Books

I’m debating whether or not to keep calling this “What I’ve Read During Quarantine” because quarantine isn’t over and doesn’t look like COVID-19 is slowing down anytime soon. So to make myself a little less sad, I might convert it to a monthly reading summary. Thoughts?

Whatever the case, I have lots of thoughts on the books I read (and tried to read) this month.

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Like Wow, No Thank You, I devoured Samantha Irby’s second collection of essays pretty quickly. Like last time, I was cackling to myself within five minutes. I tried to read passages to Michael but couldn’t do it without giggling uncontrollably. Here’s part of what had me laughing so hard:

I’m going to need you to love me on the bus, dude. And first thing in the morning. Also, when I’m drunk and refuse to shut up about getting McNuggets from the drive-thru. When I fall asleep in the middle of that movie you paid extra to see in IMAX. When I wear the flowered robe I got at Walmart and the sweatpants I made into sweatshorts to bed.

But Irby really has a way of talking about love that helps center me. I’ll leave you with another quote, which really nails what long-term love is really about.

Real love feels less like a throbbing, pulsing animal begging for its freedom and beating against the inside of my chest and more like, “Hey, that place you like had fish tacos today and I got you some while I was out,” as it sets a bag spotted with grease on the dining room table.

Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver • ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wakenhyrst wasn’t really what I was expecting based on the back-of-the-book synopsis, but it was still a fine read.

It had a lot of elements that I love in a good Gothic-style story: family secrets, an inhospitable landscape and demons. It took me a hot minute to get into it, but kept my attention.

My Dear Hamilton by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie • ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Obviously I was seized by Hamilton fever like everyone else with a Disney+ password. I’ll be honest—I was really hesitant about it because I really am not interested with that period of history. The Revolutionary War and Continental Congress was just so boring to me (even though I love history).

While I’m still not sold on that time frame, I decided to check out My Dear Hamilton because it was on sale on Chirp and read by my favorite narrator Cassandra Campbell.

For what it was, My Dear Hamilton was a good book. The writers’ portrayal of Eliza was really engaging. She was shy, smart, strong and outspoken when it counted. And the depiction of Alexander was a good counterbalance to how he was written in Hamilton. Both are, of course, interpretations.

Like Hamilton, this book glossed over the Schuyler and Hamilton families relation to slavery (they both were enslavers), and maybe elaborated a bit much on how Eliza and Alexander sympathized with abolitionists.

This all said, if you enjoy historical fiction and this time period, you’ll like My Dear Hamilton.

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton • ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve picked up this book at the library countless times but never got around to reading it. But I kept returning to it again and again because, simply, I love me some miniatures. If left unchecked (meaning if I lived alone and was independently wealthy), I’d probably go deep into the world of dollhouse making.

Anyway, I enjoyed this book. Honestly, what I liked best was the description of all the tiny figurines. I’m just into that sort of thing. And the story wasn’t what I was expecting (in a good way).

I’ll be honest—I wasn’t really satisfied by the ending, but I enjoyed this book nonetheless.

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was a difficult one in some ways. It was intriguing and a quick read for me, but the subject matter is tough and the characters challenging. But that’s what made it a good read.

The book dives into the relationship between a high schooler, Vanessa, and her English teacher—a relationship that quickly turns physical. And it’s a dynamic that lingers for years, affecting Vanessa in ways she doesn’t want to recognize—even as the Me Too movement emerges.

I don’t think this book is for everyone, but I found it engrossing.

The Good Luck Girls of Shipwreck Lane by Kelly Harms • 🤦🏻‍♀️

I couldn’t finish this book. After getting about a third of the way through I had to put it down.

I wanted to like this book so badly. Really. The premise: Two women move into a HGTV-style Dream Home in Maine. I mean, what’s not to love there? I love Maine. I had an unreasonable fascination of the HGTV Dream Home as a child. And I was craving a bit of a lighter read.

But there was a lot here I couldn’t really manage. First and foremost was the really casual treatment of domestic abuse. It was written in a comical way and I just really didn’t like that.

I felt like the author was trying to be funny all the time, even when the situation didn’t call for it. It took away all the depth the characters could have had. It was like the author was trying to prove how funny she was constantly—not how good of a storyteller she could be.

But the third strike was a line about how people who are not talented enough to cook bake. Let’s make this clear: This is not true. I could write about 5,000 words to that effect.

But to me, this comment (along with the aforementioned critique) just proved that the author didn’t really know what she was writing about. I didn’t need to read another 250 pages to prove it any further.

Perfect Little Children by Sophie Hannah • 🤦🏻‍♀️

Another book I couldn’t bear to finish because the characters’ behavior was just nonsensical.

The idea here is that a woman sees an old friend of hers one day, someone she hasn’t seen in a decade. The children seem unaged—looking to be only five and seven instead of the teenagers they should be. I mean it sounds loopy but intriguing, right?

But I couldn’t bear it. If you’ve read this, please tell me the end because I couldn’t get past 25% on this one.

• • •

As always, you can see what I’m up to on Goodreads. Whether you want to follow me or not, I highly recommend Goodreads. It’s the best way to keep track of what you’ve read and what you’d like to check out next.

Yeah, we’re still staying safer at home here. With a few high-risk folks in our family, we feel like it’s the best to just err on the side of caution.

Since I’m still spending all my time at home, I have a lot of time to read and listen to audiobooks. Here’s what I read and listened to in June.

The Carrow Haunt by Darcy Coates • ⭐️

I was not expecting this book to become one of my favorites or anything when I picked it up. I just wanted an entertaining ghost story.

I felt like this book was full of missed opportunities to create a more engaging story. Instead, it was almost rudimentary in its construction.

But what irked me the most—as always—were small details. Like the author kept referencing how the house was the most haunted locale in the state but never mentioned what state. Then kept referring to things by their UK-English names like torch instead of flashlight. Small details like this took me out of the story and made me feel like the author should have just set the story in the UK and called it a day.

The Parting Glass by Gina Marie Gaudagnino • ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was hyped as Downton Abbey meets Gangs of New York, so obviously I bit.

I suppose it was a bit of both of these things, but I didn’t find it as thrilling or entrancing as either. It was a fine bit of historical fiction: an Irish-born maid in love with her mistress, her brother part of an Irish nationalist group. There was a lot to be interested in.

In all though, I felt like not a lot happened, but that might be me just taking my time listening to this one. It’s fine, but I might recommend reading over listening.

The Witch of Willow Hall by Hester Fox • ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I like a good witch-focused piece of fiction here and there. The Witches of New York was a really good one (read that one on the way home from Salem). And The Witch’s Daughter was a nice fluffy read.

The Witch of Willow Hall was very much in the same vein as the latter. It was pleasant and kept my attention, but I won’t insist you read it.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a big book—almost 500 pages, 12 central characters and generation-spanning stories—and I loved it.

Evaristo managed to create so many well developed, interesting characters in this novel. When the chapters jumped from one woman to another, I was almost pained to leave one dynamic player, but happy to dive into the world of the next.

The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements • ⭐️⭐️⭐️

You know I love a good Gothic-style novel, and The Coffin Path fit the bill: a dilapidated estate in the Yorkshire countryside, a ghastly legend, a stranger come to town. It checked all the boxes.

The Coffin Path was a good read. It was spooky and atmospheric. Sure, a few too many words spent on the care and keeping of sheep, but it kept me interested until the end.

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This one has been on my radar for a while, and oh my gosh am I glad I finally got into it. It might be my favorite read of the year so far.

The gist: Emira, a Black woman in her mid-twenties, babysits for the children of Alix, awealthy, white blogger. One night while she’s out with the toddler, she’s accused of kidnapping by a grocery store security guard and “concerned” customer. The book then follows how Emira and Alix live in the aftermath of this encounter.

I was totally riveted by the story and the characters in this book (and the audiobook performance is really great too!). I devoured it all in three days.

While I loved the story, I have to say this novel also helped me gain some perspective on the difference between being a good ally and acting selfishly thinking you’re being a good person.

This is an absolute must read.

Weird but Normal by Mia Mercado • ⭐️⭐️⭐️

My friend Amanda alerted me to this book’s release, and I’m happy she did! The author was a grade below us at our high school and we attended the same church—so a lot of her references truly hit close to home.

This collection of essays was a nice, easy-breezy read—something light to take my mind off what a trash heap the world can be. And, sure, a lot of it was your standard Millenial musings, but it was still a fun read.

Also, I feel like I want to embroider this quote and hang it above my desk: “I want to do absolutely nothing, and then I want to be recognized for all my hard work.”

Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I cannot tell you how much I loved Wow, No Thank You. It was just such a hilarious, well-done collection of essays. Two pages in I was cackling and texting my mom that she had to give it a read (Samantha Irby’s musings on poop are truly some of the finest writing I’ve read of late).

It’s just such a joy and thrill to read something so heartfelt and true and funny rolled into a single book. Her other collections are not on my must-read list.

I’ll leave you with this quote which left me in stitches: “First of all, why you would ask a man anything is beyond me.”

• • •

I’ve been relying a lot upon digital books and audiobook downloads lately, but I’ve made some exceptions and started shopping at Semicolon Bookstore—Chicago’s only Black woman-owned bookshop. They have a mammoth selection and you can digital goods from them, too!

As always, you can follow along with my reading on Goodreads.

I didn’t realized how much I read in the last month. Whew! I’ve been keeping busy with a lot of Book Bub deals and this month I dove back into audiobooks. I forgot how much I enjoyed them!

Before you check out these reviews, check out what I read during the first few weeks of quarantine.

Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Lately I’ve been tiring of the whole dual timeline thing. I feel like this structure is used a lot—or at least a lot in the books I’m interested in, but Black Rabbit Hall was the perfect use of this device.

It flashes back and forth between the present day where Lorna is looking to host her wedding at Cornwall’s Black Rabbit Hall and the 1960s, when Amber and her family spend their summers in bliss at their vacation home—until her father’s new wife moves in.

This one definitely kept me guessing and interested throughout. This would make a great lazy vacation read, but reading on the patio is as close as I’m getting these days.

Her Mother’s Lies by Rona Halsall • ⭐️

Reading this, I felt like it was a draft of something that could shape up to be a decent airport read. But in its current state, it was almost irritating to work through.

I felt like so much of the story could have been tightened up. Much of it dragged, the characters had the same conversations over and over, plot points were constantly reiterated. It was tiresome.

In the end, the twists just weren’t even that satisfying because they took so long to come and weren’t big enough to be thrilling.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Over the years, I’ve started this book several times. I’ve made it about 100 pages in with each go, but just found it a bit slow. I kept returning to it, though, because I’m a fan of Sarah Waters.

This time, instead of reading, I went with the audiobook version and I absolutely devoured it. I think this was key since the book is a bit slow and pretty lengthy (nearly 500 pages).

No, the book wasn’t as spooky as I hoped, but it was atmospheric and the narration was really terrific. Like all of Sarah Waters’s books, I felt very much taken by the world she created and the characters—likable or not.

The Widow’s House by Carol Goodman • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

On the back of The Little Stranger, I downloaded another audiobook. I realized how much I preferred listening to them over podcasts on a walk or the TV while doing a puzzle. Like the last one, I listened to this one pretty much nonstop.

This book was made for me: ghost stories, mysterious happenings, an old estate, a small town with lots of lore. I was sucked in right away as the protagonist, Claire, returned to her hometown with her husband and became caretakers at an estate owned by their former professor. I dream of doing this sort of thing (with different ends, of course), so it was a great setting to snuggle into.

After listening, I looked up the narrator, Cassandra Campbell. Turns out she also performed two other audiobooks I loved (Bittersweet and Dark Places). I think her style combined with this story was the perfect storm for me. I can’t recommend it enough.

Blackberry & Wild Rose by Sonia Velton • ⭐️

I’ll be honest—I didn’t finish this book. I was tempted to just let this audiobook run its course while I did chores, but life’s too short for aggravating books.

I was intrigued by this book because it had a pretty title and a gorgeous cover. I am a sucker for this sort of thing. Add in that it was historical fiction about silk weavers and I was sold.

But, damn, the characters were just so unlikeable and not in the fun way (like Mad Men‘s Pete Campbell). There were so many nitpicky things about the two protagonists that I just could not stand, but made me stop listening to this one for good was the anti-labor plotline. Maybe it would have been resolved, but the tradesmen in the book were constantly portrayed as being dim-witted, angry rabble-rousers. I couldn’t work under that assumption on top of two really annoying protagonists.

I quit listening three-quarters of the way through.

Like the Willow Tree: The Diary of Lydia Amelia Pierce, Portland, Maine, 1918 by Lois Lowry • 👌

Yes, this is a Dear America book. Remember those? They were some of my absolute favorites as a kid (those and the Royal Diaries spinoff series).

A friend of mine and I have been talking about reading one of these for ages and we both dove in with this extremely topical one from Lois Lowry (the author of The Giver).

I haven’t read a Dear America book since 2002, so I have a hard time comparing it to what I recall were my favorites (the Titanic one for sure and also one about the Great Depression at Christmas). But Like the Willow Tree was an alright read. I learned a lot about the Quakers and a bit more about the 1918 flu epidemic. Maybe that part hit too close to home?

At any rate, a book like this was a good treat. Kind of like eating your favorite childhood cereal. Maybe not as good as you remember but still satisfying.

• • •

That’s a lot of books for me, but I’ve definitely got audiobooks to thank for that. I just started to use Chirp for audiobook deals, so if you’re interested you can use this link for 20% off (and I get 20% off, too!).

Sheltering in place is getting old (it’s day 33 right now), but staying in is allowing me to get a lot of reading done. I’ve gone through five books in the last month—and I’ve got plenty more to turn through yet.

Here’s what I’ve been reading (in my messy living room):

The Stranger in Our Home by Sophie Draper • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I felt like I read this ages ago already, though it was just last month.

Whatever the case may be, I found The Stranger in Our Home to be a satisfying read. There’s a good amount of intrigue, familial secrets that were constantly unfolding and some weird folklore elements I really loved. Also any book that uses a hurdy-gurdy as a motif is a good one as far as I’m concerned.

The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut • ⭐️⭐️

I’ll let Goodreads do the summarizing here: The riveting story of a woman convicted of a brutal crime, the prison psychologist who recognizes her as his high-school crush and the charged reunion that sets off an astonishing chain of events with dangerous consequences for both.

You can see why I’d want to read this. But in the end, I just didn’t really grasp why this psychologist was so into this girl. I found the book to be lackluster.

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell • ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m a sucker for any book that’s about someone inheriting a mansion from an unknown relative. It’s just the perfect setup for me. Secrets, wealth, the promise of ghosts…

The Family Upstairs starts with Libby inheriting a large London home on her 25th birthday. She finds out that the home was the site of a murder-suicide by what many thought was a cult years earlier. Sounds so good, right?!

It wasn’t quite as intriguing as it should have been and one element really didn’t sit with me (it made no sense and it was never resolved), but it was entertaining.

How to Find Love in a Book Shop by Veronica Henry • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve been loving these cozy kinds of books more and more. Especially when they’re as charming and well written as this one.

How to Find Love in a Book Shop centers on Emilia as she takes over her late father’s bookstore, but also folds in plenty of other characters—all with their own personalities and quirks.

This is exactly the kind of book to read during these stressful times.

The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent • ⭐️

I had really high hopes for this book. The setup was super intriguing: Two girls are left alone in their shack in the woods—they’ve never ventured beyond their homestead. One day, they have to leave to survive.

But I found myself just rolling my eyes through most of this. The characters were bland. The plot to absurd to be believed. Skip it.