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!

What I Read in April and May

Yes, I'm aware we're in July. I'm currently luxuriating in the wonders of summer, what with its bold tomato and peach output, the reasonably livable temperatures (we're getting a sensible 74 degrees and sunny, which is both my ideal living situation, as well as a complete anomaly amongst some of these egregiously hot days Washington has been experiencing so far this year), and, of course, the joys of Summer Book Bingo. 

In an attempt to bring you up to speed so we can start actually talking about the books I have most recently wanted to talk to you about, let's just get through some past reviews that might have fallen to the wayside a little bit... mainly because the breakneck pacing of this Spring left me somewhat less inspired to read, and more prompted to fall deep into an Instagram pit for hours at a time. 

april

Like I said, things were bleak. I only read two books, both of which were audiobooks that I could listen to while commuting to and from work. I ended up spending a grand total of $12.06 on Kindle ebooks, almost all of which were romance novels. I checked out more than eight books from the library - I didn't count all of the cookbooks - in an attempt to spur on some kind of personal reading project, but not a single one of them took hold. These are self-soothing techniques. It was not a very good month for bookish things. 

I even just went back and cracked open the month of April in my calendar, to see what could possibly have been taking up so much of my time and attention, and I hadn't even bothered to fill in the spread in my planner. The amount of back-to-back days of volunteering, family events, but mostly an absolutely rollicking work schedule for two weeks nearly straight - the only days off of which were for Easter, and a FUNERAL - took over the entire month. No wonder I've been pining for Summer reading since April! 

Be Ready When the Luck Happens, Ina Garten

four-and-a-half stars 

I've had the great fortune of being able to pick up some enjoyable memoirs so far this year, but I'm telling you now, this is going to end up being one of the favorites. 

It's a gentle, mainly surface level, definitely travel-and-food-focused, entry into the Food Memoirs collection. Ina Garten has been one of those much-beloved culinary figures for what feels like forever - whose Food Network series and easy-entry cookbooks have won readers over for the last two or three generations - and the writing in this memoir feels very in keeping with her cultural status so far: think understated and light-hearted humor, a detached and polite authorial voice, and an overall excitement towards welcoming in a new guest...an opportunity for introduction to a world she loves and has carefully curated for her enjoyment, and yours. 

Longtime fans will enjoy an insider perspective into her world, while absolute novices will find ready entertainment in her stories of difficult family dynamics, attempts at finding her footing in a world that doesn't feel right for her all the time, big swings that pay off, and how she had continued to pivot her success from place to place, all the way towards becoming the multihyphenate she is today. This is how we build one of the first contemporary influencers, from '90s TV to TikTok today. 

I wish she had gone into slightly more detail about certain aspects, but I enjoyed the snapshot look we got nonetheless. 

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

five stars (obviously)

I don't feel the need here to dive too deeply into my feelings for this classic, as its one I've read over a great many times, starting at the age of thirteen years old. I've seen multiple adaptations - so many that I've seen my favorites amongst THOSE regularly as well - and it's a perennial source of joy. 

I will say, it's funny how things change as you carry them along with you. The book I read at 13 is technically the same one I read at 31, but it's me that's different now. I swear, as I listened to it along my commute, I spent half of my time actually hearing it, and half of it turning various characters or phrases over and around in my head, like surveying a Rubik's cube, trying them at new perspectives. 

(For instance, on this read through, Lady Catherine's authoritarian voice made me curious as to what she must have been like in London society, Kitty's non-presence became a real question mark for me while Lydia spent so much time away from home in the second half, and Jane's relentless optimism and emotional generosity drove me absolutely nuts.) 

I appreciate the distance and the difference, but it's hard to avoid the sense of loss, sometimes, too. I'm so glad I read this when I was young, but I can't help but feel I wish I could read it for the first time again. 

may 

Again, only two books, but at least this time, one was a physical book, I could actually carry in my hands... notably around 200 pages in length, but still! Baby steps. Especially when my other steps are carrying me places like chairing a major nonprofit event, taking a weekend trip down to USC to see my sister graduate with her Master's, and having a sleepover with one of my best friends in order to do some of her wedding planning for this coming August. 

I was still in the thick of those self-soothing techniques I was just talking about: I had nine various cookbooks and gardening books checked out from the library, and then another five various reads picked up again at the end of the month as we started to head into Summer Book Bingo planning.

Not to mention that I got the chance to visit Powell's City of Books in Portland for the first time in a long time, and thanks to a very generous Mom willing to sit idly by and flip through magazines while I ran up and down that labyrinth of staircases - and asking what felt like every information desk for assistance - I ended up walking away with four books for myself, and a gift for my brother, for about $82.79. 

By the time I was even halfway through the month, I was virtually frothing at the mouth for the release of the Summer Book Bingoes from SPL and the Ripped Bodice. 

Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement, Ashley Shew

four stars

I've had a great track record for some incredible disability activism nonfiction in the last couple of years - thank you especially to Alice Wong, and Disability Visibility, during what I think was the 2023 Summer Book Bingo - so when I saw that this title was coming out, I immediately added it to my library holds list. 

It's definitely a lot shorter than I thought it was going to be - as I've got to figure that someone other than me would most likely notice that it was published under the Norton Shorts imprint - but it packs quite a wallop for that scant page length. The author herself is a cancer survivor, amputee, and and more, experiencing various forms of disability you might not think of all the time (tinnitus, Crohn's disease, etc.). Her book ventures out even further beyond that scope: there are chapters dedicated to neurodivergence and autism representation and accommodation, prosthetics and how they affect the body, and more than anything else, how disability-focused adaptive design and technological advancements are frequently not useful towards actually benefitting the unique needs of the individuals they are supposed to support, but instead, to the forced assimilation towards a "common" able-bodied model. 

I would not recommend reading it before you begin a lengthy, predominantly solo shift at work, as it will give you entirely too much to think about while you're trying to do things, like be a good and attentive employee. 

If you are a fan of fun facts that you can spout off inappropriately at parties, this is a great one. And - Future Savannah is writing this review, obviously - "Disability" is one of the squares available on the Seattle Public Library Book Bingo, so this would be a great addition to your Summer reading list before the time runs out!  

Legends & Lattes, Travis Baldree 

three-and-a-half stars 

It's not a super unique circumstance for my brother to have read a book before me (in fact, its remarkably common, especially in the Fantasy category, and even more especially because I buy him new books on average two or three times a year, for events like his birthday, Christmas, and just whenever I generally feel motivated to do so, which he then occasionally passes along to me). This means I can usually count on him to be a sounding board when I work through something he's already read. It made the following conversation pretty funny:

"I just wish the Romance subplot wasn't there. It feels superfluous to everything else that's happening!" 

"Subplot? Savannah... I'm pretty sure that's the main plot?"

So apparently the Romance in this book simply could not compare, at least for me, to the fanciful daydreams of Establishing a Small Business, what with the acquisition of work staff and company assets, the frustrations of unruly neighbors, and, of course, the unique Fantasy social issues of navigating being an orc, a retired adventurer, and a small business owner, all at the same time. As it turns out, the ins and outs of owning and operating a completely normal coffeeshop in a fictional setting might not have been the main points of the book... they were just most of what I actually cared about reading. 

No wonder I thought the whole thing was a little tame. 

But honestly... I wish it were even MORE boring. Get rid of the romance, the shady mob characters, the whole evil ex-friend thing... when I want a "slice of life" / vibes-only kind of read, I want it to be as sedate and tranquil as a small pond on a cloudy day. 

To be honest, being constantly inundated with the stupid "Caw-fee? What is caw-fee?" -slash- shoehorning-a-real-life-product-into-a-fictional-reality trope gets a little boring, too - like struggling against the boundaries of expectation and canon to somehow justify the in-world likelihood of cramming a Starbucks inside of your Lord of the Rings fanfiction - but apparently all of the other Fantasy races are simply drinking tea or something. You don't have to keep drawing attention to the fact that it somehow doesn't make sense in the realities of the world or whatever, just tell me about the barista's struggles to write Legolas's name correctly on his cup, or getting Gollum to make up his mind about what he wants to order, and move on. 

Like I said, April and May were brief in their reading exploits, and mainly served as the portal between Winter and Summer for me. It's a miracle I got anything read at all, but that's what audiobooks and morning commutes are for! 

Have you read anything good lately? Let me know, in the comments below!

What I Read in March

Man, I need to get cracking on some of these monthly reading installments, so I can hurry up and tell you about how much fun I've been having with the REAL attention-getter: Summer Book Bingo! 

But we've still got two months to cover. I'll combine April and May into one post for concision - and frankly, because I didn't actually get a whole lot of reading done in those months -  but that's for next time I see you. For now, we've got March to take care of! 

It was a pretty busy month, with the Spring season and everything that entails well underway, and lots of family commitments to take care of - including a wedding! - which is why out of the three titles I tackled, two of them were both audiobooks. 

How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files #1), Kristen Perrin

three and a half stars

In a split timeline narrative between the '60s and today, Annie Adams and her great aunt, Frances, navigate love, murder, and intrigue, on an English country estate. With snapshots of the past foretelling betrayal and present action leading to her death, can Frances' own diaries hold the key to Annie solving her murder? And in a village where everyone has an angle on this reclusive eccentric, who can she trust, herself? 

I was stuck - several times, in the midst of really very lovely otherwise audiobook - that I would probably have enjoyed this more if I was reading a physical copy.

As someone who is still tiptoeing back into what was originally, for me, a tremendously loved genre, having the experience of listening to a somewhat strangely-paced, large-ensemble cast mystery, was incredibly frustrating. I didn't like that I couldn't flip back and forth between pages to reacquaint myself with clues, or remind myself of the relationships between characters. 

I was struck several times of other points of reference towards favorites from the genre at large: of course a notable ensemble cast gathered at a house for a murder reminded me of both Agatha Christie and Clue, both of which are name checked in the novel itself, but the mechanics of plot development really reminded me of one hallmark of the point-and-click Nancy Drew video games I used to love, and I could almost imagine how various character actions would play out on screen. I also think modern mysteries involving mystery-obsessed individuals also just kind of fall pretty naturally into Knives Out comparison these days, so it feels like that's a salient reference point, too. 

I was pretty frustrated with the main characters' fragile nature and unflappable self-involvement, but the other characters were similarly two-dimensional -- and yet, how could they not be? There's so many of them! There was also a LOT to say about what everyone was wearing, at all times, in both time settings, though, to be fair, it was eventually revealed to be a bit of a plot point, so maybe that was valid. 

Overall, a pleasant, relatively-low-stakes, cozy country mystery, and an easy read for fans of the genre. And, based on a recent trip to Barnes and Noble, it looks like the sequel in the series has made an appearance... maybe it will be worth picking up a (physical) copy from the library this Fall? 

Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come, Jessica Pan

three stars 

A young woman navigates a lonely life in London by undertaking a series of personal challenges: over the course of the year, she's going to talk to strangers, perform standup, travel solo, and more... as long as she doesn't convince herself to just stay at home, instead. 

This read more like a person's blog than a memoir, even for all that it came equipped and edified with a frankly impressive number of links, statistics, and interviews with professionals in the field. It sported the information of a legitimate scientific experiment with the attitude of a MySpace profile, like wearing a blazer over your favorite crop top. 

Parts of it read as incredibly juvenile - but maybe that is simply the obvious outcome of someone earnestly expressing feelings of loneliness, fear, or inexperience. There was a significant current of insecurity underlying the whole thing that occasionally made the voice of the author feel overly self-effacing, judgmental of others, and even, at times, insincere, angry, or rude. 

I think it was a nice experiment, and it clearly worked for the author, but unfortunately, all it did was reinforce quite a few standard pieces of advice commonly given to introverts and lonely people already: "Be the first to smile," "take a class," "try a new hobby," "be authentic," "travel more," etc. I don't necessarily think that's a criticism, as hearing the wild effects of Pan's adventuring is the whole point of reading the memoir (she is very funny, and bold, for someone so concerned with being alone). It's just up there with "drink more water," "go to sleep earlier," and "eat vegetables" levels on grand revelations for self-improvement. 

It did kind of make me want to take an improv class, though. 

Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner 

four stars 

A music-loving young woman desperate to strike out on her own is called back home after her mother's surprising cancer diagnosis. In a memoir that will make you both teary and hungry, Zauner explores her complex relationship with her mixed race heritage, Korean food, breaking into the business, and her mom.

The entire time I was reading this memoir, my own Mom was in the back of my mind. This isn't too surprising, as the book itself is very much about a woman's relationship with her mother, but it's actually because she managed to read this one before me.

Several summers ago, while we were on vacation, Mom had needed a recommendation of a good read, as she hadn't brought any of her own. Being that I was planning on reading this one myself, I lent her the hardcover copy in the giant stack of books that I'd brought. Therefore, she had already formed her opinions on the book years ago, when she had originally read it, while I finally only caught up just this year... and unfortunately I wasn't able to solely evaluate based on my own thoughts and experiences, but with her judgments clouding ever-present on the horizon of my brain. 

(To be entirely fair, maybe battling against the constant mental presence of your mother is the appropriate frame of mind to be in while reading this book.)

She enjoyed it, and loved the descriptions of food and travel best. She had lost her own father while she herself was very, very young, and then my grandma in 2015, almost ten years ago, so maybe this was a slightly insane thing for me to recommend as a vacation read... but she felt it was very moving and emotional. She also, however, hated how the book ended: she couldn't understand why a book that was ostensibly about the authors' mother's death, kept going for so long after the event occurred. 

I significantly disagree, not just on her issue with its length, but actually, about its focus: the book is not about death. Grief outlasts death, and is carried far into the future; just like recipes are passed down by the generations, so are grief and hurt. It makes tremendous sense why the book carries on as Zauner continues to explore Korean cooking, her relationship with her other family members, and processing her pain into her music, because that is what you do in the wake of personal tragedy: her mother comes along for the journey, in memory, and in grief, as Michelle herself experiences personal success, the kind she wishes she could have shared with one of the most important people in her life. 

I will also say, about a month after finishing this one, Japanese Breakfast played Coachella. As I was showing YouTube videos of their performance to my mom, she was surprised to see that she really was a popular and respected indie pop musician, as - and I quote directly on this one - she thought "that was just something she exaggerated for the book."

As it turns out, like my own mom has said before me, Zauner is a very talented memoir writer, just like she is a very talented songwriter.  

Read anything good lately? Let me know, in the comments below!

What I Read in February

What is it about February that always feels like it lasts half the length of a sneeze?

I had so many lofty goals for the second month of 2025, mainly oriented around cramming as many Romance novels into my brain as possible. Instead, I only managed to completely read three books - only two of which were even Romance novels! - and spent the last two weeks of the month desperately paddling forward to attempt to finish The Boys in the Boat before a book club meeting.

(I didn't make it, in case you were wondering. That book is as long and crunchy as a gravel driveway.) 

But being that I was trying to set myself up for success with some of my tried-and-true reading habits for 2025, I did reinvest myself in becoming as much of a nuisance towards my local library Hold shelves as possible, and feelings of reading inadequacy have already began to manifest themselves in copious amounts of audiobook downloads on Libby. 

I also spent Valentine's Day combing through some of the ebook selections on sale for Kindle, and walked away with six (!!!) new titles added to my shelves. Did I need them? Absolutely not. But being that February meant bringing back days where the sun was occasionally viewable through the dense Washington cloud cover again, meant that every purchase felt justified with the eventual help it may give me in completing a Summer Book Bingo. 

Then again, I'm trying to pare down my TBR in 2025. Someone really needs to tell my brain that we're supposed to be getting rid of books, not adding more!

Just Next Door (Franklin Notch #1), Sarah Everly

three stars 

A short-and-sweet, slightly nonsensical, plot-hole-riddled, quirky and cute small town Romance, that delivered on vulnerable moments with an unexpected authenticity, while committing itself whole-heartedly to an absolutely bizarre premise: that an at-home care specialist would find herself hired to take care of not the elderly woman she was expecting, but the gruff, hermetic welder-next-door.

The idea that a poor-little-rich-girl would take up working as a full-time rotating nomadic caregiver, only to be hired to "babysit" a grumpy misunderstood forest-man artist by his elderly neighbor, is patently nuts. The 1950s-pinup-style fashion designer insta-bestie, an attractive-and-well-liked Highland-Games-competing mechanic brother, the sensitive younger damsel-in-distress sister who can't stop crying and just wants everyone to get along... these are all the kinds of people who were created in a lab, to occupy small towns in Romance novels and Hallmark movies alike. 

And of course, this isn't even counting the whole debacle with his mysterious past. I hope you'll forgive me for spoiling it now, or at least, as much as I can remember: "Mom and Dad were addicts, then mom disappeared, and everyone assumed Dad killed her, and then I got roped into it because I was such an antisocial weirdo about it, but then Mom was alive, but none of us have any contact with her, and then Dad really did murder someone for real, and now he's in jail." I think that's all? And yes, that is the most explanation I can give you, because no, there were still quite a few details that stayed murky without getting cleared up further. It's one thing to have a main hero with an ambiguous and shadowy backstory, but my goodness, that's a lot to absorb. 

And yet, the narrative and story is itself very cute. The character interactions between each other feel real, for all that the people themselves just so clearly aren't. It's strange to have such a bizarrely constructed environment laying groundwork for what feel like genuine conversations about relationships. 

Of course, at the end we take a hard left turn into Miscommunication and all kinds of dialogue breakdown into the most strange and frustrating types of lost messaging that it almost leaves you a little shell-shocked... and absolutely confident that - had this been anything OTHER than a Romance novel - this couple would have lasted about two seconds beyond Happily Ever After before breaking up for good. 

It really would make a fun Hallmark movie, though. 

The Bride Test, Helen Hoang

four stars

A hotel maid in Vietnam suddenly finds herself flying to California, after a chance encounter with the mother of a prospective "future husband" decides what the young man really needs in his life is a wife. Who is more of the fish-out-of-water, here: Esme, an immigrant seeking a better life for her and her young daughter - and desperate to find a lead on her American father before her three months are up - or Khai, a man on the spectrum who finds all of his habits and routines upended with a strange, beautiful girl living in his house? 

I enjoyed this entry into Helen Hoang's world more than The Kiss Quotient, for sure. It felt more unique; the relationship conflicts, more interesting and nuanced; the surrounding characters, more supportive; and overall, simply more complex and involved interpersonal dynamics. I absolutely loved Esme, and I loved Khai, and the ways that they grew to know and understand each other over time was incredibly lovely. 

On the whole, my issues with The Bride Test are similar in my reaction to The Kiss Quotient, specifically on the conversation of representation for Autism in Romance. While I do appreciate it, I wish it wasn't treated like something that had to come packaged with all the best character traits in the world to make it still somehow "Romance-worthy." Khai is autistic, and that is both realistic to the world and valid, but he also happens to work for a really great company, own a house, be a total beefcake with a serious gym bro habit, wear expensive clothes, be incredibly handsome, etc. In a way, it's like how Esme has to be shaped like "a Playboy bunny," great at cooking, good at cleaning (constantly without a bra on), but also be whip-smart and passionate about the potential for education, and more, to accomodate that she's an immigrant on a visa, that she has a child from a previous relationship (something that doesn't even come up in their relationship until VERY late in the game), or that she's of a perceived lower status (from a poor village, rather than the city). It almost feels like the representation is treated as something to be overcome with a deluge of personality perks and plusses, rather than something that is simply allowed to be true about a person on its own. 

I do appreciate what Hoang has done for portrayals of both characters with autism, as well as the immigrant experience, and even what feels like outreach for other non-historically-protected identities and backgrounds for some of her leads (Michael, in The Kiss Quotient, is a professional escort, while Esme is essentially named as a "mail-order bride" in the context of the story). I just wish her highlighting these unique and complex characters didn't also essentially mean giving them superpowers to somehow be worthy of love and acceptance: Khai would have still made for a compelling hero, even if he wasn't chiseled from marble, just like Esme would still have been a heroine you root for, even if she wasn't described like parts of her were perpetually inflated to the point of being in danger of popping.  

I have heard not-so-great things about the third-installment of this series, so I may skip it, but I'd definitely pick up more of what Hoang writes in the future. 

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni

four stars

Nothing like reading all the way through a book thinking "this feels familiar," then getting to the end and looking it up on Goodreads, only to realize you already tackled this one back in 2017. And completely forgot. 

To be entirely fair to myself, I can see from the date ascribed to it that it was a late-December read, and I was probably trying to shovel short books into the furnace of my brain at a breakneck pace to try and hit my Goodreads goal by the end of the year. 

I do think there's value in something like this, for all that it kind of reads like if The Social Network was produced by the Disney Company: high stakes business conversations that play out in adult, mostly polite dialogue, where the main character is always right, knows how to soothe every problem, and of course, everything works out in the end. This is the sort of things parents might read their fussy Business majors before bedtime. But it didn't become a bestseller because of bad ideas or being too patronizing; in fact, the accessibility of its best business practice ideas and compelling voice are among its strongest attributes. 

I don't know if its the most memorable thing I've ever read - clearly - but I was honestly still relieved that I managed to finish one of our work book club reading picks before the actual day of the meeting. 

Not exactly the reading month I wanted, but it's the one I had. What did you end up finishing in February? Let me know, in the comments below!

What I Read in January

January was a blustery, busy month, that seemed to both stretch on forever, and yet, passed by all too quickly. 

I jumped back into work with both feet after a long, luxurious holiday break, and I started thinking more critically about the places and people I'm allotting my time and attention to this year. I brainstormed where I could best be investing my creativity and focus, and inevitably spent quite a bit of time scrolling instead. 

And somehow, in the midst of all the chaos, I managed to kick off 2025 by reading a total of five books! (I know that might not sound like the loftiest figure in the world, but to be clear, that's a fifth of the total amount of books I read in all of 2024.) 

I also somehow managed to procure quite a few new titles: some by way of serendipitous moments scanning the library's book sale shelves, and the hardcover stickers at Barnes and Noble, and some via Value Village and eBay. In total, I snagged nine new books - plus acquired two more on top of that for free dollars and zero cents, an even better price - for a grand total of 11 books added to my shelves, for only $56.30 this month. 

But of course, I'm trying to pare down my TBR shelves this year, and here I am, stuffing them full again. Some of these bad habits don't go down easy, do they? 

At the very least, I managed to add two books to the donation pile as a gesture of goodwill towards myself, so at least you know I'm working on it. 

While I try not to collapse under the weight of my own sagging bookshelves, here's what I read in the month of January: 

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Satoshi Yagisawa

three stars 

Who would have guessed that randomly deciding to pick up There's No Such Thing As An Easy Job, by Kikuko Tsumura, back in July of '23 would kickoff such a fascination with female-focused contemporary Japanese literature? Granted, neither this novel, nor Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto, have come close to replicating my enjoyment of that first literary trip, but each has been a precious and unique portal, another lens through which to see the world. It's the sort of thing you wish you could take a college class on, because I just want to keep on diving deeper. 

What sets Morisaki Bookshop apart is its clear appreciation for - and dedication to - Japanese literary traditions, especially the relationship between readers and secondhand store culture. With multiple references to real works by Japanese authors, as a means of edifying and enhancing character backstory and feeling, it is like the book itself is giving you multiple points of inspiration to kick off from while exploring the shelves yourself. 

Even for those of us not fully cognizant of the implications of these choices - the origin points and cultural significance of these referenced materials - the book still carries a sense of gentle calm, reflective awareness, and sentimental connection... in short, everything feel so cozy. Maybe because hanging around bookstores and coffee shops - like our heroine, Tatako, always finds herself doing - is something that transcends cultural barriers, too. 

It was a short and sweet novel, though a little wandering and disjointed, especially in the back half. A very good start to 2025, even though it wasn't a perfect one! 

Book Riot's Start Here: Volume 1, ed. by Book Riot

three stars 

Book Riot was - and still is - a popular hub for literary-loving minds on the Internet. Back in the early part of the last decade, they put together a couple of compendiums for ebook release, involving popular installments of their "Start Here" column. Each article in the series serves as a celebration of a favorite author, in which the fan is tasked with assembling a sort of entry map for uninitiated readers, detailing how - should they find themselves interested in doing so - these new recruits should approach the authors' canon, so as to best appreciate their works. 

It's a pretty cute premise - who doesn't love hearing a nerd geek out about some of the nerd stuff they uniquely know best? - and it absolutely delivers in some of their responses: while the reading itself was pretty piecemeal, thanks to the column's abbreviated length, I walked away with a decently supplied Note section on my phone with authors and titles I wanted to keep my eye out for in the future. On the whole, it reminded me of some of my favorite parts about being an English major in college, swapping recommendations with friends. Because so may of these pieces were written about commonly lauded "masters" of their genres, I feel like it doesn't just afford me a roadmap of authors not yet explored, but a series of guideposts that I could feasibly use to ease me back into a Classic reading mode. 

Unfortunately, some of the failures of the collection are a symptom of age: even if you didn't tell me the articles within this book were produced in 2012 or 2013,  I probably would have been able to guess, especially when considering the generally white, generally male recommendations at play. With this many dudes talking about David Foster Wallace and Stephen King - and even a few authors who have been subsequently struck from the logbooks of readers for abysmal behavior of all varieties - it is a blessing that a lot of these articles are so short. 

The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, Margaret Renkl

four stars

The best way I could pitch this to someone is by saying "It's for fans of books like Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, or Henry David Thoreau's Walden." The worst way I could pitch this book to someone is by saying "An essayist gets bored during post-Covid and decided to stare out her back windows for a year straight, which feels relatable." To be honest, there's a semblance of truth in both descriptions. 

What keeps this book from being like Pilgrim is a sense of distinctly human interference, rather than quiet contemplation: she can't simply describe the actions taking place by efforts of their naturalist focal points, but inserts herself directly into the story every time. Half of the chapters detail interactions with the world that aren't even strict observations at all, but anecdotes about how she couldn't reach for a camera in time, how she wishes she hadn't picked up the baby bird, how she was building a pond for the frogs in her backyard. While there are absolutely segments oriented around specific natural observations - the Praise Song at the end of every chapter, each presenting a stand-out naturalistic element of the season and week - the bulk of it feels more like a journal of her own actions and feelings. 

What also prevents it form turning into the latter pitch is a present sense of heart and honesty. This book is a product of significant reflection and feeling, constructed into delicate and precious portraits of the world in action. When she does chronicle her own perspective and opinion, it all ties into a growing overarching narrative about climate change, deforestation, and the destruction of the natural world she grew up in, the one she loves. That dichotomy shows up time and again: she misses her neighbors, but hates new construction; wouldn't dream of moving, though her own children have grown up and moved on; etc. 

Renkl serves as a witness to both humanity and nature. I especially adored this particular bit, about the tragedy of sentimentality, especially in relation to the natural world: "Apocalyptic stories always get the apocalypse wrong. The tragedy is not the failed world's barren ugliness. The tragedy is its clinging beauty even as it fails. Until the very last cricket falls silent, the beauty-besotted will find a reason to love the world." 

Where the Drowned Girls Go (Wayward Children #7), Seanan McGuire

five stars 

I haven't read another installment in this, one of my favorite book series of all time, since I tackled Across the Green Grass Fields on our return trip via the Clipper from Victoria BC, back in March of 2023. It's not like its been a deliberate protest or anything - I mean, I have the next three novellas already purchased and taking up a corner of my TBR shelves - it's just that I found ATGGF to be kind of lackluster and disappointing. I ration my McGuires already because they're so precious to me; they're miniscule and magical and I have to BE SURE it's the right time to pick them up each time I read them. I don't want to run the risk of not enjoying them to their fullest potential.... which makes it even more disappointing when I don't really enjoy the story. 

Thank goodness Seanan McGuire is a genius, and I never should have worried about this one in the first place. Not only does WTDGG stand out from the serial installments in this collection already, for its action and fascinating new characters, but it effectively sets up the next TWO installments in the series, while also managing to clarify and expand upon Regan's story in ATGGF (That one is still never going to be my favorites in the series, but I definitely connect more with Regan's character now). 

I absolutely enjoyed this expansion of not only the world of Wayward Children, but ALL of the worlds, and the various characters there we've come to know and care for. I love that it led to some darker shadings around the statuses of children who come back through the doors, and shows even more direct functioning of magic in our "normal" world. I love that it gives us a big bad guy. I love that the kids all work together. 

I think this might be on par with the original novella for my #3 slot in the whole series, which is definitely saying something. 

The Book of (More) Delights, Ross Gay 

four stars 

One man's gratitude journal becomes an exercise in recognizing humanity. It's not a hard thing to do, when the man in question is both a poet and essayist, and even a professor... one might even say he's an Expert in the Humanities. But these brief reflections - selected from his personal musings on each day's new offerings - are far from small, but instead, like a stained glass window, arrange themselves into something bright and beautiful, verging on recognition of the divine. 

Ross comes off as a bit of a hippie - not in the PNW REI way I'm used to, but in the "I foraged for berries and brought a glass mason jar full of not-enough water on an overly-strenuous hike" kind of way. Like a lot of other poets, he puts his focus on the noticing, and so a lot of his observations are kind of wandering, unfocused, and swing wide on subject matter. I don't think this is a drawback, by the way: the subject of Delights almost requires some abstraction, in order to contextualize the joy we derive from them. 

It was a reading experience that felt almost redundant to me, because we already share a lot of the same thoughts and feelings about the various facets of being a human being in the world; parts of the collection reminded me of the sizable amount of time in college I considered adding a Comparative History of Ideas minor to my English Lit degree. 

I guess in that familiar, friendly way, it was kind of like driving to work each morning with someone who really wanted to tell me about what a great weekend they had, and all the friends they spent time with, and what's growing in their garden. And that in itself is pretty delightful, too. 

What are some of the books you've gotten to so far this year? Let me know, in the comments below!

The Top Ten of 2024: Some Very Brief Reviews of My Favorite Books I Read Last Year

Before we crack into this recap, I do want to make a series of public acknowledgements: 

For backstory, a mainstay of my Book Journal layout has been the selection of the Best Book of the Month, each month across the year. 

I also acknowledge that it's pretty funny to try and select a Top Twelve from a year where I only read a total of 25 books as a whole. I wouldn't go as far as saying that one-in-two books I read was a certified 5 star read, but for the most part, I enjoyed myself with all of these Top Ten here listed and plan on reading more from quite a few authors on the list. 

And finally, yes, I recognize this post is somewhat extraordinarily long. Believe me, it could have been longer, but I'm trying to get better about salient and coherent editing this year. I just need to address the length publicly or I know that the first words out of my Dad's mouth when he tries to read it are going to be "It's too long!" Yes, Dad, I'm aware. 

Anyways, onto the books...

nonfiction

Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, Laurie Colwin (January) 

I have, in solely the last few years, seen elements of this book quoted in various cookbook introductions, cooking blogs, TikTok cooking videos, and more. When we stumbled across a secondhand copy in one of my favorite bookstores in one of my favorite places (Serendipity Used Books, in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island), it felt like kismet, and it was quickly selected as one of my first books of 2024. 

Her voice is welcoming and personable, and her ethos around cooking dovetails pretty completely with my own, so much so that reading this memoir felt very close to sharing a coffee with someone across time and space. Our commonalities were so intense that they made me laugh in places - including the fact that one of the only foods we're allergic to is caviar! - and I felt like I was making a new friend. 

It honestly helps that food was not Colwin's distinct trade; her background is in novels, and that day job is more than present by way of her sense of storytelling, with sideways tongue-in-cheek humor and a penchant for emotional vulnerability backing up her various cooking exploits. It called to mind similar culinary meditations from MFK Fisher and Tamar Adler, whose charming voices match together quite well with hers.  

Colwin only published one other cooking-related book, for all that Home Cooking sold so well - the similarly titled More Home Cooking - and furthermore, it was published posthumously. It makes me feel like something precious I need to save for a special occasion, as she is truly an author whose work I want to savor. 

Congratulations! The Best is Over: Essays, R. Eric Thomas (February)

I had read Thomas' Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America - with its pastel pink cover and joyful spray of confetti - while on a camping trip back in 2021. The exuberant, honest and insightful exploration of being Black and Queer and Unapologetically Himself was all at once heartfelt and outrageously funny. His tumultuous relationship with identity and religion, growing up in environments where he constantly felt like the odd-one-out, and what it was like to become famous online, all carried a sense of depth and reflection, while also utilizing Whitney Houston song lyrics and chaotic Internet language to effectively get the point across. 

This second installment of his personal essays / memoirs is similarly funny and fun, while also serious and seriously smart. It details everything from the panic of moving home again to Maryland, to grappling with the realities of Covid and quarantine, to trying to figure out how to manage the ramshackle backyard and the army of frogs that had taken up residence there. 

Like Colwin, there was conveyed this immediate sense that Thomas was someone you were sharing a drink with... maybe at that cool bar downtown, the one you wanted to support because it was still new enough to be finding its footing, and you were there early enough in the evening to beat the rush but also so that you both could make the long drive home before it got too dark. His voice is so personable and friendly, and his anecdotes flow so seamlessly in a winding, conversational way, that this is another one of those authors whose voice starts to feel like that of a friend. 

The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir, RuPaul Charles (November)

Something that crops up every time I read a celebrity memoir, is an innate sense of sleuthiness: how much of this is actually this person's voice, and similarly, how much of it is actually true? They are separate, but equally important, questions, especially when you're already a fan of the celebrity under consideration. 

I think the responsibility associated with this kind of detective work was one of the reasons I slowed down how often I read from this genre... because the cult of celebrity status has such importance placed on brand preservation and continuity, sometimes reading this kind of a "memoir" can feel like willingly purchasing into a marketing activation, like a mirage of parasocial relatability. 

My outcomes on this particular read did, in fact, end up somewhat mixed:

One one hand, I do feel that this book was predominantly written in RuPaul's voice, and I'm not just saying that because I listened to it in audiobook format, for which he serves as his own narrator. There are elements of it that do ring as slightly disingenuous - specifically, around places where he gives context to LGBT history and current phrases - but that might simply have been the result of a publisher or editor asking for additional clarification on terms for the benefit of a wider or less initiated audience. Still, parts of this book did feel a little haunted, as if a ghost writer was lurking around the corner. 

I also think, for the most part, that it rings as truthful, simply on account of names explicitly dropped - for instance, RuPaul does not like Madonna - or specifics in difficult circumstances offered, and sordid details talked about frankly, with little attempt at modesty. Especially the pieces of his life that painted him, fairly explicitly, in a pretty bad light, or those that featured a candid discussion of his past destructive relationship with illicit substances. 

I do feel, in some ways, it was a little overly long, and detailed to the point of minutae, and of course, in keeping with RuPaul's attitudes onscreen, was a little overly fond of self-aggrandizement. But for a fan, that's honestly the sort of thing I wanted to read. Hearing it in the legend's own voice made for an additional layer to the reading experience as well, as emotion was clearly reflected in the performance of it. It was an interesting read, and a great way to commute to work. 

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (April) 

The difficult thing about trying to write a review about as prolific and well-loved an author as Joan Didion, especially about a book as highly-regarded as The Year of Magical Thinking, is that there is very little to add to the conversation. Devastating and powerful, evocative and beautiful, encompassing the most accessible and human forms of total devastation, and carrying the weight of the world-shattering nature of having loved and lost, this book is, in itself, a kind of magic.  

It will make you feel helpless, in the same way she did, and hopeful, in the same way she did: her husband has died (a sudden heart attack in their NYC apartment after dinner), only a few days after their only child, Quintana Roo, is hospitalized for pneumonia and septic shock. Later, while Didion is still processing the tragedy, Quintana falls and suffers a brain bleed, leading to more hospitals and more cosmic questions from Didion. (Quintana would die only a few weeks after the book was published in 2005, from pancreatitis. Didion chose not to revise, but instead wrote Blue Nights.) 

The sense of powerlessness of constant hospital transports, of watching someone suffering in front of you, is translated beautifully by a master of words, as Didion grapples with her relationship with grief and guilt. She spends time weighing the joyful memories against harsh realities of her situation, but in total, the book is imbued wholesale with the deepest and most genuine love, for both her husband and child. "Was it about faith or was it about grief?" she asks, "Were faith and grief the same thing?"

I made the mistake of trying to expound on the book's many virtues to one of my younger siblings, who laughed and said it was slightly "cringe" watching me get so worked up about something she'd seen others doing the same for on TikTok. Which makes me feel slightly better about reviewing it, too, based on how many others have tried. 

fiction

Hench, Natalie Zina Walschots (May) 

For a book I picked up for a handful of dollars on sale on Kindle, this was an exceedingly fun and exciting way to spend an afternoon on the couch. I didn't even really set out to read a book in a day when I picked it up, but truly, truly couldn't put it down. 

It's definitely for fans of The Boys, as it features superheroes behaving badly, with bloody results. (The two make a pretty direct comparison, actually, but perhaps this one leans less directly into explicit media parody and politicism, and perhaps is slightly kinder to its female characters.) It's probably a good match for fans of Shane Kuhn's The Intern's Handbook, as it features the banal mundanities of business professionalism, projected into a campy genre landscape. And if you're a fan of the Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog shorts on YouTube, the storylines are kind of similar: a villain ascending through the ranks, becoming more widely respected, going up against a hero who is a complete jerk, at great personal cost, etc. 

What I loved most about it included its significant humor and willingness to lean into the absurdities of a world with superheroes in it, without losing its heart or edge along the way: the human relationships remain at its core, and the human cost of the effects of heroes on civilians is directly present in main character Anna's disability and complex PTSD. Realistic consequences for otherworldly actions. 

There were parts that felt a little bit slow or gratuitous - action sequences and descriptions of grievous bodily injury, specifically - but I do understand that those tie pretty deliberately to genre. 

It did make me wonder, on the other side of the novel, if I was supposed to be drawing deeper connections to real-life corollaries, as the genre usage was so deliberate and forceful it did make me wonder if I should be interpreting it more as satire, and if so, what the story was supposed to be an indictment of. In the end, I gave up overthinking and decided to just enjoy myself instead... and I certainly did. Thankfully, the sequel - Villain - is coming out this August. 

Thirteen at Dinner, Agatha Christie (April #2) 

This was the first book that I managed to finish in approximately two months (give or take five days). Since I had previously finished a lackluster Romance novel back at the end of February, I hadn't been able to tackle a single thing more... which made it all the more impressive that I started it at 9PM on a Thursday night, and had finished it the following morning. 

Published in England under the title Lord Edgeware Dies - but originally serialized in The American Magazine as Thirteen at Dinner - this novel feels like something of a classic amongst Christie's work, with many hallmark elements of her work present, notwithstanding the fact that our hero is none other than Hercule Poirot. (Its immediate successor would be Murder on the Orient Express a year later, which gives you an idea of how Christie was operating at the time.) But its actually the genteel perspectives of London's elite social set that make it something truly spectacular, not to mention the 1933 date on the copyright. 

(Other elements involved that somewhat telegraph the 1933 time stamp? Stereotypical perspectives on Chinese, Jewish and Scottish people, disparaging remarks made about an "effeminate" man, and somewhat funny commentary about those once-dignified actors spurning stage careers to find work in Hollywood.) 

The mystery has high stakes, a vast and involved cast of characters, and multiple murders, as well as multiple references to both Poirot's "foreign" origins and his favoritism shown towards basically any egg dish. It was high society, and in many ways, high performance, with larger-than-life personalities creating somewhat bonkers leaps of fancy, polished off with enticing outfit descriptions and hidden romance. 

Plus, the guy who gets bumped off at the very top is clocked as a total creep partially by the contents of his bookshelf, which is just too funny. 

romance

The Charm Offensive, Alison Cochrun (September) 

I am a sucker for so many things - raw oysters, lemon drops, gingham, the glassware section at Value Village - but there is very little guaranteed to catch my attention quite as effectively as anything related to The Bachelor. Which is why it's such a bummer that very few tropes disappoint and frustrate me more regularly in Romance novels than being based off The Bachelor. 

So it might surprise you that I kick off this review by asking you a couple of questions: Truly, must a book always be Good? Must they even be Likely, Plausible, or bear any sense of Nuance? Can they not simply be a - frankly - silly and cute and goofy good time? 

Got to be honest: originally, the verdict for this one wasn't looking too good: I had actually started reading it several months previously, and only made it approximately 3% of the way in before bailing. But once I really gave it more than five minutes to breathe, like aerating a good glass of red, I was enamored. 

Sure, it does that thing, where it feels the need to tap into a semi-effective Bachelor-adjacent gimmick, so that it can shoehorn the classic trappings of the show into a cohesive narrative arc without getting sued by ABC. Yes, the manufactured drama of will-they-won't-they is contrived beyond contrived, and major plot points have virtually no relationship to how life occurs out here in the real world. And yes, it does that thing where everyone in a group setting in an LGBT Romance spontaneously is revealed to be LGBT by the end, and to be honest, that's totally fine and cool and dandy with me. Plus, major characters do abrupt about-faces in characterization and direction for virtually no reason at all. Again, things I am willing to accept. 

Because it was cute. A bit paint-by-numbers view of mental health, sure, and sexuality, which, okay, fine. The things that feel a little pedestrian to me might be revolutionary for someone else. I read it in two days, and that's mainly because I also have to do things like go to work. I liked it! 

A Duke in Shining Armor, Loretta Chase (June)

A tremendously fun and sweetly sexy madcap romp ensues, when a bespectacled spinster bride finds herself unexpectedly bolting through a window on her wedding day, with the Best Man following closely on her heels. What's not to love? 

The easiest media comparison I feel like I can make is to It Happened One Night, one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time. Partially due to the subject - a runaway society bride and the man following on her progress - as well as just how FUNNY this book was. 

Unfortunately, like the film, there was a lot about the book's gender norms and views on class and social rank that rubbed this modern girl the wrong way... think "boys will be boys," but excusing both violence (the restoration of lost honor by way of dueling, something women couldn't begin to understand), and blurry boundaries of consent / the mental faculties of men around women (the belief that men are inherently driven to overpower and dominate, especially those that hold both rank and title). It seems to be a classic issue I encounter in a lot of otherwise really good Historical Romance, and I recognize why that's both culturally and historically the case; it's just what kept this book from being explicitly five stars for me, instead of an otherwise sterling four. 

Bare minimum, though, is that this book gives great evidence to the belief that Loretta Chase is a queen of the genre. I'd love to see this book get something like the Bridgerton treatment, to be entirely frank. 

I possess the second title in this series already, but am uncertain about jumping into it just yet... for starters, I have quite a few other books to get around to first, and for seconds, the character who was such a prominent and unrepentant jerk in this one features prominently in the sequel, and I don't know if I care overly much about his happy ending so much as his being hit by a cart or something. We may just have to circle back sometime this year. 

classic rereads

Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare (July)

2023's Sibling Shakespeare Book Club - in which my brother and I did a four-hour Zoom meeting every week in July, while reading The Tempest - was such an immediate success, that I was faced with two separate thoughts: 1. Obviously we had to do this again in 2024, and 2. How could we ever do it again as successfully as the original? 

The primary action I decided upon was to generate a few meaningful differences in the new year; namely, focusing more completely on genre choices and adaptations of one of Shakespeare's most enduringly beloved comedies, of which I knew that my brother had at least a semblance of previous cultural awareness. 

This ended up being a pretty good move. We had already covered some of the Shakespeare "basics" the year previous - plus the fact that we each had four years of Shakespearean reading in high school - so we spent a lot of time discussing things like 1600s-era perspectives of feminist history, authorial intention in use of Iambic Pentameter, and what contemporary versions look like when they're performed today. He had a lot of fun watching more current cast recordings, and thought that it was pretty modern for a play originally written over 400 years ago. 

He did say, at the very end, that he preferred our discussions of The Tempest, not just because it was such a formative experience, or because of how much he enjoyed the more fantastical elements, but because he thought there was more by way of authorial voice, there were more variations in the staging, and he connected more with the main characters. 

Naturally, we have plans for SSBC again in July 2025, and being that we both organically arrived at the same conclusion for which play we'd be reading next, I'm definitely looking forward to the experience. 

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (December)

I desperately needed a relevantly-themed audiobook to get me through the Christmas season, and was overjoyed when this one became available shortly after the start of the month. Unfortunately, because it is also, itself, short, it only managed to last the length of one shift of Guest Services work (it was a slow night), and about one day's additional commuting to and from work. 

What it lacked in length, it absolutely made up for in impact. I am no stranger to this story - after all,  I was in the stage adaptation for three years of community theater, I have watched a Muppets Christmas Carol once a year essentially every year I've been alive, and a handful of other adaptations besides, plus I've read the book twice before this - and yet, reading it again led me back towards so many tidbits and treasures my brain had accidentally sanded off and smoothed over across the years. 

One of the best parts of this years' exploration was the fact that I also managed to convince my brother to listen to the audiobook as well, and he was similarly impressed by the experience. It's a dark tale, and a true-blue ghost story, to be sure. Still, a very uplifting one as well, and it felt like the perfect addition to my holiday season! 

These were my Top Ten Books of 2024... what were yours? Let me know, in the comments below!