June Wrap-Up: My Favorite Reads of the Month
- The Bossy Bookworm
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
Bossy Favorites of the Month
I had a solid reading month, including a five-star read by one of my all-time favorite authors. Spoiler alert: that title will also appear in my Bossy Favorite Reads of the Year So Far, a list of six books I'll post next Friday.
Meanwhile, here are my six favorite reads of June. I like to post my Greedy Reading Lists on Fridays, and this one is a little early (the month doesn't end until Tuesday, after all) so that I can schedule the aforementioned half-year best-of list for next Friday.
You can also check out my favorite ten reads of the spring here.
Have you read any of these titles? What were some of your favorite reads this month?
01 John of John by Douglas Stuart
A young man is called back from the overwhelming, limitless city to his rural Scottish hometown, which is ruled by piety and inflexibility. His claustrophobic community and rigid father gradually give way to glimmers of hope for new beginnings and self-actualization.
Cal is fresh out of art school, deeply in debt, and desperately poor, staying on acquaintances' couches, cleaning buildings (and being cheated out of most of his modest pay), and dipping in and out of soulless trysts with other men. Then his gruff father John calls him home to their rural Scottish croft on Isle of Harris to help take care of Cal's grandmother, who is sick and lives with John--her ex-son-in-law.
Cal's father John is emotionally closed-off and is at times physically abusive. John's expectations of his son are sky-high, and his churchgoing, stoicism, dogged work weaving tweed and caring for the sheep, and repeated denial of his own potential joy all serve to cement his rigid view of what his child should do and who he should be.
Within the complex web of his father's harsh manner, his mother's abandonment, his childhood best friend's pain, his former lover's disastrous addiction, and his town's blind focus on piety and its unfailing inflexibility, we also witness strange, poignant versions of acceptance, of loyalty, of mercifully averting eyes to certain behavior, of sacrifice for one another, and of instances of incredible selflessness.
This was heartbreaking, often dark, frighteningly confining, and, ultimately, redemptive, containing beautiful gems of delight and hope.
Douglas Stuart is also the author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo.
You might also like these Bossy reviews of other books set in Scotland.
02 How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay by Jenny Lawson
Jenny Lawson's self-help book is comforting, practical, and frank; while the content may not be revolutionary, her personal approach, humor, and candor are delightful and reassuring. Readers looking for coping tools will also know they are not alone in facing challenges.
This is my first Jenny Lawson read. In this gently reassuring self-help book, she explores, as the book cover details, Tips and Tricks That Kept [Her] Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of [Her]self. Her depression is treatment resistant, so she has explored various avenues to getting by and getting through each day, pursuing creativity and continuing to write.
Lawson is vulnerable in sharing her mental health struggles; she is practical with her approaches to coping with various challenges; and she's often funny, revealing absurd, awkward, hilarious moments in her life.
The measures Lawson highlights don't feel revelatory, yet her exploration of, personal experience with, and evaluation of their power and success feel like a friend sharing heartfelt, lived advice.
Lawson emphasizes that we all deserve grace and empathy, and that perfectionism should not be the goal, but that finding joy and getting by are.
I listened to an audiobook version of this short title (it's 288 pages), read by the author, through Libby and my library.
For my full review of this book please see How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay.
03 The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
In Strout's newest novel, we meet an irresistible new character in Artie Dam. Only the reader understands Artie's deep loneliness, only we live through his discovery of a shattering secret, and only we witness the life-altering power of his kindness and connections with other characters. This is lovely.
Artie Dam is a high school history teacher, father to a grown son, longtime husband to his wife, and friend to all. The thoughtful, kind former teacher of the year loves sailing, connects with his students, and is a calming force in all of his circles.
Artie is friendly and kind, but private. As readers, we are privy to Artie's closely held ups and downs, his annoyances and triumphs, his secret joys and his devastating disappointments. Only we fully realize that Artie is feeling desperately lonely, disillusioned, and depressed.
His connections with his students are wonderful and, sometimes unbeknownst to him, powerful.
When Artie discovers a deep secret about his life, he's unsure how to cope. This enormously impactful unearthing of information profoundly shakes him. But in typical Artie fashion, he doesn't burn everything down as a result; he is circumspect, even when restraint feels impossible, and thus he protects others.
Elizabeth Strout's signature voice comes through--in this case, it actually felt as though multiple characters took on similar speech patterns to each other and to those in other Strout books. This cross-character speech pattern is not something I'd noticed in other Strout novels, and I'd be curious to know if it was present in other works or not.
This is beautiful, poignant, heartbreaking, and heartwarming. I loved reading about Artie's life and being allowed into his inner world.
Elizabeth Strout is also the author of Tell Me Everything, Lucy by the Sea, Anything Is Possible, Olive, Again, My Name Is Lucy Barton, and Oh William! Elizabeth Strout is also the author of Olive Kitteridge.
For my full review, please check out this link.
04 Forty Love by Jane Costello
This charming British-set novel takes a fortysomething widow facing empty nesting, hormonal changes, and professional uncertainty and opens up friendship, competition, and a new path forward through a recreational tennis league, new and old friends, a supportive brother, and an old crush.
Jules is a widow, single mom, and a busy buyer for a chain of lifestyle stores. She's lived next to the local Liverpool tennis club for years but hasn't played since she was a young woman--when her early love for the game was squashed before she ever became comfortable playing.
A run-in with her old school crush Sam, her daughter's move from home, and stress and uncertainty at work, along with the beginner-team's desperate need for players, lead Jules to reluctantly decide to give tennis another go.
This is charming and satisfying; Jules is a sympathetic character searching for answers as to how to live the next chapter of her life. Her life is appealingly complicated, and she doesn't magically have all the answers.
Forty Love is a rom-com with depth, my favorite type.
I received a prepublication audio version of this title courtesy of Libro.fm and Zibby Publishing.
You might also like these other Bossy reviews of books about tennis. The author has written about 15 other novels, some under the name Catherine Isaac. Please click here for my full review of Forty Love.
05 Famesick: A Memoir by Lena Dunham
The creator of the series Girls explores the details of her years of physical and emotional turmoil, which happened concurrently with her rise to fame. Her pain and the mysterious sources of her frequent agony affected every aspect of her life, and Dunham doesn't shy away from bringing the reader into her inner circle of discomfort, worry, insecurity, and suffering.
In her new memoir, the creator of the series Girls revisits the years in which she went from an unkown to a well-known writer, director, producer, and actor.
She shares professional and personal tradeoffs, her frequent inability to balance the breakneck speed of her work and maintain creativity, and a painful, often problematic host of illnesses and physical isssues that plagued her and affected each aspect of her life.
Through years of various mysterious, excruciating, debilitating ailments, conditions, and limitations, Dunham tries to overcome her own blood, vomit, addiction to pills, and interminable hospital stays in order to put her work first. But in doing so, she realizes she is losing sight of her identity, her emotional connection to her life, and her ability to sustain most of her relationships.
I was struck by the author's transparency.
I listened to an audiobook library version of this title through Libby.
For my full review, please see Famesick.
You might also want to check out these Bossy reviews of other celebrity memoirs or these lists of favorite memoirs the years I read them: this one and also this one.
06 Whistler by Ann Patchett
This may be my favorite Ann Patchett novel. It's a story of chosen family, a chance reunion, illuminating and poignant revelations about the past, and unexpected, reimagined relationships and treasured paths forward.
In Ann Patchett's newest novel, Whistler, Daphne and her husband are visiting the Met Museum when they notice an older gentleman following them. The man turns out to be Eddie Triplett, Daphne's long-lost stepfather, the second of her mother's three husbands and a beloved figure from Daphne's childhood--whom she never saw nor heard from after a car accident that occurred when she was a young girl and Eddie and Daphne's mother divorced.
Their deep connection is immediately evident once again, and, at times with Daphne's sister Leda and Daphne's husband Jonathan, but most often alone, Eddie and Daphne revisit old memories, compare notes, and treasure their time together as a gift.
The structure of the story is wonderful, tracking back in time to Daphne's childhood and the pivotal events that led up to her cherished stepfather's departure, with revised memories and varied accounts revealing truths that change the tenor of the life-changing occurrences that follow.
This is lovely, poignant, and unexpected--and it's possibly my favorite Ann Patchett novel ever, certainly since The Magician's Assistant.
I received an audiobook version of this novel courtesy of Libro.fm and Harper.
Ann Patchett is also the author of Tom Lake, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, State of Wonder, Run, Bel Canto, The Dutch House, The Magician's Assistant, These Precious Days, and other books.
For my full review, please check out Whistler.
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