Summer is the absolute best. I’m in the best mood the majority of the time. Wisconsin is probably not the state I should be living in if I am this affected by warmth and sunlight. I’ve been able to read outside each day in little spurts between refereeing fights between my kids and getting out water toys for the backyard. It’s been a good month of reading. Check out my June book reviews below to hopefully find your next great read.

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The Husbands

Even though The Husbands is extremely predictable from the start I still quite enjoyed it.

A female lawyer is irritated that she takes on so much more at home than her husband. Yes, he does more than his father did but it’s still not equal especially when it comes to the mental load most mothers carry for the entire household. Finding that work/life balance is hard especially when you are pregnant with baby number two and it’s your year to be up for partner at your law firm.

The couple goes to an open house in a neighborhood where all the women are extremely successful in their careers and the husbands are incredibly (almost unbelievably) supportive and helpful. The wife is drawn to the neighborhood but it is very exclusive. It’s made known that if she were to help one of the female neighbors in a wrongful death suit (her husband burned alive in their home) it would help her application immensely.

But her gut is telling her that something isn’t quite right. Why wasn’t the husband able to escape the home during the fire? Is this community truly idyllic or is something else afoot?

The Ballerinas

The Ballerinas is a downer but I was interested in the ballerina aspect. The story discusses the life of ballerinas, the sacrifices, and how injuries can change your entire future.

A woman is returning to Paris after a number of years in Russia where she worked as a choreographer alongside her famous boyfriend. Now she returns to her old company in which she was trained from a young age and her mother was a star. She hopes to jump back into her friendship with two close friends but things have changed. As she is choreographing her first ballet for her company challenges keep arising.

The past of the three women is revisited as it has current impacts on their lives. The Me Too Movement is one of the underlying themes of the book.

Oona Out of Order

My only complaint about Oona Out of Order is that I wish there was more!

A 19-year-old woman on New Year’s Eve time travels into the future to a totally different age in her life and learns that this happens every year at the same time from now on.

She sometimes leaves herself letters and only her mother and assistant know about her time traveling. They help her as much as they can without giving anything away. Often the main character doesn’t take her own advice written in the letters. She learns that events are going to happen no matter what, even if she tries to avoid or alter them.

I felt myself getting emotionally involved with this story. I wanted more years in the story to see what she would do. This book is fantastic.

Crying in H Mart

The Michelle Zauner memoir, Crying in H Mart, is about growing up half Korean and half caucasian-American. The majority of the book centers around the highs and lows of her relationship with her mother.

Trigger warning: cancer and the death of a mother.

The author was born in Korea but grew up in the woods of Oregon. She had a very isolated childhood because of where her family lived and the fact that she was the only part-Asian student at school.

Her mother was a stay-at-home mom, pouring everything into her daughter. As a child, the author hated to be apart from her mother but when the teenage years hit the relationship turned very difficult.

As an adult, Michelle lives across the country and their relationship is better but not totally healed. When her mother gets cancer Michelle drops everything to come and try to nurse her mother back to health.

Michelle and her mother took many summer trips to Korea to visit family. A lot of the book is about food and will make you incredibly hungry for food and travel. I liked this book a lot but I’ll warn you it’s not super upbeat.

Want more book reviews? Take a look at my May Book Reviews and Recommendations!