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School is out, the sun is hot, and it’s SUMMER READING TIME!  While we definitely think any book you read at the beach is a beach read, we also enjoy the idea of a really engaging, easy read like Julia Quinn’s The Duke and I.  I’m sure we’ll find some serious aspects to this book too, especially with the ton involved, so kindly répondez s’il vous plaît ici so you can get in on the conversation too! 

Ashley IN MEDIAS RES

• Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
• The Gap and the Gain: The High Achievers’ Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success by Benjamin P. Hardy and Dan Sullivan
• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
• A Year of Positive Thinking: Daily Inspiration, Wisdom, and Courage by Cyndie Spiegel

Nikki IN MEDIAS RES

• Walking with Nehemiah: Your Community is Your Congregation by Joe W. Daniels, Jr.
• Shifter Mail Order Bride Agency Complete Series by Ruby Knoxx
• The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin

Ashley FIN

• Hot Single Dad (Book Boyfriends #3) by Claire Kingsley
• Cocky Roommate (Book Boyfriends #2) by Claire Kingsley
• Book Boyfriend (Book Boyfriends #1) by Claire Kingsley
• Barbarian Mine (Ice Planet Barbarians #4) by Ruby Dixon
• The Heart Principle (The Kiss Quotient #3) by Helen Hoang
• The Bride Test (The Kiss Quotient #2) by Helen Hoang
• Mysteries of Honolulu by Robert Lopaka Kapanui
• Snippets of New Orleans by Emma Fick
• Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
• Hooked (Never After #1) by Emily McIntire
• Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• Maxim (Carolina Reapers #10) by Samantha Whiskey

Nikki FIN

• Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
• It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn (audio)
• Barbarian Mine (Ice Planet Barbarians #4) by Ruby Dixon
• The Heart Principle (The Kiss Quotient #3) by Helen Hoang
• The Bride Test (The Kiss Quotient #2) by Helen Hoang
• Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking by Jon Acuff
• Mysteries of Honolulu by Robert Lopaka Kapanui
• The Kiss Quotient (The Kiss Quotient #1) by Helen Hoang
• Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• Sutton’s Seduction (The Sinful Suttons Book 4) by Scarlett Scott
• Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
• Dear White Peacemakers: Dismantling Racism with Grit and Grace by Osheta Moore
• We Should All Be Millionaires: A Woman’s Guide to Earning More, Building Wealth, and Gaining Economic Power by Rachel Rodgers

I did it, darling readers. I made it over halfway through my 100 book goal (54 books as of this writing are Fini, 4 are In Medias Res) and we’ve just reached the end of the Fifth Month of 2022. I am, according to GoodReads, 14 books ahead of schedule. Whoops? But, truly, #SorryNotSorry. There are still a couple days left in May so it’s highly likely that I will be at a nice 55 books read this year by the official end of the month. I’m very pleased with that. I have read at least one book by an author of color and at least one nonfiction title every month this year, so I am keeping to my personal monthly reading goals even though I do things like…

I read four Kindle Unlimited titles without my book buddy this month. This is an odd occurrence, because usually when we binge our romantical books from KU we do it together. I picked up the Book Boyfriends trilogy by our mutual favorite romance author Claire Kingsley. Of note is that Nikki read this trilogy back in 2018 and I didn’t join her at that time. I was playing catch up this go round, but she still got perturbed that I didn’t mention I was reading them because one of her favorite heroes inhabits the second book in the trilogy – Dr. Weston Reid of Cocky Roommate. My favorite thing about this trilogy is that Claire takes typical romance book tropes and allows her characters to be aware that they are indeed living out the tropes within their family. The trilogy follows the Lawson siblings Alex, Kendra, and Caleb in finding their happily ever afters. Solid Four Star Trilogy from Ms. Kingsley. I don’t know if I will actually pick them up to re-read but I will wholeheartedly recommend them and everything else Claire writes.

On the nonfiction front, I am currently reading The Gap and The Gain by Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan with my real estate investor accountability group. It’s an excellent personal development book focused on shifting your mindset from looking at what we lack (the GAP) to looking at how much we have accomplished (the GAIN). The book is broken up into two parts and we just read the first part last week, and we’ll finish up our discussion with part two in June. I want to shout out to my book buddy for helping me repeatedly keep my mindset in the GAIN every week. We repeatedly boost each other’s accomplishments, no matter how mundane they might be, just because we know how freaking hard it is to be a human being every single stupid day. It’s even harder for her when she’s trying to teach little humans how to be human beings, too. Shout out to you, too, darling readers, for keeping yourself on this journey of life, be grateful for what you have and don’t measure what you lack, measure what you’ve accomplished!

~Ashley

Darling readers, just consider this month “I contain multitudes part deux.”  Yes, I’m currently reading a Bible study and a shifter open door romance.  You should see what the librarians are seeing for my summer reading log…well, actually this is the same list, just starting with The Heart Principle because I’m not holding back, and I’m logging ALL MY MINUTES, or at least trying diligently to log them all!  And I just might buy myself a personal pan pizza when I hit my 20 hours this week (yes, it started on May 19, and no I was not the first to finish, and not likely to even be the first in my house).  Minutes are a new way of logging and it’ll be interesting to see how it shakes out over the summer and just how many minutes my people and I can keep up with logging.  Yes, whatever number we end with, the actual answer will be higher, and it’s just going to be close enough.

Speaking of close enough, May’s audiobook is It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn.  While some may take issue with the idea, let me state that inherited doesn’t necessarily mean genetics (although that is discussed in this book).  It also means the stories and attitudes that one grew up with and thus inherited via one’s upbringing.  This was hard for me to track with my reading (how does one track listening time while also doing other tasks?) and brought up some family things I’m holding on to that aren’t mine and aren’t serving me well.  I didn’t do the written exercises (why did they always come up while I was doing dishes?) and still got a lot out of the book, even the parts that seem a bit far fetched because even those are an interesting thought exercise  This title is serious and deep, but if you’re looking to dig into what family trauma is and how you might be experiencing it, I think it’s a good place to start.  Just maybe take it slowly and don’t listen to most of it in two days, maybe.  

I’m really grateful I read Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking by Jon Acuff shortly before It Didn’t Start With You because the idea of family soundtracks was an easy jump after digging into the soundtracks in my head for a couple hundred pages.  I almost wish I’d have listened to this on audio, but I definitely had Acuff’s voice and cadence in my head when I was reading it and it was very helpful.  While I don’t know that this lives up to the hype, it was an interesting, helpful read, and I’m glad I read it.  It’s a new spin on the old idea of self talk, but the idea of a soundtrack and the how-to detailed instructions were new and welcome.  

I feel like I’d be remiss not mentioning The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  This book was phenomenal.  It’s narrative nonfiction, and I got to wrap it up by watching a conversation with two of Mrs. Lacks’s family members, a daughter in law and a granddaughter.  This book featured the historical account of Mrs. Lacks, and her family after her passing, as well as her cells and their journey until the two eventually came together, and information about what’s happened since then too.  It was partially another tragic tale of how the US has failed to acknowledge the humanity of Black people and partially a science lesson of cells, research, and the discoveries that Mrs. Lacks’s cells have made possible.  Skloot did an amazing job of telling the story, and hopefully by having family members participating in a conversation connected to the book, they at least approve of it.  

Readers, it was a serious month, but there were also gems mixed in, some continued series I’ve mentioned here before and others we’ve reviewed here.  Overall, the balance felt pretty good, and that feels like a great feeling to have about one’s reading life.  What are you excited about in your reading life?

~Nikki 

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