It's shelter-in-place month for most of us, (and if you're not under orders to do so, please stay home as much as you can! This "new normal" can become "that thing we did for a little bit a while back" if we all just stop interacting in person!)
A lot of us are facing some different time at home these days. Whether that's alone time or NEVER alone time (depending on your family situation), there's typically more time to pick up a book, the Kindle app on your phone, or your actual Kindle or e-reader. Here's what we've got going on over here at Good Idea Girls for the month of April.
Real Life by Brandon Taylor is my first read of April. It was released in February of this year, so I'm reading in actual book form because the library didn't have ebook copies yet. (Caroline will be so pleased.)
Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community.
Find it on Amazon or Indiebound, or call up your local independent bookstore and ask if they have it in stock or would be willing to order it! It's a great way to support local, small business.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee was originally a book that my husband picked from the library, but we happened to do a big library haul shortly before all non-essential businesses shut down around here so now we're getting extra time with all the books. Both he and our friend of the pod Rachel highly recommend it, so I can't wait to dive in.
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.
Find it on Amazon or Indiebound, or see note above about contacting your local bookstores.
I recently finished The Au Pair at Caroline's high recommendation, and I finished it within just a few days. I love when I can't figure out how the book is going to end, and this checked that box for me. Plus it gave me all the daydreams about owning a giant house in the country.
What are you reading during your quarantine?
Some of the book links are from Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, Good Idea Girls earns a small percentage from qualifying purchases. This doesn’t change anything for you, but you should know where your dollars are going!
