Tag: book recommendations

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More or Less Maddy

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

More or Less Maddy is the newest release from Lisa Genova, and it centers on Maddy Banks, a young woman with bipolar disorder. Genova does an amazing job in this novel of taking us through Maddy’s experiences with depression and mania that lead to her diagnosis of bipolar, as well as the ups and downs she goes through as she struggles to accept what that diagnosis means for her.

I love that Genova brings a background in neuroscience to her writing. As I read this story, I felt like I was right there with Maddy, feeling the highs and the lows she was dealing with both before she got diagnosed and after, when she was trying to reconcile her need for medication and stability with her desire to pursue her dream of comedy.

I could also empathize with her family and friends, who just wanted her to be okay. Yes, that made them less supportive of her dreams than they could be, but I could understand the desire to see Maddy safe and as healthy as possible.

This was an emotional read and I would highly recommend it.

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Found in a Bookshop

Found in a Bookshop by Stephanie Butland

Loveday Cardew’s bookshop has fallen quiet due to the pandemic lockdown. The business is struggling and Loveday and her staff are trying to figure out how to connect with readers in some new way. Out of the blue, they get a letter from a woman named Rosemary, who sends them a check and asks them to pick out some books for her and send one every few days.

This surprising request prompts Loveday to open a book prescription service where people can contact them for book recommendations based on what they need. The customers can share how they are feeling and what they are looking for, and the bookshop staff will pick out some books that can be picked up at the store or mailed or even dropped off to them.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a bit on the longer side, which allowed the time to really get to know Loveday and her staff as well as the stories of several of the customers who requested book prescriptions. There were also a ton of book recommendations with descriptions of why the book was being suggested for the particular person or situation, and all of the recommended books are gathered into a list at the end of the book in case you want to look them up.

There are several reflections on the act of reading scattered throughout the novel, and this is my favorite quote from one of them:

In short: you, dear reader, are correct. You are always correct.

Not only in what you imagine, but in what you feel. You are allowed to not-love the novel the rest of the world is raving about; you are allowed to cordially loathe your sister’s favourite author. Reading is not a test. Whether or not you love a book is not a matter for debate; and not something you can be persuaded into.

Books are the magical everyday that is all your own.

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Young Jane Young

Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin is the story of five women and the scandal that binds them together. The book is divided into five parts, one for each of the women. 

The writing is sharp and funny. I was a little thrown at first by the choose your own adventure device in part five, but enjoyed it once I got used to it. I appreciated the focus on women’s issues, especially the double standard that exists for men and women when it comes to sex.

Love this quote from the author’s note:

Jane’s favorite line is from the novel Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Roughly, it translates, “Humans are not born forever on the day their mothers have them; life necessitates giving birth to themselves over and over again.”

I am a big Zevin fan, and this book definitely delivered!

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The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up

The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up by Laura Pearson is a wonderful book which I devoured in one sitting. I loved the process of watching Shelley recover her memories gradually after waking up in the hospital from a coma. By alternating the timeline between then and now, Pearson allows the reader to slowly get more and more of Shelley’s story.

The book does have a focus on generational domestic violence, so it could be hard to read for some people. I do think it was handled very well, but you may want to avoid this book if that is triggering for you. The characters were well developed and the pace was steady.

The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is one small plot point at the very end which was totally unrealistic.  I won’t give more details so as to avoid spoilers.  Despite that, I still think this is a great book and plan to read more from this author.

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What I’m Reading – May 2025

What I’m Reading Now

Fiction – Plymouth Undercover by Pamela M. Kelley – Court Street Investigations #1

Nonfiction – The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis by Karen Swallow Prior

What I Recently Finished

Fiction

  • How to Get a (Love) Life by Rosie Blake
  • Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games #0.5
  • The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up by Laura Pearson
  • Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
  • Lethal Prey by John Sandford – Lucas Davenport #35; Virgil Flowers #16
  • Billy Straight by Jonathan Kellerman – Petra Connor #1
  • Twisted by Jonathan Kellerman – Petra Connor #2

Nonfiction

  • The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You’ve Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky

Short Stories

  • The Bookstore Sisters by Alice Hoffman – The Once Upon a Time Bookshop #1
  • The Bookstore Wedding by Alice Hoffman – The Once Upon a Time Bookshop #2
  • The Bookstore Keepers by Alice Hoffman – The Once Upon a Time Bookshop #3
  • The One That Got Away by Mike Gayle
  • The Sublet by Greer Hendricks
  • The Fall Risk by Abby Jimenez
  • The Tomorrow Box by Curtis Sittenfeld
  • Giraffe & Flamingo by Curtis Sittenfeld
  • Sebastian and the Troll by Fredrik Backman
  • The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin

What I Added to my TBR

Fiction

  • How to Find Your (First) Husband by Rosie Blake
  • The Gin O’Clock Club by Rosie Blake
  • Lessons at the School by the Sea by Jenny Colgan – School by the Sea #3
  • Studies at the School by the Sea by Jenny Colgan – School by the Sea #4
  • Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages by Jenny Colgan
  • The Secret Christmas Library by Jenny Colgan
  • Betting on Good by Wendy Francis
  • Same Time Next Week by Milly Johnson
  • The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod
  • The Many Futures of Maddy Hart by Laura Pearson
  • I Wanted You to Know by Laura Pearson
  • Missing Pieces by Laura Pearson
  • Nobody’s Wife by Laura Pearson
  • The Beforelife of Eliza Valentine by Laura Pearson
  • The Woman Who Met Herself by Laura Pearson
  • In the Woods by Tana French – Dublin Murder Squad #1
  • Storm Peak by John A. Flanagan – Jesse Parker Mystery #1
  • Avalanche Pass by John A. Flanagan – Jesse Parker Mystery #2

Nonfiction

  • How I Changed My Mind About Evolution: Evangelicals Reflect on Faith and Science by Kathryn Applegate (Editor) and J.B. Stump (Editor)
  • The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins by Peter Enns
  • Autism Out Loud: Life with a Child on the Spectrum, from Diagnosis to Young Adulthood by Kate Swenson, Adrian Wood, and Carrie Cariello

Short Stories

  • The Bookstore Family by Alice Hoffman – The Once Upon a Bookshop #4

TBR Stats/Goal Updates

  • I currently have 160 books on my TBR. Of those, 17 are nonfiction and 143 are fiction.
  • I finished 5 more of my 25 in 2025 list, bringing that total to 18.
  • I have read 46 books so far this year (my goal is 75).
  • One of my goals was to read 2 nonfiction books each month. So far this year I have read 1 per month.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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How to Get a (Love) Life

In How to Get a (Love) Life, Rosie Blake introduces us to Nicola Brown, a somewhat obsessive woman who lives a routine life without much excitement, or love. Her co-worker Caroline dares her to start putting herself out there and try to find love by Valentine’s Day.  Taking the dare, Nicola spends the next three months finding dates by a variety of methods, hoping to find the perfect guy for her.

This was a fun read with a lot of humor and wit. I liked the characters and enjoyed reading about all the disastrous dates Nicola went on in her quest to find love. This is the second book I have read from Blake, and I plan to read more.

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Shoe Addicts Anonymous

In Shoe Addicts Anonymous by Beth Harbison, we meet four women who come together to swap designer shoes and become friends in the process.  Each of them has their own problems and their Tuesday night group turns out to be a safe place to share their issues and help each other overcome them.

This is a light, humorous read, a textbook example of chick lit. The characters hover on the edge of caricatures and the problems are all tidied up at the end in a way that is entertaining although not totally realistic.

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Although I must have heard of The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, I hadn’t read it before now. The coming of age novel came out in 1999, a dozen years after I graduated from high school, which explains why it wasn’t on my radar at the time. It was brought to my attention by a book I read in December of 2024 called The Book Swap.  The two main characters in that book shared a history of loving Perks during their high school years, which intrigued me enough to put it on my TBR.

I really enjoyed this book, although I’m not sure if enjoyed is the right word when it deals with so many heavy issues.  The story is told through a series of letters that Charlie, the main character, is writing to a friend.  We don’t know the identity or location of this friend, but the use of the epistolary style is very effective in allowing us to learn from Charlie’s point of view what is happening and how he feels about it.

I was leaning towards giving this four stars, but then it made me cry.  That is very rare for me and made me realize how invested I had become in Charlie’s story, which bumped it up to five stars. Now that I have read the book, I want to watch the movie, which came out in 2012 and was written and directed by Chbosky.

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My Short Story Weekend

I was looking through my TBR last week and noticed that I had a bunch of short stories on it, most of which were already on my Kindle.  So last weekend, I decided to read them all.

The first three are part of a series called Once Upon a Bookshop by Alice Hoffman. The main characters are two sisters who have been estranged for years but come back together when one of their children reaches out for help.

  • The Bookstore Sisters
  • The Bookstore Wedding
  • The Bookstore Keepers

The rest are standalone stories.

  • The One That Got Away by Mike Gayle – fun story about a guy trying to get over his ex and how he spends the day of her wedding to another guy
  • The Sublet by Greer Hendricks – chilling story about the hidden cost of perfection
  • The Fall Risk by Abby Jimenez – sweet, funny story about two neighbors who get stranded together over Valentine’s Day
  • The Tomorrow Box by Curtis Sittenfeld – part of the Currency collection of Amazon original short stories, an interesting look at two men who were friends in college and meet to catch up many years later
  • Giraffe & Flamingo by Curtis Sittenfeld – an Amazon original short story about a woman reflecting on her college experience 
  • The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin – a classic science fiction story first published in 1954. This was shared with me by a good friend.
  • Sebastian and the Troll by Fredrik Backman – a story about pain that Backman has published on his blog

It was kind of fun to read all of these stories back to back.  They reflect a range of styles and topics, but each one has something to offer. 

Do you enjoy short stories? Or do you prefer to stick to full length books?

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Ordinary Life: Stories

Ordinary Life: Stories is a collection of fourteen stories, each of which focuses on a woman at a pivotal moment in her life.  Elizabeth Berg has long been a favorite writer of mine, and this book reminded me why I like her so much.

All of the stories show us ordinary women living ordinary lives but with a glimpse of the thoughts and feelings that are usually hidden beneath the surface and sometimes percolate up to the surface.  Berg writes about relationships and the inner lives of women in a way that is so relatable and insightful. 

For example, in the first story, “Ordinary Life,” Mavis McPherson locks herself in the bathroom for a week, shutting out her husband and the realities of their life together.  She isn’t contemplating divorce; she just needs some time to think, take stock of her life, and to arrive, finally, at a surprising conclusion.

Berg’s writing is beautifully descriptive as well. This quote from the story “What Stays” evokes my memories of growing up with two brothers and the way it was often two against one but with constant changing of who was on which side:

“We kids kept one another company, raised ourselves, excused the obvious problems of our mother. We had no outside friends. That didn’t seem to matter too much, though. We made allies and enemies of one another in kaleidoscopic ways. We weren’t bored.”

These stories are so compelling that I found myself wanting to take my time with each one and not rush through just to finish the whole book.

Highly recommended!