May was a very busy work month, with some fun travel thrown into the busy mix. I read two books for book clubs, then couldn’t attend one of the meetings and was able to listen to other meeting on Zoom while packing for the travel. This was an odd collection of books for me in one month, but that’s what I love about mood reading – finding the book that suits the mood I’m in! This month I read…

• Tell Me Everything by Minka Kelly [audiobook] – I loved Minka Kelly in the show Friday Night Lights, but I knew nothing about her life until listening to this memoir. She had such a rough childhood, being “parented” by people too young and unable to care for themselves much less a child. She documents many traumatic events with honesty and a child’s perspective, though also recognizing all she realizes now as an adult who had done a lot of therapy and received help and support to process what she went through. She is incredibly self reflective and seems like such an incredibly kind and caring human.
• Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld – I’ve had this author on my radar for awhile, but this is the first book of hers that I have read. I loved this sweet romantic comedy, loosely based in the world of Saturday Night Live, known here as Night Owls, when a comedy writer meets a famous musician when he hosts the show. The first part of the story takesn place in one week of creating Night Owls. What happens after that was a nice surprise for me as a reader.
• I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes [audiobook] – I LOVED this book! A friend recommended it to me and I decided to try it on audio, even though I’ve never had much success with long fiction on audio. This thriller was so fast-paced that it had me hooked and I couldn’t wait to get back in my car to finish listening to it. Throughout the story we are with a CIA agent, learning about his life and career, while he is trying to solve a mystery. We travel across many countries, meet many awful people, and see him involved in wild adventures. I don’t want to give away any specific details, but if you like espionage thrillers, this is a must read!
• Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari – I read this book for a book club and am so glad it was chosen and put on my radar. I think everyone needs to read this, as we are at a cross roads in our modern society. The author outlines all the ways in which our attention span has declined, citing research and evidence throughout his personal stories of trying to quit the Internet and find his flow. Each reason reminds the reader that our attention problem is a systemic issue, not a personal weakness. While we can each make improvements in individual ways, we must also band together and fix some significant problems in our world (social media business models and climate change). I appreciated the research, though it was very light on the details of the research. I found so many links in the final chapters to the work we are doing in education to make schools more learner-centered, where learners’ interests drive learning more than scheduled blocks of content time or bells. I will be thinking about this for awhile, or at least until something distracts me! *** Edited to add this note after my book club met: I just learned that this author is very problematic! He has had plagiarism charges in the past, and his “research” has been accused of misrepresenting sources and false claims. I am rethinking my thoughts on this book!
• In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado – I heard about this book on the Currently Reading podcast sometime in the last year. Then one of my book clubs picked it as the May book, so I was happy to read it. This is a memoir, sad for it’s content and unique for its style. Throughout the book, each chapter is told as it’s on narrative trope, and mostly told in the second person (which gets annoying!). Sadly, what we are reading about is a queer romance during awful by domestic abuse, which is a story often left out of society’s narrative. The gaslighting and the emotional abuse are hard to read about, but powerful in the way Carmen weaves the story of this traumatic relationship across time and space. This was so well-written, beautifully sad and poignantly honest.
• Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner [audiobook] – I have heard so many people rave about this memoir over the last two years, but knowing it was a memoir about the author’s mother dying, I was hesitant to read this. The loss of my mom still hurts my heart and I didn’t think I needed a sad memoir to make me cry more just for “fun” reading. However, after hearing Glennon Doyle interview the author on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast, I reconsidered. Michelle’s mother, a Korean woman who married a White American, sounded nothing like my mother, so I thought it was be just a good read for me. This is a beautiful, touching, sad memoir. Michelle’s mother’s battle against cancer did make my cry a lot, for my own personal reasons and just because she writes about it so honestly – cancer sucks! However, Michelle’s love for food, especially homemade Korean food you can buy in H Mart, was a love letter to her mother’s memory and was just beautiful.
• In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune – I have read and loved many of T.J. Klune’s books, for the representation and the beautiful, complex characters he creates. I preordered this in anticipation, however this was my least favorite of all of his books. I think the Fantasy elements (robots taking over the world) were too much for me, and the “love story” was not as fun and touching as in his other books. Having said that, I did love the characters of Nurse Ratched and Rambo, the Roomba vacuum, and their hysterical banter! Victor, the main character and only human in the story, was a loveable character, and I wanted to read a happy ending for him, desptie all of the fantasy shennanigans. After reading the acknowledgements at the end, I’m very curious about the book Klune wanted to write, but that was edited into this based on the feedback he received. Sounds like his first draft was VERY DIFFERENT from this, which intriques me!
• The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett – This was a good palette cleanser after some heavy reads – it was a predictable romance, though with two queer characters, one who was coming into her bisexuality later in life. I enjoyed Sophie, the chef, and Amy, the restaurant owner, and their fun personalities. They were well developed characters with hobbies, idiosyncrasies, and big feelings, that were like oil and water and hot and heavy and everything else! The reality show cooking competition added a fun layer of stress and I really like the book!
• The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up by Andy Cohen [audiobook] – I have enjoyed listening to all of Andy Cohen’s books on audio – he is a funny guy and makes extra jokes for the listener. This book begins when his son is 3 years old and he is awaiting the birth of his daugther via surrogate. Andy documents a year in his life as a single dad of one and then two kids, in NYC, while working so hard (Watch What Happens Live, Real Housewives, Radio Andy, and more!), socializing with his friends and family, getting his Holllywood star, and attempting to date and find love. I love his friendships, and this book was full of him and Anderson Cooper being dads together, his bromance with John Mayer, and his fun with Jimmy Buffett, which was interesting after I just saw Buffett in concert! My only complaint was how negatively Andy talked about his body (so much fat-phobic talk) – it was really bad. Otherwise, I loved his fun musings, how his life calmed down a bit as he got into his dad groove, and the gems he gave us about the housewives.

Favorite book(s) of the month

Fiction: I Am Pilgrim

Nonfiction: Crying in H Mart