Y’all, the Bar Exam is on Tuesday so obviously I’m writing this blog post right now instead of shoving more elements into my mind because sometimes there’s just no other option.
If you’re friends with me on Goodreads, you may have noticed that I really haven’t read anything but romance since… last summer, with a few highly anticipated YA installments to my favorite series. This is mostly because when I’m overwhelmed by life and/or by world events, I just dive in to romance novels to make me feel like everything is going to be okay.
BUT in light of the fact that the Bar Exam is about to be OVER, I’m going to try to accomplish completing some of the mountain load of books on my TBR that cannot promise me a happily ever after and, hopefully, tackling some of the non-fiction books that I own and have avoided like the plague because life is hard.
1. The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare
This book does not come out until August 22, 2017 and I’m so excited and I had it in my head that it came out next week so I’m also crushed. Tessa Dare is one of my all-time favorite romance novelists and I’m so excited for The Duchess Dare, which is the first in her new series Girl Meets Duke.
The Duchess Deal involves the Duke of Ashbury, who needs an heir, and Emma Gladstone, who needs payment for the wedding dress she created for the woman who abruptly declined to be the Duke’s wife after all. You can read the first chapter already, which I obviously did, and y’all… Y’ALL. This book is going to be so good! I was squealing and fangirling over the first chapter so I absolutely can’t wait to dive into the entire book.
2. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
I’ve been trying so hard to get through this book, but it’s so upsetting to me. If you’ve missed out on all the hype of this book, this book basically explains how even though you may have thought that we have dismantled some of the systems of systemic oppression of enslaved people like the Jim Crow laws that emerged in the Reconstruction era and stuck around for nearly a century (or maybe it was a century?), that we’ve really just been creating new systems of oppression.
I’m very excited to actually finish reading this book. I’m a chapter in and it’s already made me think about things more in depth that I hadn’t previously considered. The book is extremely thought provoking and so, so important. So I’m hoping this book will get finished in August. We shall see!
3. First Comes Love by Emily Giffin
I’ve had this book on my TBR since Christmas because I was so excited for it, but then got nervous about reading it and so it’s still languishing on my shelves.
The book is about two sisters, Josie and Meredith Garland, who seem to have had a typical sisterly relationship when they were younger and then some sort of tragedy strikes. The book picks up fifteen years later and Josie is a teacher who desperately wants to have kids of her own despite being single. Meredith is a highly successful attorney whose life on the outside looks great, but on the inside, less so. I am actually pretty excited to read this book after re-reading the synopsis so I’m sure it’s going to get read in August.
4. My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
I feel like a failure for the fact that I still haven’t read this book. Like, what kind of lawyer (can I call myself that yet?) am I that I still haven’t read this or Sisters in Law by Linda Hirshman despite owning both books? And I never finished Sonia Sotomayor’s memoir either. Y’all, I’m failing. If Justice Kagan releases a memoir any time soon, I’m really going to be behind.
Anyway, if you don’t know, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the second woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court. She was appointed to the Court by President Clinton, but before she became a judge she was a co-founder of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. She is also my hero. So, really, the fact that I haven’t read her memoir is a tragic shame. I have, however, read and LOVED Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik.
So, in conclusion, I have to read this book in August. It must be read by the time I’m sworn in. An arbitrary deadline, sure, but it’s happening, y’all. It is happening.
5. Moral Defense by Marcia Clark
I read and loved Marcia Clark’s first fictional series and was incredibly disappointed when I realized it had ended without a satisfactory (to me) conclusion to the romance element of it. These books are not romance books, which is why the sub-plots can be frustrating for readers of romance who just want to have their cake and eat it too. Anyway, I’m getting distracted.
Marcia Clark then began a second series about a defense attorney named Samantha Brinkman, the first was called Blood Defense and this is the sequel. Samantha is an exceptionally flawed character and is written in a way that makes her both compelling and a little grating. I think the fact that she grated on my nerves arguably had more to do with the fact that I was busy tallying up her questionable professional responsibility decisions than anything else, but you know.
The second book has a case where teenager, Cassie Sonnenburg, was adopted by a family whom she is being accused of murdering or trying to murder. The blurb makes it sound like Cassie has a history of sexual abuse that may have triggered the deadly attack, which causes Samantha to reflect on her own past history (which is shocking, by the way). I’m excited to read this one! It looks like it’s rated a little higher on Goodreads than the first too, so I’m hoping I will like it more than I did the first.
Alright, y’all, that about sums it up for me! These are the books I’m aiming to read in the month of August (and the last few days of July). I’ll check back in with you at the end of August to see how I did!
xx
firewhiskeyreader 