For the Love of Reading: September 2025

I read 6 books in the month of September and here are my reviews of each of them.

Heart the Lover by Lily King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
You know how you can remember exactly when and where you read certain books? A great novel, aruly great one, not only captures a particular fictional experience, it alters and intensifies the way you experience your own life while reading it. And it preserves it, like a time capsule.
Lily King drew me in from the very first line and didn’t let go until the last, which was a wonderful surprise connection to her book Writers and Lovers. The writing is gorgeous without being pretentious and there is much left for the reader to interpret. The characters are richly drawn, absolutely authentic, and truly flawed. The mistakes they make will break your heart in all the best possible ways. It’s a story of love, friendship, and forgiveness and it’s not to be missed.
Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Press for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

So Far Gone by Jess Walter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I absolutely loved So Far Gone by Jess Walter. From the very first page, it’s fast-paced and compelling, the kind of book you just don’t want to put down. Walter masterfully weaves a story that’s incredibly timely, touching on current politics, extremism, and the frightening and desperate world of fringe religious movements. I appreciated how the book explored the toll our 24/7 news cycle takes on us, with our phones constantly at the ready, making it impossible to escape without removing ourselves from civilization entirely. It’s sharp, occasionally funny, unsettling, and very entertaining. Highly recommended if you want a smart, page-turning read that will also leave you thinking about the world we live in.

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Updated review, September 2025:
What we miss—what we lose and what we mourn—isn’t it this that makes us who, deep down, we truly are. To say nothing of what we wanted in life but never got to have.
After reading this book for a 2nd time for my book club I can say that I truly enjoyed the stream of consciousness style and the way that Nunez explores grief. She prompted me to think about who is worthy of our grief and how much grief we are allowed to express, do animals grieve and how do we help them mourn. I did not find it confusing at all the 2nd time around and I still think it’s an extraordinary book about the nature of friendship and the impact the unexpected loss of a friend can have on our life.

Meditative, rambling, cerebral, and often confusing but still extraordinary. This book is definitely not for everyone but I was enchanted by the stream of consciousness and quality of the writing.

Heartwood by Amity Gaige
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
. . . the act of walking while carrying the weight of my pack had wrung all the sadness out of me, the sadness for myself and for the world, and that in that moment, I was totally without stress, confusion, or agitation, and that I was perfectly, blamelessly, whole. The trail transformed me.
I found this book to be utterly compelling and very well written, it kept me engaged and eager to find out what happened right from the beginning to the end. The author does a wonderful job of weaving the different character’s perspectives into the plot, from the main character’s diary entries as letters to her mother, to the warden trying to find her and her backstory (which could honestly make for another whole book that I would love to read) to the third character perspective and the intrigue of finding out how she fits into the story. If you’re looking to read a suspenseful book with great characters and good pacing, I recommend this one.

More Than Enough by Anna Quindlen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Anna Quindlen writes so beautifully about the joys and struggles of ordinary life and she has done just that with her latest book, More Than Enough. Centered around Polly, a thoughtful and talented English teacher at a private school for girls, the book tackles themes of friendship, love, heartbreak, and grief. The characters are relatable, their struggles are believable, and the relationships they have with one another are layered, full of love, disappointment, mystery, and expectation. The book captures the complexity of real life so well that I didn’t want to leave these characters behind. The only reason this isn’t a full five-star read for me is that the final pages felt a little more polished and perfect than I expected, especially after such a nuanced journey.
I received an advanced reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The wisdom that comes with age was needling, he found, because it brought the clarity of hindsight without the means to change anything.
This is a tender, multigenerational story that begins in small-town Ohio on VE Day and follows two families across decades of love, secrets, and change. Ryan’s prose is quiet and lovely, capturing both everyday life and the larger sweep of history in a way that feels relatable and powerful. As is often the case in sweeping family sagas, there are moments where secondary characters or plot threads feel a little underexplored. Also, the pacing is a little uneven, particularly in the middle and the shift into the later decades felt a bit compressed compared to the lush detail of earlier years. Nonetheless, it’s a wonderfully written book about grief, longing, persistence, and forgiveness. Highly recommended.

It was an amazing month of reading, with 5 four star books and a 5 star book, too. I hope you found something to add to your TBR!