Welcome to another edition of “What I’ve Been Reading Lately” where I join other readers through Modern Mrs Darcy’s monthly QuickLit posts in sharing what we’ve been reading lately.

Summer is here and with that, an additional reading challenge for me. At the elementary school where I work, we once again have a summer book bingo reading challenge with 25 prompts. My plan is to complete the whole board, but I’ll be double- (and occasionally triple-) dipping in order to do so. I’ll be reading books that check off prompts for other reading challenges as well. It will be a wonderful summerlong puzzle as I find books to meet prompts across all my ongoing reading challenges!

As I mentioned in my last post, I love when unanticipated common threads appear in my reading, and this month there was a strong connection. Two of my reads dealt with characters leaving their countries due to war and unrest (China 1938 and Cyprus 1974) and later raising kids in their new countries (USA and England, respectively). Interestingly, both characters chose to withhold the truth about their past from their children thinking the children would be better off or less burdened without it. It was a fascinating overlap.

What have you been reading lately? What does your summer reading look like?

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak (2021) 🎧
Narrated by Amira Ghazalla & Daphne Kouma

This is a story of the island of Cyprus in the far east of the Mediterranean Sea and the forbidden love between two Cypriots, Defne who is Turkish Muslim and Kostas who is Greek Orthodox Christian. The story alternates between the late 2010s in London, when their daughter Ada is struggling to come to terms with her mother’s death, and 1974 in Cyprus, when Kostas and Defne’s love is growing as turmoil is spreading and war breaks out. Then a third timeline is added, the early 2000s in Cyprus. Throughout all this time, a fig tree in a popular taverna is witness to everything. I really enjoyed the story for its insight on Cyprus’ history and people. I had no idea it was so turbulent. The fig tree as a narrator was unusual and interesting. I loved Ada and my heart went out to her as she dealt with the recent trauma and change in her life. If there were a sequel to this book, I would read it immediately.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Book Voyage: Read Around the World: Island (Cyprus) or Middle East (Cyprus)
• #DiversityAcrossGenres: MENA / Historical Fiction or Romance

Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu (2022) 📖

This is the story of three generations of a Chinese family starting in 1938 with Meilin whose husband is killed in the war with the Japanese and then she and her young son Renshu have to flee their burning village. They travel by foot, train, cart, and boat as they search for a new place to call home, all the while holding on to a precious hand scroll filled with beautiful stories and illustrations which provides comfort and relief. Years later they make it to Taiwan. Renshu eventually goes to America for graduate studies and settles there. His daughter is very curious about her heritage, but he refuses to talk about his childhood. It was an eye-opening look at 20th century Chinese history and the impact on Chinese people into the next century and beyond the Chinese borders, including immigrants in the US. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Book Voyage: Read Around the World: Southern Asia (China)
• #DiversityAcrossGenres: Asian / Historical Fiction

The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth (2020) 🎧
Narrated by Barrie Kreinik

This was a fun domestic thriller about two fraternal twins, Fern and Rose, who grew up with an unstable mother. Fern has sensory processing issues, and during their childhood and continuing into adulthood, Rose took it upon herself to look after her. When Fern learns that Rose is trying but unable to get pregnant, she sees it as her chance to finally help Rose in return. Fern’s mission to help disrupts her carefully structured life and sets in motion an unraveling of family secrets. I was captivated from the beginning. I really liked Fern and her romance with Wally was heartwarming. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Book Voyage: Read Around the World: Australia

Eastbound by Maylis De Kerangal (2012) 🎧
Translated from the French by Jessica Moore (2023)
Narrated by Jennifer Pickens

I needed a short audiobook (this was 2 h 23 m!) to wrap up the month, and this one, which had been on my radar and was available, checked off a part of the world that I needed for the Read Around the World challenge. Also, it being a book in translation by a woman was a plus. It’s contemporary fiction that takes place over a few days on an eastbound train on the Trans-Siberian Railway. A reluctant Russian conscript and a dejected French woman become an unlikely pair as one helps the other hide. It was surprisingly suspenseful. I was also surprised by what seems to be a beautiful landscape, a highlight being Lake Baikal, the world’s oldest and deepest freshwater lake and Siberia’s “pearl”. I wish I had looked up the route while I was reading because that part of the world was completely foreign to me.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Book Voyage: Read Around the World: Eastern Europe / Russia (Siberia)

What have you been reading lately?

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