Happy Monday, friends! I had a really wonderful weekend – one of those weekends where I feel like I got to fully turn my brain off and just be. I needed that! And football started up again! I am so, so happy about that. Every Sunday, I go to my mom’s to watch the 1:00 and 4:00 game with her, my brother, and older nephew (and sometimes my stepdad, if he’s in town), and it’s one of my favorite traditions! It was nice to have lots of family time on Sunday. <3
Last week, I finished two books and both were excellent! My reviews are below:
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (★★★★★)
What an insane novel! I knew the overall story about Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos, as I listened to the podcast The Dropout that details what happened and includes interviews with many of the top whistleblowers. But this book provided such greater detail and really outlines how Elizabeth was able to get away with her lies for as long as she did. This book read more like an insane novel (or the plot of a Shonda Rhimes show…) than real life, and I tore through it in a matter of days. Do yourself a favor and pick this book up. You won’t regret it!
The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves (★★★★☆)
I finished this book in two days, which is frankly unheard of for me. Even though I read a lot, I’m usually reading multiple books at one time so it takes me longer to finish them. But I couldn’t put this book down! It’s a romance, featuring a neurodiverse character, Annika, who is on the autism spectrum, and meets a boy named Jonathan while she’s in college. They end up dating, even though Annika’s personality presents a lot of challenges but Jonathan is more than willing to meet them. They break up when Jonathan moves to NYC after college and find each other again 10 years later. I loved Annika so much, and I could really relate to her in some ways, especially regarding social situations and feeling awkward and choosing to remain quiet for fear of saying something dumb. And, oh, the love between Annika and Jonathan! As someone who finds dating so difficult due to my own social anxiety and high sensitivity, I loved seeing how Jonathan cared for Annika and met her where she was, rather than forcing her to be someone she’s not. Anyway, I could talk about this story for hours and how much it meant to me, but I’ll stop here. Just read it!
What I’m reading this week…
> Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalaluddin, on audio. I’m about halfway through this novel, and I love it so much! It’s light-hearted and fun, while also dealing with serious topics.
> City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. Finally came off the holds list at my library for this novel! I like it so far, especially the setting of New York City in the 1940s. It’s a long book (466 pages!) but I think I’ll stick it out.
> American Fairytale by Adriana Herrera. My romance pick for the week is the next book in Herrera’s Dreamers series. Currently, I think I’ve reported 10 content errors to Amazon so maybe I should ask the publisher if they’re looking for a copyeditor? 🤣
What are you reading?
I’m glad you are enjoying “Ayesha at Last” – I really liked that book, too! I finished ‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” last night and started “Evvie Drake Starts Over.” I loved Eleanor Oliphant. It did take me awhile to get into it and get a feeling for the main character but once her story unfolded I really enjoyed it. I’m loving Evvie Drake Starts Over. If you haven’t read it, I think you should check it out. It’s really great so far and I had a hard time putting it down.
I’m not sure what I will read next, though. I bought “The Warmth of Other Sons” at Half Priced Books when I sold some books a couple of weeks ago. It’s about the great Migration after the end of slavery. I ended up buying it because it’s really long and I wanted to own the copy and not be stressed about getting it back to the library on time (I can’t bear to return things late and there is a wait list for this book). It’s super long and I’ve wanted to read it for a long time but have avoided it because I know it’s going to be a tough read. But I might tackle it later this month.
Both of those sound good! I am interested in hearing more about Elizabeth Holmes, especially if she has some sort of disorder that made her think it was okay to lie (I really don’t know much).
I really like some parts of City of Girls. I am curious to hear what you think!
I am reading a hard sci fi novel, Primoridal Threat.
How do you manage to read several books at once and keep all the plots and characters straight? Have you talked about this? I don’t think I could pull it off! And how to you decide which one to read when? Is it based on format (audio vs hard copy) and your mood for what to read?