5 things Friday: November TBR edition

October's not quite over yet, but I've finished all of the books on my TBR for the month, and in general it was so successful that I couldn't wait to come and report on them. Also got me excited for putting together a November list, since I did so well with my picks for this month... I ended dup with kind of a random mix for November, but it's all stuff on my shelf, and all stuff that has some orangey fall feels to the covers, so that seems like good enough reason for this lineup! 

For starters, I've got Wintering, a meditation on "the power of rest and retreat in difficult times," which has been on my list for a while after hearing such good reviews; as we go into the literal winter season in Michigan this definitely feels like the time to pick it up. 

Then I've got another feminist Greek mythology retelling, Elektra; I actually just read (and enjoyed) Ariadne by this author, and then this one ended up on my shelf because Hendrik noticed it at the library when he was there with Peter one day and suggested they bring it home for me because he thought I might like it too. Isn't that sweet?

And a few more contemporary fiction options: People Person, a family dramedy (smart and with heart, if her first novel, Queenie, is anything to go by); Maizy Chen's Last Chance, a middle grade read about an Asian American girl and her family's Chinese restaurant that I heard about on From the Front Porch; and then a grown-up story of an Asian American family and their restaurant located in the midwest that I coincidentally have on my shelf - this time a literary family drama with a touch of mystery, The Family Chao.

Excited to pick these up soon and report back in a month. Meanwhile, here's October's recap...

For October I chose my version of "spooky" - nothing scary, but still some seasonal feels with some fantasy and ghosts and such. And aside from one disappointment (and a BOTM again - really not doing well with them this year!), it was a most excellent reading month:

• The Change: okay, this one gets a bit bonkers by the end and has a way higher body count than I was expecting, but I could not put it down. Billed as "feminist revenge fantasy", it reads as juicy and gossipy, like the best of Liane Moriarty, but with a magical realism/fantastical twist: three women find that with middle life (i.e. menopause) comes unexpected empowering gifts. It's as if their rage has physical manifestations, like literally emanating heat enough to melt things and start fires. When a young woman in their wealthy coastal town is found dead and is written off by the police as an addict, these three women find each other and their gifts, coming together to figure out who the girl was and get justice for her - but finding that this is just the tip of the iceberg in missing girls, and the men who run things are doing nothing about it. I loved the mystery aspect, the friendship aspect, and the author's creativity in coming up with these women's newfound powers, along with how they use them to uncover the truth and bring their own form of justice. And while a wild ride of an unputdownable read, with that fun slightly snarky tone, there also was SO much to think about and unpack here - it's about when women are overlooked despite their skills and accomplishments, when they become invisible to the world (middle age, poor immigrants), how our lives are in some ways ruled by fear of what men could/might do to us, and what it could be like to be fully empowered to band together and do something about it. Content warning that there is some ick about men and underage girls (think Jeffrey Epstein type wealthy men behaving abhorrently); the tone made it not to depressing and horrible, but definitely some bad things happen to women in this story. All in all, I found it fascinating fun, though it almost goes off the rails at the end there - definitely a good way to channel your feminist rage for a few hours. ★★★★
• Unlikely Animals: A 5-star reading experience that felt fresh and unique, but also enjoyably familiar, as though it had mashed up my favorite elements of Goodbye, Vitamin (Rachel Khong), Nothing to See Here (Kevin Wilson), Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders), and Mostly Dead Things (Kristen Arnett). The result is a darkly comic, warm-hearted story narrated by the ghosts of a small-town cemetery as they observe a flailing 20-something return home to help care for her father, dying too young of dementia, and also make something of her own seemingly failed potential and family/friend relationships. It's a little weird and has a lot of elements going on (comedy bordering on silliness, tragedy, supernatural elements, family drama, small-town life and quirks and history, opioid epidemic, and hilarious 5th graders to name a few), but it all works - and it easily won me over thanks to the underlying feel that, as she mentioned in a great interview on Sarah's Bookshelves Live, Annie Hartnett writes from a place of understanding humans' difficulties and conflicts, but "just wanting everyone to be okay." ★★★★★
• The Fortunes of Jaded Women: here's my disappointer of the month - for a short book it just felt like it was a such a drawn-out family dramedy, I think partly because it was hard to know if it was actually supposed to be about the drama (and the immigrant, diaspora, prejudice, generational trauma etc. issues faced by a Vietnamese family in America) or if it was supposed to be about the comedy, which veered into the slapstick with the feuding 60-something sisters throwing oranges at each other and stuff like that, seeming like caricatures rather than characters to really get to know and root for. The contrast was just too much I guess? It made the characters a bit forgettable for me, rather than endearing. And unlike Unlikely Animals, the mix of "real" with the magical realism element just didn't work for me in this one. ★★.5
• Amari and the Night Brothers: my new favorite middle-grade fantasy series! I was just so sucked in and satisfied by this one and can't wait to read the next installment. It has a lot of my favorite elements of my recent fave, the Nevermoor series (strong female character, creative world-building that is easy to follow and get into and also has some clever delights to smile at, great story pacing, nicely dealing with some preteen/universal emotions and struggles), but I like even more the basis in the real world - and then having the protagonist come into this whole world of magic that she had no idea existed. It has the "chosen one" arc in the way of Harry Potter, where Amari is a seemingly average kid, but it turns out she was born with so much magic in her, nobody in the "other" world can quite believe it. She has to learn what this unseen world even is while fighting prejudice against magicians. That theme of prejudice was really well done - it drew on her life as a black kid in Atlanta and how she and her family are judged for their skin color or for living in the projects, and then how in the same way people fear what they don't know or what they think is "other" in the magic world, not giving her a chance when they learn she is a magician. I don't think you even need any more synopsis. Just know that if you like a school for magic type situation with a great protagonist, this is a must-read! ★★★★.5
• A Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting: if you like recent Regency romances like the Bridgerton series or Bringing Down the Duke but find the steaminess to be a bit much (or distracting from the story, like I sometimes do) - here's a great suggestion! It's set in that time period and gives you the reluctant young duke who has to figure out his new duties and is also not interested in marriage, along with the young woman who needs to get married to secure a comfortable future for herself - and her four younger sisters. It draws on the themes of Jane Austen regarding the limited options/agency for women, the tension between marrying for security and marrying for love, and the tension/forbidden movement between social/economic classes - but it's more explicit in discussing these issues, through what the characters think and say. You also get a bit of interesting history of the period that Austen doesn't quite go into but just hints at - like what war were all of these regimental officers that Lydia Bennet is obsessed with actually fighting in? The story is predictable, but if you like a nod to Austen (without being a retelling) and you like the pluck of modern writing about the era like Bridgerton, it is oh so delightful. Note that if you need some steam, you might find this one boring, but for me it was a cute amount of chemistry and cheekiness; no bedroom scenes at all, but the banter is really all I need! ★★★★

five things Friday: October TBR edition

I haven't actually checked to verify it, but I'm pretty sure that I already have more 4.5 and 5-star books in 2022 than I did in 2021. Either way, it sure feels like my reading year has been more successful, and that's rather satisfying. Plus I have high hopes for a few I still have on my list for this year after seeing such great reviews - and I'm packing some of them in to October since several of them seem seasonally appropriate for the month...

I'm not a "spooky season" kind of person in general and don't think I've ever purposefully picked books for - but it just feels right for October to be the month for some of the selections on my stack. I've got sort of witchy vibes in The Change; there's a ghost element to Unlikely Animals (super excited about this one - the author is excellent, based on Rabbit Cake); there's a family curse from a Vietnamese witch in The Fortunes of Jaded Women that causes them to never find real love and always have daughters; and there's a fantasy element to the middle grade pick Amari and the Night Brothers (which I have heard very good reviews of). Finally, when cold and wet weather starts to arrive, what's cozier than something with Jane Austen-esque feels? Really looking forward to A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting, some regency era romance that sounds like it has the right amount of (not too much) steam for me.

One of my September TBR books would actually be perfect for October - with its Halloween setting - if only I didn't really dislike it...

Here's a full recap of my September picks, which I also did a bit unusually in that I picked a theme of "Agatha Christie inspired" for the first half of them. Only semi successful, as you'll see (probably doesn't help that Agatha Christie books aren't my favorite to read anyway).

• The Agathas: this YA book was my best selection of the Christie-inspired picks because it fell squarely into a genre I like - YA mystery that's investigated by the teen protagonists - and just added on the element of the main character being obsessed with Agatha Christie (and thus inspired to channel her and her detective characters when her former best friend dies). A solid YA mystery if you're a fan of Karen McManus or Holly Jackson - it's got all those type of elements of high schooler death (but the overall tone is not too dark), cold case brought back up because of it, rich teens behaving badly, main character with some kind of media/book obsession that drives their desire/ability to investigate (a la the true crime podcast angle in A Good Girl's Guide to Murder), and friendships forged across stereotypical peer group lines in pursuit of the investigation. ★★★.5
• Daisy Darker: this locked-room mystery inspired by And Then There Were None, in which Daisy's family is assembling for their eccentric grandmother's birthday, and while they are stuck at the house with no one being able to leave or come for the night because of the tidal patterns, they begin to die one by one... Decent concept for a family drama thriller, if only it hadn't been so tedious to read. The narrative voice (Daisy's) was just annoying to me, so it was going to be hard to redeem it, but then on top of it the characters kept doing/saying things that were inconsistent with how they had been described earlier, and the eccentric grandmother was just so weird that it felt like slapstick on top of a story that was trying (?) to be more thrillery. Maybe it needed a better edit? Rather disappointing BOTM pick - I finished it, but I was kinda mad that I did because the big twist/reveal at the end did not make up for the slog to get there. ★★
• Dead and Gondola: this is a cozy mystery that pays homage to Agatha Christie by setting the story in a (such amazing sounding - I want to go to there!) mountainside chalet bookstore run by a family with the last name of Christie who loves their random connection to the famous author in this way, because they love her work. And then it turns out that when a stranger comes to their tiny Colorado mountain town and winds up dead in the gondola that takes visitors back down the mountain to the main part of town, after he had burst in to their store's Agatha Christie bookclub. At first they might be suspects, but then of course they find themselves as sleuths... Cozy mysteries are not really my thing - part of the hallmark of them is that they are investigated by amateur sleuths, and I really prefer a detective procedural that has a bit more of a broody protagonist - but if they are your thing, I would definitely recommend this one. The setting added a double meaning to the "cozy" because the bookstore just sounded so delightful, and because there's a snowstorm going on in part of the story, so reading it when you're all cozied up inside in the winter would just feel lovely. I liked the three generations of women in the story and the small-town feel. Also of course for fans of Agatha Christie who like to nerd out on talking about her work. [I was sent an e-copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.] ★★★
• Olive, Again: after loving a follow-up in the Lucy Barton series recently I decided I needed to finally pick up this follow-up to Olive Kitteridge. In the same way as Olive Kitteridge, this sequel tells Olive's story through loosely connected vignettes about her, and about people in her small Maine town. Olive has that same sometimes hard to take rough-edged, no-nonsense approach to the world and the people she interacts with - but at the same time you can see the good in her, like when she's the one person in town to go visit a woman with cancer, or when she seems to somehow have the right thing to say to grieving people ("as the kids would say, it sucks") or know how to sit with them. There's hard things in this book, in what all of the characters are going through with strained relationships or loss or financial hardship - Elizabeth Strout is a master at capturing such human feelings that just make you ache for the humanity of it all - but then there's hope and love too. Also a lot about aging in this book as Olive nears the end of her life, and in it she finds some renewal, some regret, and some realities of physical decline that Strout doesn't shy away from. Oh and as a bonus: I never realized how much Easter egg treasures you get with Elizabeth Strout - maybe that's newer for her - but I had loved seeing in Lucy by the Sea the cameos from characters in her other worlds (the Burgesses, Olive), and this one delighted me in the same way. ★★★★
• Ariadne: if you're a fan of mythology retellings, especially ones that bring to light the overlooked stories (i.e. the women's stories) and have a feminist slant, I'd recommend this one! I didn't love it as much as Circe, but still a solid retelling in my book... It tells the story of Ariadne (what her life turned out to be after helping Theseus slay the Minotaur, the thing she's known for, but a story that tends to give Theseus the glory), but it also tells the story of her younger sister Phaedra, and their relationship. One of them marries a mortal hero, one of them marries a god, and both suffer, as women have done through the ages, the consequences of men's and gods' follies and failings. At the same time, you see their domestic life and also the strength they bring to difficult situations, and the choices/help they make that change the course of history for their cities and families. As with a lot of mythology, it's a bit hard to track the characters at first (does help if you've had some exposure to Greek mythology before), but once you get into it, it's basically a historical soap opera. In this one, the beginning part felt a bit rushed and Ariadne a bit of an annoying infatuated teen, so I wasn't sure how I'd like it, but I think that suits her character at the time - she really has to grow into herself and her power - and makes sense that the author is trying to tell the story of Ariadne as a person, beyond the one part of her life (the Minotaur) that mythology typically reports. When I have Circe as the first book of this type I read, a huge 5-stars from me, it's hard for others to live up, but I did think this one was well done and really sucked me in, and it did a great job of reframing history/mythology to see it from the perspective of the overlooked, the women. ★★★★.25

Did you read anything good last month? Or have any seasonal books on the docket for October?

five things Friday: September TBR edition

Summer reading season is on its way out perhaps, but reading is year-round event for me... so time to share my September reading list!

 

So I'm admittedly not all that into Agatha Christie, but I realized that I have three books on my shelf/Kindle inspired by her and thought I might as well theme my reading month a bit: Daisy Darker is a recent BOTM pick that is inspired by And Then There Were None [ack, spoiler alert - just finished while composing this post, and I thought it was a major slog and the big reveal at the end not worth sticking around for... sorry to say]; The Agathas is YA mystery where the characters draw on Christie's works to solve a mystery in their own town; and Dead and Gondola was sent to me by Netgalley and seems to be a cozy mystery set in a bookstore in which the co-owner sisters "channel their inner Miss Marple", so we'll see how that one goes for me (not usually a cozy mystery reader) - but kind of fun to discover these three books with similar inspiration on my shelves, but all in different genres.

To round out the month, since I might need something a little more hefty to sink my teeth into after the above, a couple of more literary picks that have been on my list for a while: Olive, Again (after reading and loving the newest Elizabeth Strout book last month, inspired to get to this Olive Kitteridge sequel finally!) and a feminist Greek mythology retelling, Ariadne (here's hoping I love it as much as Circe!).

 

And now a recap of my August list - which I rather enjoyed!

• The Lies I Tell: a satisfying entry into what I call the "thriller lite" category. There's great twists and turns but nothing too bonkers or icky (think recent books like The Last Thing He Told Me or The Love of My Life). This story about a con-woman going for her final long game and the reporter who is trying to expose her has just the right amount of twists and surprise, along with enough character development/backstory to understand where they’re both coming from, in why they would act this way with their lies and tricks - and to make you wonder just who is actually getting conned here, and what is the line between revenge and justice. Good girl power vibes too!. It reminded me of Janelle Brown's Pretty Things, with the exploration of how the con artist and the target actually end up in a friendship (?) and the reader has to wonder who, if anyone, is a villain here. Also reminded me of Joshilyn Jackson's Never Have I Ever.  ★★★★
• Tokyo Dreaming: the sequel to Tokyo Ever After, a YA book I loved - almost a cross between Princess Diaries and Crazy Rich Asians with a protagonist who is just a regular teen with middling grades in California who learns that her dad is the crown prince of Japan (and it also has the bodyguard romance element that I loved in American Royals). Great narrative voice, and just a YA delight in general. This follow-up continues the story and includes a love triangle, a bit of college application angst, and more of getting to know the royal family's relationships and history. All in all, pretty fun again even if it didn't have quite the novelty and tension (of the good rom-com variety) of the first. Definitely read it if you enjoyed Tokyo Dreaming though. ★★★.5
• Well Matched: another (loose) series continuation. This is a bit more open-door romance than I've been enjoying in general lately, but because I already know the characters and setting from Well Met and Well Played, I picked it up (they don't need to be read in order, but I think I did enjoy it more for knowing the characters already, since it does follow chronologically from the others). The character who gets a turn at romance in this one is single mom April, who has never really tried to connect to the community as she always planned to move away as soon as her daughter graduated. But when she enters into a fake dating scheme with local gym teacher Mitch, giving him a date for a family event in exchange for his help fixing up her house to sell, she of course starts to find herself falling for him and also more connected to the community than she realized... I liked that April's a bit older than the other protagonists in this series, and that she's the loner/introvert/party pooper type (as someone a bit anti-social myself, I connected with this, ha). Otherwise, it's a fairly standard romance but with characters and a setting I've enjoyed, so I was inclined to like it. ★★★.5
• Hollowpox: The third book in the Nevermoor series following Morrigan Crow and her training as a member of the Wondrous Society. It brings back all of my favorite characters (and setting - the magical and quirky Hotel Deucalion where she lives with her patron, the delightful Jupiter North, is just so great and inventive), along with a really well-paced exciting plot as Morrigan learns more about her personal "knack" (magical gift) while at the same time a disease is striking down Wunnimals (animals with human characteristics) in Nevermoor, causing mass panic, quarantines, and lockdowns. That part was actually super interesting to read in middle grade fantasy after living through the covid era, of what it's like to try to avoid and tamp down this disease that we don't yet know much about... You definitely need to read this series in order, but it's worth going back through if you like middle grade fantasy of the Harry Potter, etc. variety as so far each book has been better than the last in my opinion. ★★★★
• Lucy by the Sea: okay, I didn't think I was ready for a covid pandemic novel unless it was tangential, part of the background but not the focus (like in the thriller 56 Days). But in the hands of Elizabeth Strout and her beloved character Lucy Barton? I devoured a completely character-driven story that was 100% about the experience of being in lockdown in 2020. Basically, Lucy's ex-husband William comes to her and says that this Covid thing is about to get really bad, and we should leave New York City and go to a house I rented in coastal Maine. She reluctantly agrees, thinking it'll just be for a short time (didn't we all?), and the rest of the book follows their relationship as they live together in lockdown isolation, their worry about their adult daughters, etc. It felt reflective and honest and real, and I adored the appearances of other Elizabeth Strout series characters in this one too - fun surprises. Normally character-driven isn't really for me, but a few authors can make it compulsively readable and so relatable, like Ann Patchett (maybe even Emma Straub, a bit), and most definitely Elizabeth Strout (I've loved all of the Lucy Barton books in this regard too). I will grant, though, that these are all white women writing about lifestyles that I personally can relate to, so while I find them to be illustrative of life experience and thus really illuminating through the character's reflections, this won't be the fact for everyone (and also as relates to pandemic lockdown experience - I was isolating and barely going out like Lucy in this book, but of course the experience would be so different for an essential worker, etc.). I received a free e-copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ★★★★.5

Bottom line: several books in series here that I loved getting to continue with the characters, and I recommend starting them all, if you're into YA or middle grade or contemporary romance or great character/relationship-driven fiction...  Let me know if you jump in to any of them!

5 things Friday: August TBR edition

August already! Summer always has a way of flying by, doesn't it? I've done some good summer reading for sure, but while we're still getting to the beach I want to get to some good beach read type books for August:

The Lies I Tell is a thriller (thriller-lite? I hope - that's my favorite) that seems like it might satisfy in the way of Mother May I or The Last Thing He Told Me - beach perfection, in my opinion - from an author I've not read before. 

Very different but also excellent summer escape is YA romance with a royals + wanderlust twist, and I'm looking forward to picking up the sequel to Tokyo Ever After (loved!), Tokyo Dreaming. And though straight-up romance hasn't worked super well for me lately, I've enjoyed the others in this series that combines some of my favorite tropes + characters who put on a renaissance fair every summer (I mean, there's a contemporary romance series for EVERY interest, ha!), and I think I will enjoy the third installment, Well Matched, since I already know and like the protagonist.

I'm returning Hollowpox to the list after not getting to it in June, now that Hendrik and Peter have finished their read-aloud. This series is great, and middle grade is good for the beach if you're having to break focus frequently to watch kids...

And finally, the newest Elizabeth Strout came to me early by way of Netgalley. Though an author I adore, I wouldn't necessarily consider her top of my beach reading list - but the "by the sea" setting seems fitting for it, and I always love spending time in the world of Lucy Barton that Strout has created.

And for a quick recap of my July reading - which unfortunately was not quite as successful of a TBR as I've had lately... Luckily there are a couple of other books I picked up in July that were great: Marrying the Ketchups was a really enjoyable family dramedy; Flying Solo was a rom-com with a different type of relationship focus that I found refreshing; and Project Hail Mary was another not-my-genre success from Andy Weir - though too long, in my opinion (I'm not there for the sciencey explanations!), I was rather charmed by the plucky main character and the creativity of this space travel story.

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow: this one got a lot of hype in places I look at book stuff, and I did really enjoy the story of friendship + creative collaboration, and the really interesting and varied construction of the narrative, even if it didn't quite make it to 5 stars for me. It's the type of book that focuses on a subject (video games + their design) that you really don't need to have an interest in to enjoy the overall story; I liked how she used it as a way to explore the highs and lows of a creative relationship and what success and stress do to it - even if some of the video game nostalgia didn't quite land with me personally. The writing is great, and it's a pretty good mix of character driven + some plot, but it all comes back to the life-spanning friendship/creative partnership, and I think what I didn't love about the book was how much conflict was involved in that. Realistic, perhaps, but I just got a little tired at times of Sadie and Sam being mad at each other, maybe? Really liked the flashbacks to the early parts of their relationship and the banter when they were "on", loved the depth of all of the characters, and also adored the character of their third friend and business partner, Marx, so much. This is the type of book that could be recommended to quite a range of readers, I think - pretty broad appeal and feels unique/different yet still accessible, though admittedly it is rather long and takes a little while to get into a groove/get invested. ★★★★
• Joan Is Okay: very quick review because I didn't pick it up! Just didn't end up being in the mood for (what I think is) more literary/character-driven fiction.
• The Roughest Draft: interestingly, here's another one that is about a male/female creative partnership, and all the triumph and conflict that can come along with it - but since this is a romance novel, there's sexual tension too... the problem for me here is that these writing partners clearly had such a rift (and then have to come back together after 4 years of not speaking to write the other book they're under contract for) that they spend most of the time being mad at each other and I just didn't feel any care about them getting together, or believe that there was any real spark to their relationship or depth to their characters. Definitely no banter in their bickering, so it dragged a bit for me. I love a book with a literary world connection, but I found this one disappointing; if you want something in the romance genre that centers on publishing, read Book Lovers instead for a great rom-com, or read Seven Days in June for the more serious underlying issues + writer romance. ★★.5
• The Guide: Peter Heller is great at the outdoorsy literary suspense story - really good nature writing (lots on the rivers of Colorado and fly fishing in this one), sparse and lyrical prose, and slow build to some intense happenings. I really liked The River; this is a follow-up in that it has the same protagonist and takes place after the events of that book, but I don't think you have to read them both. In this story, 25-year-old Jack, trying to get a new start after being haunted by tragedy from his last river canoeing trip, gets a job as a guide at a gated, isolated fishing lodge in Colorado that caters to the rich and famous, giving them an idyllic nature experience. But within his first couple of days he sees and hears a couple of strange and disturbing things, and quickly the idea of the idyll is broken. Jack is a great character, stoic and so experienced in the outdoors that you really get a thrill through his skills of tracking and such, even if you're a bit of an indoor cat like myself. What really intrigued me about this one was the fact that this lodge is kind of a safe haven for wealthy vacationers from a "novel virus" that has been plaguing the country for a couple of years. A very interesting backdrop  because of some parallels to the Covid pandemic situation of course, but also the isolation due to the virus, the fears of the spread, and the ability of the wealthy to "escape" it all provides this undercurrent of tension that propels the story and adds to the overall slow-build suspense feeling. I'm not 100% here for pandemic books written about Covid, but explorations of it as an instigator for other happenings (like the thriller 56 Days) is really interesting. ★★★★
• I'll Show Myself Out: in this book of essays on "motherhood and midlife" Jessi Klein explores the experience of and (impossible?) cultural expectations around motherhood, particularly intersecting midlife, marriage, and life in a pandemic. I really liked how she took the literary concept of a "hero's journey" and wove it through the essays to describe how the mundane of motherhood, and the changes a person goes through in becoming/being one, are really this quest with challenges, humiliations, bittersweet moments, and of course joys. And there are some great observations about motherhood that I found myself nodding along with or highlighting - one that I feel like might be universal, but I hadn't heard spoken aloud before, is how the mother's brain can have whole and complete other trains of thought while simultaneously reading aloud books to their children (and even doing the voices and everything!). This is an amusing one - in general she is quite funny - and I appreciated these, just as much as the "big" ones that are feelings or doubts that mothers have - that are real and don't make them a bad mom to voice, and we need more permission to be able to talk about. In general the collection didn't land quite as well with me as her first book, but definitely a voice on modern woman- and motherhood that I appreciate and will keep following. ★★★

 

Any best books of July that you have to share? Here's hoping I actually stay on track with my August ones... so many new releases I want to get my hands on this month, like Kerry Winfrey's newest rom-com, and of course Taylor Jenkins Reid's new one too!

five things Friday: July TBR

Lots of "better late than never" going on around here lately... took me a while to find the time to put this  together, but I wanted to share my July 2022 TBR, and especially a recap of my June one, since there's some good stuff here!

For July, I'm looking for some good beach reading - stuff with plot, or stuff that can be read in small increments (like a memoir in essays). Very excited about Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow as Gabrielle Zevin is the author of one of my all-time favorite books (The Storied Life of AJ Fikry), so I picked it as my July BOTM selection. 

Then I've got a memoir, I'll Show Myself Out, from another author I've liked in the past, and I think this one will have funny and also thought-provoking things to say about motherhood; a rom-com with writer protagonists recommended by trusted source Annie of the From the Front Porch podcast, The Roughest Draft; a literary suspense, The Guide, by another author I've really liked in the past; and finally a novel, Joan Is Okay, that I got on a random kindle deal and looks to be an insightful and also funny portrait of modern life as an immigrant, medical professional, and as a 30-something. It has blurbs from Celeste Ng, Angie Kim, and Lily King, so that's definitely promising for me.

And here's a recap of my June reads:

• Seven Days in June: I love a romance with some depth (this looks at chronic illness, mental health, the foster system, and some issues of race, among other things), diversity, and a publishing-world connection. In this one, two authors meet again, years after their teenaged whirlwind romance imploded (mental health triggers here). Definitely not a rom-com, with some of the heavier issues it deals with, but there's still some great friend relationships and awkward situations that provide levity. You also get lots of publisher insider stuff, some steam, a dual-timeline, and also a parenting relationship that I liked seeing. Sometimes it's nice to get some slightly older characters in the romances, ya know? ★★★.5
• Nowhere Girl: I heard about this on Sarah's Bookshelves Live and was intrigued - while I don't read a ton of memoir, this had the sound of one of those stranger-than-fiction life stories. And indeed it did - Cheryl Diamond grew up in a family that was on the run, living with fake passports and always looking over their shoulders in case they needed to move on to the next place. It takes a while to figure out why this is, but that actually is an interesting narrative choice, because when she's talking about her younger years, she also doesn't know what the deal is. She just knows she loves her family and she needs to follow their "rules" to protect each other. There's some wild stuff in here that made me not be able to put it down, but also some trigger warnings for abuse (physical and sexual - a bit of icky stuff, but didn't make me feel too icky overall). The dynamics in her family with the father who has a domineering philosophy that's a bit outside of "normal" - along with the author's journey to realize that her family has some toxic traits and she needs to figure out how to get out of there - really reminded me of Educated, so I'd recommend this to anyone who rated that one highly. ★★★.5
• This Time Tomorrow: I love Emma Straub's work - often character-driven, but super readable and relatable with family dynamics that feel so real. This new book had more of the same, but with a time travel element thrown in... The main character starts out the book celebrating her 40th birthday while her dad is very sick in the hospital, but then she wakes up back in her childhood bed very confused, finally figuring out that she's somehow landed on her 16th birthday - and she gets to re-live having her dad young and healthy again. The book explores what it means to be an adult or to be "old" (some really spot-on observations I especially thought since I was actually reading the book on my 38th birthday and thinking some of the same things about how time is weird and it flies but that age is so relative - my parents were 38 when I was 18, and I have SUCH a different view of what these ages are now!); looks at where different choices might land us, as she goes back multiple times to that day trying to figure out how to "save" her dad in the present; and also shares a really lovely father-daughter relationship. I loved the parts the best when she was in her past self, with her current self's experience, and realizing a new perspective on her relationships, etc. as she spent the day with her dad and best friend. Plus they just had some delightful parent-teen banter. And the dad is a sci-fi writer, so there's some meta-stuff about writing time travel books too - fun. Not my favorite Emma Straub of all time, but an enjoyable one and one that would be great for discussion. ★★★★
• Portrait of a Thief: one of my favorite micro-genres is the art history mystery, so I was excited when I heard about this one. I'd call it a literary heist novel, in which 5 Chinese American college students are tasked with stealing from major world museums artefacts that were taken from an important but long-ago destroyed palace in China. The chapters vary among the 5 characters' perspectives, which takes a bit of settling into at first, but makes it interesting as you see how they figure out (partly by watching movies like Ocean's Eleven!) how to do their respective roles, as the hacker, the getaway driver, the art history expert, etc. It's not super fast paced, but any heist situation will keep a plot moving along - and also pace isn't entirely the point. There's a lot of exploration in it of self-identity (especially as children of immigrants, all of them trying to figure out who they are vs. their parents' expectations, and also what their next step should be after college), of a culture's dispora and what it's like to live as part of that, and then also lots on the philosophy of art history/museums, the colonization of art, and who should get to have/control artefacts. Some of the themes felt a bit repetitive or really overtly driven home at times (it is a debut novel, by a very young author, so maybe that showed a few times, though overall the writing was quite good I thought), but in general a really interesting read both in terms of plot and in terms of topics to discuss/consider. ★★★★
• Hollowpox: didn't get to read this 3rd book in the Nevermoor series yet because Peter and Hendrik are still finishing their read-aloud with our copy, but they're liking it!

These were all good, but I read some books in June that I loved even more - check out my best of 2022 (so far) post in case you missed that, and you can get all of my 2022 top picks in one place!

five things Friday: June TBR

While I've managed to find time for reading with some sick days at home, there hasn't been much time for writing, with the rest of my time taken up by Mr. Freddie - first with holding him for hours on end while he was feverish and a bit miserable, and then with playing and strolling with him when we were feeling better but still in our quarantine period. So the June reading list is arriving late, but I'm excited about my reading plans for the month (hopefully some of it will now happen at the beach!!):

Good variety of stuff for the month here... First, Seven Days in June is a well-reviewed romance with depth that I got on a Kindle deal a while back and have been saving for this month, because with a title like that, it just seemed right, of course. And also I'm always interested in one that is set in the publishing/writing world. 

Then I've got some contemporary fiction from the always-reliable Emma Straub with her new release, This Time Tomorrow, and then a bit of a genre crosser with Portrait of a Thief, which sounds like it will have elements of a thriller novel + immigrant identity/experience. I love books with an art history twist, and especially a heist so I'm very intrigued by this one. Speaking of thrill, the memoir Nowhere Girl sounds like one of those stranger-than-fiction type of life stories (the subtitle is A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood, so I feel like that says a lot...). It was well reviewed on Sarah's Bookshelves Live, so I'm intrigued and it's time to finally get around to it (another Kindle deal snag).

Finally, I'm hoping that Peter & Hendrik finish up their evening read-aloud of Hollowpox, the 3rd in the Nevermoor series, so that I can have a turn with it; I read the first installment of this fantasy middle grade series last summer and enjoyed it fine, but then I got around to picking up book #2 last month and now I am IN - what a fun and interesting read it was, and now I'm very eager to pick up #3!

And as for a recap of my May books: I read all of them and enjoyed to varying degrees - Olga Dies Dreaming joined my top reads of the year list so it was definitely my best of the month, aside from How to Find Your Way in the Dark, a 5-star read for me.

• The Murder Rule: I really love Dervla McTiernan's Cormac Reilley series, so I was excited to see she had a new book coming out - but a little worried that like Tana French's initial foray outside of the detective series I love her for, it might be a little disappointing to me. In this case, it was and it wasn't: while my general preference is for a detective procedural, this is a bit more of a psychological twister (but not crazy twisted) with a legal aspect - but in the end that combination ended up coming together for me. The book starts with Hannah transferring to a new law school in order to try to join their chapter of the Innocence Project and work on a particular high-profile murder appeal; it's clear that she has ulterior motives having to do with something in mom's past but unclear at first exactly what that's about. As her chapters alternate with diary entries from her mom's teenage years, it gradually becomes clear what the instigating event in her mom's past was, and what it has to do with the case that Hannah is trying to sabotage. It took me a little while to get into because I found Hannah and Laura both kind of unlikeable/annoying (partly as a rule follower I have trouble with stories about people being duplicitous!) but then the twist partway through the book got me both very interested and more sympathetic to Hannah, and I was hooked by the end. The latter part also had more of the legal investigative/courtroom type thriller than the psychological, and I was more interested in that part. So in the end, a solid read, and I can see a lot of people enjoying it. E-copy received from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ★★★.5
• Friends and Strangers: J. Courtney Sullivan's writing is the kind of very readable East coast/dysfunctional family/motherhood character study that doesn't have tons and tons of plot but feels really relatable and somehow unputdownable. This one is about a new mom, Elisabeth, who has moved out of NYC to a suburban area, her husband's hometown, and is struggling with a bit of an identity crisis in all this change, and with not knowing anyone in her new neighborhood. To try to get back to her writing career she hires a babysitter from the local college. Sam is a good girl who comes from small-town Midwest roots, unlike a lot of the prep school elites who are her classmates. She seems really ready to grow up and have an established life, but she definitely still has some of the immaturity - in both carefree fun and also some shortsightedness - of a college student. I found it really fascinating to see the ways these characters quickly developed a close relationship, and how they perceived each other's lives with a rosy tint, which was colored by their own current hopes/dreams/frustrations - especially so because I have been on both ends of this, as a babysitter going to other women's homes in college, and now in motherhood coming full circle and hiring local college girls myself (and always wondering how OLD do they think I am?!). Lots of it (minus some of the racial issues, but still including issues of privilege and power dynamics) reminded me a lot of Such a Fun Age, with the mom/babysitter relationship, and some of the (occasionally squirm-inducing) connections that Elisabeth tries to have with Sam, in her loneliness and her attempt to reconnect with her younger years. Also reminded me of books like Meg Wolitzer's The Female Persuasion, with the female friendships and college-to-grown-up transitions - and also the very compulsively readable character-driven fiction. ★★★★
• Booked on a Feeling: a rom-com with a bookish title and setting is always something I'm game to check out. This one has the childhood friends-to-lovers trope, which I enjoy for how well the characters know each other's history and hopes and dreams, but there's a lot of angst about ruining a friendship that can get a bit tiresome to me. In this particular one I enjoyed the banter of the old friends + the checklist-loving protagonist and her project to help out a struggling indie bookstore while she's on leave from her law firm for a mental health break, and I also enjoyed all of the food and cooking references, particularly to all of the delicious-sounding Korean food their families make. An enjoyable read for entertainment, but not one that particularly stands out to me among the rom-coms I've read lately. E-copy received from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ★★★
• Olga Dies Dreaming: at its core, this is a sibling story - a sister and brother of Puerto Rican heritage whose activist mom left them when they were teens to become a sort of fugitive revolutionary, and how this has shaped their lives and career paths as a wedding planner for the rich and a congressman and their sibling relationship. They're in their 40s now and haven't seen her since that time, and they just hear from her from time to time in letters critiquing their life choices. The characters are really well done - flawed for sure, but you can see where Olga and Prieto are coming from and still hope things turn out despite some of their iffy (and sometimes illegal!) choices and their self-destructive tendencies in romantic relationships... I loved the scenes with their larger family, the clear love for each other and strong connection to their area of Brooklyn; both the family relationships and the scene-setting felt vivid and real. And their mother, though physically absent in almost the entire story, is still this larger-than-life figure in their recollections of childhood moments and through her letters, which I thought was just one really well done aspect of the writing overall. What I liked even more than that about the writing: beyond being just a character-driven dysfunctional family story, there's actually a decent bit of plot pacing and suspense in the politics (you get some Russian mob types, some scheming wealthy people blackmailing congressman Prieto, even some FBI agents looking for info on their mom), all set against the backdrop of Hurricane Irma and the devastation it brought to the island. This all made the story extra engaging - though admittedly I was a bit confused at times regarding the Puerto Rican politics and US policies, a clear indicator of my own lack of knowledge. I'm still thinking about this one a couple of weeks after finishing, so my waffling on whether to put it at 5 stars may end up bumping it up! ★★★★.5
• The Verifiers: this is described as a contemporary, digital-age whodunit, and it was fun/intriguing/clever, for something a bit different in content and in tone from anything else I've been reading lately. Claudia Lin is a queer, Chinese-American 20-something (this all plays into the story) who gets a new job as a "verifier" for an online dating agency, checking into whether how people represent themselves on dating apps is accurate. When a new client goes missing, Claudia secretly goes against her employer to try to investigate - but it's hard to know what's fact and fiction when it comes to who people are behind their user names, and whether anything sinister is actually going on... The overall sort of modern/snarky tone and attitude of the protagonist and family issues and sleuthing actually reminded me a lot of Magic for Liars, so definitely recommend this one to fans of that one (see my review here); and while the tone is very different (not thrillery or romancey) it also reminded me a bit of books with a focus on online matchmaking apps like John Marrs' The One or even a little bit Christina Lauren's The Soulmate Equation. The mashup of (immigrant) family expectations drama + meta-mystery (as an amateur sleuth Claudia keeps thinking about what the star of her favorite cozy mystery series would do) + exploration of the online matchmaking concept and how the online age affects our personal/relationship choices made for an interesting read, though one I had to pay more attention to perhaps than I expected with a "fun" mystery to get what was going on. ★★★.5

What was your best book of May? Got any great beach/pool reads on the docket for June?

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five things Friday: May TBR edition

My May reading selections are about clearing off the shelves - a most delightful type of spring cleaning - in both the literal and figurative senses. Here's what I've got:

First up the actual physical shelves - because pre-orders and podcasts have gotten me interested in sooo many things lately, I've ended up with a bit of a pile-up on my shelves, and I'd better make sure to clear it a bit before May releases come, as I know I'm going to be very tempted into some (especially Emily Henry and Emma Straub's new ones). So I'm planning to pick up the contemporary fiction/family drama Olga Dies Dreaming, and the contemporary, digital-age whodunit (intriguing!) The Verifiers.

Then there's the figurative shelves of my Kindle; scrolling down to the bottom of them I spotted Friends and Strangers, which I had forgotten all about. Really liked this author's earlier book.

Finally, my Netgalley "shelves" have a few pre-release e-books to get around to reading and reviewing: the bookstore rom-com Booked on a Feeling (such a sucker for these), and a stand-alone psychological suspense read by one of my favorite Tana French read-alikes with The Murder Rule (really like her Cormac Reilly series; we'll see about the standalone, since I've felt mixed on Tana French's foray into those...).

As mentioned earlier this month, I've been a bit laid up with a stress fracture and actually some bonus wrist tendinitis to go with it, so in the interest of rest, there's been more time on the couch and off my phone/computer... and thus more time for reading! So I got through all of the April list plus a bunch of others (best of the others were both middle grade reads: Frankie & Bug and Pony, quite different examples of coming-of-age stories but both excellent!).

• In a New York Minute: this one has a classic rom-com feel in the plotline and storytelling, but set in the modern social media age: the book opens with our heroine's day going from bad to worse when she gets laid off from her job and then gets her dress caught in the subway train doors... her awkward meet-cute with the guy who offers his suit jacket to cover her now-exposed backside goes viral online, but they are so clearly (wink, wink) not each other's type. In the classic New York City style, they keep having these missed-connection moments, running into each other . And as with a great classic rom-com, the side characters and their friendships are great, as is the general banter and the feeling that you're just dying for the couple to get together but love the journey along the way, and the New York vibes are strong. Pre-ordered it without really knowing anything about it because I love Kate Spencer as a podcast host and wanted to support her, and was delighted to find the type of rom-com I've been craving lately - very cute but not too steamy. ★★★★
• Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead: this is the second in a series, and I had so much fun with the first that I pre-ordered the second. The first book, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It (review here), is this great mashup of comedy and mystery and mommy fiction, in which a single mom gets mistaken for a contract killer and is asked to do a job - and all of these wacky circumstances come up in which she ends up with dead mafia members in her minivan... Kind of like the Netflix show Dead to Me in book form where there's serious stuff going on but it's all done to comedic effect and with various plot cliff-hangers/twists that totally shake things up. Very fun. The second book is more of the same, with Finlay and her nanny finding themselves even more embroiled in the contract killing/mafia scene after they notice someone has put out a hit request on Finlay's ex husband. I enjoyed my time reading it, but I have to admit that sometimes it got a bit exhausting, the hapless scenarios coming up over and over, thinking how is Finlay going to get out of THIS one, and then on and on. It didn't have quite the novelty of the first one, and a little less of the commentary on what it's like to be a single working mom. So I'd say still a fun escape if you want something totally different, but be ready for some slapstick.  ★★★.5
• The Secret to Superhuman Strength: one of the 2022 RAD Reading Challenge prompts is to read a graphic novel, which reminded me of this book that I had once heard a podcast interview about and was intrigued by. It chronicles Alison Bechdel's personal journey with exercise/fitness and how has worked into her personal life/career/struggles/quest to find meaning in life, along with the cultural significance of various exercise/fitness trends over the decades and also the history of these mindsets, brought on by romantic poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth, or writers like Jack Kerouac. It's more memoir and more philosophical than I expected; I liked how it delved into her life, but I admit to kind of skimming some of the philosophical/historical bits. So I had maybe the wrong expectations about content, but I really like her composition style, and this makes me interested in looking at some of her other work, which is of course very well known, but I haven't ever read anything else by her. ★★★
• Bomb Shelter: another pre-order without knowing much about it, because I adored Mary Laura Philpott's essay collection I Miss You When I Blink so much. While I didn't like this new one quite as much (I felt VERY seen in her first, both in terms of personality and life stage, plus I thought it funnier), I absolutely would still recommend it, especially to moms. Mary Laura uses a health crisis for her teenage son to explore how we deal with worry over the unknown, and how we keep going in spite of not knowing for sure what's to come next. With various anecdotes and reflections she touches on parenthood, continuing to grow up after you've reached adulthood, and the meaning of life - all with honesty and humor. She's a very talented memoir/essay writer; in this one I really noticed some through-lines that would come up in different stories that I thought really tied it together and gave it a nice arc, like the theme of a bomb shelter (literal and figurative), or turtles showing up various times and places (hence the cover). Also really appreciated her overall tone of hope and optimism; she doesn't shy away from the reality of the hard things about life, but figures that if we've got to be here on this earth and deal with the hard things, we might as well see the best in what we can, and do our best to live a life of love. ★★★★
• The Donut Trap: this was actually a started but didn't finish for me... The blurbs purported feels of Frankly in Love, which I adored, with the main character navigating immigrant parents' expectations (especially having to do with romantic relationships) and balancing trying to live their own life. Plus this one is a family that owns a donut shop - cute, fun, yum! Except unfortunately I just could not bring myself to care about the main character or find any interest in her burgeoning relationship. There was no sparkle, and unfortunately for the protagonist I think it's easy to just find this age of character annoying - some of her foibles and moments of finding herself might be cute or feel appropriate if it were a high school-aged character, but in a character who is a recent college grad it just felt like she was being immature at times. So I put it aside at about 40% through so I could pick up something I was more excited about. Oh well, you win some and you lose some when it comes to the random Kindle deal purchases.

What was your best book of April? Or anything you're really excited to get to in May?

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five things Friday: April TBR edition

Hendrik starts spring break today, but with Peter on call there's no vacation in the works for our household - which means no beach reading. But if I were going to do some beach reading, here's what I would want to bring... so let's make it April's TBR list!

First up in what I would love to be reading poolside (but know I will also really enjoy as an escape from my own home): some rom-coms. I pre-ordered Kate Spencer's In a New York Minute without even knowing much about it, as a way to support one of my favorite podcast hosts, but then when I started seeing reviews of it popping up recently I got even more excited about my copy's arrival, because it sounds like it is an excellent foray into the classic rom-com genre, exactly what I need right now. The Donut Trap is a random Kindle deal I bought, partly based on the comparison to David Yoon's Frankly in Love, which I loved, and the "sparkling" descriptor. That + donuts, sounds good to me! 

Then I've got a fun mystery, with the 2nd installment of the Finlay Donovan series; the first managed to be a romp yet not too over-the-top, so I've got hopes for the second, for some more humor along with satisfying twists and turns. Also looking for some humor but with satisfying reflections about life and parenting/adulting in Mary Laura Philpott's new memoir-in-essays, Bomb Shelter, that I also pre-ordered and am so excited to receive this month. Her first, I Miss You When I Blink, was a favorite read of mine a couple of years ago.

Finally, since one of the categories of the 2022 RAD Reading Challenge is a graphic novel, I'm inspired to finally pick up The Secret to Superhuman Strength, which I heard some interviews about when it came out a couple of years ago, and I was intrigued as someone who likes to exercise a lot.

Now for a March TBR recap, in which my selection of floral-ish covers to satisfy my longings for a spring that was not yet happening in chilly Michigan turned out to also satisfy longings for some excellent reads!

• A Place to Hang the Moon is my 2nd 5-star read of 2022 (couldn't be more different from my first!). This middle-grade novel follows a trio of orphaned siblings who lose their grandmother right as schoolchildren are being evacuated from London in anticipation of German bombing, with the idea that maybe they'll luck upon a family that could be their new permanent guardians. Of course, they encounter some not-so-nice families, but they also meet a lovely librarian and find shelter in the local lending library. If you're getting some Narnia vibes with the siblings being evacuated to the countryside, that was a clear inspiration for the story both in terms of plot and overall feel/themes (one of the siblings in this book is even named Edmund in homage); it also is a great pick for those who loved The War That Saved My Life, though it's a bit gentler, perhaps - it has more of the tone and narration feel of the Narnia comparison, and I loved that classic feel of the writing. I just adored the characters, their love of books, and the overall richly-written, heartwarming story about family and love. ★★★★★
• We Are All the Same in the Dark is a literary mystery that I heard about on the Currently Reading podcast, and I was glad because this one had completely missed me when it was published a couple of years ago - and it satisfied that craving I always have for my next well-developed and atmospheric but not too scary/gory mystery that has a strong procedural thread and a lead detective with a backstory that gradually unfolds in light of the current mystery (I'm not asking a lot, am I?!). This fit the bill on all counts! I also liked how in addition to police officer Odette trying to solve the cold case from her teen years - and readers beginning to realize that she has more of a history with the situation than let on at first - I liked how we also got the perspective of Angel, the girl in the present-day mystery whose appearance is bringing the cold case back to light. Also liked the true crime elements of the story, with the cold case being featured in a new documentary, and seeing what that does psychologically to the people involved and their small town. I'd say pick it up if you like Jane Harper or recent literary mysteries like When the Stars Go Dark (similar pacing) and We Begin at the End (though this one is a bit more procedural perhaps, the strong pre-teen girl character gave me some similar vibes, as well as the hometown sheriff's kid taking over the job and trying to solve the enduring mystery from the past that has shaped their life and their town's). ★★★★
• The Bodyguard is quite a satisfying rom-com, especially if you enjoy the tropes of fake dating and of celebrity/regular person dating, or even better, the niche forbidden love sub-genre of bodyguard and client dating (think Tokyo Ever After, perhaps) - which I do! In this one, Hannah is a bodyguard whose newest assignment is to cover famous actor + People's sexiest man Jack Stapleton when he returns home to his family's Texas ranch during his mom's cancer treatments. And of course, to cover the fact that she's undercover, they've got to fake a dating relationship - which turns into a friendship, and more... I loved that the bodyguard of the title is actually the woman - always fun to read a rom-com with people who have fascinating jobs, and even better when it's this unexpected twist of a lady who can take down bad guys. I did take issue a few times that in the interest of the comedy part of the rom-com, she sometimes came off a little silly (like shrieking about a cow coming close to her window) and it took away a little from the bad-assery that was supposed to be part of her character. In general, the style/tone/level of steam reminded me of Abby Jimenez' excellent series, or even a bit of Kerry Winfrey's work in that it's more of a true rom-com than a steamy romance - characters who are thrown together with a very awkward meet-cute and a bit of almost slapstick humor, but they are still also dealing with some deep personal issues, in this case Hannah's recent breakup and loss of her mother that she's still coming to terms with, and Jack's grief and guilt over the death of his younger brother that led him to step away from acting for a while. There's definitely plenty of banter and chemistry and building sexual tension throughout, but nothing open-door about it, and the whole time you are just DYING for them to for-real kiss and rooting for this couple to happen, even if they seem mis-matched at first. So if you like a classic rom-com, definitely pick this one up when it publishes in July! [I received a free e-copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.] ★★★★ 
• Thanks for Waiting is a memoir of coming of age late to the game - and a reminder that it's okay to do life on your own timeline, whether that's your first kiss, your first house, or your first kid. I picked this one up because the author is the (other - see above on In a New York Minute) co-host of the Forever35 podcast, a favorite of mine. So I feel like I know Doree's voice quite well (literally and figuratively!) and thus enjoyed these reflections on her path into adulthood, from single, career-pursuing life in NYC in her 20s/30s to meeting her husband and having her first child after infertility struggles, and finally feeling like she found her true career calling, in her early 40s. Even if I didn't 100% relate - after all, I'm one who was married at 21, not exactly late to "grow up" in some of society's terms - I really appreciate any perspectives of women whose path is "different" and any conversations about how and why we have particular expectations of how a woman's life is supposed to look, in the interest of changing the mindset. It's nice to be reminded that you can come of age at any age - the possibilities are still open in terms of career and life! Also an interesting memoir for people who are fascinated by behind-the-scenes of professions, particularly New York City media jobs (magazines, newspapers, culture sites like BuzzFeed in this case), but I personally found the sections on fertility and motherhood most compelling. ★★★.5
• Lift is a short little volume by one of my favorite memoirists, Kelly Corrigan, written as a letter to her children that reflects on the emotional "hazards" that we willingly go into in order to have the great joy of having children. I love her writing - it's always funny and honest, even if it doesn't reflect perfectly on her own thoughts/actions (which I appreciate - nobody's perfect!) - and this definitely had the writing and tone I love from her, but I think I was hoping for more of an encouragement in parenthood, where I am right now... rather than remembering how scary and fraught some of the decisions and situations can be when you imagine the worst (like how she reflects on what it was like for her cousin to lose a teenage child, or what it was like to have her own infant daughter admitted to a children's hospital for meningitis). I did appreciate the reality and the vulnerability and certainly relate to the feelings, so I guess I liked it? But if you've never read Kelly Corrigan, I'd first recommend Glitter and Glue or Tell Me More, which are both great reads and have a lot to impart about life and parenting and more. ★★★

Have you read any of these yet? And do you have any 5-star reads yet in 2022 to pass along to me?!

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five things Friday: March TBR edition

I've been craving spring, but March in Michigan doesn't usually oblige... so instead I'm going with spring-ish covers on my reading list for the month! Some florals and green and butterflies all caught my eye - plus this seems like it'll be a great mix of reads, from memoir to mystery to middle grade.

I've got two non-fiction this month - unusual for me, but the authors and the happy covers are enticing me: Lift was actually a random library grab from an author whose previous work I have loved, Kelly Corrigan; it's written as a letter to her children and sounds like a balm I might need right now in motherhood. Thanks for Waiting has actually been (ahem) waiting on my shelf to be picked up, a memoir by a favorite podcaster.

Mystery and middle grade have been regular parts of my reading life lately... for this month there's We Are All the Same in the Dark, which I have actually already picked up and it is gooood. Just the kind of literary mystery with mix of character development + procedural - secrets being uncovered that I'm always looking for. And A Place to Hang the Moon has been on my radar for a while; a WWII evacuation story, I'm getting Narnia and The War That Saved My Life vibes. Good and heartwarming things - looking forward to cozying up with it while I wait for spring to come.

And finally, have to throw in a bit of rom-com to the month too - I received The Bodyguard from Netgalley and hope it'll be a good escape, though I have had mixed success with Katherine Center (loved Things You Save in a Fire but was meh on What You Wish For). I'll report back and let you know whether it's worth picking up when it publishes in July!

I made it through all of my February books and enjoyed them for the most part. Definitely will be recommending The Maid to a lot of people, and David Sedaris' diaries to people who are fans of his. Here's a recap of everything:

• The Maid: this book is a "cozy" mystery in that it is a whodunit murder that is being investigated by characters who are amateurs rather than police - and isn't graphic or super suspenseful. With the grand hotel setting and the upstairs/downstairs feel with the maids and kitchen workers behind the scenes and the brash, rich guy being murdered in the penthouse, it would be a light and fun read. But the narration of Molly the maid makes it so much more. I've seen comparisons to Eleanor Oliphant for Molly, and I think these are apt, with her difficulty connecting with others, her loneliness, and her narration slowly revealing some repressed traumas; it also reminded me a lot of When We Were Vikings, another book with a protagonist with cognitive differences who loves her job but doesn't quite understand some things going on beneath the surface and thus puts her trust in the wrong people (or even the much more thriller-y version, Sally Hepworth's The Good Sister). Molly is a great narrator for a mystery because her way of seeing the world is so black and white that she notices everything - but she also makes it interesting because with her difficulties in understanding nuance in expressions and things like that, she's also a bit of an unreliable narrator. At the same time, Molly's literalness and keen observations lead to some wit and some chuckles, and her love of being a maid and cleaning is conveyed in such an endearing way. It's hard not to fall in love with her and root for her to solve the case and to find some friends along the way. [Received an e-copy from Netgalley in return for an honest review] ★★★★
• Winter Counts: much less cozy here - instead this is a gritty literary mystery set on a Native American reservation and starring a character who takes justice into his own hands on behalf of those wronged, since the justice system is so hands-off when it comes to the reservation. But when his nephew gets caught with drugs and is offered a plea deal to go undercover as part of a federal sting operation, Virgil has to reconcile that on the one hand he wants to protect his nephew and also protect his community from the influx of opioids, but on the other hand this requires working with federal agents and having his nephew be a snitch, in order to get to the bottom of what's going on and who is actually bringing the drugs in. If you liked Blacktop Wasteland or Razorblade Tears, this has some of the gritty feel with the protagonists skirting the line of the law as they try to protect or get justice for their family (but a bit less violent overall); also, if you liked the YA book Firekeeper's Daughter, this is in some ways the adult version of it - lots of similar elements with the undercover drug investigation on the reservation, and the half white/half Native characters trying to figure out where they fit into their community and what their tribe's traditions and beliefs mean for their own lives. I really loved Firekeeper's Daughter and liked the elements that Winter Counts shared with it, but overall this one felt a bit slow to me and then somewhat disjointed when the reveal of the mystery happened fast at the end. ★★★.5
• A Carnival of Snackery: the 2nd installment of David Sedaris' published diaries, this book is fun for longtime fans of Sedaris and his work, but not necessarily something to pick up if you haven't read his other books. If you do like David Sedaris, this gives a peek behind the scenes into his life, from everyday life with Hugh to travels for book tours. It's just little snippets of life, so you can read it a little at a time; there are lots of observations about the strange or absurd in the everyday, or even just records of jokes he hears, that he picks up from neighbors or people at his book signings - you can see in action his constant curiosity about humans and how the way he observes the world leads to his essays. I enjoyed reading the 1st installment of his diaries (Theft by Finding) even more, because covering the earlier years was interesting to see his as-it-happens reaction to finding his way in the world and slowly gaining success as a writer (which happened relatively later in life) and in figuring out his identity as an individual and as a gay man; this all gave it a bit more of a story arc. But both have their laugh-out-loud moments of course, and I also thought it was so interesting to see little mentions of current events across the years, in relation to the things happening in his everyday life. There are lots of funny tidbits but also some really poignant moments in his personal life and in his reflection on news items like school shootings, etc. ★★★.5
• Bringing Down the Duke: Annabelle Archer is one of the first women admitted to Oxford in the late 1800s, but as the daughter of a (deceased) vicar with no inheritance to her name, she needs a scholarship to be able to attend. In return for this scholarship, she's required to help out with the burgeoning women's suffrage movement, and a pamphlet-distributing assignment leads her to run (literally) into Sebastian, the Duke of Montgomery with the ear of the queen but no desire to hear out the movement. From their run-in, things develop in ways you might expect in a romance... I have to say: the more I read in the romance genre, the more I realize I need to find the ones that are more slow burn and less steamy - honestly, I find the love scenes just distracting from the story when they get so hot and heavy already in the characters' first encounter. I was interested in these characters and their progressiveness for the time, and in the bit I learned about women's suffrage in England, but then the romantic scenes just took me so far out of that part of the story when they popped up, and actually felt like they impeded character development so that I didn't really end up connecting with the characters that much or feeling swoony over their relationship. I probably won't continue in the series, but I know a lot of romance readers really love this one, so if you like reading period romances with some interesting women and a feminist twist, check it out. ★★★
• A Taste for Love: here's a less hot-n-heavy romance - picking a YA one is usually a safe bet for that! The blurb for this one said it's for fans of Great British Bakeoff and Jane Austen - definitely tempted me to pick it up! - but what I didn't realize is that it's actually a Pride & Prejudice revamp involving a Chinese bakery, a youth baking competition, and a mom trying to set her daughter up with the contestants. Lots of mouthwatering food descriptions all the way through, for sure. And I'm always a sucker for a P&P retelling, so I did have fun with it, especially as I think it uses a cultural setting that works well to modernize a story in which who you date/marry is of big importance to - and can involve lots of meddling from - your family (in this case with an Asian American family). I also enjoyed how it incorporated modern-day YA themes of finding identity in relation to your parents/their desires, especially with this interplay of immigrant vs. first-generation, reminding me of other YA books I've loved like Frankly in Love and Super Fake Love Song. But overall not my favorite YA book or P&P retelling - just felt a little long and perhaps convoluted at times, with some parts feeling like they were trying to be P&P retelling, some parts (like the bake-off setup of wacky contestants) feeling a little forced into being comical. ★★★

Have you read any of these? Or have any other best books from the last month that I should add to a future TBR post?!

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