It’s September, though you couldn’t tell it from the hot, stinking, heat wave “I can’t stand this!” weather we’ve been having the last few weeks, but here we are, on the cusp of fall! My still fighting my way out of my reading rut, and have had some winners of late, so let’s go!
–Marissa
A Little Bit Bad by Cassandra Neyenesch was an audiobook listen, and I tore through it. 🙂This is at its heart a domestic thriller (a roofer in the San Diego neighborhood where Perdita lives has been murdered), but it also has elements of being super (darkly) funny and quite the sexy-times-a-thon. This release flew under the radar a bit, but I enjoyed this audiobook!
Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason took me a bit to adjust to the tone and style, but I was drawn in by the bookish-lover plot… Sophie is a technician for book festivals, enduring a loss of her marriage, her best friend, and her job responsibilities, and she develops a fixation for a famous author named Lilac Dunne. This switches from a parasocial relationship to a real one when they keep interacting at the latest festival (not in a romantic way, just in a “are we friends?” way). This was quiet and contemplative and full of bookish nods, but most of all, I just want to give Sophie a hug.
The Country Commonplace Book by Miranda Mills has been on my TBR for a while, and is one to dip in and out of. Divided by season, this includes quotes, poems, excerpts from novels, list and observations about the natural world around us (centered around England). A warm hug.
Hollow Bones by Jodi Picoult is JUST WHAT I NEEDED. I’ve been in a reading rut, and Picoult is always guaranteed top pull me out of one! This is “a 9/11 novel”, but so much more than that… multiple generations, crisis and quick decisions, decades of living, shifting POVs, postpartum revelations… this had all the things. At 26% in, I had my first gasp of a twist (literal goosebumps!), then at least two more… and an easter egg back to my favorite Picoult of them all, My Sister’s Keeper. I know my plot summary lacks, but just trust me… this was fabulous.
The Very Definition of Love by Sophie Benoit was an audiobook listen that I summarized to my husband as “a very smutty Regency romance novel in the best way”. 🙂 We have a marriage of convenience, a rake and a wallflower, enemeies-to-lovers, there’s only one bed, all the things, set in 1816 London. I really enjoyed it!
Stitched by Eli McCann sounded like my jam: part quilting, part Schitt’s Creek and part Golden Girls, and though I really wanted to love this cozy comedy in a Utah small town, I just couldn’t seem to really immerse into it as I wanted. I give this a meh, but maybe it’s just me!
Mailman by Stephen Starring Grant is best summed by the subtitle: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home. I love a memoir about a world I know nothing about, and I have a newfound respect for mail carriers for sure! At 50 during COVID, Steve takes a job as a rural mail carrier in Virginia, and this chronicles his training, ups and downs, eccentric people all around, and his personal purpose. Interesting!
stubbornsunshine.com 