Greetings from maternity leave! We had our third baby, a girl, in early June. I had visions of enjoying a novel at the hospital after my scheduled C-section, but our little lady came earlier than “planned”, and I wasn’t packed when I went into labor. As I was running through the house pulling together baby clothes and velcro swaddles, reaching for a physical book was far from my mind.

Similarly, I thought the first few weeks of postpartum would be filled to the brim with reading while breastfeeding. What I didn’t anticipate was needing both hands to nurse, but the silver lining was that I realized I actually do enjoy audiobooks (but only for fiction). Thanks to the Libby app connected to my library, I was able to borrow several without spending a dime.

Uninterrupted time to write has been few and far between, so please excuse any incomplete thoughts/sentences. I’d love to wrap this post with a bow, but my kids are calling! And sorry for no photos of books or links.

Fiction

Somebody Else’s Shoes by JoJo Moyes

Two women accidentally leave the gym with the wrong bags (and shoes), leading them both on a series of events looking for each other and failing every step of the way. The book embodies the idea of walking in “somebody else’s shoes.”

There was mystery (what is so important about Nisha’s stilettos?), romance, and reconciliation. I appreciated that one of the married couples in the book were able to understand each other and come back together, when there seemed to be little hope.

While I never read JoJo Moyes’ bestseller, Me Before You, I did see the movie. Just based on that and on reading the synposis of her other novels, this seems to be a departure from her more serious style. This was a lighter read than what fans may be used to.

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

One of my postpartum goals is to read all of Jane Austen’s novels. While I don’t think that’s going to happen, I am happy that I read two of her most famous works (P&P and S&S). It seems like a rite of passage as an American woman!

I read this as both an audiobook and a hard copy. Switching back and forth was a little strange because I couldn’t always remember where I stopped in the hard copy. And then I started watching the BBC miniseries (5 stars!) in the midst to confuse myself even further about where I actually was in the reading process.

But all in all, I really enjoyed it! I do wonder how literary critics would describe it today because it’s heavy on dialogue and lighter on description, which doesn’t bother me at all! I’m just fascinated by how writing advice/convention changes over time, and it seems like there’s a good bit of “telling” and not showing. Again, this isn’t a criticism. I really appreciate Austen’s writing style, and I generally don’t care to know what outfits the characters are wearing, anyway!

The book is also written as a third-person omniscient narrator, which seems more rare nowadays. But again, I liked that I could get into the head space of multiple characters.

Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen

Did I like this more than Pride and Prejudice? Maybe! I wasn’t familiar with the storyline beforehand, so I read this blind compared to P&P. I loved the juxtaposition of the two sisters’ emotional lives, as I saw bits of myself in each one.

At times, I was so frustrated by Elinor/Edward’s relationship. Can’t they be together, already?! I knew it would work out in the end, as the back cover of the book told me, but it was bewildering how Edward stayed with Lucy for so long.

I’m looking forward to watching the film!

Love You More by Emily Giffin

This was a complex story with a disappointing ending, to be honest. I’ve read most of Emily Giffin’s books and I would put this as one of my least favorites. It was still good, but definitely not one I’d return to.

The main character, Billie, is a reproductive endocrinologist, and when her friend becomes surprise pregnant, Giffin makes it clear that she would support an abortion if her friend wanted one (which she didn’t). Why was that necessary? It just felt like Giffin was trying to slip in her ideology.

Billie gets tapped, along with her ex, Mick, to be the guardian of her best friend’s daughter when she passes away. Naturally, this comes with a host of questions: will Billie move back to Wisconsin to take on the role? How will her fiance react? Would he be willing to leave NYC, too? And how in the world could she co-parent with her ex?

**spoiler!** To get into the heart of the disappointing end, I have to add in some spoilers. Billie and Mick end raising her daughter’s friend together, with Billie and her fiance breaking things off. Billie and Mick reconcile, but they don’t get engaged or married and Billie’s not sure if they ever will or if they’ll ever have kids, but she’s freezing her eggs just in case. This ending didn’t make sense to me. Throughout most of the novel, Billie is engaged, so clearly marriage was something she desired, but now that she’s back with her first love/the one that got away, she’s all “meh” about matrimony? And she’s a fertility specialist who’s on the fence about having her own kids with the love of her life after hoping to start a family with her ex?

If anything, it would make more sense that she was less interested in a family with her fiance than with her ex/true love, Mick.

The Burnout by Sophie Kinsella

I’ve read many of Sophie Kinsella’s books and have found them all entertaining, which is exactly what I was looking for in my first few weeks home with our baby. I was bummed to see the wait time for The Burnout audiobook would be about a month. So I scanned her other books and saw her most recent title, an autobiographical story about a woman dying. So I furiously googled Sophie’s name to find that she passed away in 2025 from cancer. I don’t feel ready to read the book, What Does it Feel Like? And I’m sad that Sophie will no longer create stories for the world to read.

That said, The Burnout was hilarious! So many laugh out loud, belly hurting moments. Sasha Worth is burnt out from her job, so she goes “on holiday” (as the British say) to an old family vacation spot, where she meets Finn. You can guess the rest from there, but there were also some surprise elements of mystery.

There was a tiny thread of Catholicism in the book when Sasha briefly considers becoming a nun. She shows up unannounced to a convent, where she learns she has to become Catholic first.

I loved the sayings from the surf instructor Terry. “The ride is it! The ride is it!” And “why are you worrying about the sea? The sea “sure ‘shore’ ain’t worrying about you.” 

My only gripe with this book is that, not surprisingly, the main character does have casual sex multiple times. Why can’t we have mainstream rom coms that don’t involve leading ladies or men who jump in bed with the snap of a finger?