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Sunday Matters

Hello, friends! Southern California is experiencing another heatwave. 108 degree temps for September seems so wrong, but we usually get blasts of hot hair through early October so I guess it’s not that unusual but seeing all those Sprit Halloween stores open when it’s so hot is wild.

Also, this past week was a birthday week for me! Having another year after major brain surgery really puts things into perspective.

Right Now:

Coffee, breakfast, student ministry. This is usually on repeat.

This Week:

On Monday I get to bring a meal to new parents!! And over the weekend we have a fun lunch scheduled which our neighbor who is leaving for Reno. What a great neighbor. He will be missed. I mean, you can’t just call anyone when you fall into a planter after brain surgery, thinking that a quick trip to the mailbox was a good idea. Plus we will miss his sweet dog Lucy. Lucy is really the only dog who gets along with my Chloe. Although Chloe is not able to even take steps these days, she will miss that pup.

Reading:

I am almost finished with All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker. I love Whitaker and I love this book but it’s reminding me a lot of The Return of Ellie Black.

I am really loving Catherine Newman’s Sandwich. Is there such a thing as “menopausal” chick lit? I seem to be very attracted to these types of reads these days.

Anyone for a Read-Along?

After brain surgery and trips to the hospital you start to really think about ALL the books you want to read, yet haven’t. One of those books is, Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham. It’s a chunkster at 688 pp. I posted about a possible read-along on Instagram and had some takers. Anyone here interested in reading Of Human Bondage with me in October?

Watching:

Cops. I’ve been watching Cops. Hahaha. We also watched an old 80’s classic on Labor Day, Better Off Dead. I have to tell you, it didn’t hold up well. It was kind of silly.

Grateful for:

This is dumb but the bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit from Chick-fil-A is a thing to behold. I’ve been enjoying them a bit too much.

How the Light Gets In
By Joyce Maynard
William Morrow, 9780062398307. June 2025, 432 pp.

The Short of It:

Wow, wow, wow.

The Rest of It:

Following the death of her former husband, Cam, fifty-four-year-old Eleanor has moved back to the New Hampshire farm where they raised three children to care for their brain-injured son, Toby, now an adult. Toby’s older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife; their sister, Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Although all appears stable, old resentments, anger, and bitterness simmer just beneath the surface. ~ Indiebound

How the Light Gets In is the follow-up to Maynard’s much loved Count the Ways. The family has grown, there are new losses to navigate. Eleanor is still Eleanor but still struggling with motherhood and marriage and what tragedy can do to a family.

In this story, it’s presented early on that Eleanor’s son Toby suffers a brain injury. Although Toby suffers in some ways, he thrives in others. He’s the most caring, loving individual and quite the qualified goat farmer. Eleanor is of course, very protective of him and that drives how she interacts with nearly everyone he meets.

This is a layered, family drama that spans the pandemic years and those very difficult election years so it is heavy in places. Maynard touches on sexual identity, infidelity, drug and alcohol use, the prevalence of school shootings, and political unrest. I feel that Maynard did her best to pack everything into this book, and by the time you turn that last page you will have been through it. It’s heavy and weighty.

There are some beautiful, quiet moments though. I think that is what most of us come to expect from Maynard and she does not disappoint.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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