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Spring sprang and summer is here! This means a lot more walks with the babe and that means more audiobooks! AND a handful of flights and vacations so yes to books! Sooooo here’s another 9 books. And yes, I hit my goal of reading/ listening to 15 books this year. Guess I gotta up the goal for next year!
@letsjessthismess
Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner 📖
Goodreads synopsis: Helen’s idyllic life—handsome architect husband, gorgeous Victorian house, and cherished baby on the way (after years of trying)—begins to change the day she attends her first prenatal class and meets Rachel, an unpredictable single mother-to-be. Rachel doesn’t seem very maternal: she smokes, drinks, and professes little interest in parenthood. Still, Helen is drawn to her. Maybe Rachel just needs a friend. And to be honest, Helen’s a bit lonely herself. At least Rachel is fun to be with. She makes Helen laugh, invites her confidences, and distracts her from her fears.
But her increasingly erratic behavior is unsettling. And Helen’s not the only one who’s noticed. Her friends and family begin to suspect that her strange new friend may be linked to their shared history in unexpected ways. When Rachel threatens to expose a past crime that could destroy all of their lives, it becomes clear that there are more than a few secrets laying beneath the broad-leaved trees and warm lamplight of Greenwich Park.
My review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Wow. Just wow. This is one of the best books I have read in quite a while. Like any good mystery the author leads you down one path and just when you think you have it all figured out- bam!- twist. Then- BAM!- twist again! I seriously couldn’t believe it. A lot of people say this book is very similar to The Girl on the Train, which, I confess, I have not read because I thought it was going to be too scary but now I might have to read it!
**I should note that this book should come with a trigger warning as it handles rape and pregnancy loss.
The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle 📖
Goodreads synopsis: We’ve been waiting for an hour. That’s what Audrey says. She states it with a little bit of an edge, her words just bordering on cursive. That’s the thing I think first. Not: Audrey Hepburn is at my birthday dinner, but Audrey Hepburn is annoyed.
At one point or another, we’ve all been asked to name five people, living or dead, with whom we’d like to have dinner. Why do we choose the people we do? And what if that dinner was to actually happen? These are the questions Rebecca Serle contends within her utterly captivating novel, The Dinner List, a story imbued with the same delightful magical realism as One Day,and the life-changing romance of Me Before You.
When Sabrina arrives at her thirtieth birthday dinner she finds at the table not just her best friend, but also three significant people from her past, and well, Audrey Hepburn. As the appetizers are served, wine poured, and dinner table conversation begins, it becomes clear that there’s a reason these six people have been gathered together.
Delicious but never indulgent, sweet with just the right amount of bitter, The Dinner List is a romance for our times. Bon appetit.
My review: ⭐️⭐️ Meh. If it wasn’t for book club, I might’ve read the back cover and I probably wouldn’t have picked it up at all. I think I am just not in on the entire premise of this book. The “who are the 5 people living or dead you’d have dinner with” is just not my thing. I really think that it was just a little too unreal for me to get into it. For some reason it’s far more likely that magic and dragons are real but having dinner with dead people is completely far fetched. And the end was very unsatisfying- there are lots of questions unanswered and I felt very much like “that’s it” and not in a good way. It felt like the story had all of this potential but just fell completely flat. I dunno… it was just not my bag. To be fair on one note, I listened to this book which was read by the author and you seriously missed an actor’s reading. Altogether, it’s a meh from me.
Just Haven’t Met You Yet by Sophie Cousens
Goodreads synopsis: Laura’s business trip to the Channel Islands isn’t exactly off to a great start. After unceremoniously dumping everything in her bag in front of the most attractive man she’s ever seen in real life, she arrives at her hotel only to realize she’s grabbed the wrong suitcase from the airport. Her only consolation? The irresistibly appealing contents of the case: a copy of her favorite book; piano music; and a rugged, heavy knit fisherman sweater only a Ryan Gosling lookalike could pull off. The owner of this suitcase is Laura’s dream man–she’s sure of it. Now, all she has to do is find him.
The mix-up seems written in the stars. After all, what are the odds that she’d find The One on the same remote island where her mom and dad had first fallen in love, especially as she sets out to write an article about their epic romance? Commissioning surly cab driver Ted to ferry her around seems like her best bet in both tracking down the mystery suitcase owner and retracing her parents’ footsteps. And if beneath Ted’s gruffness lies a wit that makes their cab rides strangely entertaining, so much the better. But as Laura’s long-lost luggage soulmate proves difficult to find–and as she realizes that the love story she’s held on a pedestal all her life might not have been that perfect–she’ll have to rethink her whole outlook on love to discover what she really wants.
My review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Ahhhhh… just about everything you want from a rom-com book. Gorgeous setting of the Channel Islands, a perfect meet cute, will-they-won’t-they tension, a Noah/Allie/Lon type love triangle, and a perfect happy ending (with a little “what??” moment) with just enough spice. Ugh I just love it. I loved the characters in this book as well. Our main character, Laura, is basically a classic hopeless romantic looking for her Prince Charming and stumbling along the way. I also loved the beautifully full side characters. We meet so many people of the island with the most perfect small town kooky personalities. It’s everything that my Stars Hallow loving heart loves and dreams of. So pretty much everything was right up my alley.
True Biz by Sara Novic
Goodreads synopsis: True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history final, and have doctors, politicians, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they’ll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who’s never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school’s golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the headmistress, who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin, and February find their lives inextricable from one another–and changed forever.
This is a story of sign language and lip-reading, cochlear implants and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. Absorbing and assured, idiosyncratic and relatable, this is an unforgettable journey into the Deaf community and a universal celebration of human connection.
My review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ So… a little background of me… I LOVE ASL. I took it as a foreign language all through college and even looked into being an interpreter. Now, after 10 years of not being involved in the community, I would call myself kindergarten conversational. So naturally I have a soft spot for the ASL language and Deaf community. That being said, this book was a great coming of age type story with a really clear look at the Deaf community and the struggles of Deaf children of hearing adults. The problem I have with this book is that the plot is a little lack luster. It never really went anywhere. For that reason I knocked off some stars. Excellent look into the community and the details are top notch, plot left something to be desired. One other thing; I listened to the audio book which is, like, well, super ironic huh? But the reading of it was great. They added the sounds of ASL (the hits of hands and breath that goes with some signs etc.) which was a really nice touch.
Book Lovers by Emily Henry 📖
Goodreads synopsis: Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.
Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.
If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.
My review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Absolute perfection. Literally perfect. It’s the perfect “anti-rom-com rom-com”. It’s dives into the awesome tropes that you see in Hallmark movies like “the city girl who loves her job and looses the guy” and “the broody guy who is perfectly hot but doesn’t fit in” but they don’t follow the typical trajectory of those characters. Even though they are not the typical rom-com protagonists the story is pretty much exactly what you think will happen. It’s like comfort food for your brain. On top of that, the writing is SO GOOD. The witty banter, the sexually charged sarcasm, the perfect amount of spice- it’s all speaking my language. Also, like Just Haven’t Met You Yet, this book takes place in a perfect small town setting. Another Stars Hallow type town of my dreams.
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Goodreads synopsis: A gripping novel about the whirlwind rise of an iconic 1970s rock group and their beautiful lead singer, revealing the mystery behind their infamous break up.
Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six, but nobody knows the real reason why they split at the absolute height of their popularity…until now.
Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go-Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.
Another band getting noticed is The Six, led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.
Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.
My review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Holy crap. This is one of the best audiobooks I have ever listened to. They have a full cast reading each different voice and it seriously reads like a documentary. It’s so real and raw you genuinely forget that these are not real people. This is not a real band or real music. But I swear I was dying to listen to their music. But of course it’s a story and you can’t. But doesn’t that make a perfect book? Wishing it were real? Taylor Jenkins Reid really did it in this book. I liked Malibu Rising but I LOVED Daisy Jones. Also a little something I love is when an author has entirely separate books but they live in the same world. Mick Riva is mentioned in this book and it just made me happy to hear him mentioned again. I love me a callback.
**Trigger warning: addiction & abortion.
Hello Girls by Brittany Cavallaro & Emily Henry
Goodreads synopsis: Best friends are forged by fire. For Winona Olsen and Lucille Pryce, that fire happened the night they met outside the police station—both deciding whether to turn their families in.
Winona has been starving for life in the seemingly perfect home that she shares with her seemingly perfect father, celebrity weatherman Stormy Olsen. No one knows that he locks the pantry door to control her eating and leaves bruises where no one can see them.
Lucille has been suffocating beneath the needs of her mother and her drug-dealing brother, wondering if there’s more out there for her than disappearing waitress tips and generations of barely getting by.
One harrowing night, Winona and Lucille realize they can’t wait until graduation to start their new lives. They need out. Now. All they need is three grand, fast. And really, a stolen convertible to take them from Michigan to Las Vegas can’t hurt.
My review: ⭐️⭐️💫 Maybe it was just me but this book was such a bummer. The first half of the book I felt cringy reading it. Not that the writing was bad (in fact that’s what gives the book the extra half star), but it was the subject matter that just made my skin crawl. Additionally, the shit just. kept. coming. **Spoiler alert!** It took until maybe the last 10 minutes for any sort of good to come. There was this sort of Thelma and Louise plot line but it just felt like it didn’t go anywhere. The girls didn’t get any reprecussions, the terrible people kept on being terrible and there was just a bleh feeling at the end. The ending felt like it either needed to end light and fluffy or some sort of life changing epic-ness and I was left with basically nothing. Additionally, Winona is a very self centered character and while she had a lot of gaslighting and abuse that warrants it, it felt like she just didn’t grow. Lucille, however, is a dream of a character. Much more full, much more deep. Also I know I’m not the only one that reallllly wanted the girls to fall in love. Altogether, you know I love Emily Henry and you can really see some of her writing shining through. There are some positive moments but ultimately, I feel like I was left very unsatisfied.
**Trigger warning: abuse & addiction.
Hooked: How Crafting Saved My Life by Sutton Foster
Goodreads synopsis: From the 2-time Tony Award-winner and the star of TV’s Younger, funny and intimate stories and reflections about how crafting has kept her sane while navigating the highs and lows of family, love, and show business (and how it can help you, too).
Whether she’s playing an “age-defying” book editor on television or dazzling audiences on the Broadway stage, Sutton Foster manages to make it all look easy. How? Crafting. From the moment she picked up a cross stitch needle to escape the bullying chorus girls in her early performing days, she was hooked. Cross stitching led to crocheting, crocheting led to collages, which led to drawing, and so much more. Channeling her emotions into her creations centered Sutton as she navigated the significant moments in her life and gave her tangible reminders of her experiences. Now, in this charming and poignant collection, Sutton shares those moments, including her fraught relationship with her agoraphobic mother; a painful divorce splashed on the pages of the tabloids; her struggles with fertility; the thrills she found on the stage during hit plays like Thoroughly Modern Millie, Anything Goes, and Violet; her breakout TV role in Younger; and the joy of adopting her daughter, Emily. Accompanying the stories, Sutton has included crochet patterns, recipes, and so much more!
My review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I should start this review by saying the I am a HUGE fan of Sutton Foster. In my musical theatre days, she was who I wanted to be; never mind that I am almost a foot shorter and not anywhere close to as talented as she is. Nevertheless I wanted to be her. I also LOVE crafting. I seriously long for the quarantine days, pre-baby, where I would cut out of work early and craft or paint. So, reading her memoir through crafting was basically her writing a book directly for me. I learned so much about her performing life (which of course I find endlessly fascinating) and even more about her personal life, specifically her relationship with her mother. What really hits the spot for me was how Sutton manages to navigate difficult and somewhat taboo topics with grace and privacy but in a way that still gives the reader information. She doesn’t skirt around, but doesn’t spill secrets that she doesn’t want to. Classy broad. Oh, and all of this is weaved together based on the various crafts she was working on or completing at the time. Perfect for me *chef’s kiss* 🤌🏻 Bonus! I listened to this audiobook which I just love for autobiographies. It’s like the person is hanging out with you telling you their life story.
All Fired Up by Dylan Newton
Goodreads synopsis: As a successful book publicist, Imani Lewis works night and day to promote her authors. It’s her dream job, but she’s become a total workaholic. So when her grandmother invites her to stay for the summer as she recovers from surgery, Imani happily agrees. But being back in the same small town as her one-night stand may not be quite the relaxing break she envisioned…
Zander Matthews wakes up every day determined to enjoy the present because he knows from his time in the Marines that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. But he’s never gotten over the beautiful woman who blew through town a year ago, then disappeared. And he doesn’t want to be hurt again. So they agree to a deal: he’ll help Imani fix up her grandmother’s house as long as they stay firmly in the friend zone.
Whether it’s repairing tiles in his ceramics studio, dodging nosy neighbors, or soothing the most obnoxious parrot ever, Zander never fails to make Imani laugh. And soon their friendly banter is turning ever flirtier. But since Imani’s stay is temporary and Zander can’t be tied to anything beyond the most tenuous plans, will she be able to handle it when things get all fired up?
My review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book was so cute. It’s yet another rom com (really are you surprised??) and it’s equal parts steamy and tension. Additionally, this book was my “blind date with a book” book. I picked this up, site unseen, with the only description being “When sparks fly, their friendship might go up in flames.” This caption is sort of incorrect. I didn’t find that these characters were ever friends. They started as a one night stand and I don’t know about you but that’s not how any of my friendships started. But I did love this premise. There’s already this “I know what I’m missing” energy which kicks the sexual tension up a notch. I also love that the characters end the book…don’t worry no spoilers…they end the book learning something (yay!). This book went down a star simply for the epilogue. Without giving anything away, it’s a little ‘gag me’. All Fired Up is actually the second book of the series. I’m planning on reading the first one this fall; it’s got a spooky Halloween vibe so it’ll be on theme!
I’ve got some GREAT books lined up for next quarter! I can’t wait to get started! 📖 What are you reading??
My Rating System
⭐️ – I did not like this book and generally would not recommend it.
⭐️⭐️ – This book was oook, but I felt pretty meh about it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ – This book was average. Didn’t love some parts but I still liked it overall.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – I really liked this book and will definitely recommend it to friends.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – I’m shouting this book’s praises from the rooftops! I loved it!
💫 – Half star
📖 One More Page Book Club pick of the month!
