Stephany Writes

Categories: Books

What I Read in August

I read 14 books in August, which is much, much more than I’ve been reading lately. I read a lot of fantastic five-star books and some duds, and also abandoned two books during the month (The Whispers by Ashley Audrain and The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan). I won’t go into too much detail about the books I read, lest this post becomes a million words long, but I will break this into sections: My Top Three Books of August, Other Books I Liked, and Books That Were Meh.

My Top Three Books of August

An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena (★★★★★) – This was a really fun mystery—the setting of an old hotel in the middle of a snowstorm was brilliant. This one had lots of twists and turns, and it was quite creepy at times! Add it to your list if you love a good thriller.

Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly (★★★★★) – Anita Kelly is quickly becoming an autobuy author for me, as both of her books have earned five stars from me! This one was delightful, involving two men falling in love while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. I have a passing familiarity with thru-hiking, so it was fun to get a glimpse of it through this novel. The love story was so, so sweet, too.

Falling by TJ Newman (★★★★★) – This book has been everywhere lately, and now I know why. It was such a good, pulse-pounding thriller! It’s about an airline pilot who starts a flight and gets a message that his family has been taken hostage and he must crash the plane (filled with 100+ people!) to save his family. I could not get enough of this book, and I’m astonished it’s a debut.

Other Books I Liked

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell (★★★★☆) – I enjoyed this book all about the different ways cults and cultish groups (like MLMs, startup culture, Instagram influencers, etc.) use language as a powerful tool of engagement. Amanda Montell knows her stuff, and I appreciate the way she broke down how language can have such a positive and negative influence on our lives, depending on the way words are wielded.

An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination by Sheera Frankel and Cecilia Kang (★★★★☆) – I’m not one to read a business book, but I’m endlessly curious about Facebook and the way it has become such a linchpin in our society. This book could be very dry at times, but I learned a lot about the way Facebook started and how it kept going through controversy after controversy.

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (★★★★★) – I love a good time travel story. I don’t get bogged down in the details of how it is happening, which I think makes it easier for me to enjoy than it is for others. This novel was really about Alice and her relationship with her father. They had such a sweet relationship and I found myself really loving their interactions, both in the time before and present day. We read this for book club and everyone loved it!

Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends by Marisa G. Franco (★★★★☆) – I’m always here for a book about friendship. In this book, Dr. Franco discusses why we need friends, how we can make friends, how we can maintain our friendships, and more. I love that she used attachment theory to help us better understand how our own attachment styles can limit ourselves when it comes to friendship. (Unless, of course, you’re one of those lucky ducks with a secure attachment style.)

Love & Saffron by Kim Fay (★★★★☆) – This epistolary novel was such a delight! It follows two women exchanging letters back and forth in the 1960s. Joan is a single twenty-something who aches to have her own writing column while Imogen is in her late 50s and writes a monthly column for a magazine. This novel is pure and sweet and will definitely make you hungry with all of the recipe-swapping they do. I really enjoyed it.

The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth (★★★★★) – This was a supremely satisfying thriller involving two sisters named Rose and Fern. Fern has sensory processing disorder and relies a lot on Rose to help her through life. And then Rose reveals to Fern that she wants to have a baby, but is having trouble getting pregnant. Fern decides then that she can have a baby for Rose… she just needs to find a man who can make that happen. There is a point in the novel when I started to realize what’s actually going on, and man, I just loved the way everything was revealed by the end. Such a well-paced thriller!

Books That Were Meh

Women Are the Fiercest Creatures by Andrea Dunlop (★★★☆☆) – This novel is billed as a feminist look at the tech startup world, but I really found all three women that the novel centers around to be pushovers. There’s Anna, who has recently divorced her husband of many years, Jake; Jessica, Jake’s new wife who is much younger than him; and Sam, Jake’s college girlfriend who has a few secrets of her own. As Jake prepares to take his social media company public, things start unraveling for everyone involved. It was fine, but nothing outstanding, and not one I’m rushing out to recommend.

To the Limit by Cindy Gerard (★★★☆☆) – This is a reread of a romantic suspense series published in the early aughts. It involved a woman and her ex-boyfriend teaming up to find the drugged-out daughter of a very rich man. There was plenty of action and a twisty-turning plot that kept my attention. Does it hold up for 2023 me? Not really. There is some dated language and Donald Trump references that didn’t age well.

A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem by Manda Collins (★★☆☆☆) – This historical mystery involves a female newspaper columnist who is hellbent on solving a murder and a detective inspector who is annoyed as hell at her for disturbing his investigation. It’s got that satisfying enemies-to-lovers trope that I usually loved, but this one was just kind of bland. I didn’t feel the chemistry between the characters and found the mystery itself to be a bit convoluted.

Walk of Shame by Lauren Layne (★★☆☆☆) –  I usually enjoy a Lauren Layne romance, but this one was so bad! It involves a twenty-something socialite and a grumpy lawyer who live in the same apartment building in NYC. He thinks she’s flighty and materialistic, she thinks he’s boring. But somehow they get to know each other and realize they were wrong about one another. Blah, blah, blah, boring.

On the Hustle by Adriana Herrera (★★★☆☆) – Another book that was just fine, but not extraordinary in any way. I really found myself growing tired of the female main character and the way she constantly pushed away her love interest for a reason that just didn’t make sense to me. What she needed was some good, old-fashioned therapy, but the author never addressed that. (Be warned, friends, the sex scenes in this one are spicy! All of the chili peppers!)

What was the best book you read in August?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (7.31.23)

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty (★★★★★)

Man, I loved this book so much. It was the kind of book that was so easy to sink into, even if most of the characters weren’t totally likable. There’s Stan and Joy, a married couple settling into their golden years. They’ve retired from their tennis coaching academy, but things are starting to feel a bit stale for them. Their four children are all grown up with their own lives and barely remember to call or come by. Joy’s desperate for a grandchild, but none of her children seem interested in giving her one. And then Joy disappears, and all signs point to Stan’s guilt. Half of the Delaney siblings don’t believe their father had anything to do with their mother’s disappearance, but the other half aren’t so sure. The story takes us back and forth in time: a few months ago when everything was normal but Stan and Joy had a stranger living with them for a while, and then present day when Joy is missing and there’s an investigation into her disappearance. I found the whole story propulsive and just plain fun. I enjoyed this family, even if they are kinda awful, too? It’s hard to explain. But I loved the story very much. (hardcover from Book of the Month, 2021)

Just My Type by Falon Ballard (★★★★☆)

I enjoyed this contemporary romance and bonus: It counted for the “J” category for my A-Z reading challenge! The story is about Lana and Seth, high school sweethearts who broke up during their first semester of college. Seth suddenly shows up at Lana’s job where she’s a dating and relationship columnist for an online magazine. They haven’t seen each other in 12 years and it’s a shock to her system. And then the two of them are pitted against each other in a competition for the magazine, with the winner getting a coveted columnist job. The enemies-to-lovers trope is one of my favorites in romance, and this one was excellent. I enjoyed Lana and Seth’s banter, and the way they slowly began to mend fences as they went through their competition together. This story was also a sweet love story to Los Angeles, and I thought the ending was perfection. (library e-book, 2023)

Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi (★★★★☆)

Food has always been Kwame Onwuachi’s great love, and that’s why he has spent his whole life working toward his goal of being a successful restaurant owner. He has competed on Top Chef, opened his own catering company using money he raised selling candy bars on the subway, and even opened a talked-about restaurant in Washington, D.C. that eventually failed in a spectacular fashion. In this memoir, Kwame details his life growing up, including the time he was sent away to live in Nigeria for a few months when he was in sixth grade, which is also where his love for the culinary arts grew. From there, Kwame talks about all the different jobs he juggled as he tried to make his cooking dreams a reality: working as a chef on an offshore drilling rig, working in a kitchen with a toxic work environment, and more. Kwame also touches on a lot of racial issues and how the way he looks has affected his own life and career. I thought this was a well-paced memoir and I learned a lot about a chef I know very little about! (library audiobook, 2019)

What are you reading?

Programming note: I will be taking the month of August off blogging. I’ll still be around, commenting on your blogs and such. I’ll be back on Monday, September 4th!

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (7.19.23)

The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve (★★★★☆)

Short synopsis: It’s October 1947 and after a summer-long drought, out-of-control fires break out around the city. Grace’s husband, Gene, has gone to help with the firefighting efforts, leaving her alone—five months pregnant and with two toddlers. And then a fire breaks out in her town, and she has to flee with her kids, unsure where to go, what her home will look like when she returns, and if her husband is okay.

This book was engaging from beginning to end. The beginning chapters take us into Grace’s life as it is now, which is pretty sad, honestly. She’s in a loveless marriage and feels trapped, especially when she learns she has another baby on the way. After the fire breaks out and Grace has to leave her home with her kids, the story really picks up and I found myself fully engaged through all the twists and turns that happen to Grace as she tries to pick up the pieces of her life and move forward while taking care of her children. She’s unsure where her husband is or if he’s even alive, which makes things both more complicated and less so. (More complicated because being a single mother in the 1940s was a difficult prospect; less complicated because she got to experience life without being trapped in a loveless marriage.) I loved Grace’s character so, so much. She was such a strong woman and did whatever she has to for her family. Her evolution throughout the novel was stark, and it was so lovely to witness. (library audiobook, 2017)

A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting by Sophie Irwin (★★★☆☆)

Short synopsis: Kitty Talbot needs a fortune. Or rather, she needs a husband who has a fortune. Left with her father’s massive debts, she has only twelve weeks to save her family from ruin. So she leaves home and heads to London to find herself a titled gentleman. She doesn’t expect to encounter Lord Radcliffe. The worldly Radcliffe sees Kitty for the mercenary fortune-hunter that she really is and is determined to scotch her plans at all costs.

I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. This was our July book club selection, and while most of my friends enjoyed the book (and we had a good discussion about the roles of women and needing a husband in order to achieve wealth!), it just wasn’t my favorite. I didn’t find Kitty to be all that likable, nor did I feel the chemistry between her and Lord Radcliffe. This is a completely closed-door romance, too, which may appeal to some of you, but tends to bum me out (ha). I like a little steam with my romance novels! It’s not a bad book by any means, and is a debut so some of the lackluster writing is to be expected, but I was just hoping for something different. (library e-book, 2022)

The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell (★★★★★)

Short synopsis: In 2017, Kim’s 19-year-old daughter Tallulah disappeared with her boyfriend, leaving behind their infant son. Two years later, her daughter still missing, Kim finally gets a break in the case.

This was such a satisfying thriller! The novel is broken into two timelines: 2017 when Tallulah originally goes missing and 2019 when her case is reactivated. Both storylines were so intriguing, as they both revealed important details that helped me unravel what was happening in the story. The pacing in this story was top-notch and it was just so well-written and propulsive. I’ve read quite a few of Lisa Jewell’s books and this one, by far, is a standout. (library audiobook, 2021)

ABANDONED – The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer

I read a little over 100 pages of this novel, and I was just bored by it. The plot wasn’t very engaging and I didn’t particularly like any of the characters. I wasn’t curious about the plot or what was going to happen to these characters, either, which is always my sign to abandon a book. Win some, lose some.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (7.11.23)

Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley (★★★☆☆)

Print • Library • Contemporary Fiction • 2022

Short synopsis: Follow an eclectic group of people with almost nothing in common except their commute as they discover how a chance encounter can blossom into much more. There’s Iona, the larger-than-life magazine columnist. Sanjay, the nurse with the heart of gold. Emmie, the quiet girl who’s always reading a book on the train. And Piers, the man who almost chokes on a grape and changes the course of all their lives.

There seems to be an influx of these types of books lately: multi-generational people coming together for a specific purpose. I’ve read more than a handful of them lately, and they all truly hit me in my feels. Loneliness is an epidemic, and these authors are trying to remind us of the humanity of the people we live next to, commute with, and work side by side with. I loved the cast of characters in this novel and how different their stories were. (With a large cast of characters, it wasn’t hard to differentiate each story, which is a feat!) Some of them had such beautifully redemptive arcs! My main issue with the book, however, was that the pacing was a bit off. Near the end of the book, the plot started to meander and it felt like the author was trying to figure out the best way to end the book so she just kept writing until she found it. Which could work in some cases, but with this novel, it just felt boring. A tighter edit could have helped. All in all, a feel-good story that could be a great palate cleanser in between more difficult books.

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak (★★☆☆☆)

Print • Library • Thriller • 2022

Short synopsis: Mallory has just finished rehab and is looking for a fresh start. She gets a job as a live-in nanny for a five-year-old boy named Teddy who loves to draw. Soon, though, his drawings morph from cute stick figures to sinister images—drawings well beyond his years. Mallory has to wonder: Is a supernatural force drawing these pictures, and what do these pictures mean?

Oh, goodness. This book was a trainwreck. It was hyped up big time on one of the bookish podcasts I listen to, and I was so excited to read it, but the writing just did not work for me at all. Let’s talk about the good: Mallory. I loved Mallory’s character so much and appreciated the way she was written. (Men writing thrillers often do not write female characters very well.) Also good: All of the drawings in the book. It’s a must-read in print because the illustrations definitely take the book to the next level. Now the bad: the ending. A well-done thriller is only as good as its ending and this one was particularly bad. It had characters changing their behaviors in an instant, a convoluted story that made no sense, and a very problematic reveal at the end. This is not a book I was a fan of, but YMMV, of course.

A Proposal They Can’t Refuse by Natalie Caña (★★☆☆☆)

E-Book • Libby • Contemporary Romance • 2022

Short synopsis: Kamilah is looking to put her family’s Puerto Rican restaurant on the map and save it from closing in their gentrifying neighborhood. Liam’s family’s distillery business has been nominated for a national competition and everything he’s ever wanted is in his grasp. Kamilah and Liam are former best friends turned enemies due to a long-ago feud, and when their meddling grandfathers get involved, telling them they have to get married to keep their businesses intact, they have to figure out how to keep their life’s work without losing their hearts.

If the synopsis for this book sounds very complex, that’s because it is. I had the hardest time writing a synopsis for this book! Why do these grandfathers want their grandchildren who barely like each other to get married? I CAN’T TELL YOU! It was never fully explained in the book, other than they might be matchmakers who see the potential in a relationship between Kamilah and Liam? I think?! This story had the potential to be great (I love a good foodie romance novel!), but it was rife with plot holes and disappointing character decisions. I never felt true chemistry between Liam and Kamilah, and it’s hard to understand why they liked each other so much when they didn’t really have much in common. A pretty mediocre romance, unfortunately.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (7.3.23)

The World Record Book of Racist Stories by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar (★★★★★)

Audiobook • Libby • Nonfiction (Essays) • 2022

Short synopsis: Recounting the wildest tales of racism from their parents, their siblings, and Amber’s nieces and nephews, this intergenerational look at ludicrous (but all too believable) everyday racism as experienced across age, gender, and appearance will have you gasping with shock and laughter in turn. 

This book was so hard to read, and I don’t blame anyone for choosing not to read it. Amber and Lacey do a great job of trying to insert some gallows-type humor into the book, but they also allow space for the hard stuff to be the hard stuff. This is their second book, their first one is mostly about Lacey’s experiences with racism while living in Nebraska and working in corporate-style positions. In this book, we get stories from their parents, their sisters, and some of their friends. It’s not a fun read, but it is an important one. I am committed to reading these uncomfortable books because it’s the very least I can do as someone doing the work of antiracism.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld (★★★★★)

Print • Owned (Book of the Month) • Contemporary Romance • 2023

Short synopsis: Sally and Noah meet on the Saturday Night Live-esque showed called The Night Owls. Sally is a comedy writer on the show while Noah, a successful pop musician, is the guest star. After a fun week together of collaborating on sketches, Sally develops a massive crush but someone as hot as Noah wouldn’t be interested in her, right? Two years later, they’re in the middle of a global pandemic and they start emailing each other.

This book was so sweet. I just loved it! The book was broken up into three sections: the week that Noah was hosting TNO (2018), the email messages Noah and Sally sent to each other (summer 2020), and their reunion in California (2020). Each section was so different from the other and just so interesting! I loved following Sally and Noah through a “typical” week of working on a SNL-type show. (It sounded so very exhausting!) I’m not someone who watches SNL regularly, but I will watch clips on Youtube here and there, so I have a passing familiarity with it and it was fascinating to learn more about the process of how a show like this gets made. When the novel moves forward in time and switches formats, I wasn’t sure how I felt about things but I quickly got sucked in. I’m learning that I don’t mind a Covid subplot in a story; perhaps because Covid didn’t affect my life in any life-altering ways (which is such a privilege, I know!). It’s interesting to see how authors use it as a plot device. Anyway, I really loved the emails that Noah and Sally exchanged and the way they flirted with each other but in a very cautious sort of way. Flirting is so scary when you don’t know if the other person reciprocates your feelings! The final section where they finally reunite (Sally takes a long road trip to his house in California, rather than flying) was really sweet and I was just gaga over the two of them. I love how this was a later-in-life love story (they were both 39, so not over-the-hill by ANY means but most romances involve people in their twenties so this is an outlier) and the way they communicated with each other. It was just everything I wanted!

Have I Told You This Already: Stories I Don’t Want to Forget to Remember by Lauren Graham (★★☆☆☆)

Audiobook • Libby • Nonfiction (Essays) • 2022

Short summary: Lauren Graham opens up about her years working in the entertainment business and shares personal stories about everything from family and friendship to the challenges of aging gracefully in Hollywood.

Oh, it breaks my heart to give this book such a low rating because I love Lauren Graham so much. But this essay collection was just not very good. It felt chaotic at times, boring at others. I found the humor to be a bit tired. Another reviewer mentioned how Lauren just seemed sad in this essay collection, and I had the exact same thought. From the publication date, I assume she wrote this book not very long after her relationship of 11 years ended, and there’s a part of me that wonders how different this essay collection would look if she had more space from that devastating breakup. There were some really strong essays (she seemed to be especially great when talking about her life in Hollywood) but mostly, it wasn’t as introspective as I wanted it to be and there were some problematic essays (like spending time at “health camps”) that she didn’t fully address. Like, I understand that being an actress means maintaining a certain weight in most respects, but I wanted her to further interrogate her feelings on the matter. All in all, not an essay collection I would recommend unfortunately.

What are you reading?