After really struggling with a reading rut in April, I found myself breaking out of it in May. I indulged in lots of easy reads and thrillers. There's nothing like an engaging page turner that makes me want to keep picking up my books and reading into the night. (Multiple times this month, my husband had to pull my Kindle out from underneath where I'd fallen asleep on top of it in bed). 

I also found myself enjoying several audio books this month as the weather got nicer and I was more inclined to go outside at lunch time for a walk with a book to break up my work day. 

Here's what I read. I gave almost everything this month four stars.

Four Stars

The First Husband by Laura Dave
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Annie was feeling pretty grounded in life until her long time boyfriend comes home one day and decides to end things. The announcement sends Annie reeling and she eventually rebounds with a chef she meets on a night out trying to console herself. She doesn't expect to fall in love, but she does, and she moves with him to rural MA where he hopes to open a new restaurant. At the same time, Annie's old boyfriend comes back full of regret and she gets a great job offer overseas. Really enjoyed this as a fast and light read.

Meet Me in Paradise by Libby Hubscher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an Ashley Spivey recommendation that helped pull me out of a book slump. Marin and Sadie are sisters that had completely opposite reactions to their mother's death. Marin buckled down and became a caretaker to Sadie isolating herself from the world and never taking a risk. Sadie on the other hand became a world traveling photographer. On a break from work, Sadie convinces Marin to take a girls' weekend to a small island for relaxation. Marin reluctantly agrees, but then Sadie misses the flight, and Marin is off on her first solo trip. This was a super fast and enjoyable read.

The Guncle by Steven Rowley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was such a fast read and the characters really pull at your heart strings. When Maisie and Grant lose their mother and their father suffers a health scare of his own, they're sent to live with Gay Uncle Patrick in Palm Springs. While Patrick has always loved his niece and nephew, he feels out of his league raising them, while dealing with their grief and his own grief over the loss of their mother. Despite the sad situation that throws them together, this book is heartwarming as Patrick, Maisie and Grant all manage to find their way by leaning on one another.

The Wish by Nicholas Sparks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have not read a Nicholas Sparks book in ages, but when I saw this on the shelf at the library, I snapped it up knowing it would be an easy summer read, and it did not disappoint. When Maggie was 16 she found herself pregnant in high school, her parents send her across the country to live with her aunt in North Carolina until the baby is born. Her aunt hired her a tutor to help with the school work and the two grow close over the year. Maggie is now an adult living in New York and the book jumps back and forth between the present day and back in 1996 in North Carolina. A fast and enjoyable read.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book came with rave reviews, but it honestly took me a while to get into because of the two main characters' personalities. They were both a little jarring and until I settled into them, the book itself felt jarring. By the end of the book though, I was really appreciating Elizabeth and her style and attitude and kind of loved watching her inspire others throughout the book.

How to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You've got to suspend a lot of your disbelief for this book, but it was interesting enough as an audio book that I kept wanting to go for walks to find out what happened next. Alice is the only witness to her sister's murder, but on the day she's set to testify in court against the killer, she gets knocked out and jumps back in time to Halloween 1 year ago -- the day her sister was killed. She's given a second chance to save her sister's life and find the real killer. There's some weird stuff that happens in her time travel, but if you can get past that, this book is decently suspenseful and I found it to be good company on long walks.

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I generally love books that are twists on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. In this case, an estranged family gathers on a remote island for Nana's 80th birthday and when high tide comes they are isolated until the water recedes and cars can reach the island again. But overnight, family members start dying one by one. The story jumps back and forth in time between the present and the past as you try to figure out who is killing off each family member. The only thing I didn't love was the twist at the end. If I say more than that I'll spoil things, but it felt a bit like an easy way out or something. Still decently enjoyable overall though.

Three Stars

The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Compared to many other Ann Patchett books that I've loved, I thought this book was good but not great. It's broken into three sections and told from the voices of three different characters. I found the first character the most interesting, even though she was also the most unlikeable to me. By the end of the book, I found myself wanting more of her perspective rather than hearing from the other characters.

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March was a good month for reading, and I credit all the time I spent on airplanes and with travel delays during our vacation for letting me get through a lot of books. April was more of a mixed bag. I started a lot of books that I didn't end up finishing, and I think only finished four. 

I'm getting a bit better at stopping books when I don't love them, but I often times still spend more time with them than I should in hopes that they'll get better. I need to be more ruthless and quit earlier so I can focus on the books I actually enjoy!

Anyway, here are the books I did finish (and largely liked) over the last two months.

March Books

Five Stars

Fly Girl: A Memoir by Ann Hood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book because I felt like I was getting a behind the scenes look at what goes on before, during and after a flight. I actually read this on the plane to Europe in March, and I appreciated being in the air, reading about all the training the author had to go through to be a flight attendants, some of the antics she experienced and in general just learning more about her jet-setting life. It was cool insight and an enjoyable read.

Four Stars

Spare by Prince Harry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There was nothing quite like Prince Harry narrating this book through my headphones. I listened to this while working on some home improvement projects, and while some of the parts of the book that focused on Harry's military service were a little slow, I really enjoyed learning about his travels to Africa and what drew him to working in various countries there. I also of course loved the behind-the-scenes Royal Family insights, and man, the press and the relationship between the Palace and the press and the way they all turn on each other to feed stories, that was tough. Highly recommend this as an audiobook.

An Ambush of Widows by Jeff Abbott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a good twisty, turny thriller that I read extremely quickly. Kristen North receives a phone call that her husband is dead in Austin. But he was supposed to be in New York on business. Kristen heads to Austin right away and discovers her husband's body was found with that of another man, who was also killed. There seems to be no immediate connection between the men, but as Kristen and the other man's wife, Flora start digging into what happened, they uncover things they never expected.

You Think It, I'll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm usually not much of a short story person, but I love Curtis Sittenfeld's writing, and I enjoyed reading this collection of short stories on the plane home from Europe.

Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a book club re-read. This book was a super fast read -- I tore through it in about three hours. I enjoyed the story of how many generations of one family are changed when a young intern has an affair with a congressman. I thought there were parts of the story that could have been explored in more depth, but overall, I liked the way each main character got a look at separation section of the book dedicated to them.

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Three Stars

Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed the first few books in the Truly Devious series, but this one fell a bit flat for me. I liked the mystery solving parts, but Stevie became largely insufferable for much of the book because of her angst over her relationship, and I just didn't really have the patience for that. It seemed to take away from the actual interesting parts of the story. Still giving it three stars because I liked the case she was trying to solve.

April Books

Four Stars

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Millie is released from prison, she doesn't have many job prospects, so she finds herself working as a maid for a wealthy family. Soon she feels Nina is playing with her head, leaving messes everywhere for Millie to clean up and complaining to her husband that Millie is the one that created the messes. It's clear that not everything is as it seems, but Millie can't seem to put her finger on the issue. This is a fast, twisty thriller that I really enjoyed.

The Housemaid's Secret by Freida McFadden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the second book of the Housemaid series, word has spread about the work Millie will do to protect some of the clients she works for. When she's hired by another wealthy family to do their cleaning, Millie suspects the wife is being abused. She never comes out of her room and the few times Millie has broken the rules and stepped inside, she's seen blood or bruises. Millie is determined to help. But when she's trying to hatch a plan to help, things take a turn. Another fun and fast thriller that I really enjoyed.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was cute, but the main character was a little bit tough to handle at times with her severe lack of self esteem. But I loved that this book was set around a show like SNL, where Sally is a writer and she gets to work closely with one of the hosts to help him polish his own skit. The research the author did about how things run at SNL was evident in the book, and that helped make this a really fun and fast read. There were also some really touching parts at the end that sort of redeemed the main character a bit for me.

Three Stars

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I largely enjoyed this book and would probably have given it 3.5 stars if I could do halves. This book tells the story of a family of 1 percenters and the spouses that married into it. It was fun and a little wacky, but at some points I really struggled with some of the decisions the characters made. There was one relationship in particular that did not seem incredibly healthy, and I had a hard time with how things turned out for them in this book.

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We wrapped up our vacation with our snowiest and coldest day of the whole trip. The high in Stockholm was going to be 25 degrees, and with the windchill it was going to feel like 13. 

We had prepared for a winter trip, but this was definitely the day I put on every single layer I had packed. Every trip to the bathroom took an excessively long amount of time dealing with all those layers.

But despite the cold and freezing, the snow actually made everything look kind of magical, and this was one of my favorite days.

Our morning started out with a boat tour of some of the islands that make up the Stockholm archipelago. Given the weather, by the time we arrived, all the inside seats were taken. So we hunkered down on the upper deck. 

During the early part of the tour, being outside actually wasn't so bad. The boat was decently protected from the wind, and we had pretty good views of the various islands.

But about half way through once we hit the turn around point and started heading in the other direction, we got the full brunt of the wind and sleet pelting us in the face. 

We had planned to hop on the tram to take us from the port to our next destination --Skansen, an open air museum that is supposed to capture moments from historical Sweden all in one place. 

My hope was that we'd warm up a bit on the tram before plunging back into the cold. 

But joke was on us because there was a delay on the tram, and we ended up waiting outside in the bad weather for a while for the next tram to come. 

We were about zero percent warmer by the time we got to Skansen. 

So we started out exploring some of the inside exhibits -- like the Baltic Sea center, where we could see some of the animals that call the Baltic Sea home. 

After grabbing a warm and hearty lunch of soup, we finished exploring the museum.

We got to watch a glassblowing demonstration and see some of the old historic buildings that had been scattered throughout Sweden over history and were collected into this museum. 

But hands down my favorite part was the Nordic animals section. 

I had so much fun walking around and seeing all these cool animals that I'd never really see at home (ok except for the bears, we have bears here). 

But we saw reindeer and wolverines and a Nordic fox. 

And we got to watch a seal feeding display. (Ok fine we have seals here too). 

The animals section definitely made being outside on such a freezing cold day totally worth it. 

But after so much time outdoors, we decided it was time to let ourselves thaw out at an indoor museum. 

The Vasa Museum had come highly recommended by so many people and blogs and websites, and I'll be honest, I could not figure out why everyone thought this museum dedicated to an old boat that sank 30 minutes after leaving port was so worthwhile. 

Like what is so special about a sunken boat and a museum to complete failure in shipbuilding?

But this museum actually ended up being one of the coolest things from the trip, and now I think it is really undersold. 

Yes, you can see the entire ship that has been salvaged off the bottom of the Baltic Sea and beautifully preserved and restored. And that in and of itself is really cool.

But you can also see everything else that sank with the ship that is also still incredibly well preserved. Explorers were able to pull up bowls and plates and jewelry from the boat that were still in near perfect condition because of the make up of the seabed and the waters of the Baltic. 

Perhaps a bit more morbid, you can also see the still pretty well in tact skeletons of the people who died aboard the ship and the clothes they were wearing. Again, all in still remarkably amazing shape for sitting at the bottom of the sea for something like 300+ years. 

That was actually the most interesting part of the whole museum to me -- all these artifacts that were hundreds of years old that were still in pristine condition despite being part of a shipwreck. 

We stayed until closing time, and then began the snowy walk back to our hotel. We strolled along the water and through some of the fancy shopping districts in Stockholm soaking in the last bits of the city before we got ready to pack our bags to head home. 

All in all this was a great trip. We loved getting a taste of some of the Nordic/Scandinavian/Baltic countries. They are definitely different than other parts of Europe we've been to, and even though it was pretty cold while we were there, it was great visiting in the offseason when there were far fewer tourists. We never had to wait at a restaurant and were easily able to get into all the sights we wanted to see pretty much when we wanted to see them.  

Would definitely recommend adding this part of Europe to your list if you've never been.