The Wish List Trip

Five years ago, a best-friend trio fell apart. Now that one of them has recently died, the other two learn that their friend’s dying wish was to fix their friendship. How does one do that from beyond the grave? Well, you book and pay for a wish list trip in advance and force these two former friends to go on it as a last way to honor your death. Will healing come from the forced proximity, or will this trip only widen the divide?

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this one early! As always, I am an affiliate member of Amazon and bookshop.org, so any purchases made through the links in this post will earn me a commission. Check out the About page for more information on that and how I obtain these fantastic books.

The Wish List Trip was a much deeper read than I was expecting. It was an emotionally charged story of grief, friendship, and how both can be hurtful and healing. While reading, I felt joy, grief, and every emotion in between.

This is the kind of story that stays with you for a while. It causes you to evaluate things in your life. It makes you think about your family, your friends, your career, your dreams, essentially everything that makes up the important pieces of you and your identity. I walked away from this book reminded of how I want to leave my loved ones with memories of love and happiness from their time with me.

Bottom of the Pyramid

I have never watched Dance Moms, and I think that was an advantage when reading Bottom of the Pyramid. I had no idea about the controversies surrounding the show and could read this with a completely clear, open mind, which I think fans of the show would have had difficulty doing.

As always, I am an affiliate member of Amazon and bookshop.org, so any purchases made through the links in this post will earn me a commission. Check out the About page for more information on that and how I obtain these fantastic books.

So, if I’ve never watched the show, why did I pick up this memoir? Because the description grabbed my attention.

This read was eye-opening, heartbreaking, and inspiring all at once. To hear about her being forced to navigate racism and abuse on a public stage as a child while chasing her dreams through her healing journey into adulthood put me through the range of emotions from rage to joy. Child stars in any form of art are under extreme pressure every day, and Nia, along with her fellow dancers, were under multiple microscopes between the dance world and reality TV fans. I love that she took the time to heal, reflect, evaluate her dreams outside of the Lifetime and studio umbrella, and then set out to achieve those dreams, which included telling her side of the story in this memoir.

Now, after reading this, do I want to go watch the seasons of Dance Moms? Hell no. But I’ll keep reading the stories of women who turned their dark clouds into their own sunshine, or who, in Nia’s case, took back the meaning of being on the bottom of the pyramid and showed the world it is a good place to be.

Audiobooks

I have struggled with audiobooks for years. My brain couldn’t focus, and I found myself getting bored or distracted. In the last year or so, however, I have realized that if I choose a nonfiction audiobook, I can get through it and retain the information. Honestly, I should have understood this before now since I have always been more of an auditory learner.

This discovery has been a game-changer for my reading life. I feel like I am finally making a dent in my nonfiction TBR, and I like that I can multitask while listening. Not only am I reading more, but I’m also listening to these while I’m working out, and those workouts have gotten longer because I don’t want to quit mid-chapter. I end up on the treadmill or rower for a bit longer to have a good stopping point.

That being said, I am learning just how important the narrator can be to the success of these books. I listened to one the other day that had a terrible narrator. Thankfully, it was a very short book that I was able to push through in one sitting. But it was obvious that the narrator of this one was chosen for his ethnicity and for English being his second language, in an attempt to lend authenticity to the book’s subject. Luckily, I have also found many great narrators.

I am enjoying this new journey into nonfiction as an audiobook. Do I think I’ll ever dip into fiction this way? Probably not, but I also never thought I would be cranking through books this way at all, so maybe one day I’ll try the fiction side again.

Brimstone Hollow

Eastern Kentucky Appalachia. Snake-handling preachers. A single death that seems to trigger a domino effect of all kinds of chaos. These small-town mysteries are Annie Gore’s investigative specialty. This case, though, is going to cause her to dig deep not only into the town’s history but also into her own.

Last year, Archer Sullivan debuted with The Witch’s Orchard. It was a fantastic debut, but this follow-up, Brimstone Hollow, might be even better! She is setting herself up to be the Appalachian Agatha Christie, and I am here for it! Annie Gore is a brilliant character, and while she is key to both of Sullivan’s books, you would not feel lost if you read this one first; Annie is a recurring character, but they read as standalones.

This story has a ton of layers and action, but everything comes together neatly by the end. I made so many predictions while reading, and while a couple came close, none were accurate. I am so glad I didn’t figure out things because the reveals were so satisfying.

If you have been sleeping on Archer Sullivan, you need to stop now because she is a fabulous writer and I cannot wait to see what she comes up with next!

Jesus and John Wayne

My thoughts on this book are going to make you either a loyal reader or someone who seeks the unfollow button. This one is a lot. It is a lot of information, a lot of education, and for someone like me, a lot of feelings.

Jesus and John Wayne is a history of the last seventy-five-plus years of the evangelical church. It covers their obsession with all things “tough guy and testosterone,” which ultimately led to the culture of toxic masculinity that we see playing out with our conservative political leaders. American evangelicalism has a history of idolizing those that they see on television and movie screens that portray what they think is the ideal Christian man, and that idol worship started with John Wayne, who was notorious for his racist, sexist, and misogynistic words and behavior.

In reviewing this history, Kristin Du Mez, a highly acclaimed scholar and historian, traces the origins through the early days and up to the 2016 and 2020 elections. She takes readers through the horrendously abusive and violent past of evangelicalism, their influences in politics (because clearly separation of church and state doesn’t matter), and how all of those factors worked together for us to end up with the president that we currently have.

This book brought me to a lot of feelings. I grew up, and even into my late 20s, attending churches with this exact toxically manipulative and abusive mindset of teaching. My husband and I met while attending a Southern Baptist college in Oklahoma that was very loyal to the Southern Baptist Convention and its teachings. Many, many of these ways of the evangelical church have permanently damaged my psyche. We did leave the church almost 15 years ago, and I have done extensive therapy and healing work, but some of the damage from growing up that way will never heal. I actually read this book on the suggestion of my current therapist, who has a background specialty in religious trauma.

Reading this brought a lot of those experiences to the forefront for me, and processing them brought up a lot of emotions. Mainly, it just made me angry, which is good because we have learned that when I get angry while reading books like this, I’ve hit the chapter that is perfect for the stage my heart and mind need for healing. It wasn’t all negative, though. It also brought a renewed gratitude for myself and my husband, who has always been the antidote to the toxic culture, for getting us out of there and doing it before our son was old enough to be brainwashed into their horrendous ways.

So yes, reading Jesus and John Wayne was something that caused me rage and righteous anger (pun completely intended), but it also brought about a bit of healing that I needed. It reminded me that despite what I may have been told by my parents, leaders, and teachers at the time, I am not crazy for thinking that the evangelical church is a clusterfuck of hatred and abuse towards anyone not a straight, white, macho man.

July Wrap Up

Reading has been hard this month. I sent way more books to the DNF pile than I finished. There were a lot of different reasons and stages of reading that caused me to stop a book, but sadly, most were just not engaging enough to keep my attention. One book I quit after two chapters because the characters gave me the ick; another I was over one-third of the way through when I stopped because not only was I bored but I knew exactly where they were going with the story; another had a traumatic scene as the opening chapter and I have lived through something similar and that opening chapter triggered the PTSD and I couldn’t move forward.

I did end up listening to a lot of audiobooks this month. The audiobooks, coupled with my treadmill, are feeding my soul quite a bit. Also, when I listen to an audiobook, it is always nonfiction, so I am getting a lot of learning done as well.

I am trying to not feel disappointed in my oversized DNF pile, but it is hard not to. I know this phase won’t last forever. I also know that setting aside the ones that don’t feed my soul makes it easier to get to the ones that do.

August reading will be interesting for timing. It looks like there’ll be many more audiobooks, as I’ll be traveling to drop kids off at colleges all over the country, and they will help keep my mind occupied in cars and planes. As for fiction reading, I’m not sure how much I will get done, as that typically happens at the end of the day, and college move-ins are tiring, so I’m not sure what energy I’ll have for reading.

Who’s That Girl

I am not typically one to read books about television shows- a good celebrity memoir, sure, but not usually anything involving the background of a show or movie. Usually, if I want all the dirty details on those, I’ll find a documentary or watch some YouTube sleuth. But when I was offered an early listen copy of Who’s That Girl, the book about the creation and full history of the show New Girl, I had to take advantage of the opportunity.

New Girl was a show like no other at the time. It took the elements of Friends, Threes Company, and other ensemble sitcoms and created something entirely new. The 20-something characters were more relatable than the groups on The Big Bang Theory or Friends, but the relationships felt familiar. There is a reason that it became a rewatchable, bingeworthy comfort show during the pandemic. The found family of Apartment 4D with all their quirks felt like our friends and found family too.

In this book, which dives deep from concept to finale, we get the complete history of the show. We are given character creation and development, even down to the small-arc characters like Fawn, Robbie, and Dr. Sam. It didn’t matter how small a role a character had; they were all created and developed like the key five. We are told about the endearingly detailed way that sets were created with both the characters and actors in mind. We read about the stress of making sure that jokes landed, ratings were high, and cancellation was never an option.

While reading Who’s That Girl, I found myself longing to rewatch the series, as if the book were bringing back my nostalgia for spending time with friends I hadn’t seen in a while. I also garnered a much deeper appreciation for the television industry in general. There was so much love, detail, and stress put into this show. As my son heads off to film school this fall, I feel like I have a better idea of what he will eventually do as he moves through his career in the years to come.

The Girl Who Came Home

Imagine being told on your 20th birthday that your great-grandmother not only survived the Titanic, but also wants to tell you the story- the story she has never told another family member. That’s exactly what happened to Grace when, over a slice of birthday cake, her great-nana Maggie reminded Grace that she had survived the disaster and that Grace was born on the anniversary of its sinking. Floored by Maggie’s desire to tell Grace her story, she listens diligently, does her own research, and is inspired to take charge of her desires and her future.

I wanted to start this review by telling you that The Girl Who Came Home is another amazing Hazel Gaynor story that connects two generations through tragedy to healing. But I can’t do that because this is actually the first Hazel book ever! Believe me, I am just as shocked as you are to find out that I’ve been sleeping on this one, and trust me, we are going to be prioritizing more of her older books that I have not gotten to yet.

As always, I am an affiliate member of bookshop.org, so any purchases made through the links in this post will earn me a commission. Check out the About page for more information on that and how I obtain these fantastic books.

As this is her first, Gaynor set the standard for her storytelling. Having read most of her work spanning 2019 to now, she is still keeping up with this standard. It is not just a historical fiction story; it is a life you can imagine reading about in the newspaper. She writes not just history but history’s impact on other generations. This beautiful method and ability of her writing is why I will always read a Hazel Gaynor book.

I also want to note that I have had the privilege of meeting and chatting with her, and she is one of the loveliest, most down-to-earth people I have ever met, which is probably why it is so easy for me to just use her first name when writing about her books.

Permission

Permission is a memoir, but it is also a writing guide because, in reality, Permission is a memoir about having written a memoir. Elissa Altman is a writer, and after one of her books was published, her family cut her off because, while the story was fiction, it included parts inspired by a deep family secret that everyone else thought needed to stay buried.

This response from her family caused Altman to spend a lot of time thinking through who gives a writer permission to tell their stories. More specifically, when writing a memoir, what does a writer have permission to share? How much of their story is theirs to share, and how much belongs to other people?

While reading this book, I initially questioned whether I wanted to finish it, as the introduction hit a bit too close to home, but I finished, and I’m glad I did. With every chapter I finished, I felt energized, encouraged, and, on some days, compelled to sit and write my stories and thoughts.

Something from this book has unlocked something in my writing. Maybe I am taking the title to heart. Maybe it was because I listened to it as an audiobook instead of turning pages. Maybe this point in my life, healing, and changes are a perfect storm mixing with this book, and I am able to absorb it in ways I haven’t before from a writing book. Maybe it’s because it isn’t actually a writing book but a memoir on writing. Maybe it is all those things combined. Either way, the universe has used this book to tell me it is time to refocus and get serious about my writing again, because my voice needs to be heard, and I am in a place in life where I have given myself permission to speak.

I quit my Goodreads challenge.

Yes, you read that title correctly, I quit my Goodreads challenge.

This year, I went back to the Goodreads challenge after many years of not doing it. Halfway through the year, I realized the same reasons that I had stopped doing it before were still valid and still problematic for me.

When I quit years ago, it was for my mental health. Doing the challenges was destroying my enjoyment of reading. The competition with myself and others, both real and imagined, was killing my confidence and sense of satisfaction. I was reading to check boxes and feel accomplished, but I wasn’t reading to feed my soul.

Last year I started tracking my books again old school style with pen and paper. That was an interesting way to see what all I read, and I could note things like advanced copies and DNFs. There were no readers’ highs that came with it, just information. I let it deceive me into thinking that the Goodreads challenge would be something to try again.

Let me note here that my reading is always tracked on Goodreads for the year. My reviews are always posted there along with those from other sites. As a blogger and reviewer, I know that wherever a review goes, it is helpful to both the writer and the reader. So, in doing that, I add the date read every time I submit a Goodreads review, but this year I chose a number for the challenge instead of just tracking my input.

By going back to a challenge number, I have given myself undue mental stress by trying not only to meet my goal but also to beat the timeline. Things were becoming a competition again, and that is a mental health problem.

I have also spent the last few months recognizing the performative actions of readers on social media. And it’s not just bloggers and influencers; it’s the “book person” of a group. This recognition and annoyance have prompted me to review my own reading-focused online posts and make some changes. In this, I’ve come to understand just how performative the Goodreads challenge is. Every time you finish a book, it tells others in your friends’ feeds. That, for me, comes across as showmanship; it says I’m reading more than you, or sometimes even promotes judgment based on the genre or author.

So with all that, I have chosen to delete my challenge goal. I will still leave reviews and mark reading dates, but no more updates to the numbers on the main page. If I am feeling bad seeing it, I can assume others might be too. Reading should not make anyone feel bad. Reading is not a performative art. And doing a Goodreads challenge shouldn’t take away the enjoyment, but it is, so I’m done, again.