It's Monday 4/29! What Are You Reading?

Book By Book

Last week was kind of a tough one. Of course, I was glad to be back home, after three trips in the previous two weeks, but I found out I lost a freelance writing job that I really enjoy. It wasn’t about the quality of my work – which was often published with little or no editing – but about volume. They wanted me to do more each month than I could fit into my schedule. It was pretty demoralizing that I had worked hard and done a good job for more than two years, and enjoyed the work, but they still let me go. I was upset but have been trying to look on the positive side. It actually didn’t pay well, and now I will have a lot more time to work on other projects I’ve been wanting to do, like publishing a couple of books and doing more travel writing.

On the plus side last week, I did a lot of catch-up work and even cleared the kitchen counters this weekend, which is always a big mood booster! All that clean counter space…ahhh!

And now I have three more (busy) days at home before I leave again…this time for Booktopia VT 2019! I am very excited about this annual weekend event that my mom and I often attend. It’s an entire weekend in beautiful Manchester, VT, spent with authors and book lovers (many of whom return every year and have become good friends). It’s exhausting for me because of my chronic illness but also a LOT of fun, so I am resting up and reading like crazy to try to finish the book selections! You can read all about last year’s Booktopia here.

So, here’s what my family and I have been reading this week:

• I finished a review book, Last Day by Domenica Ruta. It’s about a slightly-altered history where the world celebrates Last Day every May 28, with a nod to ancient myths and stories about the end of the world. The novel follows several very different characters with intersecting stories during the Last Day celebrations, including a teen girl, a tattoo artist, a special needs adult woman, and an astronaut on the International Space Station. I really enjoyed the interconnected stories, and the way the author used this fictional event to shine a light on our real world.
• Now, I am happily back to Booktopia reading with Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones. It’s a thriller set in Detroit and book 2 in a series featuring ex-cop August Snow (though Ilm having no problem starting with book 2). It’s suspenseful, action-packed, and funny, too, with plenty of surprises. I’ve been staying up too late reading every night!
• I forgot to mention in past weeks’ summaries that I have been slowly making my way through the graphic novel On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden. I enjoyed her YA graphic memoir, Spinning. Here, she turns her talents to a fictional story about an all-female world out in space, featuring a team of young women who work on reconstructing crumbling places and go on a mission to find a missing person, with flashbacks to the main character’s time in boarding school. It gets a little confusing sometimes because of the imaginary worlds, but it is interesting and engaging.
• On audio, I finished listening to another Booktopia book (trying to cram them all in!), Soon the Light Will Be Perfect by Dave Patterson. It is set in a small, impoverished town in the 1990′s, at the start of the first Gulf War, and is a coming-of-age story about a twelve-year-old boy’s summer, with his older brother, his father who works at a local military tank factory, and his mother, who is very sick with cancer. It’s emotional and compelling, as the young narrator struggles to make sense of what’s going on in his life.
• Now, I am listening to another Booktopia selection on audio, The Guest House by Sarah Blake. I really enjoyed her novel The Postmistress, and this new one is good so far. It’s the story of multiple generations of a family, the Miltons, who own a small island in Maine and run a successful financial institution, from the 1930′s, in the shadow of the rising Nazis, through present-day, where one of the grandchildren, Evie, a history professor and now an older woman herself, digs into her own family history. I’m enjoying it so far and like novels that weave together stories from different characters and different times.
• My husband, Ken, finished reading The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware, a suspenseful thriller that I enjoyed last fall (review at the link). It’s about a woman on a cruise with just 12 passengers who thinks she saw/heard a woman go overboard. She’s a classic unreliable narrator, and no one believes her in this closed-room-type mystery. We both enjoyed it.
• Ken started a book this weekend then set it aside to save for Big Book Summer (coming up in one month!). Instead, he picked up a book I just bought for myself, True Grit by Charles Portis, the classic western that the movies were based on. I got it for the Book Cougars podcast read-along, though I haven’t had time to read it yet with all the Booktopia preparation! He is excited to read a western, something a bit different for both of us.
• Our son, Jamie, 24, has been reading the series A Pattern of Shadow and Light by Melissa McPhail, a favorite of his. He first re-read book 1, Cephrael’s Hand, book 2, The Dagger of Adendigaeth, and book 3, Paths of Air. He is now reading book 4 (for the first time), Kingdom Blades, and he’s really been enjoying it. He and I were talking during a long car ride last week, and he said he loves this series – he put it on a par with Game of Thrones and Wheel of Time – high praise and good company!

Blog posts last week:

Teen/YA Review: On the Come Up by Angie Thomas – compelling, powerful second novel from the author of The Hate You Give

Fiction Review: Hum If You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais – stunning, moving, important, funny novel – a must-read!

Saturday Snapshot: Lake Anna State Park and Monticello, Virginia – some highlights from our camping vacation, which already seems like a long time ago!

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog’s page.   

What are you and your family reading this week?