May Review & June Preview

Happy official/unofficial start to summer! Now that we’re past Memorial Day and it’s the first of June, we can officially start looking forward to all the summer activities. For us, that means a lot of youth group events for my eldest (and a lot of late night pickups from those events for me!), and a lot of time outside enjoying the weather before it turns scorching hot in the south!

Let’s take a look back at what we read in May and plan ahead for June. I only had one 5-star book for May:

May Reads

For May, I read 11 books – 4 audiobooks and 7 print. There is a 12th book not yet finished – The Oz Collection. We are about half way through and plan to finish in June! The links below will take you to the reviews previously posted. Visit this list on the Bookshop page for links to purchase a copy of each yourself!

• 5 Stars
  • Swan Light, Phoebe Rowe (review coming this weekend!)
• 4 Stars
  • Caramelo, Sandra Cisneros
  • Communication for Change Management, Gifford Thomas
  • Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe, Jenny Colgan (review also coming this weekend)
  • Movie Star: The always say they’re single, Jessica Simpson
  • The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune
  • The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
  • The Red Baron, Charles River Editors
• 3 Stars
  • Fearless, Max Lucado
  • Maame, Jessica George
  • Secrets of Six-Figure Women, Barbara Stann

My favorite this month is pretty obvious as the only one with 5 stars – Swan Light by Phoebe Rowe. This haunting tale follows two separate timelines and the story of a lighthouse, the reason for it’s creation, and the people who cared for it. I never saw the final twist coming! It kept me on the edge of my seat and I stayed up very late just so I could see what happened!

June Reads

I took a much-needed slowdown in May with only 11 books finished, but it looks like June is shaping up to be heavy again with 11 new books, plus finishing The Oz Collection and any others we add on. You can get your copy of the 11 books planned for June here:

• The Girlfriend Book Club – The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise, Colleen Oakley
• Friends & Fiction Book Club – A Dual Timeline book: The Brighter the Light, Mary Ellen Taylor
• The Booklist Queen
  • Domestic Thriller: Verity, Colleen Hoover
  • 2023 New Release: The Collected Regrets of Clover, Mikki Brammer
  • Read with Jenna Book Club Pick: Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt
  • A Book Everyone is Talking About: Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus
• Additional reads this month
  • Flag Day: The Star-Spangled Banner: The making of an American icon, Lonn Taylor
  • Father’s Day: Big Fish, Daniel Wallace
  • Juneteenth: Twelve Years A Slave, Solomon Northrup
  • Self Development: Be Where Your Feet Are, Scott M O’Neil
  • Historical Biography: Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the fate of the American Revolution, Nathaniel Philbrick

Do you have any good reads planned this month? Share them in the comments! I’m always looking for my next good book!