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Summer is the season to lay out by the pool and read. I have been complaining lately that I have not been reading as much as I would like to. Well ’tis the season to really crack down and make time for such pleasures. At night I make sure to read for half hour to an hour before bed. The afternoon’s of Sunday’s are cleared out so I can devour my book whether I am in the park, laying out under the sun or sitting on my bed. Two books I have recently finished and highly recommend are Where The Crawdads Sing and Normal People. I throughly enjoyed both and could not put either one of them down. Now that I am finished with both books, I have new ones on my reading list.
A Read with Jenna July pick. Evvie Drake Starts Over is about a woman (named Evvie obviously) who lives in Maine and is learning to live alone after her husband’s tragic car accident. She spends most of her days locked inside her house, unless she is hanging out with her best friend Andy. While Evvie is dealing with her grief, or lack of, Andy’s childhood best friend Dean, a pitcher for the Yankee’s, needs a place to hide out for a while. Andy sets it up that Dean will live with Evvie, thinking it would be good for the both of them to have company. This story is about friendship, relationships, dealing with personal issues and moving forward. I started reading it a few days ago and am almost halfway through. I am enjoying the dynamics of Evvie and Dean’s friendship and learning more about why Evvie is feeling the way she does about her late husband’s death.
As you can see The Cactus is a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick (for June). I was in Barnes and Noble the other day looking for Evvie Drake Starts Over when I stumbled upon The Cactus in the featured Reese Witherspoon Book Club section in the store. HOW I missed her June pick, I may never know. After reading the synopsis I knew this was going to be an enjoyable book to read. I bought it along with Evvie Drake Starts Over. The Cactus is about a woman, Susan Green, who seems to have her life figured out until suddenly, upon the death of her mother, finds out that she is pregnant. Now Susan’s life is falling apart and she doesn’t know what to do. Enter Rob, Susan’s older brother’s best friend, who starts to truly be there for Susan during her pregnancy (that is not his child). It’s about friendship, love, and adapting to whatever life throws at you.
City of Girls is a July pick for Book Babes NYC, co-founded by my friend Victoria. I am pretty excited to start reading City of Girls, as the storyline looks amazing! I was instantly hooked from the first synopsis paragraph on Amazon: “Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.” What more do you need to convince yourself to read this book! As mentioned it is set in the 1940’s, Vivian Morris just got kicked out of Vassar College. Her parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg who owns a flamboyant theater called Lily Playhouse. Vivian finds herself in all kinds of situations whether in love or scandal. BUT here is the best part, as the synopsis mentions–the story is told by Vivian as an 80 year old woman reflecting back on her youth. TURN THIS INTO A MOVIE NOW!