It’s time for my monthly book review! I didn’t get through as many books as I wanted to this month, so I only have two books to review for you. I always wondered how people found time to read. Having really little kids at home, I feel like I rarely have a free minute. And when they go to bed, I ALWAYS choose to veg on the couch and watch TV. Always. It’s my way of relaxing and calming down.

But about a year ago, my husband said he had joined Audible, which is an audiobook app, and that I should listen to the new Matthew McConaughey book. Well, I did. And I loved it. Thus began my reincorporation of ‘reading’ again. I listen when I take the dog for a walk, folding clothes, making dinner, doing yard work. And it’s been the best thing to finally get to enjoy the very long reading wishlist I had kept for years before discovering audiobooks.

The Four Winds: Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.

By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.

In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa- like so many of her neighbors – must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.

The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it – the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

(Book summaries from Amazon)

I loved the other book I read by Kristin Hannah called The Great Alone. And as much as I thought I loved that book and thought it may be in my top 5 books of the year, I loved this one even more. An absolutely incredible novel. The complexity of Elsa’s character and the description of life on the Great Plains and in migrant camps of the Great Depression were epic and phenomenal. I found myself particularly captivated by this time period given some of the shifting and turmoil we are currently living through right now in our country and world. It’s often said that hard time create strong people, who in turn create times of prosperity and happiness. I found it inspiring to read Elsa’s story, wishing that my generation now incapsulates and takes up a similar soul and toughness of our grandparents generation, to be worthy enough of a term like the “greatest generation.”

Such a good read. I’ll definitely be adding The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah to my “want to read” list after two amazing novels from her!

The other book I read this month was…

Counterfeit: Money can’t buy happiness…but it can buy a decent fake.

Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home—she’s built the perfect life. But beneath this façade, Ava’s world is crumbling: her marriage is falling apart, her expensive law degree hasn’t been used in years, and her toddler’s tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point.

Enter Winnie Fang, Ava’s enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, 20 years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. But the shy, awkward girl Ava once knew has been replaced with a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods, including a coveted Birkin in classic orange. The secret to her success? Winnie has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and now she needs someone with a US passport to help manage her business—someone who’d never be suspected of wrongdoing, someone like Ava. But when their spectacular success is threatened and Winnie vanishes once again, Ava is left to face the consequences.

Swift, surprising, and sharply comic, Counterfeit is a stylish and feminist caper with a strong point of view and an axe to grind. Peering behind the curtain of the upscale designer storefronts and the Chinese factories where luxury goods are produced, Kirstin Chen interrogates the myth of the model minority through two unforgettable women determined to demand more from life.

While I absolutely LOVED The Four Winds, Counterfeit was just perfectly fine. It was a quick, easy read. It was light and fluffy, and fun. But it is by no means must read material, in my opinion. A good beach read if you’re looking for a beach read that isn’t a rom com in book form. The book ended in a way that makes me think the writer’s intention is to write a sequel, and that always kind of annoys me when it’s so clear that that a writer is hoping to follow it up with another book with the same characters. It tends to make me feel like the book and story is less finished, and therefore, less satisfying.

If you’re looking for other books to read, here’s what I’ve read so far this year!

• The Bullish Case for Bitcoin
• The Girls in the Stilt House
• One Day in December
• Going There
• The Turkey Shack
• The Great Alone
• The Giver of Stars
• Slightly South of Simple
• Bringing Up Bebe
• The Guest List
• The Christie Affair
• The Alice Network
• It Ends With Us
• The Secret to Southern Charm
• The Secrets of Midwives
• Not All Diamonds and Rose
• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine