September saw some voracious reading, including a couple of one-dayers, which are always fun. It boggles my mind sometimes that I can read an entire book AND work a full day. Having a ~1 hour each way train commute and pre-planned dinner helps! I will rarely complain about my commute, even though it’s on the longer side, because I get to read.
I actually can’t remember when I read this first book. I got all excited when I noticed that the e-book version was available from my library, but then when I downloaded it to my Kindle, it was 92% read, which meant I had read it before and completely spaced on putting it into Goodreads!
It was pretty good, but I still think What Alice Forgot is my favorite Liane Moriarty book. (Fun fact: I just learned that her name is pronounced “lee-ON.”) My favorite Goodreads comment:
Did others notice that Easter was portrayed as being in the autumn with the leaves falling and soon after school began? I found this very disconcerting and it colored the book for me. Don’t books have editors anymore?
PSA: It takes place in Australia.
This one was fine to read but it didn’t warrant a rating from me on Goodreads, and now I can’t really remember what I thought of it, which isn’t a good sign. I found the main relationship in it disturbing; well, really, I found the man in the relationship troubling. A theme I’m noticing is that I am made uncomfortable by disordered characters in books. The structure of this was interesting.
This book was sexy, y’all. It featured two highly intelligent academics talking very candidly with each other about sex and had some scenes that goldarn made me blush. This was a one-day read. I was taken aback by the sexiness at first because somehow in my head I thought this was YA, but once I got past that I really enjoyed it. And, a second book with these characters comes out on December 27!
I picked this up as a Harry Potter fangirl, but it totally stands in its own right as a mystery. I think Rowling is a great writer. It’s also interesting to read the story behind why she used a pseudonym and then how she handled it when she was outed. I’m not rushing out to read the rest of the Cormoran Strike books, but I enjoyed this first well enough.
This was September’s book club read and none of us liked it. We found it raunchier than we prefer to read (and I say this having read things like 50 Shades of Grey). We didn’t find the main character to be likable–she was selfish but never seemed to realize it. And it felt very despairing–there was no redemption or hope at all. So, womp womp.
Not what I expected but a good book!
A thing I’ve discovered in my reading life lately is going on author binges. I enjoyed it with Liane Moriarty, so I figured why not check out some of Moyes’ other books, since I of course loved Me Before You. This one was pretty delightful, with a fun storyline that ran through time and heartwarming character connections that fell tidily into place.
I should start making notes of how I came to add books to my reading list, because I’m not sure why this one was in the queue. It was a Christian novel of the ilk I would have loved a few years ago, but I didn’t realize that until I started reading it. It took place in Atlanta and offered an interesting take on the Civil Rights movement era in my city, but I could have done without the cheesy Jesus-y bits.
Oh, and I did this re-read in September! I feel like I can’t call a book a favorite until I’ve read it more than once, but I don’t do a lot of re-reading because, duh, so many books, so little time. But I want to have a shortlist of favorites on the tip of my tongue, so I’m trying to go back to a few from recent memory that stand out to see if they hold up. This one did! I need to figure out how to make Goodreads count this toward my yearly challenge number…I don’t necessarily want to lose the data of when I first read it, but unless I change the “date read” to this year, it won’t count. As a stopgap measure I added it to a “re-read” shelf. If anyone has any thoughts, let me know! #booknerdproblems
And, just for fun, a bookish hot take from yours truly:
I love books, but I have zero need in my life for coffee table books. I don't really understand why they exist.
— Laura Lindeman (@lclindeman) September 23, 2016
Now it’s fall and excited to gear up for the holidays and do some seasonally appropriate reading. :)
