Monday, August 30, 2021

Mini-Book Reviews: August 2021

Disclaimer: I received a PRC of Beautiful Country from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links.


Thanks for all the great feedback on last month's book review post! I didn't know if it would be pretentious of me to post my reviews like that, but everyone seemed to like it! I have a few favorite book bloggers that I look to for recommendations, so I hope you will find something that you might want to read here. This month, I continued to heal from my injury and had plenty of downtime for reading. I read 6 fiction books and 1 non-fiction book this month. There was also a running book and I'm sharing my thoughts on that below. 

As always, feel free to share your thoughts with me, either in the comments section or privately. Thanks for reading! By the way, if this post looks oddly formatted to you, I've had some issues with Blogger. Sorry about that!


Mei Guo, or Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang is a gorgeous but heartbreaking memoir of a young girl and her parents' life as illegal immigrants in America. Determined to live a better life than the one they left behind, instead, they live in filth and poverty while both parents work the worst jobs you can imagine to put food on the table. I love the author's voice and could completely picture the sassy, scrappy little girl that she was. I found it nearly impossible to put down, yet at times, it was difficult to continue the story. This will most likely be the best thing you and I will read this year. To be released 9/7/2021.



A Special Place for Women 
by Laura Hankin was a fun read! I read her last release, Happy and You Know It last year. I loved that book about a musician who takes a side job singing for children's birthday parties and gets involved with the moms. Hankin knows her audience and A Special Place for Women is a variation on the same theme. To save her job and maybe get her boss to fall in love with her, a journalist promises to infiltrate an exclusive woman's club in NYC. It's darkly funny, but it definitely took a weird turn about halfway through. Still, I couldn't put it down because the writing is so good! 



Crying in H Mart was a truly remarkable coming of age memoir. A young Korean American woman, who always has had a difficult relationship with her mother, comes home to care for her when she is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It's an intense read, full of emotion and food--I kept thinking of that saying 'food is love'--as the author learns to recreate her mother's special dishes. I am still saving the gorgeous writing and all the feels I felt reading this book. This will be another top read for me this year. As an aside, the author is the founder and lead singer in the band Japanese Breakfast, which makes perfect sense to me!


A struggling writer and college professor publishes a successful book based on a can't miss plot shared by a former student. He serendipitously learns that the student has taken his own life, so why not? As he enjoys success, including Oprah selecting his book for her book club, he begins receiving anonymous notes accusing him of plagiarism. As the harassment escalates, he digs into his former student's background and is horrified by what he learns. Whew! This book starts out oh-so-slow, but picks up speed as things heat up. Even though I figured out the plot before the big reveal, I could never have predicted that ending. The Plot was a really clever novel--a great read! 


When Rose married the love of her life, they both agreed they did not want children. Her husband changed his mind, and along with his parents, put enormous pressure on Rose. The book starts out with a fight over prenatal vitamins but follows 9 different scenarios with 9 different outcomes. I thought it was really interesting to consider how the outcome could be different. I mean, don't we all do that, think about what if we'd chosen a different path? How do we know if we've ever made the right decision? The plot itself, with emphasis on the pressure on women to bear children, to breastfeed, to be the perfect mom--that will really touch a lot of readers. I found The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano to be really thought-provoking. 


This fascinating read tells the history of the 'stewardesses' of PanAm airlines. Remember them? I thought this was going to be more of a Coffee, Tea, or Me kind of book. It's definitely not that! Come Fly the World was quite an eye-opener for me. Yes, the women gravitated to PanAm for the opportunities and adventures of international travel. But they were also pivotal during the Vietnam War, assisting with transportation of the troops and evacuation of refugees. There's a lot of history here, both about the airlines and the evolution of the role of the flight attendant. It was interesting to learn about how much air travel has changed--and not necessarily for the better!



The Magic of Found Objects was the perfect 'palate cleanser' after reading Come Fly the World. Plus, with all the heavy news lately, sometimes, a reader's gotta go with something light and easy. This book is about two long-time friends since childhood who decide to get married and have kids. They aren't 'swept off their feet' in love, but they have a wonderful friendship and decide to give it a go. Full of quirky characters and great dialogue, this was a fun read!






As I mentioned above, last month I promised I'd read and review a running book. The Impossible Mile by Johnny Agar and Sarah Agar is an autobiographical story about a young man with cerebral palsy overcoming the odds to complete an Ironman. Sadly, I never got to that part of the story. The book was so poorly written that I struggled to get through the first couple of chapters. I finally had to DNF it. I am fairly certain that it was self-published without an editor. In fact, I couldn't find a listing for it on Goodreads, even using the ASIN. What a shame, because this sounds like a very inspirational story. A good editor would have been able to pull the story together.

My favorite book this month and maybe even this year so far was Beautiful Country. It will be released in September. Upcoming, I have a bunch of books in the queue at the library, so look for a few new releases! And maybe, just maybe, I'll have a running book review on the blog. I have a few of those in the TBR/PRC file.

Stay tuned!


What have you read this month? Any recommendations? Are you following me on Goodreads



I'm linking up with Kim and Zenaida for Tuesday Topics.



33 comments :

  1. I love your book reviews! Can you share the book bloggers you follow? I just read the Salt Path about an English couple in their 50s who became homeless and were dealing with a terminal illness and decided to walk 600+ miles around the coast of England. True story and well written.

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    1. Sorry - above comment from Beth Risdon (shut up and run)

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    2. I'm reading that one with my best friend at the moment, for an hour a week we sit and read together in our separate cities. We're enjoying it but it's more upsetting than we'd expected (well, she just liked the cover when I laid out some books from my TBR I thought she might enjoy!).

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    3. It is upsetting at parts, but ultimately has a positive vibe so I hope you stick with it. The author Raynor Winn also has a new book out that is a sequel and supposed to be good!

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    4. I love TBR, Novel Visits, and Sarah's Book Shelves. I haven't seen many posts from any of them lately but when they post, i listen!

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  2. Oh, no - I have a horrible feeling you got The Impossible Mile rec from me, and it sounds dreadful and I'll watch out for it now. Sorry about that if it was me! I've heard good things about Beautiful Country from a few people, and that's on my wish list now.

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    1. I was the only reviewer who gave it a low rating...I do understand that it's an amazing accomplishment but why waste it with a poor narrative?

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    2. Well I got through it and reviewing today (already put a short review on NG). I didn't find it as bad as I feared and got into the stuff about Conductive Education because I live near the UK base and support a 10k fundraiser every year!

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    3. I'm glad to hear that you found it readable! Off to read your review.

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  3. Beautiful Country and Crying in H Mart both caught my attention! I need to get my library card updated so I can check these out. Checking out digital copies makes it much more convenient and helps me read a lot more!

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  4. I'm a huge fan of your book posts! I've gotten several good leads from you plus I found Sarah's Bookshelves through you (more great recs plus her podcast is great). I'm hearing a lot of good things about Beautiful Country and Come Fly the World has my attention as well.

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    1. I'm glad you like it! I like it and know you read some pretty good books too! Any recommendations?

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  5. I look forward to your book posts, Wendy!
    I will check out Beautiful Country, thanks for that recommendation.

    What a shame about the running book fail by the Agars. It's amazing what difference a professional editor can make. I hope they will ask someone to help them to pull it together. I agree, the topic sounds captivating!

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    1. I wish that would happen because I do want to learn more about his amazing accomplishment!

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  6. Thanks for all of your book recommendations! That's such a bummer about The Impossible Mile because the summary sounds like it would have been an interesting read.

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  7. Thanks for the interesting book recommendations.
    Sorry for the "Impossible Mile"!

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  8. Thanks for sharing! I've been enjoying light reads this summer and have actually stepped away from running books for the moment. Although I did just buy one that I haven't started yet. Its too bad you couldn't get through The Impossible Mile!

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    1. I am becoming really picky with my running books--after a while, they all start to feel the same!

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  9. Lots of reading! I just cannot make the commitment to sit down and be still enough to read a book these days...and it's a bummer. I can barely get through the blog posts some weeks LOL

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  10. Just love your book reviews.

    I read every night before bed and when I am on the boat...still not enough time.

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  11. Life is too short to read books that don't speak to you (for whatever reason). I really did love The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hill, which I read last month.

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    1. I've heard great things about Sam Hill and I have it on my TBR list.

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  12. Ah, all those books sound so good!!! There's definitely a silver lining to a broken foot. I'm still immersed in the Harry Potter books which my son bullied me into re-reading this summer, but I'm putting some of these on my TBR list. Yes, keep up the book reviews! I love it.

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  13. I'm looking forward to adding some of these to my read list on Goodreads....I've looked for you but found it impossible to find people. Not sure why?

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    1. I've had the same problem. If you click on the hyperlink in the questions (Goodreads), it takes you to my profile.

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  14. Thanks for the recommendations! There are many great ones on this list.

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