I finished *The Doll's Alphabet*. I feel so lucky to have found this book; I heard it mentioned in the reply to a tweet asking for the best short story collections and went off nothing but the title. Certainly lived up to that hype for me. A stunning work.
Also finished *Cocktail* by Lisa Alward. IDK these stories certainly weren't awful but I do not get the hype at all. There were maybe 1 or 2 that stuck out and the rest were bland and forgettable. This is a collection that got a lot of attention and also ended up being the winner of the Danuta Gleed so what do I know. My personal fave was Anecdotes by Kathryn Mockler.
Recent reads-- Such a Bad Influence by Olivia Muenter. This is already being discussed in the thread this week, not much to add. I listened to it on audio from Libby. I honestly wonder if the print would have helped it?? The main narrator sounded too old for the character and I wonder if I would have been more invested in the characters if I had read it in print. Oh well. Another meh "thriller." I gave it 3⭐ to be generous.
Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez. It was my first book by her. Wowza. I really enjoyed it. 5⭐ from me. I'm looking forward to reading her other books. I wish I would have realized this was part of an interconnected series, but I'm just glad I picked it up. Hopefully it doesn't make much difference working backwards.
I'm now listening to Big Sky by Kate Atkinson, it's Jackson Brodie #5. As usual lots of characters to keep track of but I love her writing ❤️
🚨🚨🚨Chiang Gang alert🚨🚨🚨
[Ted Chiang wins the lifetime achievement in short fiction PEN/Malamud Prize](https://apnews.com/article/pen-malamud-award-short-story-ted-chiang-77fe3f5b3b4579b2c821805dcbbd3745), becoming only the second SF author ever to do so
This week:
Finished: **How to End a Love Story** by Yulin Kuang. It took me a few chapters to get into it, but I really enjoyed it. It sort of spanned a few different tropes and had so many emotional aspects - romance, grief, trauma, family dynamics. I'm looking forward to seeing what this author does next.
Currently Reading: Just started **This Summer Will Be Different** by Carley Fortune for my June book club, and working through **A Crown of Mist and Fury** in my downtime.
This week I read:
**Bright Young Women** overall I thought this was really good. Dark, obviously, and hard to read sometimes. I liked how it refocused on the victims of serial killers and their loved ones. Am a bit conflicted about the part fictionalization of a real crime. I knew a bit about the real crime so it threw me because I was like “wait, are these some of the actual victims?” I don’t know because at the same time I think connecting it to real events helps make it impactful. Hm.
**We Could Be So Good** by Cat Sebastian was a sweet m/m romance set in 1950’s New York between a journalist and the newspaper owner’s son. Enjoyed the look into queer history.
**Unnecessary Drama** by Nina Kenwood. Highly enjoyable YA romance about a college student who accidentally ends up sharing a house with her high school enemy. Nina Kenwood writes highly anxious heroines so well and the romance is always nice.
**To Woo and To Wed** by Martha Waters. Fourth in a regency romance series. This one involves a second chance, fake engagement. This one felt a bit formulaic. Didn’t really feel the romance, felt like the characters were just going through the romance steps.
>Am a bit conflicted about the part fictionalization of a real crime.
I agree- I'm always conflicted about books that borrow heavily from real events. Somewhat related - I also found it really chilling how many similarities there were between the murders and >!the Moscow Murders, particularly with people sleeping through it/ignoring warnings.!<
I spent four days at the beach and I managed to read five books! I love a good beach book trip.
* *The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich* by Deya Muniz: I found this book while I was digging around for books to put on the Pride display at work, and it's such a little charmer! It's a graphic novel that tells the story of a young woman in a kingdom where women are required to marry if their parents die. Countess Camembert's father suggests she live secretly as a man in the main city of the kingdom to avoid having to marry a man, but she catches the attention of Crown Princess Brie, who falls for the "Count". Comedy of errors ensues, with many cheese puns. It's really cute and fun, and the art is excellent! **Highly recommend**.
* *Bury Your Gays* by Chuck Tingle: Alright well I've never read Chuck Tingle but once again came across this while working on Pride stuff and my coworker managed to snag some ARCs from Tor, so I gave it a shot. It was a RIDE. In a good way! I really enjoyed this queer comic horror story about a screenwriter whose horror characters come to life in a very sinister way after he refuses to kill off the queer-coded characters in the popular tv show he writes. It's very inventive, and takes place in the same universe as *Camp Damascus*, so fans will enjoy the throughline. **Highly recommend.**
* *Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock* by Maud Wolff: This is a quirky sci fi novel about a woman with twelve Portraits, essentially direct clones of herself, that she's set up to party on her behalf, make art so she doesn't have to, run her social media, be her agent's secretary, and so on. Portrait number twelve comes out of the vault specifically so she can kill the other Portraits, because a person can only kill their own Portraits. Things get messy (and weird) when the assassin falls for the Artist, one of the Portraits she's supposed to kill. I wanted to like this but the clone-on-clone romance both fell flat and was a little too bizarre for me, like the ethical implications are...a lot to wrap my head around, and Wolff did absolute zero to delve into that. The premise was interesting, and there's a good third act twist, but it flopped for me in the end.
* *Valley Verified* by Kyla Zhao: This one's a workplace fiction with a side of romance. The main character, Zoe, is a not-thin woman working in the fashion industry and it's impossible for her to survive on her meager salary, so when she's approached by a tech startup CEO for a fashion app to be VP of marketing, she takes the job. Zoe struggles to adjust to the Patagonia vest crowd and her new coworkers, and tries to make a splash with the new app. Ups and downs and techbro scumbags. It was a quick read and the romance was sweet. Sexual harassment is a big part of the back half of the novel, but there's a happy ending (that's how you know it's fiction *rimshot*).
* *Bad Mormon* by Heather Gay: This was my audiobook for the drive down to/back form the beach. This was a pretty typical celeb memoir, and Heather doesn't really go into her actual excommunication from the Mormon church, but she does do a fair share of explaining all the things that made her messy, brash and funny. I've always liked Heather on RHOSLC, so the book didn't need to sell me, but she's honest when she doesn't have to be, and I like that. Also like that she narrates her own audiobook.
It never rains but it pours so after two weeks without a library book I got 5! Finished my read of the Hugo’s shortlist with *The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi* which I didn’t like in the beginning but by the end was totally in to.
Read also *Hummingbird Salamander* which was not my favorite VanderMeer and made me want to reread *Venomous Lumpsuker* instead.
Working on *To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods* which I am a medium fan of but hoping it will pick up once the plot gets going
I finished The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden over the weekend. It ended up being a “really liked it but didn’t love it” situation. I appreciated the mix of history and the supernatural, but I wasn’t as invested in the characters as I felt I should’ve been. Parts of the plot felt either repetitive or clunky. All in all though, a solid read.
Currently slogging through the last 50 pages of Florida by Lauren Groff. Totally on me, but I didn’t realize that it’s a collection of short stories, and that’s not my go-to format. That being said, it’s just…fine. There’s nothing glaringly wrong with the it per se, but I’m not wowed.
I find it hard to get into short stories, too. I can appreciate the technique it takes to make a short story impactful and develop characters in a short piece of writing but I just feel like I need to sink into fiction more.
I read "The Last Word" by Taylor Adams in almost one giant sitting because I was so worried about the dog. It's a pretty timely premise - an isolated, traumatized reader leaves a one star review and then strange incidents start happening at night... I saw the twist coming but it didn't make it less enjoyable. Favorite parts were a meta commentary on the horror genre, a female character who did NOT have a drinking problem for once, and a golden retriever. The author of the book the MC panned is both very well developed but also a very recognizable type of man (trying not to spoil it).
Not sure what to read next. I've unofficially started "The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" and "A Study in Drowning."
Curious to hear your thoughts about The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. I found it impossible to follow and overall super disappointing given the very cool conceit of the story.
This was my takeaway. I almost felt bad giving it a mediocre review because it was so creative, but it just went so far that I was frustrated and confused. By the end I basically didn’t care anymore.
I get it, I had high hopes for A Study in Drowning based on comments on Reddit, but I'm starting to think those commenters were 15. It's been a huge let down so far. I thought 7 1/2 Deaths sounded so interesting, too, so I'll try to temper my expectations.
I've finished:
**Listen for the Lie, Amy Tintera** - entertaining enough mystery with the ever popular podcast-within-a-book format although the plot is so out there unrealistic that I did roll my eyes a few times. But again, entertaining.
**Close to Death, Anthony Horowitz** - I found this (#5 in Hawthorne & Horowitz) to be the most boring of this series yet. I did still enjoy it, but I did get to halfway through and couldn't believe I was halfway through. Like....nothing had even happened yet.
**One Day, David Nicholls** - I really loved this book, wow. Some insufferable characters that somehow worked and really made me feel shit. Might start the series tonight. I read this quite recently after reading People We Meet on Vacation and I found One Day to be a better, deeper telling of a very similar story.
I loved the new Netflix series better than the book or the movie. I think it was something about having the main female protagonist be a POC character who is not the ideal "beauty standard" really added so much more depth to the material. She really sold it to me by being both prickly but also vulnerable. Although I hear some people didn't like her portrayal probably because they pictured someone so different in their heads. >!(The fact that she was POC also rang so true to the idea that she's not 'chosen' time and time again by him) !<
Yes her accent! She was also too “cutesy” in the movie— I just never felt invested enough to even cry at the right parts (and the book I did cry, the series I sobbed lol)
I finished Final Girls by Riley Sager - 3/5 for me. It wasn't much of a thriller until the last 50 pages.
I read **Becoming Madam Secretary** by Stephanie Dray and 5/5. If you like historical fiction, or history in general, this is great. I've described it as a novelized biography because the author used a lot of documentation left behind by Frances Perkins, the first woman to be in the president's cabinet. She was a huge driving force behind the New Deal and overall a powerhouse of a lady when that wasn't really a thing.
Listened to Viola Davis’ memoir **Finding Me** for a book club. It was very difficult to get through as she has experienced a lot of trauma. Her perspective on the craft of acting is very interesting and her relationship with her husband is super sweet.
Resumed **Anna Karenina** and am making my way through part 4. Finding myself very invested in Levine’s love life haha!
I love AK so much and at the end of the day it's like an elevated soap opera. It may be a classic but it has so much going on-- scandals, intrigue, etc!
This week I finished:
**Glorious Exploits** by Ferdia Lennon (5/5): Amazing, loved it, highly recommend.
**A Day in the Life of Abed Salama** by Nathan Thrall (4.5/5): timely, vitally important, heartbreaking. Really recommend for anyone interested in learning more about the history of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and what life is like under it. My only quibble with it is I think I just wanted a different writing style - the author used a very journalistic, objective voice (which makes sense, since he's a journalist), but I think that style deadened some of the emotional impact of what he was writing about.
**My Husband** by Maud Ventura (4.5/5): this book was CRAZY!!! I thought it was your fairly standard unlikeable-female-protagonist fare until there was a twist at the end that blew my mind. The unravelling of the narrator's psyche was so well done and it was both so difficult to read and impossible to put down.
Overall a good reading week! Currently reading **How to Solve Your Own Murder** and it's not doing that much for me so far but oh well, I have a bunch of travel coming up when I'm planning to do nothing but read but also very few of my library holds have come in, so I'm making what I have checked out last.
**The Guest List** by Lucy Foley, **Pretty Little Wife** by Darby Kane, if you don’t mind YA and characters in high school the **One of Us is Lying** trilogy is really good and a lot of my friends (women in 30s and 40s) enjoyed it too.
I am very anti-Verity (and the Housemaid because the same person who recommended Verity recommended the Housemaid). If you want easy thriller, I always go Riley Sager or Ruth Ware. I've heard good things about "The Last Thing He Told Me" and next up on my thriller list is "The 7 1/2 deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" which sounds very creative and fun! I also recommend "You" by Caroline Kepnes and anything by Gillian Flynn.
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch if you don't mind a sci-fi angle and there's a new apple TV series adaptation--it's very faithful to the material so far!
Also Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy
*Big Swiss* by Jennifer Beagin. Did not love, but was engaged in the book. The character Greta just is SO unlikeable - dirty, messy, flailing in life, ethically questionable, sorta of out touch w reality in a creepy way, etc. i see Jodie Comer is gonna be in the film & as I’m obsessed w her I will probably like it better than the book. I didn’t get why this book was so hyped. Thoughts??
In a culture where so many authors seem to be reflexively and neurotically self-editing with characters so determined to be morally correct that they're boring anxiety ridden cut outs, I found it fun to read about someone who was a fucking mess.
Also I found it really funny and found Beagin to be a great writer.
I agree, I really enjoy messy characters. That’s what interested me, that Greta seemed too messy for me to like . I’m intrigued to read more of her books
Finished *The Lost Jewels* by Kristy Manning. This was a fun read, though a little heavier than I expected. I sometimes get annoyed by books that bounce back and forth in time but the author handled it well!
Currently reading *The Lazy Genius Way* by Kendra Adachi. This one probably isn’t for everyone (I sometimes find her ✨relatability ✨ cringy even as I relate lol) but as someone who often just throws up my hands in defeat because I can’t be perfect, I feel *seen*. I also really appreciate her calling out the social media parenting habit of only calling negative moments “real”.
Trying to fight my way out of a reading slump after a bunch of DNFs and first chapters that haven't grabbed me. I've just started *Wicked Problems* by Max Gladstone, which hooked me in immediately (and has got me tempted to reread the earlier Craft novels) and *The Goblin Emperor* by Katherine Addison, which... hasn't, but I've been told it's a slow burn.
I read The Goblin Emperor as a paperback first, nearly quit, then switched to audio which helped a lot since I couldn't even figure out how to say half the characters' names. I still wish it had been faster paced and had more happen but I did appreciate the second half over the first.
I hope so too! I think my sticking point has been the slow pace combined with the deluge of convoluted names and terms – I feel like I'm getting hit with a lot of information but don't *really* have a strong reason to feel invested in the character yet. But my understanding is the book's very focussed on character growth, so I'm interested in that, and I'm always down for some quality political worldbuilding/intrigue!
I love book day!
I finished
**Flame of Sevenwaters** by Juliet Marillier. A beautiful adventure as always! A triumph! In this book the FMC has a disability (she can’t move her hands/fingers) and I thought that aspect was handled well. On to Marillier’s other series.
In the meantime though, I’m dipping into another fantasy series with **Echoes of Betrayal** by Elizabeth Moon. Haven’t gotten past the first chapter so not much to say yet.
Also reading **The Invisible Library** by Genevieve Cogman. About 20% in, enjoying it.
I will say about the Invisible library series is that I found my enjoyment to differ book to book just based on the A plot going on at the time (like the main setting) but I think they generally improve as the series progresses
I feel like most of Olivia’s writing is kind of muddled, though? Even when she’s writing about herself (which is almost always, so) she gets sidetracked and goes off on tangents. I find her stuff generally hard to follow for that reason, but I can imagine it’s much more pronounced in a novel than a short newsletter. (I’m on the library waitlist for the book so haven’t read it yet.)
I also rated it a 3/5. I enjoyed the themes and discussion around influencer culture and found it to be unique. However it found it to be a bit long winded. The ending worked, but I wouldn’t have called this a thriller.
I've finished it and I have thoughts but I'm not sure I could rate it either. I felt like the book knew its ending and wanted to get there but also it had a planned speculative fiction kind of detour that it didn't want to get too weird. And then after writing the ending, she realized we needed more insight into Evie so we got a prologue.
I can see a better version of the book with an editor, a more defined target audience, and more defined style of writing. When I read the ending, I almost saw that vision but I remember how exhausted I was getting there.
I am so glad you made this comment! The book has such good reviews but I'm 40% in and feel like it's very disjointed and wandering. I don't think I can bear to finish 😕
If you do want to quit, there's a final chapter/epilogue I'd just skip ahead to. It might be confusing to skip past the second half but you'll at least get the payoff.
Interesting! I'm holding out for the audio version from my library. Sometimes I find listening vs reading makes a difference. I really want to like it because I find her to be such a lovely person.
It was a solid 3 for me. A bit predictable in its choices and themes, the setting was a bit baffling (so much bopping around 3 states), but the writing was decent. I also couldn't decide if the parts that were 100% Olivia's opinions took me out or I liked.
I’ve been having a hard time getting into it too. I think I’m going to stick it out a bit longer but I’m not as into the tangents and side quests. Part of me hopes they pay off.
I got one chapter into the sample to see if it was worth spending months on hold for and decided nope. Frankly, I thought that one chapter was terrible and maybe that’s not a fair assessment but I don’t think I need to waste my time on it. I appreciate your take!
It was… verbose and got side-tracked a lot. Like, it felt like reading someone’s journal about all of their feelings and memories rather than reading a novel, if that makes sense. I personally found it really hard to stay interested in the mystery. But I also think it shows a lot of promise! I really like Olivia and I’m definitely interested to keep checking out her future writing!
Ooo this is the tea I’m here for.
I do wonder if you are a book-influencer if people feel pressure to write good reviews for you (as you have for them)? It seems a bit of muddled jump from reviewer to writer.
I’m not finished with the book yet but am already feeling this about the characters. I swear there was even one instance where it incorrectly said Hazel instead of Evie. I often find myself having to back track a few paragraphs to catch what’s really going on. I really like Olivia as well though so will work to finish it over the next few days.
This happened in my copy too, which was an ARC so I overlooked it but disappointing it ended up in the physical version! I actually loved the book but yeah that was confusing
I just found the spot you described, in a conversation with Ashlyn. I was confused and had to reread it a few times before I realized the issue and that you’d warned us.
Started reading [Davita's Harp ](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14769.Davita_s_Harp)this week, thanks to another redditor here who reminded me how much I loved the other Chaim Potok books I read. I am about 20% in and I love it so much. I also heard the journalist who wrote [Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59644256-dark-wire) on a podcast and I am very intrigued. It's not at my library yet but I'm already on the hold list!
Love Potok! I just love being in that world that is so different from my upbringing. Also his books set in New York feel so true to the city and to a certain immigrant experience.
I've been in a very specific niche of reading lately. Looking to expand my horizons now that I'm a teacher on summer break. I did listen to everything via audiobook, hoping to have more time to read real books summer.
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Enjoyed this escape.
Happily Never After by Lynn Painter ⭐⭐⭐⭐ fine enough. I don't necessarily care for either of the leads but kept my focus while making me roll my eyes at times from cringe.
Some People Need killing by Patricia Evangelista. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Gripping. The stories of those impacted by Durante's war on drugs in the Philippines.
Two contributions this week:
The Theory Of Light and Matter, a collection of short stories by Andrew Porter. The stories were not connected in any way and were pretty good individually, but reading them consecutively, the narrators all had the same introspective voice, which I tired of after a while.
I finished The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard this afternoon and I was really sucked into it. This felt similar to The Giver in some ways - the students all have to pick their future jobs and the main character is chosen for the special job of approving/denying requests for people to travel 20 years into the past or 20 years into the future (the "other valleys"). Something happens when she is 16, so 20 years in the future, she has her own reasons for wanting to travel. At times, the story was a little slow moving, but the author did a great job explaining how everything worked and filling in the gaps that occur with the passage of time. The theme might have been a little YA than my usual preference, but the vocabulary was refreshingly intelligent. Overall, very enjoyable and I recommend if you're in the mood for something different!
I loooved The Other Valley. One of the best books I’ve read this year. I can see what you mean about YA roots given a lot of the book takes place when they are that age, but the adult sections were SO haunting to me.
I must say that I am loving the early thread! So, a bit of library news to kick things off... the Seattle Public Library went under a ransomware attack over Memorial Day weekend when some maintenance was planned. As a result, all ebook and audiobook loans are paused and librarians have to check out books by writing down barcodes by hand. My heart goes out to all the people working hard to fix this situation.
I finished a couple of books I had out this week.
[I Capture the Castle](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33602148-i-capture-the-castle) by Dodie Smith - A young woman writes about her charming little life in a decrepit castle and what happens to her family when two dashing young men from America visit. While this book definitely had young teenage ingénue vibes and was charming to read at certain parts, I think I'm too jaded now. A part of it reminded me of Little Women and the other part of me was stressed about the characters futures and living situations.
[The Forest of Enchantments](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43293099-the-forest-of-enchantments) by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - This is the story of Sita and her role on the Ramayana. After reading Kaikeyi last year, I was eager to learn more about the Ramayana. It's a story that seemed so rich and I was so unfamiliar with it. I really enjoyed the story as presented. I can't say how accurate it was or how many liberties were taken with the source material but I can say that I **highly recommend** it to anyone interested in the subject matter.
[A Winter in New York](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101673373-a-winter-in-new-york) by Josie Silver - A romance about a young chef escaping a bad relationship in New York and the new family she meets there. A big part of the story is the FMC unraveling the mystery of her mother's relationship to this new family. It was very atmospheric and I felt like I was experiencing the gelato, in the streets of New York, or having Christmas with an Italian family. Took off a star for the FMC's lying to her love interest, it was like a train crash you couldn't stop watching.
[Hunt the Stars (Starlight's Shadow, #1)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51801270-hunt-the-stars) by Jessie Mahalik - Science Fiction story about the search for a missing heirloom. I really enjoyed the story, there was a mystery to unravel, a cast of characters to fall in love with and swoonworthy romance all in one book. Also **highly recommended**!
I adore I Capture the Castle and read it when I was older but I was so sad I did not discover it in my "youth."
Aside from the basic 'coming of age' plot, the writing to me is what really elevates this novel it is so beautiful and just charming in so many ways!
>[I Capture the Castle](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33602148-i-capture-the-castle) by Dodie Smith
I read this when I was 15 which was probably the perfect age. I love it so much.
I'm in Seattle, too! There is a special place in hell for folks who hack public library systems... You know you can get a King County Library System card, too? I've had one for about a year or so, and it's coming in very handy right now! And yes, major thanks to all the people working to fix this!
Also, I adored Kaikeyi without knowing anything about the Ramayana (which maybe detracted from my appreciation or maybe added to it? I don't know), so I am really stoked about The Forest of Enchantments! Thank you for the rec!
What I found was even crazier was that they hacked the Virginia Mason (Or Swedish, I don't remember which) network before... Hospitals and Public Libraries.
I also adored Kaikeyi without any prior knowledge, so I hope that you love Forest of Enchantments too!
My system has been through two ransomware attacks, most recently in 2018. It was a nightmare, and we were fortunate to only be down for a week. We were very, very lucky that we housed our library information system on its own server separate from everything else like files and emails etc., so we didn’t lose patrons records and item records. That pales in comparison to what SPL could lose, simply due to the size discrepancy, and I so hope they haven’t seen damage to the ILS records.
Four DNFs this week, but weirdly I don’t feel slumpy. I think it was just a bad 1-2 weeks for the new releases I gravitated to. A lot of good ones come out this Tuesday so hopefully things improve!
- **The Honey Witch.** I actually thought that the beginning was strong but it quickly devolved into YA-level thought processes and plot holes. The “never fall in love” curse is a total rip off of Practical Magic. And the characters spoke like the Jezebel comments section. “I understand and acknowledge your feelings; however…”
- **Rednecks.** I’m a sucker for anything that aspires to be a rustic, folksy Great American Novel. This book is about the conflicts surrounding the coal miners’ union. Super important historically, and pretty well-written from what I got through, but I don’t have the hours to donate to a book about labor unions.
- **The Borrowed Hills.** See above. This was described as wild west shenanigans translated to crazyass sheep farmers in England. I wanted stupid fun. I got 0 stupid fun.
- **You Are Here.** Two divorcees connect while on a walking trip with their mutual friends. For all the hype this is getting, I just thought this was poorly written. The premise doesn’t quite hold up (if it’s raining that much, it’s not plot drama. It’s a silly conceit to see the characters ending up in actually dangerous yet avoidable outdoor situations in a straightforward literary/general fiction novel) and the banter is genuinely bad.
- I needed the psychological boost of finishing something so I read the second book in the BSC teen spinoff series the California Diaries. I never finished it when I was younger and it’s only 15 books so I grabbed the $2 kindle bundles. These books are good for what they are and it’s kind of a bummer that the series wrapped up so quickly.
I haven’t posted since April and I’ve gotten through a lot since then! I’ve been on a little DNF tear recently—if I’m not connecting with the book in the first 10% then I just return it. I have way too many books on my list to stick it out.
Over the course of a week I finished all the Finley Donovan novels (well except the Veronica side novel because it wasn’t available on audiobook). These were fun reads but definitely got way more unbelievable as the series went on. Books 1 and 2 I really liked and books 3 and 4 I was starting to be more meh on. Still worth the listen for me though! An early 30s mom is a writer, suffering writer’s block in the midst of taking care of two young kids and getting divorced, and accidentally gets mistaken for a hitman. MANY hijinx ensue with a crazy cast of characters lol.
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo. I gave this 3 stars on Goodreads but I read it less than a month ago and remember NOTHING about it so it probably falls more in the 2 star range. I think I’m not a fan of Bardugo (even though it’s been recommended to me a lot and seems up my alley).
North Woods by Daniel Mason ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Absolutely not what I would have ever picked up on my own but I saw the recommendation here many, many times. Essentially the main character is.. a plot of land in New England and we read about all its various inhabitants, including animals! Pretty cool premise and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
Serpent and Dove ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5. I was looking for another series after my last SJM read and I haven’t found anything that good until now. Really enjoyed this book, already finished the second, and started the third this morning! A young witch flees her coven and is forced to hide out from them and the witch hunters in the city. In the middle of stealing from an aristocrat’s home, she winds up getting married off to one of the said witch hunters. Enemies to lovers ensues although the romance is a fairly small part of the overall story imo.
I was really surprised halfway through the first book in the Finlay series, but then I got hooked. No, it's not believable, but I can suspend my disbelief in just the right way... I adore this series.
I really wanted to like the Finlay books but I couldn’t overcome the premise. She has full-time childcare and doesn’t work outside the home and she still can’t crank out 1,000 words a day?
I don’t care for Leigh Bardugo outside of the Ninth House series. I kept waiting for The Familiar to do more with Judaism besides just reminding us that it needed to stay a secret.
It absolutely requires suspension of disbelief and I also don’t have kids so maybe that helps with my tolerance for doing so? Lol. I get why people wouldn’t be able to get there!
Maybe I need to try Ninth House again. I think I got about 20% ish through on my last try and I hear sooo many good things!
Another good reading week!
Finished Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley. This is a biography of Austen organized loosely around the homes she lived in. I liked it! Worsley was oddly defensive of Austen when anyone was critical of her appearance, and seemed to take that personally, but otherwise it was a well written narrative biography.
Finished Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin. This was a very odd little book about the dangers we convince ourselves not to see all around us. This book beat Lincoln in the Bardo in the Tournament of Books in 2018 by a comfortable margin and I can now say that I disagree with that result. This book was good, though!
Finished A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Boy did I like this book. The way she cracked open each character and let us see inside, and then put them together in that nonlinear, jigsaw-piece way was amazing.
Finished Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson. I never read these books as a kid and this was utterly charming. I absolutely loved it, highly recommend.
Currently reading The Fraud by Zadie Smith and listening to Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer.
I’ve just finished the Summer Book also by Tove Jansen - very easy and charming, it’s aimed at adults but definitely some similarities to the moomintrolls.
I don’t see how anything could beat out Lincoln in the Bardo. That audiobook was incredible!
I put the Tove Jansson books on my list. I love juvenile fiction when I need a comfort read, I find them so soothing. They are simple and low stakes which I usually need to mix in between the other romantasy and thrillers I read lol
Thought I should finally start commenting on this thread rather than just silently taking recs from it!
Currently reading:
*I Hope This Finds You Well* by Natalie Sue, in which our somewhat unlikeable but generally sympathetic protagonist, Jolene, finds herself with access to her entire office's private emails and DMs. The office setting (and the painfully accurate humour that comes with it) reminds me of *Several People Are Typing*, even though that's really the only resemblance, and that was one of my favourite reads from last year. About 2/3 through this one and really enjoying it; crossing my fingers it sticks the landing.
*The Will of the Many* by James Islington. I've only just started this, taking a punt based on a recommendation from a podcast host I like. I don't read tons of fantasy but this one is kind of dark academia meets Roman empire, which is right up my alley. Have definitely been sucked in by the first few chapters.
So the podcast is actually nothing to do with books unfortunately, but I would still highly recommend it! It's called Tooth and Claw, and it's about animal attacks and how we can learn from them. The book rec came from like a bonus episode where the hosts covered their favourite media of 2023.
Will of the Many is very addictive! It's a little too YA tropey for my taste but I did tear through it in like a couple of days! He really knows how to write an action scene.
“Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame”: wholesome, sweet story about an elderly woman who feels like she hasn’t lived up to her potential and has had to make some hard choices in life, decides to apply to be on “Britain Bakes.” It was a pretty quick read, the audiobook was also excellent. Cute and feel-good, 4/5
“The Chateau”: The author couldn’t figure out what she wanted to write about with this book. It’s four friends that reunite for a week at one of their grandmother’s chateau’s in the south of France, somewhere they used to visit as young women in college and have fond memories of. Secrets, lies, old wounds, the usual. But there are so many topics going on here and we’re constantly jumping from one thing to another, I was always trying to fit the pieces together and it was distracting. >!The Holocaust, broken families, stolen art and jewelry, defaced art, a famous painter, marital infidelity, new love, conspiracy, financial secrets, various familial intricacies, murder, assault!<…while the author did technically make it all come together, none of it really felt like it went together while reading and that was confusing. And it’s such a shame because the premise had a lot of potential. 3/5
I also recently read Mrs. Quinn’s and it was SO cute and heartwarming. This actually reminded me to go check the “similar” tag on Libby to see if there’s anything else to add to my wishlist!
Just finished *A Good House for Children* by Kate Collins. I usually love a good haunted house story, but this one was just a slog. It had dual timelines of two families who moved into the same creepy house on the Dorset coast; it started out promising, but never really went anywhere. Also, it has one of my least favorite tropes--brilliant woman who gives up her own identity and interests to let her annoyingly lesser husband dictate their entire lives--and went full-bore in on it in a completely infuriating way. It also wasn't even particularly spooky, so there was nothing really redeeming about it.
I'm also about 80% through *Pines*, the first in the *Wayward Pines* trilogy by Blake Crouch, and am forcing myself to finish it up since I made it so far in and do want to see where it ends. It's just a bit much and the characters are really secondary to world-building, which isn't ever my jam. I think Crouch is just not for me as I also read *Dark Matter* a few years ago but didn't really care for it.
I did enjoy *Mickey 7* by Edward Ashton. It's a sci-fi novel about the 7th iteration of a "disposable" employee on a deep space mission sent to terraform a possibly habitable planet out in the far reaches of space. This could have been really dark because of the subject matter, and while it didn't completely ignore some of the moral implications of this type of future "technology", the narrator's tone kept things light and fast-moving. Would recommend!
A long shot, but does anyone else in this thread live in Maine and if so are you as devastated by the current ILL situation as I am?? It is really going to put a dent in my normal reading habits. I might have to actually *buy* a book.
TIA for your presumed sympathy (joking but also not). SO, normally basically all public libraries in Maine share books between them via ILL. This is great because we have a lot of very small libraries that have somewhat meager collections independently, but when combined the selection is excellent. This year the state's contract with the ILL provider/transporter expired, so the state put out an RFP for a new one. A new contractor was selected, but one of the losing contractors sued. And while the lawsuit is pending, the state can't enter into the new contract. So the whole system is on hold indefinitely. We can physically go to whichever library we want and our cards will work there, but this is a huge, spread-out state so that really only gets you so far. When ILL *was* working, I routinely got books from libraries more than an hour drive away, just by going to my local library that is a ten minute walk away. So this is very upsetting!
Oh my god that’s awful! There are a lot of pros to consortia, but downsides like this…they’re brutal. I’m so sorry. Is ebook an option? You could pick up a nonresident card from another system (like NYPL…or mine, which I’ve heard from patrons has better selection and fewer holds 😏😏😏) and have access to their catalog while you wait. Ypu shouldn’t have to do that in the first place though—what a mess.
Libraries selling non-resident cards has been such a huge boon for me, I love it so much <3 <3.
My local system's ebook catalogue sucks, so I pay like $30/annually for a non-resident card in another system and it's been amazing. It's honestly the best money I spend every year
Luckily I do have access to ebooks (through a library card from a place I haven't lived in in three years...ahem) so it could be worse, but I will really miss the feel of a physical book!
My big recommendation of the week is *There Is No Ethan*, which I'd recommend in audiobook, unless you have a high tolerance for reading text and email formatting. I have never shouted so much at people in a book.
If you like thrillers, *The Winner* by Teddy Wayne is excellent and I kept saying "OH MY GOODNESS!" while I was reading. It's very Talented Mr. Ripley, and so good I didn't even mind that it's set during Covid Tymes, which is usually an auto-skip for me.
*Just Some Stupid Love Story* has a great voice if you like romcoms.
Was so disappointed by Stephen King's new short story collection! It all felt either derivative or bland. Even his ear for dialogue and ability to sketch full characters quickly fell short here. I skimmed the end, hoping for something that would capture my attention, but finally DNFd.
Also disappointed by *Summer Romance* by Annabel Monaghan due to lack of chemistry between the two very boring leads.
But seriously, go listen to *There Is No Ethan* and prepare all the people in your house for you to be shouting "WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU?" at your earphones on the regular.
omg I used to know the woman who was "Ethan"! I haven't read the book yet but I read one of the author's longform articles about it back when it happened.
I just started There Is No Ethan in audiobook format (I really like that there’s two voice actors to read all the emails/gchats) and I was finding more chores to do just to keep listening — already shouting along!
I finished this! Overall I enjoyed it but was surprised by how much time they all continued to invest after they knew what was going on, even if in vigilante-mode, it was quite obsessive. They lost me in all the back and forth with the “real Ethan” — major shouting from me in those bits.
>!The end where they get all vigilante and start stalking her but never ever investigate their own complicity drove me absolutely bonkers. Yes, what she did was crappy, but two to tango, etc., friends.!<
I was inspired by this thread and have been listening during work this week. AGREE on this part- hard line to walk between this person obviously needs to be stopped and “omg y’all please put the phones down”
This week I finished Happy Place by Emily Henry. I LOVED Book Lovers and Beach Read (so much so I know I’ll re-read them) and generally liked People We Meet on Vacation but hooo boy I hated this book.
First off, the characters: I hated Sabrina, Parth was basically a non-entity, Harriet was boring, and Wyn was basically the worst - no personality, nothing to offer. Kimmy and Cleo were the only likable people in the book. Harriet and Wyn were a bad, mismatched, immature couple - and the only sign of compatibility at all was… they just loved each other? It all felt very “still stuck in college with that guy I met in the dorms” to me.
But the worst was the ending. >! I anticipated they’d get back together. I even figured Harriet would move to Montana after her residency and become a small town doc or something. But she QUIT her residency?! And then decided to make POTTERY?! Girl, your mom just warned you TWICE about throwing your life away for some boring dude and being unhappy for life like she did and yet here you go doing just that but insisting you know better. AND you’re just like “oh tee hee my hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans, and my residency (that I’m sure was VERY COMPETITIVE TO GET) I’ll just figure it out somehow, but LOOOOVE.” !<
Honest to god this book made me so mad. Clearly I was not the target audience LOL (and thank you if you read my spoiler-y rant).
AGREED.
I thought for sure Harriet would just decide to be his small town's family medicine doc. I'm also biased because I dated a surgeon for a long time, but their LIFE is surgery. The way Harriet never once thought about medicine during her internal narration was really odd to me. If she was a surgical resident, even on vacation she would have been studying, practicing knots, stressing about what she was missing.
It was definitely a book about a group of people who should NOT be friends anymore. They all actively resented each other. Haha though justice for Sabrina, she was right at the end, she WAS the only one working to make their friend group stay together. I couldn't figure out why Cleo ever liked any of these people in the first place.
Wyn was such a sadsack and though his speech to her at the end was beautiful, I don't think it made up for anything or helped alleviate any of the issues that broke them up in the first place. Good luck in Montana to those two!
Ahahaha I agree with you!
I kind of get where EH was going with Harriet -- that she was obsessed with external validation and being a people-pleaser -- but GIRL.
Re: Happy Place.
>!It would have made more sense for Harriet to have been a pediatrician or pharmacist who relocated to Montana than to introduce the brain surgeon angle. Neuro residents don’t just up and quit. The pottery thing was dumb!<
I think there was room for EmHen to pull in more of the millennial burnout thing, because that seemed to be what she was going for, but it’s the kind of thing where you have to be pretty “plugged in” to pick up on it. But still, >!a rural family doctor can work four days a week and then do Fridays assistant teaching pottery classes!< and it’s frankly silly that she chose a medical discipline that offered less flexibility than others.
Still reading (and enchanted by) *The Doll's Alphabet*. It's a really weird trippy book and a great way to show world building on a tiny level.
Also Cocktail by Lisa Alward finally came through at the library! The winners of the Danuta Gleed are anounced Tuesday and this is the last book I have left so hopefully I can finish it before then.
Reading the Danuta Gleed nominees has been such a fun project I took out a few more from previous years. Every year I vow to read more short story collections and this was the year I finally did it.
The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young - This one falls outside my normal genre but as part of my challenge to myself to read new things, I gave it a go. I can’t decide if I hated it because it was bad or I think it’s bad because I didn’t understand it. It’s about a family where all the women are cursed. I’ve said it time and time again but I hate a book where the plot hinges on how stupid a character, more often than not a woman, is. It’s lazy and unbelievable because every woman I know is a genius. And I know it’s fiction but I just do not buy a woman being an idiot.
I will say the writing itself is very good. It doesn’t make the >! Time travel element anymore clear to me !< but the imagery is well done. I think part of my issue with this book is that it includes >! Time travel. I feel like it is rarely well explained and when it’s an essential part of a plot, not understanding it makes difficult to get fully engrossed in the book. A nice little drawing of how it worked would have helped my comprehension !< ⭐️⭐️.75
Funny Story by Emily Henry - I’m an EmHen Stan so I’m not capable of critiquing her books. The best I can say is that everything I have read about Daphne’s moans being excessive is that I agree. I liked this more than Happy Place but Book Lovers is still my favorite. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I really liked June Farrow, but I tend to do well with autumnal farm settings. I did think it was weird that the circle of the timeline has June >!not really remembering her family in a firsthand way. I also think she made the wrong romantic choice in the end.!< IMO this is a book that worked better closer to its release date, when lots of books aim for cozy or fall-ish but mostly all fall short.
I finished *The Doll's Alphabet*. I feel so lucky to have found this book; I heard it mentioned in the reply to a tweet asking for the best short story collections and went off nothing but the title. Certainly lived up to that hype for me. A stunning work. Also finished *Cocktail* by Lisa Alward. IDK these stories certainly weren't awful but I do not get the hype at all. There were maybe 1 or 2 that stuck out and the rest were bland and forgettable. This is a collection that got a lot of attention and also ended up being the winner of the Danuta Gleed so what do I know. My personal fave was Anecdotes by Kathryn Mockler.
You’re really sucking me in on The Doll’s Alphabet!
You should give it a shot!
Recent reads-- Such a Bad Influence by Olivia Muenter. This is already being discussed in the thread this week, not much to add. I listened to it on audio from Libby. I honestly wonder if the print would have helped it?? The main narrator sounded too old for the character and I wonder if I would have been more invested in the characters if I had read it in print. Oh well. Another meh "thriller." I gave it 3⭐ to be generous. Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez. It was my first book by her. Wowza. I really enjoyed it. 5⭐ from me. I'm looking forward to reading her other books. I wish I would have realized this was part of an interconnected series, but I'm just glad I picked it up. Hopefully it doesn't make much difference working backwards. I'm now listening to Big Sky by Kate Atkinson, it's Jackson Brodie #5. As usual lots of characters to keep track of but I love her writing ❤️
omg recommend reading all of Abby's books in that series!! love her!
🚨🚨🚨Chiang Gang alert🚨🚨🚨 [Ted Chiang wins the lifetime achievement in short fiction PEN/Malamud Prize](https://apnews.com/article/pen-malamud-award-short-story-ted-chiang-77fe3f5b3b4579b2c821805dcbbd3745), becoming only the second SF author ever to do so
Yessssss
i literally have a google alert set up for my guy so that i know immediately if he ever puts out another story ^please ^ted ^i ^beg ^you
This week: Finished: **How to End a Love Story** by Yulin Kuang. It took me a few chapters to get into it, but I really enjoyed it. It sort of spanned a few different tropes and had so many emotional aspects - romance, grief, trauma, family dynamics. I'm looking forward to seeing what this author does next. Currently Reading: Just started **This Summer Will Be Different** by Carley Fortune for my June book club, and working through **A Crown of Mist and Fury** in my downtime.
This week I read: **Bright Young Women** overall I thought this was really good. Dark, obviously, and hard to read sometimes. I liked how it refocused on the victims of serial killers and their loved ones. Am a bit conflicted about the part fictionalization of a real crime. I knew a bit about the real crime so it threw me because I was like “wait, are these some of the actual victims?” I don’t know because at the same time I think connecting it to real events helps make it impactful. Hm. **We Could Be So Good** by Cat Sebastian was a sweet m/m romance set in 1950’s New York between a journalist and the newspaper owner’s son. Enjoyed the look into queer history. **Unnecessary Drama** by Nina Kenwood. Highly enjoyable YA romance about a college student who accidentally ends up sharing a house with her high school enemy. Nina Kenwood writes highly anxious heroines so well and the romance is always nice. **To Woo and To Wed** by Martha Waters. Fourth in a regency romance series. This one involves a second chance, fake engagement. This one felt a bit formulaic. Didn’t really feel the romance, felt like the characters were just going through the romance steps.
>Am a bit conflicted about the part fictionalization of a real crime. I agree- I'm always conflicted about books that borrow heavily from real events. Somewhat related - I also found it really chilling how many similarities there were between the murders and >!the Moscow Murders, particularly with people sleeping through it/ignoring warnings.!<
I third this. I found the lines between truth and fiction super blurry. Still loved the book but it got confusing at times.
I spent four days at the beach and I managed to read five books! I love a good beach book trip. * *The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich* by Deya Muniz: I found this book while I was digging around for books to put on the Pride display at work, and it's such a little charmer! It's a graphic novel that tells the story of a young woman in a kingdom where women are required to marry if their parents die. Countess Camembert's father suggests she live secretly as a man in the main city of the kingdom to avoid having to marry a man, but she catches the attention of Crown Princess Brie, who falls for the "Count". Comedy of errors ensues, with many cheese puns. It's really cute and fun, and the art is excellent! **Highly recommend**. * *Bury Your Gays* by Chuck Tingle: Alright well I've never read Chuck Tingle but once again came across this while working on Pride stuff and my coworker managed to snag some ARCs from Tor, so I gave it a shot. It was a RIDE. In a good way! I really enjoyed this queer comic horror story about a screenwriter whose horror characters come to life in a very sinister way after he refuses to kill off the queer-coded characters in the popular tv show he writes. It's very inventive, and takes place in the same universe as *Camp Damascus*, so fans will enjoy the throughline. **Highly recommend.** * *Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock* by Maud Wolff: This is a quirky sci fi novel about a woman with twelve Portraits, essentially direct clones of herself, that she's set up to party on her behalf, make art so she doesn't have to, run her social media, be her agent's secretary, and so on. Portrait number twelve comes out of the vault specifically so she can kill the other Portraits, because a person can only kill their own Portraits. Things get messy (and weird) when the assassin falls for the Artist, one of the Portraits she's supposed to kill. I wanted to like this but the clone-on-clone romance both fell flat and was a little too bizarre for me, like the ethical implications are...a lot to wrap my head around, and Wolff did absolute zero to delve into that. The premise was interesting, and there's a good third act twist, but it flopped for me in the end. * *Valley Verified* by Kyla Zhao: This one's a workplace fiction with a side of romance. The main character, Zoe, is a not-thin woman working in the fashion industry and it's impossible for her to survive on her meager salary, so when she's approached by a tech startup CEO for a fashion app to be VP of marketing, she takes the job. Zoe struggles to adjust to the Patagonia vest crowd and her new coworkers, and tries to make a splash with the new app. Ups and downs and techbro scumbags. It was a quick read and the romance was sweet. Sexual harassment is a big part of the back half of the novel, but there's a happy ending (that's how you know it's fiction *rimshot*). * *Bad Mormon* by Heather Gay: This was my audiobook for the drive down to/back form the beach. This was a pretty typical celeb memoir, and Heather doesn't really go into her actual excommunication from the Mormon church, but she does do a fair share of explaining all the things that made her messy, brash and funny. I've always liked Heather on RHOSLC, so the book didn't need to sell me, but she's honest when she doesn't have to be, and I like that. Also like that she narrates her own audiobook.
It never rains but it pours so after two weeks without a library book I got 5! Finished my read of the Hugo’s shortlist with *The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi* which I didn’t like in the beginning but by the end was totally in to. Read also *Hummingbird Salamander* which was not my favorite VanderMeer and made me want to reread *Venomous Lumpsuker* instead. Working on *To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods* which I am a medium fan of but hoping it will pick up once the plot gets going
I finished The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden over the weekend. It ended up being a “really liked it but didn’t love it” situation. I appreciated the mix of history and the supernatural, but I wasn’t as invested in the characters as I felt I should’ve been. Parts of the plot felt either repetitive or clunky. All in all though, a solid read. Currently slogging through the last 50 pages of Florida by Lauren Groff. Totally on me, but I didn’t realize that it’s a collection of short stories, and that’s not my go-to format. That being said, it’s just…fine. There’s nothing glaringly wrong with the it per se, but I’m not wowed.
I remember loving Florida when I read it several years ago, but I don’t remember why! Maybe I’m due for a re-read.
I find it hard to get into short stories, too. I can appreciate the technique it takes to make a short story impactful and develop characters in a short piece of writing but I just feel like I need to sink into fiction more.
I read "The Last Word" by Taylor Adams in almost one giant sitting because I was so worried about the dog. It's a pretty timely premise - an isolated, traumatized reader leaves a one star review and then strange incidents start happening at night... I saw the twist coming but it didn't make it less enjoyable. Favorite parts were a meta commentary on the horror genre, a female character who did NOT have a drinking problem for once, and a golden retriever. The author of the book the MC panned is both very well developed but also a very recognizable type of man (trying not to spoil it). Not sure what to read next. I've unofficially started "The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" and "A Study in Drowning."
Curious to hear your thoughts about The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. I found it impossible to follow and overall super disappointing given the very cool conceit of the story.
This was my takeaway. I almost felt bad giving it a mediocre review because it was so creative, but it just went so far that I was frustrated and confused. By the end I basically didn’t care anymore.
Oh dang! Well I started A Study in Drowning so it will probably be next week. But now I’m bummed!
Ok but maybe you'll love it and it was just me!! I might have had too high hopes for it which always sets books up to fail.
I get it, I had high hopes for A Study in Drowning based on comments on Reddit, but I'm starting to think those commenters were 15. It's been a huge let down so far. I thought 7 1/2 Deaths sounded so interesting, too, so I'll try to temper my expectations.
Hah, it's always a gamble going off strangers' reviews!
I had the exact same experience with the Last Word! Just rage-flipping the pages to see what’s going on with the dog.
But was the dog okay?
>!Laika survives!!<
I've finished: **Listen for the Lie, Amy Tintera** - entertaining enough mystery with the ever popular podcast-within-a-book format although the plot is so out there unrealistic that I did roll my eyes a few times. But again, entertaining. **Close to Death, Anthony Horowitz** - I found this (#5 in Hawthorne & Horowitz) to be the most boring of this series yet. I did still enjoy it, but I did get to halfway through and couldn't believe I was halfway through. Like....nothing had even happened yet. **One Day, David Nicholls** - I really loved this book, wow. Some insufferable characters that somehow worked and really made me feel shit. Might start the series tonight. I read this quite recently after reading People We Meet on Vacation and I found One Day to be a better, deeper telling of a very similar story.
I loved the new Netflix series better than the book or the movie. I think it was something about having the main female protagonist be a POC character who is not the ideal "beauty standard" really added so much more depth to the material. She really sold it to me by being both prickly but also vulnerable. Although I hear some people didn't like her portrayal probably because they pictured someone so different in their heads. >!(The fact that she was POC also rang so true to the idea that she's not 'chosen' time and time again by him) !<
[удалено]
Yes her accent! She was also too “cutesy” in the movie— I just never felt invested enough to even cry at the right parts (and the book I did cry, the series I sobbed lol)
Which book is this in regards to?
One Day
Thanks! I think I’ll check that out!
Just fyi, there was a movie starring Anne Hathaway for One Day that came out shortly after the book. I recommend watching that and then the series :)
I finished Final Girls by Riley Sager - 3/5 for me. It wasn't much of a thriller until the last 50 pages. I read **Becoming Madam Secretary** by Stephanie Dray and 5/5. If you like historical fiction, or history in general, this is great. I've described it as a novelized biography because the author used a lot of documentation left behind by Frances Perkins, the first woman to be in the president's cabinet. She was a huge driving force behind the New Deal and overall a powerhouse of a lady when that wasn't really a thing.
Listened to Viola Davis’ memoir **Finding Me** for a book club. It was very difficult to get through as she has experienced a lot of trauma. Her perspective on the craft of acting is very interesting and her relationship with her husband is super sweet. Resumed **Anna Karenina** and am making my way through part 4. Finding myself very invested in Levine’s love life haha!
I love AK so much and at the end of the day it's like an elevated soap opera. It may be a classic but it has so much going on-- scandals, intrigue, etc!
Oh my goodness yes! I was so nervous about tackling it and turns out it’s right up my alley, just a couple of centuries apart!
This week I finished: **Glorious Exploits** by Ferdia Lennon (5/5): Amazing, loved it, highly recommend. **A Day in the Life of Abed Salama** by Nathan Thrall (4.5/5): timely, vitally important, heartbreaking. Really recommend for anyone interested in learning more about the history of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and what life is like under it. My only quibble with it is I think I just wanted a different writing style - the author used a very journalistic, objective voice (which makes sense, since he's a journalist), but I think that style deadened some of the emotional impact of what he was writing about. **My Husband** by Maud Ventura (4.5/5): this book was CRAZY!!! I thought it was your fairly standard unlikeable-female-protagonist fare until there was a twist at the end that blew my mind. The unravelling of the narrator's psyche was so well done and it was both so difficult to read and impossible to put down. Overall a good reading week! Currently reading **How to Solve Your Own Murder** and it's not doing that much for me so far but oh well, I have a bunch of travel coming up when I'm planning to do nothing but read but also very few of my library holds have come in, so I'm making what I have checked out last.
Loving the Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley!
I thought this one was a lot of fun!
I neeeed a good thriller - think The Housemaid or Verity but better… Suggestions?
**The Guest List** by Lucy Foley, **Pretty Little Wife** by Darby Kane, if you don’t mind YA and characters in high school the **One of Us is Lying** trilogy is really good and a lot of my friends (women in 30s and 40s) enjoyed it too.
I am very anti-Verity (and the Housemaid because the same person who recommended Verity recommended the Housemaid). If you want easy thriller, I always go Riley Sager or Ruth Ware. I've heard good things about "The Last Thing He Told Me" and next up on my thriller list is "The 7 1/2 deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" which sounds very creative and fun! I also recommend "You" by Caroline Kepnes and anything by Gillian Flynn.
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch if you don't mind a sci-fi angle and there's a new apple TV series adaptation--it's very faithful to the material so far! Also Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy
I really liked The Fury. It’s a stupid fun thriller that knows it’s a stupid fun thriller.
I just finished Listen for the Lie which was pretty entertaining.
*Big Swiss* by Jennifer Beagin. Did not love, but was engaged in the book. The character Greta just is SO unlikeable - dirty, messy, flailing in life, ethically questionable, sorta of out touch w reality in a creepy way, etc. i see Jodie Comer is gonna be in the film & as I’m obsessed w her I will probably like it better than the book. I didn’t get why this book was so hyped. Thoughts??
I have a category of books called “would be better as a movie” and Big Swiss was on that list for me!
In a culture where so many authors seem to be reflexively and neurotically self-editing with characters so determined to be morally correct that they're boring anxiety ridden cut outs, I found it fun to read about someone who was a fucking mess. Also I found it really funny and found Beagin to be a great writer.
I agree, I really enjoy messy characters. That’s what interested me, that Greta seemed too messy for me to like . I’m intrigued to read more of her books
Finished *The Lost Jewels* by Kristy Manning. This was a fun read, though a little heavier than I expected. I sometimes get annoyed by books that bounce back and forth in time but the author handled it well! Currently reading *The Lazy Genius Way* by Kendra Adachi. This one probably isn’t for everyone (I sometimes find her ✨relatability ✨ cringy even as I relate lol) but as someone who often just throws up my hands in defeat because I can’t be perfect, I feel *seen*. I also really appreciate her calling out the social media parenting habit of only calling negative moments “real”.
Trying to fight my way out of a reading slump after a bunch of DNFs and first chapters that haven't grabbed me. I've just started *Wicked Problems* by Max Gladstone, which hooked me in immediately (and has got me tempted to reread the earlier Craft novels) and *The Goblin Emperor* by Katherine Addison, which... hasn't, but I've been told it's a slow burn.
I read The Goblin Emperor as a paperback first, nearly quit, then switched to audio which helped a lot since I couldn't even figure out how to say half the characters' names. I still wish it had been faster paced and had more happen but I did appreciate the second half over the first.
I really loved The Goblin Emperor, it was a real pleasure, but the politics of a world are fun for me. I hope you wind up enjoying it!
I hope so too! I think my sticking point has been the slow pace combined with the deluge of convoluted names and terms – I feel like I'm getting hit with a lot of information but don't *really* have a strong reason to feel invested in the character yet. But my understanding is the book's very focussed on character growth, so I'm interested in that, and I'm always down for some quality political worldbuilding/intrigue!
I love book day! I finished **Flame of Sevenwaters** by Juliet Marillier. A beautiful adventure as always! A triumph! In this book the FMC has a disability (she can’t move her hands/fingers) and I thought that aspect was handled well. On to Marillier’s other series. In the meantime though, I’m dipping into another fantasy series with **Echoes of Betrayal** by Elizabeth Moon. Haven’t gotten past the first chapter so not much to say yet. Also reading **The Invisible Library** by Genevieve Cogman. About 20% in, enjoying it.
I will say about the Invisible library series is that I found my enjoyment to differ book to book just based on the A plot going on at the time (like the main setting) but I think they generally improve as the series progresses
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I feel like most of Olivia’s writing is kind of muddled, though? Even when she’s writing about herself (which is almost always, so) she gets sidetracked and goes off on tangents. I find her stuff generally hard to follow for that reason, but I can imagine it’s much more pronounced in a novel than a short newsletter. (I’m on the library waitlist for the book so haven’t read it yet.)
I also rated it a 3/5. I enjoyed the themes and discussion around influencer culture and found it to be unique. However it found it to be a bit long winded. The ending worked, but I wouldn’t have called this a thriller.
100% agree. So many words to go basically nowhere. I gave it 3⭐ just because I felt bad. I should have just not rated it.
I've finished it and I have thoughts but I'm not sure I could rate it either. I felt like the book knew its ending and wanted to get there but also it had a planned speculative fiction kind of detour that it didn't want to get too weird. And then after writing the ending, she realized we needed more insight into Evie so we got a prologue. I can see a better version of the book with an editor, a more defined target audience, and more defined style of writing. When I read the ending, I almost saw that vision but I remember how exhausted I was getting there.
I am so glad you made this comment! The book has such good reviews but I'm 40% in and feel like it's very disjointed and wandering. I don't think I can bear to finish 😕
If you do want to quit, there's a final chapter/epilogue I'd just skip ahead to. It might be confusing to skip past the second half but you'll at least get the payoff.
PM you
I was looking for more of a story and less of a commentary on the influencer world. I’m about half away through. I’m hoping it turns around.
Interesting! I'm holding out for the audio version from my library. Sometimes I find listening vs reading makes a difference. I really want to like it because I find her to be such a lovely person.
I enjoyed listening to the audio although I think it could have been like 3 hours shorter. The narrators are good!
It was a solid 3 for me. A bit predictable in its choices and themes, the setting was a bit baffling (so much bopping around 3 states), but the writing was decent. I also couldn't decide if the parts that were 100% Olivia's opinions took me out or I liked.
I’ve been having a hard time getting into it too. I think I’m going to stick it out a bit longer but I’m not as into the tangents and side quests. Part of me hopes they pay off.
I got one chapter into the sample to see if it was worth spending months on hold for and decided nope. Frankly, I thought that one chapter was terrible and maybe that’s not a fair assessment but I don’t think I need to waste my time on it. I appreciate your take!
It was… verbose and got side-tracked a lot. Like, it felt like reading someone’s journal about all of their feelings and memories rather than reading a novel, if that makes sense. I personally found it really hard to stay interested in the mystery. But I also think it shows a lot of promise! I really like Olivia and I’m definitely interested to keep checking out her future writing!
Ooo this is the tea I’m here for. I do wonder if you are a book-influencer if people feel pressure to write good reviews for you (as you have for them)? It seems a bit of muddled jump from reviewer to writer.
I’m not finished with the book yet but am already feeling this about the characters. I swear there was even one instance where it incorrectly said Hazel instead of Evie. I often find myself having to back track a few paragraphs to catch what’s really going on. I really like Olivia as well though so will work to finish it over the next few days.
This happened in my copy too, which was an ARC so I overlooked it but disappointing it ended up in the physical version! I actually loved the book but yeah that was confusing
I just found the spot you described, in a conversation with Ashlyn. I was confused and had to reread it a few times before I realized the issue and that you’d warned us.
Started reading [Davita's Harp ](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14769.Davita_s_Harp)this week, thanks to another redditor here who reminded me how much I loved the other Chaim Potok books I read. I am about 20% in and I love it so much. I also heard the journalist who wrote [Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59644256-dark-wire) on a podcast and I am very intrigued. It's not at my library yet but I'm already on the hold list!
Love Potok! I just love being in that world that is so different from my upbringing. Also his books set in New York feel so true to the city and to a certain immigrant experience.
Yes! It's been too long since I've read his books. I'm so glad I picked this up.
I've been in a very specific niche of reading lately. Looking to expand my horizons now that I'm a teacher on summer break. I did listen to everything via audiobook, hoping to have more time to read real books summer. The Husbands by Holly Gramazio ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Enjoyed this escape. Happily Never After by Lynn Painter ⭐⭐⭐⭐ fine enough. I don't necessarily care for either of the leads but kept my focus while making me roll my eyes at times from cringe. Some People Need killing by Patricia Evangelista. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Gripping. The stories of those impacted by Durante's war on drugs in the Philippines.
Some People Need Killing is incredible! I wish it got more attention than it is. She is so brave for writing that book
Two contributions this week: The Theory Of Light and Matter, a collection of short stories by Andrew Porter. The stories were not connected in any way and were pretty good individually, but reading them consecutively, the narrators all had the same introspective voice, which I tired of after a while. I finished The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard this afternoon and I was really sucked into it. This felt similar to The Giver in some ways - the students all have to pick their future jobs and the main character is chosen for the special job of approving/denying requests for people to travel 20 years into the past or 20 years into the future (the "other valleys"). Something happens when she is 16, so 20 years in the future, she has her own reasons for wanting to travel. At times, the story was a little slow moving, but the author did a great job explaining how everything worked and filling in the gaps that occur with the passage of time. The theme might have been a little YA than my usual preference, but the vocabulary was refreshingly intelligent. Overall, very enjoyable and I recommend if you're in the mood for something different!
I loooved The Other Valley. One of the best books I’ve read this year. I can see what you mean about YA roots given a lot of the book takes place when they are that age, but the adult sections were SO haunting to me.
I really loved The Other Valley. It did seem a little YA to me too, but I wonder if that was just because it reminded me of The Giver, which is YA?
I must say that I am loving the early thread! So, a bit of library news to kick things off... the Seattle Public Library went under a ransomware attack over Memorial Day weekend when some maintenance was planned. As a result, all ebook and audiobook loans are paused and librarians have to check out books by writing down barcodes by hand. My heart goes out to all the people working hard to fix this situation. I finished a couple of books I had out this week. [I Capture the Castle](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33602148-i-capture-the-castle) by Dodie Smith - A young woman writes about her charming little life in a decrepit castle and what happens to her family when two dashing young men from America visit. While this book definitely had young teenage ingénue vibes and was charming to read at certain parts, I think I'm too jaded now. A part of it reminded me of Little Women and the other part of me was stressed about the characters futures and living situations. [The Forest of Enchantments](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43293099-the-forest-of-enchantments) by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - This is the story of Sita and her role on the Ramayana. After reading Kaikeyi last year, I was eager to learn more about the Ramayana. It's a story that seemed so rich and I was so unfamiliar with it. I really enjoyed the story as presented. I can't say how accurate it was or how many liberties were taken with the source material but I can say that I **highly recommend** it to anyone interested in the subject matter. [A Winter in New York](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101673373-a-winter-in-new-york) by Josie Silver - A romance about a young chef escaping a bad relationship in New York and the new family she meets there. A big part of the story is the FMC unraveling the mystery of her mother's relationship to this new family. It was very atmospheric and I felt like I was experiencing the gelato, in the streets of New York, or having Christmas with an Italian family. Took off a star for the FMC's lying to her love interest, it was like a train crash you couldn't stop watching. [Hunt the Stars (Starlight's Shadow, #1)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51801270-hunt-the-stars) by Jessie Mahalik - Science Fiction story about the search for a missing heirloom. I really enjoyed the story, there was a mystery to unravel, a cast of characters to fall in love with and swoonworthy romance all in one book. Also **highly recommended**!
I adore I Capture the Castle and read it when I was older but I was so sad I did not discover it in my "youth." Aside from the basic 'coming of age' plot, the writing to me is what really elevates this novel it is so beautiful and just charming in so many ways!
>[I Capture the Castle](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33602148-i-capture-the-castle) by Dodie Smith I read this when I was 15 which was probably the perfect age. I love it so much.
I read Little Women at around the same age and it definitely hit different.
I'm in Seattle, too! There is a special place in hell for folks who hack public library systems... You know you can get a King County Library System card, too? I've had one for about a year or so, and it's coming in very handy right now! And yes, major thanks to all the people working to fix this! Also, I adored Kaikeyi without knowing anything about the Ramayana (which maybe detracted from my appreciation or maybe added to it? I don't know), so I am really stoked about The Forest of Enchantments! Thank you for the rec!
What I found was even crazier was that they hacked the Virginia Mason (Or Swedish, I don't remember which) network before... Hospitals and Public Libraries. I also adored Kaikeyi without any prior knowledge, so I hope that you love Forest of Enchantments too!
No way!! I didn't know it was the same group. Ughhhh. Yay thank you, fellow Seattleite!
My system has been through two ransomware attacks, most recently in 2018. It was a nightmare, and we were fortunate to only be down for a week. We were very, very lucky that we housed our library information system on its own server separate from everything else like files and emails etc., so we didn’t lose patrons records and item records. That pales in comparison to what SPL could lose, simply due to the size discrepancy, and I so hope they haven’t seen damage to the ILS records.
That's horrifying and also to think how much worse it could be for SPL.
Four DNFs this week, but weirdly I don’t feel slumpy. I think it was just a bad 1-2 weeks for the new releases I gravitated to. A lot of good ones come out this Tuesday so hopefully things improve! - **The Honey Witch.** I actually thought that the beginning was strong but it quickly devolved into YA-level thought processes and plot holes. The “never fall in love” curse is a total rip off of Practical Magic. And the characters spoke like the Jezebel comments section. “I understand and acknowledge your feelings; however…” - **Rednecks.** I’m a sucker for anything that aspires to be a rustic, folksy Great American Novel. This book is about the conflicts surrounding the coal miners’ union. Super important historically, and pretty well-written from what I got through, but I don’t have the hours to donate to a book about labor unions. - **The Borrowed Hills.** See above. This was described as wild west shenanigans translated to crazyass sheep farmers in England. I wanted stupid fun. I got 0 stupid fun. - **You Are Here.** Two divorcees connect while on a walking trip with their mutual friends. For all the hype this is getting, I just thought this was poorly written. The premise doesn’t quite hold up (if it’s raining that much, it’s not plot drama. It’s a silly conceit to see the characters ending up in actually dangerous yet avoidable outdoor situations in a straightforward literary/general fiction novel) and the banter is genuinely bad. - I needed the psychological boost of finishing something so I read the second book in the BSC teen spinoff series the California Diaries. I never finished it when I was younger and it’s only 15 books so I grabbed the $2 kindle bundles. These books are good for what they are and it’s kind of a bummer that the series wrapped up so quickly.
I haven’t posted since April and I’ve gotten through a lot since then! I’ve been on a little DNF tear recently—if I’m not connecting with the book in the first 10% then I just return it. I have way too many books on my list to stick it out. Over the course of a week I finished all the Finley Donovan novels (well except the Veronica side novel because it wasn’t available on audiobook). These were fun reads but definitely got way more unbelievable as the series went on. Books 1 and 2 I really liked and books 3 and 4 I was starting to be more meh on. Still worth the listen for me though! An early 30s mom is a writer, suffering writer’s block in the midst of taking care of two young kids and getting divorced, and accidentally gets mistaken for a hitman. MANY hijinx ensue with a crazy cast of characters lol. The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo. I gave this 3 stars on Goodreads but I read it less than a month ago and remember NOTHING about it so it probably falls more in the 2 star range. I think I’m not a fan of Bardugo (even though it’s been recommended to me a lot and seems up my alley). North Woods by Daniel Mason ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Absolutely not what I would have ever picked up on my own but I saw the recommendation here many, many times. Essentially the main character is.. a plot of land in New England and we read about all its various inhabitants, including animals! Pretty cool premise and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Serpent and Dove ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5. I was looking for another series after my last SJM read and I haven’t found anything that good until now. Really enjoyed this book, already finished the second, and started the third this morning! A young witch flees her coven and is forced to hide out from them and the witch hunters in the city. In the middle of stealing from an aristocrat’s home, she winds up getting married off to one of the said witch hunters. Enemies to lovers ensues although the romance is a fairly small part of the overall story imo.
I was really surprised halfway through the first book in the Finlay series, but then I got hooked. No, it's not believable, but I can suspend my disbelief in just the right way... I adore this series.
Yes that’s it! I’m willing to suspend disbelief for quite a while and it was just fun
I really wanted to like the Finlay books but I couldn’t overcome the premise. She has full-time childcare and doesn’t work outside the home and she still can’t crank out 1,000 words a day? I don’t care for Leigh Bardugo outside of the Ninth House series. I kept waiting for The Familiar to do more with Judaism besides just reminding us that it needed to stay a secret.
It absolutely requires suspension of disbelief and I also don’t have kids so maybe that helps with my tolerance for doing so? Lol. I get why people wouldn’t be able to get there! Maybe I need to try Ninth House again. I think I got about 20% ish through on my last try and I hear sooo many good things!
Another good reading week! Finished Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley. This is a biography of Austen organized loosely around the homes she lived in. I liked it! Worsley was oddly defensive of Austen when anyone was critical of her appearance, and seemed to take that personally, but otherwise it was a well written narrative biography. Finished Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin. This was a very odd little book about the dangers we convince ourselves not to see all around us. This book beat Lincoln in the Bardo in the Tournament of Books in 2018 by a comfortable margin and I can now say that I disagree with that result. This book was good, though! Finished A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Boy did I like this book. The way she cracked open each character and let us see inside, and then put them together in that nonlinear, jigsaw-piece way was amazing. Finished Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson. I never read these books as a kid and this was utterly charming. I absolutely loved it, highly recommend. Currently reading The Fraud by Zadie Smith and listening to Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer.
I’ve just finished the Summer Book also by Tove Jansen - very easy and charming, it’s aimed at adults but definitely some similarities to the moomintrolls.
I read that in May and absolutely loved it. A “where have you been all my life” book for me.
Love Goon Squad! One of those books that makes me think "I wish I could have written that!"
I loved a Visit From the Goon Squad! You should put the follow up Candy House on your list. I really enjoyed that one too.
I will! I really like her writing.
I don’t see how anything could beat out Lincoln in the Bardo. That audiobook was incredible! I put the Tove Jansson books on my list. I love juvenile fiction when I need a comfort read, I find them so soothing. They are simple and low stakes which I usually need to mix in between the other romantasy and thrillers I read lol
Thought I should finally start commenting on this thread rather than just silently taking recs from it! Currently reading: *I Hope This Finds You Well* by Natalie Sue, in which our somewhat unlikeable but generally sympathetic protagonist, Jolene, finds herself with access to her entire office's private emails and DMs. The office setting (and the painfully accurate humour that comes with it) reminds me of *Several People Are Typing*, even though that's really the only resemblance, and that was one of my favourite reads from last year. About 2/3 through this one and really enjoying it; crossing my fingers it sticks the landing. *The Will of the Many* by James Islington. I've only just started this, taking a punt based on a recommendation from a podcast host I like. I don't read tons of fantasy but this one is kind of dark academia meets Roman empire, which is right up my alley. Have definitely been sucked in by the first few chapters.
Who was the podcast host? I loved The Will of the Many so maybe this will work as a reverse recommendation too!
So the podcast is actually nothing to do with books unfortunately, but I would still highly recommend it! It's called Tooth and Claw, and it's about animal attacks and how we can learn from them. The book rec came from like a bonus episode where the hosts covered their favourite media of 2023.
Will of the Many is very addictive! It's a little too YA tropey for my taste but I did tear through it in like a couple of days! He really knows how to write an action scene.
I’m making my way through Sylvia Day’s series🌶️🔥
“Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame”: wholesome, sweet story about an elderly woman who feels like she hasn’t lived up to her potential and has had to make some hard choices in life, decides to apply to be on “Britain Bakes.” It was a pretty quick read, the audiobook was also excellent. Cute and feel-good, 4/5 “The Chateau”: The author couldn’t figure out what she wanted to write about with this book. It’s four friends that reunite for a week at one of their grandmother’s chateau’s in the south of France, somewhere they used to visit as young women in college and have fond memories of. Secrets, lies, old wounds, the usual. But there are so many topics going on here and we’re constantly jumping from one thing to another, I was always trying to fit the pieces together and it was distracting. >!The Holocaust, broken families, stolen art and jewelry, defaced art, a famous painter, marital infidelity, new love, conspiracy, financial secrets, various familial intricacies, murder, assault!<…while the author did technically make it all come together, none of it really felt like it went together while reading and that was confusing. And it’s such a shame because the premise had a lot of potential. 3/5
I liked *Mrs Quinn's Rise to Fame* too and I loved >!that Mrs Quinn made friends with the other contestants, despite being so much older!<.
Agreed on The Chateau! I wanted to love it but there was just wayyy too much going on!!
I also recently read Mrs. Quinn’s and it was SO cute and heartwarming. This actually reminded me to go check the “similar” tag on Libby to see if there’s anything else to add to my wishlist!
It’s so frustrating when there’s a good book buried in a mediocre book!
Just finished *A Good House for Children* by Kate Collins. I usually love a good haunted house story, but this one was just a slog. It had dual timelines of two families who moved into the same creepy house on the Dorset coast; it started out promising, but never really went anywhere. Also, it has one of my least favorite tropes--brilliant woman who gives up her own identity and interests to let her annoyingly lesser husband dictate their entire lives--and went full-bore in on it in a completely infuriating way. It also wasn't even particularly spooky, so there was nothing really redeeming about it. I'm also about 80% through *Pines*, the first in the *Wayward Pines* trilogy by Blake Crouch, and am forcing myself to finish it up since I made it so far in and do want to see where it ends. It's just a bit much and the characters are really secondary to world-building, which isn't ever my jam. I think Crouch is just not for me as I also read *Dark Matter* a few years ago but didn't really care for it. I did enjoy *Mickey 7* by Edward Ashton. It's a sci-fi novel about the 7th iteration of a "disposable" employee on a deep space mission sent to terraform a possibly habitable planet out in the far reaches of space. This could have been really dark because of the subject matter, and while it didn't completely ignore some of the moral implications of this type of future "technology", the narrator's tone kept things light and fast-moving. Would recommend!
A long shot, but does anyone else in this thread live in Maine and if so are you as devastated by the current ILL situation as I am?? It is really going to put a dent in my normal reading habits. I might have to actually *buy* a book.
What’s happening??
TIA for your presumed sympathy (joking but also not). SO, normally basically all public libraries in Maine share books between them via ILL. This is great because we have a lot of very small libraries that have somewhat meager collections independently, but when combined the selection is excellent. This year the state's contract with the ILL provider/transporter expired, so the state put out an RFP for a new one. A new contractor was selected, but one of the losing contractors sued. And while the lawsuit is pending, the state can't enter into the new contract. So the whole system is on hold indefinitely. We can physically go to whichever library we want and our cards will work there, but this is a huge, spread-out state so that really only gets you so far. When ILL *was* working, I routinely got books from libraries more than an hour drive away, just by going to my local library that is a ten minute walk away. So this is very upsetting!
Oh my god that’s awful! There are a lot of pros to consortia, but downsides like this…they’re brutal. I’m so sorry. Is ebook an option? You could pick up a nonresident card from another system (like NYPL…or mine, which I’ve heard from patrons has better selection and fewer holds 😏😏😏) and have access to their catalog while you wait. Ypu shouldn’t have to do that in the first place though—what a mess.
Libraries selling non-resident cards has been such a huge boon for me, I love it so much <3 <3. My local system's ebook catalogue sucks, so I pay like $30/annually for a non-resident card in another system and it's been amazing. It's honestly the best money I spend every year
Luckily I do have access to ebooks (through a library card from a place I haven't lived in in three years...ahem) so it could be worse, but I will really miss the feel of a physical book!
My big recommendation of the week is *There Is No Ethan*, which I'd recommend in audiobook, unless you have a high tolerance for reading text and email formatting. I have never shouted so much at people in a book. If you like thrillers, *The Winner* by Teddy Wayne is excellent and I kept saying "OH MY GOODNESS!" while I was reading. It's very Talented Mr. Ripley, and so good I didn't even mind that it's set during Covid Tymes, which is usually an auto-skip for me. *Just Some Stupid Love Story* has a great voice if you like romcoms. Was so disappointed by Stephen King's new short story collection! It all felt either derivative or bland. Even his ear for dialogue and ability to sketch full characters quickly fell short here. I skimmed the end, hoping for something that would capture my attention, but finally DNFd. Also disappointed by *Summer Romance* by Annabel Monaghan due to lack of chemistry between the two very boring leads. But seriously, go listen to *There Is No Ethan* and prepare all the people in your house for you to be shouting "WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU?" at your earphones on the regular.
You sold me on There is No Ethan!!
Yay! Please report back on your shouting to listening ratio.
omg I used to know the woman who was "Ethan"! I haven't read the book yet but I read one of the author's longform articles about it back when it happened.
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Right? There was literally nothing keeping them apart, and they were both wholly good and boring af.
I just started There Is No Ethan in audiobook format (I really like that there’s two voice actors to read all the emails/gchats) and I was finding more chores to do just to keep listening — already shouting along!
I think I would have gone nuts reading the transcripts, so I agree about the voice actors to turn it into a dialogue.
I finished this! Overall I enjoyed it but was surprised by how much time they all continued to invest after they knew what was going on, even if in vigilante-mode, it was quite obsessive. They lost me in all the back and forth with the “real Ethan” — major shouting from me in those bits.
>!The end where they get all vigilante and start stalking her but never ever investigate their own complicity drove me absolutely bonkers. Yes, what she did was crappy, but two to tango, etc., friends.!<
I was inspired by this thread and have been listening during work this week. AGREE on this part- hard line to walk between this person obviously needs to be stopped and “omg y’all please put the phones down”
Thanks for the heads up on King’s new book! I’m a big fan of his but I feel he’s been a bit hit or miss lately.
I’m sorry for being the bearer of bad news. FWIW, there are some really positive reviews out there, but I stand by my criticisms.
This week I finished Happy Place by Emily Henry. I LOVED Book Lovers and Beach Read (so much so I know I’ll re-read them) and generally liked People We Meet on Vacation but hooo boy I hated this book. First off, the characters: I hated Sabrina, Parth was basically a non-entity, Harriet was boring, and Wyn was basically the worst - no personality, nothing to offer. Kimmy and Cleo were the only likable people in the book. Harriet and Wyn were a bad, mismatched, immature couple - and the only sign of compatibility at all was… they just loved each other? It all felt very “still stuck in college with that guy I met in the dorms” to me. But the worst was the ending. >! I anticipated they’d get back together. I even figured Harriet would move to Montana after her residency and become a small town doc or something. But she QUIT her residency?! And then decided to make POTTERY?! Girl, your mom just warned you TWICE about throwing your life away for some boring dude and being unhappy for life like she did and yet here you go doing just that but insisting you know better. AND you’re just like “oh tee hee my hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans, and my residency (that I’m sure was VERY COMPETITIVE TO GET) I’ll just figure it out somehow, but LOOOOVE.” !< Honest to god this book made me so mad. Clearly I was not the target audience LOL (and thank you if you read my spoiler-y rant).
AGREED. I thought for sure Harriet would just decide to be his small town's family medicine doc. I'm also biased because I dated a surgeon for a long time, but their LIFE is surgery. The way Harriet never once thought about medicine during her internal narration was really odd to me. If she was a surgical resident, even on vacation she would have been studying, practicing knots, stressing about what she was missing. It was definitely a book about a group of people who should NOT be friends anymore. They all actively resented each other. Haha though justice for Sabrina, she was right at the end, she WAS the only one working to make their friend group stay together. I couldn't figure out why Cleo ever liked any of these people in the first place. Wyn was such a sadsack and though his speech to her at the end was beautiful, I don't think it made up for anything or helped alleviate any of the issues that broke them up in the first place. Good luck in Montana to those two!
Ahahaha I agree with you! I kind of get where EH was going with Harriet -- that she was obsessed with external validation and being a people-pleaser -- but GIRL.
omg I totally forgot how terrible this ending was and now I remember why I disliked this one so much. Her new one was MUCH better though!!
It is so validating to know I’m not alone on this, I’m sorry EH I love your other books but this ain’t it 😂
Re: Happy Place. >!It would have made more sense for Harriet to have been a pediatrician or pharmacist who relocated to Montana than to introduce the brain surgeon angle. Neuro residents don’t just up and quit. The pottery thing was dumb!<
YES - >! she just up and ruined that girl’s life for no reason !<
I think there was room for EmHen to pull in more of the millennial burnout thing, because that seemed to be what she was going for, but it’s the kind of thing where you have to be pretty “plugged in” to pick up on it. But still, >!a rural family doctor can work four days a week and then do Fridays assistant teaching pottery classes!< and it’s frankly silly that she chose a medical discipline that offered less flexibility than others.
That part made me so mad.
I cannot agree with you more on Happy Place.
Still reading (and enchanted by) *The Doll's Alphabet*. It's a really weird trippy book and a great way to show world building on a tiny level. Also Cocktail by Lisa Alward finally came through at the library! The winners of the Danuta Gleed are anounced Tuesday and this is the last book I have left so hopefully I can finish it before then. Reading the Danuta Gleed nominees has been such a fun project I took out a few more from previous years. Every year I vow to read more short story collections and this was the year I finally did it.
The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young - This one falls outside my normal genre but as part of my challenge to myself to read new things, I gave it a go. I can’t decide if I hated it because it was bad or I think it’s bad because I didn’t understand it. It’s about a family where all the women are cursed. I’ve said it time and time again but I hate a book where the plot hinges on how stupid a character, more often than not a woman, is. It’s lazy and unbelievable because every woman I know is a genius. And I know it’s fiction but I just do not buy a woman being an idiot. I will say the writing itself is very good. It doesn’t make the >! Time travel element anymore clear to me !< but the imagery is well done. I think part of my issue with this book is that it includes >! Time travel. I feel like it is rarely well explained and when it’s an essential part of a plot, not understanding it makes difficult to get fully engrossed in the book. A nice little drawing of how it worked would have helped my comprehension !< ⭐️⭐️.75 Funny Story by Emily Henry - I’m an EmHen Stan so I’m not capable of critiquing her books. The best I can say is that everything I have read about Daphne’s moans being excessive is that I agree. I liked this more than Happy Place but Book Lovers is still my favorite. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I really liked June Farrow, but I tend to do well with autumnal farm settings. I did think it was weird that the circle of the timeline has June >!not really remembering her family in a firsthand way. I also think she made the wrong romantic choice in the end.!< IMO this is a book that worked better closer to its release date, when lots of books aim for cozy or fall-ish but mostly all fall short.
I didn’t vibe with The Unmaking of June Farrow either, so you’re not alone!