1. Reversible Quilted Pullover
2. Lightweight Cotton Shirt in Signature Fit
3. 24/7 Split Hem Crochet Sweater Hoodie
6. Kut From the Kloth Utility Short
8. Arizona Flex Platform Birkenstocks
That's it for me this week. What's caught your eye?
A lot about books, a little about life
1. Reversible Quilted Pullover
2. Lightweight Cotton Shirt in Signature Fit
3. 24/7 Split Hem Crochet Sweater Hoodie
6. Kut From the Kloth Utility Short
8. Arizona Flex Platform Birkenstocks
That's it for me this week. What's caught your eye?
Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature where I highlight a soon to be released title I can't wait to read.
This week's pick: Reunion by Elise Juska
Date Published: May 17, 2024
Synopsis from Amazon:
“Reunion had me hooked from its perfectly tense opening, and kept me enthralled throughout with its masterful storytelling and memorable characters. This is Elise Juska's best book yet.”—Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of Long Bright River
From the beloved author of the “uniquely poignant” (Entertainment Weekly) novel The Blessings comes a gripping story about three friends in their forties forced to reckon with their lives during a college reunion in coastal Maine.
It’s June 2021, and three old college friends are heading to New England and the twenty-fifth reunion that was delayed the year before. Hope, a stay-at-home mom, is desperate for a return to her beloved campus, a reprieve from her tense marriage, and the stresses of pandemic parenting. Adam is hesitant to leave his bucolic but secluded life with his wife and their young sons. Single mother Polly hasn’t been back to campus in more than twenty years and has no interest in returning—but changes her mind when her struggling teenage son suggests a road trip.
But the reunion isn’t what any of them had envisioned. Hope, always upbeat, is no longer able to downplay the pressures of life at home or the cracks in her longstanding friendships. Adam finds himself energized by the memory of his carefree, reckless younger self—which only reminds him how much has changed since those halcyon days. Polly cannot ignore the ghosts of her college years, including a closely guarded secret. When the weekend takes a startling turn, all three find themselves reckoning with the past—and how it will bear on the future.
Beautifully observed and insightful, Reunion is a page-turning novel about the highs and lows of friendship from a writer at the height of her powers.
I almost had this posted on Friday - and then I was frantically getting ready for a PD where I presented about new children's books. I've been told there are four more Sundays of the school year, but at this point, I have a lot to do and I'm not ready to think about the year ending. I also have a really fantastic group of eighth graders that I'm going to miss a lot, so I'm planning on savoring the remaining days.
Here are the things I found to share:
2. Reef Vista Women's Hi Buckle Sandal
3. Bungalow Embroidered Top in Linen
4. Smock Neck Top in Textured Gauze
7. Reagan Twill Long Sleeve
8. Nike Sportswear Phoenix Fleece
9. Starburst Minis
10. Princess Charlotte turns 9
That's it for me this week. What's caught your eye?
Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature where I highlight a soon to be released title I can't wait to read.
This week's pick: The Cliffs by J Courtney Sullivan
Due out: July 16, 2024
Synopsis taken from Amazon:
I love nonfiction books and the older I get, the more I seem to gravitate toward them. This is one title I'm adding to my TBR this month.
There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America's Biggest Catfish by Anna Akbari
Due out June 4, 2024
Synopsis taken from Amazon:
Part memoir, part explosive window into the mind of a catfisher, a thrilling personal account of three women coming face-to-face with an internet predator and teaming up to expose them.
In 2011, three successful and highly educated women fell head over heels for the brilliant and charming Ethan Schuman. Unbeknownst to the others, each exchanged countless messages with Ethan, staying up late into the evenings to deepen their connections with this fascinating man. His detailed excuses about broken webcams and complicated international calling plans seemed believable, as did last minute trip cancellations. After all, why would he lie? Ethan wasn't after money — he never convinced his marks to shell out thousands of dollars for some imagined crisis. Rather, he ensnared these women in a web of intense emotional intimacy. After the trio independently began to question inconsistencies in their new flame's stories, they managed to find one another and uncover a greater deception than they could've ever imagined. As Anna Akbari and the women untangled their catfish’s web, they found other victims and realized that without a proper crime, there was no legal reason for “Ethan” to ever stop.
THERE IS NO ETHAN catalogues Akbari's experience as both victim and observer. By looking at the bigger picture of where these stories unfold — a world where technology mediates our relationships; where words and images are easily manipulated; and where truth, reality, and identity have become slippery terms — Akbari gives a page-turning and riveting examination of why stories like Ethan's matter for us all.
5. Miller Sandal by Tory Burch
9. Unfrosted
10. Prince Louis 6th Birthday
That's it for me this week. What's caught your eye?
Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature where I highlight a soon to be released title I can't wait to read.
This week's pick: Very Bad Company by Emma Rosenblum
Due out: May 14, 2024
Synopsis taken from Amazon:
A gripping, darkly comic novel from the national bestselling author of Bad Summer People about a team of wealthy and powerful executives on retreat in Miami when one of them goes missing . . .
Every year, executives at the trendy tech startup Aurora gather the company’s top employees for an exclusive retreat in Miami and this year, Caitlin Levy–Aurora’s newest hire–is joining the team as Head of Events. The benefits are outstanding: a seven-figure salary, stock shares, a discretionary bonus, limitless vacation days–what could possibly go wrong?
When another high-level executive vanishes after the first night, the disappearance has the potential to derail the future of the company’s sale and cost everyone on the team millions. Now, more than ever, Caitlin and her colleagues must continue the charade–partaking in team building exercises, group brainstorms, dinners–in order to keep the future of Aurora afloat amid all the fatal speculations.
Compulsively readable, Very Bad Company is a slick send up of corporate culture wrapped in a captivating mystery.
This past week I've been busy with all sorts of school stuff. And then yesterday I decided I should clean my neglected, messy house. That has translated into not a lot of reading time. I've also been picking up a lot of nonfiction and enjoying that a great deal.
I did enjoy Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle yesterday. This one was fast and I only regret that I was interrupted so many times while reading it.
Daphne receives a slip of paper as each relationship starts, stating the name of the guy she will be dating and the length of time the relationship will last. Obviously, there's a bit of magical realism in this book, but if you can get by this bit of the story, you can see how Daphne's relationships begin - and eventually fail.
Until she meets Jake. And the slip of paper states his name, but no ending date.
There is a plot twist I didn't see coming, so I encourage readers to go into this one without reading any form of a summary. I will say that suddenly Daphne's relationships make more sense, and the ending does seem a bit inevitable.
A little bit serious as well as a little bit fun, this was a great book to spend an afternoon on.
School deadlines are looming and that has taken quite up quite a bit of reading time. However, I have finished up quite a bit and that feels good.
Here are some things I found this week to share. I'm still waiting for warmer weather, but we have finally had rain this week, which is also a good thing.
3. 2024 Striped Color Block Oversized Sweatshirt
4. We The Free Wesley Ankle Boots
7. White Stovepipe Straight Jean in Stretch
8. Short Sleeved Tiered Jersey Dress
9. Book Gang Podcast
10. Caitlin Clark on SNL and The Today Show - as an Iowan I have loved watching Iowa Women's Basketball (far more than the men's team these past few years). I am so sad that Caitlin and the other seniors are moving on and we won't get to see them play together anymore. But, man, has it been fun!