In regards to the books I read in September, what I lacked in quantity I made up for in quality (mostly). I was very busy in September with a large project at home and pretty busy as well in other areas of my life. I only completed four books this month and one more was a DNF for me. However those four were all pretty great! Two were 5 🍷s and the other 4🍷. I will see if October shapes up to allow more reading time, I still have a good handful of titles I really want to finish this year.
Here are the books that I read in September.
What We Carry: A Memoir – Maya Shanbhag Lang
What We Carry: A Memoir is a profound and deep story of an immigrant mother, her daughter, and their family. Maya holds her mother to the highest regard and she has always been 100% supportive, until Maya becomes a mother herself. That is complicated enough and then we learn that Maya’s mother has been living with Alzheimer’s. Maya takes the lead caregiver role for her mother and through all of the hardship, she learns so much about her mom and her past. The story was very moving for me and I enjoyed it on audible with Maya as the narrator. Not a happy story most of the time, but very enjoyable.
🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷
The World Played Chess – Robert Dugoni
This is my second Dugoni book and I absolutely loved my first, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell. The World Played Chess is a story that features 3 timelines and 2 POVs, all timelines with characters coming of age at 18 years old. William is a Vietnam Vet with PTSD and his story is told through a journal from 1967, as well as from his friendship with Vincent in 1979. Later in time we meet Beau, Vincent’s son, in 2016. I was drawn into the story and felt deeply for all of these characters. I also connected with the weave throughout the book of growing up Catholic and how that played a part in all of their lives. I did have a tiny bit of trouble at times transitioning from one timeline to the next but I still enjoyed the book. Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for an early release copy of The World Played Chess in exchange for my honest opinion. It is now available.
🍷🍷🍷🍷
Blackout: Remembering The Things I Drank To Forget – Sarah Hepola
Raw. Real.
I listened to the audio version of Blackout, read by the author. Sarah tells her story where alcohol was a main component. It occupied parties, social events dinner meetings and events but the price was she often blacked out and had to piece together the missing moments and hours. I do enjoy listening to audio books and often select memoirs for audio instead of novels and try to mix it up. Blackout was a well written account on how someone moves forward from an alcohol addiction, when it seemingly made their life better, once they make the decision to change their life to not include alcohol.
When I finished the book (audio version) I wandered over to Sarah’s website where I spent about 90 minutes in the blink of an eye reading her essays and blog posts. Worth visiting her site after finishing the book. Some topics there are similar to the book, but most (at least the ones I got to) are not.
🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷
The Stolen Hours – Allen Eskens
This was the seventh Esken’s book that I have read and I did enjoy it. In The Stolen Hours we catch up with Lila Nash, who we originally meet in The Life We Bury. Lila is working in a prosecutors office as an aide, excelling and about to land her dream job until a woman is pulled from the river and her past catches up to her. The Stolen Hours was well written and I enjoyed meeting up with Lila and Joe again. It is a multiple POV book where one character is the assailant and the true story is the chess game that takes place. If you have read Esken’s other books, I do recommend it. If you haven’t, I would start with The Life We Bury.
🍷🍷🍷🍷
DNF Cloud Cuckoo Land – Anthony Doerr
I just learned my lesson about requesting an ARC on author alone. I really wanted to love this book, after devouring All The Light We Cannot See. I would up abandoning this one fairly early on. It is a mish-mash of many story lines and timelines (5? I am not even sure) that did nothing but confuse me and make me cuckoo. I am not even giving it a star rating as I feel it has to be for someone, but it is not for me. Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest opinion. Cloud Cuckoo Land is now available.
Book of the Month: What We Carry: A Memoir – Maya Shanbhag Lang
