Wow, it’s been over a month since I’ve written here!

Life is busy. Summer is hot. But now I’m itching to get back into a blogging groove.

To start, let’s discuss the summer reads I’ve been enjoying the last few months, since that’s how I’ve been filling much of my free time.

#CUPOFCATHERINEREADS – A REVIEW OF MY RECENT, SUMMER READS

Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans*****

I’d been following Rachel Held Evans on social media for maybe a year when I learned of her tragic hospitalization and death. I immediately decided to read some of her work, since I admired her position among progressive Christians and wanted to “know” her more.

Searching for Sunday is a beautiful read. I found it especially poignant since I identify with her evangelical upbringing as a child and her difficulty coming to terms with her faith as a progressive, socially-liberal adult.

Her journey is ultimately a hopeful and enlightening one, though she does share some of the darkness she felt among the turmoil of balancing her early faith with her newfound life of service and living out her idea of Christ-like love.

The format of the book is clever; each chapter is dedicated to one of the seven sacraments of faith. She journeys through her interpretations and real-world experiences of baptism, communion, confirmation, confession, marriage, vocation, and death.

It’s tragic her life was cut so short, and I ache for her husband, children, and the compassionate voice we desperately need to hear more of in this season of life. 

Searching for Sunday earns 5 well-deserved stars.

Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe by Sarah Mae & Sally Clarkson ***

I wanted to like this book because it introduced me to my neighborhood book club, but I just didn’t enjoy it that much. 

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t in a “self-help” kind of mood, or maybe I found it too faith-focused, but reading along felt very “forced” to me.

Regardless, I’m grateful I read it because it led me to some wonderful women in my neighborhood, and I think the book’s central message was important and clear: we need community.

I did enjoy the letters between Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson, and I think each woman did a great job sharing their own vulnerabilities and wisdom.

Motherhood is hard. It’s exhausting, challenging, and emotionally-draining at times, but it’s also a beautiful and rewarding experience that must be shared with a supportive community.

The hopeful message and necessary advice to mothers earn Desperate 3 stars.

The Dispatcher by John Scalzi ***

This was another book club selection. The Dispatcher is more of a short story than a novel, so it was a quick, but intriguing, read.

The premise was a new/unusual one to me: 999 out of 1000 times, people cannot be murdered; if they are, they are “dispatched” from whatever state of consciousness they go to, to where they were moments before their death.

As you can imagine, this discovery makes for an interesting world and life. Dispatchers, like main character Tony Valdez, earn their living by accompanying surgeons during operations, assisting law enforcement, and, yes, by working for criminals in a more underground role. 

Tony’s relatively uncomplicated life becomes complicated when he’s enlisted to help a detective locate a missing person (and former dispatcher). I won’t give away any spoilers, but do know that there’s an interesting twist at the end.

The Dispatcher earns 3 stars, mostly for its creativity.

Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis ****

As the title implies, Girl, Stop Apologizing is a follow-up to Girl, Wash Your Face.

I have mixed feelings about Rachel Hollis. On the one hand, she’s an exceptional business woman. She is a go-getter who knows how to follow—and achieve—her dreams. She’s incredibly motivating, and she’s pretty freaking hilarious with her bluntness and personal anecdotes.

On the other hand, she still seems a bit disconnected from her privilege.

I am one of those who mostly enjoyed Girl, Wash Your Face, but I did take major issue with how one-dimensional her perspective was: middle class (though her family did struggle in her youth), white, cisgender female whose obstacles and self-doubts were all pretty approachable.

I do feel, though, that Girl, Stop Apologizing expands past that singular perspective, and I find its central message of “stop being afraid of your potential!” to be relevant in this day and age.

I enjoyed the structure of the book. In part 1, Hollis lists out the excuses we must get rid of. The second part tackles behaviors to adopt in place of these excuses. And in the final part, she lists essential skills to develop.

It all sounds so simple in list form, but she dives deep into what I feel is a common experience among women: feeling small and insignificant, being afraid to be bold, and desperately needing to meet others’ expectations.

She acknowledges that we all come from different walks of life and have vastly different goals. Instead of pointing fingers at or belittling those with goals outside of her own passion, she encourages us all to develop the habits and lifestyle we deserve, so that any goal is both noble and attainable.

I give this one 4 stars.

The Tenant by Katrine Engberg **** 

I love a good suspense/mystery, and this one was fairly entertaining.

When a young woman living on the ground floor of a residential building is discovered to have been brutally murdered, landlord and retired professor Esther de Laurenti’s life is turned upside down.

A pair of detectives, Jeppe Korner and Annette Werner, are assigned to the case, which leads them to various suspects who all seem to have unusual motivations.

The twisted part of the novel is that the murder—gruesomely intricate facial carvings and all—is almost identical to an unfinished crime novel written by Esther de Laurenti herself.

Throughout the novel, I had many different suspicions and remained enthralled by the dizzying detective work, but my favorite component of the story was the banter between Korner and Werner. I’d love to see Engberg develop a series following these two and their cases.

As far as thrillers go, this one was unique. It earns 4 stars.

The Nobodies by Liza Palmer ***

The Nobodies was another book I wanted to enjoy, but the story and character development just didn’t wow me.

The protagonist, Joan, is an experienced journalist (fresh out of high school; she did not even attend college), but she finds herself jobless and living at home with her parents at the ripe age of 35 (or was it 36?) after an editor tells her, in so many words, “your writing is stale.”

Joan is talented—she knows this, having secured an internship with the LA Times at 17 years old (how likely is that, really?), but she’s undeniably trapped within an abyss of blame, self-criticism, and validation-seeking.

Joan eventually lands a gig at budding, hipster-run “Bloom,” which bills itself as a data management company with a vision unlike any other, but of course, her preconceptions of the work and her baby-faced colleagues gets the best of her.

She does befriend some of her coworkers (there may even be a cute romance there), but the journalist in her never loses hold of a good story. After discovering a secret that could destroy Bloom’s reputation, she and her new colleagues-turned-friends set out on an investigation that leads to many realizations—some of which, Joan didn’t even know she was seeking.

The Nobodies was cute. As a 35-year old perfectionist who never exactly got a job in my college major, I could somewhat relate to Joan. However, a few of the relationships annoyed me, and I found myself tired of hearing about Joan’s insecurities. 

All in all, it was a fun story worthy of 3 stars.

Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris *****

I read this book over Labor Day weekend, and I could NOT put it down. 

Cilka’s Journey is a sequel to The Tattooist of Auschwitz (which I’ve not read yet), but thankfully, it stands on its own.

I’ve always been a fan of Holocaust and World War II fiction, so the story of Cilka—a then-16-year-old Slovakian Jew who spent 3 years in Auschwitz and lost her entire family only to end up being sentenced to 15 years in a Soviet gulag in arctic Siberia—drew me in immediately.

I thought the writing itself flowed well, and I found it easy to become immersed in the story and the characters’ motivations and emotions.

It’s a tough read, as all Holocaust-related fiction is, but ultimately, it left me with positive feelings and hope. It reminded me that ordinary humans can be extraordinarily strong, courageous, and compassionate when faced with unthinkable hardship, and it made me appreciate those survivors and resistors even more.

Cilka made some unfathomable choices in Auschwitz, but those choices are precisely what kept her alive. She spent her imprisonment in Siberia ceaselessly attempting to atone for her past, where she displayed unwavering loyalty to her loved ones and a passion for doing the right thing.

There’s been some criticism concerning historical accuracy and certain choices made by Heather Morris, but Cilka’s Journey is historical fiction loosely based on a real Holocaust survivor. 

My thoughts are simple: if a fictional story introduces somebody to the horrors of the Holocaust and encourages them to learn more about it, then it’s a success. The generation of survivors is almost entirely gone, so we need these stories to educate ourselves of the dark times in our history.

An unquestionable 5 stars. 

Catherine’s Latest Book Review #cupofcatherinereads #summerreads Share on X

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*A special thanks to Net Galley, for advance copies of The Tenant, The Nobodies, and Cilka’s Journey, which I received free in exchange for my honest review. Be sure to look for these titles late 2019 and early 2020 when they hit the shelves.

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So tell me…

• Do you enjoy historical fiction? If yes, which era?
• What’s the best (or worst) book you’ve read recently?