July 2015 Must-Reads

July 2015 Must-Reads from MomAdvice.com

I can’t believe that summer is already coming to a close in just a few short weeks for our family. Summer reading is my favorite kind of reading… you know, the kind done poolside? I have snuck in quite a few books this month and I’m excited to share a fresh stack with you. We have everything from teen angst to historical fiction to developing good habits in business to family dramas to comedy to a little smut. What are you in the mood for? I am pretty sure I have a great pick for you this month!

Let’s dig into my July pile, shall we?

My Notorious Life by Kate Manning

I renewed my Scribd membership this month so I have been digging into some of the books that I have had in my library for awhile. One of those books was, My Notorious Life. If you are a fan of Dickens or have enjoyed Fingersmith, I think you will really love this incredible story.

Inspired by a real midwife who became one of the most controversial figures in Victorian New York City, Manning weaves a rags to riches story of Axie Muldoon. The impoverished child of Irish immigrants, she grows up to become one of the wealthiest and most controversial women of her day.

Axie goes from orphan to midwife to lady to prisoner, and Manning creates a compelling story of what it would be to be like to work as a midwife under scrutiny of the law for your services in the mid to late 19th century. Controversial in her services and notorious in her community for offering birth control to those who needed it, it’s an incredible journey to follow and keeps you on the edge of your seat. A beautifully woven love story between two orphans (one being the infamous midwife, Axie) who met on the orphan train and find each other later in life adds to the beauty of this story as they create a business together as adults.

A couple of things to note with this one. It’s a long one (464 pages), but was a really incredible read that was worth diving into! Secondly, if you have strong opinions on women’s reproductive rights this one will give you a lot of food for thought and would lend itself really well to a book club discussion. I had many opinions of my own about reproductive rights and this one really illustrates the necessity of birth control options during such an impoverished time in history. It was an eye-opening read and I highly recommend it!

5 Out of 5 Stars

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

I listened to the audiobook of this throughout the week through my Scribd membership and found it it to be absolutely fascinating, as did my husband.

The Power of Habit was one of the most interesting books I have ever read on habits and routines. What could have been a very dry topic on our scientific responses and why we implement good/bad habits in our life, ended up being an absolutely fascinating piece. The book tackles everything from how DJ’s get us to listen to certain music, to how businesses use surveys to control our habits (again, both good and bad), and even how brands target consumers to make their products a part of our routines when they had never existed before.

The end of the book offers valuable advice on how to break bad habits by identifying your habit loop and how to get the good stuff back in your life. I wouldn’t say that this was a book of solutions (unless you count the last part), but more a share of research and science behind why we do the things we do and why so many of us can’t break our bad habits.

I really recommend this book for both professional and personal development and the audiobook version of it was fantastic!

5 Out of 5 Stars

We Never Asked for Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh (currently available for pre-order, hits stores on August 18th!)

I received an advanced reader of this one from Netgalley.

In this story we learn that for fourteen years, Letty Espinosa has worked three jobs around San Francisco to make ends meet while her mother raised her children—Alex, now fifteen, and Luna, six. But now Letty’s parents are returning to Mexico, and Letty must step up and become a mother for the first time in her life.

Navigating this new terrain is challenging for Letty, especially as Luna desperately misses her grandparents and Alex, who is falling in love with a classmate, is unwilling to give his mother a chance. Letty comes up with a plan to help the family escape the dangerous neighborhood and heartbreaking injustice that have marked their lives, but one wrong move could jeopardize everything she’s worked for and her family’s fragile hopes for the future.

It would be hard to follow up such an incredible book like The Language of Flowers and I think this was a valiant effort, although it might be missing some of that charm of the author’s first book. This book is beautiful in its own way though and it reminded me a lot of, The Same Sky as it tackles the issue of illegal immigration and two sweet kids neglected by their alcoholic mother, struggling with poverty and placement in society. I would recommend this one for fans of The Book of Unknown Americans.

I have asked Vanessa to join us in a future Sundays With Writers and I look forward to sharing more about her own very compelling story that shaped this incredible book next month!

4 Out of 5 Stars

You by Caroline Kepnes

I received an advanced reader of this from Netgalley.

Hey, remember the smutty book I was talking about in the opening paragraph? Yup, this is it. Avert your eyes if you can’t handle it! This book is dark, disturbing, twisted, erotic, psychotic…just try to put it down. Fans of Chelsea Cain & Gillian Flynn will love this book.

This is a twisted love story told from Joe, our obsessed narrator, who finds love in his bookshop after cyber-stalking a girl who used her credit card at his store. We watch as Joe becomes more and more unhinged as he discovers love is nothing like the books he’s read and the movies he’s watched- a fact that he is most displeased with. Twisted humor makes for laugh-out-loud moments and cleverly woven pop culture themes add a little lightness to the dark. This is an author to watch!

If you love it, you will be happy to know that it looks like the next book is in the works. This is one that would be fine as a stand-alone though, if you aren’t feeling committed to another series! Add this to your must-read steamy book pile!

5 Out of 5 Stars

The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

This is another book that I enjoyed through my Scribd membership this month and am SO happy that I finally read. It’s got the sweetness of Eleanor & Park going for it and made for an incredible slow build love story. Those are the BEST kind, in my opinion!

Former piano prodigy Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone learning about her past and to make the boy who took everything from her—her identity, her spirit, her will to live—pay.

Josh Bennett’s story is no secret: every person he loves has been taken from his life until, at seventeen years old, there is no one left. Now all he wants is be left alone and people allow it because when your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.

Everyone except Nastya, the mysterious new girl at school who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. But the more he gets to know her, the more of an enigma she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding—or if he even wants to.

When two broken people find each other it is often a rocky road. This beautiful book takes you on an incredible journey as two sweet kids, bearing unfathomable burdens, find each other and discover that being broken doesn’t mean you can no longer experience joy or be loved. This book is perfect from start to finish and gets bonus points for the perfect last words spoken in a book!

Keep in mind, this is another long one (I can’t believe I tackled two big books in one month),coming in at 426 pages, but the pacing was just perfection!

5 Out of 5 Stars

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

This is another one I tackled on Scribd (that poor company is losing money on me this month- geesh!) and, yes, I know I am the last person in the world to read this one. I decided to go for it once I heard it was going to be made into a film and one of the casting decisions that was announced (yay!)

If I’m not the last person on earth to read this, I can’t recommend this one enough! This was the cutest quirkiest love story ever. Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don’s Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

I fell in love with Don and found myself laughing out loud often at so many of the scenes in this one. I wish the ending had not felt so rushed and I did have a hard time figuring out The Father Project results (told from Don’s perspective), but I adored this book anyway! This was a great summer read!

Did you read the sequel to this one? I’m not seeing great reviews on it so I’m on the fence if I want to read it or not! Let me know!