August Wrap-Up: My Favorite Reads of the Month
- The Bossy Bookworm
- 11 minutes ago
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Bossy Favorites of the Month
Bookworms, I present to you: my six Bossy favorite reads of August. This list is a varied collection: historical fiction, a couple of rom-coms, a nonfiction journey, contemporary fiction, and a fantasy sequel.
Have you read any of these titles? What were some of your favorite reads this month?
01 Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan
This nearly perfect rom-com hit all the right notes for me. Monaghan's tone was spot-on, and her fake-dating story and characters had me abandoning real-life duties to get back to reading this delightful, banter-filled, layered, lovely novel.
Single mom Dolly Brick (her mother was a country music fan) returns to her seaside Rhode Island hometown of Whitfield for the summer to help her hardworking dad with his fish shop, support her brother, who has schizophrenia following a traumatic brain injury, and repair the family home following a fire.
When she runs into handsome Stewart, the son of the local millionaire Whitfield family, who has a flat tire and no clue how to change it, capable Dolly helps him out. One thing leads to another, and reserved Stewart proposes a fake-dating scenario that should allow him to save face after a humiliating and public breakup--and more importantly, (pretend to) prove to his family that he can lead a balanced lifestyle outside of work.
This rom-com hit allll the right notes for me. Fake dating, seeming-opposites attracting, moneyed/financially strapped disparities, relationship hiccups (which do not revolve around miscommunication), complicated family dynamics, peeks into privileged and working-class seaside lives, voyeuristic forays into high-class society, and "they're just like us" moments.
I received a prepublication version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Putnam.
Annabel Monaghan is also the author of books including Nora Goes Off Script, Same Time Next Summer, Summer Romance, and It's a Love Story.
For my full Bossy review, please check out Dolly All the Time.
02 Night Night Fawn by Jordy Rosenberg
In this wonderfully bonkers, darkly funny novel, a dying Jewish matron with rigid views and a litany of disappointments to share with those who caused them experiences drug-induced hallucinations and faces vulnerability as the end of her life draws near.
Jewish matron Barbara Greenberg is terminally ill, medicated out of her mind with opioids, and writing down key elements of her life, particularly the laundry list of her failures--including, in her view, her raising of her only child (to be a confident, noncomforming, open-minded person).
Tracking back in history, she recounts her front-desk work at a questionable plastic surgeon, to her marriage to a man with declining aspirations, her failed attempt at a career as a film actress, her estrangement from her former (and now famous and successful) best friend, and most especially sticking to her outdated and close-minded views on gender and sexuality--illustrated by her inability to understand the motivations of or identity of her trans son. Barbara offers her extensive, unwavering opinions and doesn't sugarcoat a thing.
Through it all, death looms, and as Barbara prepares to exit the corporal world she is at times afraid, unmoored, and alone. The pending end of her life eliminates some of her previously die-hard cocksureness, and she shows moments of vulnerability as her frailty becomes overwhelming--and at times humiliating.
Barbara is an unreliable narrator, and she digs in her heels on points that the reader can see are shadowed by her spectacularly misguided and relentlessly held convictions about how things should be, but aren't.
For my full review of this book please see Night Night Fawn.
03 This Land Is Your Land by Beverly Gage
Historian Beverly Gage chose thirteen pivotal places across our nation to illustrate key points in our history, explore our complicated path to the present day, and inspire our growing stronger as we face our past truths as well as our future. This is fascinating nonfiction, perfect to read during our nation's semiquincentennial year.
Beverly Gage traveled across the United States in order to write this work highlighting key points in our history, unforgettable characters who shaped our past, various conflicts and cooperation, and our mistakes as well as hope for a better future.
She begins the book by reflecting on her youth and longtime interest in history, her travels as a young person, and the trips she has taken with her own, now college-aged child. She recalls her own dives into participating in history and celebrating our nation, including, endearingly, dressing up as a peanut for a bicentennial parade.
Gage asserts that our nation's history is complicated and fraught, and that this layered story of our collective past belongs to all of the groups who have lived on the land we call the United States. As current debates rage about how to tell the truths of our history, some groups fight to erase uncomfortable facts, shape the narrative to be softer, and omit painful historical failures. But Gage notes that every event, however painful, has built our country, that our stumbles and abject failures have inspired change, and that we are not finished growing. We can continue aiming to be better, do better, and take pride in our diverse nation, its checkered past, and its promising future.
This nonfiction work is perfect to read during our nation's semiquincentennial year.
For my full review, please check out this link.
04 The Romance Revival by Christina Lauren
The Romance Revival is a departure for Christina Lauren; we get a couple who has drifted apart and gets a second chance, but a futuristic, science-fiction twist is key to the plot. The relationship is one to root for, and I really liked the minor mystery, supporting characters, and new direction for the writing pair.
Scientist Emery Finch has always been hyper-focused on her top-secret career, but when she fell for landscaper Luca, she fell hard.
Their passionate married life was joyful and fulfilling at first...but Emery is hardly ever home, Luca carries all of the weight of the household, and they feel like they're not connecting anymore, if they ever truly did.
As Emery misses yet another important anniversary, an unfathomable tragedy throws everything into a spiral. Emery breaks every code of ethics to save Luca. But afterward, Luca retains no memory of Emery, their life, or his own personal past. He realizes that he was unhappy before the accident, and also that Emery was keeping secrets he had seemed willing to overlook. Will this be a chance to start over, or the heartbreaking end of the relationship.
Luca's memory loss propels the "second-chance" aspect of the romance, and the couple's redoubled efforts, increased understanding, and heartfelt getting-to-know-you-again pieces of the story allowed for a deeper, more believable, more anchored feeling to the relationship.
The writing team of Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings also authored the books The Paradise Problem, The True Love Experiment, The Unhoneymooners, In a Holidaze, Love and Other Words, Something Wilder, and Autoboyography.
Please click here for my full review of this title.
05 When the World Fell Silent by Donna Jones Alward
The tone of this historical fiction novel was at first too earnest for my taste, but ultimately I was intrigued by the real-life basis of the Halifax Explosion and the intersecting stories of two women coping with the local accident and crisis, the effects of World War I, societal limitations placed on women, judgment around single motherhood, finding and losing love, and more.
It's 1917 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and two women are coping with the ripple effects of World War I--and their own personal struggles and situations.
Nora, a lieutenant in the Canadian Army Nursing Corps, is living with her beloved sister and nieces while her brother-in-law is off at war. Nora is determined to find joy in any possible moment.
Charlotte still reels from the news that her husband died in the fighting overseas, and she and her baby Aileen live with her husband's cold, demanding family, with Charlotte serving as an unpaid maidservant of sorts.
When a tragedy strikes Nova Scotia, both of the women's lives will be turned upside down--along with the lives of thousands of others.
The storytelling here is earnest, and it took me a little work to get past this to appreciate the representations of the struggle between work and motherhood, the crushing societal judgment of unwed mothers, the widespread destruction and complicated effects, and the stalwart moving forward in the face of grief and unimaginable destruction. I felt confident throughout the book that some version of a happy ending would be delivered after the heartache and loss, and that did come to pass.
The accident in the story was based upon the real-life Halifax Explosion.
When the World Fell Silent is Donna Jones Alward's debut historical fiction novel.
For my full review, please see When the World Fell Silent.
06 The Tapestry of Fate (Amina al-Sirafi #2) by Shannon Chakraborty
Amina al-Sirafi is an irresistible character--spicy, determined, nurturing, cutthroat, loyal, inventive, and unpredictable. In this second novel of adventure, the pirate faces seemingly impossible challenges and must do the unthinkable: rely on others and trust them with her life so she can safely return to her daughter and family.
I loved every bit of Chakraborty's first novel about willful, sometimes grumpy pirate Amina al-Sirafi and her complicated quest, strategic swearing, strength, fierce loyalty, struggle to balance work and family, and messy, grand, swashbuckling adventures.
In this second book in the series, Amina is obliged to seek a magical artifact on behalf of a powerful group to whom she is beholden. She imagines a fairly stress-free escape across the sea with her pirate crew, an efficient recovery, and a victorious return home. But she finds herself on an island ruled by a sorceress whose powers prevent Amina's escape.
Strong women are at the heart of this story, as are their unfailing loyalties to family and friends, the forcing of impossible decisions, and the facing of excruciating losses.
I'm in for all the Amina books I can get my hands on, and the cliffhanger at the end of this novel clinches that.
I listened to this novel as an audiobook through my library and Libby.
Shannon Chakraborty wrote the first book in this series, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, and also writes books under the name S. A. Chakraborty, such as the Daevabad Trilogy: The City of Brass, The Kingdom of Copper, and The Empire of Gold.
You might also be interested in these Bossy reviews of novels about pirates and life at sea.
For my full review, please check out The Tapestry of Fate.
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