I feel like most people who write also love to read. This makes sense, because to be good at writing, you really must be a reader. We learn all of our best writing habits from reading without even knowing that we’re doing it. This is how we learn to spell and where to put those annoying commas (just kidding, I love commas; for me it’s really where not to put commas).

What I mean to say is that reading is important and I love reading. However, in the past few years, I haven’t been as much of a reader and that makes me sad. Towards the end of last year and this year I’ve been picking up my reading again. In honor of reading, I wanted to share with you some of my favorites I’ve read recently.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane written by Lisa See

This novel is so inspiring. It is both a family drama and a coming of age tale of a young woman, Li-Yan who grows up in rural China and tries to strike a delicate balance between the the practices of her culture and her hopes to live the life of an educated woman. I learned so much while reading this as I had no previous exposure to the cultural differences between regions of China. I also found the woven story-telling between times and places to be an extremely effective way of building anticipation and exploring different characters. I highly recommend this pull at your heart strings read.

This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
I couldn’t tell you what it is that makes me this way, but for me, there is nothing I love better in a book than something that makes me cry giant crocodile tears. It makes my husband so concerned and he doesn’t quite understand it, and his reaction makes me laugh. So we come full circle?

This Is How It Always Is is a big crocodile tear book about Rosie and Penn and their five boys. However, their youngest is not quite the same as the others and so it begins. Claude becomes someone new, bringing on  changes, questions and challenges that seem like all too much for a child. This novel explores the growth of the family and the people around them as they all discover who this child is and how to help on the journey of growing up.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple

This one is mostly a break from all the tears. So if you aren’t like me, and prefer a book with lots of laughs, this is one for you. I knew I had to read Where’d You Go, Bernadette? when it was described to me that the relationship between mother and daughter greatly resembled that between Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. Although the daughter in this situation is quite a bit younger than Rory when we meet her, the dynamic between mother and daughter is one of selfless love, silliness with a touch of dry humor and absolute stubborn will. I enjoyed this book for all the laughs, but I loved this book for the characters and their individual evolution.

That’s all for now! What are you reading? What have you enjoyed? I’d love to hear about it!