What I’m Reading (6.8.20)

Happy Monday, friends. Well, it was another crazy reading week for me. I finished four books again! Whew. To be fair, two of these books were romance novels and one was a short graphic memoir, so don’t be too impressed. 😉 I’m 9 books ahead of my goal to read 135 books this year. My crazy reading pace has me wondering if I could somehow hit that elusive goal of reading 150 books this year. Hmm… I’m not going to jump through hoops to make it happen, but I’ll be paying close attention to my Goodreads goal as the year progresses.

Books Finished

The Darkest Hour by Maya Banks (★★★★☆)

One-sentence synopsis: On the one-year anniversary of his wife’s death, Ethan finds out his wife is very much alive and has been kidnapped by a drug cartel so he calls on his brothers—all former military—to rescue her.

I’ve been searching for a really good romantic suspense series to sink into, and Maya Banks delivered with this first novel in a long series. While the dialogue could be awkward and sometimes the plot felt a little unbelievable, I enjoyed the relationship between Ethan and Rachel a lot. Ethan comes from a big family (six boys!) so it was fun to learn about the different brothers and their dynamics. I also thought the author did such a good job with Rachel, who obviously has a lot of trauma to heal from after being in captivity for a year, and her journey seemed believable to me. I’m looking forward to continuing this series!

The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir (★★★★★)

Short synopsis: At 17, Essie is the youngest child on Six for Hicks, a reality TV show that follows a preacher and his family. When Essie finds out she’s pregnant, a decision has to be made for their TV show: Does Essie get a quiet abortion, does her mom raise the baby as her own, or does Essie get married off?

Man, I really loved this book! I had low expectations for it, as the book received mixed reviews from my friends on Goodreads, but it was the case of the right book at the right time for me. The story alternates between three people: Essie, Rourke (the man Essie is going to marry), and Libby, a conservative reporter who is interviewing Essie about her upcoming nuptials. The voices between the three characters could have been more differentiated, for sure, but it didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the book. There were a lot of twists and turns in the novel—many of which I didn’t expect and couldn’t have predicted—and the overarching storyline is one I could wholly appreciate. Also, that ending! <3

March: Book 1 by John Lewis (★★★★★)

One-sentence synopsis: A graphic memoir about U.S. Representative John Lewis’s childhood, his life-changing meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the nonviolent lunch counter sit-in protests he participated in as a college student.

Way back at the beginning of the year when I was looking at the monthly challenges for The Unread Shelf Project. I selected March: Book 1 for June. June’s challenge is to “read the first book in a series,” and I think this graphic memoir is the only book on my shelf that qualified. And it ended up being the most timely read! It’s a graphic novel, and I don’t know if I’ve ever read that format before. I was so captivated by the story and the drawings. The drawings truly added an extra layer to this incredible story of John Lewis’s life, especially since it was juxtaposed against an iconic day: Obama’s inauguration. I’m definitely planning on picking up the next books in this series because I want to read more about Lewis’ life!

Intercepted by Alexa Martin (★★☆☆☆)

One-sentence synopsis: After Marlee finds out her boyfriend of 10 years has been cheating on her, she breaks up with him just in time for a blast from her past to come back into her life.

Ughhhh. I wanted to like this book so much! I love sports romances, but most of them tend to center white stories when we know sports teams, especially football, are majority Black. I loved the character of Marlee—she was such a fun woman who was easy to root for! And Gavin, the male lead, was so dreamy and perfect in all the right ways. However, I had many issues with this book, like the excessive use of hashtags. The pace of the novel was very weird, too, as all the action happened in the first half and the second half just meandered slowly until the dark moment. And the dark moment… oh geez. I am super critical of dark moments (which is the part of a romance novel where things fall apart/the couple breaks up/everything feels hopeless) and this one was especially bad, as Gavin did something that was so completely out of character for him that I felt like I was reading a different book. There was also a side plot involving the football wives that just felt overly dramatic and unrealistic. I don’t doubt that football wives can be catty and mean-spirited, but the whole situation was over-the-top and woman-on-woman hate is never going to be something I enjoy in a novel. All in all, a book that had a lot of potential but just didn’t live up to my standards.

What I’m Reading Now

• The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esme Weijun Wang – I bought this book at Brookline Booksmith in Boston during my trip last year. I’m reading two chapters a day and really enjoying Esme’s writing style and her honesty in talking about her schizophrenia diagnosis.
• Hum If You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais – I’m listening to my first audiobook since March! I used to listen to audiobooks on my commute, but now it’s a struggle just to keep up with my podcast feed. But now that I’m more caught up on my feed (only a week behind, rather than four weeks), I decided to download an audiobook to listen to. I’m only two hours into this 14-hour audiobook, but enjoying it so far!
• Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay – I’ve had this epistolary novel on my Goodreads TBR shelf for six years. Oof. It was available for immediate download on Libby so I snatched it up for something light-hearted to read this week.

What are you reading?