What I Read: October

This was not my best month, from a reading perspective. With the launch of Stretched Too Thin and Matthew being out of the country for 10 days, plus Halloween costumes to make, I simply didn’t have the capacity to read.

That said, I did finish four books. I definitely attribute this to my new-this-year love of audio books. Three of my four reads were on my audible app. (For more on busy moms finding time to read, check out this post.)

The Year of Yes: OH.MY.WORD. Download this audio book immediately and thank me later. It is part memoir, part inspiration for your life from Shonda Rimes, the creator of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, etc. etc. I cannot adequately express how much this book impacted me. I finished it and immediately wanted to listen to it again. Shonda is so vulnerable, funny and inspiring, you finish the book feeling like you just had a long coffee with a best friend. This will certainly be one of my top books of 2016.
5 stars

Off Balance: Getting Beyond the Work-Life Balance Myth for Personal and Professional Satisfaction: I listened to this book and really wish I had read the physical book instead. It has so many wise ideas in it, I found myself wanting to underline and I couldn’t! I didn’t love the narrator, so it took me a few months to get through the audio book. But the content is EXCELLENT.
4 stars

Between Shades of Grey: I have wanted to read this since finishing Salt to the Sea by the same author. The book is about a Lithuanian family forced to relocate to a horrific labor camp in Siberia, where conditions were very similar to the Nazi concentration camps. I had never read about this during World War II and was shocked to have been so completely unaware before reading this book.
4.5 stars

If You Find Me: First off, don’t judge this book by it cover. This YA book about two sisters stolen by their meth-addicted mother blew me away. I listened to the audio book and I would definitely recommend that version. The narrator’s thick East Tennessee accent brought so much richness to this story.
5 stars

Today we fly to Malaysia. It will take us about 36 hours to get there, so I am going to make up for my lack of reading in October by reading a dozen books while we travel – ha! My kindle is stocked (thanks to Modern Mrs. Darcy’s daily deals that I download a few times a week) and I also have a few hard copy books with me. I just love actual books, despite kindle books being way more portable.

Here are the Kindle books I have on my travel reading list:

• America’s First Daughter
• The One in a Million Boy
• Eleanor and Park
• A Certain Age
• The German Girl 
• The Girl from Venice
• Secret Daughter

What did you read this month?