I was recently having a conversation with some friends where one was expressing how accomplished she felt to have set a daily personal goal for herself and recognized how this task, albeit a small one, made the day get off to a good start. Checking a box on a mental to-do list. Obviously with three children, I don’t get to wake up every morning and immediately open a book. (How great would that be!) Most days I get to sneak in a few minutes of reading time while I wait in the school pick-up line. I feel more relaxed on nights that I read before going to sleep rather than watching TV. These next 10 books were very different and I enjoyed the majority of them. I hope you enjoy reading a bit about each of them. If you have any suggestions for books 21-30 or have read any of these ten, please let me know your thoughts.

11. “Talking as Fast as I Can” by Lauren Graham

Who doesn’t love Lorilai Gilmore or Sarah Braverman? Lauren starts the book back in her childhood and wraps it up on the last day of shooting the Gilmore Girls reboot “A Year in the Life”. I watched every episode of Parenthood as it aired and I admit, I was late to the Gilmore Girls party but thanks to OnDemand/Netflix I fell in love with the series a few years ago. It’s a quick, quirky read written as if you were having a conversation with Lauren or hearing her inner monologue. I had a really good laugh at one of her summer auditions memories back in college where she describes singing “Slap that Bass” (supposed to be pronounced like “vase”, not the way Lauren was pronouncing the word with gusto) to the laughter of the audience watching only to be told when she finished that this song was not written about a fish. Now, how do we convince Netflix that we need more Rory and Lorelai?

12. “To Capture What We Cannot Keep” by Beatrice Colin

The old saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” should be remembered when browsing the shelves at the local bookstore. I will admit the gorgeous cover of this book caught my eye. “To Capture What We Cannot Keep” is set in Paris in the late 1800’s during the building of the Eiffel Tower. I loved reading about what the city was like during the time. Cait is a chaperone to wealth Scottish charges and accompanies them on their adventure to Paris. While there the trio meets and befriends Émile, one of the main architects working directly with Gustav Eiffel on his controversial tower. I really wanted to love this book, however, I felt it always falling a little flat. I would definitely recommend the book to historical fiction readers as the author’s description of high society Parisian life and its culture are wonderful.

13. “The Last Mrs. Parrish” by Liv Constantine

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer… “The Last Mrs. Parrish” was quiet the page turner. This thriller about a woman who conceives a plot to work her way into the life of a married couple is told in two parts from two different characters POV. As the book opens, Amber is putting her master plan into play. She is manipulative, calculated and really quiet despicable but you find yourself sucked into her storyline and in a twisted way almost pulling for her. Part II is from Daphne’s perspective. The twist the author lays out for her character is unsettling and disturbing. Amber & Daphne remind you that not everyone’s relationships are always what they seem to be on the exterior. I can see why this book made it on to Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club list. If you haven’t read this yet, add it to your list.

14. “Victoria” by Daisy Goodwin

For those of you who have not yet discovered “Victoria” on PBS, get to a TV right now. This has easily become one of the shows I most look forward to watching every week. The author of this book is the head writer for the PBS show. “Victoria” is meant to accompany season one of the show. If you haven’t seen the show, no worries, the book is definitely still worth the read if you like slightly fictionalized history. Obviously the events surrounding the Queen’s life during this time period are historically factual but Daisy Goodwin’s imaginative take on what transpired is so colorful and romantic you sometimes forget these conversations likely didn’t actually happen. I’m already looking forward to reading season two’s book “Victoria & Albert”.

15. “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston

To start with, the dialect in this book was quiet difficult to get used to. I am a really quick reader but the conversational text forced me slow way down in order to completely understand what was being said. Once I got used to that I found this to be an eye opening tale. Set in the south in 1930s, Janie Crawford, a strong minded young woman, who takes hold of her life as you follow her beginning as a young girl being raised by her grandmother. Janie’s story touches your heart as she endures many traumas along the way to discover her purpose. I only just learned that this was made into a movie which I can’t wait to watch.

16. “We Were the Lucky Ones” by Georgia Hunter

Where to begin! WWII is on the verge of breaking out and members of the Kurc family living in Poland and France start to experience the cruelty and horror of what it meant to be Jewish during that time. “We Were the Lucky Ones” is inspired by the true events of the author’s grandfather and his immediate family. Each chapter is from a different character’s POV and spans almost an entire decade. Georgia Hunter weaves together her family’s story who are torn apart and scattered across the globe while trying to survive the Holocaust. Knowing this was a true story made the details of what these characters went through all the more gripping. I am not usually one to read the author’s notes at the end of a book but you must read this one cover to cover. This has easily become one of my favorite books I’ve read. Be sure to add this one to your “list”.

17. “A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman

Ove is, for lack of a better word, a grump. Even though in the book he has aged fifty-nine years, I pictured him to look more like the little old man from the movie UP. Ove hates everything and everyone and doesn’t understand why people just can’t figure things out for themselves these days. He is busybody, a rule follower and likes things done a certain way. It isn’t Ove’s recent widower status that makes him this way, he has always been like this. Except for when he was with her. She was all the colors. Now Ove is left to figure out his way without her, something he isn’t sure he wants to do. Many times Ove’s antics made me smile and the last chapter had me in tears. You will definitely fall in love with Ove…and Ove would have hated that. This is a must read.

18. “Everyone Brave is Forgiven” by Chris Cleave

I know I have mentioned several times that I enjoy reading historical fiction books but sadly, this one I did not. For me the story really dragged in parts and some of the more present characters in the book were less than tolerable. The book takes place during WW2 and is primarily set in London. Mary North is a head-strong girl entering her last years as a teenager when the war breaks out. She rushes first thing to enlist in the war effort and gets assigned a teaching position. Her job only lasts a few days when London begins evacuating all of the children in the city to the countryside. With Mary being left behind she must figure out how what to do next. No one really believes that the Germans are going to attack until the night of the first air-raid…then everything changes. I found the scenes about these nighttime raids especially gripping as my own Grandmother lived through these nights in the English village she lived in with her family. She told me many stories of hiding under a staircase with her sisters while the sirens blared. I wish I could have loved this book more it just fell short and felt long winded.

19. “First Comes Love” by Emily Giffin

Who doesn’t love a good Emily Giffin read? I fell in love with this author when I first read the “Something Borrowed”/”Something Blue” books and this book doesn’t disappoint. This is a story about family, sibling rivalry and how differently each person picks up the pieces of their life following the death of a family member. Sisters, Meredith & Josie, have had a strained relationship since the death of their brother, Daniel. Josie’s carefree life irritates Meredith, while Josie can’t understand why her sister doesn’t enjoy the perfect family she has built. Both women have issues related to Daniel’s death and all comes to a head as the 15 year anniversary of that fateful night approaches. If you are looking for a good beach/poolside read this summer, definitely pick this one up. It’s a quick feel-good read.

20. “The Memory Box” by Eva Lekso Natiello

Twisted. This book is twisted. I have to admit the first few chapters of this book were so far fetched that it was borderline confusing but as the book progresses you find out just how calculated the main character really is. Stay-at-home mom, Caroline, can’t stand the gossiping culture at the school her eight year old twins attend. The other moms thrive on digging up dirt on each other to spread around like wildfire. To get ahead of them, Caroline decides to “google” herself. What she uncovers starts her spiraling. She becomes manic and desperate to sort out what these blocked memories mean that keep bubbling to the surface. After reading other reviews of this book, I saw that most readers leaving a negative review quit reading the book early on and didn’t get to the outrageous twists. This is why I don’t quit books. Yes, sometimes they really are just that bad but “The Memory Box” is worth sticking around for to see where the author ended Caroline’s crazy story. I wouldn’t say this is a “must read” but reading it was a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Til next time,

E