I recently finished reading all the books that were on my Spring TBR list, so I’m going to share a short review of each one.

Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Song of Achilles was my favorite book I read this spring. This is a Greek mythology retelling about the events leading up to the trojan war, the war, and a brief moment after it. This was from Patroclus’ point of view. In the first half of the book I didn’t really care for Patroclus much because his entire personality was just being obsessed with Achilles, but his I loved his character development in the second half. I loved the way this author describes the scene…for better or for worse it made me feel like I felt the hot sand on my feet and the smell of rotting bodies.

Diana by Andrew Morton

While I don’t think this biography was bad, I didn’t finish it. I feel like you have to live under a rock to not know much about Princess Diana so I found myself a little bored while reading this book because it felt like nothing new. I also found the book to be really depressing and at the time of reading it I was more in the mood for something light hearted.

Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I love Taylor Jenkins Reid- I think she writes page turners and creates interesting female characters but this was my least favorite book by her. This follows a professional tennis player as she builds her career, reaches the height of her career, and navigates retirement. I found the main character to not be very relatable and a little irritating. Most people learn to lose gracefully when they are five but we are reading about this character learning that lesson at forty. Carrie, the main character, does develop but at times it felt forced and not believable. I did like how the book ended with her next career move that seemed fitting.

Family of Liars by E. Lockhart

This book is the prequel to We Were Liars which is one of my favorite books. If you are going to read this, make sure you read We Were Liars first because Family of Liars contains major spoilers in the first chapter. I love this book and We Were Liars because the author creates really complex dynamics between characters. While I really enjoyed this book, I was comparing it to We Were Liars and while I still loved it, it wasn’t as good as We Were Liars.

Paris Letters by Janice MacLeod

Paris Letters is a travel memoir that follows a woman as she buys herself a sabbatical and sets out to travel but ends up falling in love in Paris and moving there. I love a good travel memoir so I really enjoyed this. I appreciate that the author doesn’t entirely romanticize travel…she talks about the less ideal sides of Paris. She also discusses how doing every days tasks in a country where you do not speak the language can be a challenge which I found relatable. This book is a travel memoir but also a romance. I typically don’t like romance, this only got cringey once or twice. I appreciate the book focused more on her personal development rather than the romance.