What We Read in July

July was such a whirlwind month with 3 work trips and the start of the Olympics which took a large bite out of my reading time. Many nights, I sacrificed 30-45 minutes of reading time in favor of watching the Olympics but that was a worthwhile shift in time usage! Here is how my reading shaped up for the month. I read 7 book and nearly all of them were great!

Best Books:

Summer Romance (5 stars) by Annabel Monaghan was an excellent romance featuring a single mom 40-something protagonist. Conflict in romances can stress me out but that wasn't the case with this novel. 

Sandwich (4 stars) by Catherine Newman was an excellent book about the sandwich generation, meaning the middle-aged years when you are caring for your offspring and your aging parents. I loved this book but would have loved it even more if I was in a different stage of parenting. The protagonist is nostalgic about the young kid stage of parenting and sometimes it was hard to wrap my mind around missing the things she misses - like my current "touched out" stage of parenting. I do recognize that I'll miss these cuddles someday but I do yearn for more personal space. I still love the book, though, but if you have older kids and/or are menopausal/post-menopausal, this will really speak to you!

Same As It Ever Was (4 stars) is the sophomore novel by Claire Lombardo. I really liked it but felt it was a bit long at 512 pages. But I am amazed that this single, childfree author so accurately captured the challenges/emotions of raising small children. This is very character-driven so avoid this if that is not your jam.

Margo's Got Money Troubles (4 stars) is what I would describe as a "voicy" book meaning that the protagonist is quirky and she does not hide it. It's about a single mother that is impregnated by her college professor. Her father is involved with the WWE and has a history of opioid abuse. It's a book that made me think about how situations that look terrible on paper are actually not so terrible when you examine them more closely. 

I would love to know who recommended Wandering Souls (5 stars) to me. I mostly use a TBR tag in Libby to keep track of what I want to read. I wish I could make notes about the recommendation source - but to my knowledge, that is not possible. This is a slim novel (I think less than 250 pages) about 3 teen siblings who flee Vietnam during the war and eventually settle in the UK. The story is told from numerous points of view, including the siblings' deceased younger brother. It's heartbreaking but such a well-told story. 

Pretty good and did not work:

The Wealth of Shadows (2 stars) sounded like it would be right up my alley as it was about the economic warfare that was deployed during WWII to end the war - like cutting off supply lines for Germany, for example. I wanted to like it but dear God, I was so bored at the end that I debated abandoning the book at 90%! If I do not complete a book, it goes on my abandoned shelf, so even if I read 90%, I do not count it as read - and I did not want to do that so I slogged through the last 10%. I know of people who will mark something as read even if they abandon it at 25% but my enneagram 1 personality can not wrap my mind around that. Nonetheless, this was not a fit for me, but I am an outlier as it has high reviews on Goodreads! What really set me off was the reaction of the economists when Pearl Harbor was bombed - they were thrilled because that meant that the US would get involved in the war which meant there was a higher likelihood to the war ending. But how can you celebrate something that resulted in a catastrophic loss of lives??? 

Wavewalker (3 stars) was a solid 3-star book but it got a bit long for me. It's a memoir about the author's childhood spent sailing around the world with terribly neglectful parents. I did not need detail about all of the different stops they made during the voyage - I think she could have trimmed 50+ pages and still done their voyage justice. All that said, we had a great book club discussion about this book. 

The boys' reads:

The boys' reads have been a bit lackluster lately because we have not gone to the library as often. Instead we are often doing something outside. But the library will be there waiting for us when cooler weather hits. Paul and I have read a few more of the "Dragon Master" books which he really enjoys. We are on book 10. Taco has been really into the Bruce books by Ryan T. Higgins which I adore!!

Did you read anything great in July?