May was a good month for a lot of reasons. I got vaccinated, made plans to travel and see friends, and enjoyed the warm weather in my garden.
I read two books this month from the Women’s Prize longlist (winner to be announced in July), but mostly kept it on the lighter side with some new science fiction and the new release from Jenny Lawson. Here’s what I read in May:
- Wolfsong by T.J. Klune
- The Trouble With Hating You by Sajni Patel
- Broken (In the Best Possible Way) by Jenny Lawson (audio)
- Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
- Winter’s Orbit by Evarina Maxwell (audio)
- Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls
- Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
- How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones (audio)
- The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He
My favorite reads: My favorite read this month was Jenny Lawson’s Broken, which I wrote about in this post on books about mental health. I also highly recommend How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House, a debut novel set in the author’s home of Barbados. I loved Winter’s Orbit, which combined a science fiction mystery-thriller with LGBTQ romance. And The Ones We’re Meant to Find was just as good as its gorgeous cover suggests.
Disappointing reads: I didn’t enjoy Klune’s Wolfsong nearly as much as The House in the Cerulean Sea. I found it long and repetitive, and had some issues with the main characters’ relationship. Klune has a beautiful way of writing though. Similarly, I enjoyed David Nicholls’ Sweet Sorrow but not as much as some of his other books.
Books for challenges:
- Beat the Backlist: Wolfsong, Sweet Sorrow
- Nonfiction: Broken
- Reading All Around the World: How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House
What I’m reading now: I’m still reading How the Body Keeps the Score, a fascinating book about the effects of trauma and how it can be treated. I’m also listening to Amber Ruffin’s You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism. Ruffin is a comedian who tells stories about the racism her sister encounters living in Omaha.
What’s coming up: You can see my 20 Books of Summer list for the reading I plan to do this summer. In June, I’ll be reading Elatsoe for my book club and I have several ARCs I need to start, including a new release by Becky Chambers.
Added to my TBR: I love Modern Mrs. Darcy’s recommendations, and I’ll be writing soon about this year’s Summer Reading Guide. But since I’m trying to read more backlist books, I got a lot of great recommendations from this list: https://modernmrsdarcy.com/backlist-favorites-summer-reading-guide/. A lot of my favorite reads are on this list, like What We Were Promised, Everyone Brave is Forgiven, Code Name Helene, and Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. And when you find a recommendation list where you already love half the books, it’s a pretty good guess you’ll enjoy the others as well.
Things that made me happy this month: This month was about taking care of myself. I did a 10-mile walk along the Potomac River with a friend. I’m paying more attention to how I react to stress. I began meditating and I started a 30 day yoga routine. In my little garden I planted cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, eggplant and herbs.
I’m glad things are going back to normal, slowly, but I expect I’ll also miss the quiet of staying away from people. I hope that means I’ll value my time to myself more, though I expect we’ll all fall back into our usual patterns.
I hope you had a good May and are looking forward to summer as much as I am! Happy summer reading.