There aren’t many months where I loved every book I read, but October 2019 is one month I can say that I really enjoyed every book I read this month! A lot of WW2 historical fiction, I know, you just come to expect that at this point haha… but also a couple of other fun reads in there too. Hope you find something you like!
“The Things We Cannot Say” really moved me. I wasn’t sure about it in the beginning, but the more I got into this story, the more I loved it. The main character has a son with autism who struggles to communicate, and then her grandmother has a stroke that made it impossible for her to communicate as well…through a challenging communicative process, the grandmother tasks her granddaughter (main character) to travel to Poland and unravel her and her family’s secrets that she has carried for her entire life. It is a special and moving story, one of strife and survival during the war, of love and sacrifice. My great grandfather immigrated over from Poland when he was young, so this story just carried a lot of meaning for me. It really made me think a lot about traveling to Poland one day myself to learn more about my own heritage and see where my great great grandparents lived. I enjoyed it very much and highly recommend this one!
“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”was such a cute book, it had me laughing most of the way through and I’m planning on reading the second one! Three sisters live with their father after their mother died when they were young, and I enjoyed reading about the relationships they had with each other throughout the book. The middle sister has written love notes to all of the boys she has “loved” along the way, and somehow those letters are found in her room and get sent out to the boys. One boy was her sisters ex-boyfriend, one was a boy who just broke up with his girlfriend, and there were a few others. You can imagine the teenage drama that came out of this haha! It’s pretty funny reading about her trying to wiggle out of those uncomfortable confrontations with the boys of these letters, and how it all shakes out.
I read “The Spies of Shilling Lane” last month, and my neighbor suggested that I read her other book called “The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir.” I enjoyed this book a lot, it was another great story about people surviving and thriving during the war, in essence finding themselves and deciding what they really stand for. I loved this story because in the midst of the war, men were not available for the city choir, so it turned into a ladies choir, the first of it’s kind, which of course made waves. But it also became a place for women to bind together and strengthen themselves, to do something to lift people up during a time of tragedy. Another great read this month!
Sometimes when you have read a number of serious novels, you need something light, happy and just easy to read. I have loved the Peachtree Bluff series, and this month finished out the series with“The Southern Side of Paradise.” I have fallen in love with this family and all of their quirks, another story of a family of three daughters and how the support each other as they work through life’s challenges. I loved how she tied everyone’s stories up, and even though some of it may have been a little unrealistic, it’s nice to read a story sometimes where everyone ends up happy and settled.
This was an interesting read, another story of love during the war, with a spin of time travel in the middle of all of it, which was very unexpected even with the title “In Another Time.” I liked this story for the most part as well, when you have a love story involving a bookstore, classical music performances and symphony music, you can’t really go wrong! As someone who has listened to classical symphonies her whole life, I really liked all of the references throughout the novel.
Another month down! Check out the links below for my previous months’ reads!
What I’m Reading – September 2019
What I’m Reading – August 2019
What I’m Reading – February 2019
What I’m Reading -January 2019
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