Please help me find a book to fall back in love with reading (on my holiday)

[Mallowmarshmallow]

I've fallen out of love with reading, everything is a slog and piles of books lay around me only just started, unfinished and unloved.

I think a combination of perimeno, excessive phone use and not setting aside time to read has meant my attention span to really sink into a book and give it my all is limited.

I used to love lots of books, but mostly those where I've loved the characters. Now, in real life I've become a really grumpy 40 year old who likes very few people and this has been replicated by an inability to love book characters too.

In the past, some of my favourite books have been A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Island, A Little Life, most of Marian Keyes stuff, Memoirs of a Geisha....more recently i liked (but didn't love) American Dirt, Pachhinko, The Flat Share.

I went through a phase of liking psychological thrillers thrown into the mix too.

If anyone is able to recommend something I'd really love with characters I really like and want to read about, I would be hugely grateful.

I've really enjoyed Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and Yellowface by Rebecca Kwang recently.

I’m exactly the same. But have slowly got back into it.

I’ve just finished & would definitely recommend Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. She’s just won the women’s prize for fiction for this book. It’s so good.

Ive also read 2 Lisa Jewell books recently. the family upstairs & the family remains. Both good reads.

The southern book club guide to killing vampires was excellent!

I wonder if you might enjoy something historical? I sometimes find i can only be bothered with nonfiction. Did you ever read Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman?

How about Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason? Really good, marketed like chick lit but isn't at all.

Same here to. I love reading, but have been rubbish with it over the last year or so.

I am on my 3rd Liane Moriarty book right now, in quick succession. I have 2 more to read on holiday.
Her books have great characters and her description on thoughts and feelings is crazily accurate.
Currently reading 'What Alice Forgot', and can recommend 'Truly, Madly, Guilty' and 'The Husbands Secret' too.

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

Same here, I’ve picked up a copy of Lessons in Chemistry and How to Kill Your Family for my holiday.

I've just finished a really good series of books that had me hooked straight away, the first book is called Qualify and it's by Vera Nazarian.

It's about a girl called Gwen and she is trying to qualify to be saved by aliens because an asteroid is heading to destroy earth.

Thirding Lessons in Chemistry. Couldn’t put it down.

going back a few years to when it was the in book of the season, but recently read Gone Girl. If you’ve enjoyed psychological twists and need short chapters for a ruined attention span (I do!) I’d recommend it.

I liked Demon Copperhead, but I’m not sure it’s the best thing to get you back into reading.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

I would recommend " The heart's invisible furies" by John Boyne
I still remember Cyril...

Same here but I’m really enjoying Still Life by Sarah Winman. I’m looking forward to going to bed to read it. Loving the characters and the writing.

also lessons in chemistry.

And second Fingersmith and Affinity by the same author

Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine

cracking book

couldnt put it down.

Anything by Lisa Jewell (I’ve read loads of hers)
Liane Moriarty is very good too.

When I was really struggling to read I found a great book “Standard Deviation” by Katherine Heiny. I loved it!

Romantic Comedy, by Curtis Sittenfeld! It’s so good.

The family upstairs

28 summers.

I laughed, cried. And devoured it on holiday. Was joyous to love something as, like you, am out of my reading habit.

Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo

I just re-read The Time Travellers Wife which I hadn't read for about 10 years - did it in more or less one sitting over the weekend.

Have also downloaded some Jilly Cooper for my holiday next week - sometimes you just need a guilty pleasure to get you back in the mood!

I'm also 40ish and occasionally grumpy 😂
I was an avid (younger) reader, but for similar reasons to you I've been terribly lazy and just reading the internet instead of lovely books.

Anyway, here are some books I've really enjoyed recently, having made a conscious effort to dedicate time to reading (and downloading the Goodreads app, which has made it easy to track books and list ones I'd like to read).

All my mothers by Joanna Glen
Lessons in Chemistry (see above recs!)
The hand that first held mine by Maggie O'Farrell - this isn't recent by her but I love her writing and picked this up from the library recently...loved it.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a great holiday read. And another vote for Lessons in Chemistry.

I was coming on to say The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - it’s an easy read and split into sections so you can dip in and out, but I loved it and read it in a couple of days. Also loved Lessons in Chemistry.

I read ' Where the Crawdad Sings' on holiday and couldn't put it down. I too used to be an avid reader it menopause has badly affected my concentration