September was a weird reading month for me. I read eight books, so it’s not like I didn’t read, but everything felt like a slog. I don’t know if I read a single book that was an unputdownable, this-is-why-I-love-reading book. I read some good books, but nothing that will make my top ten list at the end of the year.
Maybe I need a break from reading? But I don’t even know what that would look like in my life. Not reading? What am I supposed to do with my free time?!
Or maybe I could just slow down the pace that I read. I tend to read at a breakneck speed, wanting to mark one book off my list, so I can get to the next one. Rush, rush, rush, too many books, so little time. At 90 books read so far this year, I’m easily going to make my goal of reading 100 books, even if I slow down to one book a week.
I don’t know… I’m just thinking here. Life feels a little weird right now, and I’m not really sure what it means. I’ll just keep pushing through and doing the best I can. That’s all anyone can do, right?
In any event, with that depressing introduction, let’s talk about some of the more notable reads from September.
Top Read of the Month
Title: Between the World and Me
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Published: 2015
Rating: ★★★★☆
I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to read Between the World and Me, but I’m glad I finally picked this book up. It’s a book that is bound to make you feel uncomfortable if you’re a white person reading it. At least it did for me. It’s a short book (under 200 pages) and Coates writes it as a letter to his son, describing how he grew up, the injustices he faced, and the state of black people today. He talks about the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, and how racial oppression is a systematic problem in our society that seems to be getting worse – not better. Coates’ writing is impactful and blunt and he doesn’t hold back. It’s not a hopeful read, but neither is what we see happening in the news. Unarmed black men are still being killed by police and these police officers are still not being charged for their crimes. This book is a fantastic primer on what the state of the world is like for black people, and I hope to read more books like this to keep opening my eyes to the injustices black people face. (Add to Goodreads.)
Top Romance of the Month
Title: Sunset on Central Avenue
Author: Sarah Morgan
Published: 2016
Rating: ★★★★☆
Sarah Morgan has been such a delightful discovery this year! I read the first novel in this series (Sleepless in Manhattan) last month and liked it well enough to request the second novel through my library. I was pleased with how much more I enjoyed this novel, mostly because I truly have a soft spot for Frankie and understand her so well. She’s introverted, lived through a tough childhood, and has an obsession with plants. She’s also sworn off dating and sex all together after watching her mom go through boyfriends like they were candy. She wants to be nothing like her mom, but then her best friend Paige’s brother Matt decides he’s going to be the one to break her out of her shell and get her to start living life again. It’s a sweet love story that had none of the annoying miscommunication or will-they-won’t-they push/pull that so many romances seem to have. If you love sweet romances, give Sarah Morgan a try! (Add to Goodreads.)
Other Notable Reads
Title: The Red Hunter
Author: Lisa Unger
Published: 2017
Rating: ★★★★☆
The Red Hunter begins when Claudia, a single mother who went through a horrific tragedy a decade and a half ago, buys a home that is in desperate need of renovation as part of a project for her blog. What she doesn’t know is that ten years ago, this house was the scene of a brutal murder and the people involved in the crime may not be done with the house just yet. It’s one of those stories that have different plot lines happening simultaneously, each chapter featuring a different character. It usually took me a few paragraphs to figure out who was talking in the chapter, so it wasn’t as seamless as I would have liked. I found the ending to be a bit disappointing, but I still gave this book 4 stars because the writing was so phenomenal and I thought the buildup to the final act to be well-thought-out. (Add to Goodreads.)
Title: Crazy Rich Asians
Author: Kevin Kwan
Published: 2013
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Crazy Rich Asians is a light-hearted look at Singaporean culture and what it means to be born into opulent wealth. It’s about Nick and Rachel, who have been dating for two years when Nick invites her to come with him to Singapore for the wedding of his best friend. What Rachel doesn’t know, however, is that Nick’s family is rich. And not just “we-can-afford-to-send-our-child-to-a-private-college” rich, but massively, crazily wealthy. The kind of wealth that people can only dream of. The kind of wealthy that is, frankly, sickening. (I’m talking, “I got a $238,000 bonus check and it wasn’t enough!” type of wealth. The “I bought a $750,000 bracelet because I was sad” type of wealth.) Throughout the novel, we follow Nick and Rachel, as well as all of the crazy family members, like his mom who is not too keen on Rachel and all of his cousins who have their own issues they’re dealing with. I’ll be honest – I didn’t totally enjoy this novel. I thought it was too long, and there were all of these plot lines that didn’t seem to move the story forward and were never resolved. I also never got to a point where I couldn’t put it down; it was super easy to just read a chapter or two and then move on to doing something else. I think I only finished it because I was reading it for book club. So, it’s probably not a book I’d recommend, but I do think it’s a fascinating look into the lives of rich people and Asian culture. Also, it has a pretty great rating on Goodreads (3.7 with 58,000+ reviews), so I think I’m in the minority on this one! (Add to Goodreads.)
Other September reads: Beard in Mind by Penny Reid (★★☆☆☆), Siracusa by Delia Ephron (★★★☆☆), No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah MacLean (★★★☆☆), and Sex Object by Jessica Valenti (★★☆☆☆)
What was the best book you read in September?
Hopefully you will get your reading mojo back this month. Your september reading month was like my August month. It was a lot of meh. But I was also dealing with anxiety related to pregnancy stuff and reading just wasn’t as much of a fun hobby for me as I was so distracted. Maybe you could tackle a long book in October to get away from that tendency to rush through something so you can get to the next. A longer book will force you to slow down and not think about how long until you read your next book since a long book takes a serious commitment!
September was a great month for reading for me. I loved a lot of the books I read. My favorites were Beartown (I liked it even more than A Man Called Ove) and Refugee which is a middle-grade novel about refugees but he author does not take the subject lightly or avoid tragedies as awful things happen to each family of refugees.
The way you feel about September — not having found any “unputdownable, this-is-why-I-love-reading” books — describes my year, so far. Man, it has been a tough year for finding books I just LOVE. One of the books I read was Crazy Rich Asians and I kind of had the same reaction that you did. Interesting on some levels, but kind of all over the place. I give it a solid meh.
Well. Here’s to October being a much better reading month all around! I just finished “Little Fires Everywhere” which was pretty great, so maybe that’s a good foreshadowing of things to come?
I’ve gone through a phase where I read books, good books that I enjoyed, but nothing felt like it completely captivated me and I hated that… but then again, only some special books can really do that, right?
I definitely feel the “rush, rush” … so many books, so little time… and then I often want to “sit” with a book before starting a new one, because I’ve come to love the story and the characters and it feels hard to move on to a new story.