May: What I Read

First pool book of the season!

SKIP THESE YOU GUYS OMG

📱I Just Wish I Had a Bigger Kitchen and Other Lies I Think Will Make Me Happy by Kate Strickler: This felt like one big IG caption. Hard pass. 

🎙️ The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes: I do not know how I got hooked on this YA series, but the books each had really long waits at the library, so it has been YEARS. I did not love the finale and had a hard time remembering the in intricacies of the plot in the interim, but I felt obligated to see the series through. 

🥳🎙️Is This a Cry for Help by Emily Austin: Preachy and tell-don't-show- y. I don't like this author, and I will not be trying her again, unless the next book is so great that you guys are like omg you have to read it. (Did not like her last book, but the positive reviews of it and the gentle buzz of this one made me give it a whirl. Nope).

🥳🎙️Annie Knows Everything by Rachel Wood: This was a cute, breezy romance with a fairly unlikeable narrator and some serious unresolved plot issues. Plus! The author used "I" a lot when she should have said "me" (between Shannon and I, for example). Meh. 

OLDIES BUT GOODIES

🎙️The President's Daughter by James Patterson and Bill Clinton: I cannot quit these terrible books. I LOVE THEM YOU GUYS.

📱The Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman: This was slow but had a good pay off (she has a new book, and I loved her last one, so I dove into her backlist. I think I skimmed this in 2018, but it did not leave an impression).

IF YOU HAVE TIME

 🥳📓Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth: Always entertaining! Dorothy is currently reading it and also gives a thumbs up.

🥳📱How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates by Shailee Thompson: A self conscious horror/romance genre mashup that was making fun of both-- liked it!

 🥳🎙️ Don't Open Your Eyes by Liv Constantine: This was a super entertaining audiobook-- loved the premise and the characters and the twists.

SCHEDULE TIME TO READ THESE

📓The Bottom of the Pyramid by Nia Sioux: Dorothy and I both read this, loved it, and started watching Dance Moms from the beginning. Abby Lee Miller: BIG RACIST. Like, the microaggressions just kept coming.

🥳📱Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden: I flew through this memoir at a track meet-- you guys should read it. YIKES.

 🥳📓Her Last Breath by Taylor Adams: One of my fave thriller writers, and this one was a page turner.

 🥳📓Last Night in Brooklyn by Xochitl Gonzalez: LOVE this author and will read what she writes the second it comes out forever.

MUST-READS THOUGH FOR REALZ

 🥳🎙️Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance by Laura Vanderkam: You know I like a good reframe. I listened to this one but wish I would have gotten the physical book because I kept wanting to go back and take notes on a specific part, and that is not super intuitive for me when I am dealing with an audiobook.

 🥳🎙️ Once and Again by Rebecca Serle: Some light magic and time bending-- which is what I expect from her. Loved this, even though (because) it was sappy and indulgent.

 🥳📓Go Gentle by Maria Semple: After Bernadette, she can do no wrong for me. I LOLed quite a bit reading this one.

BOTY

🥳📱The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout: I mean. Of course every word of this book was perfect.

🥳🎙️The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett: THIS BOOK WAS WONDERFUL. I really, really loved it. So entertaining and such great characters. Maybe my favorite book of the year. I have to say, the (mostly positive) NYT review kind of pissed me off -- here's the gift link, so you can read it, too. (The part about "Stockett’s portraits of good and evil, of rich and poor, of women with class and those who can’t afford it, can be uncomplicated to the point of cartoonish, but the point here isn’t so much moral complexity as it is pure, hell-raising entertainment." was kind of patronizing. They never say that about Jonathan Franzen, and his books are the same only less fun to read. Bah.)

STATS