Who is ready for all that summer reading? Today I’m sharing 8 books that I enjoyed this month and think you will too! This month’s stack includes a couple of incredible thrillers, a courtroom drama, a memoir, and some really fun women’s fiction novels that are begging to be added to your beach bag.
BTW- Did you see my FREE Summer Reading Guide I made for you? This guide should keep you very busy this summer with loads of beautiful reads.
While you’re here, be sure to print out the 2019 MomAdvice reading challenge worksheet and join our free online book club! You can check out the 2019 MomAdvice Book Club picks over here. Don’t forget to send me a friend request over on GoodReads for more great book reviews!
Did you know Prime members get a read for free every single month? Grab your FREE book over here.
This month’s special: New members can now get their first book for $9.99 when they join using this month’s code: SUMMERVACAY and can cancel at any time.
A Nearly Normal Family by M. T. Edvardsson
Recursion by Blake Crouch (read my review on this one HERE)
Golden Hour by Beatriz Williams
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
Summer of ’69 by Elin Hilderbrand
Here are 8 must-read books I tackled in May:
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishing house for providing an advanced copy for review- it allowed me to toggle between my hardback and Kindle this month. All thoughts and opinions are my own!
I do not typically turn to courtroom dramas for reading, but the premise for this one was so intriguing that I decided to make Miracle Creek my Book of the Month in April. Don’t worry, if you missed that one, you can probably still add this one to your box this month! Honestly, this book really blew me away with it’s smart twists that it surprised me that such seasoned writing could be found in a debut novelist.
If courtroom thrillers aren’t your cup of tea or if you haven’t picked up one since the Grisham days, I encourage you to give this one a spin!
The book opens with the court case so it is one of those right-out-of-the-gates kind of books that I tend to gravitate towards these days. The story centers around a family who have immigrated to the states and decided to open an experimental medical treatment facility that utilizes a pressurized oxygen chamber as a therapeutic device to treat complex medical cases like autism and infertility.
When the device, known as the Miracle Submarine, explodes, killing two people, everyone becomes a suspect and each have their own motives that could throw their innocence into question.
Told from alternating perspectives, Kim really builds layered characters that are real and relatable. I found the mother, who comes under scrutiny, to be among the most compelling because she is dealing with the heaviness of the day-to-day grind of appointments and struggles with her son and her need to escape from these burdens.
If you are a fan of Celeste Ng or loved Defending Jacob, I have a feeling you will love this book as much as I did. Kim really uses her own complex background in a way that makes you feel sympathy in the Yoo’s family struggles of trying to make their life in America and not always feeling welcomed or at home.
5 out of 5 Stars
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishing house for providing an advanced copy for review. All thoughts and opinions are my own!
Don’t you love a deliciously good thriller in the summer months? I have a feeling if you are a Liane Moriarty fan that you will adore The Mother-In-Law this year.
It’s no secret that the mother-in-law gets a bad rap sometimes in literature. Hepworth though carves a marvelously complex character for her mother-in-law and builds all of these twists and tensions, among her family members, in a way that garners empathy for her role in the family.
Lucy knows right away that she is not the wife that Diana has envisioned for her son. Lucy struggles with the distance that Diana seems to create within them, despite her charitable spirit and working tirelessly for others as an advocate for female refugees.
When Diana unexpectedly dies of suicide, her family is surprised, but also realizes that her cancer diagnosis may have just been too much for her.
The problem?
The autopsy shows that she never had cancer, but the body does show traces of poison and evidence of suffocation.
Diana’s complex relationships really come into play as you try to piece together what has happened. Told in alternating points of view, through past and present, you realize just how many people had a motive in Diana’s death and how many layers she really did have to her own personal story.
I couldn’t put this one down and would recommend it for a strong thriller that genuinely delivers on those complex thriller plot twists. Fans of The Other Woman, in particular, are sure to enjoy this one!
5 out of 5 Stars
Thank you to the publishing house for providing an advanced copy for review. All thoughts and opinions are my own!
I hope you are snagging those free Kindle First Reads that you are being offered up as a Prime member! The Overdue Life of Amy Byler happened to be one of those free selections and I can’t tell you what a welcome escape it was for this mom!
Amy Byler’s husband unexpectedly left her and for three years she has been raising her teen daughter and tween son all on her own.
When her husband comes back he offers to care for their kids for the summer, to make up for lost time. It’s why Amy decides to escape her suburban life to head to New York for a conference and to visit an old friend in New York City.
Her old friend is impossibly stylish and working for a magazine and thinks Amy’s getaway would make for an excellent piece. Nicknamed her Momspringa, to mimic the Amish teenage passage of Rumspringa, Amy receives a makeover and is encouraged to try dating again. Amy finds herself quite at home in the city and grapples with the blissful absence of responsibility and the welcome joy of having New York City all to herself.
Do I want to leave my family?
Absolutely not!
I will say though that Amy’s fictional escape was just what this Amy needed. Escaping the day-to-day grind sounds pretty flipping amazing when I’m in the thick of end-of-school-year commitments. It also, equally, made me sweet on my kids and hubby again to be reminded of just how beautiful it is to be home and loved unconditionally.
I laughed out loud, there are loads of bookish references and nerd humor, an incredibly beautiful friendship, and a Nora Ephron-worthy love story all in one delicious little read. It is the perfect palate cleanser between some heavier reads. I have a feeling you will adore this as much as I did, especially if you loved Matchmaking for Beginners.
5 out of 5 Stars
Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes (available for pre-order, available on June 25th)
Thank you to the publishing house for providing an advanced copy for review. All thoughts and opinions are my own!
NPR Pop Culture fans definitely won’t want to miss this heartfelt debut novel from Linda Holmes, hitting store shelves on June 25th! I’m a big fan of Linda Holmes and her thoughts on pop culture and couldn’t wait to get my hands on her first novel.
Evvie is recently widowed and has decided that taking in a tenant will be a great way to help her pay her bills. Dean, a former Yankees pitcher, happens to be on the hunt for a new place and is looking for a quiet place to escape from his own reality. Dean’s career is now struggling, as he has lost his ability to throw straight, and this apartment is a place for him to escape both the big city life and the media circus that follows.
What the two didn’t realize though is how these holes in their life can be filled with their friendship and how this friendship will lead them back to themselves and to each other.
Holmes has such a way with words and has created a perfectly charming story that will have you rooting for each of these sweet characters. If you appreciate a good comeback story or happen to be looking for a little rom-com for your beach bag, this book is it.
4 out of 5 Stars
If you are on the hunt for an audiobook for the summer, I highly recommend adding, The Night Olivia Fell, to your earbuds. This isn’t your typical shallow thriller, it has a deep and compelling storyline that really builds believable twists and is filled with rich character development.
Abi Knight receives a call in the middle of the night that her daughter, Olivia, has fallen off a bridge. Upon her arrival, she is informed that Olivia is brain dead and, as an enormous surprise to her mother, she is also pregnant. The doctor believes that they *may* be able to keep her baby alive if they keep Olivia on life support and want to do their best to give her child a fighting chance by keeping the baby in her womb as long as possible.
The police rule her death as an accident, but Abi is troubled by the bruising around Olivia’s wrists and begins to stumble upon a web of secrets that Olivia has been keeping from her. With the help of a detective, she has to confront her own troubled past, find out who the father of Olivia’s baby is, and figure out who would have a motive to kill her daughter.
McDonald writes Abi’s journey with such raw honesty that it brought tears to my eyes. The relationships between our children is so layered and much of the book focuses on her own reflections and guilt for not being enough to her daughter, despite being an incredible and protective mom. I was completely swept away in this story and McDonald builds believable motives that leave a reader guessing right up until the very end.
5 out of 5 Stars
Thank you to the publishing house for providing an advanced copy for review. All thoughts and opinions are my own!
There are good summer reads and then there are PERFECT summer reads and I have to say that, The Unhoneymooners, fell into the PERFECT camp.
Twin sisters Ami & Olive couldn’t be more different. Ami seems to always have the absolute best luck and Olive is her poor unlucky sister. When the entire wedding party gets food poisoning, at Ami’s wedding, Ami decides to forfeit her honeymoon to Olive and Ethan (the brother-of-the-groom) to both go in their place. After all, Ami won the honeymoon free of charge (of course she did!) and this vacation is nonrefundable.
Unfortunately, Olive & Ethan have never gotten along, but decide to form a temporary truce to take advantage of the free vacation. Being together in such close quarters definitely muddies the waters and they begin to uncover hidden layers to each other…and their siblings.
If you have been struggling to get back on the reading bandwagon or if you are just looking for something light and funny for your bag, I can’t recommend this one enough. This is my first Christina Lauren novel, but it won’t be my last. I was laughing out loud through the entire book at the antics of Olive & Ethan. It is, truly, what summer reading is all about!
5 out of 5 Stars
I decided to use my Book-of-the-Month credit on, “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone,” and I’m so glad that I did. Although I am not a big nonfiction reader (and maybe you aren’t too?), I found this book to read as easy as fiction while being incredibly compelling and thought-provoking. It is the type of book that you read and then immediately hand off to someone who might need the sage advice and wisdom of a good therapist too.
What makes this story unique is that the therapist, Lori, is now in a difficult break-up with a boyfriend and finds herself needing a therapist of her own. With the blurred boundaries of working in the very profession you need, Lori finds herself seated in Wendell’s office. Wendell is a therapist she discovered through a colleague by pitching to her an imaginary client that she was searching for the right person for him to talk to. Everything in his office is different than Lori’s, including some of his tactics to understand her better, and Lori is both equally bewildered and admiring of Wendell’s abilities to get to her own hidden truths.
Weaved in, Lori shares about some of her most compelling clients and a bit of the psychology of our own actions and how we can learn to understand the motives of others. Honestly, the insights are worthy of a good highlighter and a revisit through the tougher times in our lives. I found myself to be quite teary-eyed, particularly through a difficult case of a woman facing cancer. Lori shares her most difficult cases and how to love people even when they seem unworthy of it.
I doubt you could read this and not take away something that would make your life a little better. We also can look forward to this one coming to television, telling Lori’s stories through an ABC series. I would definitely encourage you to read this one and to also pass it on to someone who could benefit from these lessons too.
5 out of 5 Stars
We read The Friend for this month’s book club chat. This one was selected because it won the 2018 National Book Award and I was really excited to read something that had garnered this award.
The story is about a woman who unexpectedly loses her friend and finds herself burdened with the unwanted elderly dog he has left behind. Although she initially doesn’t want to connect with this animal, they both find companionship with one another as each of them deal with the grief and loss. Unfortunately, she is threatened with her own potential eviction because dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.
The story of this narrator and the dog was what I connected most with and I think that is where the story, truly, shined. There were gorgeous passages and the idea of these two finding one another through this grief was really beautiful.
Where it didn’t shine, for me, was the rambling rants that the story would trail into that felt as though you were reading someone’s stream of thought. It felt more like a memoir of Nunez and how frustrated she is with the craft of writing and literature. At just 212 pages, I had a hard time concentrating amidst her stream of consciousness and it pulled me away from the story I really wanted to hear.
Our book club seemed pretty divided on this one- they either REALLY loved it or they REALLY hated it.
This was definitely not my favorite in the stack, but I do think it can connect with people who crave a meatier piece of literature.
3 out of 5 Stars
Read With Me This Year
January 2019 Must-Reads
February 2019 Must-Reads
March 2019 Must-Reads
April 2019 Must-Reads
What did you read this month? Looking for book ideas? Check out our entire Book section of the site! Don’t forget to friend me on GoodReads! xo
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