Stephany Writes

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?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (5.28.18)

Well, it was another pretty solid week of reading for me and both books I finished earned a four-star rating from me. How do you rate books? I’ve been thinking about my rating system lately, and I think I’ve come up with a good system:

  • 5 stars: I loved this book and will recommend it to everyone. It changed me.
  • 4 stars: I loved this book and would recommend it.
  • 3 stars: I liked this book, but there were some problems with it.
  • 2 stars: I didn’t like this book, but I can see why others might.
  • 1 star: I hated this book and only read it to finish it.

So, with this rating system in mind, the two books I finished last week are ones that I would recommend – they’re not for everyone and not life-changing enough for me to recommend to everyone I meet, but great reads nonetheless.

Books Finished

Title: How to Walk Away
Author: Katherine Center
Format: Hardcover
Published: 2018
Rating: ★★★★☆

Plot Summary: On what should be the happiest day of Margaret’s life, the day she not only scored her dream job but also got engaged to her longtime boyfriend, tragedy strikes. In the hospital and trying to cope with the idea that her life will never be the same again, she has to find a way to find beauty in the mess.

My Thoughts: I actually finished this book right around midnight on Sunday evening, but it was too late to add it to my post last week. I flew through this book in just two days and thoroughly enjoyed it! It was well-written and didn’t feel too heavy, even though the subject matter was. I also just really enjoyed Margaret’s character and how she wasn’t a pushover, even though she was in the hospital and so reliant on other people. I found some of the characters in the novel to be a little over-the-top unlikable, like her mom and her fiance’s mom. They said some things that felt a little unrealistic, stuff you just wouldn’t say to someone in the hospital. Then again, I’m coming to this novel knowing if I was in Margaret’s place, my mom would be there every step of the way and always offer encouragement and support, so maybe I just can’t understand a mom being more focused on appearances than her own daughter’s healing. I also really didn’t love the ending scene nor the epilogue and I wish the author had chosen a different way to wrap it up (and, really, let’s stop with unnecessary epilogues! Ah.) But, all in all, it was a really enjoyable reading experience and it’s a book I’d definitely recommend.

Title: Moonlight Over Manhattan
Author: Sarah Morgan
Format: Library e-book
Published: 2017
Rating: ★★★★☆

Plot Summary: Professional dog walker, Harriet, takes on an unusual assignment: providing around-the-clock dog-sitting services for a busy ER doctor, who is watching his sister’s dog for a short period of time. It’s a romance, so you can imagine what happens here: sparks fly and both of them have to find a way to be brave enough to take a chance on love.

My Thoughts: Oh, how I loved this novel! Harriet was so relatable as a character, a shy woman who struggles with stammering when she is stressed out or upset and is trying to put herself out there more in the form of daily challenges. When the novel begins, she’s challenging herself by online dating, but it’s not going well. As the novel progresses, however, and she takes on more challenges, she discovers an adventurous side of herself that she never knew existed. I also really, really loved the male hero in this novel, Ethan. He’s an ER doc and there’s just something so damn sexy about that, isn’t there? He’s funny and charming and everything I want in a male hero. I loved watching how the two of them together learned to come out of their shells as they explored the chemistry between them. A really fun and lighthearted romance novel!

What I’m Reading This Week

  • The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan – I’m a little less than 200 pages into this novel and it’s… okay so far. There are five different storylines, each taking place during a different decade, and some storylines are much more interesting to me than others. It’s also more of a character-driven novel than a plot-driven one, and I usually struggle with these types of books. It’s hard to really get invested in a novel when I’m not sure why I need to be invested, you know? I don’t think I’ll abandon it, though. It’s engaging (ha) enough for me to keep reading.
  • I Wish You Were Mine by Lauren Layne – I just downloaded this fun contemporary romance and I am going to start it soon, in between breaks from The Engagements. Lauren Layne’s novels have become my favorite lately. She never lets me down!
  • I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez – Once I finish The Engagements, I’m starting my book club’s June read. I have been wanting to read this book for a long time and it’s gotten rave reviews from friends, so I’m looking forward to diving in.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (5.21.18)

After a short hiatus, I’m back with my weekly reading recap. I’m definitely not going to talk about all the books I finished over the past few weeks (ain’t nobody got time for that!), so I’m starting fresh and just talking about the books I finished over the past week. I thoroughly enjoyed one novel and thoroughly hated the other. Fun! Let’s dive in:

Books Finished

Title: Sleeping Giants
Author: Sylvain Neuvel
Format: Library hardcover
Published: 2016
Rating: ★★★★☆

Plot Summary: A girl named Rose is riding her bike near her home in South Dakota and falls down a hole. When she’s found by rescuers, they peer down to see her laying in a giant metal hand. Seventeen years later, Rose is an enigmatic physicist who is determined to find out the origins of this giant metal hand and what it means for humanity as we know it.

My thoughts: My work book club chose this book as our May pick, and I wasn’t quite sure about it at first. I like science fiction books, but I’m a little wary of books that have a kooky and bizarre synopsis. But that’s what book clubs are all about, right? Getting you to read books you’d never pick up on your own. And I am so glad I gave this one a chance because it was a pretty amazing thrill ride. I think what I appreciated most about this book was how it tried to explore the idea of there being life on other planets and what that could mean for life on Earth. The book is told in transcripts and journal entries, and in some cases, I think this method worked really well and helped the novel move along at a great pace. In other cases, usually the action scenes, it fell apart. I wavered between 3 and 4 stars, but since I read the last 100 pages in one sitting and stayed up late to finish it, I couldn’t give it less than 4. It’s probably not a book I’d recommend to everyone, but good if you’re looking to read something a little bizarre and not too heavy.

Title: The Final Score
Author: Jaci Burton
Format: Library e-book
Published: 2017
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Plot Summary: Longtime friends Nathan and Mia, both newly graduated from college and embarking on new careers, make a friends-with-benefits pact because they just cannot deny the chemistry that sizzles between them.

My Thoughts: Well, it’s not very often that I give a 1-star rating, but this one kinda deserves it. I had a lot of issues with this book, so let’s get right into it, shall we?

  • Issue #1: It’s not realistic to write a novel about a girl who is fresh out of college and starts her own sports management company out of the blue where she has no setbacks whatsoever. First of all, you need to earn the role of CEO by working your way through the ranks, starting at the bottom. She did nothing of the sort and yet, she has a large office in San Francisco with dozens of employees, none of whom resent her for being CEO when she’s 10+ years younger than them? Not relatable, not realistic. It’s also not realistic to have zero setbacks when it comes to starting a business, other than her own insecurity.
  • Issue #2: After being a backup QB during his rookie season, Nathan is now the starting quarterback for an NFL team and yet again, the author has this kid encounter zero setbacks during his first handful of games on the field. His only setback is his own insecurity about taking over for the team his stepfather played for (which in and of itself is a really weird plot twist). I watch football religiously and one thing I know for certain is that anyone’s first time at starting QB doesn’t always go smoothly. There are kinks to figure out and that’s fairly expected. For him to come on the field and immediately be a Tom Brady-level quarterback is so unrealistic that I skimmed my way past the football parts because I just didn’t care.
  • Issue #3: There was no conflict whatsoever in this novel! Romances need to have conflict. They need to have a push/pull dynamic. And there needs to be something happening beyond the romance. There could have been such an interesting side plot involving Mia and her business, but the author just chose to keep the whole novel at surface level.
  • Issue #4: Please. Stop. With. The. Sassy. Black. Best. Friends. That is not okay.

So I mean, yeah. If you hung around for that rant, thanks! I just had to get it off my chest. I’ve read probably 15 or so romances by Jaci Burton, but I think this is the last one I’ll be reading. I just cannot get over how utterly unrealistic and boring this novel was, not to mention the gloriously awful writing. (Usually, I can look past her writing when the romance is sizzlin’, but it just wasn’t there in this one.)

What I’m Reading This Week

  • How to Walk Away by Katherine Center – This was my pick from Book of the Month’s May selections (<– affiliate link; sign up with my code to get a free book!) It tackles a very difficult topic, but in a way that doesn’t make it feel too heavy. I started reading it on Saturday morning and I’m nearly finished, so that can give you an indication of just how much I’m loving it.
  • Moonlight Over Manhattan by Sarah Morgan – Once I finish How to Walk Away, I’ll start this fun contemporary romance from one of my faves.
  • The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan – I was originally going to read this book back in April, but the timing didn’t work out. (I didn’t think I’d be able to finish it before my cruise and didn’t want to bring such a hefty book with me.) So I’m going to start it this week and I hope it’s as great as I expect!

What are you reading this week?