Books on Thursday

I've read a few interesting books and would like to tell you about them today.

 

I’ve been trying to expand my reading this summer, and part of that has meant seeking out memoirs by people whose lives are very different from mine. Sober Mom fits that description. Liz Jannuzzi’s account of her alcoholism, its devastating effects on her marriage and family, and her eventual recovery through AA is a candid and often remarkable story.

What struck me most was the amount of energy and planning that went into maintaining the illusion that everything was fine. Jannuzzi was raising three young children while drinking vodka for much of the day, all while hiding bottles, concealing how much she drank, hiding the money she spent on alcohol, and trying to keep her husband from discovering the extent of the problem. Her description of reaching the point where she could no longer keep the pieces of her life separated is painful but compelling.

I also appreciated that Jannuzzi doesn’t present recovery as a neat, inspirational transformation. There are cravings, uncomfortable amends, grief, marital difficulties, and plenty of awkward moments. Her willingness to describe the less glamorous parts of AA and sobriety makes the story feel honest rather than overly polished. There is also a welcome vein of humor amid some very difficult material.

One caveat for those of us who enjoy a drink: Jannuzzi occasionally describes vodka and cranberry juice with such lush, sensory detail that I found myself thinking, "Well, that sounds pretty good!" It's an acknowledgement of her writing ability, and an interesting reminder of just how seductive alcohol can be, even when you’re reading about the destruction it caused.

This isn’t a memoir I would describe as an easy or comfortable read, but it is a compelling one. Jannuzzi tells her story with considerable honesty and gives a vivid picture of what alcoholism can look like when it is hidden behind the façade of an ordinary suburban family life. Most importantly, Sober Mom offers a convincing portrait of recovery as something built one day at a time, with help from other people and a willingness to confront the damage left behind. This was four stars for me.  

 

Any Bitter Thing is a quietly moving novel about memory, forgiveness, family, and the ways that the truth can become complicated when viewed through the imperfect lens of time.

After a near-fatal accident leaves Lizzy Mitchell struggling to recover, she becomes preoccupied with the vision she had while unconscious: her beloved Uncle Mike, the Catholic priest who raised her until she was nine. Twenty years earlier, accusations of impropriety had destroyed Mike’s career and separated him from Lizzy, sending her away to boarding school. Now, as Lizzy tries to piece together what happened to her in the accident, she also finds herself compelled to revisit the events that changed both their lives.

I particularly liked the way Monica Wood explores the uncertainty surrounding memory. Lizzy isn't simply trying to uncover an objective version of the past; she has to confront how children understand adult behavior, how families protect themselves, and how easily suspicion can become accepted as fact. The question of what really happened to Father Mike provides the mystery at the heart of the novel, but the emotional consequences are ultimately more important than solving it.

Lizzy's recovery, her troubled marriage, and her complicated feelings about Mike give the story plenty of emotional depth. At times the novel felt a little overly sentimental to me, and some of the spiritual elements didn't completely work for me. Still, Wood writes with considerable compassion, and I appreciated that she allows her characters to be flawed without making them easy to judge. 

This is ultimately a story about the damage caused by secrets and accusations, but also about the possibility of reconciliation and hope. Any Bitter Thing isn't a fast-paced mystery so much as an intimate exploration of how we remember the people we love, and how understanding the past can sometimes help us find a way forward. Thanks for the four-star recommendation, Becky! 

 

I thought that Homeschooled sounded like it might be interesting, but I found myself wishing the author had chosen a different title and framed the book quite differently. This is not a book about homeschooling so much as a memoir about an unhealthy mother-son relationship marked by codependency, isolation, emotional manipulation, mental health issues, and familial dysfunction.

Stefan’s mother removes him from school because she believes his teachers are stifling his creativity, but what follows is far removed from what most people would consider education. His world becomes increasingly restricted, while his mother involves him in increasingly bizarre projects and attempts to control his behavior and development. The emotional manipulation and isolation are particularly disturbing because they are presented under the guise of homeschooling.

One episode that stayed with me was his mother’s insistence that he crawl around the house like a baby, supposedly as a way to improve his penmanship. I kept wondering what his father thought about having a middle-school-aged son crawling around the house because his mother believed this was somehow beneficial. The author repeatedly mentions that his father was very busy, but I found myself wishing there had been more exploration of his role in what was happening. I would also like to have read some of the older brother's thoughts.

There is no question that this is a sad and, ultimately, empowering story. Stefan’s return to public school after five years of isolation and his gradual discovery of a life outside his mother’s control are compelling. His journey toward independence is the strongest part of the book, but it still felt like Block excused or even romanticized much of his mother's highly aberrant behavior.

For me, the homeschooling aspect felt almost incidental to the larger story. The real subject is a mother whose controlling behavior and increasingly eccentric worldview profoundly affected her son. I think I would have connected with the book more if it had been presented as a memoir about mental health, family dysfunction, and a young person struggling to establish his own identity rather than as a book purportedly about homeschooling.

There are some powerful and heartbreaking moments here, but ultimately I found the framing of the story frustrating, and I still have many unanswered questions about what this family went through. 1.5 stars rounded up.

Now I'd love to know what you're reading!   

Unraveled Wednesday: 8/26/26

I’m happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today, but I'm also unhappy that I don't yet have a finished towel to show you. 

The last time I was at Ryan's, I measured one of his ratty dishtowels that I hope to replace with these handknitted ones. I didn't have a tape measure so I quickly made a "measuring string" for length from one of the skeins in my knitting bag while Ryan was otherwise occupied. You can see I'm approximately two repeats short of completing the length, but I think I'll do an extra one because I fully expect it to shrink when I wash and dry the towel.

 

 

Hopefully, I'll have this one completed and be well into finishing the purple one by the next time I join Unraveled Wednesday. We're leaving next Monday to visit John's older sister and her husband for much of the week. With an eight-hour round-trip drive, I'm envisioning finishing both towels and maybe starting another one in Dishie yarn using this pattern. We'll see; my knitting visions don't always turn into reality. 

 

What are you making this last Wednesday in August? 

Ravelry links:

Nested Squares Kitchen Towel 

 

Read With Us Lounge: 8/24/26

Hello and welcome to my penultimate Read With Us Lounge post. One of the things I’ve been trying to do as part of the Read With Us Lounge this summer is expand my reading. Not read more books, but read differently, especially books by people whose lives and experiences are very different from my own.

That raises an interesting question: Do books have to be “relatable” for us to enjoy or appreciate them? We hear that word all the time when people talk about books. I really related to this character. It was so relatable! Sometimes that connection is exactly what makes a book meaningful. It can be comforting to recognize ourselves in another person’s experiences, thoughts, fears, or mistakes. But I wonder if we sometimes ask too much of books when we expect them to reflect our own lives.

One of the books that first made me think about this was Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur, which the Read With Us group read back in 2020. Brodeur’s memoir describes a complicated relationship with her mother and the enormous secret she was drawn into as a teenager. Her family dynamics, choices, and experiences were very far removed from my own life. And yet I found the book fascinating. I wasn't fascinated because I recognized myself in Brodeur. I was captivated because she gave me a window into a life I had never experienced, and into the complicated ways people can love one another, hurt one another, and become entangled in one another’s choices.

This summer, I’ve read several other memoirs that have taken me well outside my own experience. Sober Mom by Elizabeth Jannuzzi introduced me to the experience of a suburban mother struggling with alcohol addiction. Homeschooled by Stefan Merrill Block gave me a glimpse into a childhood and family structure very different from anything I knew. And Little Princesses by Marion Crawford offered a fascinating look at life inside the British royal family through the woman who served as governess to Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.

I am not a homeschooled royal alcoholic. The only thing I really have in common with these authors is that I am a fellow human being. And maybe that is enough.

Reading about people whose lives are completely different from ours can be a reminder that we don't need to have the same experiences in order to recognize something of ourselves in another person. We can recognize fear without having experienced the same thing that frightened someone else. We can understand loneliness without having lived the same kind of loneliness. We can recognize love, shame, jealousy, grief, ambition, regret, or hope even when the circumstances surrounding those emotions are completely unfamiliar. That may be one of the great gifts of reading.

A book doesn't always have to say, “This is just like my life.” Sometimes it can say, “This is nothing like my life, but now I understand a little more about someone else's.” And that seems especially valuable right now. It is very easy to make assumptions about people whose lives look different from ours. We can reduce someone to a label, an experience, a mistake, or a set of circumstances we don't understand. But spending several hours inside someone else's story can make that person more complicated, more human, and harder to dismiss.

Does reading automatically make us more empathetic? Probably not. But I think it can give empathy somewhere to begin. I will never understand exactly what it is like to be an alcoholic (hopefully), to be homeschooled, or to grow up in the royal household. But after reading these books, I have a little more understanding of people who have lived those lives. And perhaps the next time I encounter someone whose experiences are completely different from mine, I'll be a little less quick to judge.

What about you? Tell me about a book that expanded your empathy precisely because it felt unfamiliar. What did you learn from entering a life that was very different from your own? Did reading about that experience change the way you thought about the people who live it? And, just as importantly: Do you think a book needs to be “relatable” for you to love it?

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Thank you for your participation in the RWU Lounge. We we weren't exactly sure if our "anti-book bingo" idea would work but you have helped to make it a rousing success with your thoughtful comments and discussion, no matter what the topic was. As a small token of our appreciation, we'd love to send you a thank-you gift. If you're comfortable sharing your mailing address, please send it to me via email (highlyreasonableATgmailDOTcom) and we'll get your parting gift on its way in a bit. Thanks again; we really appreciate your commitment to our "No Rules. Just Fun!" philosophy. 

Books on Thursday

I have three ARC reviews for you this week. I've been trying to blog about them closer to their publication dates so you can place a hold at your library if you are interested. That seems far better than telling you about them three to six months before they are even published!

I went into Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason expecting something sharp, funny, and emotionally insightful, and to be fair, it does deliver on some of that. Sophie is an immediately sympathetic character: gentle, withdrawn, and quietly struggling in ways that feel recognizable and real. Mason has a gift for capturing the interior life of loneliness, and there are moments of genuine wit and poignancy scattered throughout.

One of my favorite aspects of the novel was its deep immersion in the literary world. I loved all the references to books, publishing, and especially to authors themselves. They loom large in Sophie’s life, not just as creators but as emotional anchors. The portrayal of a reader’s relationship to a beloved writer felt incredibly authentic, capturing that peculiar blend of admiration, intimacy, and dependence that can form across the page. Those elements added a richness and specificity that really elevated the reading experience for me.

That said, I found myself increasingly frustrated with the pacing. I enjoyed the story, but it felt like it took forever to get anywhere. Much of the novel lingers in Sophie’s inner world without enough forward momentum, and while that may be intentional, mirroring her stagnation, it sometimes makes the reading experience feel stuck rather than immersive. I kept waiting for a shift, a spark, or a deeper development that would push things forward in a meaningful way.

The premise, especially Sophie’s attachment to the author who becomes a kind of emotional lifeline, is compelling and full of potential. When the book focuses on that idea, it’s at its strongest, exploring the strange intimacy between reader and writer in a thoughtful, almost tender way. But those moments are somewhat buried beneath repetition and a narrative that circles more than it progresses.

Overall, this is a thoughtful and occasionally moving novel with a strong central character, and a love letter of sorts to the literary world, but one that might have benefited from a tighter structure and a bit more narrative drive. I’m glad I read it, but I can’t help feeling it didn’t quite live up to what it could have been. (But Meg Mason is the author and I am clearly not!) Three stars.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Harper for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on September 8, 2026.

I was immediately captivated when a friend mentioned that she was reading Swimming With Turtles and I ended up enjoying this memoir even more than I expected. Susan Baur has a gift for translating the quiet act of snorkeling in Cape Cod ponds into something genuinely adventurous. Her descriptions of the underwater world are so vivid that it often feels as though you're swimming alongside her, peering beneath lily pads and scanning the shadows for painted, musk, and snapping turtles. She captures both the beauty and the thrill of discovery in a way that made me appreciate an ecosystem I'd never given much thought to.

The memoir is also about grief, aging, patience, and learning to pay closer attention to the natural world. Baur's love story and the loss that follows add emotional depth without overwhelming the central joy of her observations. I especially appreciated how her fascination with turtles evolved into environmental stewardship, reminding us that wonder often leads to caring.

I have to admit that I'm still slightly terrified of muddy pond bottoms and snapping turtles, too, but this book somehow made me want to grab a snorkel and see what I've been missing beneath the surface. That's a testament to Baur's enthusiasm and powers of observation. 

If I have one small criticism, it's that the reflective passages occasionally linger a bit longer than I wanted, slightly slowing the momentum. Even so, Swimming with Turtles is a thoughtful, immersive memoir that celebrates curiosity, resilience, and the rewards of slowing down long enough to truly see the world around us. A wonderful read for nature lovers and anyone who enjoys memoirs that quietly inspire. Four and a half stars rounded up.   

Thank you to NetGalley and University of Massachusetts Press for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on September 8, 2026.

 

Switzy is one of those novels that is less concerned with plot than with immersing the reader in a state of mind. Emma Cline's stream-of-consciousness style places us inside David's increasingly fractured thoughts as he travels across Europe, knowing that he has chosen to end his life before dementia erases what remains of his sense of self.

What impressed me most was Cline's ability to make David's experience feel immediate rather than merely observed. Instead of describing dementia from the perspective of family members or caregivers, she invites us into David's shifting consciousness. Memories surface without warning, conversations lose their shape, familiar places become strange, and time itself refuses to behave. It's disorienting, but intentionally so, creating a reading experience that gives what I imagine to be a shockingly realistic sense of dementia.

Despite the heavy subject matter, there are flashes of dry humor and moments of surprising tenderness. As David reflects on childhood, family, career, regrets, and small moments that linger long after larger accomplishments have faded, the novel quietly asks what remains of a person when memory begins to disappear. This question stayed with me even after I finished the book and I will be thinking about this one for a while.

This wasn't an easy or particularly fast read for me. The stream-of-consciousness narrative can be repetitive, occasionally confusing, and difficult to follow. I often found myself going back several pages to try and make sense of what was happening. But the style ultimately serves the story very well, drawing the reader into the confusion, fear, and fleeting moments of clarity that define David's final journey.

Switzy is an enveloping, compassionate novel that offers what a deeply imagined glimpse of dementia might feel like from the inside. It's haunting, thought-provoking, and unlike anything else I've read on the subject.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on September 8, 2026.There is a Goodreads giveaway for this four-star book if you are interested. 

Now I'd love to know what you're reading!   

 

Unraveled Wednesday: 8/19/26

I’m happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today. I'm still working on the same dish towels, adding more rows slowly but surely. 

After knitting 10 rows on these, I’m finally getting the hang of keeping my knits and purls straight, most of the time, anyway. I still have quite a way to go, so there’s plenty of time to become a real seed-stitch expert (and also plenty of time to make more mistakes).

 

I think these will be for Ryan. I'm guessing that it will take me at least a couple of weeks to finish them, and then I'll need to get back to stitching the badger on Justin's hat. I'm glad I started these Christmas gifts early (and I still need to think of something to make for Jess). 

What are you making as August winds down? 

Ravelry links:

Nested Squares Kitchen Towel 

 

Read With Us Lounge: 8/17/26

  

For the Read With Us Lounge, we spend a lot of time talking about books we love. But every now and then, an interesting question comes up: What actually makes a book good?

It sounds like a simple question, but the more you think about it, the harder it becomes to answer. Is a good book beautifully written? Does it need to move us emotionally? Should it surprise us with something we've never encountered before? Is a book better if we want to read it again or if it challenges us the first time through? Maybe the most interesting answer is that a “good” book doesn't have to succeed in just one way

Beauty of Language

Some books stay with us because of the sentences themselves. We pause over a phrase, reread a paragraph, or find ourselves thinking about a particular image days later.

Beautiful language can make an ordinary moment feel extraordinary. It can create atmosphere, reveal character, or make us notice something about the world that we hadn't noticed before. Sometimes, we love a book simply because we love being inside its prose.

But does beautiful writing automatically make a book good? Probably not. A gorgeous sentence can't necessarily rescue a story that leaves us cold.

Emotional Impact

Then there are the books that make us feel.

We may laugh, cry, become angry, feel unsettled, or recognize ourselves in a character. Sometimes a book changes our understanding of an experience we have never personally had.

Emotional impact can be powerful, but it is also deeply personal. One reader may be devastated by a novel while another barely reacts. Does that mean one reader is “right” or is the emotional experience itself part of what makes reading so subjective?

Originality

We often praise books for being original. We want ideas, characters, structures, or perspectives that feel fresh.

But originality is complicated. Very few stories are completely new. Writers are always borrowing, adapting, responding to, and reinventing what came before. Sometimes the most impressive books aren't the ones with entirely new ideas, but the ones that take familiar ideas and make us see them differently.

Perhaps originality isn't about inventing something from nothing. Perhaps it's about making something familiar feel new.

Rereadability

Here's another test: Would you read it again?

Some books are thrilling on a first read but don't necessarily call us back. Others seem to become richer each time we return to them. On a second or third reading, we notice foreshadowing, hidden details, patterns in the language, or meanings we couldn't have seen before.

But rereadability isn't the only measure of quality. Some books are difficult, painful, or exhausting, and we may be grateful we read them once without ever wanting to read them again. A book doesn't necessarily have to be comforting or enjoyable to be worthwhile.

Difficulty

Which brings us to another tricky question: Does a good book have to be difficult?

There's a temptation to equate difficulty with seriousness or intelligence. We sometimes assume that if a book takes effort to understand, it must be more valuable than one we read quickly and easily.

But reading pleasure matters, too. A book can be deceptively simple and still be profound. A straightforward story can contain enormous emotional or philosophical depth. Maybe difficulty is best understood not as a measure of quality, but as one possible kind of reading experience.

So What Makes a Book Good?

Maybe the answer depends on what we ask a book to do.

A good book might give us language we want to savor. It might make us feel something deeply. It might challenge our assumptions, introduce us to an unfamiliar perspective, or make an old idea feel new. It might reward rereading, or simply give us an unforgettable experience the first time.

And perhaps the most important thing is that “good” doesn't have to mean “universally enjoyable.”

A book can be beautifully written and not be for us. A novel can have brilliant ideas but fail to move us. A book we adore might be one that another reader finds tedious. Those differences aren't necessarily a problem. They're part of what makes a reading community interesting.

So this summer, instead of asking only Did you like it?, we can try asking a few different questions:

What did this book do well?

What did it make you feel or think about?

What, if anything, will stay with you?

Would you read it again? Why or why not?

And perhaps the best question of all:

What makes you call a book “good”?

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Bring your favorite book, your most controversial opinion, or the book you can't stop thinking about, and let's compare our definitions of “good.”

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Thank you for your participation in the RWU Lounge. We we weren't exactly sure if our "anti-book bingo" idea would work but you have helped to make it a rousing success with your thoughtful comments and discussion, no matter what the topic was. As a small token of our appreciation, we'd love to send you a thank-you gift. If you're comfortable sharing your mailing address, please send it to me via email (highlyreasonableATgmailDOTcom) and we'll get your parting gift on its way in a bit. Thanks again; we really appreciate your commitment to our "No Rules. Just Fun!" philosophy.

Books on Thursday

I read several books this week. It was a good week for reading, given our 90 degrees plus weather combined with oppressive humidity. 

I really liked the premise of The Treasure House. A single mother and her young daughter buying a neglected house overflowing with decades of accumulated belongings has all the ingredients for a cozy, emotionally satisfying story. Watching someone slowly reclaim both a home and a life can make for a compelling read.

For me, though, the execution made it clear that I'm probably not the target audience. This is a perfectly pleasant romance, but many of the obstacles are resolved so easily that the story never felt especially grounded. Zoe sees the house, makes one phone call to the owner, another to the bank, and suddenly she's a homeowner. The many challenges of rehabilitating a rundown house are similarly smoothed over with the help of an endlessly supportive circle of friends and neighbors. Even major jobs, like putting up storm windows during a coastal storm, seem to come together with surprising ease.

The romance was equally predictable. As soon as the somewhat taciturn owner of Jake's Hardware and Lobster Shack appeared, it was obvious where that storyline was headed. Predictability isn't necessarily a flaw. Sometimes it's exactly what you're looking for in a comfort read, but there weren't many surprises along the way.

I did enjoy the small mystery surrounding the previous owner, Marly, and the parallels between her life and Zoe's added some emotional depth. Florence was also a charming presence, bringing warmth and optimism to the story.

Overall, The Treasure House is an easy, feel-good novel that offers a comforting escape. While I wanted a little more realism and complexity in both the home renovation and the relationships, readers looking for a cozy romance with a hopeful message and a satisfying happy ending will likely find plenty to enjoy and a welcome respite from the news. Three stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dell for providing me with a copy of the book. It will be published on September 1, 2026. There is a Goodreads giveaway for this book if you are interested. 

 

This book was just not meant for me in so many ways.

I went into Heather hoping that its setting in the New Jersey Pine Barrens would make this mystery especially appealing. Unfortunately, the setting wasn’t enough to overcome the many elements that I tend to struggle with as a reader. There are multiple storylines, a nonlinear timeline, a mixture of second- and third-person narration, a protagonist who often seemed frustratingly incompetent, and a web of relationships so confusing that I found myself trying to construct a family tree just to keep everyone straight.

More troubling for me was the repeated failure of the adults in this community to protect the young women at the center of the story. Police officers, parents, teachers, and other authority figures repeatedly miss or fail to act on things that seem like they should have raised serious red flags. I kept wondering how so many adults could fail these girls so thoroughly and so repeatedly.

I can appreciate what Caitlin Mullen was attempting to explore: how difficult it can be to know the truth about another person's life, how memory and perspective shape our understanding of the past, and how a community can carry the consequences of long-buried secrets. There are some genuinely disturbing and heartbreaking ideas here.

But as a reading experience, I found Heather confusing rather than compelling. The structural choices that may work beautifully for other readers mostly kept me at a distance from the characters and the mystery. I wanted to enjoy this one, mainly because of the Pine Barrens setting, but unfortunately the setting couldn't make up for the rest of the book for me. Two and a half stars.

I picked up Tough Cases after hearing one of the editors, Gregory Mize, interviewed on NPR, and the book turned out to be even more compelling than I expected.

Most of us encounter famous court cases only through headlines or the final ruling. Tough Cases shifts the focus from the courtroom drama to the judge's chambers, where the real burden of decision-making takes place. Each chapter is written by the judge who presided over a particularly difficult case, explaining not only the legal reasoning but also the human weight of making decisions that can alter lives forever.

I was familiar with several of the high-profile cases, including those involving Elián González, Terri Schiavo, and Scooter Libby, but I had never really considered the painstaking thought process behind the rulings. The essays do an excellent job of explaining how judges balance precedent, statutory law, constitutional principles, and compassion while recognizing that there may be no outcome that satisfies everyone. The writing is remarkably accessible, making complex legal issues understandable without talking down to readers who don't have a legal background.

One of the book's greatest strengths is that it humanizes judges without turning them into heroes or villains. They come across as thoughtful people wrestling with imperfect facts, competing legal obligations, and the knowledge that every decision will profoundly affect someone's life.

Reading this made me realize how much I enjoy this kind of behind-the-scenes legal history. I would eagerly read a similar collection explaining the judicial reasoning behind landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission or Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Regardless of where readers stand on those cases, understanding how judges work through difficult constitutional questions in plain language would make for fascinating reading.

If you enjoy legal nonfiction, true courtroom stories, or simply want a better understanding of what judges actually do beyond issuing rulings, Tough Cases is an engaging and enlightening collection. It reminded me that the law is rarely as simple as it appears from the outside, and that some of the hardest work in our justice system happens long before a verdict is announced. Four stars. 

Now I'd love to know what you're reading!