Lighter Book Club Reads for an Unmasked Summer

My book club has challenged me to choose a funny, light-hearted read for our June meeting.

Let me preface this with: These ladies are all amazing, intelligent women, who do a lot for their families and their their community, as well as each other. 
We refer to our book club as "book club," because the book is way down the list of reasons to get together, but having a "book club" meeting sounds official, to ourselves, as busy women with hectic lives, as well as to our families, who are stymied half the time when we leave them.
So the choice of book is something most of them would rather not think about, and they are happy to leave that job to me, since I love nothing more than thinking about books.

I love and read most genres. But light and funny is not really my cup of tea. 

I do try to read one a year. 
I think I should read more light and funny, rather than being so serious all the time, and looking for meaning in everything. It does the soul good, I'm sure. 

So, here is the list I presented to my book club (which they subsequently asked me to narrow down to ONE 🤣

This is a funny read about an anxious woman in her early fifties, whose husband has just left her, and how she finds herself again (I think there is overseas travel in this one!).

    

A funny, witty Indian family drama by Balli Kaur Jaswal. 

Three sisters come together to fulfill their mother's dying wish.
   

I read I Was Told It Would Get Easier by Waxman, and liked it well enough, so I'm ready to give this novel a try. It seems to be about an introverted woman who finds out about a father she never knew existed and what she does with that information.

  This has been on my list for awhile. A psychotherapist and columnist gives a behind-the-scenes look into the life of a therapist and her patients looking for answers.

And, because I can't help myself, I suggested this not-necessarily -funny-but-not-depressing multi-generational novel by Connie Schultz (who is the wife of our fine senator, Sherrod Brown):                                                          

Some other light reads I could have chosen:

A woman with a perfect life begins to have recurring dreams about a man, not her husband.

An Indian-American college professor is accused by his colleagues of being a reverse racist.

 

From Canada to Australia on a whim, a homesick wife must find a way to adjust to her new country.

*All photos and links attributed to goodreads.com

New Fiction to See You Into Spring

Just Out, and Most Talked About:

Goodreads says this is "A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family–and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for–and everything she feared."                                         

  This is a thriller that takes place in the English countryside in a village that has a past to protect...

This sounds like a fun, yet bittersweet novel in the vein of A Man Called Ove and Where You'd Go Bernadette?

The Latest in Historical Fiction:

An expedition of women trek through the Arctic to find a lost team of explorers in 1853--and then, there's a murder trial.                                                                                                      

A mail-order bride arrives in San Francisco to a mystery, a developing relationship and the 1906 earthquake that devastated the city.

It's Kristin Hannah. Set during the Great Depression. No need to know more.

Author of The Aviator's Wife and The Chaperone. Set in 1888 during the freak blizzard that struck the Great Plains.

Get a Little Cultured: 

Goodreads says: Part puzzle, part revenge tale, part ghost story, this kaleidoscopic novel set in Vietnam spins half a century of history and folklore into the story of a missing woman.

I haven't read this yet, but from what I've heard, it sounds like a cross between the movie It's a Beautiful Life and The Kite Runner.

   A new marriage, a crumbling mansion, and a dead aunty that can't let things go.

Currently Reading:

I've been so surprised by this book. I was prepared for this to be historical fiction chick lit fluff, but it is actually so rich and complex, with just the right grounding in the time period.

Author, Radha Vatsal 

On My Nightstand:

            

Watch for This:

Coming in April, a fast-paced survival story where three strangers are thrown together after a devastating earthquake hits L.A.  (sounds very like The Nature of Fragile Things (above)...

It would be interesting to read them back-to-back.)

Let me know if you read any of these. I'd love to know your thoughts!