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summer reading at its finest

Hi, hello—we’re back with the ever exciting and earth shaking quick reviews of books I read last month. I trust you’re seated and ready.

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

From the author of The Historian, the crazy but great book about Dracula that came out probably over ten years ago but was awesome, comes a novel about a troubled artist and the psychiatrist who wants to uncover the reasons for his mental break. It is told from multiple perspectives and time periods as the psychiatrist delves into the mystery of why an artist would attack a piece of art, how it involves a French woman who painted in the nineteenth century. The premise and perspectives are engrossingly written, but I was desperate for solid answers with over 200 pages left in the book. The resolution of the novel happened too quickly for me in comparison with its almost 600 total pages. But an art based psychological mystery is always a good start for a book, and if you like a good, long book that can hold your attention this is it, just don’t expect a perfectly paced ending.

The Late Mrs Willoughby by Claudia Gray

The second in a series of mysteries that take place in the world of Jane Austen featuring Elizabeth and Darcy’s son, and Catherine and Henry’s daughter as would be detectives solving murders involving the Dashwood sisters. You know that I’m usually a complete nay-sayer when it comes to Austen-esque fan fiction, but I actually enjoyed this one quite a lot. The author doesn’t try to reimagine Austen’s characters because she has enough creative freedom by using the children of the Darcys and Tilneys so you don’t get angry every other page. And the mystery itself is solid, which makes it a great easy read if you’re looking for something diverting but also Austenish.

Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri

Gosh, this book is good. It’s a middle grade novel telling the first person account of a boy who moves to America from Iran. But it is told in such a creative style that it interweaves what is happening to the boy in his new American life with Persian fairy tales and his family history. It has such a profound reverence for story, family, and personal history that I don’t think I’ve read within one book before. At once an immigrant story, humorous tellings of life as a 12 year old, and a ride through Persian tales, it really is a remarkable book that I recommend everyone read, and definitely any kid 12 and up.

Strange New World by Carl Trueman

My heavier, non-fiction read of the last few months, Strange New World is the more approachable version of Trueman’s masterful The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Trueman explores and explains the philosophical and sociological underpinnings of our current cultural and political obsession with expressive individualism. While none of this is new material for me, this book does an excellent job of making the philosophical ideas of the last two hundred years explain how we are now an incredibly divisive society focused on the expression of self created selves. It also examines the Christian response to these ideas and how Christians can understand more fully why people believe what they do today in our secular, post modern world.

And onto audiobooks:

• The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann was an interesting telling of British naval history, survival, and the complexities of mutiny. I didn’t like this as much as Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon because he got a little heavy handed by the end of the book. I get how you feel about colonialism, David, no need to go on for another 10 pages!

• The Whispers by Ashley Audrain is a domestic thriller telling the stories of four women when tragedy strikes one of their children. This book basically takes the fundamental fears all women has and makes all of them part of the storyline. There should be trigger warnings on the book if you’re a mother, if you’re not a mother, if you’re a working mother, if you’re a stay at home mother, if you have a husband, if you have a child with any medical complications, if you experience infertility, if you fear infidelity, and I could go on. Basically, if you’re a woman, this book is going to scare the crap out of you. But is it a tightly written compelling book? Yes.

And that’s it for today. I definitely downloaded The Whispers on a whim after hearing about it somewhere because summer is my excuse to read stuff I would normally think too beachy or fluffy. And you know what? What is summer without a completely frivolous read you pick up without knowing anything about it?

What have you been reading this summer? I hope it’s been as good as your summertime leisure!