More Summer Reads

By Kim

A couple of weeks ago Susan posted about some of her favorite reads this summer. Since it is vacation season and none of her choices overlapped what I’ve been reading, I thought I’d offer up a few more recommendations.

The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. by Nichole Bernier 
Crown/Random House, 2012 

This is the only recently-released book I’ve picked up so far this summer, and I bought it after having read a blog post by Nichole in which she discussed the inspiration for the novel. The story is about a woman's reading through her late friend’s journals and discovering that she had not really known her at all. It left me wondering how well I know any of my friends, and if any of them really know me. I would call the overall tone of the book unsettled, which is fitting for a story taking place shortly after the September 11th attacks.

The Unbreakable Child by Kim Michele Richardson 
Behler Publications, 2010 

I picked up this book when I had a week of feeling a little sorry for myself with my insanely hectic summer schedule. The gritty memoir of Kim’s childhood in a Catholic orphanage in 1960’s Kentucky knocked me out of that rut in a hurry. It also made me hug my kids and be thankful they will never have to live through the horrific abuse that Kim suffered at the hands of the nuns and priests. That she survived her experience is amazing. That she thrived as an adult and had the courage to fight back against the Catholic Church (and win) says a lot about the strength of her spirit. There were times this was very hard to read, but The Unbreakable Child is ultimately a story of survival and hope. Pick it up when you need a new perspective on life.

An Inconvenient Wife by Megan Chance 
Grand Central Publishing, 2005 

If Kate Chopin could rewrite The Awakening today, setting it in 1880’s New York City instead of New Orleans, it would probably be a bit like An Inconvenient Wife. Lucy Carelton lives a privileged, yet caged life with a husband whose only real passion is the ambition to rise above his humble birth and be accepted by the upper crust society he married into. Lucy’s passions have been crushed, first by a controlling father, and then by her husband; it’s really no surprise she finds herself going mad. Her husband’s idea of a “cure” is not what her hypnotist doctor provides. This book is engrossing, sometimes (tastefully) naughty, and has a far more satisfying ending than the protagonist “waking” only to drown herself.

Do you have any summer recommendations to make? Leave a comment and share them with our readers.