What I Read in September, October, and November - The Fall Slump

Yes, I am aware that it's almost the new year. 2026 arrives in less than 48 hours, people! Are you ready for that hollow thud and slow-developing headache as the ten-year anniversary of 2016 hits us all in the shoulders?

And yet, my book reviews are still languishing somewhere around the beginning of Fall. Let's speed-run these last few months, shall we? After all, it's not like I was really reading anything... which is something that's been ever-so-slightly complicating my December. But that's for my next blogpost! 

september

A triumphant race across the finish lines of Summer Reading Challenges immediately manifests into a feet-achingly-busy work schedule, and a pretty significant lack of inspiration. No wonder both of these were audiobooks... and neither very good.

The Art of Small Talk, Casey Wilson and Jessica St. Clair

two-and-a-half stars

Besties and co-podcast-hosts Casey Wilson and Jessica St. Clair consult famous friends and podcast guests on the importance of small talk, and how to up your conversational game. 

Something that can occasionally be really interesting about audiobooks, is how much format plays into your feelings about the read as a whole. For instance, this audiobook was, for me, a first: solely published as an audio recording, without any affiliated print material at all, it includes audio clips from conversations with celebrities and friends, and organic dialogue - sans script - held in contrast to pre-written, narrated sections. These two friends have a podcast together, and you can tell, because their rapport feels genuine... but on the other side, large chunks are, in fact, scripted and straightforward, like a normal audiobook would typically be. 

It kind of threw off my enjoyment of the book as a whole - knowing that it was NOT, in fact, a book - but also, the brevity of the format didn't really give you enough information to go off of to make a real impact. Not the most troubling thing in the world, as small talk itself isn't supposed to take up too much time, but at the same time, it almost set the tone that the authors themselves weren't taking the subject very seriously. This problem would only be exacerbated when the authors would go on to reject their own lessons in later chapters - "Don't be afraid to lie" becomes "Aways stay true to yourself and be honest" AND "Set firm boundaries around topics you can't engage with civilly" AND "Always remain pleasant and positive," somehow- and don't even get me started on the super-weird spiritualism side of the final section. 

An interesting, audiobook-specific read, that was more of a fascination for its format choices than its actual content. 

Battle of the Bookstores, Ali Brady

three stars 

Two rival bookshop owners find themselves in a war of the words, as their landlord tells them he's planning on combining their shops... and only needs one manager to take up the space. Will they find a way to work together... even in the face of an unhappy ending? 

A pretty pedestrian Romance for Romance-lovers, that wasn't anything spectacular to me, but might really resonate with a younger person who loves bookish Internet culture more than I do. 

It adheres pretty directly to a lot of stereotypes and narrative formulas that already exist, and didn't do much to offend me too badly, but just were elements I've seen more successfully handled elsewhere. I think it wanted to be something like a You've Got Mail rivals-to-friends-to-lovers story, but unfortunately, it didn't really have the charm or charisma between its leads to carry that off. It ended up just striking too middle of the road, and almost came out just feeling like a wide-spanning amalgamation of pop culture cliches and catchphrases rather than something - if you'd excuse the pun - novel. 

The parts that stand out in my memory aren't super flattering: I thought the attitudes and actions of our heroine were, honestly, pretty childish and obnoxious, then forgiven too easily. I thought the hero was too blissfully perfect to even come close to striking realistic, and felt more like an experimental prototype for the Internet's Dream Bookish Boyfriend Wish Fulfillment Project than an actual person. I thought the building owner they were at odds with was cartoonish and silly. The stereotypes about bookish people were similarly hyperbolic and didn't really provide for common ground where the two could evenly meet. (If you remember my complaints about the dichotomy of librarian depictions in Romance from my last blogpost, this was the book I was referencing, btws.) 

And to be honest, now that we've reached so many years of MTV's Catfish and so many Internet how-tos on how to amateur-FBI your social media heart away in 2025, I think I'm just really hitting my limit with characters who meet anonymously online. 

There were certain parts of it that were unique and cute, and I am certainly not going to begrudge anyone who might want to read it themselves: again, especially those who are not jaded 30-somethings raised on and by the Internet, and not those who find certain aspects of TikTok-ified bookish culture irritating. It just wasn't for me. 

october

After emerging on the other side of a break-neck-paced September, I really thought that relishing my birth month and the oncoming cozy, spooky season would yield a little more snug-under-a-blanket vibes. Unfortunately, I only managed to get through two reads...

How to Build a Fashion Icon, Law Roach

two stars

Pop culture critic and retired stylist to the stars Law Roach shares words of wisdom on self-confidence and image-construction in a brief and occasionally insightful memoir. 

For starters, I just want to say that it wasn't bad, it just wasn't good. If anything, it was barely a book at all... it honestly could have been a very easily edited, tightly-run magazine editorial, in certain ways. Maybe a recurring guest column. 

I think this might be by design. For instance, I definitely think this was ghost-written, and primarily oriented to capitalize on Law Roach's already-ascending success. We just watched him as a new judge on the most recent season of Project Runway, after all, and that's on the heels of his other judging gig on Legendary, which ran for three seasons, AND - as he covered in the book - "quitting" his stylist career, which already came after clearing his roster of celeb clients to just a select few. A book would be a natural marketing progression, and would not only serve as a background moneymaker as he calculates his next step, but also help continue to establish his expert status to industry outsiders.

But I don't think it's a good sign if your primary takeaway from reading a memoir is, "This was a good brand marketing decision."

And again, it was also just incredibly short! Almost every story told left me wishing that they had been expanded upon, with more detail included, or context given. I wish there was more of a behind-the-scenes look at an extraordinary life and impressive career... instead, it all just felt a little surface level. Shallow, even. 

The Entanglement of Rival Wizards, Sara Raasch 

four stars 

Two rival graduate students at a prestigious magical university - competing for highly-prized grant funding - are forced to work together to complete their final research project before graduation. Will time spent sharing a lab lead to chemistry... or something a little more explosive?  

After generally losing my sanity over the one-two punch of The Nightmare Before Kissmas and Go Luck Yourself during the Ripped Bodice Bookstore Bingo Reading Challenge this past summer, adding Raasch's new release to the Library Holds roster was a total no-brainer. The fact that it was set in a Fantasy world, and billed for fans of popular D&D shows like Critical Role and Dimension 20, meant that I was willing to wait a while before it actually became available. 

And when I consider all three in a lineup like this, I can tell you right now, this one was my favorite. It eliminates a lot of the world-building issues I've had with the previous two by way of a completely original setting Raasch has built to stand on its own; the emotional backgrounds and personalities of our main characters feel relatable and realistic, even when their settings and backgrounds do not. I would even go as far to make the argument that this didn't necessarily HAVE  to be a Fantasy: with a little tweaking, it could just as easily been a contemporary-set New Adult collegiate Romance set in a high-powered DC or Ivy League school, but the Fantasy elements make it a lot of fun. 

(And just in case you assumed - like me - that the gentlemen on the cover of the novel were stand-ins for a certain boy wizard and his school-day-archnemesis, we are both incorrect: Raasch clarifies in the end material that they're actually heavily inspired by characters from one of the Critical Role campaigns.) 

I will say, I feel like Raasch's books are getting hornier as she progresses in her writing career, and I don't know if that's as a response to current publishing trends and reader feedback, or if she just feels more comfortable leaning into the smut now that there's been a clear positive reception. It almost got a little distracting for me... beyond all the sex and magic, though, there was still a LOT of heart, and that's what I think is its biggest draw. 

november

I don't know what it was, but by the time we got past Halloween, I was just about ready to take a nap. I had a major volunteering event, and a family member's birthday, but beyond some family coming in for Thanksgiving, November should have been a walk in the park... 

Nothing. Literally nothing. I finished zero books in November, and before you say anything else to me about it, you should note that it definitely wasn't for lack of trying. 

For instance, I tried to get further into Charlie Adhara's Thrown to the Wolves - which, you might recall, I ended August 51% of the way into - but when the plot set off my secondhand embarrassment a little too much, I had to bail, and became too nervous and overwhelmed to pick up again until literal months had passed. 

Meanwhile, Atmosphere, by Taylor Jenkins Reid, was our work book club pick for the quarter, and being that I had come in HOT to our Summer meeting with oodles of big feelings about How to Stop Time by Matt Haig, I wanted to similarly show up, guns blazing again. Unfortunately, I couldn't make the meeting due to some scheduling issues, and even though I 1. love TJR, 2. really do plan on reading this book, and 3. was even able to get into the first fifteen pages or so, the fact that I'd be missing the meeting didn't exactly inspire me to pick it up. 

Bed and Break-Up, by Susie Dumond, was an interesting and unique lesbian Romance I had gotten about 15% of the way into, but those meager percentages were hard-won as I tried to contort myself back into the habit of reading again. I had to return it to the library, and got stuck once more. 

A House with Good Bones - by one of my personal faves, T. Kingfisher - was one of my October attempts, and I had manage to wriggle myself about 30% of the way in, but couldn't really handle when things started to get spooky. I think I'm solidly both a Horror AND a Kingfisher fan... it's just that it might be easier when the dark ISN'T creeping in by 4:30pm every night, so maybe I'll just commit to finishing this one next summer. 

Grief is for People, by Sloane Crosley, was a DNF at 24% - I couldn't get past the confusing and sometimes flat way that Crosley told stories about significant personal loss; it kind of felt like she was still in the process of moving through her own feelings, herself, and could only do so by writing about it. That might be something really compelling to revisit later, but not at this moment for me. 

That's a Great Question, by Elyse Myers, was actually something I was really excited to listen to, as the Internet personality narrates the audiobook herself. I was a fan of her online content because of her frank and open conversations around anxiety disorders, presented in a charming and funny way, but unfortunately, as it turns out, reading about someone having multiple panic attacks is not great for yours, either. 

Find Your Why, by David Mead, Peter Docker, and Simon Sniek, was a last-ditch effort, by me, to get into something, anything, by the end of the month, and usually, Self-Help is really good for a brief, compelling, fling of a read. However, it wasn't actually that - it's a corporate-schmorporate buzzword jargon-fest about connecting to your company's mission. To be perfectly honest, to me, it read like it's for business majors who don't know how to seem human or relatable when interviewing, and I ditched around 16% of the way in. 

Naming and shaming the Slump seemed to be the only way to make peace with what I was going through, and I spent the last week or so of November trying desperately to keep my chin up, enjoy time spent with family, and promise myself that I'd do better in December. 

Whether or not that's happened, though, is for you to find out in the next blogpost. 

When's the last time you battled a hardcore Reading Slump? How did you fight your way out? Let me know, in the comments below!

What I Read in August: the Results of Summer Book Bingo 2025!

Let's cut to the chase: August was a whirlwind (as has also been, essentially, the other four final months of 2026, which is why this blogpost is only coming to you in the last week of December). 

The month kicked off with my best friend's Bachelorette weekend, followed by her wedding a few weeks later, a major work event we've been planning for since January, my brother starting his first full-time teaching job,  and then, of course, the impending onslaught of a three-days-off-in-twenty-one-days work schedule. 

To be honest, the fact that I managed to read six-and-a-half books in August is nothing short of a miracle. The fact that so many of them ended up being GOOD defies all logic, too! 

Seattle Public Library & Seattle Arts and Lectures' Summer Reading Challenge Book Bingo

Bingo Square: "Gender Bender"

If I Were You, Cesca Major

"As I look across, I see... myself. 

I've left my body. 

I'm staring at myself. I'm staring at Ghost Me. 

Oh my god, I have died." 

A relationship on the rocks gets tested further, when an unexpected lightning strike in a field on the drive to a wedding leads to Amy and Flynn swapping bodies... and Amy's the Maid of Honor. Could this sudden change in perspective help them see eye to eye, or will this glamorous, high-stakes weekend mark the end of more than just their relationship?

It's one thing to say that "Books are Better than Movies." But the reality is, there are quite a few things one format can do, that are limited in the other... for instance, adding a soundtrack cue to add nuance in a pivotal scene, or including straightforward visuals that translate immediately, rather than having to rely on paragraphs of description. Or a Body Swap Plot. 

The convoluted nature of trying to parse out who was who - and what body they were inhabiting, while talking to which fellow member of the huge cast of characters, and what those relationships looked like, and how they might be perceived by an outsider - made for a plot device that completely took out at the knees any kind of momentum once the narrative had gotten rolling. It made picking up and putting down the book nearly impossible, because to abandon the characters at any given moment would result in becoming completely unmoored from any kind of anchoring framework or context. 

Put on top of that some uniquely unhinged plot points - [MODERATE SPOILERS] take, for instance, the gradual reveal of a woman who believes she killed her dad but *gasp* didn't, or a man how might have fathered an infant by way of one of the other wedding guests, but *gasp* didn't do that either - and on the whole, you're left on the either side just kind of confused. Why introduce such befuddling, emotionally-weighty elements in such an already convoluted narrative framework? 

And WHY does the marketing material for this book keep trying to tell me it's a Rom-Com? I have a significantly difficult time finding anything remotely humorous about any part of this, and instead, spent a lot of time wondering about why every character felt called to make terrible choices around each other. 

At this point, Body Swap comedies should remain solely under the jurisdiction of respected professionals like Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. I don't think I want to ever read a book with a plot like this again. 

two stars 

Bingo Square: "BIPOC Historical Fiction / Nonfiction"

Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert, Bob the Drag Queen

"They call you lazy even though you work more than you sleep, they call you stupid even though you engineered food from garbage, and they call you dangerous without acknowledging their hand in the matter." 

An unexpected global supernatural event leads to hundreds of notable historic figures coming back to life, in the modern world. When a washed-up hip hop producer gets contacted by the team representing the newly-revived Harriet Tubman, he's offered a chance to help assemble a rap album that could change the world... if he's brave enough to face the music again. 

I heard the words "Major Female Historical Figure with Ties to the Political Power of the Abolition Movement Gets a Modern-Day Rewrite with a Feminist Bent and a Tendency Towards Music and Stage Performance" and thought "Didn't Oh Mary just win a whole bunch of Tony's for something very similar? 

But the reality is, the approaches between the two are entirely different from each other, as both the voices of Cole Escola and Bob the Drag Queen are entirely different from each other (and to be honest, each fairly singular, on the whole). Whereas Escola plays Mary Todd Lincoln with high camp and outlandish comedy, Bob pitches Harriet Tubman as serious, with significant historical understanding to establish context and shape to her unconventional occupation of a contemporary space. "Harriet Tubman produces a rap album" might sound like the beginnings of an SNL bit, but Bob treats her with clear and focused direction, value placed on historical translation and heart, and what is so evidently a care for representation and appreciation. 

(What's even more interesting is that the promotional material for marketing this book primarily relied on comparisons to Hamilton... which I also don't think is as easy a collation as people might think.) 

Listening to the audiobook in particular really helps amplify the experience, because of Bob's uniquely commanding, then conversational, tone. There's a natural sense of humor in the way that he talks and tells his story in a way that really brings such a fantastical circumstance into reality - and as an added bonus, two of the songs "written" by Tubman are included at the end of the audiobook, and performed in a way that only someone like Bob has the gravitas and genre understanding to do. 

five stars!

Bingo Square: "Disability"

Sitting Pretty: The View From My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body, Rebekah Taussig

"So here I am, writing this book, because my life isn't over, because the stories of disabled folks are so often distorted to fit someone else's louder story, because I wish I'd had any stories when I was growing up - like any at all - that represented my actual lived experiences, because there's another generation of exquisite people growing up disabled or about to become disabled, and stories are fucking powerful." 

Disability activist Rebekah Taussig shares friendly, funny, and often heart-breaking stories from her life, about growing up as a wheelchair user, and how the world could stand to learn a thing or two from the perspectives of those often forced to the outside of global conversations. 

On one hand, it's a conversational, relatively brief series of essays, penned by a childhood cancer survivor and paralyzed woman who never wanted to be a disability advocate, but found herself naturally turned into one anyways. 

On the other hand, I printed out three-double sided pages of notes that I had highlighted while reading the Kindle version of this book, that now live in the back of my Book Journal, in addition to the two-and-a-half handwritten pages of notes that I have in place of a "real" review for this book. 

Instead of me talking, I think you should hear some of these actual bangers from Taussig herself: 

"Disabled people are expected to cope with their own social ostracism, to handle being misunderstood and misrepresented, and at the same time, to put at ease those who perform the ostracism. In order to be seen as equally human, we have to find a way to be seen on the fringe by those firmly situated on the inside, to make those who would otherwise ignore and erase or misread us feel comfy and cozy and entertained while we attempt to delicately challenge their assumptions." 

Or this one:

"When we arrive at job interviews, go to the grocery store, show up at a fertility clinic or adoption agency, create online dating profiles, get pulled over by the police, entrust our bodies to medical professionals, pick up our kids from school, enter a place of worship, we are moving through a world where our image is shorthand for something incompetent or unreliable, helpless or dangerous, not worth living or inherently wrong, sinful or contagious, impotent or taboo, perverted or sexless. And these manifest into tangible results, from neglect to hate crimes, condescending laughter to sexual assault, unwelcome prayers to exorcisms, pity to assisted suicides, infantilization to police violence, dismissal to invasive medical procedures, familial rejection to domestic violence, idolization to social isolation." 

And let's just end on one of my favorites: 

"Instead of disability as the limitation, what if a lack of imagination was the actual barrier?"

four-and-a-half stars

Bingo Square: "Great Escapes"

Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher 

"It was paralyzing. How does anyone manage? There are too many streams and they all flow and all of them could be good, and there's no way to know. How does anyone even choose to do anything?

Well, no matter what choices she did or did not make, there was still a task remaining. 

Toadling, a fairy changeling stolen from her parents and raised amongst the ponds of Fairyland, is given a quest: return to the world she was taken from, and bestow a blessing upon the life of a royal infant. A simple task, leading to disastrous consequences... 

After centuries have passed, and the walls surrounding the castle have grown lush with thorns, a curse of unending sleep remains that has yet to be broken. Toadling will do anything to keep it that way.

Oh my gosh. Every once in a while, you just need to come across a new installment in a genre you've been a fan of since middle school, to really get your life back on track. 

I'm such a fan of fairy tale retellings, in a way that was deeply shaped by being a huge Disney nerd as a teen, and having Once Upon a Time airing on TV during my collegiate years. However, as an adult, it feels like a lot of that weight falls onto Literary Magical Realism (like Helen Oyeyemi) or Romance Novels (like Teresa Medeiros), which only really serve to highlight bits and pieces of what the story requires, rather than the truly whimsical, dark, sweeping, transformative power of a real fairy tale. 

Thank goodness for the Fantasy genre. 

And thank goodness for T. Kingfisher, who - like Seanan McGuire, similarly - has seemed to really find her lane writing excellence in the novella form. Stripping away superfluous detail or unnecessary world-establishment, taking a scant word count a long ways, and using it to make some real magic happen. There's a great deal of economy happening in what I'm sure is a rigorous editing process, and it translates beautifully. 

I loved the twist of the origins of our main character, the twist on what makes a fairy tale, the twist on the self-actualizing power of a happily-ever-after. I loved our twisted villain, and the twisted environment in which she lived. 

It was just a really damn good story. 

five stars! 

Ripped Bodice Bookstore Romance Book Bingo 

Bingo Square: "Happily Ever After"

Go Luck Yourself (Royals and Romance #2), Sara Raasch

"We're here. We have all day. I showed you a part of my soul, and we're next to a bed. So kiss me, you idiot, and be with me." 

After a collegiate prank goes awry - threatening the standing of the heir of St. Patrick's Day within the rest of the royal community - Kris, the younger prince of Christmas, decides to do the right thing, and apologize. Making amends gets interesting, when a plot to magically siphon some of Christmas' power is revealed, and the clues to the culprit behind the theft lead straight back to Ireland, and the unexpectedly attractive Prince Lochlan. Could there be a pot of gold at the end of this rivalry's rainbow, or is Kris' luck about to run out? 

Not only was I immediately infatuated with the deranged romance antics of TNBK back in July, but I knew I had to have more: I pretty immediately grabbed a library hold on Go Luck Yourself, and knew that as soon as I was home from my bestie's Bach weekend, I was going to treat myself to a real good time with this one. 

It somehow manages to be even more bonkers and horny than the first installment. Being that those were two of the reasons I had such a great time on my first rotation, I knew that I was in for a real treat. 

The world-building discrepancies I had an issue with in the first book are absolutely still here: the magic system still defies all attempts at logic (Why is their sole source of economic collateral so easily liquidized? Why is all of the holiday magic controlled and dispensed by only one person per court? What the hell is luck magic supposed to actually manifest as in a material sense, and is it problematic when it's used for financial gain?), and the treatment of global religion only gets more confusing (St. Patrick's Day is one of the primary holidays in question. It's viewpoint has nearly nothing to do with St. Patrick, or even Ireland, necessarily, but more like Boston's version of St. Patrick's Day). 

If I wanted to go more in detail about either one of those things, though, I'd have to reread the books. It wouldn't be a hard lot: I wanted to start back form the beginning pretty much as soon as I'd finished, and even if I did choose to read, I wouldn't be as focused on the insane authorial choices as much as I was as the tremendous fun I was having, just like I did the first time 'round. 

four stars

Bingo Square: "Grand Gesture"

The Next Best Fling (Librarians in Love #1), Gabriella Gomez

"Just imagining the tagline to this low-budget Lifetime film is enough to make me cringe:

He wants the bride, she wants the groom. But what is all they really want... is each other?" 

After her guy best friend - the man she's been in love with since their collegiate days - tells her he's finally proposing to his longtime sweetheart, Marcela knows she has to keep her mouth shut, no matter how much it hurts. If only she could convince the groom's brother to do the same, after she catches him on the verge of drunkenly confessing his own feelings to the soon-to-be bride. Now, they're fake-dating, hard, as unconventional accountability buddies in leaving the happy couple alone... but when secrets come to light, will the truth set anyone free, or just make everything worse? 

There was definitely a part about 7% of the way into this book where I thought to myself, " I know I hate it, but I have to keep going so that I can check off the Bingo Square." Honestly, though, I kind of wish I had also listened to that answering voice in my brain who rebutted "Not that badly." 

I should have clocked the pun in the title sooner - a play on the phrase "next best thing," as in a reference to the fact that despite our plus-sized heroine being in love with a man for over a decade, she could always JUST FALL IN LOVE WITH HIS BROTHER instead - but I was honestly so put off by the unbelievable choices being made by the majority of the main cast that I got a little bit distracted. The object of our heroine's initial affections was so immediately and obviously repugnant, it was impossible to take her seriously; if anything, it made her own seriously questionable behavior only more obnoxious. I had concerns about what either of their actual supposed love interests saw in them, and questioned their own decision-making skills in return. 

And I get that this is form a series called "Librarians in Love," but it did a thing with librarian characters that I really hate to see: it chooses one of two primary, equally-irritating archetypes (aka, Serious Spinster Who Only Appreciates REAL Literature, or Squee-ing YA-or-Romance TikTok-y Book Club Lover) and leans stereotypically hard into it, making the character  feel completely foreign to someone who actually does like to read books as well, let alone has spent quite a bit of time around librarians. 

(And I know I'm jumping the gun, here, but those two Librarian Types are going to come up in discussion in regards to a Romance novel I read later this Fall, as well. At this point, I just need someone to point me towards a librarian in this genre who doesn't fit either archetype, so I can sleep knowing they really exist.) 

two stars 

Bingo Square: "Historical Ruins"

Digging Dr. Jones, Olivia Jackson

"A stupid grin grew on my face. 'Tell me,' I said, leaning forward in my seat, 'Do you own a whip?'

'What?' Andrew's eyebrows went up. 

'And a brown fedora?'

He stared at me as if I had turned into an ogre, then smiled. 'For a moment I thought you were changing the subject to some fetish you have.'"

When a mysterious package gets delivered to the door of her suite at a fancy vacation resort, Adriana can't believe her luck. In actuality, it's the opposite: the beautiful bracelet inside isn't a souvenir from a secret admirer, but an improperly-delivered clue to an international mystery that ended up in the wrong person's hands. Now that the bracelet is stuck on her wrist for good, Adriana has to tag along with Andrew - the package's rightful recipient - to track down the missing treasure of a long-dead pirate... before the rivals right on their trail get there first. 

Again, I knew pretty early on that I was not going to love this book. 

I found the main character to be incredibly grating; I thought her brother was pitched as too much of a stereotype; I thought the villains were cartoonishly evil; and I thought our main love interest was so exaggeratedly perfect, so unreal, so perplexingly ideal, that I was truly, fully prepared for him NOT to be the "real" love interest by the end of the story. Seriously, I sailed through the first 50% of the book waiting for a shoe-drop / heel turn, where the facade would strip away to reveal the "real" bad guy, and the heroine would have to do a little more of the Indiana Jones-ing herself to right the wrongs and save the day. 

I think that was my brain's attempt at turning this book into something other than a fairly paint-by-numbers action plot. With the sheerest veneer of mystery and character development, it really ended up reminding me more like something of a plot synopsis for a mid-tier action blockbuster... but at least those usually have pretty people to look at, and fun visual effects to enjoy. Like with the Body Swap Plot convo around If I Were You, maybe an Action/Adventure plot is best left in the hands of capable Hollywood directors. 

At the endo of the day, the parts of the book I ended up being most impressed by were the incredibly  comprehensive and lovingly-curated Spotify playlist published at the front of the novel, and the anti-AI theft warning nested into the front pages with the copyright materials. 

two stars

Bingo Square: "Who-Doin-It (fka, who-done-it) Mystery Romance"

Thrown to the Wolves (Big Bad Wolf #3), Charlie Adhara

I ended the month of August about 51% of the way through, so you'll have to wait for a future blogpost to hear all about it! 

So, how did it all go? 

I can't believe I did it!! 

In total, across three months, I read twenty-and-a-half books, allowing me to get a total of FOUR book bingos, across the two sheets I was playing! 

As always, I don't do this for the actual sport, but for the love of the game. I don't turn in my bingo cards or anything, but because I love the challenging nature of these reading challenges -- getting to read outside of my comfort zone; pick up new titles, authors, genres, I haven't tried before; and take a chance to really push myself at a time of the year where I have typically had a little more free time on my hands (I say "typically" because this year, more than ever before, that has emphatically not been the case). 

Of course, there's a very evil little voice muttering in the back of my head, the one I can never fully get to shut up:

It doesn't really count, because you included a book you haven't finished yet. It doesn't really count, because some of these were only novellas, and not "real" books. It doesn't count because a lot of these were on audiobook. Back in the day, you could read 25 and more books on Summer Vacation, so I don't know what you're so pleased about. Think of how much more you could have read, if you hadn't bothered wasting so much time on your damn phone.

But that voice will always live there. And maybe there's something to be said about never quite being satisfied with what you've accomplished, and how it can continue to propel you on to bigger and better things. 

But right now, I'm trying to get better about acknowledging my wins as they come. And I did a great job! 

What was the best thing you read in Summer 2025? What were some of the titles you didn't quite get to? Let me know, in the comments below!

What I Read in July: Celebrating Fifteen Years on the Internet, and Seven Books Read!

This was a big month, one that really highlighted just how chaotic life can get when you've got a major work event coming up the first week of August, your best friend is imminently getting married, and you're trying to listen to as many audiobooks on your half-hour-twice-a-day commute as possible. (Plus, you know, feeding yourself, sleeping at least six hours a night, and all that other good stuff.)

Thankfully, that also meant there was so much to celebrate in July... including a very important date! 

my bloggoversary!

In late July, I hit a milestone that truly feels mind-boggling once you consider the implications: I started this blog on July 24th of 2010, which means that this year, Playing in the Pages turned 15. Had I decided to pursue teenage pregnancy as a goal, rather than translating my love of oversharing to the Internet, I'd have a high schooler on my hands. 

Clearly, this was well worth celebrating. 

My brother is my enthusiastic annual partner in these endeavors, so we kicked off the day at 85 Degree Bakery for delicious pastries and stocking up on later-snacks, then hit up Barnes and Noble, Half Price Books, and Value Village to pick out some fresh new reading selections. We grabbed lunch from one of our favorite hometown delis, went home for some chill time, and then munched on homemade burgers while watching The Secret of NIMH (It had to be something adapted from a book, after all, to fit the theme of the day). 

Bookstore One: Barnes and Noble

I got a free tote bag because I'm a Premium rewards member - something I genuinely feel is a pretty great move if you spend enough time and money in there - which also gave me an additional 10% off all of my purchases, as well as a $5 credit that I was able to redeem.  

• Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, Amanda Montell
• The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise, Olivia Laing
• The Spellshop, Sarah Beth Durst
• Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan
• Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie 

Bookstore Two: Half Price Books

• What's for Dessert?: Simple Recipes for Dessert People, Claire Saffitz (cookbook)
• The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman

Bookstore Three: Value Village

• The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar
• Selected Stories, Alice Munro
• Pasta & Co. Encore, Marcella Rosene (cookbook)

In total, I spent less than $150 for eight books, two cookbooks, and a tote bag combined... which feels pretty good, for a day that I deliberately try to let myself splurge a little bit. I will say, for all that books are getting "more popular" again and the publishing industry is experiencing a resurgence, these titles feel like they're only getting pricier and pricier... which is why I spent the following day enjoying some library books, as well. 

All told, it was one of the best days out of the entire summer. Definitely a great way to ring in 15 years! 

(Special thanks to my brother, for spending the whole day with me celebrating, and for paying for our morning pastries. I'm so glad you loved The Secret of NIMH as much as I did!)

Seattle Public Library & Seattle Arts and Lectures' Summer Reading Challenge Book Bingo

Bingo Square: "Intergenerational Friendship"

The Reading List, Sara Nisha Adams

"It was strange, the idea that this book wasn't just for him. It was for everyone. All these people who had taken it out before him, people who would take it out after him. Every reader, unknowingly connected in some small way."

An older man who has recently lost his wife and a young girl grappling with her mother's mental health struggles inadvertently strike up an unconventional friendship, after she discovers a mysterious list of books left behind in the library. 

It's pretty rare that a piece of straightforward, contemporary-set, non-speculative, literary fiction just comes up and gets me good. I very rarely seek out the category, to be honest - at its best, it feels sedate and relatively boring; at it's worst, it's impossible to shield really significant flaws in writing, narrative voice, plot, and more, without any exciting genre-affiliated aesthetics or tropes to hide behind. If I'm going to read something about the real world, I'm much more likely to grab a nonfiction read, to be honest. 

But just like it's easy to give Oscars to movies about Hollywood, and it's easy to hand Tonys off to shows about musical theater, it is very, very easy to be someone who loves books, and fall in love with a book about reading. 

But it's not actually about the books mentioned at all, but instead, the transformative power they have to relate all kinds of people, the connective tissue that can run through a reading community, and change lives in powerful ways. Books can make you feel less alone, but people can do that, too, and this particular read in as much about forming a relationship with reading, as it is about forming a relationship with - and showing up for - others. 

And because of the severity of the mental health struggles discussed therein, this was a hard - but valuable - read. It's one I can see returning to again in the future, for sure. And being that I had only been familiar with a handful of titles on the mysterious list myself, it's actually given me a bit of a TBR to seek out in the future, as well. 

five stars! 

Bingo Square: "Read in Public" 

How to Stop Time, Matt Haig

"And, just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live. You just close your eyes and let every futile fear slip away. And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself, Who am I? If I could live without doubt, what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being fucked over? If I could love without fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss the taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?" 

A man with a perplexing medical diagnosis - that his body ages at a fractional rate of a normal human, allowing him to live for centuries - finds himself reflecting on all that he has lost, when faced with the potential for new love. Meanwhile, the shadowy organization that allows him to live covertly has a request he's not sure he can fulfill. 

This was the choice of our Book Club at work, and was, in fact, supplied by one of my work besties. Which made it incredibly awkward when everyone else in Book Club disliked it so much, that all I heard from other people around the office was how getting through it was a dull, hard slog. I actually didn't even fully commit to taking part in actually reading it until about a week and a half before our scheduled meeting. 

And... listen. It was actually pretty easy to get through. Haig has a really straightforward, unadorned style of writing that makes zipping along relatively painless. And on top of that, for about 80% of the book, I would argue that very little of importance happens, and you can kind of just... skim. 

The pacing, I think, was one of the issues that a few of my fellow Book Club members a little bogged down... nothing happens for entire stretches, and the flashback scenes are oddly placed and not all intrinsic to the plot beyond a semi-explanation of our main character's emotional responses. The central plot, also, is only half there, and barely given more shading beyond flat characterizations, which makes character decisions utterly baffling and occasionally - especially for female characters - so lackluster and devoid of life that it felt like they were there more as objects for the male characters to rotate around. 

And then, in the final chapter, quite a lot happens. Not a whole lot of those previous issues are resolved, mind you, but at least it makes it feel like the rest of the book meant something, for all that everything clashes together in the space of mere minutes like planets colliding, without much time at all for de-escalation or falling action. 

While some of the lines were kind of pretty, it didn't help how disjointed and confused the rest of the book felt. 

two-and-a-half stars

Bingo Square: "Hope" 

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, Barack Obama

"We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God had commanded. 

Of course, in the end, God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God's test of devotion. 

But it's fair to say that if any of us saw Abraham on the roof of his apartment building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police, and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason." 

Written in 2006, Barack Obama grounds his political philosophy in bipartisanship, respect, and belief in the innate power of democracy, with the hopes of uniting the country towards positive, meaningful change. 

I was really in a bind when it came to selecting a read to fill this Bingo Square. On one hand, it was such a loosely defined category, that I was struggling to understand what the actual parameters were, and on the other, the world around me seemed to be full of so much chaos and division, that reading anything hopeful felt like a futile effort from jump. So I decided to just get as literal as possible, and picked out a book with the word "Hope" in the title. 

The Audacity of Hope was the book Obama wrote while still a senator, two years after firing up the Democratic National Convention with his tremendous speaking abilities, hoping to build steam towards his first bid at the presidency. He talked about representation, the political machine, opposition leaders he respected, and the various personalities who formed integral aspects of his understanding in Washington DC. He talked about how his faith informed his politics, how his family stood at the core of his greatest motivations, and how he believed that Americans deserved more from their civic leaders. 

It was, in short, one of the least hopeful things I could have read this year. 

The world was a different place when this book was written, in a lot of important ways, and listening to the audiobook - which he also narrated, mind you, and was therefore spoken with his thoughtful cadence and meaningful intonation - felt like watching the world of yesteryear through a funhouse mirror. It made me nostalgic for a simpler time, one that I'm not sure ever actually existed, but might have just been a symptom of the fact that I was in middle school, and didn't yet have access to an machine that lives in my pocket and alerts me, multiple times an hour, to the worst that humanity has to offer itself. Plus, maybe everything just feels a little more hopeful when you're twelve. 

Beautiful book, well written, well spoken. Completely, totally depressing in 2025. 

four stars

Ripped Bodice Bookstore Romance Book Bingo 

Bingo Square: "Fairy Tale Retelling" 

Charming the Prince (Once Upon a Time #1), Teresa Medeiros

" 'Tis fortunate that you've become such an expert on women, is it not? A less able man might have bungled that entire situation.' " 

After being cast aside by her father's new wife in favor of her own demanding brats, Willow takes up the opportunity to be married off to a neighboring lord in search of a bride. Unfortunately, she's also looking to get away from taking care of so many children, which is exactly what he needs her for... and he's trying not to make any more of them, which makes her beauty and charm a very unwelcome distraction. 

I was in a real difficult spot to try and pick a favorite quote out of this one. Here's another one I almost chose:

"Perhaps you should consider a vow of celibacy. I've no doubt God would find it a most impressive sacrifice, much more pleasing in His eyes than if you had wed some stout fishwife with a mustache." 

This whole book is chock full of sarcastic quips, unexpected one-liners, and witty conversations, making it probably one of the more hilarious Historical Romances I've ever read. 

Teresa Medeiros is one of those names that pops up frequently in conversations about what names one might include when constructing a comprehensive Historical Romance canon of work, as she serves as such a formative and relevant voice within the genre, and I can totally see why. And as someone who has had her fair share of frustration with reading Romances from before feminism was apparently discovered in the mid-'2000s - if that - this one was not too bad for its perspectives on women (if you deliberately choose to overlook the somewhat starting age gap implications). 

I will say, for something that professes to be a fairy tale retelling, it's pretty damn difficult to get the shades of it. Beyond the initial starting point of "My Dad's evil wife makes me dress shabbily and do chores and cater to the whims of my bratty stepsiblings" thing, you can't really see this one as being Cinderella beyond page 20. 

three-and-a-half stars

Bingo Square: "Kissing in the Rain"

Beach Read, Emily Henry 

"I did what any reasonable adult woman would do when confronted with her college rival turned next-door neighbor. I dove behind the nearest bookshelf." 

A romance novel author - left reeling from a sudden revelation at her father's funeral - flees to a surprise beachfront inheritance. Unfortunately, her new neighbor is not only a fellow author, but the literary fiction elitist she thought she left behind. As it turns out, there's something they have in common: insurmountable writer's block. But maybe they can fix it together? 

I have stayed off the Emily Henry hype train for quite a while longer than probably anticipated, for someone who has three of her books currently sitting on her TBR shelves ($1 for the trio at my local library, purchased back in January). Of course what made me finally cave was a Bingo prompt... and then the book I ended up reading wasn't even one I owned. 

It was, however, the title that put Henry on the map. And I can see why: the novel is so funny that I laughed out loud, its main characters feel specific and unique and interesting, the ways the two are eventually brought together are compelling and fun to read, and the beachfront location - plus some of the various dates the two went on together - felt like summer. 

I will also say: it's a bit of a weird one. 

Our main hero isn't just a pretentious dweeb, but also a bit of an eccentric (half of their journey together involves following the harrowing story of a cult that ended in tremendous violence, which he's been researching), and our heroine's primary actions are motivated by a concept so bleak and anti-romantic that I spent the entire story waiting for there to be a twisty "gotcha" that would explain it all away, that never came... if anything, it gets bolstered, reinforced, and weirdly validated by the main character by the end of the book (Kind of a spoiler, even though you learn basically all of it in the first chapter: her father cheated on her mother twice, WHILE SHE HAD CANCER, going as far as SECRETLY PURCHASING THE BEACH HOUSE OUR CHARACTER STAYS IN during the course of the novel, all of which our heroine finds out about when the mistress hands her keys and a letter at her father's funeral). 

So you can maybe get why - even though I enjoyed it - this one was a three star read for me. 

three stars

Bingo Square: "Medieval" 

Well Matched (Well Met #3), Jen DeLuca

" 'Needing and wanting are two different things, you know. You can want something and not need it.' " 

Sending a child off to college means prepping your too-big house for sale, right? At least that's what mom April tells herself when she enlists hunky Mitch to help with some final touch-ups before she calls her realtor. When Mitch asks for a favor of his own, the two grow closer than previously anticipated. But can April get over their gap in age and life experience? And is she distracting Mitch too much from his job at their local Ren Faire? 

I wasn't originally planning on reading multiple Jen DeLuca romance novels in 2025, but when the category calls for something "Medieval," sometimes it's just easier to shoot for something "Renaissance" instead... even when it's not actually set during the Renaissance, but in contemporary times, and simply features a Ren Faire as a part of the central plot. Much like a visit to the actual Ren Faire, we're playing fast and loose with time period accuracy here. 

Unfortunately, this read was a little bit of a dud for me - while I greatly enjoyed Well Met, the first in the series, I actually DNF'd Well Played quite a while ago, because I could not get into it. Haunted Ever After was a pretty fun return to DeLuca's writing. I had a little bit more faith going into Well Matched, but just from the central couple alone - both of whom we'd met in the previous installments - I didn't think I'd have a great time. 

And I was pretty much right: I think DeLuca's strengths really lie within her main characters' chemistry and relatability, which means that if you don't click with the main characters or find them a bit unlikeable or unreasonable, you're probably not going to have a great time. I liked the grumpy, no-nonsense vibes of elder sister April in Well Met, but found her a little too obstinate and angry in Well Matched. Similarly, I loved Mitch's happy-go-lucky, golden retriever energy in the earlier novel, but found him to be a little underdeveloped and shallow in this one. I didn't buy into their romance very much - if only in part because I didn't feel like April did, either, as she spends quite a lot of the book playing it down or trying to minimize it. 

The tropes involved - fake dating, friends with benefits, overstepping family members, the surprise return of a deadbeat parent into a child's life - were also not some of my favorites. (Which made it incredibly annoying when they started popping up in other romances I read this year, too.) 

three-and-a-half stars

Bingo Square: "Punny Title" 

The Nightmare Before Kissmas (Royals & Romance #1), Sara Raasch

" 'I don't think our purpose is to prevent all the bad things in the world,' he says. 'I think our purpose is to help people endure those things.' " 

The Crown Prince of Christmas - already on thin ice with his domineering Dad, Santa Claus - gets an unwelcome gift in his stocking on his return to the North Pole for the holiday season: for starters, he's been made central in a marriage plot to consolidate Easter's power by allying it with Christmas. And for another, Halloween heard the news, and immediately sent their own Prince to try and win the Easter Princess' hand, instead. Worst of all, it turns out that the Crown Prince of Halloween is the guy he made out with in an alleyway years before, on the worst day of his life... 

So, just in case you couldn't tell from that description, you need to understand that this is not a serious book. 

Not to spoil anything for you that you couldn't already surmise from the preceding blurb, but the Crown Prince of Christmas ends up making the Yuletide real gay by falling for the Prince of Halloween. The world-building that would allow for this sort of circumstance to arise is similarly bonkers. 

The holidays are affiliated with specific locations, which map over with real-life locations in the world (for instance, Halloween's general location falls in New England). There are full-time residents of the holidays; these ruling royal families involve subjects and everything that monarchies entail, including other lords and ladies, and active factions that also have bearing into the operations of a given holiday. There are tabloids specifically for these holiday-states, that interfere notably with the lives of the holiday representatives and their children. And the economic balance of these holiday-states plays a major part in both the first and second books of the series, as it is measured in magic, but it manifests in their world differently based on the state with which it is affiliated. 

I could go on. I will go on. 

Because honestly, some of the implications of all of these big swings are SO messy: the dominant holiday regime supersedes affiliated seasonal holidays - meaning Christmas holds rank over not just something like the Feast of St. Lucia, but also the other Winter Holidays, like Solstice, Diwali, Hanukkah, etc. because it generates the most magic, or is practiced by the most people - which all goes to say that the Christian colonization structure is firmly in effect here, only, wait! The holidays are still held as secular: even though there super for sure is a Santa Claus, Virginia, there is definitely no affiliation with the real story of Saint Nicholas - nor Mary, Joseph, or Jesus Christ - to speak of. (There's only the sheerest reference, in an attempt to semi-explain the absence, but it's barely a sentence long and doesn't do much by way of contextualization.)

Plus this still raises questions about how the rest of things are going here on Earth. Does China just not exist? Because according to a quick Google search, the numbers of people on a global scale who celebrate Christmas and Lunar New Year are remarkably similar. Shouldn't we have gotten a reference to Lunar New Year being a major player in the holiday realm at some point? (Furthermore, in 2026, Lunar New Year will be celebrated on Tuesday, February 17th... does that mean that they grapple with the likes of Mardi Gras and Valentine's Day for power??)

And on top of all of this, there was a LOT of talk about corset vests. 

Here's the thing, though: I absolutely loved it. I did. It was SO bonkers, wholly relied on you taking every single thing that happened at face value, and was unrepentant about how bananas the entire formation of the world was, that it really did require you to turn off great big chunks of your brain in the most cozily lobotomizing of ways. Every once in a while, you'd get a paragraph that was beautifully written or demonstrated such a care of characterization that it genuinely felt like came from a different story, like a line of gold running through quartz, and it would flash beautifully in the sun until you'd go sailing right over the end of another paragraph into something dazzlingly unhinged again.

I loved the sequel, too - though you'll have to wait to hear about that - and on top of that, I have a hold on the author's next work at the library. Haha. 

four stars

Did you read anything good this summer? Would you have picked up something different to fulfill these prompts? Let me know, in the comments below!

What I Read in June: Summer Book Bingoes 2025!

There are few events in a year that I look forward to more than Summer Reading. It's up there with the likes of Christmas, Eurovision, Mardi Gras, and my birthday, in terms of personally committing to enjoying myself as much as I can.

Summer Reading gives me a chance to sign off on that annual permission slip to revel in one of my longest-running and most passionate hobbies. It encourages me to explore outside of my comfort zone, and look for new opportunities beyond my normal purview. It's about turning longer daylight hours into longer lounging hours, and promising myself "just one more chapter," knowing that the sun will still be there when I finally decide to get up again. 

As for June alone, I read SIX (!!!) books. That's more than I had been able to complete in any individual month so far in 2025 (And a quarter of the books I read, total, in 2024!). It's double what I managed to read in February or March of this year, and triple of what I read in April or May. That's amazing! 

Plus, I'm HAVING FUN. And you've got to remember that that's really the goal, here. 

This success is definitely owed to a couple of specific factors: for instance, I've finally decided that I love listening to audiobooks on my commute to-and-from work every day, which is a cumulative hour of driving time - two hours of listening time, for those of us who listen at two-times speed. Furthermore, I love the days I actually manage to prioritize staying off of Instagram, because it saves me a few of those hours of screen time to invest in other projects. 

I also want to highlight the fact that these reading challenges would not be possible without the incredible resources available through my local library. I have a TBR bookshelf numbering well into the hundreds, and even more ebooks tightly compressed into my Kindle Paperwhite, but the wide-ranging themes and exciting new topics always send me running towards my local library branch. In June alone, my library checkouts included four ebooks on Kindle, five physical copies, and five audiobooks, just to construct my starting block for launching into these challenges.

All told, June was a killer month, that kicked off a really exciting Summer. Can you really blame me for taking so long to get these reviews up, when I clearly required recuperation from all of this fun I was having? 

Seattle Public Library & Seattle Arts and Lectures' Summer Reading Challenge Book Bingo

An annual tradition that began back when I actually did still live in Seattle, this Summer Book Bingo Challenge is exclusively self-imposed and rigorously followed. 

Bingo Square: "PNW Nature"

Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt

"Smart cookie. I am smart, but I am not a snack object dispensed from a packaged food machine. What a preposterous thing to say." 

Three lives - an old woman contemplating her future, a young man seeking the truth of his origins, and a giant Pacific octopus in residence at a local aquarium - meet in a coastal Washington town. 

The book appears to be somewhat universally beloved, with many friends of my acquaintance regularly granting it four or five stars on Goodreads... leaving me frustrated, and bored out of my mind, attempting to blaze through the audiobook on my morning and afternoon commutes from work. 

As it turns out, the answer to this disparity may lie within a lunchtime conversation I had with two of my coworkers - one of whom read the book and gave it 4.5 stars, and another, who listened to the audiobook like me, and... did not. 

Whitney had many of the same gripes I did, which - after discussion between the three of us - seemed to arise from an issue of format ("If you're going to have two narrators, why have one ONLY do the octopus, and the other... literally everything else? And why does he have a pan-Atlantic accent?"). Then again, even Paige could admit to some of the other flaws ("I hated pretty much everything that had to do with the male main character. He was just such a loser."). 

As for me, I had some of my own structural issues, as well: it was too neat. Characters were somewhat preternaturally lucky, for all that they hit their bumpy patches. So many things just HAPPENED to work out, that the entire overarching narrative felt shallow. I get that it's a small town, but yeesh. 

And speaking of a small town, Washington is full up on plenty of cool ones. I'm baffled by the decision to invent an entirely fictional location... not when I could think of at least three small coastal towns off the top of my head that would easily fit the geographical bill. 

(After all, even Tessa Bailey's It Happened One Summer is set in Westport.)

three-and-a-half stars

Bingo Square: "Monsters"

Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, ed. Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. 

"Could be his story's already Horror, yeah? Sure. The way he told it was more... it was more about how there's more to the night, and the land, than we generally acknowledge. Which is to say, when we feel his story in the base of our jaw, in the hollow of our chest, in the sway of our back, then the world clicks that smidge wider, to allow more stuff to be going on." 

A compendium of shorts written by notable Native authors operating within the schema of Dark Fiction, with stories focused on ghosts, monsters, contemporary social issues, and more. 

Short answer: I absolutely loved it. I loved it so hard I read it in only a handful of sittings. I loved it so much I considered just going out and buying my own copy when I was afraid I wouldn't make the library due date in time. I'm probably going to end up buying my own copy for keeps anyways. 

I loved the breadth of genre representation: this collection is classified not just as Horror, but actually Dark Fiction - a confusion I've seen trip up multiple reviewers when discussing this book - a genre whose scope includes Crime, Thriller, Suspense, and even Dark Humor / Satire. I loved how every single author involved was given space to breathe and flex and show off a little. I loved that there were authors I recognized, and others that were totally brand new to me. I love that I now have a reading list of authors to look out for in the future. 

I love how some leaned into myths, monsters, folklore, and legend; I loved how some felt current, contemporary, real, and reflective. I love how some used stereotypes and recognizable tropes as target practice to be knocked down; I love how some claimed new ownership on long-held practices and traditions. I loved how much representation there was - serving as a reminder that no Native American culture is a monolith, but instead, that indigenous Americans belong to wide spanning and far-reaching communities, each with their own unique history and voices. I loved it.

My only critique that I can even come up with is that I personally feel the organization of how the stories were arranged could have flowed a little better in places. That's really it. There's only so much I can say negatively about a book that got me so good that I have two pages of handwritten notes about it, jotted down just to help me sort through all of that gorgeous content. 

I look forward to reading this one again in the future. 

four-and-a-half stars 

Bingo Square: "Resistance"

Pleasure Activism, adrienne maree brown 

"And perhaps that would be fine if the top searches were 'woman on top of someone she could never identify as a family member,' 'strapped women taking tender tushes,' or 'grown up legal-aged professionals of all genders in hot consensual anti-racist role play.' But if pornography is another space in which we practice exploring our fantasies, I have questions." 

A collection of personal essays, interviews, artwork, and more, oriented around the idea that Pleasure is not only worth seeking in all ways on all days, but especially within the scope of social justice conversations and intersectional community organization. 

Parts of this book were thought-provoking, insightful, and edifying... in fact, a lot of it reminded me of taking a Comparative History of Ideas class in college. And parts of it felt sort of self-involved, abstract, and gratuitously provocative... like taking a Comparative History of Ideas class in college.

I wanted something concrete and static to hold on to, something like numbers or data, reinforcing a salient point with evidentiary backup. Instead, this wandering and wordy collection felt like it was constantly shifting attention, in ways that occasionally came off as a little directionless and unsteady. 

The problem is, parts of this are so, so relevant and important - to the point where my phone Camera Roll was filled with pictures of pages while reading, because simply writing down a quote wasn't enough: I needed context to give scope around the ideas that I liked. 

I found myself revisiting notable phrases and concepts as I was otherwise simply going about my day. Pleasure IS vital to successful sociopolitical recruitment efforts; Black women DO deserve to reclaim sexual freedom against dangerous racial stereotypes; the ultimate power in both pleasure and activism IS rooted in community! Imagine an old Uncle Sam-style poster hanging on the wall: Have YOU de-centered the phallus today? 

But all of this gets bogged down by the jetsam cast to the second half of the book, tenuously tied to the orienting concept, with controversial - and almost exclusively anecdotal - takes on explorative drug use, ethical non-monogamy, the idea of going commando in a skirt and sitting your butt directly on grass as a meditative grounding technique... like I said, it reminded me of the kinds of conversations we had back in college. It tired me out a little bit. 

I just really wish this had gone through at least another round or two of editing before publication. Instead of feeling like a commonplace book of scratch thesis development, it could have been two or three different, tightly-directed books... maybe even a really good zine series. 

two stars 

Ripped Bodice Bookstore Romance Book Bingo 

Hosted by the Ripped Bodice Bookstore - with locations in Culver City, CA, and Brooklyn, NY - this annual Book Bingo just celebrated its ninth year, and focuses on Romance novels that fit into unique and humorous categories.

Bingo Square: "Telepathic Connection"

Dark Prince (Carpathians #1), Christine Feehan

" 'A Carpathian male will do anything necessary to ensure the happiness of his lifemate. I don't know or understand how it works, but Mikhail told me the bond is so strong, a male cannot do anything else but make his woman happy.'

'I don't understand how taking away choices would ever make anyone happy.' " 

A psychic seeking to distance herself from her hazardous past tracking serial killers, finds her European vacation interrupted when she's inexplicably drawn to the leader of the Carpathians, a remote blood-sucking population under attack from unknown forces. 

Okay, full cards on the table here: I cannot emphasize enough how much I absolutely disliked this one. 

Enough that I got so sick and tired of their repeated lovemaking sessions that I couldn't help but yell out loud when I realized I was only 30% of the way in. Enough that the generally misplaced and reductive stereotypes drove me to angrily verbally-download the whole thing to my brother after he made the mistake of looking me in the eye as we passed each other in the hallway. Enough that in the last third of the book, I started wishing that the main heroine would get knocked unconscious or locked underground (plot-relevant), so that I wouldn't have to suffer through her narrative voice anymore. 

Things I hated, in no particular order: 

• How small the heroine was. How DAINTY and PETITE. It was only reiterated and reinforced every few minutes, alongside how her silky black hair fell like a sexy curtain, how her blue eyes shone through the darkness like LED headlights about to run me off the road, and how despite how eensy-weensy and Polly Pocket-sized she was, that she also had full, round, perfect breasts. Because of course. 
• How frequently and without any plot necessity at all, violence against women - especially sexual violence - was portrayed as a major motivating factor for the actions of every single bad guy. 
• Not the main Hero, though! He was just domineering, argumentative, obstinate, dictatorial, manipulative, and callous. He deliberately withheld information from the Heroine, turned her into a vampire without her consent, willed her into obedience with vampire powers, and demonstrated tremendous, earth-shattering violence towards OTHERS. But not her! Which makes it okay!
• Every time she was described as shaking her head, I'm surprised that a muffled rattling sound didn't follow. Her main "powers" seemed to be the stunning inability to accurately gauge a situation, and how to find herself in a maximum amount of trouble as quickly as possible. But as our Hero would describe it, it was just her sense of "compassion" that was leading her astray. 

I'm a Christine Feehan believer, for the most part - I really did love Dangerous Tides - but had I been kept in the dark about authorial identity, I think I would have just assumed this was written by a guy (no offense meant, gentlemen sirs), sheerly on the basis of how often our main character breasted boobily into dangerous situations that could only be remedied with violence. 

one-and-a-half stars 

Bingo Square: "Has a Sportsball On the Cover"

Cleat Cute, Meryl Wilsner

"One of the downsides of being a lesbian athlete is other women are always doing hot things around you." 

A rookie hotshot butts heads with the well-established captain of their New Orleans soccer team, but they quickly find something they like in common: each other. As they start spending time together both on and off the field, they learn that the whole teammates-with-benefits thing might be more than just a game to either of them. 

Okay. So. Did I like this book? Yes. Did I enjoy this book? Mostly. 

A few gripes:

• One of the primary concerns of one of the main characters is that the world would someday know about her private life, and more specifically, that she was a lesbian. Somehow, despite her legendary soccer status, her close friendships with numerous lesbian members on the USWNT, and a decade-plus-long career in women's sports, she just never happened to come out, nor had anyone asked directly. Be so for real. 
• I swear, one of the two audiobook narrators has the exact same tone, cadence and expression as a Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse character - to the point where I even googled it to verify that it wasn't true, and still didn't trust it until I found a second source - which made some VERY unfiltered sex scenes VERY uncomfortable for listening. (It was difficult not to just skip through them, but unfortunately, plot-heavy sex scenes exist in this genre, and in this book, so I was stuck.)
• I HATED the dirty talk in the sex scenes. I am definitely not a fan of certain verbiage that was not only utilized, but used to the extreme. The first sex scene also happened only at about the 33% mark, and they were fast and furious with the effing of each other, which just really doesn't do it for me... I'm someone who tends to look for a little more relationship development between characters before that bridge gets crossed. 

However, I did have some real, powerful positives:

• There were mature, (semi) rational adults, with real families, real careers, real concerns, and real side gigs: women's soccer doesn't sustain a rookie paycheck like a "real" job, so Phoebe part-timed as a waitress so her schedule could stay flexible. Grace didn't just make bank playing soccer; she also did sponsorships, brand deals, and commercials. They both had a difficult relationship with being public figures, and the various ways their words and actions were interpreted by the press. It was one of the most realistic and nuanced perspectives on athletic stardom that I've ever read. 
• I liked that they argued and fought. Counterintuitive, I know! But it was another piece of the puzzle that felt realistic and normal to read. I didn't exactly love how many of these arguments stemmed from slightly insane miscommunications - Please, dear reader, never surprise reveal to your friend-with-benefits that they definitely have undiagnosed ADHD after a tense moment with their parents - but I liked that they acknowledged their disconnect, and fought back towards each other again. 

All told, it was a quick, fun, and unique read, that I would probably end up recommending to at least one or two people I know. Maybe people who are just a little bit more invested in soccer, or rapid-fire romance, than I am. 

three stars

Bingo Square: "Haunted House"

Haunted Ever After, Jen De Luca

"There was a lot to process about tonight, but two major themes swam to the forefront. 

Ghosts were real. 

Nick was a damn good kisser. 

She wasn't sure which one was scarier, or more exciting." 

After committing to a house sight-unseen and impulsively moving to a small beach-front town, a woman finds out that her new abode is one of the main stops of the local ghost tour. Good thing the coffee shop owner down the street makes some great banana bread, and might know a little something about raising her spirits. 

I am a fan of De Luca's Ren Faire-oriented Romance series, Well Met, but this is the first I've heard of that she's written outside of that scope. I wouldn't even had known that this book (a recent release, no less!) existed, had I not been looking for a Summer Book Bingo recommendation for "Haunted House" specifically. Naturally, I snapped up the library copy... and finished the whole thing in what was, essentially, one sitting, on a random Monday after work. 

It reminded me a lot of Meg Cabot's recent witchy, small-town-in-New-England Romance - Enchanted to Meet You - though I feel that book focused a lot more on generating a really established sense of setting, aesthetic, and lore. This one, however, took a more direct "You know how it is" kind of approach - you know small beach towns, you know Florida, you know ghosts, you know puns, right? You honestly don't need to think about it too hard. You're in the drivers seat, the car's filled up with gas, and your only job as the reader is to push your foot down. Even then, it's a smooth cruise: just think the words "horniest Scooby Doo episode" or "tamest Ghost Whisperer episode," and drive. 

It's easy entry, just like the banter between the main characters is easy, the friendships come easy, the major mystery feels immediately obvious the second someone acts out of character. It's just a very dip-your-toe-in-and-swim kind of kiddie pool: a little shallow, and easy to splash around in. The ghostly elements are done in such a goofy way it gives carnival funhouse vibes, rather than any genuine spooks. It was silly and obliquely feminist, and full of good humor, so yeah, that feels like a recipe for a pretty good Monday night to me, too. 

four stars

Did you read anything good this summer? Would you have picked up something different to fulfill these prompts? Let me know, in the comments below!