what I’ve been reading lately

Sharing a roundup of the books I’ve been reading lately and if I recommend adding them to your collection. 

Hi friends! How was the weekend? We spent it in Phoenix for Liv’s dance competition. Her team did an amazing job, we enjoyed a family brunch, and I snuck away for a Lagree class – wins all around.

For today’s post, I wanted to share a little recap of the books I’ve read lately. After a little bit of a drought, I’ve made way more time for reading recently. (I’ve also been slacking a little bit on Spanish studying and IHP 3 studying, but that’s how it goes sometimes.) Almost all of them were home runs and I’m excited to share these with you! If you have any amazing books you’re reading right now, please let me know. Pretty soon I’ll be sitting on a cruise ship veranda with a coffee and book in hand and I’m SO ready.

ADHD Is Awesome by Penn Holderness

I listened to the audio version and highly recommend listening to this one. I’ve been a fan of the Holderness family for years, and was intrigued by this book because I feel like everything I’ve seen online has convinced me that I have ADHD. From always wanting to learn, to procrastination pressure (and then spending all night or a solid 8-10 hour block completing something), to constantly switching hobbies (remember the flamenco dancing and ukulele?), list of hundreds of business ideas, losing my attention span, feeling drained after too much extroverting, just so much of it made sense.

This book is such a fun, real look at what it’s actually like to live with ADHD. Penn Holderness shares his personal stories and shows how having ADHD isn’t something to be “fixed.” Instead, he talks about how it can be a real strength when you learn how to work with your brain. It’s funny, eye-opening, and super encouraging for anyone who’s ever felt like their brain just works a little differently.

It also emphasized that ADHD really is a spectrum and honestly, I’m not sure if I have it after reading this book. (Another testament to the fact that doctors provide dianoses, not Google or social media lol.) But, I still enjoyed it and it’s a great reminder on how to support friends and family members with ADHD. 9/10

From Amazon:

You live in a world that wasn’t designed for you. A world where you’re expected to sit still, stay quiet, and focus. Because of the way your brain is wired, you can feel like you’re failing at life. But you are not failing. You are awesome.

Award-winning content creators Kim and Penn Holderness are on a mission to reboot how we think about the unfortunately named “attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.” As always, they are doing it by looking in the mirror, because they don’t just study ADHD; they live it.

Penn was in college when he was diagnosed with ADHD, although the signs of having a brain that worked just a little bit differently had been there since he was a kid. Rather than view the diagnosis as a curse or give in to feelings of inadequacy or failure, he took a different approach, one that he wants to share with fellow ADHDers and the people who care about them.

Drawing on their often-hilarious insights and the expertise of doctors, researchers, and specialists; Kim and Penn provide fun, easy-to-digest advice and explanations, including:

What it’s actually like to live with an ADHD brain.

How to find humor in the pitfalls, sob stories, and unbelievable triumphs (like the time they won The Amazing Race!) that come with ADHD.

How to tackle the challenges ADHD presents with a positive outlook.

Targeted tools and techniques to play to your unique strengths.

Fun extras like ADHD Bingo, an ode to cargo pants, and what the world would look like if ADHDers were in charge.

Take it from Penn: Having ADHD can be scary, but it comes with incredible upsides, including creativity, hyperfocus, and energy. You might even say it’s kind of awesome. Whether you have ADHD or want to support someone else in their journey, this is the guide you need to make the life you want

The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer

This one totally pulls at your heart. It flips between present day and WWII Poland as a woman uncovers her grandmother’s hidden past. It’s a powerful mix of love, loss, and resilience, and the end was not what I was expecting; it was even more heartwrenching and beautiful. If you love dual-timeline stories and historical fiction, you’ll love this one. 9/10

From Amazon:

In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. It’s a decision that will alter her destiny…and it’s a lie that will remain buried until the next century.

Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate.

Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents’ farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief.

The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali

Set in 1950s and 1970s Iran, The Lion Women of Tehran follows the lives two women who become unlikely best friends. This book is exquisitely written and explores themes of riendship, ambition, and the quiet but fierce acts of resistance that can shape a woman’s path. If you liked The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, I would recommend this one. It has qually captivating writing and really strong, deep character development. It’s the type of book where you find yourself thinking about the characters long after you turn the final page.  9/10

From Amazon:

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions of becoming “lion women.”

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.

Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten

I’d been waiting to read this book forever, and finally took the time to listen to the audio version. It far surpassed all of my expectations. It was a warm, candid reflection on how she followed her intuition, took bold risks, and built an iconic career, often without a formal plan. From working in the White House to launching the Barefoot Contessa brand, it’s filled with stories of her unexpected opportunities, behind-the-scenes challenges, and the relationships that shaped her journey.

I’ve been a fan of Ina for years, and I learned to cook from watching Food Network when we were newlyweds and living in Fayetteville, NC. It was wild for me to learn that she shopped at the SAME commissary (at Ft. Bragg!) while she was also learning how to cook… but she would be one to teach me from a screen a couple of decades later. It’s filled with fun stories, and even better to hear her tell them in her own voice. It was a beautiful reminder that you don’t always have to have a concrete plan; you just have to stay true to yourself and be ready when the luck happens. I loved it. 10/10

From Amazon:

Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose.

From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.

So tell me, friends: what are you reading right now? Please share the goods!

xoxo

Gina