It’s almost catastrophic for me to start reading because I just can’t stop. I’ve been this way forever—I used to get made fun of for reading at recess (which, for what it’s worth, didn’t hurt either my social or athletic career ;)) because I just couldn’t put my book down.
This continues today. But the greatest reading gift I’ve been given—besides the love of it, encouraged by my parents and grandparents—is my Marriage Certificate Trio Wife looking at my dubiously and saying, “you don’t have to finish it!”
Blame a Virgo perfectionist good girl who did really well in school: literally up until that fateful day only a few years ago, I had always finished books I started.
What. A. Burden.
Recently, I put down two books, one that almost broke my heart. All the Light We Cannot See is one of my favorite books. The next book by its author, Anthony Doerr, is called Cloud Cuckoo Land and is masterful, multi-faceted, and … only interests me in peaks and valleys. Sigh. I hope to finish it at some point, but in the face of other books, I just can’t right now.
The other is the highly-regarded Virgil Wander by Leif Enger. What a snoozefest! Halfway through there is no drama, no intrigue, and it reminds me vaguely of Garden State, a movie that many people loved for its mediocrity but made me want to claw my eyeballs out with impatience and boredom (see above: athlete-scholar-perfectionists do not resonate with slow films).
What am I reading and loving? I love historical fiction with my whole soul.
- In the Likely Event by Rebecca Yarros (this is more reading-rom-com than historical fiction but it’s about military men in love! how could I not?!)
- Broadway Butterfly: A Thriller by Sara DiVello
- A Girl Called Samson: A Novel by Amy Harmon
- The Arctic Fury: A Historical Novel of Fierce Women Explorers by Greer Macallister
- Light to the Hills: A Novel by Bonnie Blaylock
You should also know about me that if something is a streaming hit à la The Summer I Turned Pretty or Bridgerton yes all of them, you can rest assured that I have read the entirety of those series as well. And before I watched the show. It makes both better for me, somehow.
Lastly, I’m also eyeball-devouring More Than Cake: 100 Baking Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community by Natasha Pickowicz in which I believe some day I might actually bake in a way that requires measuring but instead I sit on my fabulously comfy new couch and flip through this cookbook.
No, I have not yet immersed myself in BookTok although it may be possible that Rebecca Yarros is very popular there and thus why Amazon gave me her book free to get me hooked.
Read on, faux celebs!