Better With Books: Week 2
A Three Star Week
I don’t know if its just because I have a certain mood each week, but this is another week where every book is rated the same! I finished fewer books this week, mostly because I’ve felt so ill that I haven’t wanted to read books in bed and just want to go straight to sleep. The way I tend to ‘structure’ my reading is to have one physical book a week that I read on the couch, one digital book a week that I read in bed, and then I try to do an audiobook a week while doing other thing but I struggle with those (more on that later), so it doesn’t always pan out that way. Anyway, here’s what I’ve been reading!
The Rest of Our Lives – Ben Markovits
Maybe this book should have been written by Ben UNREMarkovits, amirite? Bad jokes aside, this book was just bleh to me. I thought it was just me, because this was an audiobook and I struggle with audiobooks HARD. To tell the truth, I wouldn’t even try them until a couple of months ago because they make me feel so uncomfortable. I feel really embarrassed being told a story like I’m a child, and also constantly feel like I’m having to work to force myself to listen to them, which makes them fairly inaccessible for my brain because I might as well just be sitting down and reading something to stand any chance of focussing on it. In fact, I have joked before that I wished they did subtitles for audiobooks – so, reading a book then! But I have always loved reading and I want to find a way to consume more stories, so I am making a conscious effort to try and get used to them in 2026. This is my first audiobook of the year and it took me a good 10 days because I kept having to rewind chapters and work out what I’d missed. So for that reason, obviously the flow was a little stunted, and I kept thinking I must have missed something because there was no real story going on. When I finished the book and rated it I started to read the reviews and realised that actually, there just is no story. It’s just an average man sharing his thoughts while living his life. The book begins by telling us that the man (I’ve forgotten his name already…) found out 10+ years ago that his wife had had an affair, but that he vowed to stay together until his children are grown. Well, his youngest is off to college, so it’s time to move on. He drops his daughter off at college and keeps on driving. Goes to see some friends. Talks on the phone to his wife. Oh, he’s also got some weird health things going on but the doctor says he’s probably fine, yet increasingly the people around him are fairly horrified by his symptoms. Any of these things could have been great jumping off points for stories that sort of half materialised but failed to have much oomph. As I write this I’m wondering why it even reached 3 stars!
The Fine Print – Lauren Asher
When I tell you I was SO close to DNFing this book. The male perspective in particular reads like it was written by a 14 year old boy writing out his Andrew Tate fuelled fantasy of how he wants to talk to women when he grows up. He was like a cringey sex-crazed anime villain and it really didn’t help set a mood. This book takes grumpy/sunshine to an extreme – it is basically the story of the sunshine being slowly seeped out of our FMC at the hands of an abusive boss who has no business speaking to other humans, let alone managing them. Of course, as with reading every grumpy/sunshine book, we quickly learn it is the woman’s job to teach a man how to be a big boy and deal with his fee-fees. The smut felt really forced and uncomfortable. It was just so bleugh. At one point she describes him as her “favourite type of morally grey” which I whole-heartedly disagreed with; there was no grey area, he was simply abusive and gross. I hated him. Zahra’s point of view, however, was generally pretty nice to read. She was awesome. She had great ideas, it was lovely to read about her successes, we got to know her character on a deeper level, we got to know her fabulous sister, and I wish I’d just had a full book about Zahra’s life to be honest. I rated this book 3 stars just because I think she was great and I loved her friendship with Claire, too. This is the first book in a trilogy (and I did get the whole series for Christmas) so I’ll be reading the other books, but I am hoping that because the book follows his brothers’ lives, they are a little bit more likeable. Maybe.
All in all, not the best week in reading – though not my worst! Have you read any of these books?
