Constantly Reading Momma

Just a mom + CRM review: “All Our Wrong Todays” by Elan Mastai

I’m a mother. Many people would call me a special needs mom. But I don’t think of myself that way. I’m a swim mom, a dance mom, a music mom, a girl’s mom. But I don’t consider myself a special needs mom.

When my younger daughter was born with Down syndrome, it was difficult to wrap my head around initially, but it didn’t take me long to figure out what that meant to me as a mother. There were…

CRM Review: “The Wicked City” by Beatriz Williams

  In honor of  International Women’s Day, I reviewed a book about two strong women written by an AMAZING female author. The perfect bite of history AND fiction!

    “How terrible a time is the beginning of March. In a month there will be daffodils and the sudden blossoming of orchards, but you wouldn’t know it now. You have to take spring on blind faith.”

― Beatriz Williams,  The Wicked City

The…

To Be Read Tuesday

I had a really busy February, and missed out on telling you about a bunch of great books–but it’s March now and life has slowed down a bit.

So on this, the second Tuesday of March, I’m telling you about the books on my radar today!

  The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon – The third installment of Shannon’s wonderfully imagined The Bone Season series. This woman really understands world building!…

CRM Review: Elinor Lipman’s “On Turpentine Lane”

Seriously fun reading!

The Premise

Faith Frankel is kind of at loose ends. She’s returned to her small Massachusetts hometown, and has a job writing generic thank-you notes for the private day school she attended. She thinks she’s engaged — no ring, just a string — but her fiancé is off ‘finding himself’ on a walk across America. A walk that seems to include a lot of ex-girlfriends and very…

How I read so many books + “You” by Caroline Kepnes

I love books. Duh, right? Even if you don’t know me or haven’t read my blatherings on this blog, you can guess that by the title. I seriously wish I could get paid to read and tell you all about it.

And I rarely find books I don’t like. I feel like most books have a redeeming quality. Part of me realizes that these authors pour their heart and soul into their books, and I work hard to find the…

My latest love: “Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk” by Kathleen Rooney

I do things because they make sense, and because they are elegant. Solutions of style have a greater moral force than those of obligation.

— Kathleen Rooney, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

The Premise

It’s the last night of 1984, and Lillian Boxfish is an 85 year-old Manhattanite out for a walk. After a disappointing dinner at her usual New Year’s Eve restaurant, Lillian decides to take a walk…

It’s Tuesday! The best day of the week for book lovers!

(I plan to make this a weekly thing, FYI).

In case you didn’t know it, most books are released for sale on Tuesdays. So, every Tuesday of every week of the year (except for maybe those years when Christmas falls on Tuesday), a bunch of books are released into the world. Authors’ hopes and dreams — their deepest thoughts and darkest secrets…

Quick Reads + CRM Review: Lisa Gardner’s “The 4th Man”

If you read like me, there are times you want something good to read but don’t have the time to read a full novel. Or maybe you want a little more information about something than what you get from a newspaper or magazine article, or just a non-fiction essay. But you don’t want to or don’t have time for 300+ pages.

This is why I keep a stock of Kindle Singleson my Kindle. Sometimes these get…

The dreaded reading slump + CRM Review: Roxanne Gay’s “Difficult Women”

It happens about once a year. That time when no book seems good, when I can’t fall into a novel and just wander aimlessly through life.

The dreaded reading slump.

That was me in November. I just couldn’t get into any books. At all.

Life was busy, and the holidays were approaching, and I didn’t have time, for one. But I also just couldn’t.

And then, just when I had a weekend to really sit down and…

CRM Review: “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles

Alexander Rostov was neither scientist nor sage; but at the age of sixty-four he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve–if no glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day…

CRM Review: “Hag-Seed” by Margaret Atwood

The Premise (taken from the book synopsis)

William Shakespeare’s The Tempest retold as Hag-Seed. Felix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he’s staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds.

Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen…

CRM Review and a book Giveaway: “The Other Sister” by Dianne Dixon

  What happens when your forced to come out of the shadow?

The Premise (from the book blurb):

One sister has everything. Her twin hates her for it.

Would life be better without Ali? Probably. At least then people might think about Morgan. Ali’s always gotten everything ― she doesn’t even realize how much Morgan resents her.

Ali also doesn’t realize that when she shuts Morgan out entirely, she…

My favorite discovery of 2016

I don’t do a lot of advertising on my blog. I do link to books on Amazon, and I get a very small residual from items bought from those links (seriously, I make probably $20 a year), which I use buy books (of course) or bookish accessories.

My promise has always been I will only do personal links and ads to things I use and like in my reading life.

In the last couple of months  I’ve had a new…

CRM Review: “The Boy is Back” by Meg Cabot

    Sometimes, life requires a little fun. This time around, the fun was in the form of a book (on my Kindle). This time, the fun was Meg Cabot’s The Boy is Back.

    The Premise 

(From the book blurb)

Reed Stewart thought he’d left all his small town troubles—including a broken heart—behind when he ditched tiny Bloomville, Indiana, ten years ago to become rich and famous on the professional…

CRM review: “News of the World” by Paulette Jiles

Sometimes I read a book that’s on the National Book Award Longlist and I wonder what I missed, because I don’t get it.

And then sometimes I read a book on the NBA longlist (this one is now on the shortlist, but the way) and I think “YES! THIS is a book EVERYONE needs to read!”

News of the World is that book.

The Premise 

(Taken from the publisher) – It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd…

Some post-election thoughts from a right leaning woman

First off, know this: It’s not you, it’s her and THEM.

I did not vote for him. Nor did I vote for her. But I am Republican woman, and I associate with a lot of Republicans. I listened to those around me, both sides. And I can tell you, most that I know voted not necessarily for Trump, but against Hillary, the Clintons, and the elites. Those I know don’t want her corruption, the Clinton corruption.…

CRM Review: Tana French’s “The Trespasser

“I live inside my own skin. Anything that happens outside it doesn’t change who I am. This isn’t something I’m proud of; as far as I’m concerned, it’s a bare minimum baseline requirement for calling yourself an adult human being, somewhere around the level of knowing how to do your own washing or change a toilet roll. All those idiots on the websites, begging for other people to pull their…