Just because I spent 28 hours of my week (for a few weeks) watching the Olympics doesn’t mean I didn’t have time to read!

I somehow managed to read six books this month, and I intend to tell you about them all.

Spoiler: I wasn’t as impressed with this group of books. Maybe the Olympics were too entertaining and the books paled in comparison? For some reason, they just didn’t blow me away.

But there were some good ones, so here we go.

Books I Read in August:

// The Constant Princess – Last month I read ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ and loved it. And then I realized it was the third book in The Tudor Court series, so I went back and read the first book, which is this one. Honestly, I wasn’t impressed. It seemed like a totally different writing style and I just didn’t love the story as much. Although, I did learn some things and remain fascinated with this time period and the monarchy in England!

// The Best Yes – A good book. Not great though. I guess I expected awesome things and so I was pretty ‘meh’ when I read this one. It wasn’t anything I haven’t read before, but it was a nice reminder to only commit to things that I really want to do with all of my heart and say no to busyness and all of that good stuff. The best thing I got out of this book, which made the entire thing worth reading, is that sometimes God gives us two equally good choices. Sometimes I find myself praying for God to reveal the best choice to me, but this book brought up the point that there may not be a best choice – God gave us free will and sometimes we have two great choices in front of us and we are free to pick one. I found this to be totally freeing.

// Essentialism – My minimalistic heart wanted to love this book based on the title alone, but this book was more job-focused than I had anticipated. Although, I still liked it. I didn’t love it, though, and ended up skimming through some parts. BUT, if I was still in the corporate world and struggling with how to get everything done, I would have loved this book. I actually highly recommended that Tim read it, because I think he would enjoy it and might be really beneficial to him.

// The Boleyn Inheritance – This is book four of The Tudor Court (which I previously mentioned) because evidently I can’t read series in order. I liked this book way more than book one, but still not as much as ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’. If you liked ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’, I recommend you read this one. King Henry VIII was one crazy dude.

// The Life We Bury – This one I actually do recommend. Yay! Finally! It was an easy read and I couldn’t put it down. It wasn’t my favorite mystery novel by any stretch, but it at least kept my attention! It was also a short read, so while I felt it lacked character development, I could get through it in one day! If you’re looking for a late summer read, this one is worth considering.

// We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves – I guess I saved the best for last. Read this book. It is so unique and interesting. It kept my attention and I’ve honestly never read anything like it before. It’s about a girl and her dysfunctional family… and that’s all I really want to say about it. I won’t say this was the happiest of stories, but it’s one I’ll remember.

Have you read any of these? What did you think? What should I read in September?