Stephany Writes

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (6.25.18)

Hello friends and happy Monday. I had a really great weekend and I am gearing up for a very busy week. I have deadlines on deadlines at work, as well as some fun social plans, like going to see Ocean’s 8 with my girlfriends and watching the season premiere of Big Brother with my mom. Don’t you worry, though. I’ll be sneaking in as much reading time as possible. 🙂

Last week, I finished three books, but I’m only going to be talking about two here. The third one, A Storied Life, will get its own review on Wednesday, so stay tuned for that!

Books Finished

Title: Running Blind
Author: Cindy Gerard
Format: Library e-book
Published: 2015
Rating: ★★★★☆

Plot Summary: When Jamie and Rhonda are tasked to take on a high-stakes security mission together, the sexual tension that has been brewing between them becomes too much to resist.

My Thoughts: This wasn’t my favorite book by Gerard because it got off to a slow start and I wasn’t quite sure if I even liked either hero at first. There was this distance between me and them, so it was hard to really grasp their internal motivations. And the first 50% of the book was pretty slow, which is unusual for a Gerard book. Her books are usually pretty fast-paced from beginning to end, but for the first half of the book, I really didn’t know where it was going. When the book finally picked up, however, it didn’t slow down at all and I couldn’t put the book down for anything. I wish the book had had a bit more character development, but all in all, a pretty good romantic suspense novel.

Title: Final Girls
Author: Riley Sager
Format: Library audiobook
Published: 2017
Rating: ★★★★★

Plot Summary: Quincy is the sole survivor of a brutal massacre that happened while on vacation with friends when she was in college, and as such, she becomes a final girl. She becomes a media sensation, just like the two final girls before her – Lisa, who survived a massacre at a sorority house, and Sam, who survived a massacre during her shift at the Nightlight Inn. Quincy has built a life for herself in the ten years since, but then Lisa turns up dead and Sam shows up at her home. Sam is a force to be reckoned with, demanding Quincy relive that frightful night and spilling out so many truths and lies that Quincy doesn’t know what to believe anymore. Or if her memory of the night a decade ago is even real.

My Thoughts: Oh boy, oh boy. I loved this thriller so damn much! I don’t think I’ve been so shocked by the twists and turns a book has taken in a long, long time and I can tell you that Riley Sager knows how to deftly craft an incredibly complex novel. I listened to this book on audio and it was perfect. I never wanted to stop listening because I never knew what was going to happen next, which is the true sign of a great book because I can usually stop and start audiobooks easily. I loved Quincy and Sam’s push/pull dynamic because I honestly never knew who was telling the truth or what to believe. Highly recommend!

What I’m Reading This Week

  • 1984 by George Orwell – I have about 150 pages left of this classic sci-fi novel and I think the reason I am loving it so much is that it feels so terrifyingly real. I have highlighted so many passages that resonate with me, solely based on what has been happening in politics ever since the worst human became president.
  • Fool Me Once by Katee Robert – When I need a break from 1984, I’m reaching for this sweet contemporary romance. It’s a short book (under 200 pages) and not particularly well-written, but it’s a nice palate cleanser.
  • The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang – Once I finished 1984, I’m going to start the book I picked out from June’s Book of the Month (<– affiliate link) selections. I am so excited to dive into this one!

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (6.18.18)

Happy Monday, friends. Last week was a doozy for me. Taking care of a three-month-old puppy is no joke, and it lent very little time for blogging or reading. Even so, I managed to finish two books because even in a busy season, I always, always make time for reading, even if it’s only for a few minutes right before bed. Here’s what I finished last week:

Books Finished

Title: Beauty and the Mustache
Author: Penny Reid
Format: Library e-book
Published: 2014
Rating: ★★★★☆

Plot Summary: Ashley hasn’t been home to Tennessee in eight years, but a family tragedy forces her back home and back to her six brothers. While home, Ashley is introduced to Drew and neither of them can tamp down the instant attraction between them. But her life is in Chicago while his is in the mountains of Tennessee – is this just a recipe for disaster?

My Thoughts: I think the reason I loved this book so much was because it heavily featured the brothers from Penny Reid’s Winston Brothers series, and I adore them. They are so well-written and well-characterized, and it was nice to get Ashley’s story because, while she’s been featured in the books in that series, I never knew exactly her origin story nor how she and Drew got together. I didn’t find the romance in this book as compelling as I wanted it to be, but it really took a backseat to the bigger plot that was Ashley and her brothers losing their beloved mother to cancer. This was so heartbreaking, but the author did a great job of conveying all of the emotions that come with this type of tragedy – because, truthfully, it’s not always about crying and feeling sad; it’s also about laughter and memories. It was beautifully written, and I loved that the romance didn’t overshadow that aspect until later in the book.

Title: Educated
Author: Tara Westover
Format: Library hardcover
Published: 2018
Rating: ★★★★☆

Plot Summary: Tara Westover grew up in Idaho, living with her survivalist family and never receiving any sort of formal education. She’s sixteen when she decides to pursue academia and, in doing so, fights against everything her family has ever taught her.

My Thoughts: Oy, this book made me so angry and I feel like this review may be all over the place. Bear with me. I was angry with Tara’s parents and the way they had no real regard for their kids’ safety. I was angry with the way Tara was gaslighted again and again and again by her own family. I was angry with the way Tara continually put herself in unsafe situations. I was angry with the way the Bible was used as a tool to torment and keep women down. So much anger. At times, I held the book in my hands and shook it because I could not believe some of the stuff I was reading. It was horrific and shocking and the fact that Tara didn’t have any sort of advocate in her family was sobering. She had to become her own advocate, and she became one due to academia. Academia is what saved her; it showed her that there’s a great big world out there, one that believes a woman can be more than a wife and mother, and that Mormonism isn’t the only truth. This book was hard to read at times because it was just so heartbreaking to read everything Tara had to endure. It was also heartbreaking to read how she continually tried to find her place in her family in the years after she left home to pursue academia, even when it was obvious that being with them wasn’t the best place for her to be. She rose above what was expected of her, and the result is a woman who found her own inner strength to live her own truth, a truth that is so different from what she was told growing up. This book was both stunning and agonizing, and I encourage anyone to give it a read.

What I’m Reading This Week

  • A Storied Life by Leigh Kramer – I’m about halfway through this delightful story, and yep, it’s as good as I had imagined it would be. I’ll be writing a full review of this novel next week, so stay tuned for that!
  • Final Girls by Riley Sager – This is my fiction audiobook pick for the month of June, and I can’t remember the last time I was so invested in an audiobook! Usually, I’m not always excited to listen to my audiobook because it takes me away from my podcasts (and podcasts usually don’t require as much active listening as audiobooks), but with this compelling thriller, I kinda just want to forget about my podcast feed and binge through the entire book. It’s so good so far!
  • 1984 by George Orwell – Once I finish A Storied Life, it’s time for my second “classic” of the year. I picked 1984 because it’s one of those books everyone talks about, but I was never assigned to read it in school. Fingers crossed I enjoy it!
  • Running Blind by Cindy Gerard – I’m also going to pick up this romantic suspense novel from one of my faves. It’s been sitting in Overdrive for me for a couple of weeks now, so I need to read it before it expires! I’ll read this in between pages of 1984.

What are you currently reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (6.11.18)

Happy Monday, friends! I am puppy-sitting for my fur-brother this week and man oh man, puppies are exhausting! This little boy is keeping me on my toes, that’s for sure, and he’s not too keen on my attention being diverted with books. 😉 We’ll see how many books I can get through this week when my time is taken up with lots of walks and puppy playtime.

Last week, I finished two books and that’s about my average lately. I’m A-OK with that average, most definitely.

Books Finished

Title: Boy Erased
Author: Garrard Conley
Format: Library audiobook
Published: 2016
Rating: ★★★★☆

Plot Summary: When Garrard Conley is outed to his parents at the age of 19, he is given an ultimatum: attend a conversion therapy program or risk being disowned by his family.

My Thoughts: What a harrowing story. My heart broke over and over again for everything Garrard went through from an early age through his time spent in this conversion program – and even afterward, as his emotional turmoil would last far beyond his time in the program. His story is told in brutal detail and with intense vulnerability; he truly doesn’t hold back and he well shouldn’t. Conversion therapy is a despicable thing and incredibly harmful. I can only imagine the amount of courage and bravery it took Garrard to tell his story. I highly, highly recommend this book.

Title: Dance with Me
Author: Alexis Daria
Format: e-book
Published: 2017
Rating: ★★★☆☆

Plot Summary: When Natasha comes home one day to find her apartment flooded and realizes she needs to move out temporarily while it gets fixed, she doesn’t know who to turn to. She doesn’t have enough money to afford a hotel room for an indeterminate amount of time and her best friend just moved across the country. So she accepts the offer from Dimitri, her sometimes-booty call and the man she can’t seem to quit, to stay at his home until her apartment is livable again on one condition: no sleeping together.

My Thoughts: I really, really loved Alexis Daria’s debut novel, Take the Lead, mostly because I enjoyed the main characters so much (Gina & Stone 4 Evah!). This one fell a little flat for me, mostly because I didn’t really love Natasha, nor did I agree with the message the author was trying to get across. In this novel, Natasha is a girl who has constantly leaned on her friends to the detriment of her own independence and now she’s deciding to stand on her own two feet. Okay, fine. That’s great. You do that, Natasha! But she tends to take it a little too far, to the point of avoiding her best friend’s phone calls because she doesn’t want to tell her that she’s screwed up and not allowing any of her other friends to know that she’s living with Dimitri and in a bit of a bind. That’s not what being independent is all about! Being independent is about solving your own problems and depending on yourself, while also recognizing that your friends are there to be a sounding board, a shoulder to cry on, and a helping hand. I think Natasha finally comes around to understanding this, but it takes her nearly 90% of the book to realize it and it frustrated me a lot. The romance, however, between Natasha and Dimitri was hot, hot, hot and I was here for it! I loved watching the two of them interact, and I also loved that Dimitri wasn’t your typical male hero. He had some obvious faults (I mean, he’s a bit of a man whore…), but he also loved Natasha deeply and that’s all that really mattered.

What I’m Reading This Week

  • Educated by Tara Westover – I’m a little over 150 pages into this memoir that I’m reading for two book clubs. Whenever I can get both my book clubs to read the same book, I feel golden, haha. My work book club picked it as our June read and my local book club picked it as our July read, so two birds, one stone, etc. It’s okay so far, but not wowing me as I thought it would. I may have set my expectations too high.
  • Beauty and the Mustache by Penny Reid – My romance pick for this week! I’ve been on the Overdrive wait list for a really long time (so long that I nearly decided to just buy the dang e-book when I found out I was next in line!), so I’m glad it’s finally my turn. This one is fun because it combines two characters from two different series – her Knitting in the City and Winston Brothers series.
  • A Storied Life by Leigh Kramer – Yayyyy! I was stoked when I got the email from Leigh that I’m on her launch team to review her debut novel. I adore Leigh and I am so looking forward to sitting down with her novel. I have no doubt it will be a wonderful read!

What are you currently reading?

Categories: Books

Reading Wrap-Up | May 2018

Ooh, we are nearly ten days into June and I’m just now writing my reading recap for May – whoops! It’s just the way my blogging schedule shook out this month. In any event, May was an interesting month of reading. I read 10 books, which is about average for me, but only half of them were 4 or 5 stars. The other half were books that I either didn’t like or felt neutral about. However, one of the books I read is definitely in the running to be my overall favorite for 2018, so it all evens out.

Another interesting thing about May is that I didn’t listen to any audiobooks this month – ahh. Due to being on my cruise, I missed a full week of podcasts and my feed felt a little out of control, so I decided to take the month off listening to audiobooks to catch up on my podcast feed. I’ll be back on my audiobook game in June, though!

May Reading List

  • Overall favorite: The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman
  • Favorite romance: Moonlight Over Manhattan by Sarah Morgan (review)
  • Other 4 and 5-star reads:
    • The Day of the Duchess by Sarah MacLean
    • Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel (review)
    • How to Walk Away by Katherine Center (review)
    • I Wish You Were Mine by Lauren Layne (review)
  • Books I was lukewarm about: We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby, About That Kiss by Jill Shalvis
  • Books I didn’t like: The Final Score by Jaci Burton (review), The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan (review)

Other Book Stats

  • Number of pages read: 3,343
  • Breakdown of formats: physical books (5), ebooks (5)
  • Breakdown of genres: fiction (3), nonfiction (1), science fiction (1), romance (5)
  • Number of diverse reads: 1 (10% – eeks)
  • Where I sourced my books: library/Overdrive (7), Amazon (1), Barnes & Noble (1), Book of the Month (1)
  • Book that took me the longest time to read: The Engagements (12 days)
  • Book that took me the shortest time to read: How to Walk Away (2 days)
  • Expense of books read: $24.98

Favorite Quotes

“Here’s what I think: I don’t think there is just one person for everyone. I think there are actually lots. But think about how many people you meet, and how many people you don’t meet. Hundreds of people pass you on the street every day, and somewhere among them might be the one you could fall in love with, have children with, or just live with in peace and harmony for your whole life. But what if they turn the corner before you do, or go back to get something they forgot, or take one minute longer to get coffee at Starbucks… you might never meet. And then what if you do meet but for some reason you’re having an off day, or they are, or they just broke up with someone, or they’re coming down with a cold, or whatever, so for whatever reason you don’t click right away with. It’s amazing anyone hooks up at all, really.” – The Garden of Small Beginnings

“From then on, whenever Kate caught sight of her sister’s diamond ring, she felt uneasy. She hated that it was supposed to symbolize love and perfection, an idea that seemed so removed from the nature of marriage itself, which even as its best was messy and mundane. She resented the whole notion that a relationship was perfect just because two people got married.” – The Engagements

“Whenever she’d thought about it, and she’d thought about it often, she’d imagined love would be a gentle, comforting, enveloping feeling. Like bathing in warm water or being wrapped in a blanket. She hadn’t expected it to feel like this. Hadn’t expected the wild intoxication that felt as if she’d inhaled an illegal substance. It made her giddy. It made her want to smile at times where no smile was warranted. When she was feeding one of the dogs or occupied by some mundane task like peeling potatoes.” – Moonlight Over Manhattan 

What’s the best book you read in May?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (6.4.18)

Happy Monday, friends! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I’m in a season of change right now, and my anxiety does not fare well during these types of seasons. It’s made me overly emotional and insomnia has been a not-welcome companion to my nights. So, I tried to make sure this weekend was all about me (one of the great benefits of being single): I got lots of sleep, did a ton of reading, and took a long walk in a nature preserve. I also saw Chip! He was outside with my mom when I stopped by and once he saw me, he came running and got super excited! It made my heart so happy that he knows me and loves me deeply already. I feel the same way, buddy. 🙂 Anyway, this weekend truly rejuvenated me and I’m feeling ready to take on this week and handle the changes happening personally and professionally with new vigor.

Last week, I finished three books, and here are my reviews:

Books Finished

Title: I Wish You Were Mine
Author: Lauren Layne
Format: Library e-book
Published: 2016
Rating: ★★★★☆

Plot Summary: It’s been a year since Jackson’s life fell apart: a car accident ended his football career and since he was found in the car with another woman, also his marriage. Now he’s living in NYC and working as a health and fitness writer for a men’s magazine. When he reconnects with his ex-wife’s sister, Mollie, sparks fly but both are wary. For Jackson, it’s hard for him to trust another woman after the way his marriage imploded. For Mollie, who has had a crush on Jackson for years, it’s hard to reconcile the idea of moving in on her sister’s ex-husband.

My Thoughts: When I first read the synopsis for this romance, I was a little taken aback. It seemed a little irreverent, the idea of a man and his ex-wife’s sister falling in love. But, you know what, it worked. And it worked because Mollie was such a delightful character and so was Jackson. They were these two vulnerable souls who needed each other, both because they’d been unlucky in love and because they’d both been broken down by their one common denominator: Mollie’s sister, Madison. And, oh man, was Madison an extremely unlikable character. There were exactly zero redeeming things about her – to the point that it was hard to understand why Mollie loved her so much. I understand that it’s more complicated when it’s family, but take it from me, you don’t have to love your family. And just because they’re family doesn’t mean they get a pass on treating you like shit. I think if there was a weak point of this novel, it was Mollie and Madison’s relationship because it felt a little forced and unnatural. I think the author could have tried a little harder to make Madison redeemable instead of such a villain. But, all in all, the novel still gave me all of the happy, mushy feelings and I’m so glad that Mollie and Jackson got their happy ending.

Title: The Engagements
Author: J. Courtney Sullivan
Format: Hardcover
Published: 2014
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Plot Summary: This novel follows the life of Frances Gerety, a pioneering woman in the advertising world who came up with the slogan, A Diamond Is Forever, as well as four unique marriages as they test whether that saying is actually true.

My Thoughts: Oy, this book was a slog for me. It’s one of those books where I can understand why it’s so well-loved by others, but it just did not land for me and my reading tastes. I’m typically not drawn to character-driven novels and this is exactly what this novel was. Plus, I had a hard time liking many of the characters in this novel, and a lot of the storylines just downright depressed me. These marriages are very true-to-life, very real, very raw, but it also made them hard to read about. They just made me sad! Perhaps I just wasn’t in the right head space for this novel because it seems like I’m definitely in the minority with my opinion. I think it’s the perfect novel for people who love character-driven stories with real, flawed characters, but that just isn’t my jam right now.

Title: I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
Author: Erika L. Sanchez
Format: Library hardcover
Published: 2017
Rating: ★★★★☆

Plot Summary: When Julia’s perfect older sister, Olga, dies in a tragic accident, she is left to pick up the pieces. She has to contend with the dreams she’s always had – moving to New York for college, becoming a famous writer – with the knowledge that she’s essentially abandoning her family to do so, something her perfect sister Olga would never even think about doing. But then Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect after all and goes on a quest to find out exactly what secrets her big sister was hiding.

My Thoughts: I flew through this book over the weekend, finishing it on Sunday night. It’s a quick read, even though it does have some heavy subject matters, as it deals with the aftermath of a young person dying as well as the immigrant experience. I found the voice in this novel to be so refreshing and unique, and I really felt like I could understand Julia as a sixteen-year-old. She was brash and opinionated and frustrating and vulnerable and overwhelmed. She was difficult to read at times because she was just so sixteen (you know what I’m talking about). I wanted to shake her as much as I wanted to give her a big ole hug. It’s a YA novel, so it’s not going to appeal to everyone, but this is definitely a book that lived up to my expectations and I’d encourage anyone to give a read, especially if you want to understand the immigrant experience in a deeper, more meaningful way.

What I’m Reading This Week

  • Dance With Me by Alexis Daria – I loved Alexis Daria’s debut novel, Take the Lead, and when Dance With Me showed up in one of my BookBub emails a few weeks ago, I snatched it up!
  • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman by Anne Helen Petersen – This book sounds like it’s right up my alley and it’s been recommended by a lot of people, so it went on my “immediate TBR” list (I keep a long list of books that I want to read ASAP, books I don’t want to get lost in my long Goodreads TBR list, and I try to read two books off this list every month). I’ve been looking forward to reading this one for a long time,!
  • Boy Erased by Garrard Conley – I’m listening to this memoir on audio, and it is fantastic so far. It follows Garrard’s story of being in a conversion therapy program when he was just nineteen after he was outed to his conservative Christian family.

What are you reading?