If you are going to read any book review of mine of the entire year, this is the one. This is it. I read two books this month, and was BLOWN AWAY by both. One was the most beautiful and moving book I’ve read certainly this year, if not ever. I would be shocked it it doesn’t end up in my top spot as most loved book for the year. The other just knocked me on my booty with SO MANY things to think about and unpack about myself.

I started the month off reading The Things We Cannot Say.

In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the Russian refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. It’s a decision that will alter her destiny…and it’s a lie that will remain buried until the next century. 

Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now 15 and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now, she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents’ farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief. 

Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silenced…and how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it. 

(Book descriptions from Amazon)

If you read any book this year, I’d imagine this should be it. It was phenomenal. I cried multiple times, and I was shocked and astounded by some of the twists in the story. I loved these women characters and their lives and history. If was SO GOOD. Please go read it now, if you haven’t already.

The other book I finished this month was Too Perfect: When Being In Control Gets Out of Control

For many of us, perfectionism can bring life’s most desired rewards. But when the obsessive need for perfection and control gets in the way of our professional and emotional lives, the cost becomes too high. Although many of us appear cool and confident on the outside, inside we are in emotional turmoil, trying to satisfy everyone, attempting to direct the future, and feeling that we are failing.

In Too Perfect, Dr. Allan Mallinger draws on 20 years of research and observations from his private practice to show how perfectionism can sap energy, complicate even the simplest decisions, and take the enjoyment out of life. For workaholics or neat freaks, for anyone who fears change or making mistakes, needs rigid rules, is excessively frugal or obstinate, Too Perfect offers revealing self-tests, fascinating case histories, and practical strategies to help us overcome obsessiveness and reclaim our right to happiness.

Hi, my name is Lauren, and I definitely identified with so many of the things discussed in this book about the need to be in control. The number of times I’ve thought to myself, “How can Nathan be just so content to just sit and enjoy watching this football game that he doesn’t care about and scroll his phone?” Or, “how can he be so at ease when we don’t for sure have firmed up plans for such and such holiday?” Or, “I wish I could just relax more like Nathan.”

There are, of course, many times in my career and school where this has served me well and is actually celebrated. But, wow, I’ve seen how my need to control factors into so many arguments, the stress of daily life…..so many things. And I definitely benefited by thinking through how to change some of this mindset for me.

I’ll definitely be re-reading this book again, because there was so much to digest and think about for me.