Currently Reading

From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein

I had originally seen this book on Instagram through some of the book accounts I follow. This book is written by one of President Obama’s stenographers. Earlier this year, I read “Thanks Obama: My Hopey Changey White House Years” by David Litt, one of Obama’s speechwriters. I like reading these memoirs because you get a behind the scenes look that you don’t normally get in typical historical/presidential books.

(Also this makes me want to go just by “Beck” instead of “Becky”.)

Past Readings

This Love Story Will Self-Destruct by Leslie Cohen

This was a really cute love story. Kind of predictable but the good predictable where you’re rooting for the main characters. Eve and Ben played well off each other, and they were opposites that worked well together. I read it in like five days and enjoyed it. If you’re looking for an easy love story to read, I recommend this one!

These Girls by Sarah Pekknan

I found this one just wandering the stacks at the library. It’s more centered on the three female main characters with a guy caught up in a little bit of a love triangle between two of them, and the guy’s sister mysteriously ran away from her job as a nanny and moves in with the other two girls. It’s less romance and more girl power and how the women supported each other when they needed it.

Need to Know by Karen Cleveland

This book is about Vivian Miller, a CIA analyst, whose job is to uncover a Russian sleeper cell in the United States, and she ends up finding secret files on the computer of one of the ringleaders. Her husband’s picture is in the file, and she soon finds out that he’s not the person she thought he was. The ending was kind of predictable but it was a fast read because I wanted to see what happened.

The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo

I gave this book two stars on Goodreads, and I think it’s the first time in a very long time I’ve given a rating like that. I had hopes for this story because on the book it said it was an epic love story.

It wasn’t. I read it pretty quickly but it was mostly because I wanted to see what happened. I was annoyed with the main character’s choices and how she dealt with an ex-boyfriend and her current boyfriend/then husband. I was disappointed in the ending, and I didn’t consider it an “epic love story.”

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory

I read this book in about three days. It’s definitely an easy, cute romance story. It’s told from both points of views of Alexa and Drew, so you can see both of their lives and how they intertwine after Alexa agreed to be Drew’s fake date to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. Just like with This Love Story Will Self-Destruct, I recommend if you’re looking for a chick lit book.

Long Gone by Alafair Burke

In my first On My Bookshelf I raved about Burke’s The Wife and The Ex. Long Gone was just as good and had a lot of plot twists that intertwined among all of the characters. I’m still planning on reading some of her other books when I have time.

Not That I Could Tell by Jessica Strawser

This book was very Gone Girl-ish and for the most part, I liked it. It’s about three friends living in a neighborhood and one goes missing. There’s an investigation into her disappearance, and the police and the friends suspect the husband was involved, but after a while, it seems like the investigation gets dropped and the friends go back to their normal lives. Like I get that the three women weren’t really close, but it seemed to defeat the purpose of the story if they just stopped looking for their friend.

What have you read lately?