (she never says that in the story, but does later in the author’s note). The adventures were far fetched but the themes of found family and being loyal to those who love us ran throughout the book.
Happy Place
Synopsis: Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t. They broke up five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.
Which is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blissful week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.
Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?
My Review: I really think Emily Henry is an incredibly talented writer! I liked this one and wasn’t expecting it to go so deep so fast. It really had some themes of finding oneself, deep thoughts about the trajectory of life, growing apart from friends, finding your identity, etc. I didn’t love the ending of this book and I also had a hard time with the portrayal of her “middle class” parents. Basically, the book kept going on and on about how they worked so hard to make ends meet, therefore her childhood sucked. I can very much relate to the part about working hard to make ends meet so reading that over and over made it feel like maybe my kids will grow up to think that their life sucks? Probably reading way too much into that, but that really bothered me. So, overall, this one was 4/5 stars for me.
The Brutal Telling
Synopsis: Chaos is coming, old son.
With those words the peace of Three Pines is shattered. Everybody goes to Olivier’s Bistro―including a stranger whose murdered body is found on the floor. When Chief Inspector Gamache is called to investigate, he is dismayed to discover that Olivier’s story is full of holes. Why are his fingerprints all over the cabin that’s uncovered deep in the wilderness, with priceless antiques and the dead man’s blood? And what other secrets and layers of lies are buried in the seemingly idyllic village?
Gamache follows a trail of clues and treasures―from first editions of Charlotte’s Web and Jane Eyreto a spiderweb with a word mysteriously woven in it―into the woods and across the continent, before returning to Three Pines to confront the truth and the final, brutal telling.
My Review: This is the fifth book in the Inspector Gamache series. People LOVE this series. So far I find it just alright. This was probably my least favorite book in the series so far. It just dealt with a main character who was extremely unlikable. But I wanted to like him? And this story made it impossible to do that. It was just a little bit too deep and dark for me, I think. I’m going to keep reading the series because I’ve heard that they get better and better, but this one was a total miss for me.
A Likely Story
Synopsis: The only child of a famous American novelist discovers a shocking family secret that upends everything she thought she knew about her parents, her gilded childhood, and her own stalled writing career in this standout debut, perfect for fans of Pineapple Street and The Plot.
My Review: This one was SLOW at first. I really almost DNF’d it because I was not feeling interested at all. Talk about rich people behaving badly (which seems to be a very popular trope lately!). But as the book went on, I started to feel attached to the characters, even though they were really unlikeable. This was unlike any book I’ve read before, and it had a book within a book, family secrets, rich people vs. normal people, and an ending that I appreciated. Overall, I rated this one 4/5 stars. Read it if you are looking for something different in your reading life, and have a little bit of mental capacity to focus (this isn’t a flying page turner).
The Enchanted Hour
Synopsis: A Wall Street Journal writer’s conversation-changing look at how reading aloud makes adults and children smarter, happier, healthier, more successful and more closely attached, even as technology pulls in the other direction.
My Review: This was a good book, but it really could have been a blog post. I’ll summarize it for you here:
Reading out loud is great! It’s great for everyone! It has benefits in all areas of life! You should read to babies, children, teenagers, and even the elderly!
The rest of the book basically expands on those thoughts for entire chapters, with a lot of scientific evidence, personal anecdotes and other collected stories. If you are taking a class on reading aloud or you are writing a scientific article, this book would be perfect for you! But if you are an average person who wonders if you should read aloud to your kids, the answer is YES. Skip this book and just start reading out loud to your kids 🙂
All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys Soccer Team
Synopsis: A unique account of the amazing Thai cave rescue told in a heart-racing, you-are-there style that blends suspense, science, and cultural insight.
My Review: Oh my goodness, this book!! FIVE whole stars, and I would give it more if I could. This is a large hardcover book, full of pictures. It almost looks like a coffee table book. But then the story of the entrapment and rescue of the thirteen boys (and their coach) who were trapped in a cave for nearly TWO WEEKS is just incredible!! Absolutely amazing. This was one of those books that I forgot to feed my kids while I was reading it, and I was absolutely sitting in my chair sobbing. It would also be appropriate for 4th grade and beyond, so it might be a nice book to have on hand for the whole family.
I had *just* finished this book when the news broke about the four siblings who survived in the jungle for 40 days after their plane crashed and killed all the adults on board. HOW INCREDIBLE. Human resilience…it’s incredibly remarkable.
Becoming Free Indeed
Synopsis: Jinger Vuolo, the sixth child in the famous Duggar family of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting and Counting On, recounts how she began to question the unhealthy ideology of her youth and learned to embrace true freedom in Christ.
My Review: Wow! I was not expecting to like this book as much as I did. I am familiar with the show 19 Kids and Counting, but I have maybe only seem one or two episodes. I find the family and all that has come out about the family very interesting, but need to be careful to not become too wrapped up in it or too judgmental. I really, really enjoyed this book. Jinger walks through how she is not “deconstructing” her faith, but instead “disentangling” her faith from how she was raised. She is very respectful of her parents but spends about 75% of the book unpacking the lies of Bill Gothard and his IBLC ministry. I think that many of us have also probably watched or heard about the documentary Shiny Happy People that is also about this. The big difference here is that it is quite obvious when watching the documentary that the makers of it are not Christians and really want to make sure that their viewers know how messed up Christians CAN be. There is a lot of bias against Christians – obviously, fundamentalist Christians, but I think that a lot of people watching may not know that there are Christians who don’t believe or act like that. On the other hand, Jinger talks through all of this from a Christian perspective. If you have watched the documentary, I think that you should also read this book. They both reach the same conclusion, but come at it from a completely different outlook.
The Sign for Home
Synopsis: When a young DeafBlind man learns the girl he thought was lost forever might still be out there, he embarks on a life-changing journey to find her—and his freedom.
My Review: This book is kind of blurbed as a romance, but it was NOT that. Honestly, I almost gave up on this one- it had some crude content, it had some language, it seriously vilified any Jehovah’s Witnesses, and it elevated the main gay character. These are all things that I really try to stay away from in books. But, I did keep reading for one main reason- this book gave SO MUCH incredible information about the DeafBlind community. I had no idea what it would be like to be DeafBlind until I read this book. Gaining that information was really important to me. I also did really appreciate how much it made me think about religious rules and the treatment of people. This book had so much serious content that the plot almost got buried in the secondary messages, and the plot at the end was very far-fetched. This would be an excellent book club book because there are SO MANY things to discuss here!
What the Fireflies Knew
Synopsis: a coming-of-age novel told by almost-eleven-year-old Kenyatta Bernice (KB), as she and her sister try to make sense of their new life with their estranged grandfather in the wake of their father’s death and their mother’s disappearance
My Review: Ok. This book had no plot. Absolutely nothing happened. There was no beginning, middle and end. Ok, maybe I’m being a little bit harsh, but I kept waiting for the plot to pick up, for secrets to be revealed, for conflict to be resolved. At the beginning of the story, everyone is struggling. At the end of the story, everyone is still struggling, but now they have “found themselves”. It was mostly a coming of age novel of one girl during the summer. It seems like it was an incredibly pivotal summer in her life, but honestly it didn’t give me any feelings of attachment to the characters. Except Grandpappy, whom I really loved. Otherwise, this book just wasn’t for me. If you like slow, character-driven, coming of age novels, this one might be perfect for you!
The True Love Experiment
Synopsis: Sparks fly when a romance writer and a documentary filmmaker join forces to craft the ultimate Hollywood love story—but only if they can keep the chemistry between them from taking the whole thing off script—
My Review: Ok, I love anything Bachelor adjacent/making fun of the franchise, so I really wanted to LOVE this book. But instead it fell flat for me. The main character is a romance novelist- and she’s quite bold and crass. I actually didn’t mind this so much, but what I did not enjoy was the constant “googly eyed romance”. There was no slow build- it was just constant thought processes of how the two main characters wanted to be with each other. To me, this really took away from the plot- which I really loved! I still love Christina Lauren, but this is probably my least favorite of theirs. Also, this is a sequel to The Soulmate Equation. You don’t have to read The Soulmate Equation first, but it does have a lot of background information that comes into this one, so I recommend reading it first.
The Life Council
Synopsis: Offering a path for a new way to think about friendships, The Life Council will inspire and equip you to be a better friend, make new friends, and appreciate how different types of friendships can bring a richness to your life like never before.
My Review: This book is like the enneagram of friendships. She lays out several different types of friends who will make up your “Life Council”- almost like a board of directors. Each friend plays a different role, and you rely on different friends in different ways. I really enjoy Laura Tremain’s writing and how she writes personal stories, but also makes it applicable to anyone, anywhere. That being said- this book kind of broke my heart, because I don’t have the friendships that she talks about. I DO have friends- but not like this. And it feels kind of like if I don’t have all these types of friends, I’m not doing it right. So while I really enjoyed this book, it left me feeling kind of down. I’m not sure what the solution here is- I wonder if Laura Tremaine would have been able to write this book when she was in her young 30s and in the very little kid years? I wonder if it’s a book better suited for later in life when you can kind of look back and reflect instead of for those of us who are in the trenches? I don’t know…has anyone read this that has thoughts? This would also make a great book club book!
All That Is Mine I Carry With Me
Synopsis: A mother vanished. A father presumed guilty. There is no proof. There are no witnesses. For the children, there is only doubt.
My Review: This is clearly a literary thriller- it has this thriller-y, mystery vibe- but it also quite slow moving at the same time. And yet, compelling enough to keep reading. I wanted to find out what happened and literally – whodunnit. Which you don’t find out until the very second to last page. And then the last page ends on a total cliffhanger. So- this book was GOOD, but that were parts that drove me crazy. Like – why did the author use quotation marks in part I and then in parts II and III there was nary a quotation mark to be found?!? And where was the editor? Why were there no chapters in this book?! Don’t they know that a Mom needs to be able to say “one more chapter” without having to commit to 150 pages at one time? No, sir. That was not a good choice. I also was annoyed by the cliffhanger end- all that rapidly reading and in the end we don’t know EXACTLY what happens? I closed the book, and rated this one three stars. And then I thought, “I bet my friend Natalie would love this book” and lo and behold she has already ready it and gave it five stars. If you loved The Push, this is the next book for you to read. It raises more questions than answers and leaves you thinking, thinking, thinking.
And that is a wrap for my June reading! I have so many books that I want to get through this summer, but I’m also wanting to really enjoy what I read so I’m hoping to pick up some amazing five star reads in the next few weeks!