I got a late start reading last month and really enjoyed all of the books I read. I read two non-fiction books and highly recommend both of them. The other two were thrillers, one of which has been on my To Be Read list for over a year and it did not disappoint. Keep scrolling to see the books that I read last month with my ratings for each.
See my favorite reads from 2022 here and check out all I’ve read here.
4 Books I Read in August 2023
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
Synopsis
One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.
As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients’ lives — a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can’t stop hooking up with the wrong guys — she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.
With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope, and change.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is revolutionary in its candor, offering a deeply personal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly revealing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.
Meghan’s Thoughts and Rating
- I absolutely adored this book! I really like it when nonfiction reads like fiction, and this one fits that bill. I was invested in the well-being of all of her patients, and her own therapy journey, and there were times when I was filled with emotion for their progress. A great book!
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
Synopsis
Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he’s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood.
Through a kaleidoscope of women–a mother, a sister, a homicide detective–we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and finally, Saffy, the detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake.
Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Executionpresents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men.
Meghan’s Thoughts and Rating
- This book reads almost like a true crime novel. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I finished it earlier today. It is haunting, complex, and chilling. It is a thriller, but I’d venture that it’s more literary than most thrillers I’ve read. I enjoyed this book very much, though, it did make me feel a little nauseous and uneasy at times.
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Gone Tonight by Sarah Pekkanen
Synopsis
Catherine Sterling thinks she knows her mother. Ruth Sterling is quiet, hardworking, and lives for her daughter. All her life, it’s been just the two of them against the world. But now, Catherine is ready to spread her wings, move from home, and begin a new career. And Ruth Sterling will do anything to prevent that from happening.
Ruth Sterling thinks she knows her daughter. Catherine would never rebel, would never question anything about her mother’s past or background. But when Ruth’s desperate quest to keep her daughter by her side begins to reveal cracks in Ruth’s carefully-constructed world, both mother and daughter begin a dance of deception.
Meghan’s Thoughts and Rating
- I really enjoyed this thriller! It was sneaky good and I loved the two different story lines with the mother & daughter. I wish the ending had been a tad more in depth. Otherwise, a page-turner!
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexis Coe
Synopsis
Alexis Coe takes a closer look at our first–and finds he is not quite the man we remember
Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident, and never backed down–even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. Washington became the kind of man who named his dog Sweetlips and hated to leave home. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won.
After an unlikely victory in the Revolutionary War cast him as the nation’s hero, he was desperate to retire, but the founders pressured him into the presidency–twice. When he retired years later, no one talked him out of it. He left the highest office heartbroken over the partisan nightmare his backstabbing cabinet had created.
Back on his plantation, the man who fought for liberty must confront his greatest hypocrisy–what to do with the men, women, and children he owns–before he succumbs to death.
With irresistible style and warm humor, You Never Forget Your First combines rigorous research and lively storytelling that will have readers–including those who thought presidential biographies were just for dads–inhaling every page.
Meghan’s Thoughts and Rating
- This is a fun biography and Coe has done a great job with her research and storytelling abilities. I really enjoyed the narratives that were included that are often left out of more traditional biographies about Washington. I listened to this book on audio and really appreciated the narrator in it as well.
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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