This year, the reading has definitely slowed down. It’s kind of frustrating, actually. I just have so many books I want to read. But between reading one very long book and adding the Skillshare class into the mix, leisurely reading hasn’t been the highest priority. However, I did manage to read a handful of books so far this year.
Forgiving Our Fathers and Mothers by Leslie Leyland Fields | I would definitely recommend this book to anyone coming from an abusive family home. It walks through the process of handling what’s happened and how to move forward from a biblical perspective: how to forgive, how to love, how to honor.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt | For a longer book, this book certainly had its ebbs and flows, and I enjoyed most of it. However, the ending was kind of a bust — too much telling readers what they were supposed to get out of it. It was my book club’s selection for January, and we had a pretty lively discussion about it, but I’m not sure what all the fuss was about this one.
#Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso | I put this one on my to-read list after it was chosen one month for A Beautiful Mess’s book club. I didn’t like it. I felt like Amoruso was condescending and I couldn’t relate to her. I’m sure some of her advice is sound, but by the end I didn’t care.
The Renaissance Soul: How to Make Your Passions Your Life by Margaret Lobenstine | This is a book for people who have a million interests and need help figuring out how to do it all (see me? I’m raising my hand). Lobenstine gives a lot of sound advice on how to focus on only four interests at a time, create a career founded in your interests, and manage your time, though there’s much more to the book than that. It’s really about living with intention and cultivating a life that fills you up.
*As part of my list of 33 things to do before I turn 34, I plan to read 33 books. This month makes 15/33.
The Goldfinch is staring at me from my bookcase, giving me the big hairy eyeball as to why I keep ignoring it. But between work, two book clubs and a stack of library mysteries, I am somehow reluctant to begin it–Donna Tartt has an amazing way with words, but so many reviews for this have been lukewarm.