Monthly roundup

Monthly Roundup: September 2023

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And just like that, another month slipped away, and here we find ourselves in October.

How are you, friends? I’m…still here. Still not doing great, so the blogging break goes on and I’m sticking to monthly roundup posts until my brain stops being a full-time jerk, but I’m managing, mostly. Doing a lot of reading to cope (no surprise there), and being busier than I would like. I’m looking forward to cooler faller temperatures. We’ve got a few trees starting to turn here, but nothing dramatic yet. Soon, though.

But anyway, I’ll get to all that in a bit. For now, let’s get this recap started, shall we?

Books I Read in September 2023

1. We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson

2. The Great Little Madison by Jean Fritz (read out loud to my daughter)

3. Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

4. Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate

5. Surrender Your Sons by Adam Sass

6. The Prophetess by Evonne Marzouk

7. The Story of the Jews by Stan Mack

8. Shmutz by Felicia Berliner

9. Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt! by Jean Fritz (read out loud to my daughter)

10. The Royal We by Heather Cocks

11. The Secret Life of the City by Hanna Hagen Bjørgaas

12. If I Should Die Before I Wake by Han Nolan

13. The Incredible Incas by Terry Deary (read out loud to my daughter)

14. How to Be Alive by Colin Beavan

15. Enlightenment by Trial and Error by Jay Michaelson

16. The Ruthless Romans by Terry Deary (read out loud to my daughter)

17. White Feminism by Koa Beck

18. The Forgotten Girls by Monica Potts

19. Disobedient Women by Sarah Stankorb

20. Lost and Found by Andrew Clements (read out loud to my daughter)

21. A Country Between by Stephanie Saldaña

22. Counting the Cost by Jill Duggar

Told you I was doing a lot of reading to cope! Another heavy month both in numbers and in terms of content, but when do I ever have a lighthearted, free-spirited month of reading? (Maybe soon, when I get through my TBR!) 

Best reads of the month: I really enjoyed the books by Lisa Wingate (and Judy Christie) about the Tennessee Children’s Home. Georgia Tann was an absolute monster; I’ve read a lot about her, but the stories, fiction and nonfiction, infuriate me every single time. The Secret Life of the City was a gentle book about the nature we see in cities, why it’s there, why it’s not elsewhere, and how to appreciate it and understand it better. It was just something I stumbled upon at the library while picking up other stuff, and I enjoyed it. How to Be Alive showed me I’m on the right track in terms of creating a life I enjoy living; The Forgotten Girls is insight into growing up in a small, opportunity-less town (depressing, but so well-written). Disobedient Women is an incredible look at the women working to call out things like sexual abuse and abuse of power in Evangelical circles, and it’s AMAZING. And, of course, Jill Duggar’s book. I devoured that in one afternoon. Good for her for growing up, moving beyond the small, sheltered, suffocating world her parents created for her, and learning to recognize what’s healthy in relationships (and what’s not), and learning to set boundaries. May her growth continue.

Seven fiction; fifteen nonfiction (one graphic nonfiction; three memoirs in there). Fifteen of these were from my TBR; none were from reading challenges, because…

Reading Challenge Updates

I’m not currently participating in any reading challenges! 

Feels good to be done, honestly!

State of the Goodreads TBR

I’m getting it done, folks! Last month, we left off at 83 books; I’m still working so hard to get this down to almost nothing so I can read from my (small) TBR, my own shelves, and whatever I find when I wander the library (I’m SO looking forward to that). I think I took a few books off that I no longer needed to read (since we’re no longer homeschooling), and this month, the number stands at…

66!!!

I’m currently slowly reading one of these books in short bursts (I own it, so I can do that), and I’ve got three more on their way to me via interlibrary loan. I’m thinking I’ll be able to reach the end of this list in January, so 2024’s reading as a whole will look a lot different for me. : )

Books I Acquired in September 2023

Eek! I did hit up a library book sale, and would you believe I forgot to take a picture of what I got before I put it away? Some highlights: a few art/fashion books for my little artist daughter; two piano books (one of which I’ve been practicing out of, and which has been a lot of fun!); some classic novels; a few books my younger daughter has loved, like The Penderwicks, and a few holiday gifts for her. I’m happy with my finds!

Bookish Things I Did in September 2023

Hmm. Other than the book sale, it’s mostly just been a lot of reading in my chair on the porch!

Current Podcast Love

I’m finally caught up on Digging Up the Duggars! I’ll continue listening to new episodes as they come; otherwise I’m listening to Leaving Eden as I walk, inside and out, and do my volunteer work. 

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

Currently on hold for a bit, though I am making my way through a French grammar book, so maybe that counts? 

Real Life Stuff

Phew.

Still doing my best to hang in there and also ignore all of reality by reading every book ever in existence.

That’s healthy, right?

Physical therapy is…not great. I didn’t expect it to; I haven’t had great experiences with the place I’m going to in the past. They don’t do what my back needs in order to be at its most functional, and it’s been kind of a giant pain in the ass to work into my schedule (nothing wrong with the physical therapist I’ve been working with, he’s okay, it’s just the place). I’ve got one last appointment, and then I’m supposed to go back to my physiatrist, and we’ll go on from there. Likely it’ll be more caudal injections, which do help, but they’re weird and uncomfortable, and expensive, because American healthcare, so that’s unfun.

My daughter is still doing okay in school, for the most part. She definitely needs a lot of help with math; that’s the subject she fought me most over when we were homeschooling, so I’m 0% surprised her testing scores were as low as they were. Her ADHD plays into her struggles a lot there as well; she’s never met a one she couldn’t forget to carry! Her reading scores are GREAT, though, so I’m thrilled with that! So far, so good, mostly. 

As for me, I’m just…sad a lot. Struggling with being middle-aged and never having had a career (there’s never been a crack I couldn’t slip through in my teenage and adult lives), or even a real adult job, and struggling with how limited I am with physical stuff and how much that limits me in life. You wouldn’t know it much if you saw me walking around at the store, but I have definite limits on how much I can do physically before I need to sit, and I’m in pain most of the time, even when I’m doing stuff. I so badly want to be more productive in my day-to-day life, and my body limits me so very much. It’s so frustrating, and not many people in my real life understand that. There are a few more things in there, but I won’t get into all of that, but it’s been rough. So I’m struggling.

But I’m doing my best, and my ongoing blog break will continue until my brain figures out ways to deal with all this, because I just really need one less thing, you know? 

I hope you’re all doing well. Enjoy the start of this new season, wherever you are and whatever season you’re heading into. May it be filled with beautiful weather, excellent books, and love.

Monthly roundup

Monthly Roundup: August 2023

Stephanie1 Comment

Bonjour, friends! Our temps will start going back up today, so that tiny taste of fall weather we got this week is only a memory. It was nice while it lasted, but at least it’s officially September now!

I’m still on my break from blogging full-time; it’s a much-needed one, and I’ll be back when I’m ready, but for now, I’m just doing monthly roundup posts while I get myself together. There just aren’t enough hours in the day for everything sometimes, right? So I’m having to prioritize a little, and right now my mental health comes first. As it should. 

But more about all that later; let’s get this recap started, shall we?

Books I Read in August 2023

1. Welcome Back, Maple Mehta-Cohen by Kate McGovern

2. The New American Judaism by Jack Wertheimer

3. Hello Stranger by Katherine Center

4. Death in Yellowstone by Lee H. Whittlesey

5. Anatomy of Innocence by Laura Caldwell

6. Lost Connections by Johann Hari

7. The Temple Bombing by Melissa Fay Greene

8. Cobalt Red by Siddarth Kara

9. Whisper by Chrissie Keighery

10. In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord

11. Cheap Land Colorado by Ted Conover

12. A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan

13. Women Talking by Miriam Toews

14. If All The Seas Were Ink by Ilana Kurshan

15. Blankets by Craig Thompson

16. Escaping Utopia by Janja Lalich

17. Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

18. The Orphan Keeper by Camron Wright

Not a bad month! Somewhat of a heavy month in terms of topics, but I’m happy with the reading I did. Lots of reading on the porch, which has been nice. 

Best reads of the month: Hello Stranger was a fascinating read about a portrait artist that goes face blind (I adore Katherine Center anyway, and she really knocked this one out of the park); Lost Connections helped me to look at depression and anxiety different, and was a super timely read; Take My Hand, historical fiction about forced sterilization in the 1970’s, is one that will really stick with me.

Seven fiction; ten nonfiction; one graphic novel that’s a fictionalized autobiography (maybe? Hard to tell. It touts itself as a graphic novel and not a graphic memoir…). Fourteen of these were from my TBR. One was for a reading challenge. Speaking of which…

Reading Challenge Updates

CHECK THIS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!

Folks, this was a TIME. So much work, but so enjoyable. I discovered some new-to-me authors that I love, returned to some old favorites, hate-read some poorly written fanfiction, journeyed outside my usual reading comfort zone, and learned a lot about myself as a reader. I truly enjoyed this challenge, even though it was a LOT.

Yay me! : )

State of the Goodreads TBR

So, last month we left off at 94 books. I’m trying to tear through these remaining books at a fairly terrifying rate; my goal is to get it down to a very, very small number so I can only add things I truly want to read, read those things, and then dedicate the rest of my reading to a combination of stuff I own and then things I discover from wandering aimlessly in the library (do you know how long it’s been since I did that with any kind of regularity? YEARS). Anyway, this month, the number is…

83!!!

I’m thinking at this pace, if I’m really careful about what I add, barring any unforeseen nightmares that keep me from reading, I should be able to have this list cleared out by January or February, and then 2024 can be a little more relaxed in what I read. I’m digging that idea. : )

Books I Acquired in August 2023

So, I made a trip to visit Sandy, a longtime friend from my longtime parenting board. In addition to a lovely hike in a forest preserve, good conversation over a delicious lunch, and a tour of the town, Sandy and I went into a local bookstore, and I purchased a copy of Mend!: A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto by Kate Sekules. I’m super into visible mending (I’m currently wearing two darned socks), and this was a local bookstore, so I wanted to support them. I’ve only read a bit of the book so far, but I love it already.

Bookish Things I Did in August 2023

…other than my trip to the bookstore, I can’t think of any… I organized some books around the house, does that count?

Current Podcast Love

Okay, I cannot say enough good things about Wilder, about Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie, and the cultural impact of these things. If you grew up with the Little House books and have grappled with their meaning and cultural significance of them in any way, you need to listen to this podcast. It’s well-researched, well-narrated, fabulously produced, and incredibly thought-provoking. I’ve been enjoying it immensely on my walks home from dropping my daughter off at school and while I’ve been gardening and doing projects around the house.

I’m also filling in the gaps with Digging Up the Duggars. So close to being caught up! 

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

Currently on hold for a bit.

Real Life Stuff

So. 

Here we are.

School year has started, and my younger daughter is back at public school, in person. She’s one of two kids in her class still masking. I pick her up for lunch every day, and she has a car picnic while I read to her (hey, captive audience! Might as well make good use of that time).

So far, so good. *fingers crossed, knocking on every available wooden surface* Little bit of friend drama, but that’s to be expected in fourth grade. She’s had good days and bad, but she’s only asked to be homeschooled again once (our agreement was that she has to give it until at least December, to give it a fair chance). I think she’ll end up sticking it out.

I’m keeping busy. It’s been so hot here that my motivation has kind of been utter garbage, but I’m trying, and I think that’ll keep improving as the weather cools down (we’ve got another week or so of garbage temps, but then it’ll be a little better). I’ve been learning to play the mandolin (slowly!), I engaged in some visible mending and embroidered a shirt, I’ve been gardening, I’ve been brushing up on my French grammar and vocabulary, and I’ve definitely been reading. I’d like to find more purpose, though, but I’m not sure where I’m going with that, or what that would look like.

I’ve also been doing some volunteer gardening with a local sustainability/permaculture group, and it’s been beyond relaxing and rewarding. I’m meeting such amazing people, and I’m learning so much. I swear, if my body would let me, I could hang out in that garden all day, yanking weeds and listening to other people talk. If you’ve ever thought about engaging with a group like this local to you, I cannot recommend it highly enough. My anxiety drops to almost zero when I’m there. 

That’s about it for now. I’m going to continue on with my mental health break for a bit, until I feel ready to return. Stay safe, stay healthy; like half my Facebook feed has COVID right now, which is not great. Take care of yourselves, and others.

Wishing you all a beautiful September.

Monthly roundup

Monthly Roundup: July 2023

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Bonjour, mes amis!

Summer is slowly beginning to fade, and I can hardly believe it. Where has it all gone? It was just June 1st and we had all this time ahead of us. And now, there are bags of back-to-school supplies in my living room, but they’ll only be here for another two weeks, and then my daughter will be back to school in person!

Lots going on here, and I have a bit of an announcement, but I’ll get to that further on down this post. Let’s get this recap started, shall we?

Books I Read in July 2023

1. Little Sister by Patricia Walsh Chadwick

2. Burnt Bread and Chutney by Carmit Delman

3. The Teachers by Alexandra Robbins

4. Differently Wired by Deborah Reber

5. The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs

6. Plunder by Menachem Kaiser

7. Down to the Bone by Catherine Pioli

8. The Last Words We Said by Leah Scheier

9. The Jewish 100 by Michael Shapiro

10. Something Real by Heather Demetrios

11. Blood Matters by Masha Gessen

12. I Am Not Esther by Fleur Beale

13. We Pulled Together…and Won by Deb Mulvey

14. Kosher Nation by Sue Fishkoff

15. I Am Rebecca by Fleur Beale

16. Being Magdalene by Fleur Beale

17. Natural by Alan Levinovitz

18. The Grammar of God by Aviya Kushner

19. Unspeakable by Jessica Willis Fisher

20. The Children of Buchenwald by Judith Hemmendinger

PHEW. That’s a lot of books. And no reviews. I’ll get to that in a bit; it’s been a month. But I definitely made some progress on my reading goals here. 

Five fiction; fifteen nonfiction; one graphic memoir. FOURTEEN of these came from my want-to-read list on Goodreads. None were read for reading challenges. Speaking of which…

Reading Challenge Updates

Still here!

I have the book for that last category in my possession; I picked it up from the library yesterday (it just took all month for me to get to the top of the hold list!). I’ll be starting it in the next day or two, and then I’ll be done, woohoo!!!

State of the Goodreads TBR

Last month, we left off at 103 books, and this month…

Check this out…

94 books!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m pretty excited about this.

Books I Acquired in July 2023

There happened to be another big used book sale! A surprise one that kind of happened at the last minute, so my older daughter and I went over and grabbed a huge bag of books. (Ended up with a repeat we didn’t notice of one of the Dork Diaries books, but that’s fine; a Little Free Library benefitted from that!). I’ve been pretty thrilled with my book haul this summer!

Bookish Things I Did in July 2023

Other than that book sale…I don’t think there was anything, to be honest…

Current Podcast Love

I’m still listening to Digging Up the Duggars when I exercise, but I’ve switched over to listening to BBC Radio at night when I’m falling asleep (sleep? What’s sleep? Ugh).

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

Currently on hold for a bit.

Real Life Stuff

I don’t know about you, friends, but I am tired. Like down-to-the-bone kind of tired. Life has just been gunning for me recently and I’m completely worn out.

I need a break.

So that’s my announcement. I’m taking a little bit of a break from blogging for a while. I need a chance to step back, breathe for a while, have one less thing on my plate for a little bit, and focus on my mental health for a few. I started with a new therapist this week to try to get a handle on things and maybe shake this funk I’m in, so I’ve got my fingers crossed there. I’m definitely still going to do the monthly recaps while I’m on hiatus, just to keep up with where I’m at with everything, so even if you’re not getting reviews as frequently, I’ll still check in at least once a month during my time off.

There’s just a lot going on right now, so I need this, and hopefully I’ll be back sooner rather than later. Writing reviews helps me to remember what I read, so I don’t want to be gone for too long, but I’m going to take this time to just focus on getting myself together and finding a little bit of inner peace for myself. And I’ll definitely still be reading!

So that’s that, and I hope you’re doing whatever you need to to take care of yourself. It’s tough out there. Sending love to you all, and I’ll see you soon!

nonfiction

Book Review: All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell

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A few months ago, a friend of mine mentioned she was reading All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell (St. Martin’s Press, 2022), and her description of the book intrigued me. I’ve read Mary Roach and Caitlin Doughty and found them both fascinating in different ways, so this book, about the death industry and the people who work in it, seemed right up my alley. And it was! But be warned: this book feels a lot heavier than those by Roach and Doughty. 

Trigger warnings for (unsurprisingly) a whole lot of mentions of death via various causes, including illness, accident, and mass tragedy. MAJOR content warnings for death of infants, including one specific infant whose death and subsequent postmortem procedures stuck with the author, and a chapter about a specialized midwife whose job it is to deliver babies who aren’t going to survive. PLEASE be aware of this before you read, and if there’s any reason this may be too much for you at this time, be good to yourself and read a different book. This was heavy for me to read, and I’m usually pretty tough when it comes to reading the tougher stuff.

Journalist Hayley Campbell embarks on a journey to discover the realities of those who work closely with death. From detectives to crime scene cleaners, embalmers and cremators, gravediggers and cryonic preservers, researchers and bereavement midwives, she interviews, participates, researches, learns, and comes to understand what the lives are like of those whose daily lives are centered around death. Some of these folks always wanted to go into the fields they’re in; others seemingly stumbled there. Some are bitter and jaded by their profession; others have developed an almost otherworldly sense of compassion. The differences are curious and thought-provoking.

Along the way, Hayley Campbell witnesses autopsies and cremations, deals with a lot of stress and questions surrounding the western cultural attitude toward death, and learns about herself and what she’s capable of handling. 

Whew, this was a heavy, heavy book. Some of the folks Ms. Campbell followed have been deeply affected by their work, to the point of bitterness and anger, and I felt bad for them. Anyone dealing with death on a daily basis has a tough job, and these people really seemed to struggle with both that and a lack of fulfillment (which is understandable. Their services are absolutely necessary, but seeing what they see, I get it). The chapters where Ms. Campbell includes description of an infant’s autopsy (and the subsequent mentions of this in later chapters, because even she struggled after a certain incident when the technician stepped out of the room; I won’t get into descriptions here) and her interview with the bereavement midwife (a specialty I’d never even heard of until reading this book) are a LOT, and they’re things that will stick with me forever. This book has definitely given me a more expansive respect for the people who work with the dead in all aspects.

Incredible book, but be aware of your mental state before diving in, and take breaks or step away if it’s too much.

Visit Haley Campbell’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction · romance

Book Review: Only When It’s Us by Chloe Liese

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For one of my final selections for the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge, I had to read something that was self-published. I had to dig a bit to figure out what I wanted to read, but eventually I stumbled upon Only When It’s Us by Chloe Liese (self-published, 2020), and I figured I could use a good romance novel to lighten things up. 

College soccer star Willa Sutter is struggling with her business math (I think it was) course. Instead of helping her like a normal person, her professor demands that she get the notes from Ryder, the lumberjack-looking dude who sits next to her and who has been steadily ignoring her all semester. Willa’s not thrilled about this, but she knows that in order to keep her place on the team and become the next big women’s soccer star, she’s going to have to suck it up and ask Ryder for help. Also, her mom is in the process of dying, so life is just an all-around shitshow right now.

Ryder is sick and tired of his professor brother-in-law meddling in his life. A bout with meningitis freshman year has left him mostly deaf, and since he’s still figuring out hearing aids, things are a little complicated. His family is extremely accommodating, however, texting with him constantly, even when in person, in order to make sure he’s included. Ryder hasn’t spoken since his illness, though, and now that he’s supposed to be working with Willa, life has gotten a lot more complicated. The two of them have chemistry, sure, but they can’t seem to channel it into anything functional. Just arguments.

But over time, Willa and Ryder grow closer, the two of them realizing they’re a good match for each other, but old habits die hard, and it’s difficult for both of them to let the other in. But slowly, slowly, in the slowest of slow burns possible, they get to where we all knew they’d end up in the first place.

This was a bit of a slog for me, to be honest. I felt like it stretched on way longer than it needed to be, and Willa and Ryder’s banter didn’t do anything for me. I felt like it was trying really hard to be sexy and cute and for me it was just kind of annoying. Willa had issues with her dad walking out, and her mom was dying but she just never spoke about it? (And this was another one of those stories where the main character is a college student and needs to study, has a job, is the team’s star player and thus needs to be going to practice and games and working out all the time, and her mom is actively dying in the hospital, and, like…none of this stuff happens with the frequency that you’d expect? There are games and an occasional practice, and some study sessions with Ryder here and there, but Willa’s schedule doesn’t seem to be nearly as crammed full as one might suspect for a working student athlete who has a dying parent. And I realize this verges on the territory of, “No one on TV ever uses the bathroom!”, but it didn’t seem realistic to me how often Willa had down time.)

I wasn’t much feeling the chemistry between Willa and Ryder either. Ryder was just a little too perfect, and Willa could be so prickly that it got annoying (and despite their budding relationship, Ryder didn’t learn about Willa’s dying mother until really far into the story, which felt odd and not super realistic). To be honest, I was kinda glad when this was done. A lot of people really liked this, though, and it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t for me, and that’s fine. Some books are like that. : )

Visit Chloe Liese’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here. 

nonfiction

Book Review: We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys by Erin Kimmerle

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A few years back, I remember hearing about the Dozier School for Boys and the absolutely horrifying allegations of abuse that occurred there. There have been a few books that have come out about this place that I’m aware of, and I’ve always felt like I needed to read at least one of them, so when I heard about We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys by Erin Kimmerle (William Morrow, 2022), I added it to my TBR. 

In recent years, former students and family members of former students of Florida’s Dozier School for Boys have begun to step forward and demand justice for the terrible abuse suffered at the hands of the guards, teachers, and administration. Beatings, starvation, rape and sexual abuse, and murder were all regular occurrences, not that the state of Florida would admit any of this, but the still-traumatized former students and the families of students who never came home know the truth. Forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle steps in to lead a search of the grounds, and the results are far more shocking than anyone could have predicted.

Even getting permission to search the grounds – doing scans of the ground to see if there’s even anything there, zero disturbing of the dirt – is fraught with bureaucracy. The local court system foils the investigators at every turn. Townspeople, whose livelihoods and local economy depended on the school for years, are loath to admit that anything was ever amiss with the school or its employees. Congressmen and congresswomen and the then-governor have to step in (thank goodness this took place under a completely different governor, because I’m fairly certain today that the survivors’ search for justice would be scoffed at as being too ‘woke’ to do anything about, sigh). And when Ms. Kimmerle and her team are finally able to begin their work, it turns out that more boys died at the hands of adults at the Dozier School for Boys than any paperwork mentions. 

This all makes for a very intriguing story, but to be honest, I found the writing a little dull. It plods on with a ton of detail about the archaeology, like, absolutely massive amounts of detail, which, to a lay person like me, didn’t much hold my interest. I’m more here for the emotional side of things: how did all of this affect the survivors and the families whose children went missing while at this school? What does the townspeople’s attitudes do to them? How does the search and the exhausting amount of bureaucracy affect the author? I wanted more of that and less description of machinery and equipment. I did learn some fascinating facts about how to tell when the earth has been disturbed, though, which is something I never really thought about before, so I definitely appreciated that.

Fascinating story, but the telling of it was bogged down a little too much with technical details for me to really connect with it. 

Visit Erin Kimmerle’s website here.

fiction · romance · romantic comedy

Book Review: Unorthodox Love by Heidi Shertok

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My heart always does a flip whenever I see Jewish books on NetGalley. It’s even better when I have time in my reading schedule for them. I requested Unorthodox Love by Heidi Shertok (Alcove Press, 2023) as soon as I spotted it, and then waited. And waited. And waited. And when I was finally approved, of course I already had a stack of books I needed to get to first! Such is the way of a reader’s life. But when I was finally able to dive in, I discovered a read that had been worth the wait. 

At twenty-nine and unmarried in a community where young women most often get married by their early twenties, Penina Kalish is practically geriatric in the Orthodox world. A medical condition ensures that she’ll never have children, and as this is something extremely important to Orthodox Jews, Penina knows she’s damaged goods and unlikely to find a husband. The dates she does go on, set up by a feisty but out-of-touch matchmaker, never go well. So Penina focuses on her family, her volunteer work holding babies at the local NICU, and her job at a local jewelry store. She’s doing her best to make her life as fulfilling as possible, no matter how much she wants what she can’t have.

But everything changes the day a handsome stranger walks through the NICU. This man, Sam Kleinfeld, ends up being Penina’s new boss, the son of the jewelry store’s owner. He’s filthy rich, incredibly handsome, Jewish (though not Orthodox), single (or is he?), and more than a little grumpy. As Penina gets to know him, she realizes how easy it would be to love him, but she’s damaged, he’s not Orthodox, and there’s that super gorgeous, bikini-sporting doctor who keeps tagging him in Facebook photos. So many reasons he’s off-limits.

But as Penina struggles to keep her heart in check and help save her sister’s house, she’ll learn a thing or two about how not damaged she is, what makes a person whole, and maybe she’ll fall in love along the way.

Super cute romance. It’s set in an Orthodox Jewish community, but as Sam is a secular (non-religious) Jew, he needs certain things explained to him and thus he serves well as a point of education for readers who may not be familiar with terms and traditions common among the Orthodox. Penina truly is Every Woman, dealing with not just health challenges that have set the course for her life, but with everyday bouts of awkwardness, like coffee spills, wardrobe malfunctions (a very minor plot point is Penina’s role as a modest fashion influencer on Instagram, which was fun), and constantly managing to say the wrong thing, especially while nervously babbling to fill the silence. Same, girl.

Sam is gruff, a little rough around the edges, but with a good heart. His status as a bit of an outsider, as non-Orthodox, is what allows him to more fully see Penina; to him, she’s not broken or missing something essential like she’s learned to think of herself. Their relationship, always following the strict rules of comportment laid out by Orthodox Judaism, grows, twisting and turning as Penina begins to accept that despite her lack of ability to have children, there’s nothing wrong with her. While at times I felt Sam was maybe a little too gruff (or at least too gruff for my liking, but that’s a personal preference), the two make a good pair.

The ending was exactly what I expected – not just the usual romance HEA, but…I won’t give any spoilers, but in that context, it’s the only acceptable solution. How realistic it is, I don’t know; it’s one I’ve seen before in other outsider-falls-in-love-with-insider type romances, and it always pulls me out of the story just a little bit because I’m wondering about the practicality of it, and how it would work out long-term. But overall, Orthodox Love is a cute, fun romance that gives you a peek inside a world most people aren’t familiar with, and I love that.

Unorthodox Love will be available at your favorite retailers July 11, 2023. Huge thanks to NetGalley, Alcove Press, and Heidi Shertok for allowing me to read and review an advance copy. Support your local bookstores!

Visit Heidi Shertok’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

memoir · nonfiction

Book Review: Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation by Jon Ward

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Little fascinates me more than religion and its intersection with human behavior. Why do people turn to a particular religion? What keeps them there? What does their involvement look like, and what leads them to leave it behind? It’s these perpetual questions that had me clicking that ‘want to read’ button on Goodreads when I learned about Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation by Jon Ward (Brazos Press, 2023). And this book did not disappoint.  

Jon Ward grew up mired in evangelical Christianity. If you’re familiar with this world, you’ll recognize some of the names of the pastors and preachers who surrounded him. He was fully in, sold out, and adhered to all the principles he learned from his pastor father and the church during his childhood and adolescence. But as he grew older, Jon had questions that couldn’t be answered to his satisfaction, he began to realize that the teachings he’d absorbed so fully weren’t serving him well as an adult, and the hard right turn the evangelical church took to becoming a more political institution didn’t sit well with him at all. Working as a journalist opened his eyes to the hypocrisies and contradictions the evangelical church was making, and Jon began to move further and further away from what he’d grown up believing was the only way to live.

This is a deeply thoughtful, well-written memoir that delves into the tangled mess of the modern day evangelical church. It’s an excellent follow-up to Frances FitzGerald’s The Evangelicals, which I just finished, describing what happened to evangelical churches in the Trump era and picking up where that book left off. It’s eminently more readable and less academic (and less exhausting!) than The Evangelicals, though, which I highly appreciated. Jon Ward hasn’t been immune to the familial fractures caused by adherence to right-wing values amongst the evangelical community; he recounts many instances of how his family’s dedication to the Republican party overrode the teachings of Christianity, how much their conversations hurt him, and how this led to family members not speaking to him for years. I appreciate his honesty here, and I’m thinking an awful lot of folks are going to be able to see themselves in this memoir and identify with the pain he felt.

There are a lot of explanations of church history and functions, but not in a way that bogs the memoir down with information; rather, these brief asides only clarify what Mr. Ward experienced and illuminate the bigger picture. This is a well-thought-out, deeply honest memoir (boy, did I appreciate how Mr. Ward admitted his absorption of evangelical ideas about men and women affected his marriage. I wish more men were this introspective about the damage thata adherence to strict gender roles amongst the evangelical community damages not only women, but whole families. The whole idea of ‘If Mama’s not happy, ain’t nobody happy!’ is true. You can’t raise kids to be adults who understand they deserve to feel fulfilled by demanding their primary parent – because let’s face it, in families that subscribe to this mindset, mothers do the bulk of the hands-on parenting – derive fulfillment from only one role), and I imagine it can’t have been easy to write. I truly hope this book explodes and is read by all those who need it.

(Side note: I was getting in my car to drive home from an outdoor meeting with a local permaculture/sustainability group when I caught the tail end of an interview on NPR. It was deep enough into the interview that no names were mentioned, but as the interviewer and interviewee spoke, my brain started whirring, and I went, “Wait, is that Jon Ward???” And sure enough, it was! If you’d like to listen to the interview, you can find it here.)

Visit Jon Ward’s website here.

Follow him on Twitter here.

memoir · nonfiction

Book Review: The Hate Next Door: Undercover Within the New Face of White Supremacy by Matson Browning with Tawni Browning

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Between watching the increasingly disturbing news, seeing the evidence myself on Twitter, and recently reading a few books about the subject, the fact that white nationalism and hate groups are growing isn’t a surprise. It’s all horrifying, but if you pay even a little attention out there, you’ll see evidence of it all over. So when I was browsing NetGalley and came across The Hate Next Door: Undercover Within the New Face of White Supremacy by Matson Browning with Tawni Browning (Sourcebooks, 2023), I immediately requested it. It’s a difficult subject to read about, but I think it’s necessary to be informed. I was grateful when NetGalley approved me, and with more than a little trepidation, I downloaded the book and began reading.

For over twenty years, Matson Browning worked undercover with white and Christian nationalist and other sovereign citizen groups, including groups who took it upon themselves to patrol the border (under zero authority other than the one they assigned themselves due to the color of their skin or the place of their birth). He got to know white supremacists, KKK members, churchgoers who interpreted their scriptures in such a way that they were confident Jesus agreed with their hateful and xenophobic opinions, criminals of all sorts (including murderers), people who would later get murdered, and people he never would’ve assumed would be part of these groups, including pastors, teachers, members of the military/veterans, and police officers, including some newer recruits in Mr. Browning’s own unit.

The attitudes of the people Mr. Browning, posing as a white nationalist named Packy, works with are disturbing, hateful, and frightening…but what might be even more disturbing is how little anyone in the US seems to care about the existence of these groups. Mr. Matson’s fellow police officers weren’t much interested; the higher-ups whom he worked for seemed to roll their eyes and sigh every time he infiltrated a new group. Murders – even murders of multiple people at once – were brushed off, simply because these weren’t the regular Black or Mexican street gangs. How bad could a bunch of white guys be?

Very bad, in fact. The Hate Next Door and Matson Browning’s career is a testament to that.

Matson Browning, along with his wife Tawni, who also went undercover with him, shows over and over again how deeply dangerous these groups are, and how they’re everywhere in the US. In this disturbing account of a career spent investigating one of America’s many dirty little secrets, the authors provide story after story that will have every reader taking a closer look at everyone they know. 

The Hate Next Door isn’t an easy, relaxing read. It’s the kind of read that will have you sucking in a quick breath as you realize the danger Matson Browning put himself in in order to infiltrate these groups. It’ll have you side-eyeing the people you work with, your neighbors, the person in front of you at the grocery store. It will change the way you look at everyone around you…but it also gives a little bit of hope. There *are* people who leave these movements behind, and Mr. Browning provides a basic list of things you can do in order to maybe steer a friend or colleague away from this path (a long game, for sure, but worth it). 

This is a disturbing book, but a tragically necessary one. Read it to understand better what’s hiding in plain sight everywhere across the US and, sadly, also around the world. 

Many thanks to NetGalley, Matson and Tawni Browning, and Sourcebooks for providing me a copy of this excellent book to read and review. The Hate Next Door is available on July 4, 2023. Support your local bookstores!

Monthly roundup

Monthly Roundup: June 2023

StephanieLeave a comment

Arright, friends, here we are in July!!! Mid-summer, and it’s been a weird one.

Cold temperatures. Almost zero rain. So much smoke we’ve been stuck indoors several days with the worst air quality in the world (not an exaggeration, unfortunately). I don’t love that; that means zero nature walks for us and no reading out on the porch for me. Huge thumbs down on that one.

But I’m surviving (ISH; still not doing great), and at least there’s reading getting done, along with a few other projects, so. Yay for that?

Anyway.

Let’s get this recap started, shall we?

Books I Read in June of 2023

1. Disobedience by Naomi Alderman (no review)

2. Mr. Perfect on Paper by Jean Meltzer

3. The Fifth Beatle by Vivek J. Tiwary (no review)

4. The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

5. The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle by Jennifer Ryan

6. Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

7. Great Events of the 20th Century by Readers Digest Association (no review; read a few sections every night for months)

8. Living More with Less by Doris Janzen Longacre

9. Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

10. Bayou Magic by Jewell Parker Rhodes (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

11. The Facemaker by Lindsey Fitzharris

12. Stolen by Elizabeth Gilpin

13. Testimony by Jon Ward (review to come)

14. The Evangelicals by Frances FitzGerald (no review; I’ll talk about this below)

15. We Carry Their Bones by Erin Kimmerle (review to come)

16. Only When It’s Us by Chloe Liese (review to come)

17. All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell (review to come)

I feel pretty good about this month! There’s been a lot of days of reading out on the porch, where the only noise is traffic from the highway and not my husband and daughter screeching and screaming as they run back and forth in front of me (OY). It’s why I love summer so much; I can escape the noise of the house. I’m a little behind in terms of posting, but really, not much! Another reason I love summer.

Seven fiction; ten nonfiction; one graphic nonfiction. ELEVEN of these came from my TBR!!! Three were read for the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. Speaking of which…

Reading Challenge Updates

REGARD THIS BEAUTY!!!!!!!!!

The sole reason it’s not finished yet is that the book I’ve picked for that final category doesn’t come out until July, and I’m already on the waiting list at the library for it! I’ve really enjoyed doing this challenge, but I admit I’ll also be really glad to be done with it and continue to blast through my TBR. Phew! This has been a LOT of reading! If I have a chance, I’ll make a post specifically about this challenge when I finish it.

State of the Goodreads TBR

Last month, we left off at the happy number of 111 books; this month, we’re beginning at…

103 BOOKS!!!

I’m almost down to double digits, y’all!!!

Feeling pretty good about this.

Books I Acquired in June of 2023

It’s been used book sale heaven around here this month! Check out these gorgeous piles!

Some are for me, some are my daughter’s. I’m looking forward to diving into all of them! We’ve got another used book sale in July, but the big cram-everything-you-can-into-a-bag-for-$10 sales are done until next year, sigh.

Bookish Things I Did in June of 2023

Just the book sales!

Current Podcast Love

Still listening to Digging Up the Duggars while I do my volunteer work. At night, I’ve been listening to American History Tellers as I fall asleep at night. I really like this one. History is a good subject to listen to as I fall asleep; there’s no loud music, there’s no funny bits to get me laughing and NOT fall asleep, and I already know the outcome to everything, so it’s not anxiety-provoking. This one works well for me!

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

When we left off, I was reading a combination of O. Henry short stories and On the Road by Jack Kerouac (UGH; I’ll be glad to be done with this. Dude sucks), but I put those aside for a bit to tackle the scariest category in the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge: the longest book on your TBR. And that book, for me, was The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America by Frances FitzGerald, an absolute brick of a book at 638 pages of readable text (more if you count the notes and index, but I didn’t read those) and incredibly information-dense. To be entirely honest, without this challenge, I likely would’ve let this sit on my TBR for years, intimidating the hell out of me, until I finally deleted it in shame, but because of this challenge, I picked it up and read 25 pages per day, usually out on the porch. It wasn’t always easy; the book started off pretty slow for me, but it picked up when the timeline got to about the 1950’s, and I started to enjoy it then – but those daily 25 pages were a LOT. But I did it, I read the entire thing, I finished, and I’m feeling pretty proud of myself!

I’ll get back to O. Henry and Jack Kerouac (ugh), but there are a few parenting books I want to tackle this summer, so I’ll be using my time usually reserved for this project to wade through those.

Real Life Stuff

Oy, y’all. 

I’m not going to sugarcoat it; I’m struggling right now. Life is tough. There’s just so much going on, and I feel like I’m carrying a lot.

Still doing my best to figure out what the heck to do with my youngest for school. She NEEDS to be around other kids; that much is obvious. And to be honest, I think she learns better from people other than me. But she still has a LOT of anxiety about the pandemic; I took her to a play put on by the local two-year college at the library, and she really struggled at the beginning with all the other unmasked people in the room (we’re still masking), and in the building as a whole. She made it through, but she didn’t want to stay there and freaked out every time someone coughed or sniffled (and with the air quality being so poor here because of the smoke from the wildfires, there was a not-zero amount of that). I’m worried that if she goes back to school, she’s going to be so anxious and panicked that learning will be difficult. But she obviously misses being around other kids (and the homeschool group options around here kind of suck, so…). Do I send her back and just deal with her anxiety (and possibly getting sick; so many parents have had so many complaints about their kids just being sick all year long), or do I keep her home and protect her from illness but she ends up feral from not having adequate social interaction? WHICH PROBLEM DO I CHOOSE? 

My older kid has come out as transgender, and I love her forever and always no matter what. I’ll be referring to her as my daughter and she/her from here on out, so y’all know. It’s just other people that make this stressful; I wish this world were more understanding and accepting. Maybe do something kind for someone else today, to help make life a little easier for someone else, okay? 

I’m trying to take care of my mental health right now and am considering going to see a therapist as well. I’m dealing with a lot of stress, some of pandemic-related, some not, and I’m also trying to get out of the house a little more (not easy when you’re the only one wearing a mask in indoor situations, and not easy when I’m terrified of bringing home COVID again). I showed up to a local permaculture/sustainability group’s outdoor art event this month, and I’ll definitely go back again, because those are absolutely my kind of folks. It was a lot of fun. : )

Take care of yourself, friends, and be kind to one another. So many of us are carrying so much right now, and you can’t necessarily tell that just by looking at someone.

Wishing you all a lovely July!