Long time, no post! The condensed version (for those who don’t follow me on Instagram) is that in the past year I got married and had a baby, so that alone explains the absence! I am trying to get back into a few creative hobbies now, so that means I am back to blogging and creating things both online and off.
To start back out, I wanted to share what I read in September 2023. I shared this picture to my Instagram stories, but I wanted to go more into detail with my thoughts/reviews in this post!
1. You With A View by Jessica Joyce
I thought this was going to be a lot cheesier than it was, but I ended up really enjoying it. I listened to it on audio and really enjoyed the plot, pacing, characters, and the banter. The whole meet Tik tok aspect was very 2023 and unique, and I enjoyed their road trip a lot too!
2. Tranquility by Tuesday
I had seen quite a few people recommend this on Instagram, and I am really glad I finally picked it up! I loved how she gave 9 steps that you can actually take and were backed by research. I have been slowly implementing these into my habits, and I have especially benefited from planning my week the Friday before and taking one night a week for myself as we adjust to life with a new baby.
3. None of this is True
I have read and enjoyed many Lisa Jewell books, but this one is one of my favorites! This book did a great job of making everyone feel unreliable as you are reading, and you never knew what was going to come next or who you could believe. If you are looking for a good complex and sinister read for October, I would recommend this one!
4. Only The Beautiful
This year I have ended up reading quite a few historical fiction books about eugenics, and this one is one of my favorites about that dark subject. I loved the characters in this one, and it was clearly researched very well. I haven’t read anything else by this author before, but I will be looking into some of her other books soon to see if any of them intrigue me! If you read and enjoyed Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain, Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall, or Take my Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, you will probably enjoy this one too!
5. Fair Play
With a new marriage and baby, we are still trying to get systems in place that make life run as smoothly as possible, and I am all for trying new things to help with that. I got some good ideas from this book, but won’t necessarily be implementing everything. I really liked the conception, planning, execution (CPE) concept, since it makes sense that if you’re the one doing all the prep work, yet you ask your spouse to execute it, things will often go wrong. Overall, I think this was a good read and it gave me some ideas of things to try to keep everyone happy and not overwhelmed with tasks.
6. The Last Carolina Girl
I joined a book club in September, which has been a fun way to read some books I wouldn’t have chosen otherwise! This ended up being yet another book about eugenics, and I did also enjoy this one! It reminded me of Where the Crawdads Sing as well, but I think I liked that book a bit more than this. They are different enough though that I would recommend reading both if you read one and liked it!
7. Give Me a Sign
This was a YA book, but I wanted to listen to it after I heard about it since I love learning more about sign language as an SLP. I did listen to it on audiobook because that is all my library had on the Libby app, but I think it would have been better to actually read this one. It was hard to remember when they were signing at times since it was all narrated. Overall it was a cute story and I really liked the characters!
That wraps up what I read in September! I also reached my Goodreads goal of reading 60 books in 2023 this month, which I was thrilled by since it has been such a crazy year. I am looking forward to seeing how many more I can squeeze in before the end of the year!
xo, Scarlett