August Reads

Remember how I warned you that in August my reading would slow down? Well, I was correct! I did read six books this month, and four of them were 5 star reads, so I had a great reading month! I also had a

Husbands and Lovers

My Review: Um, I disliked this book. I didn’t HATE it, but I disliked it. I thought I was going to get a historical fiction with a a little romance, but instead I got some modern romance and then the story flipped back to a historical romance, but I found myself having no idea what was going on historically. Why were they in Egypt? How old was her husband? What nationality was she, and why does it matter? Plus…to be honest, I felt like I couldn’t read this book anywhere in public since the title was a little…scandalous. Anyways, the timeline flopped around too much and the ending was way too far fetched and so random… I just..disliked this one.

The Anxious Generation

My Review: 5 stars from me! I’m sure you have seen this book EVERYWHERE, and I think that it is a book that every parent in this current time should read. Now…I have a theory on this book. I think that those who do not yet have teenagers will really like this book. And I think that those who do have teenagers or who have just finished raising teenagers are not going to like it as much. I have some ideas why this may be, but everyone I talk to so far has sorted themselves into those two categories accordingly. While I may not agree with everything that he says, I think he is the first one to publicly ring the alarm bells about how phones and technology may be extremely detrimental to our kids (and to us, let’s be honest). And I think this is a really, really good thing.

Remarkably Bright Creatures

My Review: I’m only three years late to the bandwagon, but I LOVED it. Absolutely loved every minute of reading this story. The characters, the real-life grief/trauma that they are facing, the plot twist at the end, the octopus, the setting…I just LOVED it all. Such a gem of a book!

The In-Between

My Review: Full disclosure that at the time of writing this blog post, I haven’t fully finished this book. But I’m about halfway through it has 5 giant, glowing stars from me. This is the story of a hospice nurse who is with people in their last months, weeks, days and moments on earth. Oh my word- do not attempt to read this book without a Kleenex box handy!!! It’s a tear jerker but it’s absolutely beautiful. I love how she weaves her own memoir into the stories of those she is attending to. It’s BEAUTIFUL.

Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam

My Review: I picked up this graphic novel off the library shelf and I loved it! It’s the story of a young boy whose family flees Vietnam, lives in a refugee camp, and then gains passage to America, and spends the rest of their lives adjusting to life here. He weaves stories of different types of food into each of the stages/situations of his life. Since it’s a graphic novel, this was a very quick read. It is similar in style to When Stars are Scattered and Mexikid

That Summer

My Review: I’ve had this on my shelf for years and I have been trying to read some books from my own shelves this summer, so I picked it up. I didn’t like it at all. It was so dark and sad, and while it tried to be twisty and maybe bordering on thriller it fell very, very flat from a thriller and was instead a slow moving sad story of a woman who was raped and has rebuilt her life but would like to get revenge on the man who raped her by befriending his family. She ends up becoming friends with his wife and then faces a conundrum about “ruining their lives”. It was an interesting plot, but it just didn’t work for me in this book.

DNF

I DNF’ed two books this month. Both were fine books but just not holding my attention and the other books on my shelf were telling me to put down the books I’m not LOVING to get to the ones that I will enjoy much more. So these two were out for me.

Slow Noodles

Love They Body

And that is all for August! Have you read any of these books?

Full disclosure that if you click on any of the book titles in my blog post it will take you to Amazon. If you chose to make a purchase from that link, Amazon will give me a small kickback.