September 2025 Book Review

September was a full month for our family, which didn’t leave much time for reading. I read 8 books total, but none of them were stellar 5 star books for me, so I feel like I’m heading into a fall slump. Hopefully I’ll pick up some excellent books in October!

The Incredible Kindness of Paper

My Review: This was a sweet book about a woman who is down on her luck, but begins folding little paper flowers and writing little messages on them. Somehow, the message always seems to find the right person and encourage them or change their life. Other than that sweet story, there wasn’t much more to the plot, so this one didn’t stick with me much.

How to Walk into a Room

My Review: Emily Freeman is a very calming presence, and she gives out a lot of great advice and wisdom. She coined the phrase “the Next Right Thing”, and I find it a helpful mantra when I’m feeling stuck. This book was all about transitioning through different phases of our lives, and it included quite a bit of Emily’s personal reflection on leaving her church and finding a different path spiritually. She refers to our lives as having different “rooms”, and talks through how we know when we need to lave a “room” and how to process exiting those rooms and entering new ones- or waiting in the hallway while we decide what is happening. While I really enjoyed and appreciated the questions she helped guide the reader through, I did find this book very slow and a bit disjointed.

Wild Dark Shore

My Review: I waited on the holds list for a few weeks for this one, so I had high expectations! Unfortunately, I finished the book with some disappointment. This is the story of a family- a Dad and three children- who live in a lighthouse on a remote island. They are also taking care of a seed bank – and a lot of secrets. A woman washes up on the shore, and from there- all the secrets start to unravel. I couldn’t put this book down because I kept wanting to know what happens, but it’s a pretty dark story, and it does not have a happy ending. There is death, there is trauma, there is difficult, weighty decisions to be made. I finished it just feeling really sad, and I don’t love it when books make me feel that way.

Hate Follow

My Review: This book was fascinating! It honestly read more like a case study than a novel. The characters were a bit flat and the plot was clearly trying to make us think through moral/ethical issues. However, if I see this book as a fictional case study instead of a novel, then I actually feel like it was excellent and got me to do exactly what the author wanted- think about the issue from more than one perspective. This is the story of a mega influencer Mom whose teen daughter has had enough of being featured on her social media. The teen daughter moves into a friends home and decides to sue her mother for breach of privacy and for not being paid for years of being on social media (parts of the story reminded me of the whole Ruby Franke thing). It was so interesting to read this story from both the Mom’s side and the teen daughters side. Who is right? Who is wrong? Are they both right and both wrong? And how could this issue be resolved? This book was very clean- no language or sexual content- so I actually recommended it to our high school language arts teacher to have in her classroom (our school does a free choice reading program, so they are always looking for recommended books to add to the shelves!). It would also make a great book club discussion.

Lost Gifts

My Review: This is a book written by my real life friend Brittany! She did an incredible job writing this book on miscarriage and the grief that comes with it. She addresses issues of the church and biblical theology towards miscarriage, and does a wonderful job of acknowledging the pain and trauma of miscarriage while also not forsaking her foundational beliefs in God. I would highly recommend this to any pastor to have on hand for counseling people through miscarriage!

Tree. Table. Book.

My Review: Not sure how this book made it on my TBR, but it was a sweet little young adult story about a young girl and her elderly neighbor, who lived in Poland during WWII. The elderly neighbor is beginning to struggle with dementia, but the young girl wants to prove that she isn’t, so she puts her neighbor through a series of tests – and during those tests we hear more about her children and the memories from Poland. It was a book I finished in almost one sitting- short and sweet.

Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze

My Review: Yep, still trucking through the Newberry medal books! This one was one I actually really enjoyed! Young Fu becomes an apprentice to a coppersmith, and throughout the course of this story grows from a young boy into a young man, gaining wisdom and experience along the way. This story was heart warming and fun to read!

Mean Moms

My Review: Well, talk about Rich People Behaving Badly!!! This story is about the ultra-rich Moms in New York City who send their kids to an elite private school. There is a core group of 3 Moms, until a fourth joins them, and then weird stuff starts happening. It has to be the new Mom causing all of it, right? It turns out one of them is actually a psychopath. This book was twisty and I loved the rich people behaving badly parts of it. It had a couple overt sexual scenes so I knocked off a star or two, but without those weird scenes, I actually really loved this story!

I’m currently reading Babel by R.F. Kong and A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko

What are you currently reading?