What I've Been Reading: Late July and early August

Schadenfreude, A Love Story by Rebecca Schuman

Being of mostly German descent and having traveled to Germany three times, I am definitely a deutschophile. Naturally, I was attracted to this book and wanted to learn more about author Rebecca Schuman's perspective on the German culture. I enjoyed reading about her trials and tribulations living abroad and could relate to many of them because I had a similar experience in Switzerland. While I thought the book was interesting and fun to read, I kept expecting more from it and the author. I would probably give it a three out of five stars.

Bad Girls Throughout History by Ann Shen

One of my goals for this year was to read more books about amazing women, so checking out this book was a no brainer. While I knew some of the stories of the women featured in the book, I did not know all of them. I was inspired by their bravery, dedication, and intelligence. Shen also includes illustrations of each woman and small summaries of their impact on the world. I'm a visual person, so I loved that idea! I wish this or something like it was required reading in schools. I grew up loving history and later studying it as my major in college, but so many of the stories are male-centered. If you are a women's history lover like I am, pick this one up!

Beautiful Animals by Lawrence Osborne

While I read mostly non-fiction, this fiction book's description of a murder on a Greek island was attractive to me. At first, I was skeptical of whether or not I would even finish this book. The first thirty pages or so left me confused about the characters and even the setting, but then the story started to make sense and become intriguing. I read another review that said this book reminded them of The Talented Mr. Ripley and I had to agree. It was well-written and I consistently felt immersed in the story. This is my first time reading a book by author Lawrence Osborne and I'll check out more by him in the future. 

Disclosure: I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.