Dark Corners by Ruth Rendell. I wanted to like this book. It has all the elements of a suspenseful thriller, so I kept waiting for it to get good. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. I got over halfway through it and was still so bored that I just couldn’t bring myself to finish the rest.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. I got really sucked into this book even though the plot is relatively slow. It’s just really well written. It’s about a family in the 1970s- a Chinese man and a white woman and their 3 kids. Pretty depressing but worth reading.

Pretending to Dance by Diane Chamberlain. I’ve raved about The Silent Sister and The Midwife’s Confession, but this one didn’t do it for me. I actually looked up when it was published because I thought maybe it was one of her early books and she hit her stride later, but nope. 2015. What’s your excuse, Diane?!

The Escape Artist by Diane Chamberlain. This audiobook kept me company during a day trip to West Virginia. It was good, but again not my favorite of hers. I guessed the “big twist.” Also, for a book published in 2010 I was confused by the dated timeline. She talked about floppy discs and the rent in Annapolis is $450 a month. Yeah right.

The Good Father by Diane Chamberlain. Oh yeah, I do this. When I read a good book by an author I pretty much read everything they’ve ever written (ahem, Elin Hilderbrand and Liane Moriarty, both of whom have new books coming!!! Here’s to Us and Truly Madly Guilty, respectively). This one was good! Pretty unpredictable. And I think it sheds light on homelessness in a way a lot of people don’t think about. I’m still seeing through my Jesuit-educated lens, 5 years later.

The Girls of August by Anne Rivers Siddons. Someone told me to read her books because they’re like Elin Hilderbrand’s. This could be true in general, but this book was so awful that I’m kind of embarrassed that I finished it. Can’t say for sure that I’ll give Anne another shot at impressing me.

Tricky Twenty Two by Janet Evanovich. I’m not sure if I’ve talked about the Stephanie Plum books before, but I LOVE them. I think I read the first 15 or 16 in high school/early college. I discovered the audiobooks later, and the woman who narrates them is a genius. Seriously I laugh out loud while listening. I highly recommend, especially for a relatively short road trip. Most of them are only 5-6 hours long. Don’t judge a book by a truly terrible movie adaptation (One for the Money, 2012). Katherine Heigl is no Stephanie Plum.

Along the Infinite Sea by Beatriz Williams. This book was recommended in by The Skimm. Do you subscribe? You should. It’s like world news as told by Regina George. And this book, I loooooved it. I actually listened to the audiobook and I’m not sure I would recommend that because it’s like 18 hours long (although the narrator is good). It’s primarily about a young American woman living in Paris/Germany during the rise of the Nazis. Part historical fiction, part The Notebook. I didn’t ugly cry at the end, though.

Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg. This was kind of interesting because it was told from like 15 different perspectives. It’s basically centered around a tragedy that happens in small town Connecticut, but it ends up reading more like several different short stories from characters who are loosely connected. Just okay.

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. Seriously obsessed with this. Another Skimm recommendation (I think), recommended to me by my vacation sister Amanda. It’s like a cross of The Princess Diaries, Fangirl, Sex and the City, and the real life Will and Kate (and Harry). The audiobook was crazy long (like 17 hours) but it was worth it.

Also- I’m finally on Goodreads! I try to keep it up to date but I’m usually better about doing this.