June’s Book and Bike Break Down

Catch up on what Mandi’s reading and how many miles she’s riding!

Booking and biking my way through 2020.


Life has been crazy – I kind of feel like I’m dragging my feet on my goals, despite the fact that I’m still sitting very comfortably on both. 40 books. 2020 miles. I’ll make it, but I like the months that I come out of so far ahead that I feel like I should take a bow at the end.


Books

21. A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler (Contemporary)
This one was a Book Of The Month choice of mine. I like contemporary fiction. The third paragraph of the synopsis grabbed my attention: “Told from multiple points of view, A Good Neighborhood asks big questions about life in America today―What does it mean to be a good neighbor? How do we live alongside each other when we don’t see eye to eye?―as it explores the effects of class, race, and heartrending star-crossed love in a story that’s as provocative as it is powerful.” What I didn’t know was just how relevant it would be to current events while I was reading it. It took me a bit to get to the meat of the story, but once I got there, it just took off. I absolutely loved the writing style – so unique and fun! I have to highly recommend this read on account of it’s relevancy. It could be a game-changer for your perspective on racism. 4.5 STARS

22. The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees by Meredith May (Memoir)
How many times can I say how much I love memoirs? I just think it’s incredibly beautiful and empowering to allow people to tell their stories. Some hit home with me, some are shockingly different from my experience and some are less meaningful to me. This fell into that third category. What I loved was her comparisons to and knowledge of honeybees. That side of it was so interesting. While Meredith experienced far more than I did as a kid, parts of the written story were slow. The last quarter of the book had all the makings of a great book and arguably made the book as a whole worth a read, but I struggled to get into it quickly. Though I should mention, I’ve already suggested to my husband we start a hobby honeybee farm… 3 STARS

23. All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood (Contemporary)
June’s book club book was this highly rated/reviewed story. I had nabbed in as a Kindle daily deal because of the ratings. I wanted it to rock my socks off. I wanted to cry, but here’s why I didn’t. First, the story had an ick-factor to it; an inappropriate relationship that I struggled to get over for approximately the first half of the book. By the time I got over the icky-ness and started rooting for these characters, the book felt entirely too predictable. I had figured out the ending far before the end and was unsatisfied with the amount of proper resolution. It felt, to me, as though the bad guys got bad things and the good guys got good things. That being said, I did appreciate the points of view/writing style. And the story as a whole was interesting. 3 STARS


Biking

And now, onward with the goal to ride 2020 miles in 2020 on a bike.

Again, 2020 miles in a year means approximately 5.5 miles/day. Some days I ride 12. Some days, 8. Some days I don’t ride at all, but my current total…

1232

We’re now up to 258 of those miles having been outside (147 of them pulling a kid).

We ended June in a horrendous heat wave, and as someone who really only tolerates temperatures up to about 75 degrees, that means I’ve been back to biking inside. I don’t hate biking inside. I get to read at the same time when I do that. But it’s harder to get motivated to bike inside. As the heat wave spills over into July, I’ll just be over here racking up my indoor miles I suppose…

Hope you had a great June! Stay healthy everyone!

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