My Favorite Books of June

I won’t get discouraged. I won’t get discouraged. I won’t get discouraged.

Can you tell I’m getting a little nervous about my goal to read 200 books in 2023? I really need to have moved into the midyear point, having read 100 books. I’m several books behind. 

My GoodReads actually says that I’m seven books behind schedule, but I don’t see how that’s possible since I’ve read 98 books. GoodReads math?

Either way, I’m truckin’ along and hoping not to get so far behind that I can’t make it up.

My Favorite Books of June 2023

I read 14 books in June. Of those, I gave four books perfect grades. They were equally split between fiction and nonfiction. I think that’s the first time that’s ever happened since I started my reading challenges. Here are my reviews.

I Will Find You

I Will Find You is my favorite Harlan Coben book I’ve read so far. 

The story revolves around David Burroughs. David is in jail for murdering his 3-year-old son, only he doesn’t remember doing it. He and his then-wife woke up one morning to find a dead child in their son’s bed. All of the evidence pointed to Will, so he’s on death row.

Then his former sister-in-law visits with a disturbing photo. One of her coworkers was on vacation at an amusement park. When she was showing her vacation photos, the SIL spots a boy in the background that looks just like the “dead” Burroughs boy.

Can David prove his son is still alive? If so, who was the little boy who died, and where is his son now? And how can he get to the truth while behind bars?

Trust and Inspire

Are you a trust and inspire leader or a command and control leader?

Confession: I’m pretty sure I’ve always been a control and command leader until my current role.

I think I adopted that method because it’s what I knew. It’s how I’d been led and what the environments I was in expected and supported.

I’m trying to become more of a trust and inspire leader after reading Trust and Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others by Stephen M.R. Covey (Yes, that Stephen Covey.), David Kasperson, McKinlee Covey, and Gary T. Judd.

The book starts with a bold assertion: great leaders understand the importance of building trust and inspiring others to unleash their full potential. Covey lays out his argument expertly, taking readers on a journey through various leadership scenarios, anecdotes, and research studies. 

One thing I really loved about the book is that the authors assume that most of us aren’t the type of leaders we want to be. In other words, most of us aren’t trust and inspire leaders. They explain why (mostly learned behavior and a shift in leadership styles through the years) and tell us how we can work to undo our current styles and become the leaders we want to be. 

Uncultured

Wow! That was a tough read.

Uncultured: A Memoir by Daniella Mestyanek Young is the woman’s story about growing up in a cult and everything that happened to her there, then replacing it with service in the army. 

There are so many compelling things about Daniella’s story. One is that it leaves you in awe of the human condition and what people can be led to believe, and what they can survive. Another is how much life in the army resembled life in the cult. It leaves you wondering… how many of our organized institutions really are just glorified cults? How many of them have cult-like attributes?

Daniella has survived things most of us can’t even imagine, and she somehow still managed to thrive. Her story is worth reading to support her and in an attempt to understand what some people experience at no fault of their own. What could we do differently to help people in these types of situations?

Yellowface

I have to be honest, I wasn’t too excited to read Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. Just based on the description, it didn’t seem like my kind of book. But readers I follow on social media kept raving about how great it is, so I had to give it a try. They were right!

The book is an interesting look at the world of book publishing. It’s about authors June Hayward and Athena Liu. The women went to school together, and both wanted to be successful authors. Athena is. June… not so much. But the two are still friends, at least as much as they ever were. The truth is that June finds Athena kind of… pretentious and annoying.

Then one night, the women are having dinner at Athena’s place. After identifying the manuscript for her next book on her desk, Athena chokes on the food and dies. 

I’ll bet you can’t guess what June did. Yep! She stole the Asian woman’s book about Chinese laborers during World War I and published it as a white author. But can she get away with it? 

Happy Reading!

There they are, my favorite books of June. I hope you’ll find something on the list to read and love. I’ve already given Trust and Inspire as a gift and plan to buy I Will Find You for my husband to read. I love it when I read books that I want to share with and gift to others!

As always, happy reading!