I read some good ones this month! Even got a few audiobooks that I enjoyed, which has been rare lately. I did DNF a couple audiobooks - this has always been hard for me because once I feel like I've already invested time in a book I need to power through to the end. I think its easier for me to DNF an audiobook because I just hit the "return early" button and POOF its gone. Physical books are a little harder because I've spent actual money on them and also they're right there on my bookshelf, haunting me.
Book 44 of 2026 📖 Funny Story by Emily Henry (4/5⭐️)
Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.
Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.
Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?
But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex . . . right?
I sobbed. I loved it.
I told myself I need to start getting back onto a school schedule since it is August so that by the time September rolls around, I’m not struggling. I got into bed to read for an hour before bedtime and then ended staying up for two hours past bedtime just to finish this book. Maybe I’ll do better with the next one. 🤷🏼♀️
Honestly, this one ended better that I could’ve even hoped for. I really liked the main characters and I especially liked the friendships that formed, not just the main relationship. Honestly, I think I cried more over the friendship struggles than the relationship ones. You know I’m a sucker for friendship stories!
Book 45 of 2026 📖 The Knowledge Gap by Natalie Wexler (3/5 ⭐️)
The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis
It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware.
But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.
I liked the concept of this book, but I found its content lacking in terms of what I was looking for.
I’m a firm believer that it is so important to teach content to kids. I also know very well that it’s easily passed over for tested subjects - specifically ELA and often math. I think about my own schooling experience, and my most memorable classroom moments are content-area related. In fourth grade we learned about space in science and that is when my obsession started. We also studied the rainforest - red eyed tree frogs have been my favorite animal ever since.
I look at my own teaching experience, specifically in this past year, and have found my students to be so much more interested when I put extra focus on WHAT we were reading about.
All that to say I went into this read with the assumption that it was confirming what I already found to be true, which is what happened. I already knew that what children come to school already knowing often has such a huge impact on what they’ll leave knowing if using the typical skill-based curriculums.
I do wish it included more data about WHY a knowledge-based approach is beneficial. There were tons of resources and citations in the back of the book, but I wouldn’t have preferred them embedded throughout so I knew where what I was reading came from.
Lastly, I wish the book included practical ways to implement a more knowledge-based approach to teaching when you don’t have the actual curriculum for it.
Book 46 of 2026 🎧 The Passengers (Dark Future #2) by John Marrs (3.5/5⭐️)
You’re riding in your self-driving car when suddenly the doors lock, the route changes and you have lost all control. Then, a mysterious voice tells you, “You are going to die.”
Just as self-driving cars become the trusted, safer norm, eight people find themselves in this terrifying situation, including a faded TV star, a pregnant young woman, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an undocumented immigrant, a husband and wife, and a suicidal man.
From cameras hidden in their cars, their panic is broadcast to millions of people around the world. But the public will show their true colors when they are asked, "Which of these people should we save?...And who should we kill first?"
John Marrs is always popping up in my Facebook feed from groups I am not even a part of. The first book I read by him was the first in this series, The One. Since I had already read that, when this second book was being paraded through my feed I figured I’d try it out.
This was an intriguing read. Despite my recent disinterest in audiobooks, this one kept me hooked and I finished it within two days. In order to be complete, I don’t think the story needed to wrap up all the ends, but it certainly did.
Only $1.99 on Kindle!
Book 47 of 2026 📱 In the Killer’s Sight (Kate Marino #1) by Mike Omer (4.5/5⭐️)
When her niece disappears, a K-9 officer returns to the home of her own childhood trauma to track down a killer who hunts women like prey—and face the past that continues to haunt her.
Officer Kate Marino has a complicated relationship with her hometown. But there’s one thing that could bring her back: Her seventeen-year-old niece Alice disappeared two days ago. And she’s not the only woman who’s gone missing.
With police dogs Nero and Bella (now retired) in tow, Kate returns to her childhood home and the ghosts that inhabit it. It’s not just the looming presence of her father, however, that hinders Kate’s investigation. Something even more sinister awaits her there.
Dead bodies confirm the missing women are the work of a serial killer who hunts his prey through the New Hampshire wilderness. With time running out, Kate’s determined to find Alice before she becomes his next victim.
Alongside Deputy Sheriff Roy Hoover, Kate and her loyal dogs scour the area for clues, motive, and the secrets harbored by each victim. Kate ran away from Cooperton once before—but this time, she’ll stay and face its demons…
A friend of mine had once recommended one of Omer’s books to me, and now I think I’ve read everything he’s written. He tends to write in trilogies, so I was excited to see this one pop up as a “book 1” in my Prime First Reads email in August. I have so many books in my Kindle app that I haven’t read because I prefer physical books, but this one was a must read right away.
I really liked the FMC in this story, and look forward to more books following her story line. I liked the changing of perspectives hroughput the book. My particular favorite - a chapter in the dog’s POV!! It was a serious part of the story but I couldn’t help but giggle.
I probably rated this higher than I would have had a different author wrote it because I do love his stories so much but 🤷🏼♀️ Book two comes out in August 2027 and I am already anxiously awaiting it!
FREE on Kindle Unlimited!
Book 48 of 2026 🎧 Sisters of the Midnight Sun: A Murder in Arctic Alaska by Rebecca Wright Stevens (4/5⭐️)
The stunning true story of a double homicide in the vibrant native Alaskan Iñupiat community at the arctic edge of the United States—written by the public defender at its center
Rebecca Wright is a defense attorney living in the Lower 48 when she suddenly finds herself a widow and an empty nester. In need of a radical change, she accepts a public defender position in Utqiagvik on Alaska’s North Slope, an oil-rich area the size of Wyoming where the Iñupiat community holds great cultural, political, and economic power. Though she’ll always be a tanik—an outsider—she works hard to gain the trust and friendship of the folks who call this singular place home.
When two well-known sisters, Bernice and Wanda Ipalook, are found murdered, Wright is tasked with representing Amos Lane, a drifter on the short-list of murder suspects. Criminal charges are looming. But this is summer in northern Alaska, the season of the midnight sun, when twenty-four-hour sunlight makes it difficult for witnesses to confirm the time—or even the day—they last saw the sisters, Amos, or anyone else. Wright must navigate an unreliable client, a prosecution willing to entrap her to get a conviction, a budding romance, and a community that believes Amos might deserve a different form of justice from what the tanik legal system can provide.
Weaving a detailed portrait of Utqiagvik alongside Wright’s complex self-portrait of an outsider in an isolated community, Sisters of the Midnight Sun is a riveting true account that brings to vivid life a land at the edge of the habitable world.
“Can I finish this in two days?” I asked myself right before I pressed PLAY on August 30. I knew I had a day at home that I would spend making sure everything was cleaned and organized before I went back to school, and another day at school getting work done between conferences.
I needn’t have worried. I finished all but just under two hours on the first day, and only stopped so I’d have something to listen to the following day while I worked.
I have an obsessive fascination with Alaska, so when I saw this recently published book I quickly grabbed it with my 99¢ promotional Audible credit.
This story was written in a way that I kept forgetting it was an autobiographical account and not just a fictional story. I’m not sure how I felt about that. On one hand it made it for an easy read, but on the other hand I was reading it because it was a true story and losing that connection let wrong for a reason I can’t figure out how to articulate. That being said it was intriguing to learn about this outsider’s experience moving to a village in Arctic Alaska, especially as a defense attorney. I do wish the book had shared more about the sisters who were murdered though.
Book 49 of 2026 📖 The Daisy Chain Flower Shop (Dream Harbor #6) by Laurie Gilmore (3.5⭐️)
Daisy is fed up with being unlucky in love. And since Mayor Kelly declared her beloved flower shop cursed in one of his infamous visions, business has been slow.
Dream Harbor newcomer Elliot has been adjusting to small-town life following his own relationship turmoil. And until now he’s avoided the flower shop at all costs. If the mayor is correct, he doesn’t need any more bad luck in his life.
When he finds himself walking through the door of the Daisy Chain Flower Shop, he doesn’t expect it to be a life-changing moment. But as the petals blossom in the sunlight, might the unluckiest woman in Dream Harbor finally find that love comes when you’re least expecting it?
I mentally refer to this series as a Hallmark movie book series because the story is predictable, but that’s what makes it enjoyable. These books are great palette cleansers between heavier reads. This wasn’t my favorite character storyline of the series, but I did really like both MC. Even though I wanted to shake Daisy and tell her to snap out of her pity party for one.
FREE on Kindle Unlimited!
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(Summaries are from Amazon, but all thoughts about them are my own!)
Reading Challenge: 28/52 physical books read in 2026
Total Books Read in 2026: 49
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