Reviewed: Everything I Read in May

 

Happy June!

After spending the fall and winter reading classics and other weightier books, I'm ready for something a little lighter as summer approaches. Not necessarily lighter in substance, but lighter in feel. I want books that are engaging and highly readable without requiring too much effort. These are the kinds of books I can listen to while I garden, hang laundry out to dry, or go for a walk.

You would think that finding good summer reads would be easy, but I often find the opposite. Many of the books marketed as beach reads feel too fluffy for my taste, while others lean heavily into mystery or suspense, genres I rarely reach for. And while romance dominates many summer reading lists, it's generally not for me. What I'm really looking for is a book with an interesting story and enough depth to leave me thinking after I turn the last page—but not so much that it feels like homework.

This summer, I'm hoping to strike that balance between thoughtful and fun.

Speaking of fun, look for my next blog post, where I'll share the summer project I'm excited about. It has a throwback twist and sounds like a great idea in theory, though there's a distinct possibility it will be more challenging than I expect.

Reading Riches: Everything I Read This Month

The Ride of Her Life, by Elizabeth Letts

Our book club selection for May, this is the true story of Annie Wilkins, a 62 year-old woman who decided to ride her horse from her home in Maine to the Pacific Ocean in 1954. 

I enjoyed the spirit of adventure in Annie's story as well as the details surrounding American culture in the mid-1950s, but felt that those were watered down with a lot of speculative reconstruction on the author's part. The book is marketed as a true story but it seems like the author had to fill a lot of gaps in between the facts she could find. 

My rating: 2.5/5

My Friends, by Frederik Backman

Another title that sat on my library holds list for months, I finally got ahold of My Friends! At some point while I waited, I saw Frederik Backman's interview on The Tonight Show and was intrigued by his combination of wit and humility. He comes across as thoughtful, approachable, and quick to laugh—both at life and at himself. It made me want to read this book all the more.

My Friends did not disappoint. The story centers on Louisa, a teenage artist who had a rough start to life but found hope and inspiration in the form of a painting of three young boys on a dock. After seeing the painting in-person, she has a chance meeting with the artist who painted it. 

Twenty-five years earlier, four teenagers with difficult home lives found refuge in one another during a life-changing summer. The summer would ultimately inspire one of the world's most celebrated works of art. As Louisa learns their story, she meets people who can understand her own pain, loss, and loneliness. In the process, she begins to believe that her own circumstances do not have to define her future.

This book comes with a number of content warnings, so I recommend looking into those before reading.

My rating: 4/5

Mad Mabel, by Sally Hepworth

I found this book on Goodreads a few months ago when I went hunting for some of those "light but not fluff" summer books I mentioned in my intro. I was able to listen to the wonderful audiobook narration through the library, which I recommend. I love when they find the right person for the story--someone who makes the characters real. 

Mad Mabel is the unfortunate nickname given to Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, our prickly protagonist. Once Australia's youngest convicted murderer, she is 81 years-old when her neighbor dies and the police begin an investigation. Due to the media coverage, she is forced to revisit her past. As Mabel's terrible childhood and adolescense is laid out, you begin to wonder if maybe there is something else going on.

Mabel's sharp tongue and dry wit had me laughing out loud, while the vulnerability that hid behind her tough exterior broke my heart. Few fictional characters feel this authentic to me. 

My rating: 3.5/5

As You Like It, by William Shakespeare

Oh boy.

I finished my spring Shakespeare play and I'm sorry to say, I really did not like it. Am I allowed to say that? As a lowly, uneducated housewife, am I permitted to have a poor opinion of one of His Majesty, Sir Shakespeare's masterpieces? (If you answered "no," you should skip the next few paragraphs because I'm gonna' go ahead and say what I think anyway.)

I was looking forward to this one because it's the play read and referenced by the students in Never Been Kissed, a movie considered a classic by the girls of my generation. (Also a must-watch summer movie, in my opinion.)

I found this play to be completely absurd. The characters behaved strangely, formed intense emotional attachments at lightning speed, and generally made decisions that left me scratching my head.

But maybe this is just how Shakespeare operates. If you think about it, Romeo and Juliet is equally absurd. In Shakespeare's world, everyone seems to be saying, "I've known you for 48 hours. That's long enough to declare you the love of my life, abandon all reason, and die for you."

Everyone is in emotional agony over something, nobody can self-regulate, and somehow we're all supposed to act like this is perfectly normal behavior.

That, in a nutshell, was my experience of As You Like It.

Sorry, Shakespeare. For summer, I have A Midsummer Night's Dream. Hopefully I'll have a better go of that one! 

My rating: 1/5

One Italian Summer, by Rebecca Serle

Another summer read!

In this novel, Katy takes her dream vacation, years in the making, only she was never supposed to take it alone. She and her mother planned the trip to Positano, Italy, a place her mother visited in her thirties and spoke of with such affection that it became almost mythical in Katy's mind. When her mother dies before the trip, Katy decides to go anyway.

Once there, Katy barely has time to settle in before she encounters someone she never expected to see again: her mother. But this isn't the mother she remembers. This woman is young, healthy, and enigmatic. As Katy spends time with this younger version of her mom, she learns things that complicate her understanding of the woman she thought she knew. After reading this book, I thought about how our children see us and how their perceptions change as they get older.

This story contains a touch of magical realism to set the plot in motion, but once you accept the premise, the rest of the novel unfolds in a surprisingly grounded way. It also comes with some content warnings including an instance of extra-marrital intimacy. It was easy to skip past, but I recommend looking into the content warnings before reading.

My rating: 3.5/5

Heartwood, by Amity Gaige

I say that I rarely reach for a mystery, yet here we are. This was another Goodreads recommendation that I borrowed from the library. The audiobook features an ensemble cast, making it an engaging listen that keeps you on your toes as you track the information each person shares (and withholds).

When Valerie Gillis goes missing on the Appalachian Trail, responders and members of the community come together to search for her. As we learn more about Valerie—a 42-year-old nurse struggling with mental health and marital troubles—the people who most recently crossed paths with her are interviewed, shedding light on the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. Several smaller narratives intersect with Valerie's story, making it increasingly difficult to piece together what happened to her. As time passes, the search becomes more urgent.

I enjoyed the premise and the audiobook narration, but I never came to care about any of the characters. That may be more a reflection of my tastes than the book's quality. Maybe because the point of a mystery isn't to resonate with the characters, mystery writers don't spend as much time on character development. And because I'm not a big mystery reader, I probably have a fairly high bar for the genre. It's basically the opposite of how I feel about pizza—a food I will happily consume regardless of the price point, temperature, or time of day.

My rating: 3/5

Library Additions: The Books I Bagged in May

I only found one book for our library in the month of May, and it's for Jeff. He enjoyed The Expanse series, so I thought he might like the new one from these authors.

Our thrift store's book section has been oddly bare every time I stopped in lately. I'm not sure what's going on, but hopefully they will begin stocking books again soon. 

Marked Passages: Thoughts That Stayed with Me

And that's everything I have to share from my May reading. June reading has already begun, starting with a very long book that I wasn't sure about it at first, but now I'm completely hooked. In fact, I made Jeff listen to it in the car last night because I couldn't bear to stop at a particularly suspenseful moment. If a book can do that, it's doing something right. Right? ;)