Spring has sprung! Our fruit trees are blooming and the whole backyard smells so good. Soon enough, I’ll be planted in the gazebo with a few good books. It’s just warm enough to feel good out there with a few good books. Not yet hot enough to be an uncomfortable sticky mess. I’m taking advantage of the warm weather and the breezes while I can. When Summer makes its debut, I’ll be running to the cool of the AC!
I’m on the hunt for a few, good reads to relax with. In the meantime, I’ve put together a small list of some good books to get into. There’s a book to make you think, a love story that will move you, a family with secrets that will make your mouth drop, and a memoir that will make you wish you were documenting your life already.
Spring Reads
I saw The Two Lives of Lydia Bird in an ad on Instagram and added it to my list. It was a good read. Heart-wrenching at times but good. Lydia Bird is engaged to the love of her life. She’s known him half her life. He’s on his way to get her so they can make it to the restaurant for her birthday dinner. He gets a call from his best friend and needs to run to his aid first. Lydia is upset because this friend is always in their space in some capacity and it’s her birthday.
Once he’s picked up the friend and on their way, he crashes. The fiance is killed, and the best friend lives. The resentment, grief, and guilt come in hard. Still, Lydia manages to see her fiance in her dreams and fully live out their lives but it’s only when she takes these prescribed sleeping pills. She’s caught between her reality of him being gone and her dreams where he’s alive and well and loves her. It is quite the ride.
I recently finished The Midnight Library. I had no idea what it was about but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. It’s about a woman unhappy with her life. Actions she takes land her in the Midnight Library.
While there she gets to look over the books of her life to see what her regrets are. She also gets to see the results of the lives she wanted to live but didn’t pursue for various reasons. She has to see if there’s a version of her life where she feels that she would be happy. It’s so interesting and really causes you to look at your own life and think about the things you don’t want to regret not pursuing. It also really makes you think about the impact of your choices and what real happiness is.
Gathering Blossoms Under Fire was a surprising favorite for me. This one took me a little bit to get into but once I did, I was all in! Her life is fascinating! It’s also cool to see in real-time how the masterpiece of The Color Purple came to be. We read about the beginnings of her writing the book all the way through it becoming a movie and a Broadway play. She shares her thoughts about the shortcomings of each along the way. Reading Alice’s journals made me wish I was doing more to document my own life.
Another great read was Miss Pearly’s Girls. it’s a story about sisters coming home to visit their mother who is having an emergency healthy situation. The sisters haven’t gotten along for years! It’s their mom’s wish that they’ll work things out and get all their secrets out in the one. This book delivered one bombshell after another. Their secrets run DEEP! I didn’t know what to expect and that was a great thing.
Read them in the backyard, the park, or anywhere that you can get some sunshine. What are you reading?
