August was a great reading month for me. I didn’t have high hopes for my reading life since we started school. Thankfully, reading is my escape at the end of the day, so starting school did not impede my reading goals.
In August I read six books. There were five fiction and one non-fiction. Two of the books were read on my kindle and the other four were hardback books.
Let’s take a look at the books I read in August…
Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
I purchased this book at an add-on from Book of the Month. Min Jin Lee’s other book, Pachinko, is one of my favorites, so I wanted to read this one as well. This book is quite hefty, at 576 pages. I enjoyed it, but it doesn’t hold the special place in my heart that Pachinko does.
Summary: Casey Han’s four years at Princeton gave her many things, except a stable, well-paying job. Casey’s parents, Korean immigrants working in a dry cleaners, are desperately trying to hold on to their culture and identity. Their daughter, however, has entered into rarified American society via scholarships. After graduating from Princeton, Casey sees the reality of having expensive habits without the means to sustain them. As she navigates Manhattan, we see her life and the lives around her, culminating in a portrait of New York City and its world of haves and have-nots.
My thoughts: I liked the character of Casy Han, although she was definitely flawed. I love reading about other cultures and this fit as I got a glimpse of the Korean American immigrants portrayed. I enjoyed reading this “coming of age” story, but it doesn’t rank better thank Pachinko, Min Jin Lee’s prize winning second novel.
The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi
I was on the launch team for The Lazy Genius Way and was provided with a digital copy of the book from Net Galley.
Summary: Kendra Adachi, the creator of the Lazy Genius movement, invites you to live well by your own definition and equips you to be a genius about what matters and lazy about what doesn’t. Everything from your morning routine to napping without guilt falls into place with Kendra’s thirteen Lazy Genius principles, including decide once, start small, go in the right order, and schedule rest. Through The Lazy Genius Way, you can discover a better way to approach your relationships, work, and piles of mail.
My thoughts: I’m not normally a fan of “self-help” books, but I enjoyed reading this one. Kendra has very practical and applicable advice and the principles she outlines in The Lazy Genius Way can be used to tackle pretty much anything.
Atomic Love by Jennie Fields
I received this in my August Book of the Month box. This historical novel is set in the 1950’s in Chicago right after World War II.
Summary: Rosalind Porter has always defied expectations–in her work as a physicist on the Manhattan Project and in her passionate love affair with colleague Thomas Weaver. Five years after the end of both, her guilt over the bomb and her heartbreak over Weaver are intertwined. She desperately misses her work in the lab, yet has almost resigned herself to a more conventional life. Then Weaver gets back in touch–and so does the FBI. Special Agent Charlie Szydlo wants Rosalind to spy on Weaver, whom the FBI suspects of passing nuclear secrets to Russia. At the same time, something about Charlie draws her in. He’s a former prisoner of war haunted by his past, just as her past haunts her. As Rosalind’s feelings for each man deepen, so too does the danger she finds herself in.
My thoughts: I enjoyed this historical novel. I did think that Rosalind could have been a stronger character. I didn’t like her “neediness” and I had a hard time connecting with her.
The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes by Elissa R. Sloan
This was also in my August Book of the Month box. If you were a fan of Daisy Jones and the Six, this may be the book for you.
Summary: Cassidy was the fourth member of a popular pop group after coming in second in a American Idol type of singing competition. Fifteen years later, she is dead from an apparent suicide and her other group mates are shocked and wondering exactly what happened to Cassidy. Told in multiple perspectives—including Cassidy Holmes herself—and different timelines, this is a behind-the-scenes look into the rise and fall of a pop icon, and a penetrating examination of the dark side of celebrity and the industry that profits from it.
My Thoughts: Some of the content of this book was a little triggering, but I went in knowing that it might be. It wasn’t anything that I couldn’t overcome, but it was there. I thought the characters could have been more developed than they were. I have seen this book compared to Daisy Jones and the Six and I even alluded to that myself, but this doesn’t come close to being as gripping as Daisy Jones.
The Night Swim by Megan Goldin
This was the third book I received from Book of the Month in August. This is a psychological thriller set around a rape trial in a small town and a true crime podcast. It was a fascinating and captivating read for me.
Summary: The small town of Neapolis is being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. The town’s golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping a high school student, the granddaughter of the former police chief. Under pressure to make Season Three of her popular true crime podcast a success, Rachel throws herself into interviewing and investigating?but mysterious letters keep showing up in unexpected places. Someone is following her, and she won’t stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago in this small town. Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insist she was murdered?and when Rachel starts asking questions, nobody seems to want to answer. The past and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases that will change the course of the trial and the lives of everyone involved.
My thoughts: I loved this book!!! I haven’t stayed up reading late into the night because I just had to know the ending of a book in a long time. While, I may have regretted it the next day, I loved getting captivated by this story and how it ended. I loved the chapters that had the podcast script and I always love good courtroom scenes in books, too!
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
I’ve been reading this on my Kindle off and on for the last several months. I try to keep a Kindle book loaded for when I’m between books. I also like to stick my Kindle paperwhite in my purse for when I’m out and about.
Summary: The House Girl goes back and forth between two time periods, characters and settings. Virginia, 1852. Seventeen-year-old Josephine Bell decides to run from the failing tobacco farm where she is a slave and nurse to her ailing mistress, the aspiring artist Lu Anne Bell. New York City, 2004. Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in an elite law firm, is given a difficult, highly sensitive assignment that could make her career: she must find the “perfect plaintiff” to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves. A descendant of Josephine’s would be the perfect face for the reparations lawsuit – if Lina can find one. While following the runaway girl’s faint trail through old letters and plantation records, Lina finds herself questioning her own family history and the secrets that her father has never revealed.
My thoughts: I wish I had read this in print and in a more succinct sitting. Since it was on Kindle and I picked it up off and on, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I think I would have otherwise. I did enjoy the story, but it did fall a little flat and the ending seemed rushed.