Coming here three days late with my August reads!

And, quite frankly, it was a slow month for reading as we are settling into our new place. It’s fun ’cause I get to add a new library card to my Libby app. It’s not so fun because the amount of time I get to read is very minimal right now.

BUT THAT’S OKAY!

We’re still reading and that’s what’s important.

So, without further ado, my ratings and reviews from August!

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Brighter Than Before by Courtney Walsh:

This book was so fun to read! Also, part of that is because it took place in our old neighborhood! OGDEN SLIP! In a BOOK! YEAH!

(I also have to say that I read this about a month after moving away from Chicago, so all the Chicago references made me ridiculously sentimental and emo, which may have influenced my opinion of this book).

I was hooked from the beginning, when Claire found herself drenched in a fountain while trying to spy on her cheating ex-husband. And then every interaction with Miles just made me so darn happy.

But I also loved the bigger message about how women can start over at any time, at any age. Want to move to a new city? Do it. Career change? Do it. You can do whatever the heck you want with this one life you get!

Such a fun read!

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Spectacular Things by Beck Dorey-Stein:

We love a book about sisters.

I loved the writing, I loved the story, and I really appreciated the way the sisters slowly came to realize that their mom was just a human being living her own life for the very first time, figuring things out as she went. That parents are just people, making mistakes and trying their very best.

As someone who is in that sandwich of having my own kiddos while also having my own parents around, I felt SO much of this. My parents aren’t meant to be put on a pedestal with the expectation that they should never mess up. They’re human. They love me. They’re figuring it out, too.

I knocked it down a star because I couldn’t handle the selfishness in parts of the book. Maybe that’s real life, but it made me feel a little less invested in one of the characters.

Overall, though, a really beautiful story about sisters, mothers, and realizing that our parents are people, too.

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Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune:

One of my must-read authors. This book was another winner!

Slow burn, childhood besties to lovers (which I think is becoming one of my fav tropes). There’s just something so good about someone knowing all the different versions of you.

George and Frankie were neighbors and besties who lived together after high school. Stayed friends after eventually moving apart, had a falling out, and then reunited at Frankie’s wedding when she decides to pull a whole runaway bride situation. They end up going on her already-paid-for-honeymoon together and, naturally, fall in love and find out there were feelings there all along.

Pretty predictable as romances go, but the writing is beautiful and the slow burn is SO good. And I think what I loved the most was how the story kept coming back to George knowing the REAL Frankie.

Frankie had dated so many people while wearing a “mask.” She almost married someone who didn’t truly know her because she was afraid that if she showed people her real self, it would scare them away. But George knew the real Frankie and loved her FOR all those things.

We love George.

A great read! Carley Fortune always is!

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Let’s Kiss and Tell by Joss Richard:

I loved the author’s debut novel! This one didn’t click for me and I’m not sure why. I usually love a fake dating trope, but this one didn’t hit the way I wanted it to.

There’s a part toward the end where Lucy says something along the lines of, “Oh this ‘relationship’ with Marsh is easy for me because it’s not real” and that basically became the narrative they went with. It wasn’t that Marsh was different. It wasn’t that their connection was unique. It was that she felt like she could invest in it because it was fake.

And that just didn’t sit quite right with me. Because, c’mon, it’s a romance. You like him! It should be different because HE’S different from the other men you’ve dated, not because you went into it pretending it wasn’t real.

Overall, I’m still glad I read it. I really liked the author’s first book and think she’s a great writer. There were just a few parts of this one that left me feeling a little…eh.

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That’s all!

I’m currently reading Whistler on the Kindle, Big Little Truths as a hard copy, and listening to Wild Love!

So many books, never enough time!

What’re you currently reading?!