Three Book of the Month books - All 3 Stars

 

The last three books I read were Book of the Month books. This is a monthly book subscription service that several of my friends have subscribed to. I borrowed two of these books from them. This makes it really fun when we can trade books.

The books were 3 Star books...meaning that I completely read them and enjoyed parts of them but they are not going to be put on my really liked or loved shelf of books. However, they may be a perfect read for someone else.

In a Holidaze | Christina Lauren | 2020 | 304 pages | Romantic Comedy

Maelyn is in her mid-twenties and is spending a Christmas holiday with family and friends at a cabin which they do every year. She has a crush on one of the men who she has grown up with but has never talked about it with him. As she leaves from the stay at the cabin, she wishes that she could know what would make her happy. It turns out she gets to repeat the entire gathering again and again until she finally figures out what will make her happy in life. 

This book is light and fluffy and the time travel plot is a little strange with no clear reasons for why it happens. It takes a while to keep track of the characters at the beginning. You are dropped into a lot of family and friend history that you have to sort out. It has a little salty language and some open door steamy situations to be aware of. It is not a squeaky clean romance, so stay away if that is not for you. I think this book has a little too much young adult angst problems for me.  I did finish this book and was compelled to find out what happens so it does have an entertainment factor going for it. I have tried several Christina Lauren books in the past from my public library and have always abandoned them.  I know I finished this book because I bought the book! I think this author just isn't for me. 

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird | Josie Silver | 368 pages | Romance

The story begins with Lydia Bird having to face the tragic and fatal car accident of her fiancé. Of course, this is devastating. She gets some sleeping pills from her doctor to help her sleep. When she takes them, she finds that she is transported into an alternate reality where her boyfriend is alive and seems to be in technicolor and real. Lydia or the reader is never quite sure how this works and if it is all imagination or a new world situation.  

The story continues with Lydia sleeping in order to live in a world where this death never happened. This continues throughout most of the book. I was starting to wonder when something would happen.  It felt rather sad and I ended up reading it pretty slowly and always hoping something more would happen in the plot.  This book is set in England and I like to look for those English cultural details in what they eat or how they do things. The plot finally picks up at the end but overall I was a little bored by this story.  

The Beauty in Breaking | Michelle Harper | 280 pages | Memoir

Michelle Harper is an emergency room doctor who writes about her life from childhood to the present. She focuses on her abusive family situation growing up and how the experiences she had affected her psychologically as she matured.  She also writes about being an African American woman and doctor in the medical field and how both things were sometimes hindrances in being able to get the positions and jobs she wanted. 

I loved the stories about the emergency room and the people she encountered. These stories are always fascinating to me. Harper usually delved into a lot of counseling and psychological ponderings as she explained her feelings and perhaps the situations of her patients.  One patient told her she should have been a counselor.  I was thinking the same thing.  Sometimes I just could not connect with her descriptions of her inner thoughts and had to do some skipping.  Harper is smart and writes really well. I would reread many of her sentences just because they were so lovely.  Overall it was a quick read but I got bogged down in the psychology.