Reviewed: Everything I Read in July
How is July already over? For that matter, how is it the middle of August?
At this point, I have to laugh at the post I made at the beginning of summer: An Analog Summer. Man plans his steps, and God is like, “Ha. Yeah, right.”
Not that I’m complaining. It has been a wonderful summer so far—just not the slow and reflective one I imagined back in June. July was especially full: line dancing classes, visits from family and friends, Independence Day festivities, and a big trip to Seattle to see Ed Sheeran in concert.
I also got to attend the most wonderful author talk with Virginia Evans, author of my favorite book of 2025, The Correspondent. The event was held in Ketchum on the tail end of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, which I did not attend because I lacked the mental fortitude necessary to spend $1,100 on a writers’ conference. Ha! Maybe one day.
I did, however, manage to snag three tickets to Virginia’s talk in the auction—which sold out in two minutes—so two friends joined me. We made a day of it, visiting Iconoclast Books and having lunch before the event.
Virginia was this wonderful combination of unassuming, relatable, and brilliant, and she said several things that have stayed with me in the weeks since. I left feeling deeply grateful that I’d gotten to hear her speak—and even more fond of The Correspondent than I was before. Afterward, she signed our books, which felt like one last treat on an already special day.
August has been slightly slower and more focused, so far at least. I've been listening to audio books while gardening and doing chores, and have accumulated a few recommendations for you in next month's post. For now, here's the record of everything I read in July.
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I’ve been thinking about book ratings because of a conversation I had recently. I was talking with someone about a book I’d read and said something like, “I’d give it a three out of five.”
“Oh, so you didn’t like it?” they asked.
“I wouldn’t say that. I didn’t dislike it. I thought it was okay.”
They explained that, to them, a three-star rating feels like a poor review—which surprised me a little. To me, three stars means "somewhere in the middle." Not bad, not great. Fine.
It made me realize that some of the friends who read my book reviews may be assigning very different meanings to those numbers than I am. So, for the sake of clarity, I thought I should explain my rating system.
Keeping up with my reread of childhood favorites, I listened to Little Men in July. If I ever want to have a calm day, listening to a Louisa May Alcott novel is the way to make that happen. There is something so relaxing about hearing of the quiet lives of sweet children in the countryside, and it's a comfort to know that the story will end well.
Not that Alcott shies away from the harder aspects of life. I very much enjoy the way she straddles reality and morality, acknowledging sorrow, disappointment, and human weakness while still creating a world in which the reader can feel safe. There is a gentleness to her stories without the sense that life itself has been sanitized.
This one isn’t my favorite in the Alcott canon, but it was still a joy to have playing in the background last month.
Artie Dam is a middle-aged high school history teacher with a wife, a son, and an outwardly ordinary life. Beneath the surface, he is deeply lonely. When he learns a long-kept secret, he is forced to reconsider what he knows about the people closest to him.
This one is so quiet that you, as a reader, naturally lean in closer. I am always struck when a storyteller is able to stun with simplicity. In this story, Elizabeth Strout once again stopped me in my tracks as she slowly unfolded and revealed the vastness and power contained within a single, ordinary life. As I read I kept having this thought: Why is this little story making me feel so much?
Since reading this book, I have found myself thinking about how much we assume we know about the people we love most—and how much of another person can remain hidden from us, even when we believe we know them intimately. The Things We Never Say reminded me to stay curious about the people I love.
This was my favorite book of July. Well done, Elizabeth Srout.
My rating: 5/5
I came to this book by following little breadcrumbs. The first was the 2015 Robert Redford–Nick Nolte movie, which seemed to be everywhere that year. Somewhere along the way, I learned it had begun as a true story, which the author, Bill Bryson, experienced firsthand. Last month, I finally stood holding two of his books: this one and A Short History of Nearly Everything. A Walk in the Woods felt more like summer, so after nearly a decade of breadcrumbs, I followed the trail.
The beginning hooked me. In 1996, Bryson and an old high school friend set out to hike the Appalachian Trail despite being middle-aged, out of shape, and not exactly seasoned outdoorsmen. They were also an entertaining mismatch: Bill, the buttoned-up rule follower, and Stephen, a rough-around-the-edges recovering alcoholic. Their misadventures were funny, and I was happily buckled in for the ride.
Then the book took a hard turn. Bryson repeatedly left the trail for long side trips into environmental issues, government mismanagement, crime, and other social concerns. I enjoy a good history lesson, but these sections felt less like context and more like lectures I had been tricked into attending. I understand wanting to use the story to say something meaningful, but for me it came at the expense of the story itself.
I kept wanting to skip ahead and get back to the two friends hiking, but especially toward the end, there wasn't much of that left to find.
This looked like exactly my kind of book on paper. In the end, though, it wasn't for me.
What if you don’t like your adult children?
What if they grow up to be people you wouldn’t particularly choose to spend time with?
What if they don’t understand your choices—or share the worldview that shaped them?
As I read The Shell Seekers last month, those questions seemed to hover around the edges of the story.
Penelope Keeling is a woman in the autumn of her life. At sixty-four, she is on the other side of the difficult years of raising children with little money and not much support, and now lives a quiet life surrounded by the things she loves. She tends her garden, welcomes whoever happens to arrive at her door, and fills her home with beauty—from the peaceful conservatory to the paintings of her late father, a once-famous artist. At the heart of it all is one large painting, unknown to collectors or historians: The Shell Seekers.
After a health scare, Penelope finds herself looking back over her life and the choices that brought her here.
Told across multiple timelines and perspectives, the novel gradually carries us back to the years when The Shell Seekers was painted, as the war in Europe progressed and Penelope was becoming the woman her children would later struggle to understand. We see the losses she endured, the people she loved, and the decisions she made when the future was uncertain.
And I kept wondering: If her children knew her whole story, would they understand her differently? Would they become more generous toward the choices she makes? Or is there always some part of a parent’s life that remains inaccessible to their children?
That was one of the things I appreciated most about this book. Penelope’s children know her, of course—but they only know the version of her that belongs to their lives. They didn't know her before them. They didn't live through the events that formed her. Maybe that's true of all of us: we can be completely familiar with the people we love and still understand very little about the lives that made them who they are.
We chose this lengthy story as a two-month read for our book club, spanning July and August, and I was glad to have that much time with it. The characters are complicated enough to sit with, and the setting is so welcoming and lush that I was happy to linger there.
I highly recommend this one.
My rating: 4/5
This book is buzzing all around the book world right now, and it has a little bit of lore surrounding it: supposedly, the inspiration for its deeply unlikeable protagonist is a well-known social media influencer whom I have followed in the past.
That’s juicy stuff, right? I went into it pumped.
The problem is that this character is unlikeable in a way that is especially difficult for me to sit with. The story deals with religious hypocrisy, intentional deceit, and—as I understand it—eventually forces its wife-and-mother protagonist into some of the most uncomfortable reckonings.
This had been on my holds list for months and, naturally, came through just as we were leaving for a fun trip to Seattle. I started listening to the opening chapters at the airport and almost immediately had a stomach ache. A literal stomach ache.
And that was that.
I’m not saying I’ll never read this book. In fact, I’m still curious about it. But it was 100% the wrong book for that particular moment, and I’ve gotten much better at recognizing when a book and I need to part ways for a while.
So I returned it to the library and started the next book in line—which turned out to be exactly the vacation read I needed.
I’ll talk about that one next...
This was the perfect book to end July with—an easy read with a uniquely interesting story. But this is not fluff, friends. Nope. I felt this story in my bones. And I have to start by telling you the backstory.
Ben Markovits was writing this novel when his health began to fail him. He developed strange and mysterious symptoms—face swelling, vertigo, and other ailments that several doctors investigated but couldn’t explain. Maybe middle age? Long COVID? No one seemed to know. But as he continued writing, his health continued to decline.
Eventually, he decided to write this subplot into the novel. Without quite realizing what he was doing, he began writing himself into the story. So as we read Tom’s story, we are also, in some sense, reading Ben’s. But which parts are taken from real life, and which are made up?
Tom is a middle-aged law professor whose wife had an affair twelve years ago. At the time, Tom followed the path of many people who find themselves in his situation: he stayed “for the children,” while quietly telling himself that he could still leave someday—once they were grown.
Well, that day is about to arrive.
After dropping his youngest child off at college, Tom makes a small change to his plans. Instead of driving home, he heads west. At first, he is only going to visit his brother. But as he drives, Tom keeps finding reasons to add another stop, extend the trip a little farther, and eventually change the destination altogether.
Somehow, in July, I happened to read two novels about middle-aged men confronted by life-changing health problems and the realization that their closest relationships may not have been quite what they always assumed. But while The Things We Never Say is quiet and intimate, The Rest of Our Lives is funnier, looser, and more adventurous—and has something very different to say.
I adored this book. Maybe its superpower is the easy-access it gives to such weighty things. I love writing that understands heartbreak and humor are not opposites—that they can live right alongside one another, and sometimes live together in the same moment.
There’s more than one way to measure a novel, and while this may not look like your typical five-star story, it still gets five stars from me. For heart. For humor. For the unexpected tenderness of it. And for holding me completely while I read. I loved this book.
I’m still thinking about Tom three weeks later, which is usually the clearest sign I have that a book did something special. I’m eager to read more of Markovits’s work.
My rating: 5/5
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