9 Books To Read In Short Bursts Because Parenting Doesn't Give You A Lot Of Free Time

Being a parent doesn't give you a lot of down time. Most days, you will get 10 minutes here, or maybe an hour during nap time if you're lucky. If you're a reader, this can be a struggle. Just when you're getting to a good part, the baby's cry shrieks through the monitor, and you find you're forced to use a baby sock as a bookmark. There is a simple solution to this dilemma — find books you can read in short bursts. Books with shorter chapters are ideal for parents and just busy people in general.

It seems like longer chapters have been rising in popularity in some genre fiction in the past 10 or 15 years. George R.R. Martin and Stephen King tend toward long, dense chapters filled with a ton of information. There was a point in King's 11/22/63 that I thought I must have read more than one chapter as it was so filled with historical backstory, but nope. I'd only made it through one. Thankfully, authors like Kate Atkinson and Rainbow Rowell offer books that can be sipped rather than gulped.

Perhaps I'm going out on a limb, but Atkinson and Rowell are both moms, and it makes me wonder if that's why their books are designed this way. Either way, I am grateful. I have personally read each book on this list, so trust me, they're all amazing.