8 Books I Read in June

June was a tough/weird one for me and this list reflects that! Books helped me through and provided a lot of insight into what’s going on in this ol’ brain. I plan on being a lot more relaxed in July and hopefully my soon-to-be-read pile of books will reflect that!!! (I’m already listening to a hilarious one.)

Pineapple Street - Jenny Jackson  

This fictional story about a very wealthy family that owns a home on Pineapple Street in Manhattan is told through the perspective of three women; two sisters and their SIL. It's an interesting story about family, wealth, and privilege. One sister has a trust fund but works for a non-profit. One sister gave up her trust fund to marry a wealthy man and not sign a prenup. The sister-in-law, married to their brother, does not come from wealth (more middle class) and it’s assumed by the sisters that she married their brother for his money. They all struggle with their relationship to wealth and how it affects their family and views of the world. 

I enjoyed it. I couldn’t relate at all! But I enjoyed it. 

Adelaide - Genevieve Wheeler

This book started with a girl being admitted to a hospital for suicidal ideation over a guy, and at first I really didn’t like that. I was worried the book would portray this woman (or all women) as too weak to handle a breakup that they consider killing themselves. 

Thankfully, it wasn’t about that. It was about all the stuff that happens that could lead to that. There’s mental illness, there’s manipulation, emotional abuse from men who don’t love you but keep you around for convenience and attention. When all of those things clash together, and your worth and existence are questioned, that is what leads to suicidal ideation. 

I read this book at the right, or wrong, time depending on how you look at it. I struggled with my mental health and questioned my own existence and worth throughout the entire month of June. So, it was a good read, but also helped me put a name to what I was feeling… which catapulted me into an existential crisis. Yay! 

Romantic Comedy - Curtis Sittenfeld

While reading this book at first, I was cringing because it was clearly about SNL only under another name. It felt like it was about Pete Davidson and Colin Jost, or just the amount of comedic men who end up with beautiful women and how it never happens the same way for comedic women. Once I got over all the SNL comparisons, I ended up LOVING IT.  (I don’t know, but reading about sketch writing/ideas was weird to me? Maybe I’ve just lived it so it felt a little too “inside baseball”.) It focused on a writer from the show who ends up becoming pen pals throughout the pandemic with a famous musician who hosted an episode of the show. I love how it explored the common miscommunication and insecurities that happen while falling in love. 

You Could Make This Place Beautiful - Maggie Smith

A beautiful memoir/book of poems about the unraveling of the author’s marriage. I listened to it but wished that I had read it because it might have been more poetic that way. There were times I wanted her to move on and get the fuck over it, but I guess that’s not how heartbreak and the dismantling of a family works. I GUESS.

High-Status Characters: How the Upright Citizens Brigade Stormed a City, Started a Scene, and Changed Comedy Forever - Brian Raftery

This was the oral history of the Upright Citizens Brigade. It was short and sweet and super interesting, but also funny to read real stories about comedy in the early 2000s. Nearly all the people who speak in the book eventually became famous through TV shows or movies or whatever, but the comedy they described as being “good” sounded fucking awful. Back in the day, I would have killed to watch it (and I would have loved it then!) But now, it sounded exhausting and terrible for the average audience.  

Ultimately, I loved it because of how similar my experience in comedy felt. Lots of late nights at a local bar and using the theater as our own personal club for drinks and dance parties. On another note, I hated how homophobic they all seemed but loved how highly everyone spoke of Amy Poehler. 

Drinking Games - Sarah Levy 

A friend recommended that I read this on the same day that I read an interview with the author in a newsletter, so it felt like a sign. It’s about a girl living in NYC who got sober at 28. For some reason, I kind of hated her while I read it, and I can’t tell if it was because I felt resentful. 

I resented the fact she got sober, maybe, or the fact that her sobriety journey seemed so easy and she turned it into this amazing opportunity as a writer. Or that it seemed like her biggest struggle was dating while sober. Or because her drinking didn’t affect her life all that much aside from falling out with a friend and not remembering sleeping with someone. However, drinking problems aren’t all rock bottoms and near-death experiences and losing everything. This was just her experience and she’s not pretending to be an expert on sobriety. 

I think I need to unpack all of that, but if you’re “sober curious” - it’s an interesting story. 

In The Lives of Puppets - TJ Klune 

If you’ve read House in the Cerulean Sea and loved it, that’s great! It’s great! You may not like this follow-up. If you read other books by TJ Klune and enjoyed them as well, you might like this one. I don’t know. 

What it DOES have is extremely fun and adorable characters that are whip smart and hilarious, similar to Chauncey and the other magical creatures in House in the Cerulean Sea. This book takes place in the future where humans are extinct and robots rule the world. Victor is the only human left, and he is a creator just like his father, an android named Gio. His two best friends are a vacuum named Rambo who is THE MOST ADORABLE and Nurse Ratched who is murderous and direct. 

The book was long and got weird for me when there were so many mentions of Vic’s human needs (masturbating, pooping, etc.) and when he fell in love with a robot that he created. It was fun, and the humor got me through, but ultimately I would not recommend it? 

All The Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive - Rainesford Stauffer 

This is another book I read RIGHT ON TIME. It’s about ambition and how we all want the gold stars, but at what cost? Our sanity!!!! The author has a chronic illness that is not visible to the eye, but makes her feel handicapped and like she’ll never be able to be the level of ambitious as she feels she is supposed to be. The book covers burnout, disability, people of color, and how ambition is often unattainable and looks different to all types of people. 

I needed this book to help me re-define what ambition means to me, and re-focus on what is important to me.