It’s summer reading season! Not that my reading is all that different in the summer, but I love the laid-back feel of this time of year. This year life definitely feels a lot busier than it did last year, but I’m still hoping to get plenty of reading done.
Here’s my reading round-up for the past month, hopefully one of these 7 books sounds good to add to your reading list!
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. Did you know that William Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet, who died at 11 years old? I had no idea. Hamnet is the fictionalized story of Shakespeare’s wife (called Agnes in this story), the loss of Hamnet, and how the family coped with their grief. It’s beautifully written but not at all slow, I was eager to pick it up and keep reading. I loved how Shakespeare was more of a side-character, and was never mentioned by name—this was truly Agnes’s story. My rating: 4/5 stars.
If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo. This YA novel is about Amanda, who moves to a new city and seems to naturally fit in with the new friends she meets there. She meets Grant, and falls for him despite her promise to herself to keep her distance. Amanda is trans, and she moved in with her dad to escape the violence she experienced as a trans girl when she lived in another city with her mother. No one knows this about her at her new school, and she fears being found out. This was a compelling, heartfelt story of what it’s like to be different when you’re a teenage girl who just wants to fit in—I think most of us can relate to that! I absolutely loved this one. My rating: 4/5 stars.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Nora’s life isn’t at all what she thought it would be, and one night she decides to end it. Instead of dying, she wakes up in a library—one that exists in her mind—and she’s given the option of choosing to live out other lives, in parallel universes in which she made different decisions. In one, she was an Olympic swimmer, in another, a glaciologist, and even a singer in a famous band. This was such a fun, yet not overly light, read. My rating: 4/5 stars.
How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue. I loved Behold the Dreamers, so I was looking forward to this one by the same author. There was a lot I did enjoy: the fictional African village and its plight against an American oil company, the narrators, including a group of children throughout their lives and the family of one brave woman determined to change her country’s future. Yet it didn’t come together quite the way I hoped, and it left me feeling dejected by the end. That may have been the point, but for me it was just okay. My rating: 3/5 stars.
The Son of Mr. Suleman by Eric Jerome Dickey. Pi Suleman is a university professor who worked hard to get where he is, but the daily micro-aggressions he faces as a Black man in the South make it hard for him to just do his job. This novel packs in a lot—romance with a mysterious woman from London, blackmail from a powerful white female professor making false claims against him, and grief when he learns that his estranged father has passed away. This was a long book that felt a little too long. I know that Dickey was a prolific author before his recent death though, so I would like to read more from him. My rating: 3/5 stars.
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown. I read this slowly over the last few months, which I recommend. It’s a fairly short book, but each chapter dives into a different aspect of what Brown calls “Wholeheartedness.” She reflects on faith, intuition, perfectionism, authenticity and more. I love her easy-to-follow, relatable writing style, and I’m glad I took my time reading and reflecting on each chapter. My rating: 4/5 stars.
The Address Book by Deirdre Mask. If someone had told me a couple of years ago that I would read a nonfiction book that’s about addresses and totally enjoy it, I’m not sure I would have believed them. Yet that’s exactly what happened. Mask, the author, makes the history and current state of addresses around the world completely fascinating. I listened on audio, and there were a few times where I zoned out as Mask delved into the details. However, overall it kept my interest, and I thought she had a good balance of research and anecdote. My rating: 3.5/5 stars.
What have you been reading lately?
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