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?