June has been a great month! The school year ended and relaxation began. At the beginning, Sweet Girl and I worked on getting packed for summer camp, but also watched movies, did puzzles, had some play dates, signed up for summer reading clubs, and worked our way down a list of recommended sweet shops in Houston. During the latter half, SG was at camp growing and learning and generally having a blast. I was home going to tile showrooms, reading, doing more puzzles, and making photo books. It’s been good to slow down and catch up with myself.
Do let me know what you’re reading! Right now I am working through Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling and The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More by Bruce Feiler. Of course I’ll let you know how they are, but so far I can’t put them down.
13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher
I know that a teenager lacks the reasoning and perspective required to make complete sense of rejection, rumors, and peer pressure. I know the crushing disappointment after the pressure you put on one person to “save you,” unbeknownst to them. I understand how rejections and cruelty can feel like they are piling up until you can’t see anything good.Still, it’s frustrating to read about. The book asks us to take responsibility for our own actions and how they may affect someone else. It reminds me that it’s my job to provide that perspective to my own daughter, long before those teenage years, and that being available to her at home is invaluable.
The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
Such a cute concept! It’s 1996 and Emma stumbles across her Facebook page from 15 years in the future. Then she and her friend Josh learn that actions today affect their futures and she decides to change her life. The chapters alternate viewpoint between Emma and Josh so we learn about their friendship and what they want for themselves in the future, which of course changes over time. I wonder though about all the references to the 90s that I understood but that a young adult today would probably not. It’s nothing earth-shattering, but this was a fun read.
Enchantress of Numbers: a Novel of Ada Lovelace by Jennifer Chiaverini
I just can’t give this book any more time… and I’m only 1/3 of the way through it. I’ve spent hours with it, waiting for the story to pick up the pace. Ada Lovelace was the daughter of Lord Byron, though she never met him and was raised by her very strict mother. This novel is told from Ada’s point of view as a sort of memoir, but it’s hard for me to believe she knew such detail about what took place when she was a baby, much less before she was born. I’m sorry to leave Ada just as she is becoming an adult in the book, but I’m frustrated with the slow pace and with her overbearing mother.
In Conclusion, Don’t Worry About It by Lauren Graham
Written by Gilmore Girls and Parenthood star that everyone seems to love, this is advice turned into a high school graduation speech. I don’t know… seemed like obvious advice to me. “You are enough just as you are” kind of thing. I appreciated her advice about investing yourself in whatever you do, as well as the small things in life actually being the big. If it had more personal anecdotes, I think it would have been much better. I read it in 10 minutes though! In conclusion, don’t spend money on it. 🙂
“Here’s a secret: The lows don’t last any longer than the highs do. Like clouds on an overcast day, sometimes we have to face the fact that what happens to us in life isn’t controllable, and if we wait a while, don’t take it personally, and decide to enjoy ourselves anyway, the sky will eventually clear up.”
My Year With Eleanor
by Noelle Hancock
I love to read about personal journeys of self-discovery and growth, but this one had stories about and quotations by Eleanor Roosevelt woven in. Noelle decides to do one thing daily that scares her, and she tells hilarious tales of sky diving, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, and cage diving with sharks, with some standing up for herself and weekly hospital volunteer work thrown in. I particularly liked reading of her meetings with her psychotherapist, who encouraged her to move beyond fear and live in the present moment, as well as about her week working in a funeral home. Noelle has wonderful friends who stick with her and encourage her throughout her year of change and growth. I found it all quite entertaining.
“At the beginning of this project I’d gotten nervous about the mildest of challenges… But because the project was so big, it forced me to deal with my fear in a new way. As the year had progressed I’d noticed that the more I worried about future fears, the more overwhelmed I felt. I couldn’t conquer one fear while worrying about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and skydiving and whatever else I had coming up, or fear would consume my life. So to make the project more manageable, I took it day by day, focusing only on the challenge right in front of me.”
“Eleanor was more than a celebrity — she was a role model. This was an anxious girl who grew up to become a social activist and a First Lady who held regular news conferences, wrote a newspaper column six days a week, and carried a pistol.”
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
There is so much history between Koreans and Japanese that I didn’t know anything about. Lee writes with such attention to detail, it was as if I could touch and smell this story. This novel is expansive and covers four generations of a poor Korean family exiled in Japan, first struggling to survive and then with their identities. I liked it, but even at almost 500 pages, it felt to me to be choppy and left some stories untold. We are told of the milestones in their lives, but after the first half of the book, the thoughts and detail in the story dwindles.
“There was consolation: The people you loved, they were always there with you, she had learned. Sometimes, she could be in front of a train kiosk or the window of a bookstore, and she could feel Noa’s small hand when he was a boy, and she would close her eyes and think of his sweet, grassy smell and remember that he had always tried his best. At those moments, it was good to be alone to hold on to him.”
Approval Junkie: My Heartfelt (and Occasionally Inappropriate) Quest to Please Just About Everyone, and Ultimately Myself by Faith Salie
I’ve always liked the NPR program Faith sometimes appears as a guest on, “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.” This is a collection of humorous essays told as life stories and lessons. I could relate to so much of it – her school days, her marriages, family relationships, parenthood. What I didn’t relate to I still found very interesting to hear about – her acting career, fertility treatments. I care too much what people think also, but, like Faith, I’m learning to get on with it and care much less.
But caring too much about people liking you will confine you forever to mediocrity and second-guessing yourself and may force you to engage in meaningful conversation about following one’s dreams with your Uber driver so he’ll give you a five-star rating… Ultimately, an approval junkie desires most to please her toughest critic, which is herself.
