July Book Review

Just two books this month, I rode my bike to work a bunch of times so that cut down on my subway reading time.

The first book is the one that everyone has been talking about - Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens.

This is just as good as everyone says it is.  It takes place in the Southern US and goes back and forth between past and present.  It tells the story of a young girl that lives in the marsh having been abandoned by her family at a young age, but who has survived and thrived.  It sort of reminded me of the other books I read this year (those ones true stories) of women growing up to with remarkable and extremely challenging childhoods, but that go on to be scholars and authors of books.  This one is fiction and interestingly I thought it seemed much more likely to survive this childhood than the other true ones I've read.  Here it never really felt like her life was in danger and she did have a support system.  This was another book where I did not want to put it down and where I was trying to solve the murder mystery the whole time.  I think I would even read this again someday. 

And the second book is one I found browsing at the library - Amy Poehler's book, Yes Please.

I typically don't pick up a lot of autobiographies, it seems like everyone writes a book these days, but I saw this at the library and I am an Amy Poehler fan so I decided to pick it up. I really liked it, and then I realized that I usually do like autobiographies when I read them so I should try to pick more.  I was a Parks and Recreation fan and also loved Amy on Saturday Night Live.  The book is funny, of course, but I also enjoyed hearing her behind the scenes stories from SNL and Parks, and about her friendship with Tina Fey and Seth Meyers. I also liked learning about her career; you think that these people are just actors, but they do so much more, are so talented and work really hard. I can't seem to find anywhere to watch Parks and Rec but I want to rewatch that series.  

Seth Meyers wrote one of the chapters of the book and reminisced about the rap that Amy performed on SNL for Sarah Palin.  Seth reminds us that Amy is 9 months pregnant and is actually rapping.  So here it is for your viewing pleasure (I tried to skip over the Fox News anchors intro of this clip, so hopefully that worked).