How To Walk Away by Katherine Center was one I walked into not knowing what to expect. Some other authors I enjoy like Jenny Lawson and Emily Giffin had mini-reviews on the cover telling me it was going to be an emotional and/or heartbreaking read. The book also hyped that the first chapter was going to hook me. So much so that my ARC (advanced reading copy if you're not hip to the lingo) had a stand-alone copy of the first chapter for me to check out and then share with a friend. In that first chapter the narrator (Margaret) has her world rocked. It starts as the perfect day and then ends as anything but. She wakes up in a hospital bed, and all of the sudden all of the things she knew for sure have changed. I don't want to reveal too much of this one because some of the joy in reading was the unexpected plot. I will say this - It was less tragedy and more love story than expected. When it comes out for real in May, it's one I'd recommend putting on your summer reading list.
Read this book if - You like a story that gives you a variety of the feels as you go. You tend to dig books that fall into the chick lit and/or beach reads genre. You have a soft spot for a love story.
You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero was a read that had been recommended to me awhile ago. Needing a bit of motivation and having a Target gift card that was burning a hole in my pocket, I picked this one up. Obvs, this comes from the world of self-help. The angle of this one was really focusing on the fact that you have the tools to do what you need to do, and you need to stop telling yourself that you can't/won't/don't do those things you want to do. It wasn't anything totally revolutionary, but I liked the way this one was packaged. It worked for me, and my copy has lots of flags in it for quotes and ideas to reference later.
Read this book if - You need a little push to get past the self-imposed barriers you often put up. You've got a dream that you'd like to make happen someday soon.
We Are Still Tornadoes is a YA read by Michael Kun and Susan Mullen. I'm trying to make my way through some of the books that have been in my queue forever, and this was one of those books. This book is a story of two friends told entirely in their letters - That's because it's the eighties, and it was either letters or landlines. There is Cath who's gone away to college, and Scott has stayed home to be in a band and work in his dad's store. Y'all, I love a good YA rom-com, and this was very much that. I devoured this one and loved the non-traditional storytelling method. Every once in awhile, I just need a read like this, and it was totally my jam.
Read this book if - You love a good rom-com like the ones in the early to mid 2000s. You love YA books with some heart and/or YA books in general.
Text Me When You Get Home was a book I went in convinced I would just love. Well, I didn't. I first heard about this one via a story I saw on NPR. Similar to my critique of Cringeworthy, I wanted this one to be more research. Instead it was more personal anecdote. What was particularly hard with this was that the author's negative experiences in some environments around friendship were ones I had very positive ones within. This dynamic throughout kind of sidetracked me as I thought, "Yeah, but. . ." with a lot of the points. There was smattering of some pop culture references of friendships, but there just wasn't enough of what I had hoped this book would be. Oh, one funny thing - Literally the day I added this to my to-read list, I met up with some girlfriends, and as I left, my friend said, "Text me when you get home!" It gave me a chuckle, so I guess there's that?
Read this book if - You want to check out someone's reflections on their experiences with friendship across their lifespan.
