emma's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 04 Apr 2025 07:36:29 -0700 60 emma's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Wilderness 222658339 "Wonderfully ambitious.... Flournoy explores the complexity of friendship, family, and home in a voice that is expansive yet intimate, humorous yet devastating. I loved this book."Ěý—ĚýBrit Bennett, author ofĚýThe Vanishing HalfĚý˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýThe Mothers

An era-defining novel about five Black women over the course of their twenty-year friendship, as they move through the dizzying and sometimes precarious period between young adulthood and midlife—in the much-anticipated second book from National Book Award finalist Angela Flournoy.

Desiree, Danielle, January, Monique, and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning. Of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood, and of big-city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness, that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood—overwhelming, mysterious, and full of freedom and consequences—swoops in and stays.

Desiree and Danielle, sisters whose shared history has done little to prevent their estrangement, nurse bitter family wounds in different ways. January’s got a relationship with a “good� man she feels ambivalent about, even after her surprise pregnancy. Monique, a librarian and aspiring blogger, finds unexpected online fame after calling out the university where she works for its plans to whitewash fraught history. And Nakia is trying to get her restaurant off the ground, without relying on the largesse of her upper middle-class family who wonder aloud if she should be doing something better with her life.

As these friends move from the late 2000’s into the late 2020’s, from young adults to grown women, they must figure out what they mean to one another—amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability, and the increasing volatility of modern American life.

The Wilderness is Angela Flournoy’s masterful and kaleidoscopic follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut The Turner House. A generational talent, she captures with disarming wit and electric language how the most profound connections over a lifetime can lie in the tangled, uncertain thicket of friendship.]]> 304 Angela Flournoy 0063318776 emma 0 4.42 The Wilderness
author: Angela Flournoy
name: emma
average rating: 4.42
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read, tbr-arc, tbr-owned, non-ya, literary-fiction, arc, from-publisher-author
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You]]> 52220686 Stamped from the Beginning for ages 12 and up.

A timely, crucial, and empowering exploration of racism--and antiracism--in America.

This is NOT a history book.
This is a book about the here and now.
A book to help us better understand why we are where we are.
A book about race.

The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This is a remarkable reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning, winner of a National Book Award. It reveals the history of racist ideas in America and inspires hope for an antiracist future.

Stamped takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, and why the poison of racism lingers. It also proves that while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited.

Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative, Jason Reynolds shines a light on the many insidious forms of racist ideas--and on ways readers can identify and stamp out racist thoughts in their daily lives.]]> 294 Jason Reynolds 0316453692 emma 5
everyone should read this book.

this is one of my favorite books of 2020. find the full list: ]]> 4.46 2020 Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
author: Jason Reynolds
name: emma
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/11/29
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: diverse, non-ya, nonfiction, owned, favorites-2020, recommend, reviewed, authors-of-color, 4-and-a-half-stars
review:
if you take one recommendation from me this year, let it be this one.

everyone should read this book.

this is one of my favorite books of 2020. find the full list:
]]> <![CDATA[You Deserve Valentine's Day Brunch]]> 61153459 15 Sarah Hogle emma 0 4.44 You Deserve Valentine's Day Brunch
author: Sarah Hogle
name: emma
average rating: 4.44
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read, romance, non-ya, library
review:
you deserve each other supremacy
]]> <![CDATA[The Folklore of Forever (Moonville, #2)]]> 216536383 From the acclaimed author of Old Flames and New Fortunes comesĚýa steamy enemies-to-lovers romantasy about a paranormal skeptic who is roped into a ghost hunting romp by the charming boy next door . . . who might just show her what real fantasies are made of.

Paranormal skeptic Zelda Tempest is hoping for a much-needed creativity boost for a new paranormal mystery novel. But despite the alleged magic of her hometown, Moonville, Ohio, she’s as stuck as ever.Ěý

With two witch sisters, not believing in magic is strange for a Tempest, but no one is more disappointed than Morgan Angelopoulos, the charming man next door. So, to cure her of her writer's block and her disbelief in magic, Morgan ropes her into a ghost-hunting romp, only for Zelda to discover something else bizarre, never-before-seen creatures that appear as ordinary pets to everyone else.Ěý

Curious about what else might be lurking in Moonville's woods, Zelda and Morgan embark on a quest to uncover the true magic that lies in their midsts . . . and perhaps, just maybe, they will find that the magic they're searching for has been with them all along.]]> 397 Sarah Hogle 059371508X emma 0 sarah hogle!!!!!!!!! 3.26 The Folklore of Forever (Moonville, #2)
author: Sarah Hogle
name: emma
average rating: 3.26
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read, non-ya, romance, tbr-arc, tbr-owned, arc
review:
sarah hogle!!!!!!!!!
]]> I Leave It Up to You 214269353 From the award-winning author of Flux comes a dazzling novel about love, family, and the art of sushi that asks: What if you could return to the point of a fateful choice, wiser than before, and find the courage to forge a new path?

A coma can change a man, but the world Jack Jr. awakens to is one he barely recognizes. His advertising job is history, his Manhattan apartment is gone, and the love of his life has left him behind. He’s been asleep for two years; with no one to turn to, he realizes it’s been ten years since he last saw his family.Ěý

Lost and disoriented, he makes a reluctant homecoming back to the bustling Korean American enclave of Fort Lee, New Jersey; back into the waiting arms of his parents, who are operating under the illusion he never left; and back to Joja, their ever-struggling sushi restaurant that he was set to inherit before he ran away from it all. As he steps back into the life he abandoned—learning his Appa’s life lessons over crates of tuna on bleary-eyed 4 AM fish runs, doling out amberjack behind the omakase counter while his Umma tallies the night's pitiful number of customers, and sparring with his recovering alcoholic brother, James—he embraces new roles, That of romantic interest to the male nurse who took care of him throughout, and that of sage (but underqualified) uncle to his gangly teenage nephew.

There is value in the joyous rhythms of this once-abandoned life. But second chances are an even messier business than running a restaurant, and the lure of a self-determined path might, once again, prove too hard to resist.

Why do we run from those we love, and why do we still love those who run from us? A highly entertaining and poignant story about second chances and self-discovery, I Leave It Up to You pilots through the loss, love, and absurdity of finding one’s footing after the ground gives way.]]> 311 Jinwoo Chong 0593727053 emma 0 4.08 2025 I Leave It Up to You
author: Jinwoo Chong
name: emma
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read, tbr-arc, tbr-owned, arc, authors-of-color, diverse, sci-fi, non-ya
review:

]]> Metamorphoses 20808817 723 Ovid 0141394617 emma 4
this is another installment of project long classics, in which i read intimidating books in small chunks over the course of a month in order to achieve three goals: a) seem smart, b) make puns, and c) have an excuse to buy penguin clothbound classics.

this one is slightly different because i already own it. brag alert: my boyfriend bought me my copy of this book when we were on a date in a closed bookstore.

anyway. i have no idea what this is about. it's divided into 15 books, so let's read half of one a day, shall we?


BOOK I, PART I
the GODS just MADE the WORLD and then FLOODED the HELL out of it. and the WRITING is BEAUTIFUL. i'm having so much fun already.


BOOK I, PART II
this part is mostly about really pretty girls catching the eye of gods and then being turned into trees and cows and stuff because of that bad luck.


BOOK II, PART I
since the dawn of time, when cars were chariots and dads were gods, teenage boys in media have been driving their fathers' rides without permission only to f*ck everything up immediately.


BOOK II, PART II
this section focuses on a variety of tattletale birds.


BOOK III, PART I
i did NOT know the tiresias tragic backstory (one time he was turned into a woman because he saw some snakes screwing and therefore was called on by jove and saturnia to settle who has more fun in bed and when he sided with jove and said women saturnia blinded him but then jove felt bad so he gave him the eternal gift of prophecy).


BOOK III, PART II
now we're getting to echo and narcissus. this is like the greco-roman greatest hits.


BOOK IV, PART I
taken aback to find the words "he clings to his misshapen ass" here.


BOOK IV, PART II
there's a girl walking around in a robe dripping blood wearing a live serpent as a belt throwing crazy-making snakes at people. and perseus is carrying medusa's head like a tote bag while he turns guys into mountains and saves fair maidens from sea monsters. this is in half of one chapter.


BOOK V, PART I
by and large a play by play of who hit who with a spear.


BOOK V, PART II
one of the most unforgivable crimes you could commit in the ancient world was being a tattletale. the phrase snitches get stitches has held true throughout time and space.


BOOK VI, PART I
we are never too busy for an exhaustive rundown of which people the gods have turned into which animals throughout time.


BOOK VI, PART II
i am a sister girl for life, but i am not sure i would kill my son and then cut him up and cook him and feed him to my traitor husband in order to avenge mine. revenge would definitely be had but i'm not convinced i would choose that specifically.


BOOK VII, PART I
oh how i love a witchy girl.


BOOK VII, PART II
this book is actually so interesting that i have to choose between 3+ jokes with every section. i hope you all appreciate my sacrifice.


BOOK VIII, PART I
i guess i don't know what i expected from the minotaur origin story, but it wasn't either "deeply disturbing" or "a straight line from the icarus sun incident."


BOOK VIII, PART II
this is so rich with detail that it's like, "a bunch of guys died in a boar incident. a woman sets a fire in vengeance. the fire kills a father. all the daughters of the father are super mournful and upset. diana turns all those girls into birds, except two. these two are hercules' wife and the future mother of one of the guys who pops out of the trojan horse."

and on top of all that i'm learning about stuff like "watch-geese." this is a perfect book.


BOOK IX, PART I
everybody has a name, a name from childhood, a name that's a reference to their dad, a name that's a reference to some kind of infidelity knowingly or unknowingly committed by their mom, and a nickname. this is fun and impossible!


BOOK IX, PART II
in most cases i think fleeing your homeland and literally starting a new city from scratch in order to escape someone who has an unrequited crush on you is a bit much. however, if that person is your sister...fair enough!


BOOK X, PART I
i know the whole orpheus and eurydice thing is supposed to be a great romance, as in he loved her too much to be able to turn his eye from her, but i think it's more of an illustration of the fact that men literally cannot listen.


BOOK X, PART II
tons of incest in this book. what is this, hbo?


BOOK XI, PART I
the fact that midas ASKED that everything he touched would turn to gold?? it's like if ella enchanted begged to be obedient before chasing lucinda all over kingdom come.


BOOK XI, PART II
at this point i'm ready to believe the gods are just looking for reasons to turn women into birds. call a goddess ugly: you're a bird now. sleep with a god: you're a bird now. don't sleep with a god: you're a bird now. have a talent: you're a bird now. witness morpheus dressed up like your husband's very wet ghost in order to tell you that he drowned via dream: you're a bird now. enough already!


BOOK XII, PART I
these guys are getting really creative with their choice of battle weapons.


BOOK XII, PART II
did not know they had crowbars in ancient times. (see above.)


BOOK XIII, PART I
i kind of love that ovid was like, oh, the legendary stories that would be the basis of the iliad and the odyssey? yeah. those are just chapters in my book.


BOOK XIII, PART II
three pages of the cyclops spitting straight game. telling your girl "i got you two bear cubs and it's actually good that i'm hairy, due to the ugliness" and then very quickly killing her boyfriend with a big rock could work on someone.


BOOK XIV, PART I
we just covered the events of the aeneid in a few paragraphs. ovid is showing off at this point!


BOOK XIV, PART II
i'm ready to adjust my earlier declaration re: gods turning women into birds. i'd like to clarify that they also turn them into trees.


BOOK XV, PART I
here i am all sad that this is the penultimate day of this project and now i'm getting lectured for pages because i'm not a vegetarian. they're saying i'm no better than the cyclops and telling me i should be fine since grapes exist.


BOOK XV, PART II
we conclude with caesar, marc antony, cleopatra, and augustus, and ovid promising us he will always be famous. we've covered it all.


OVERALL
clearly i had a blast reading this book. it's likely the most fun i've had in any installment of project long classics, and also really lends itself to this format. i enjoyed every crazy second of this action-packed book.
rating: 4.5]]> 4.18 8 Metamorphoses
author: Ovid
name: emma
average rating: 4.18
book published: 8
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: classics, owned, non-ya, project-long-classics, 4-and-a-half-stars, recommend, reviewed
review:
welcome to...METAMARCHOSES.

this is another installment of project long classics, in which i read intimidating books in small chunks over the course of a month in order to achieve three goals: a) seem smart, b) make puns, and c) have an excuse to buy penguin clothbound classics.

this one is slightly different because i already own it. brag alert: my boyfriend bought me my copy of this book when we were on a date in a closed bookstore.

anyway. i have no idea what this is about. it's divided into 15 books, so let's read half of one a day, shall we?


BOOK I, PART I
the GODS just MADE the WORLD and then FLOODED the HELL out of it. and the WRITING is BEAUTIFUL. i'm having so much fun already.


BOOK I, PART II
this part is mostly about really pretty girls catching the eye of gods and then being turned into trees and cows and stuff because of that bad luck.


BOOK II, PART I
since the dawn of time, when cars were chariots and dads were gods, teenage boys in media have been driving their fathers' rides without permission only to f*ck everything up immediately.


BOOK II, PART II
this section focuses on a variety of tattletale birds.


BOOK III, PART I
i did NOT know the tiresias tragic backstory (one time he was turned into a woman because he saw some snakes screwing and therefore was called on by jove and saturnia to settle who has more fun in bed and when he sided with jove and said women saturnia blinded him but then jove felt bad so he gave him the eternal gift of prophecy).


BOOK III, PART II
now we're getting to echo and narcissus. this is like the greco-roman greatest hits.


BOOK IV, PART I
taken aback to find the words "he clings to his misshapen ass" here.


BOOK IV, PART II
there's a girl walking around in a robe dripping blood wearing a live serpent as a belt throwing crazy-making snakes at people. and perseus is carrying medusa's head like a tote bag while he turns guys into mountains and saves fair maidens from sea monsters. this is in half of one chapter.


BOOK V, PART I
by and large a play by play of who hit who with a spear.


BOOK V, PART II
one of the most unforgivable crimes you could commit in the ancient world was being a tattletale. the phrase snitches get stitches has held true throughout time and space.


BOOK VI, PART I
we are never too busy for an exhaustive rundown of which people the gods have turned into which animals throughout time.


BOOK VI, PART II
i am a sister girl for life, but i am not sure i would kill my son and then cut him up and cook him and feed him to my traitor husband in order to avenge mine. revenge would definitely be had but i'm not convinced i would choose that specifically.


BOOK VII, PART I
oh how i love a witchy girl.


BOOK VII, PART II
this book is actually so interesting that i have to choose between 3+ jokes with every section. i hope you all appreciate my sacrifice.


BOOK VIII, PART I
i guess i don't know what i expected from the minotaur origin story, but it wasn't either "deeply disturbing" or "a straight line from the icarus sun incident."


BOOK VIII, PART II
this is so rich with detail that it's like, "a bunch of guys died in a boar incident. a woman sets a fire in vengeance. the fire kills a father. all the daughters of the father are super mournful and upset. diana turns all those girls into birds, except two. these two are hercules' wife and the future mother of one of the guys who pops out of the trojan horse."

and on top of all that i'm learning about stuff like "watch-geese." this is a perfect book.


BOOK IX, PART I
everybody has a name, a name from childhood, a name that's a reference to their dad, a name that's a reference to some kind of infidelity knowingly or unknowingly committed by their mom, and a nickname. this is fun and impossible!


BOOK IX, PART II
in most cases i think fleeing your homeland and literally starting a new city from scratch in order to escape someone who has an unrequited crush on you is a bit much. however, if that person is your sister...fair enough!


BOOK X, PART I
i know the whole orpheus and eurydice thing is supposed to be a great romance, as in he loved her too much to be able to turn his eye from her, but i think it's more of an illustration of the fact that men literally cannot listen.


BOOK X, PART II
tons of incest in this book. what is this, hbo?


BOOK XI, PART I
the fact that midas ASKED that everything he touched would turn to gold?? it's like if ella enchanted begged to be obedient before chasing lucinda all over kingdom come.


BOOK XI, PART II
at this point i'm ready to believe the gods are just looking for reasons to turn women into birds. call a goddess ugly: you're a bird now. sleep with a god: you're a bird now. don't sleep with a god: you're a bird now. have a talent: you're a bird now. witness morpheus dressed up like your husband's very wet ghost in order to tell you that he drowned via dream: you're a bird now. enough already!


BOOK XII, PART I
these guys are getting really creative with their choice of battle weapons.


BOOK XII, PART II
did not know they had crowbars in ancient times. (see above.)


BOOK XIII, PART I
i kind of love that ovid was like, oh, the legendary stories that would be the basis of the iliad and the odyssey? yeah. those are just chapters in my book.


BOOK XIII, PART II
three pages of the cyclops spitting straight game. telling your girl "i got you two bear cubs and it's actually good that i'm hairy, due to the ugliness" and then very quickly killing her boyfriend with a big rock could work on someone.


BOOK XIV, PART I
we just covered the events of the aeneid in a few paragraphs. ovid is showing off at this point!


BOOK XIV, PART II
i'm ready to adjust my earlier declaration re: gods turning women into birds. i'd like to clarify that they also turn them into trees.


BOOK XV, PART I
here i am all sad that this is the penultimate day of this project and now i'm getting lectured for pages because i'm not a vegetarian. they're saying i'm no better than the cyclops and telling me i should be fine since grapes exist.


BOOK XV, PART II
we conclude with caesar, marc antony, cleopatra, and augustus, and ovid promising us he will always be famous. we've covered it all.


OVERALL
clearly i had a blast reading this book. it's likely the most fun i've had in any installment of project long classics, and also really lends itself to this format. i enjoyed every crazy second of this action-packed book.
rating: 4.5
]]> How to Care for a Human Girl 62919766
Two years after the death of their mother, Jada and Maddy Battle both navigate unplanned pregnancies. Jada, a thirty-one-year-old psychology PhD student living in Pittsburgh, quietly obtains an abortion without telling her husband, but the secret causes turmoil in her already shaky marriage. Back home in rural Pennsylvania, nineteen-year-old Maddy, who spends her time caring for birds at a wildlife rehabilitation center, is paid off by the man who got her pregnant to get an abortion. But an unsettling visit to a crisis pregnancy center adds to her doubts about whether to go through with it.

Although Maddy still hasn’t forgiven Jada for a terrible betrayal, she goes to her for support, only to discover the cracks in the façade of her sister’s seemingly perfect life. As their past resentments boil over, the sisters must navigate the consequences of their choices and determine how best to care for themselves and each other.

With luminous prose and laser-sharp psychological insight, How to Care for a Human Girl is a compassionate and unforgettable examination of the complexities of choice, the special intimacy of sisterhood, and the bizarre ways our heated political moment manifests in daily life.]]> 352 Ashley Wurzbacher 1982157224 emma 2
this book takes on a lot, and then is just kind of like "okay! that's enough of that."

we follow two sisters, both alike in insufferability, who are each going through a life-changing borderline traumatic life change 18 months after the death of their mother.

they react to these very different moments in very different ways � one strikes her high school relationship back up, the other is radicalized into christianity (?) � but if you're confused, it's okay. neither are at all relevant to the suddenly idyllic ending.

bottom line: i kind of respect being like, whoops! i bit off more i can chew! let's stop here.

(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the copy)]]> 3.40 2023 How to Care for a Human Girl
author: Ashley Wurzbacher
name: emma
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: owned, non-ya, literary-fiction, from-publisher-author, 2-and-a-half-stars, unpopular-opinion, eh, reviewed
review:
i could use instructions.

this book takes on a lot, and then is just kind of like "okay! that's enough of that."

we follow two sisters, both alike in insufferability, who are each going through a life-changing borderline traumatic life change 18 months after the death of their mother.

they react to these very different moments in very different ways � one strikes her high school relationship back up, the other is radicalized into christianity (?) � but if you're confused, it's okay. neither are at all relevant to the suddenly idyllic ending.

bottom line: i kind of respect being like, whoops! i bit off more i can chew! let's stop here.

(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the copy)
]]> Hum 195791689 From the National Book Award–longlisted author of The Need comes an extraordinary novel about a wife and mother who—after losing her job to AI—undergoes a procedure that renders her undetectable to surveillance…but at what cost?

In a city addled by climate change and populated by intelligent robots called “hums,� May loses her job to artificial intelligence. In a desperate bid to resolve her family’s debt and secure their future for another few months, she becomes a guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face so it cannot be recognized by surveillance.

Seeking some reprieve from her recent hardships and from her family’s addiction to their devices, she splurges on passes that allow them three nights� respite inside the Botanical Garden: a rare green refuge where forests, streams, and animals flourish. But her insistence that her son, daughter, and husband leave their devices at home proves far more fraught than she anticipated, and the lush beauty of the Botanical Garden is not the balm she hoped it would be. When her children come under threat, May is forced to put her trust in a hum of uncertain motives as she works to restore the life of her family.

Written in taut, urgent prose, Hum is a work of speculative fiction that unflinchingly explores marriage, motherhood, and selfhood in a world compromised by global warming and dizzying technological advancement, a world of both dystopian and utopian possibilities. As New York Times bestselling author Jeff VanderMeer says, “Helen Phillips, in typical bravura fashion, has found a way to make visible uncomfortable truths about our present by interrogating the near-future.”]]> 262 Helen Phillips 1668008831 emma 3
that, and...nothing drives me crazy like books about people who don't have money spending excessive amounts of money. PLEASEĚýSTOP. I GREW UP UNDER CAPITALISM. DEBT IS MY BIGGEST FEAR.

this really was a terrifying look at the future â€� ads everywhere, personal data commodified for sales, ai creatures performing surgeries and then trying to sell you anti-aging hand cream,Ěýnature being packaged and sold like disney world, kids with phones physically sealed to their wrists.

it made for an unpleasant, highly realistic horror show. a lot of the time this is not very interesting, becauseĚýit basically takes everything that already exists and just extends it to its natural end point, but it is scary and real and itsĚýshort chapters will keep you breathlessly going.

bottom line: we are heading nowhere good!

(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the copy)]]> 3.49 2024 Hum
author: Helen Phillips
name: emma
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: non-ya, owned, sci-fi, from-publisher-author, 3-and-a-half-stars, unpopular-opinion, recommend, reviewed
review:
thinking too much about ai also makes me feel insane!

that, and...nothing drives me crazy like books about people who don't have money spending excessive amounts of money. PLEASEĚýSTOP. I GREW UP UNDER CAPITALISM. DEBT IS MY BIGGEST FEAR.

this really was a terrifying look at the future â€� ads everywhere, personal data commodified for sales, ai creatures performing surgeries and then trying to sell you anti-aging hand cream,Ěýnature being packaged and sold like disney world, kids with phones physically sealed to their wrists.

it made for an unpleasant, highly realistic horror show. a lot of the time this is not very interesting, becauseĚýit basically takes everything that already exists and just extends it to its natural end point, but it is scary and real and itsĚýshort chapters will keep you breathlessly going.

bottom line: we are heading nowhere good!

(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the copy)
]]> The Family Recipe 214151418 A whip-smart family dramedy about estranged siblings competing to inherit their father’s Vietnamese sandwich franchise and unravel family mysteries.

Duc Tran, the eccentric founder of the national Vietnamese sandwich chain Duc’s Sandwiches, has decided to retire. With the help of the shady family lawyer, he informs his five estranged adult children that to get their inheritance, they must revitalize run-down shops in undesirable, old-school Little Saigon locations across Houston, San Jose, New Orleans, and Philadelphia—within a year. The only one without a shop is the bachelor son, but if he gets married before the year’s up, the inheritance goes to him.

Each daughter is stuck in a new city they don’t want to be in, battling gentrification, declining ethnic enclaves, messy love lives, and struggling to modernize their father’s American dream. The son wonders if he wants to marry for love or for money. As Duc’s children continue to work, family mysteries begin to unravel along the way as they learn the real intention behind the inheritance scheme.

The Family Recipe is about rediscovering one’s roots, different types of fatherly love, familial legacy, and finding one’s place in a divided country where the only commonality among your neighbors is the universal love of sandwiches.]]> 320 Carolyn Huynh 1668033046 emma 0
(thanks to the publisher for the arc)]]> 4.00 2025 The Family Recipe
author: Carolyn Huynh
name: emma
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: authors-of-color, arc, contemporary, diverse, tbr-arc, tbr-owned, non-ya, currently-reading
review:
i've done crazier things for a good sandwich than battle "gentrification, declining ethnic enclaves, messy love lives, and the american dream"

(thanks to the publisher for the arc)
]]> Flying Solo 59089710
Laurie is told that the duck has no financial value. But after it disappears under suspicious circumstances, she feels compelled to figure out why anyone would steal a wooden duck--and why Dot kept it hidden away in the first place. Suddenly Laurie finds herself swept up in a righteous caper that has her negotiating with antiques dealers and con artists, going on after-hours dates at the local library, and reconnecting with her oldest friend and first love. Desperate to uncover her great-aunt's secrets, Laurie must reckon with her past, her future, and ultimately embrace her own vision of flying solo.

A woman returns to her small Maine hometown, uncovering family secrets that take her on a journey of self-discovery and new love, in this warm and charming novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over.]]> 320 Linda Holmes 0525619275 emma 0 3.55 2022 Flying Solo
author: Linda Holmes
name: emma
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, romance, non-ya, library
review:
don't jinx me. i'm chasing the high of liking a romance novel again
]]> The Usual Desire to Kill 214151924 An often hilarious, surprisingly moving portrait of a long-married couple, seen through the eyes of their wickedly observant daughter—for fans of A Man Called Ove and The Royal Tenenbaums.

Miranda’s parents live in a dilapidated house in rural France that they share with two llamas, eight ducks, five chickens, two cats, and a freezer full of food dating back to 1982.

Miranda’s father is a retired professor of philosophy who never loses an argument. Her mother likes to bring conversation back to the War, although she was born after it ended. Married for fifty years, they are uncommonly set in their ways. Miranda plays the role of translator when she visits, communicating the desires or complaints of one parent to the other and then venting her frustration to her sister and her daughter. At the end of each visit, she reports “the usual desire to kill.�

A wry, propulsive, exquisitely observed story of a singularly eccentric family and the sibling rivalry, generational divides, and long-buried secrets that shape them. This is an extraordinary debut novel from a seasoned playwright with a flare for dialogue and, in the end, immense empathy.]]> 256 Camilla Barnes 1668062836 emma 0 3.66 2025 The Usual Desire to Kill
author: Camilla Barnes
name: emma
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, tbr-arc, tbr-owned, owned, arc, from-publisher-author, non-ya, literary-fiction
review:

]]> Worry 176443441
It’s March of 2019, and twenty-eight-year-old Jules Gold—anxious, artistically frustrated, and internet-obsessed—has been living alone in the apartment she once shared with the man she thought she’d marry when her younger sister Poppy comes to crash. Indefinitely. Poppy is a year out from a suicide attempt only Jules knows about, and as she searches for work and meaning in Brooklyn, Jules spends her days hate-scrolling the feeds of Mormon mommy bloggers and waiting for life to happen.

Then the hives that’ve plagued Poppy since childhood flare up. Jules’s uterus turns against her. Poppy brings home a maladjusted rescue dog named Amy Klobuchar. The girls� mother—a newly devout Messianic Jew—starts falling for the same deep-state conspiracy theories as Jules’s online mommies. A trip home to Florida ends in disaster. Amy Klobuchar may or may not have rabies. And Jules struggles halfheartedly to scrape her way to the source of her ennui, slowly and cruelly coming to blame Poppy for her own insufficiencies as a friend, a writer, and a sister. As the year shambles on and a new decade looms near, Jules and Poppy—comrades, competitors, permanent fixtures in each other’s lives—must ask themselves what they want their futures to look like, and whether they’ll spend them together or apart.

Deadpan, dark, and brutally funny, Worry is a sharp portrait of two sisters enduring a dread-filled American moment from a nervy new voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 304 Alexandra Tanner 1668018616 emma 0 3.32 2024 Worry
author: Alexandra Tanner
name: emma
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, non-ya, literary-fiction, tbr-arc, tbr-owned, owned, from-publisher-author
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 382 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 emma 4
(review to come)]]> 4.69 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: emma
average rating: 4.69
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: ya, dystopian, library, 3-and-a-half-stars, to-review, recommend, sci-fi
review:
i'm ready to be hurt again

(review to come)
]]> Selected Stories 21215108
This new selection, with an introduction by the novelist Emily Perkins, ranges across Mansfield's oeuvre and shows the New Zealander's dazzling brilliance.

The stories in this collection:

At the Bay
The Lady's Maid
Mr. and Mrs. Dove
The Garden Party
Marriage a la Mode
The Daughters of the Late Colonel
The Life of Ma Parker
Bliss
The Fly
The Doll's House
Her First Ball
An Ideal Family
The Escape
The Little Governess
Pictures
Mr. Reginald Peacock's Day
The Luft Bad
Miss Brill
A Birthday
Je ne parle pas francais
Psychology
A Dill Pickle
The Tiredness of Rosabel

Katherine Mansfield was born in Wellington in 1888 and left for London in 1903 to finish her schooling. After travelling in Europe she returned to New Zealand in 1906 and started writing stories. Two years later, intent on becoming a professional writer, she again went to London. The collection In a German Pension was published in 1911. Followed after the war by the acclaimed collections Bliss and The Garden Party. After her death more of her work was published, resulting in two volumes of stories, as well as collections of poetry, criticism, letters and journals.

Emily Perkins is the author of four novels, including Novel About My Wife, and a collection of short stories, Not Her Real Name. She teaches creative writing at the University of Auckland. Her latest book is The Forrests.

textclassics.com.au
]]> 416 Katherine Mansfield 1921961783 emma 0 brb becoming a genius 3.86 1948 Selected Stories
author: Katherine Mansfield
name: emma
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1948
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read, non-ya, library, classics
review:
brb becoming a genius
]]> What a Time to Be Alive 221195332 Some people move to the big city hoping to find themselves - Sickan Hermansson isn't leaving it up to chance.

Twenty-one, friendless, without money but not without hope, Sickan's arrival at Stockholm University represents a new start. Her lonely childhood in a small southern town has left her utterly unprepared for intimacy: for friends, for sex, for love even. But Sickan is determined to build a new version of herself from the ground up, to make up for lost time. To simply be normal.

Just as Sickan seems to be finding her first ever friends, in whose company she finally feels safe, she meets Abbe: beautiful, charming - and by some miracle he wants her too. Unlike Sickan, Abbe seems completely at ease in his own skin. A solid foundation then, on which to build a relationship? Maybe?

What A Time To Be Alive is a story of class, sex, loneliness, and the trials of young womanhood. But above all, it's a story of firsts: the first party you're actually invited to, the first moment you fall in love, the first time you betray a friend. The first time you ask yourself, how much of myself am I willing to sacrifice, to finally fit in?]]> 304 Jenny Mustard 1399740873 emma 0 everything really is on fire 4.00 2025 What a Time to Be Alive
author: Jenny Mustard
name: emma
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: to-read, unreleased, literary-fiction, non-ya
review:
everything really is on fire
]]> <![CDATA[Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me]]> 60372120
“She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.”—Toni Morrison

For Glory Edim, that "friend of my mind" is books. Edim, who grew up in Virginia to Nigerian immigrant parents, started the popular Well-Read Black Girl book club at age thirty, but her love of books stretches far to public libraries alongside her little brothers after elementary school while her mother was working; to high school librairies where she discovered books she wasn't being taught in class; to dorm rooms and airplanes and subway rides—and, eventually, to a community of half a million other readers.

When Edim's father moved back to Nigeria while she was still a child, she and her brothers were left with a single mother and little money, often finding a safe space at their local library. Books were where Edim found community, and as she grew older, she discovered the Black writers whose words would forever change her: Nikki Giovanni through children's poetry cassettes; Maya Angelou through a critical high school English teacher; Toni Morrison while attending Morrison's alma mater, Howard University; Audre Lorde on a flight to Nigeria. In prose full of both joy and heartbreak, Edim recounts how these writers and so many others helped her to value to find her own voice when her mother lost hers, to trust her feelings when her father remarried, to create bonds with other Black women and uplift their own stories.

Gather Me is a glowing testament to the power of representation and the lasting impact of literature to gather our disparate parts and put them back together.]]> 288 Glory Edim 0525619798 emma 4
this is a thoughtful, honest memoir about the power of books over the course of one lovely life, and i loved its reflective writing. there were moments its unique structure led to redundancies or inconsistencies, but not enough that it outweighed how wonderful it was to read about the author's life through the lens of the books that changed it.

i really enjoyed this.

bottom line: the best thing about the best thing!

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 4.21 2024 Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me
author: Glory Edim
name: emma
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: nonfiction, non-ya, memoir, diverse, arc, authors-of-color, to-buy, recommend, 4-and-a-half-stars, reviewed
review:
i love books about books, and this one did not disappoint.

this is a thoughtful, honest memoir about the power of books over the course of one lovely life, and i loved its reflective writing. there were moments its unique structure led to redundancies or inconsistencies, but not enough that it outweighed how wonderful it was to read about the author's life through the lens of the books that changed it.

i really enjoyed this.

bottom line: the best thing about the best thing!

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> Lies and Sorcery 62001844
A heavily abridged English translation of Lies and Sorcery came out in the 1950s under the title of House of Lies. Jenny McPhee’s new translation is the first complete English rendering of the book that Georg Lukács considered the greatest of modern Italian novels.]]> 800 Elsa Morante 1681376849 emma 0 4.03 1948 Lies and Sorcery
author: Elsa Morante
name: emma
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1948
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read, library, non-ya, classics
review:
i saw this in a bookstore and even seeing 800 pages wasn't enough to dissuade me from wanting to read it
]]> Dream Count 219521090 A publishing event ten years in the making�a searing, exquisite new novel by the best-selling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists�the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires.

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until � betrayed and brokenhearted � she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America � but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.]]> 416 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 059380273X emma 0
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 3.99 2025 Dream Count
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: emma
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: arc, authors-of-color, diverse, literary-fiction, non-ya
review:
new chimamanda ngozi adichie...i used to pray for times like these

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> Hunchback 214986269 A bombshell bestseller in Japan, a provocative, defiant debut novel about a young woman in a care home seeking autonomy and the full possibilities of her life.

Born with a congenital muscle disorder,ĚýShaka spends her days in her room in a care home outside Tokyo, relying on an electric wheelchair to get around and a ventilator to breathe. But if Shaka's physical life is limited, her quick, mischievous mind has no boundaries: She takes e-learning courses on her iPad, publishes explicit fantasies on websites, and anonymously troll-tweets to see if anyone is paying attention (“If I were to live again, I’d want to be a high-class prostituteâ€�). One day, she tweets into the void an offer of an enormous sum of money for a sperm donor. To her surprise, her new nurse accepts the dare, unleashing a series of events that will forever change Shaka's sense of herself as a woman in the world.

Hunchback has shaken Japanese literary culture with its skillful depiction of the physical body andĚýunrepentant humor. Winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, it's a feminist story about the dignity of an individual who insists on her right to make choices for herself, no matter the consequences. Formally creative and refreshingly unsentimental, Hunchback depicts the joy, anger, and desires of a woman demanding autonomy in a world that doesn't aways grant it to people like her. Full of wit, bite, and heart, this unforgettable novel reminds us all of the full potentialĚýof our lives, no matter the limitations we experience.]]> 112 Saou Ichikawa 0593734718 emma 0 to-read 3.57 2023 Hunchback
author: Saou Ichikawa
name: emma
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Cake Eater 228162941 Summer House star Carl Radke gives listeners a look into his unfiltered journey of recovery, resilience and transformation.

Sober Carl isn’t fun—or is he?

Carl Radke’s path from reality TV’s party-loving star to a life centered around recovery has been anything but straightforward. Famous for his role on Summer House, Carl’s journey in the spotlight has forced him to confront personal battles under public scrutiny. Beyond the cameras, he’s faced struggles with addiction, the weight of toxic masculinity, the heartbreaking loss of his brother and a quest to find real joy in a world that equates fun with alcohol.

In this candid memoir, Carl opens up about a side of his life few have seen. With unfiltered honesty, he takes listeners through the highs and lows, from career shifts and family dynamics to finding peace in his recovery. Each chapter dives into the hard-earned lessons he’s gathered, proving that life can be fulfilling—even without a drink. His story shows that fun and authenticity aren’t only compatible with sobriety; they can thrive because of it.

Whether processing grief, navigating sober relationships or confronting the public’s perceptions, Carl’s journey is one of resilience, growth and self-discovery. Through vulnerability and humor, Carl redefines “fun,� reminding listeners that the most meaningful transformations come from within. This memoir is a must-hear for anyone seeking the courage to redefine their own path.]]> 300 Carl Radke 1998076768 emma 0 to-read, unreleased 5.00 Cake Eater
author: Carl Radke
name: emma
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read, unreleased
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying]]> 207567772 “Do you know what happens if you laugh while crying? Hair grows out of your butthole.� It was a constant truism Youngmi Mayer’s mother would say threateningly after she would make her daughter laugh while crying. Her mother used it to cheer her up in moments when she could tell Youngmi was overtaken with grief. The humorous saying would never fail to lighten the mood, causing both daughter and mother to laugh and cry at the same time. Her mother had learned this trick from her mother, and her mother had learned this from her mother before it had also helped an endless string of her family laugh through suffering.

In I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying, Youngmi jokes through the retelling of her childhood as an offbeat biracial kid in Saipan, a place next to a place that Americans might know. She jokes through her difficult adolescence where she must parent her own mother, who married her husband because he looked like white Jesus (and the singer of The Bee Gees). And with humor and irreverence and full-throated openness, she jokes even while sharing the story of what her family went through during the last century of colonialism and war in Korea, while reflecting how years later, their wounds affect her in New York City as a single mom, all the while interrogating whiteness, gender, and sexuality.

Youngmi jokes through these stories in hopes of passing onto the reader what her family passed down to The gift of laughing while crying. The gift of a hairy butthole. Because throughout it all, the one thing she learned was one cannot exist without the other. And like a yin and yang, this duality is reflected in this whip-smart, heart-wrenching, and disarmingly funny memoir told by a bright new voice with so much heart and wisdom.

Ěý±Ő±Ő> 256 Youngmi Mayer 0316569232 emma 4
this is an extremely funny, extremely interesting book. all you have to do to enjoy it is agree to the following terms:
- youngmi mayer was the most brilliant first grader with the most potential in global history
- every person you encounter in life looks "exactly" like a specific public figure
- a lot of sweeping declarations and devastating tragedies will be disclosed without an.ounce of decorum.

this sort of former gifted kid rhetoric is fine by me, and i admire a dark sense of humor, so outside of some kinda wack coverage of breastfeeding i had a great time reading this.

the format rocked, i learned a bunch of things, i laughed, i cried (or the reading equivalent of both, so closerĚýto puffing air out of my nose).

i'd never heard of the author before readingĚýthis (that's how diehard a memoir fan i am â€� i don't even need to be aware of the synopsis), but i'm an appreciator of hers now!

bottom line: another win for the only kind of nonfiction i read.

(thanks to the publisher for the arc)]]> 4.27 2024 I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying
author: Youngmi Mayer
name: emma
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: nonfiction, non-ya, memoir, diverse, arc, authors-of-color, recommend, 3-and-a-half-stars, reviewed
review:
this is the type of vibe i bring to the function.

this is an extremely funny, extremely interesting book. all you have to do to enjoy it is agree to the following terms:
- youngmi mayer was the most brilliant first grader with the most potential in global history
- every person you encounter in life looks "exactly" like a specific public figure
- a lot of sweeping declarations and devastating tragedies will be disclosed without an.ounce of decorum.

this sort of former gifted kid rhetoric is fine by me, and i admire a dark sense of humor, so outside of some kinda wack coverage of breastfeeding i had a great time reading this.

the format rocked, i learned a bunch of things, i laughed, i cried (or the reading equivalent of both, so closerĚýto puffing air out of my nose).

i'd never heard of the author before readingĚýthis (that's how diehard a memoir fan i am â€� i don't even need to be aware of the synopsis), but i'm an appreciator of hers now!

bottom line: another win for the only kind of nonfiction i read.

(thanks to the publisher for the arc)
]]> <![CDATA[It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over]]> 209622883 It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over is voraciously alive in the afterlife. Adrift yet keenly aware, she notes every bizarre detail of her new reality. And even if she has forgotten her name and much of what connects her to her humanity, she remembers with an implacable and nearly unbearable longing the place where she knew herself and was known—where she loved and was loved. Traveling across the landscapes of time and of space, heading always west, and carrying a dead but laconically opinionated crow in her chest, our undead narrator encounters and loses parts of her body and her self in one terrifying, hilarious, and heartbreaking situation after another. A tale for our dispossessed times, and one of the sharpest and funniest novels of recent years, It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over plumbs mortality and how it changes everything, except possibly love.]]> 132 Anne de Marcken 1804270741 emma 0 real 3.84 2024 It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over
author: Anne de Marcken
name: emma
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read, library, literary-fiction, non-ya
review:
real
]]> Loved One 221473262 336 Aisha Muharrar 0593655842 emma 0 3.82 Loved One
author: Aisha Muharrar
name: emma
average rating: 3.82
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read, arc, authors-of-color, diverse, literary-fiction, non-ya, tbr-arc, tbr-owned
review:

]]> Stag Dance 215362032 In this collection of one novel and three stories, bestselling author Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing.

In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition.

Three startling stories surround Stag Dance: “Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones� imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend. In “The Chaser,� a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last story, “The Masker,� a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides: a handsome mystery man who objectifies her in thrilling ways, or a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.

Acidly funny and breathtaking in its scope, with the inventive audacity of George Saunders or Jennifer Egan, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles, and delights.]]> 304 Torrey Peters 0593595645 emma 4
(when you really liked an author's debut and you're nervously anticipating their next book)

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 4.07 2025 Stag Dance
author: Torrey Peters
name: emma
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/26
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: arc, literary-fiction, non-ya, 3-and-a-half-stars, to-review, recommend
review:
we're on sophomore novel watch

(when you really liked an author's debut and you're nervously anticipating their next book)

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> Cold Enough for Snow 58730649 Cold Enough for Snow questions whether any of us speak a common language, which dimensions can contain love, and what claim we have to truly know another's inner world.

Selected from more than 1,500 entries, Cold Enough for Snow won the Novel Prize, a new, biennial award offered by Fitzcarraldo Editions, New Directions (US) and Giramondo (Australia), for any novel written in English that explores and expands the possibilities of the form.]]> 99 Jessica Au 1913097765 emma 4
like its cover, this book was spare and clean in every way. well, except comma use. great simple writing and plot, well conveyed characters and feelings...but wow. a lot of commas.

this contained cutting moments of emotion and brilliance far beyond what was indicated at the sentence level. i'd recommend it for fans of cusk's outline trilogy - it has a similar heavy proportion of dialogue, using cultural and artistic allusions to carry its meaning.

it's mysterious and distant and a fun challenge at 100 pages.

bottom line: another win for short books.]]> 3.79 2022 Cold Enough for Snow
author: Jessica Au
name: emma
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: authors-of-color, diverse, literary-fiction, non-ya, 4-stars, to-buy, recommend, reviewed
review:
why do i love these covers so much?

like its cover, this book was spare and clean in every way. well, except comma use. great simple writing and plot, well conveyed characters and feelings...but wow. a lot of commas.

this contained cutting moments of emotion and brilliance far beyond what was indicated at the sentence level. i'd recommend it for fans of cusk's outline trilogy - it has a similar heavy proportion of dialogue, using cultural and artistic allusions to carry its meaning.

it's mysterious and distant and a fun challenge at 100 pages.

bottom line: another win for short books.
]]> More Home Cooking 56645960 Home Cooking,ĚýLaurie Colwin returned to the kitchen to cook up this delightful mix of culinary recipes, advice, and personal anecdotes. With down-to-earth charm and wit, she discussed the many pleasures and problems of cooking at home, including such topics as “Desserts that Quiver,â€� “The Duck Dilemma,â€� “Real Food for Tots,â€� “Turkey Angst,â€� and “Catering on One Dollar a Head.â€� As informative as it is entertaining,ĚýMore Home CookingĚýis a rare treat for Colwin’s many fans and for anyone who loves to spend time in the kitchen.

This 2021 edition features a new cover by Olivia McGiff and a foreword by Deb Perelman.]]> 240 Laurie Colwin 0063046423 emma 4
true to form, this was too charming for its own good. even if it had too many gelatin-based creations and unique uses of beef for my taste.

i have grown to really love laurie colwin, and i love these books because they're insights into her actual self, what she likes to eat and read and surround herself with. the fact tthat she died so young, that we could still have her active writing, is so devastating it takes my breath away.

bottom line: i could never have enough laurie colwin, but we have far too little. ]]> 4.31 1993 More Home Cooking
author: Laurie Colwin
name: emma
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: nonfiction, non-ya, owned, recommend, 3-and-a-half-stars, reviewed
review:
"more of something you liked" is a great title format.

true to form, this was too charming for its own good. even if it had too many gelatin-based creations and unique uses of beef for my taste.

i have grown to really love laurie colwin, and i love these books because they're insights into her actual self, what she likes to eat and read and surround herself with. the fact tthat she died so young, that we could still have her active writing, is so devastating it takes my breath away.

bottom line: i could never have enough laurie colwin, but we have far too little.
]]> The Joy Luck Club 7763 Alternate cover editions of ISBN 9780143038092 can be found here.

Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's telling the stories. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives � until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts.

With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.]]> 288 Amy Tan emma 0 3.96 1989 The Joy Luck Club
author: Amy Tan
name: emma
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read, authors-of-color, diverse, library, literary-fiction, non-ya
review:
i love the term "modern classic"
]]> Theft 217006044 In his first new novel since winning the 2021 Nobel Prize, a master storyteller captures a time of dizzying global change.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, three young people come of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university with new swagger and ambition. Fauzia glimpses in him a chance at escape from a smothering upbringing. The two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all. As tourism, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils reach their quiet corner of the world, bringing, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands.

]]> 296 Abdulrazak Gurnah 0593852605 emma 4
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the arc)]]> 3.96 2025 Theft
author: Abdulrazak Gurnah
name: emma
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: arc, authors-of-color, diverse, literary-fiction, non-ya, owned, from-publisher-author, 4-stars, to-review, recommend
review:
an author i like won the nobel prize. so i'm basically on the committee

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the arc)
]]> Luminous 214151232 A highly anticipated, sweeping debut set in a unified Korea that tells the story of three estranged siblings—two human, one robot—as they collide against the backdrop of a murder investigation to settle old scores and make sense of their shattered childhood, perfect for fans of Klara and the Sun and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

In a reunified Korea of the future, robots have been integrated into society as surrogates, servants, children, and even lovers. Though boundaries between bionic and organic frequently blur, these robots are decidedly second-class citizens. Jun and Morgan, two siblings estranged for many years, are haunted by the memory of their lost brother, Yoyo, who was warm, sensitive, and very nearly human.

Jun, a war veteran turned detective of the lowly Robot Crimes Unit in Seoul, becomes consumed by an investigation that reconnects him with his sister Morgan, now a prominent robot designer working for a top firm, who is, embarrassingly, dating one of her creations in secret.

On the other side of Seoul in a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through scraps looking for robotic parts that might support her failing body. When she discovers a robot boy named Yoyo among the piles of trash, an unlikely bond is formed since Yoyo is so lifelike, he’s unlike anything she’s seen before.

While Morgan prepares to launch the most advanced robot-boy of her career, Jun’s investigation sparks a journey through the underbelly of Seoul, unearthing deeper mysteries about the history of their country and their family. The three siblings must find their way back to each other to reckon with their pasts and the future ahead of them in this poignant and remarkable exploration of what it really means to be human.]]> 400 Silvia Park 1668021668 emma 3
(3.5 / review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 4.02 2025 Luminous
author: Silvia Park
name: emma
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: arc, diverse, literary-fiction, non-ya, to-review, recommend, 3-and-a-half-stars, authors-of-color, lgbt-plus, sci-fi
review:
this book has everything: speculative aspects, childhood trauma, murder, estrangement, forbidden romance, a robot sibling.

(3.5 / review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> <![CDATA[The Hundred Years� War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917�2017]]> 41812831
In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.� Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi’s great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective.

Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members—mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists—The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process.

Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.]]> 336 Rashid Khalidi 1627798552 emma 0 4.50 2020 The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917–2017
author: Rashid Khalidi
name: emma
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, authors-of-color, non-ya, nonfiction, owned, tbr-owned
review:

]]> The Enchanted April 398352
Sneak Peak
She peeped in. Firelight and flowers; and outside the deep slits of windows hung the blue curtain of the night. How pretty. What a sweet place San Salvatore was. And that gorgeous lilac on the table� she must go and put her face in it . . . But she never got to the lilac. She went one step towards it, and then stood still, for she had seen the figure looking out of the window in the farthest corner, and it was Frederick. All the blood in Rose's body rushed to her heart and seemed to stop its beating.

Synopsis
The story centres on four very different ladies who reply to an advertisement in The Times for a stunning mediaeval castle that is available to rent for a month on the Italian Riviera. They travel to the serene Mediterranean coasts full of hope for a blissful retreat, seduced by the promise of "wisteria and sunlight." As members of the same ladies' club but complete strangers, cheerless Mrs. Arbuthnot and shy Mrs. Wilkins discover some common ground in their struggle to mend troubled marriages. In order to reduce costs, they also unwillingly recruit the widowed Mrs. Fisher and the gorgeous but aloof socialite Lady Caroline Dester. At first, there are conflicts among the group, but as the glorious spring days pass, each person gradually changes while rediscovering hope and love.]]> 247 Elizabeth von Arnim 1590172256 emma 0 i love books about seasons 3.92 1922 The Enchanted April
author: Elizabeth von Arnim
name: emma
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1922
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read, non-ya, literary-fiction, classics, library
review:
i love books about seasons
]]> Banyan Moon 62800971
Back in Florida, Huơng is simultaneously mourning her mother and resenting her for having the relationship with Ann that she never did. Then Ann and Huơng learn that Minh has left them both the Banyan House, the crumbling old manor that was Ann’s childhood home, in all its strange, Gothic glory. Under the same roof for the first time in years, mother and daughter must face the simmering questions of their past and their uncertain futures, while trying to rebuild their relationship without the one person who’s always held them together.

Running parallel to this is Minh’s story, as she goes from a lovestruck teenager living in the shadow of the Vietnam War to a determined young mother immigrating to America in search of a better life for her children. And when Ann makes a shocking discovery in the Banyan House’s attic, long-buried secrets come to light as it becomes clear how decisions Minh made in her youth affected the rest of her life—and beyond.

Spanning decades and continents, from 1960s Vietnam to the wild swamplands of the Florida coast, Banyan Moon is a stunning and deeply moving story of mothers and daughters, the things we inherit, and the lives we choose to make out of that inheritance.]]> 336 Thao Thai 0063267101 emma 0 to-read 3.86 2023 Banyan Moon
author: Thao Thai
name: emma
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Free Food for Millionaires 58340953
Meet Casey a strong-willed, Queens-bred daughter of Korean immigrants immersed in a glamorous Manhattan lifestyle she can't afford. Casey is eager to make it on her own, away from the judgements of her parents' tight-knit community, but she soon finds that her Princeton economics degree isn't enough to rid her of ever-growing credit card debt and a toxic boyfriend. When a chance encounter with an old friend lands her a new opportunity, she's determined to carve a space for herself in a glittering world of privilege, power, and wealth-but at what cost?

Set in a city where millionaires scramble for the free lunches the poor are too proud to accept, this sharp-eyed epic of love, greed, and ambition is a compelling portrait of intergenerational strife, immigrant struggle, and social and economic mobility. Addictively readable, Min Jin Lee's bestselling debut Free Food for Millionaires exposes the intricate layers of a community clinging to its old ways in a city packed with haves and have-nots.

Includes a Reading Group Guide.]]> 711 Min Jin Lee 153872202X emma 4
and after pachinko, an extremely long family drama is now my idea of a good time.

i love the core theme of this book so much: the idea that those who are poor or suffering value their pride, while the wealthy expect the world to give them favors they accept without qualm. in other words, at a free lunch, the well-off rush to pile their plates while those in need take what's left.

i've also really been loving long books lately. i'm a short book stan at heart, but spending 600-800 pages in the company of great characters is far superior.

that doesn't mean this book wasn't too long.

it's omniscient, it follows about 900 characters, it's extremely repetitive. at more than one moment i thought i'd lost my place in my book and was reading the same chapter over again. it ends abruptly, and i feel a bit cheated out of knowing where this cast is after caring about them for so long (and doing a lot to keep the thousands of names straight).

but none of that overpowers my enjoyment of it.

bottom line: not perfect but very good.]]> 3.90 2007 Free Food for Millionaires
author: Min Jin Lee
name: emma
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: authors-of-color, diverse, literary-fiction, owned, 3-and-a-half-stars, recommend, reviewed
review:
at the end of the year when i've finished my reading challenge...that's long book season.

and after pachinko, an extremely long family drama is now my idea of a good time.

i love the core theme of this book so much: the idea that those who are poor or suffering value their pride, while the wealthy expect the world to give them favors they accept without qualm. in other words, at a free lunch, the well-off rush to pile their plates while those in need take what's left.

i've also really been loving long books lately. i'm a short book stan at heart, but spending 600-800 pages in the company of great characters is far superior.

that doesn't mean this book wasn't too long.

it's omniscient, it follows about 900 characters, it's extremely repetitive. at more than one moment i thought i'd lost my place in my book and was reading the same chapter over again. it ends abruptly, and i feel a bit cheated out of knowing where this cast is after caring about them for so long (and doing a lot to keep the thousands of names straight).

but none of that overpowers my enjoyment of it.

bottom line: not perfect but very good.
]]> You Dreamed of Empires 127938747 From a visionary Mexican author, a hallucinatory, revelatory, colonial revenge story that reimagines the fall of Tenochtitlan.

One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés entered the city of Tenochtitlan � today's Mexico City. Later that day, he would meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures.

Cortés was accompanied by his nine captains, his troops, and his two translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn, former slave, and Malinalli, a strategic, former princess. Greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely princess Atotoxli, sister and wife of Moctezuma, the Spanish nearly bungle their entrance to the city. As they await their meeting with Moctezuma � who is at a political, spiritual, and physical crossroads, and relies on hallucinogens to get himself through the day and in quest for any kind of answer from the gods � the Spanish are ensconced in the labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the city, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders at the risks of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire.

You Dreamed of Empires brings to life Tenochtitlan at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Alvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counter-attack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.]]> 220 Ălvaro Enrigue 059354479X emma 0 3.76 2022 You Dreamed of Empires
author: Ălvaro Enrigue
name: emma
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read, non-ya, literary-fiction, library, diverse, authors-of-color
review:
an alternate timeline in which europeans didn't conquer the americas sounds like exactly what i want to be reading right now
]]> <![CDATA[The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays]]> 57925999 CJ Hauser expands on her viral essay sensation, "The Crane Wife," in a brilliant collection of essays that echo the work of Cheryl Strayed in their revelatory observations of romantic love.

CJ Hauser uses her now-beloved title essay as an anchor around which to explore, through excavation of both her own personal and larger familial hope chest of "love stories," the narratives of romantic love we are taught and which we tell ourselves, and the need to often rewrite those narratives to find an accurate version of ourselves in them. Covering ground ranging from her and her relatives' own romantic pasts to the much wider natural, supernatural, and cultural worlds, CJ relates the family legacies and lessons she imbibed in her youth, and the relationships formed in echo of those lessons, which helped to shape her early understanding of love and life.

Emerging from the rigorous honesty and radical empathy of these twenty pieces, CJ relinquishes the idea of a single, permanent love story--in favor of the metaphor of a happy haunted house as a space that contains many stories, many pasts, and multiple histories. These are hopeful pieces, which address the pain and complication of living in the present while being informed by things that have happened in one's past, and the kind of energy and spirit necessary to attempt love, again and again.]]> 320 C.J. Hauser 0385547072 emma 0 collections named after a viral essay, but...if at first you don't succeed, try again.]]> 4.06 2022 The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays
author: C.J. Hauser
name: emma
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: to-read, tbr-owned, owned, non-ya, literary-fiction
review:
i do not have a good track record with collections named after a viral essay, but...if at first you don't succeed, try again.
]]> Death Takes Me 213870075 From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Liliana's Invincible Summer, aĚýdreamlike, genre-defying novelĚýabout a professor andĚýdetective seeking justice in a world suffused with gendered violence.

A city is always a cemetery.

When a professor named Cristina Rivera Garza stumbles upon the corpse of a man in a dark alley, she finds a stark warning scrawled on the brick wall beside the body, written in coral nail “Beware of me, my love / beware of the silent woman in the desert.�

After reporting the crime to the police, the professor becomes the lead informant of the case, led by a detective with a newfound obsession with poetry and a long list of failures on her back. But what has the professor really seen? As more bodies of men are found across the city, the detective tries to decipher the meaning of the poems, and if they are facing a darker stream of violence spreading throughout the city.

Death Takes Me is a thrilling masterpiece of literary fiction that flips the traditional crime narrative on its head, in a world where death is rampant and violence is gendered. Written in sentences as sharp as the cutsĚýon the bodies of the victims—a word which, in Spanish, is always feminineâ€�Death Takes Me unfolds with the charged logic of a dream, moving from the professor’s classroom into the slippery worlds of Latin American poetry and art, as it explores with masterful imagination the unstable terrains of desire and sexuality.]]> 320 Cristina Rivera Garza 0593737008 emma 3
i'm telling you these things because they really paint a picture i wish i was aware of going in.

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 2.98 2007 Death Takes Me
author: Cristina Rivera Garza
name: emma
average rating: 2.98
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/21
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: arc, literary-fiction, non-ya, diverse, authors-of-color, 2-and-a-half-stars, to-review, unpopular-opinion, nope
review:
this is very stylized fiction with a protagonist that has the author's name and chapters randomly in verse or footnotes and several astonishingly literary sex scenes.

i'm telling you these things because they really paint a picture i wish i was aware of going in.

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> The White Boy Shuffle 56269072 240 Paul Beatty 1250808235 emma 4
unsurprisingly, this book is too smart and too funny and too cool for me to feel remotely qualified to review it. after a slow start, i became obsessed.

plus what more do you really need to know.

bottom line: i recommend it! that's all.]]> 3.93 1996 The White Boy Shuffle
author: Paul Beatty
name: emma
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: non-ya, authors-of-color, diverse, literary-fiction, owned, 4-stars, recommend, reviewed
review:
paul beatty you're too clever. your books hit too hard. your worldview is too fascinating

unsurprisingly, this book is too smart and too funny and too cool for me to feel remotely qualified to review it. after a slow start, i became obsessed.

plus what more do you really need to know.

bottom line: i recommend it! that's all.
]]> Ghostroots: Stories 200196202 A debut collection of stories set in a hauntingly reimagined Lagos where characters vie for freedom from ancestral ties.

’Pemi Aguda opens her collection of twelve stories with the chilling tale of a woman who uncannily resembles her sinister, deceased grandmother. When the woman shows a capacity for deadly violence, she wonders—can evil be genetic, passed from generation to generation?

Set in Lagos, Nigeria, Aguda’s stories unfold against a spectral cityscape where the everyday business of living—the birth of a baby, a market visit, a conversation between mothers and daughters—is charged with an air of supernatural menace. In “Breastmilk� a new mother’s inability to lactate takes on preternatural overtones. In �24, Alhaji Williams Street� a mysterious disease wreaks havoc with frightening precision. In “The Hollow,� an architect stumbles on a vengeful house.

Evocative, strange, and yet familiar, “the speculative conceits of these stories are elegantly balanced with the gorgeous fullness of human emotion, all the hunger and longing and fear and delight of being a human in the world� (Lauren Groff).]]> 224 Pemi Aguda 1324065850 emma 0 4.04 2024 Ghostroots: Stories
author: Pemi Aguda
name: emma
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: to-read, authors-of-color, diverse, library, literary-fiction, non-ya
review:
help this collection looks too interesting
]]> A Catalog of Burnt Objects 214986176 The story of a girl struggling to figure out her estranged brother, a new love, and her own life just as wildfires beset her small California town—by the acclaimed author of As Many Nows as I Can Get, herself a native of Paradise, California, destroyed in the 2018 Camp Fire

Seventeen-year-old Caprice wants to piece her family back together now that her older brother has returned home, even as she resents that he ever broke them apart. Just as she starts to get a new footing—falling in love for the first time, uncertainly mending her traumatized relationship with her brother, completing the app that will win her a college scholarship and a job in tech—wildfires strike Sierra, her small California town, taking from her more than she ever realized she cherished. A response to the terrifying, heartbreaking events of Paradise, California, where the author grew up, and a love story of many stripes, this is a tale that looks at what is lost and discovers what remains, and how a family can be nearly destroyed again and again, and still survive.]]> 368 Shana Youngdahl 059340551X emma 3
update: it has been years since i added this. if this is a stubborn-off, i will win.

update to the update: i won.

(3.5 / review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 3.99 A Catalog of Burnt Objects
author: Shana Youngdahl
name: emma
average rating: 3.99
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: ya, contemporary, 3-and-a-half-stars, to-review, recommend
review:
this book doesn't have a cover or a synopsis or a release date, but i liked one book by the author 3 years ago so i'll read it

update: it has been years since i added this. if this is a stubborn-off, i will win.

update to the update: i won.

(3.5 / review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> Juneteenth 55271522 Ěý
“Ralph Ellison’s generosity, humor and nimble language are, of course, on display in Juneteenth, but it is his vigorous intellect that rules the novel. . . . A majestic narrative concept.”—Toni Morrison

In Washington, D.C., in the 1950s, Adam Sunraider, a race-baiting senator from New England, is mortally wounded by an assassin’s bullet while making a speech on the Senate floor. To the shock of all who think they know him, Sunraider calls out from his deathbed for Alonzo Hickman, an old black minister, to be brought to his side. The reverend is summoned; the two are left alone. “Tell me what happened while there’s still time,� demands the dying Sunraider.

Out of their conversation, and the inner rhythms of memories whose weight has been borne in silence for many long years, a story emerges. Senator Sunraider, once known as Bliss, was raised by Reverend Hickman in a black community steeped in religion and music (not unlike Ralph Ellison’s own childhood home) and was brought up to be a preaching prodigy in a joyful black Baptist ministry that traveled throughout the South and the Southwest. Together one last time, the two men retrace the course of their shared life in an “anguished attempt,� Ellison once put it, “to arrive at the true shape and substance of a sundered past and its meaning.� In the end, the two men confront their most painful memories, memories that hold the key to understanding the mysteries of kinship and race that bind them, and to the senator’s confronting how deeply estranged he had become from his true identity.

In Juneteenth , Ralph Ellison evokes the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech to tell a powerful tale of a prodigal son in the twentieth century. At the time of his death in 1994, Ellison was still expanding his novel in other directions, envisioning a grand, perhaps multivolume, story cycle. Always, in his mind, the character Hickman and the story of Sunraider’s life from birth to death were the dramatic heart of the narrative. And so, with the aid of Ellison’s widow, Fanny, his literary executor, John Callahan, has edited this magnificent novel at the center of Ralph Ellison’s forty-year work in progress—its author’s abiding testament to the country he so loved and to its many unfinished tasks.]]> 345 Ralph Ellison 0593242106 emma 3
but compared to the invisible man, one of the great writing achievements...i mean. how do you follow that up.

the various articles and essays about this work are fascinating and worth the read, but to boil it down, ellison had the same question. he began his second novel shortly after his firstĚýwon every award ever, and then just...kept trying until his death 40 years later. in that time, he published excerpts, he pretended his progress was devastated in a fire, and he never finished a draft.

this has moments of true brilliance, and its existence is a marvel in and of itself, but there just isn't enough there there. many times i flipped back through pages, sure i'd missed something that wouldn't be found. much like ellison must have lamented, it just never quite came together like you felt it should.

bottom line: but i still recommend it.

3.5]]> 3.87 1999 Juneteenth
author: Ralph Ellison
name: emma
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: classics, authors-of-color, diverse, non-ya, owned, 3-and-a-half-stars, unpopular-opinion, recommend, reviewed
review:
this book is one of the great editorial achievements: 2,000 pages of incomplete and incohesive contentĚýwinnowed down into one comparatively slim, comparatively consistent book.

but compared to the invisible man, one of the great writing achievements...i mean. how do you follow that up.

the various articles and essays about this work are fascinating and worth the read, but to boil it down, ellison had the same question. he began his second novel shortly after his firstĚýwon every award ever, and then just...kept trying until his death 40 years later. in that time, he published excerpts, he pretended his progress was devastated in a fire, and he never finished a draft.

this has moments of true brilliance, and its existence is a marvel in and of itself, but there just isn't enough there there. many times i flipped back through pages, sure i'd missed something that wouldn't be found. much like ellison must have lamented, it just never quite came together like you felt it should.

bottom line: but i still recommend it.

3.5
]]> Forest of Noise: Poems 211809097 A candid, horrific, and deeply touching new collection of poems about life in Gaza by an award-winning Palestinian poet.Barely thirty years old, Mosab Abu Toha was already a well-known poet when the current siege of Gaza began. After the Israeli army bombed and destroyed his house, pulverizing a library he had painstakingly built for community use, he and his family fled for their safety. Not for the first time in their lives.ĚýĚýSomehow, amid the chaos, Abu Toha kept writing poems. These are those poems. Uncannily clear, direct, and beautifully tuned, they form one of the most astonishing works of art wrested from wartime. Here are directives for what to do in an air raid; here are lyrics about the poet’s wife, singing to his children to distract them. Huddled in the dark, Toha remembers his grandfather’s oranges, his daughter’s joy in eating them.ĚýMoving between glimpses of life in relative peacetime and absurdist poems about surviving in a barely livable occupation, Forest of Noise invites a wide audience into an experience that defies the imagination—even as it is watched live. AbuĚýToha's poems introduce readers to his extended family, some of them no longer with us. This is an urgent, extraordinary, and arrestingly whimsical book. Searing and beautiful, it brings us indelible art in a time of terrible suffering.]]> 96 Mosab Abu Toha 0593803973 emma 0 4.74 2024 Forest of Noise: Poems
author: Mosab Abu Toha
name: emma
average rating: 4.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read, library, non-ya, diverse, authors-of-color
review:

]]> The Dead Romantics 58885776 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593336489.

Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.

When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.

For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.

Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.

Romance is most certainly dead... but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.

A disillusioned millennial ghostwriter who, quite literally, has some ghosts of her own, has to find her way back home in this sparkling adult debut from national bestselling author Ashley Poston.]]> 368 Ashley Poston emma 4
so reading the author's other books seems like the least i can do.

plus, i love ghosts.Ěý

i have a tattoo of one. i would like to believeĚýin them. back in my single days, my dating app bio was "somewhat friendly ghost" (now up for grabs for any of you flighty grumps out there).

in other words, i was susceptible to the charmsĚýof this book.

it isn't quite the seven year slip (a bit more awkward, a bit cheesier, filled with really weird small errors and redundancies that threatened to drive me old-timey mad), but it's a fun one.

bottom line: discovering a reliable romance author was not a 2024 prediction for me, but thank god.

3.5]]> 3.90 2022 The Dead Romantics
author: Ashley Poston
name: emma
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: romance, non-ya, owned, 3-and-a-half-stars, recommend, reviewed
review:
if i like a romance novel, i am prepared to throw a themed parade, sing titles from the rooftops, bake between 9 and 21 cakes in the shape of letters in order to spell out the writer's name, and/or give up my everyday life to marry the concept of the story like when nuns marry jesus or whatever.

so reading the author's other books seems like the least i can do.

plus, i love ghosts.Ěý

i have a tattoo of one. i would like to believeĚýin them. back in my single days, my dating app bio was "somewhat friendly ghost" (now up for grabs for any of you flighty grumps out there).

in other words, i was susceptible to the charmsĚýof this book.

it isn't quite the seven year slip (a bit more awkward, a bit cheesier, filled with really weird small errors and redundancies that threatened to drive me old-timey mad), but it's a fun one.

bottom line: discovering a reliable romance author was not a 2024 prediction for me, but thank god.

3.5
]]> Beautyland 127282939 From the acclaimed author of Parakeet, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a wise, tender novel about a woman who doesn't feel at home on Earth.

At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but she reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she is different: She possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of Earthlings.

For years, as she moves through the world and makes a life for herself among humans, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and surprising joys of their existence. Then, at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her messages with the world. Is there a chance she is not alone?

Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life on our Earth and in our universe. It is a remarkable evocation of the feeling of being in exile at home, and it introduces a gentle, unforgettable alien for our times.]]> 327 Marie-Helene Bertino 0374109281 emma 0 4.09 2024 Beautyland
author: Marie-Helene Bertino
name: emma
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read, sci-fi, non-ya, library
review:
i love books set in places i love
]]> Sea of Tranquility 58446228 The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon three hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s bestselling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 272 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321456 emma 5


even at the best of times, when i am absolutely on the ball and everything is perfect and life is going my way and i am organized and well stocked in cookies and persian cucumbers (the two best foods), the very best i can hope for in terms of how much time passes between when i read a book and when i review it is 3 weeks.

but that's beside the point, because we are firmly in the two month category on this one.

i just...don't know how to do it. i've never READ anything like this - how would i know how to write about it?

this is just so stunning. so lovely.

the simulation theory and the corresponding idea of SO WHAT, to put it as basically as possible, are two things that have always fascinated me, and now here i find them transcribed so lovingly???

at first i didn't know if i'd like this book - doubted i would, really - as characters from the glass hotel popped up but wow. how different. the two couldn't be more dissimilar.

which is a compliment.

bottom line: a really good book with a perfect ending.

(update: raising to 5 stars 6 months later because i can't stop thinking about this book)

------------------
reread update

doing the normal thing i do where i reread a book i think is a 5 star almost immediately as some kind of weird gobliny test

------------------
pre-review

oh, gosh. life is so lovely.

review to come / 4.5 or 5 stars

------------------
tbr review

will this be a perfect glorious beautifully written book i never stop thinking about (station eleven) or a confusing mess that makes me almost inexplicably mad (the glass hotel).

only one way to find out]]> 4.05 2022 Sea of Tranquility
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: emma
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/01
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: historical, non-ya, sci-fi, recommend, literary-fiction, owned, reread, reviewed, 5-stars
review:
i do not know how to review this book.



even at the best of times, when i am absolutely on the ball and everything is perfect and life is going my way and i am organized and well stocked in cookies and persian cucumbers (the two best foods), the very best i can hope for in terms of how much time passes between when i read a book and when i review it is 3 weeks.

but that's beside the point, because we are firmly in the two month category on this one.

i just...don't know how to do it. i've never READ anything like this - how would i know how to write about it?

this is just so stunning. so lovely.

the simulation theory and the corresponding idea of SO WHAT, to put it as basically as possible, are two things that have always fascinated me, and now here i find them transcribed so lovingly???

at first i didn't know if i'd like this book - doubted i would, really - as characters from the glass hotel popped up but wow. how different. the two couldn't be more dissimilar.

which is a compliment.

bottom line: a really good book with a perfect ending.

(update: raising to 5 stars 6 months later because i can't stop thinking about this book)

------------------
reread update

doing the normal thing i do where i reread a book i think is a 5 star almost immediately as some kind of weird gobliny test

------------------
pre-review

oh, gosh. life is so lovely.

review to come / 4.5 or 5 stars

------------------
tbr review

will this be a perfect glorious beautifully written book i never stop thinking about (station eleven) or a confusing mess that makes me almost inexplicably mad (the glass hotel).

only one way to find out
]]> A Million Junes 30763950
Who exactly is this gruff, sarcastic, but seemingly harmless boy who has returned to their hometown of Five Fingers, Michigan, after three mysterious years away? And why has June—an O’Donnell to her core—never questioned her late father’s deep hatred of the Angert family? After all, the O’Donnells and the Angerts may have mythic legacies, but for all the tall tales they weave, both founding families are tight-lipped about what caused the century-old rift between them.

As Saul and June’s connection grows deeper, they find that the magic, ghosts, and coywolves of Five Fingers seem to be conspiring to reveal the truth about the harrowing curse that has plagued their bloodlines for generations. Now June must question everything she knows about her family and the father she adored, and she must decide whether it’s finally time for her—and all the O’Donnells before her—to let go.]]> 400 Emily Henry 0448493969 emma 5
I love Emily Henry, and I love June (aka Jack O'Donnell IV) and I love Saul and I love Hannah and I love Jack O'Donnell III and I love families and I love magical realism and I love this book.



I love it so, so, so so so so much.

Changing this to a five star because a) obviously and b) you should always five star books that are so pretty they make you tear up a little bit on a Greyhound bus.

----------------------
original review

UGH. YES.



Those of you who have followed me for a hot second know about my complex relationship with magical realism. Me and magical realism’s Facebook relationship status: it’s complicated. If the feelings between me and magical realism were a math equation, they’d be a super long one.

To sum up my relationship with magical realism: When it’s done right, I LOVE IT. Like, more than any other genre. My perfect book is probably really good magical realism. (Examples of lit magical realism: The Night Circus (!), The World to Come.) But that’s almost never what happens. I don’t know what it is, but I’m rarely content with the sh*t in this genre. And I tend to get way angrier when it’s bad. Like, YOU WERE SO CLOSE! You could have been so good. (Examples of magical realism that made me want to light a trash can on fire: The Darkest Part of the Forest, Miss Peregrine’s, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Every Day, the first two Dorothy Must Die books...I could go on, but this paragraph is hella long.)

I think I’ve boiled down my equation for a good magical realism book to two things: first, it has to make you wonder if maybe there could be magic in our dumb, boring old reality, and second, it has to make you hope that there is, and that it’s the particular breed of magic outlined in the book.

I’m thrilled to inform you that A Million Junes, for the most part, checks those boxes.

So, in this book, we follow June, who lives in a magic house and is the heir apparent to one half of a small town Minnesota war between families. She’s still reeling from the decade-ago death of her dad, who she super loved, when the heir apparent to the OTHER family shows up in town. And is a total flippin� babe. And then stuff gets very weird, and very magical, AND I CAN’T DO THIS BOOK JUSTICE BUT TRUST ME, IT’S WORTH READING.

I mean...this book wasn’t perfect. When is it ever? But let’s stick with the good stuff for now. In fact, let’s talk characters.

Ah, these characters. Well, specifically June, Saul, and Hannah. June is our protagonist, our narrator, the light of my life and joy of my soul. She’s shockingly funny (when are characters ever truly funny?) and so fun to follow. She makes not like other girls jokes! I was in love with her by the twenty page mark. She’s so not the typical YA narrator, for so many reasons. (And no, that wasn’t a not like other girls joke. Or was it?)

Saul is June’s perfect complement. Their banter is so great. He’s a lil cutie and I like him a lot. That’s all I have to say.

Also, the female friendship in this is AMAZING. June’s BFF Hannah is so wonderful and a tiny angel and I want the absolute best for her. My God. Just...the characters and relationships in this book, man! It gives me I’ll Give You the Sun vibes in terms of how totally fab both of those things are.

The setting is total magic. I don’t even want to talk about it - I want it to take you all blindly and by storm like it did me. It begins just reasonably enough and becomes perfectly wild (for a little while). In other words, the formula for MAKING YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC.

And maybe most importantly, this book is sososo gorgeously written. I feel like in a lot of YA, the quality of writing after a certain point is sorta left by the wayside, but that's so untrue of this book. Emily Henry's style is achingly lovely, and I may have to pick up everything she ever writes forever for that reason.

But...now, unfortunately, we have to delve into the kinda-bad and the straight-up bad. This book starts off confusing, and it does NOT wait for you to get up and get your head on straight. Your shoes on the right feet. Your pants on not-backwards. It just goes. Eventually you catch up, and you have the first half of the book to enjoy before everything gets increasingly f*cked up and confusing until the last quarter, when, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be holding onto your hat and BEGGING FOR AN EXPLANATION. It’s like becoming the math lady, from that one meme. You know. This one:



Anyways. That explanation does not come.

I consider myself a mind-boggingly extremely genius-level decently smart person, but I had no clue what was going on at some points. It doesn’t ruin the book or anything, since it’s supposed to be kinda magical and mysterious, but still. It loses the grounding in reality that magical realism has, or should have, and I was left with a metric f*ck ton of questions.

And it feels like the characters lose themselves in the second half, and that just sucks. First 200 pages: June-Saul-Hannah central. Remaining chunk: dismally characterization-free.

What I’m saying is the first half was better. The second half wasn’t terrible, but I just fondly reminisced on the beginning and thought:

The only other negative was that most other characters fell by the wayside, but WHO CARES? I probably would’ve just wanted more JuneSaulHannah if anyone else got characterization time anyway.

Honestly, I feel like this book could have been 100 or 200 pages longer. And I NEVER say that. (But I’m not asking for a sequel. I’ll shout it from the rooftops: NO SEQUEL FOR THIS BOOK!!! Trust me on that.)

Bottom line: Ohmygod, read this. We only get so many good magical realism books.]]> 3.80 2017 A Million Junes
author: Emily Henry
name: emma
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2020/08/31
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: owned, magical-realist-urban-whatever, fantasy, ya, beautifully-written, funny, gorgeous-covers, i-love-these-characters, recommend, slump-worthy, that-setting-tho, reviewed, 5-stars, reread, favorites, favorite-authors
review:
I LOVE EMILY HENRY.

I love Emily Henry, and I love June (aka Jack O'Donnell IV) and I love Saul and I love Hannah and I love Jack O'Donnell III and I love families and I love magical realism and I love this book.



I love it so, so, so so so so much.

Changing this to a five star because a) obviously and b) you should always five star books that are so pretty they make you tear up a little bit on a Greyhound bus.

----------------------
original review

UGH. YES.



Those of you who have followed me for a hot second know about my complex relationship with magical realism. Me and magical realism’s Facebook relationship status: it’s complicated. If the feelings between me and magical realism were a math equation, they’d be a super long one.

To sum up my relationship with magical realism: When it’s done right, I LOVE IT. Like, more than any other genre. My perfect book is probably really good magical realism. (Examples of lit magical realism: The Night Circus (!), The World to Come.) But that’s almost never what happens. I don’t know what it is, but I’m rarely content with the sh*t in this genre. And I tend to get way angrier when it’s bad. Like, YOU WERE SO CLOSE! You could have been so good. (Examples of magical realism that made me want to light a trash can on fire: The Darkest Part of the Forest, Miss Peregrine’s, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Every Day, the first two Dorothy Must Die books...I could go on, but this paragraph is hella long.)

I think I’ve boiled down my equation for a good magical realism book to two things: first, it has to make you wonder if maybe there could be magic in our dumb, boring old reality, and second, it has to make you hope that there is, and that it’s the particular breed of magic outlined in the book.

I’m thrilled to inform you that A Million Junes, for the most part, checks those boxes.

So, in this book, we follow June, who lives in a magic house and is the heir apparent to one half of a small town Minnesota war between families. She’s still reeling from the decade-ago death of her dad, who she super loved, when the heir apparent to the OTHER family shows up in town. And is a total flippin� babe. And then stuff gets very weird, and very magical, AND I CAN’T DO THIS BOOK JUSTICE BUT TRUST ME, IT’S WORTH READING.

I mean...this book wasn’t perfect. When is it ever? But let’s stick with the good stuff for now. In fact, let’s talk characters.

Ah, these characters. Well, specifically June, Saul, and Hannah. June is our protagonist, our narrator, the light of my life and joy of my soul. She’s shockingly funny (when are characters ever truly funny?) and so fun to follow. She makes not like other girls jokes! I was in love with her by the twenty page mark. She’s so not the typical YA narrator, for so many reasons. (And no, that wasn’t a not like other girls joke. Or was it?)

Saul is June’s perfect complement. Their banter is so great. He’s a lil cutie and I like him a lot. That’s all I have to say.

Also, the female friendship in this is AMAZING. June’s BFF Hannah is so wonderful and a tiny angel and I want the absolute best for her. My God. Just...the characters and relationships in this book, man! It gives me I’ll Give You the Sun vibes in terms of how totally fab both of those things are.

The setting is total magic. I don’t even want to talk about it - I want it to take you all blindly and by storm like it did me. It begins just reasonably enough and becomes perfectly wild (for a little while). In other words, the formula for MAKING YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC.

And maybe most importantly, this book is sososo gorgeously written. I feel like in a lot of YA, the quality of writing after a certain point is sorta left by the wayside, but that's so untrue of this book. Emily Henry's style is achingly lovely, and I may have to pick up everything she ever writes forever for that reason.

But...now, unfortunately, we have to delve into the kinda-bad and the straight-up bad. This book starts off confusing, and it does NOT wait for you to get up and get your head on straight. Your shoes on the right feet. Your pants on not-backwards. It just goes. Eventually you catch up, and you have the first half of the book to enjoy before everything gets increasingly f*cked up and confusing until the last quarter, when, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be holding onto your hat and BEGGING FOR AN EXPLANATION. It’s like becoming the math lady, from that one meme. You know. This one:



Anyways. That explanation does not come.

I consider myself a mind-boggingly extremely genius-level decently smart person, but I had no clue what was going on at some points. It doesn’t ruin the book or anything, since it’s supposed to be kinda magical and mysterious, but still. It loses the grounding in reality that magical realism has, or should have, and I was left with a metric f*ck ton of questions.

And it feels like the characters lose themselves in the second half, and that just sucks. First 200 pages: June-Saul-Hannah central. Remaining chunk: dismally characterization-free.

What I’m saying is the first half was better. The second half wasn’t terrible, but I just fondly reminisced on the beginning and thought:

The only other negative was that most other characters fell by the wayside, but WHO CARES? I probably would’ve just wanted more JuneSaulHannah if anyone else got characterization time anyway.

Honestly, I feel like this book could have been 100 or 200 pages longer. And I NEVER say that. (But I’m not asking for a sequel. I’ll shout it from the rooftops: NO SEQUEL FOR THIS BOOK!!! Trust me on that.)

Bottom line: Ohmygod, read this. We only get so many good magical realism books.
]]> Cloud Cuckoo Land 56783258 When everything is lost, it’s our stories that survive.

How do we weather the end of things? Cloud Cuckoo Land brings together an unforgettable cast of dreamers and outsiders from past, present and future to offer a vision of survival against all odds.

Constantinople, 1453:
An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.

Idaho, 2020:
An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?

Unknown, Sometime in the Future:
With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.

Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.]]> 626 Anthony Doerr 1982168439 emma 5


but who cares about any of that, because the following two things are true:
1) i am always right, and
2) the best thing a book can be is about how life is lovely, and humans are imperfect, and loving each other and doing our best is what makes life worth living.

guys...this book is excellent. my first 5 star of the year!

this is so beautifully written, and populated by gorgeous, unforgettable characters. it has one of my (many) pet peeves, in that it has tons of perspectives, and yet all of them are stunning and worthwhile.

and all of it is unified by the power of books, how a story can change everything again and again, how the magic of literature just goes on and on, lasting hundreds of years, transforming those who meet it all the way.

it is, in other words, just perfect.

bottom line: wow.

-----------------
pre-review

oh my god.

review to come / the first 5 star of the year!!!

-----------------
tbr review

one thing i can promise: if there's a bandwagon, i'll be on it]]> 4.24 2021 Cloud Cuckoo Land
author: Anthony Doerr
name: emma
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/06
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: historical, literary-fiction, non-ya, sci-fi, fantasy, favorites-2023, 5-stars, recommend, owned, reviewed
review:
sure, reading is subjective, and yeah, art can mean something different to everyone who encounters it, and of course, criticism comes down to opinion the vast majority of the time.



but who cares about any of that, because the following two things are true:
1) i am always right, and
2) the best thing a book can be is about how life is lovely, and humans are imperfect, and loving each other and doing our best is what makes life worth living.

guys...this book is excellent. my first 5 star of the year!

this is so beautifully written, and populated by gorgeous, unforgettable characters. it has one of my (many) pet peeves, in that it has tons of perspectives, and yet all of them are stunning and worthwhile.

and all of it is unified by the power of books, how a story can change everything again and again, how the magic of literature just goes on and on, lasting hundreds of years, transforming those who meet it all the way.

it is, in other words, just perfect.

bottom line: wow.

-----------------
pre-review

oh my god.

review to come / the first 5 star of the year!!!

-----------------
tbr review

one thing i can promise: if there's a bandwagon, i'll be on it
]]> Happy All the Time 57602357 Happy All the Time follows four sane, intelligent, and good-intentioned people who manage to find love in spite of themselves.

This 2021 reissue includes a new foreword by Katherine Heiny and cover art by Olivia McGiff.

An alternative cover edition for this ASIN can be found here.]]> 224 Laurie Colwin 0593313895 emma 5 halle said this book is the 70s equivalent of sally rooney, and she was completely right.



this is the kind of book that is so enjoyable for every second it makes you want to go back and lower the rating of everything you've read of late.

it is so funny and so precise and so clever, and a page will have a random unshakable description that is so goddamn weird and right. i fell completely in love with these characters and with this book, and as the end of it approached i read slower and slower in the hopes i'd discover 100 or so pages had been stuck together and hiding.

just perfect.

bottom line: thank you halle!]]> 3.98 1978 Happy All the Time
author: Laurie Colwin
name: emma
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1978
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/08
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: contemporary, non-ya, recommend, i-love-these-characters, funny, beautifully-written, 5-stars, reviewed, favorites-2024, owned
review:
halle said this book is the 70s equivalent of sally rooney, and she was completely right.



this is the kind of book that is so enjoyable for every second it makes you want to go back and lower the rating of everything you've read of late.

it is so funny and so precise and so clever, and a page will have a random unshakable description that is so goddamn weird and right. i fell completely in love with these characters and with this book, and as the end of it approached i read slower and slower in the hopes i'd discover 100 or so pages had been stuck together and hiding.

just perfect.

bottom line: thank you halle!
]]> Tom Lake 63256933 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 310 Ann Patchett 0063327546 emma 5 - about family
- written by ann patchett



the other best thing a book can be is:
- among the absolute fraction of things i read that magically, miraculously, divinely qualifies as 5 stars.

this is both.

i had no idea it was the great dream of my life to have three daughters and spend my days with them and my husband and a rescue dog picking cherries and telling stories in our orchard in michigan, but this was too damn dreamy for that not to be the case.

it's too auspicious, encountering my second beloved michigan cherry book. plus they're my favorite fruit. i will hereby be retiring from the review game in order to dedicate my life to google maps-ing "fruit trees accompanied by white farmhouses near lakes."

this book was strange and imperfect, kind of bumpy and (bizarrely) poorly edited and uncompelling in spots, but...i never stopped wanting to be reading it.

whenever i'm in my dear lovely favorite independent bookstore, i have a careful(ish) allowance. i can buy as many books from the on-sale rescue-these-books-from-remainder-table as my charitable heart desires, but i can only buy one full-price hardcover.

this was that one.

i chose really, really well.

bottom line: sometimes you think you'll love a book, and then you do. that feeling never gets old.]]> 4.13 2023 Tom Lake
author: Ann Patchett
name: emma
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/15
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: non-ya, literary-fiction, owned, recommend, 5-stars, favorites-2023, reviewed
review:
the best thing a book can be is:
- about family
- written by ann patchett



the other best thing a book can be is:
- among the absolute fraction of things i read that magically, miraculously, divinely qualifies as 5 stars.

this is both.

i had no idea it was the great dream of my life to have three daughters and spend my days with them and my husband and a rescue dog picking cherries and telling stories in our orchard in michigan, but this was too damn dreamy for that not to be the case.

it's too auspicious, encountering my second beloved michigan cherry book. plus they're my favorite fruit. i will hereby be retiring from the review game in order to dedicate my life to google maps-ing "fruit trees accompanied by white farmhouses near lakes."

this book was strange and imperfect, kind of bumpy and (bizarrely) poorly edited and uncompelling in spots, but...i never stopped wanting to be reading it.

whenever i'm in my dear lovely favorite independent bookstore, i have a careful(ish) allowance. i can buy as many books from the on-sale rescue-these-books-from-remainder-table as my charitable heart desires, but i can only buy one full-price hardcover.

this was that one.

i chose really, really well.

bottom line: sometimes you think you'll love a book, and then you do. that feeling never gets old.
]]> <![CDATA[Beautiful World, Where Are You]]> 56597885 356 Sally Rooney 0374602603 emma 5
Look what the cat dragged in.



My limited and rarely tested abilities to write a five star review, ever decaying and decreasing from lack of use. We meet again.

I will continue to make my own lack of skill the audience for this review, just for a moment, because this is a special occasion. This isn't just any five star book, although that would be a fairly once in a blue moon event as well.

You and I - you, of course, being my minimal talents - need to get it together.

This is a SALLY ROONEY book. And not just any Sally Rooney book, but possibly my FAVORITE Sally Rooney book. Could very well be my favorite book by who is likely my favorite author, in other words. Rooney has published one excerpt, one essay, three novels, and four short stories, and I have read her work 22 times, in total.

Also notably, there is a book I have called the following:
- my Bible
- the book of my heart
- my literal and figurative self, distilled into pages
- my most recommended book
- my favorite book of the last 150 years
- nearly my favorite book of all time, second only to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- my comfort book
- the closest thing I have to a religion

It's a book called Conversations with Friends, it's also written by Sally Rooney, and it seems to have been dethroned by this one.

There's a reason I've put off writing this review for two and a half months. The stakes are f*cking high.

So where do I go from here?

I can tell you that, so long as I live, I expect never to encounter writing like this again. Writing so clear and lovely, writing that summons new images and thoughts and emotions you've never considered and acts as a kind acknowledgment of the scariest and deepest and truest ones you quietly have.

I can say that this book begins with a launch, a tossing into the pool, an unceremonious jumping in that's more like a continuation, an assumption you've been there all along. That though it begins suddenly it feels like coming home.

I can note that these are some of Rooney's best and worst love stories, the ones you root for the most with the most complicated and "bad" and problematic people populating them, and that it's so beautiful to have those two things coexist.

I can attempt to work out my feelings about these characters, that while I feel for them and am fascinated by them and may adore them, it's almost beside the point of everything else. That for me, a person who reads for characters, the characters are wonderfully done and the realest yet, and the least important part, for me.

I can add that this is also an incredible act of bravery by Rooney, that it serves a huge leap in scope and in style and in intention from her previous books, that she has been criticized for much of her still-nascent career in a way that feels mean-spirited by the aging totems of Literature, and that instead of ducking her head and conceding to the characterization of her work as vapid and millennial, she filled her third book with so much heart it's hard to fathom.

I can try to describe what this book means to me, what it's like to spend most of your life trying on cynicism like a Halloween costume, scratchy and seamy and not quite right, to indulge in pithy "I hate everyone" negativity when people seem to be the only real reason life is worth living, and then have your very favorite author - who, it may have been mentioned, holds a fairly outsize role in your heart and mind - tell you she thinks so, too.

I want you to know, and I can try to convey, that love and friendship are all that matters, and that this book is the loveliest way of giving yourself the gift of letting yourself believe that.

I will try to tell you so many things if they get you to read this book.

Bottom line: This is a once in a lifetime one, for me.

-----------------
note

as if i needed more reasons to find this book completely perfect:

-----------------
reread pre-review

the first time i read this, i finished it in a sitting.

the second time, i savored every word.

review to come / 5 stars / more if i could

-----------------
reread updates

decided to reread a perfect book about how even in the face of the end of the world, the meaning of life is loving people. no reason

-----------

i don't know how long i can go without rereading a sally rooney book. but i'm not willing to find out

-----------

i wish i could say this was as good the third time...but i can't.

it's better ]]> 3.53 2021 Beautiful World, Where Are You
author: Sally Rooney
name: emma
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/13
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: favorite-authors, literary-fiction, non-ya, owned-multiple, owned, 5-stars, beautifully-written, favorites-2021, i-love-these-characters, recommend, lgbt-plus, reread, reviewed, favorites, project-5-star
review:
Well, well, well.

Look what the cat dragged in.



My limited and rarely tested abilities to write a five star review, ever decaying and decreasing from lack of use. We meet again.

I will continue to make my own lack of skill the audience for this review, just for a moment, because this is a special occasion. This isn't just any five star book, although that would be a fairly once in a blue moon event as well.

You and I - you, of course, being my minimal talents - need to get it together.

This is a SALLY ROONEY book. And not just any Sally Rooney book, but possibly my FAVORITE Sally Rooney book. Could very well be my favorite book by who is likely my favorite author, in other words. Rooney has published one excerpt, one essay, three novels, and four short stories, and I have read her work 22 times, in total.

Also notably, there is a book I have called the following:
- my Bible
- the book of my heart
- my literal and figurative self, distilled into pages
- my most recommended book
- my favorite book of the last 150 years
- nearly my favorite book of all time, second only to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- my comfort book
- the closest thing I have to a religion

It's a book called Conversations with Friends, it's also written by Sally Rooney, and it seems to have been dethroned by this one.

There's a reason I've put off writing this review for two and a half months. The stakes are f*cking high.

So where do I go from here?

I can tell you that, so long as I live, I expect never to encounter writing like this again. Writing so clear and lovely, writing that summons new images and thoughts and emotions you've never considered and acts as a kind acknowledgment of the scariest and deepest and truest ones you quietly have.

I can say that this book begins with a launch, a tossing into the pool, an unceremonious jumping in that's more like a continuation, an assumption you've been there all along. That though it begins suddenly it feels like coming home.

I can note that these are some of Rooney's best and worst love stories, the ones you root for the most with the most complicated and "bad" and problematic people populating them, and that it's so beautiful to have those two things coexist.

I can attempt to work out my feelings about these characters, that while I feel for them and am fascinated by them and may adore them, it's almost beside the point of everything else. That for me, a person who reads for characters, the characters are wonderfully done and the realest yet, and the least important part, for me.

I can add that this is also an incredible act of bravery by Rooney, that it serves a huge leap in scope and in style and in intention from her previous books, that she has been criticized for much of her still-nascent career in a way that feels mean-spirited by the aging totems of Literature, and that instead of ducking her head and conceding to the characterization of her work as vapid and millennial, she filled her third book with so much heart it's hard to fathom.

I can try to describe what this book means to me, what it's like to spend most of your life trying on cynicism like a Halloween costume, scratchy and seamy and not quite right, to indulge in pithy "I hate everyone" negativity when people seem to be the only real reason life is worth living, and then have your very favorite author - who, it may have been mentioned, holds a fairly outsize role in your heart and mind - tell you she thinks so, too.

I want you to know, and I can try to convey, that love and friendship are all that matters, and that this book is the loveliest way of giving yourself the gift of letting yourself believe that.

I will try to tell you so many things if they get you to read this book.

Bottom line: This is a once in a lifetime one, for me.

-----------------
note

as if i needed more reasons to find this book completely perfect:

-----------------
reread pre-review

the first time i read this, i finished it in a sitting.

the second time, i savored every word.

review to come / 5 stars / more if i could

-----------------
reread updates

decided to reread a perfect book about how even in the face of the end of the world, the meaning of life is loving people. no reason

-----------

i don't know how long i can go without rereading a sally rooney book. but i'm not willing to find out

-----------

i wish i could say this was as good the third time...but i can't.

it's better
]]> Old Flame 61272703 A highly anticipated new novel exploring what it means to be a woman in her many forms—daughter, friend, partner, lover, and mother.

Emily writes for women’s catalogs for a living, but she’d rather be writing books. She has a handsome photographer boyfriend, but she actively wonders how and when they will eventually hurt each other. Her best work friend Megan is her lifeline, until Megan is abruptly laid off. When her world is further upended by an unplanned pregnancy, Emily is forced to make tough decisions that will change her life forever.

What will she sacrifice from her old life to make room for a new one? What fires will she be forced to extinguish, and which will keep burning? Old Flame is a story about the essential—and often existential—choices that define a woman’s life at every level, from which dress to wear to when to have a child to how to be in the world.]]> 320 Molly Prentiss 1501121588 emma 5


then i spent hours upon hours trying to pick it back up, my brain absolutely rejecting the concept that i had finished it. i had a series of work calls, and after each i wanted to continue reading. i had a series of tasks, and i without fail attempted to stop doing them in order to read.

i could not stop thinking about this book!!!

so boom. 5 stars it became.

part of me prickled at the conceit of this, which is that creating a human life is an act of creation that is radical and artistic and important, and that nothing is taken from the strength and passion motherhood takes by virtue of its being societal default. i didn't think that going in, and i didn't really want to think it through most of my reading experience.

but that's part of why i am a good reader for this book. because it convinced me.

and on top of that gorgeousness, this is funny and sharp and populated with unforgettable characters. it's two distinct stories, and i loved both, which feels like the rarest thing ever.

this is in many ways about how it is a huge act of generosity to love someone, and maybe the most valuable thing you can do in this life.

and i love women and this book loves women and i love this book.

bottom line: love! life! jokes about capitalism! what more could you want.

-------------------
reread update

i love this book too much.

-------------------
tbr review

literary fiction about what it means to be a woman...yeah this is up my alley

(thanks to the publisher for the copy)]]> 3.84 2023 Old Flame
author: Molly Prentiss
name: emma
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/08
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: literary-fiction, owned, non-ya, from-publisher-author, recommend, 5-stars, favorites-2023, reviewed, reread
review:
when i first finished Old Flame, i rated it four stars.



then i spent hours upon hours trying to pick it back up, my brain absolutely rejecting the concept that i had finished it. i had a series of work calls, and after each i wanted to continue reading. i had a series of tasks, and i without fail attempted to stop doing them in order to read.

i could not stop thinking about this book!!!

so boom. 5 stars it became.

part of me prickled at the conceit of this, which is that creating a human life is an act of creation that is radical and artistic and important, and that nothing is taken from the strength and passion motherhood takes by virtue of its being societal default. i didn't think that going in, and i didn't really want to think it through most of my reading experience.

but that's part of why i am a good reader for this book. because it convinced me.

and on top of that gorgeousness, this is funny and sharp and populated with unforgettable characters. it's two distinct stories, and i loved both, which feels like the rarest thing ever.

this is in many ways about how it is a huge act of generosity to love someone, and maybe the most valuable thing you can do in this life.

and i love women and this book loves women and i love this book.

bottom line: love! life! jokes about capitalism! what more could you want.

-------------------
reread update

i love this book too much.

-------------------
tbr review

literary fiction about what it means to be a woman...yeah this is up my alley

(thanks to the publisher for the copy)
]]> Book Lovers 58708383 One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming....

Nora Stephens� life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters� trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.]]> 398 Emily Henry emma 4
i love emily henry.



i’ve loved her since the first incarnation of my reading accounts, when i discovered a million junes based on an act of love from the universe, probably, and never looked back.

i loved her fascinating, unique, sometimes creepy always lovely magical realism filled with banter and growth and stunning images.

when she moved to romance, her books felt less like My Books, ones written specifically for me, but it was kind of wonderful to see them be The Book for so many other people.

and then this one came along.

and i hate to center myself again, but�

just kidding. this is the same person who genuinely said yesterday that the rain was holding out for her walk home exclusively. i have no problem with indulging in narcissism, so:

this one feels pretty made for me.

i love sisters, and here our almost-as-important close-second relationship after the romance is between two crazy close sisters.

i love nora, our cold and tough and mean but on the inside very kind and lovely and of course book-obsessed protagonist. (it will come as no surprise that i relate to her. or, well, relate on the first and third points.)

i love charlie, who passes my single requirement for romance novel love interests with flying colors. (this single requirement is, of course, being obsessed beyond logic with our main character.)

i love banter. it is the best part of any romcom and it isn’t close. this has plenty.

i love having-it-all happy ever afters. i love when the magic perfect ending doesn’t just include love, but like 9 other neatly tied up subplots ending with confetti and rose petals or whatever too.

i love being a tall girl, and i love that this book recognizes our struggle!!!

i love dream jobs. i love tropes. i love mean-girl characters. i love little kids. i love books!!!

when it came to this book, it feels like � beyond my missing magical realism, and the not-very-enemies beginning of this enemies to lovers, and some excessive sister sneakiness � i loved (almost) it all.

bottom line: emily henry forever!!!

4.5

------------------
reread update

there's no problem that can't be solved by rereading every emily henry book

---------------
pre-review

please respect my privacy at this time (deciding whether to give my third romance five star ever).

review to come / it's either 4.5 or 5

---------------
currently-reading updates

this is the best day of my life

---------------
tbr review

anyone have any tips on hibernation?]]> 4.27 2022 Book Lovers
author: Emily Henry
name: emma
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: romance, non-ya, owned, recommend, reviewed, 4-stars, reread
review:
welcome to my main character era.

i love emily henry.



i’ve loved her since the first incarnation of my reading accounts, when i discovered a million junes based on an act of love from the universe, probably, and never looked back.

i loved her fascinating, unique, sometimes creepy always lovely magical realism filled with banter and growth and stunning images.

when she moved to romance, her books felt less like My Books, ones written specifically for me, but it was kind of wonderful to see them be The Book for so many other people.

and then this one came along.

and i hate to center myself again, but�

just kidding. this is the same person who genuinely said yesterday that the rain was holding out for her walk home exclusively. i have no problem with indulging in narcissism, so:

this one feels pretty made for me.

i love sisters, and here our almost-as-important close-second relationship after the romance is between two crazy close sisters.

i love nora, our cold and tough and mean but on the inside very kind and lovely and of course book-obsessed protagonist. (it will come as no surprise that i relate to her. or, well, relate on the first and third points.)

i love charlie, who passes my single requirement for romance novel love interests with flying colors. (this single requirement is, of course, being obsessed beyond logic with our main character.)

i love banter. it is the best part of any romcom and it isn’t close. this has plenty.

i love having-it-all happy ever afters. i love when the magic perfect ending doesn’t just include love, but like 9 other neatly tied up subplots ending with confetti and rose petals or whatever too.

i love being a tall girl, and i love that this book recognizes our struggle!!!

i love dream jobs. i love tropes. i love mean-girl characters. i love little kids. i love books!!!

when it came to this book, it feels like � beyond my missing magical realism, and the not-very-enemies beginning of this enemies to lovers, and some excessive sister sneakiness � i loved (almost) it all.

bottom line: emily henry forever!!!

4.5

------------------
reread update

there's no problem that can't be solved by rereading every emily henry book

---------------
pre-review

please respect my privacy at this time (deciding whether to give my third romance five star ever).

review to come / it's either 4.5 or 5

---------------
currently-reading updates

this is the best day of my life

---------------
tbr review

anyone have any tips on hibernation?
]]> <![CDATA[Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters, #3)]]> 51824384
Jacob Wayne is in control. Always. The bed and breakfast owner’s on a mission to dominate the hospitality industry—and he expects nothing less than perfection. So when a purple-haired tornado of a woman turns up out of the blue to interview for his open chef position, he tells her the brutal truth: not a chance in hell. Then she hits him with her car—supposedly by accident. Yeah, right.

Now his arm is broken, his B&B is understaffed, and the dangerously unpredictable Eve is fluttering around, trying to help. Before long, she’s infiltrated his work, his kitchen—and his spare bedroom. Jacob hates everything about it. Or rather, he should. Sunny, chaotic Eve is his natural-born nemesis, but the longer these two enemies spend in close quarters, the more their animosity turns into something else. Like Eve, the heat between them is impossible to ignore—and it’s melting Jacob’s frosty exterior.]]> 400 Talia Hibbert 0062941283 emma 4


i can recall many in my life. when i was 13, for example, and i thought that the height of fashion was a graphic tee that said AEROPOSTALE in huge letters on the front, paired with a simple and understated pair of black fake uggs.

or most of my childhood, which i spent convinced i was destined to marry either joe jonas (the obvious best of the brothers) or my neighbor who once threw a snowball directly at my face � whoever showed up first.

or when i read this book, which i recalled as being cute and fluffy and one of the only romances i have ever given five stars, and lent to my mom.

this book IS cute and fluffy, in many ways, and talia hibbert Does It Again.

BUT THIS BOOK ALSO CONTAINS MANY, MANY MENTIONS OF A GIANT, COLORFUL, VERY ACTIVE DILDO.

AND I LENT IT TO MY MOTHER.

in fact, i generally misremembered this book, which is no longer 1 of 2 romances i've ever given five stars. it is funny, and it is fun, but it isn't the things i require in my perfect love stories (namely, mostly yearning and suffering). it is mostly silly and sexy.

and there is nothing wrong with that.

unless, and i can't stress this enough, you are thinking of book recommendations to give your poor, sweet, innocent mother.

bottom line: sorry mom.

(sidenote: this has been another installment of PROJECT 5 STAR)

----------------
original review

[spoilers removed]

----------------
pre-review

don't mind me just changing this to five stars

----------------
pre-pre-review

ohmygodilovethissomuch.

i might cry.

or give it 5 stars.

but 4.5 for now and review to come and all that.

----------------
tbr review

enemies to lovers?? ENEMIES TO LOVERS????]]> 4.07 2021 Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters, #3)
author: Talia Hibbert
name: emma
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/02
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: diverse, non-ya, romance, recommend, i-love-these-characters, best-contemporaries, favorites-2021, reviewed, owned, authors-of-color, project-5-star, 4-stars
review:
we all have our periods of delusion.



i can recall many in my life. when i was 13, for example, and i thought that the height of fashion was a graphic tee that said AEROPOSTALE in huge letters on the front, paired with a simple and understated pair of black fake uggs.

or most of my childhood, which i spent convinced i was destined to marry either joe jonas (the obvious best of the brothers) or my neighbor who once threw a snowball directly at my face � whoever showed up first.

or when i read this book, which i recalled as being cute and fluffy and one of the only romances i have ever given five stars, and lent to my mom.

this book IS cute and fluffy, in many ways, and talia hibbert Does It Again.

BUT THIS BOOK ALSO CONTAINS MANY, MANY MENTIONS OF A GIANT, COLORFUL, VERY ACTIVE DILDO.

AND I LENT IT TO MY MOTHER.

in fact, i generally misremembered this book, which is no longer 1 of 2 romances i've ever given five stars. it is funny, and it is fun, but it isn't the things i require in my perfect love stories (namely, mostly yearning and suffering). it is mostly silly and sexy.

and there is nothing wrong with that.

unless, and i can't stress this enough, you are thinking of book recommendations to give your poor, sweet, innocent mother.

bottom line: sorry mom.

(sidenote: this has been another installment of PROJECT 5 STAR)

----------------
original review

[spoilers removed]

----------------
pre-review

don't mind me just changing this to five stars

----------------
pre-pre-review

ohmygodilovethissomuch.

i might cry.

or give it 5 stars.

but 4.5 for now and review to come and all that.

----------------
tbr review

enemies to lovers?? ENEMIES TO LOVERS????
]]> Since You've Been Gone 18189606
On it, thirteen Sloane-inspired tasks that Emily would normally never try. But what if they could bring her best friend back?

Apple picking at night? Okay, easy enough.

Dance until dawn? Sure. Why not?

Kiss a stranger? Um...

Emily now has this unexpected summer, and the help of Frank Porter (totally unexpected), to check things off Sloane's list. Who knows what she’ll find?

Go skinny-dipping? Wait...what?]]> 449 Morgan Matson 1442435003 emma 5
And now, nearly 10 years after first reading it, I'm giving it 5 stars.



I am old and curmudgeonly. I am essentially an elderly grump shouting at ornery kids to get off his lawn. But I love this little number anyway.

This book has everything. (Please go back in time and read that in a Stefon voice if you didn’t the first time.) Road trips. Heart-shaped sunglasses. Bucket lists. That thing where characters have significant others but only to add a bit more spice to the will-they-won’t-they (even though the answer is clearly of course they will) and yes there’s cheating but actually it’s okay because the unseen girlfriend was also done with the relationship. Summertime. Pizza. Fun banter-y groups of friends. Playlists. The classic contemporary plot format in which everything starts out okay but with definite room for improvement and then gets good and then gets PERFECT and then gets so so so so so bad like even worse than the beginning but then turns perfect again and actually perfect-er than when you thought it was perfect because character development. And also romance, of course.

It is, in other words, as if someone took all of the best contemporary tropes and wrote them on lil pieces of paper and then tossed them in the air and then they floated down like confetti or snowflakes onto Morgan Matson’s angel head and she wrote this book.

I am a sucker for road trips and for bucket lists and for playlists and for snack descriptions and for summer and for banter and ESPECIALLY for when the friendships are more prevalent in a book than the budding romances.

And this book nails all of that. It is the most fun thing ever.

To give a touch of synopsis: We follow Emily, who has literally one friend. (Sounds like every character in every other book, am I right? It’s funny because most authors are too lazy or romance-focused to build realistic worlds populated with full, human-seeming individuals!) The friend’s name is Sloane, she is fun and adventurous and superhot, and she full-on disappeared a couple days back without telling Emily where she was going. AND NOW SHE’S NOT ANSWERING HER PHONE.

AND HER HOUSE IS EMPTY.

AHHHH.

Instead of worrying about whether ol� Sloane and her parents got Mafia murdered, Emily focuses her boundless attention on a list of tasks that gal mailed her. Emily is very shy and introverted, where Sloane is extremely...not that, so the list is stuff like “skinny dip!!!� and “kiss a stranger!!!�

In her attempts to finish the list (in the hopes it’ll give her some Sloane-related answers), Emily makes friends and has fun and learns it’s not the end of the quest but the friends you make along the way and blah blah blah it’s cute. It’s fun. It’s summery.

It’s the best Morgan Matson book! (So far.)

Bottom line: This is essentially if mad scientists gathered all my favorite clichés and mixed em all together and published them in a 500 page hardcover with a reversible collectible cover. In other words: PERFECT.

------------------
pre-review

in a well-ordered universe, morgan matson would just write every contemporary???

she is the only one that seems to recognize that the ideal contemporary is a careful mix of friendship + banter + road trips + bucket lists + summer + snacks and then a liiiiiiiil bit of romance.

this book is the sh*t.

review to come]]> 4.07 2014 Since You've Been Gone
author: Morgan Matson
name: emma
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/25
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: owned, recommend, contemporary, best-contemporaries, ya, reviewed, reread, 5-stars
review:
This is the best Morgan Matson book.

And now, nearly 10 years after first reading it, I'm giving it 5 stars.



I am old and curmudgeonly. I am essentially an elderly grump shouting at ornery kids to get off his lawn. But I love this little number anyway.

This book has everything. (Please go back in time and read that in a Stefon voice if you didn’t the first time.) Road trips. Heart-shaped sunglasses. Bucket lists. That thing where characters have significant others but only to add a bit more spice to the will-they-won’t-they (even though the answer is clearly of course they will) and yes there’s cheating but actually it’s okay because the unseen girlfriend was also done with the relationship. Summertime. Pizza. Fun banter-y groups of friends. Playlists. The classic contemporary plot format in which everything starts out okay but with definite room for improvement and then gets good and then gets PERFECT and then gets so so so so so bad like even worse than the beginning but then turns perfect again and actually perfect-er than when you thought it was perfect because character development. And also romance, of course.

It is, in other words, as if someone took all of the best contemporary tropes and wrote them on lil pieces of paper and then tossed them in the air and then they floated down like confetti or snowflakes onto Morgan Matson’s angel head and she wrote this book.

I am a sucker for road trips and for bucket lists and for playlists and for snack descriptions and for summer and for banter and ESPECIALLY for when the friendships are more prevalent in a book than the budding romances.

And this book nails all of that. It is the most fun thing ever.

To give a touch of synopsis: We follow Emily, who has literally one friend. (Sounds like every character in every other book, am I right? It’s funny because most authors are too lazy or romance-focused to build realistic worlds populated with full, human-seeming individuals!) The friend’s name is Sloane, she is fun and adventurous and superhot, and she full-on disappeared a couple days back without telling Emily where she was going. AND NOW SHE’S NOT ANSWERING HER PHONE.

AND HER HOUSE IS EMPTY.

AHHHH.

Instead of worrying about whether ol� Sloane and her parents got Mafia murdered, Emily focuses her boundless attention on a list of tasks that gal mailed her. Emily is very shy and introverted, where Sloane is extremely...not that, so the list is stuff like “skinny dip!!!� and “kiss a stranger!!!�

In her attempts to finish the list (in the hopes it’ll give her some Sloane-related answers), Emily makes friends and has fun and learns it’s not the end of the quest but the friends you make along the way and blah blah blah it’s cute. It’s fun. It’s summery.

It’s the best Morgan Matson book! (So far.)

Bottom line: This is essentially if mad scientists gathered all my favorite clichés and mixed em all together and published them in a 500 page hardcover with a reversible collectible cover. In other words: PERFECT.

------------------
pre-review

in a well-ordered universe, morgan matson would just write every contemporary???

she is the only one that seems to recognize that the ideal contemporary is a careful mix of friendship + banter + road trips + bucket lists + summer + snacks and then a liiiiiiiil bit of romance.

this book is the sh*t.

review to come
]]> <![CDATA[The Right Swipe (Modern Love, #1)]]> 39863092 Alisha Rai returns with the first book in her sizzling new Modern Love series, in which two rival dating app creators find themselves at odds in the boardroom but in sync in the bedroom.

Rhiannon Hunter may have revolutionized romance in the digital world, but in real life she only swipes right on her career—and the occasional hookup. The cynical dating app creator controls her love life with a few key rules:

- Nude pics are by invitation only

- If someone stands you up, block them with extreme prejudice

- Protect your heart

Only there aren't any rules to govern her attraction to her newest match, former pro-football player Samson Lima. The sexy and seemingly sweet hunk woos her one magical night... and disappears.

Rhi thought she'd buried her hurt over Samson ghosting her, until he suddenly surfaces months later, still big, still beautiful—and in league with a business rival. He says he won't fumble their second chance, but she's wary. A temporary physical partnership is one thing, but a merger of hearts? Surely that’s too high a risk…]]> 387 Alisha Rai 0062878093 emma 4


I am usually on one side of the negative-rating equation, giving low ratings and rant reviews to people’s favorite books that they find inexplicable, presumably dropping to their knees and shouting WHYYYYYYY?! heavenward.

But oh, how the turntables�

Because now, I am reviewing a fairly low-rated book well, and I am SO CONFUSED.

Now I understand how you all feel when you see that I gave a Harry Potter book one star. (Well not really. But I’m closer to it than I was.)

I had to read negative reviews of this book to try to figure out why people didn’t like it, because I legitimately couldn’t fathom it. And while I don’t understand the urge to comment on said opposing review and refute every point (WHY DO PEOPLE DO THAT! WRITE YOUR OWN REVIEW!), at least I can say that at one time in my life I enjoyed a book and then immediately read a negative review of it.

Which, I must say, has always seemed like an unhinged move from my perspective. Hurting your own feelings on purpose? Couldn’t be me.

Anyway. A lot of people complained about our main character, Rhi, being too abrasive/hard-headed and too inclined to jump to conclusions, but I didn’t feel that way. I thought this was a realistic portrayal of people with trust issues, a woman who has been traumatized by a past relationship. This book didn’t choose to glorify the aftermath of such manipulation. Traumatized people can be hard to love and that’s a difficult thing to reckon with, but it’s true.

Some people took issue with the romance, but I liked it too. I liked the idea of two people being like “hey we can both be difficult so let’s just deal with it together and be in love!� That’s nice.

And I loved that Rhi had a tight-knit group of family and friends and coworkers who supported her, because that, besides potentially swoon-worthy reconciliations, is my favorite part of rom-coms.

Honestly, the only issues I really had with this were the kind of teeny-tiny observations that are part of my charm (by which I mean evidence that I have gotten completely out of control).

Here are some of those minuscule things, for your reading (dis)pleasure:
- Talk shows don’t have plastic single-use water bottles. They have water in branded mugs. The plastic of the bottle would be hell on a sound editor for god’s sake.
- Though Rhi’s love interest, whose name I honestly don’t remember, is a former professional football player, I at no point got the impression that the author is any kind of expert.
- WHY WOULD PORTLAND, OREGON HAVE A FOOTBALL TEAM.
- The mechanics of the way people who are not our main characters treat each other - in terms of suddenly deciding when they will date and who and why and for how long - did not track.

But otherwise I found this to be a pleasant surprise.

Bottom line: A delight!

-----------
tbr review

there's no problem a rom-com can't solve

(if this isn't true, don't tell me. i'm fragile)]]> 3.62 2019 The Right Swipe (Modern Love, #1)
author: Alisha Rai
name: emma
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/04/10
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: romance, diverse, non-ya, unpopular-opinion, recommend, 4-stars, reviewed, owned, authors-of-color
review:
If this book was written, published, and read by Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ users the world over as part of an elaborate plan to teach me empathy, let me tell you: it worked.



I am usually on one side of the negative-rating equation, giving low ratings and rant reviews to people’s favorite books that they find inexplicable, presumably dropping to their knees and shouting WHYYYYYYY?! heavenward.

But oh, how the turntables�

Because now, I am reviewing a fairly low-rated book well, and I am SO CONFUSED.

Now I understand how you all feel when you see that I gave a Harry Potter book one star. (Well not really. But I’m closer to it than I was.)

I had to read negative reviews of this book to try to figure out why people didn’t like it, because I legitimately couldn’t fathom it. And while I don’t understand the urge to comment on said opposing review and refute every point (WHY DO PEOPLE DO THAT! WRITE YOUR OWN REVIEW!), at least I can say that at one time in my life I enjoyed a book and then immediately read a negative review of it.

Which, I must say, has always seemed like an unhinged move from my perspective. Hurting your own feelings on purpose? Couldn’t be me.

Anyway. A lot of people complained about our main character, Rhi, being too abrasive/hard-headed and too inclined to jump to conclusions, but I didn’t feel that way. I thought this was a realistic portrayal of people with trust issues, a woman who has been traumatized by a past relationship. This book didn’t choose to glorify the aftermath of such manipulation. Traumatized people can be hard to love and that’s a difficult thing to reckon with, but it’s true.

Some people took issue with the romance, but I liked it too. I liked the idea of two people being like “hey we can both be difficult so let’s just deal with it together and be in love!� That’s nice.

And I loved that Rhi had a tight-knit group of family and friends and coworkers who supported her, because that, besides potentially swoon-worthy reconciliations, is my favorite part of rom-coms.

Honestly, the only issues I really had with this were the kind of teeny-tiny observations that are part of my charm (by which I mean evidence that I have gotten completely out of control).

Here are some of those minuscule things, for your reading (dis)pleasure:
- Talk shows don’t have plastic single-use water bottles. They have water in branded mugs. The plastic of the bottle would be hell on a sound editor for god’s sake.
- Though Rhi’s love interest, whose name I honestly don’t remember, is a former professional football player, I at no point got the impression that the author is any kind of expert.
- WHY WOULD PORTLAND, OREGON HAVE A FOOTBALL TEAM.
- The mechanics of the way people who are not our main characters treat each other - in terms of suddenly deciding when they will date and who and why and for how long - did not track.

But otherwise I found this to be a pleasant surprise.

Bottom line: A delight!

-----------
tbr review

there's no problem a rom-com can't solve

(if this isn't true, don't tell me. i'm fragile)
]]> The Flatshare 41150287 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250295637

Tiffy and Leon share an apartment. Tiffy and Leon have never met.

After a bad breakup, Tiffy Moore needs a place to live. Fast. And cheap. But the apartments in her budget have her wondering if astonishingly colored mold on the walls counts as art.

Desperation makes her open minded, so she answers an ad for a flatshare. Leon, a night shift worker, will take the apartment during the day, and Tiffy can have it nights and weekends. He’ll only ever be there when she’s at the office. In fact, they’ll never even have to meet.

Tiffy and Leon start writing each other notes � first about what day is garbage day, and politely establishing what leftovers are up for grabs, and the evergreen question of whether the toilet seat should stay up or down. Even though they are opposites, they soon become friends. And then maybe more.

But falling in love with your roommate is probably a terrible idea…especially if you've never met.

What if your roommate is your soul mate? A joyful, quirky romantic comedy, Beth O'Leary's The Flatshare is a feel-good novel about finding love in the most unexpected of ways.]]> 328 Beth O'Leary emma 4


When I first read the synopsis of this book, I thought: I think I'll like this very much.

Then I read a little bit of it and thought: Actually I do not think this is going to go very well. In fact I think this is going to go rather badly.

Then I finished it and thought: As I said and as I, a liar, always believed I would, I liked this very much.

When I saw this book about two people who don't know each other who share a flat (one has it in the day and one at night), and that they communicate via Post-It notes until they inevitably fall in love (I believe it is impossible to conduct epistolary interactions with someone over a long period of time and not fall in love with them), I believed this would be light and fluffy and adorable and just what I needed.

This was not very light. Nor was it very fluffy. Actually it was very stressful and angsty and emotional. But it was what I needed???

This is a very heartfelt and well-done story about supportive love and people healing from abuse and trauma and just all around character development joy. But a lot of suffering before we get to the joy part.

It is just so very good. SO much better than I expected.

Bottom line: LIKE I SAID. MY GOODREADS CHOICE.

----------------
pre-review

all right, i admit it! i'm swooning!!

review to come / 4 stars

----------------
currently-reading updates

i'm a simple girl. i read a scary book, then i immediately read a rom-com to soothe my cowardly soul]]> 4.02 2019 The Flatshare
author: Beth O'Leary
name: emma
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/10/05
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: non-ya, romance, 4-stars, slump-worthy, recommend, reviewed, owned
review:
This book is now a Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ Choice Award Nominee for romance, and it's also MY Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ Choice for romance, meaning this is very good and I enjoyed reading it and also Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ was involved.



When I first read the synopsis of this book, I thought: I think I'll like this very much.

Then I read a little bit of it and thought: Actually I do not think this is going to go very well. In fact I think this is going to go rather badly.

Then I finished it and thought: As I said and as I, a liar, always believed I would, I liked this very much.

When I saw this book about two people who don't know each other who share a flat (one has it in the day and one at night), and that they communicate via Post-It notes until they inevitably fall in love (I believe it is impossible to conduct epistolary interactions with someone over a long period of time and not fall in love with them), I believed this would be light and fluffy and adorable and just what I needed.

This was not very light. Nor was it very fluffy. Actually it was very stressful and angsty and emotional. But it was what I needed???

This is a very heartfelt and well-done story about supportive love and people healing from abuse and trauma and just all around character development joy. But a lot of suffering before we get to the joy part.

It is just so very good. SO much better than I expected.

Bottom line: LIKE I SAID. MY GOODREADS CHOICE.

----------------
pre-review

all right, i admit it! i'm swooning!!

review to come / 4 stars

----------------
currently-reading updates

i'm a simple girl. i read a scary book, then i immediately read a rom-com to soothe my cowardly soul
]]> <![CDATA[Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters, #1)]]> 43884209
� Enjoy a drunken night out.
� Ride a motorcycle.
� Go camping.
� Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
� Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
� And... do something bad.

But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job.

Redford â€Redâ€� Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten-thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.

But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior…]]> 384 Talia Hibbert 0062941208 emma 4


Anyway, it takes an already good thing (an Oreo, or a romance novel) and takes the thing that makes it good (the aforementioned Stuf, or the romance novel stuff I will discuss later), and gives you more of it.

I can’t believe it exists, I can’t believe we’re lucky enough to exist in a world in which it exists, and yet I am delighted that these things are true.

There is a lot of good stuff between these pages, just as there is a lot of good Stuf between Double Stuf Oreo cookies.

I mean, the REPRESENTATION here. The EFFORTLESSNESS of that representation.

The depiction of chronic pain, which is not happily ever after’d away, nor is it ignored when it’s not convenient to the plot!


Our protagonist, who is fat and black and both of these things are part of the fact that she is beautiful!

Our hero, who is recovering from an abusive relationship and not magically free of side effects from it!

This is just so representative of so many marginalized identities and so effortlessly good at it. It makes you wonder why more books can’t be like this.

That being said...

It took me a REALLY long time to get into this story. By “a really long time,� I mean at legitimately the 75% mark. I didn’t feel invested until there were less than a hundred pages to go, but I eventually felt semi-invested and that’s what counts!!

Yes, maybe I didn’t start rooting for this couple to get together until Drama Drove Them Apart but still. Who’s to say if that isn’t just because of what’s wrong with me as a person? The best parts of every romance are the Suffering Will They Won’t They parts. Give me season 2 Jim and Pam flirtation over season 4 Jim and Pam relationship any day.

Another good thing about this romance and a bad thing about me when it comes to romance: I am incredibly awkward and tend to cringe at any smut scene, but this was well done so thank you to the author for rescuing me from myself on this one.

I just want every book to have the cream-to-cookie ratio that this book had. (Did I lose the metaphor?)

Bottom line: This book is so miraculous it made me talk too much about Oreos and in doing so apparently lose my mind!!!

-------------
pre-review

i am satisfied.

review to come / 4 stars I DON'T KNOW]]> 3.79 2019 Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters, #1)
author: Talia Hibbert
name: emma
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/11/25
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: romance, diverse, non-ya, recommend, reviewed, 4-stars, owned, authors-of-color
review:
This is the book equivalent of a Double Stuf Oreo. (This is not a typo - for reasons unknowable, the frosting-like contents of an Oreo are branded as “stuf.� With one F. Which somehow makes the already-gross idea of ingesting something as vaguely and euphemistically named as “stuff� even grosser.)



Anyway, it takes an already good thing (an Oreo, or a romance novel) and takes the thing that makes it good (the aforementioned Stuf, or the romance novel stuff I will discuss later), and gives you more of it.

I can’t believe it exists, I can’t believe we’re lucky enough to exist in a world in which it exists, and yet I am delighted that these things are true.

There is a lot of good stuff between these pages, just as there is a lot of good Stuf between Double Stuf Oreo cookies.

I mean, the REPRESENTATION here. The EFFORTLESSNESS of that representation.

The depiction of chronic pain, which is not happily ever after’d away, nor is it ignored when it’s not convenient to the plot!


Our protagonist, who is fat and black and both of these things are part of the fact that she is beautiful!

Our hero, who is recovering from an abusive relationship and not magically free of side effects from it!

This is just so representative of so many marginalized identities and so effortlessly good at it. It makes you wonder why more books can’t be like this.

That being said...

It took me a REALLY long time to get into this story. By “a really long time,� I mean at legitimately the 75% mark. I didn’t feel invested until there were less than a hundred pages to go, but I eventually felt semi-invested and that’s what counts!!

Yes, maybe I didn’t start rooting for this couple to get together until Drama Drove Them Apart but still. Who’s to say if that isn’t just because of what’s wrong with me as a person? The best parts of every romance are the Suffering Will They Won’t They parts. Give me season 2 Jim and Pam flirtation over season 4 Jim and Pam relationship any day.

Another good thing about this romance and a bad thing about me when it comes to romance: I am incredibly awkward and tend to cringe at any smut scene, but this was well done so thank you to the author for rescuing me from myself on this one.

I just want every book to have the cream-to-cookie ratio that this book had. (Did I lose the metaphor?)

Bottom line: This book is so miraculous it made me talk too much about Oreos and in doing so apparently lose my mind!!!

-------------
pre-review

i am satisfied.

review to come / 4 stars I DON'T KNOW
]]> The Seven Year Slip 63347619
A Most Anticipated Book by Harper's Bazaar â� Real Simple â™ĚýBookRiot â™Ěýand more!

An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.

So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.

And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.

Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.

Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.

After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.]]> 368 Ashley Poston 0593336526 emma 4


and this time...it worked???

this was so cute and fun and unique. i really fell for these characters and more importantly, for this apartment...

this book should be jailed for convincing my city-mouse self i need a spare bedroom for my busts of dead poets and my ivy and my shelves of travel books and my robin's egg blue chair.

the romance in this was sweet, but like all romance books, i liked the character arc and the details even more: the food, the journey, the banter. to be fair, that's not a bad problem to have.

bottom line: this was such an unexpected good time.]]> 4.25 2023 The Seven Year Slip
author: Ashley Poston
name: emma
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/28
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: non-ya, romance, 4-stars, recommend, reviewed, owned
review:
selecting the romance novel i will pin my hopes, my dreams, my next comfort read, my choice to be literate, my happiness, and all my chances at liking anything on



and this time...it worked???

this was so cute and fun and unique. i really fell for these characters and more importantly, for this apartment...

this book should be jailed for convincing my city-mouse self i need a spare bedroom for my busts of dead poets and my ivy and my shelves of travel books and my robin's egg blue chair.

the romance in this was sweet, but like all romance books, i liked the character arc and the details even more: the food, the journey, the banter. to be fair, that's not a bad problem to have.

bottom line: this was such an unexpected good time.
]]> Evvie Drake Starts Over 40514431
Meanwhile, in New York City, Dean Tenney, former Major League pitcher and Andy’s childhood best friend, is wrestling with what miserable athletes living out their worst nightmares call the “yips�: he can’t throw straight anymore, and, even worse, he can’t figure out why. As the media storm heats up, an invitation from Andy to stay in Maine seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button on Dean’s future.

When he moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie’s house, the two make a deal: Dean won’t ask about Evvie’s late husband, and Evvie won’t ask about Dean’s baseball career. Rules, though, have a funny way of being broken—and what starts as an unexpected friendship soon turns into something more. To move forward, Evvie and Dean will have to reckon with their pasts—the friendships they’ve damaged, the secrets they’ve kept—but in life, as in baseball, there’s always a chance—up until the last out.]]> 289 Linda Holmes 0525619240 emma 4


“WRENCHING,� a book’s front cover will yell, and say it's a quote from like the Delaware Post-Tribune or the Huntington Park Journal or the Winding River Bend Rural Paper. “IMMERSIVE,� shouts a glorified neighborhood book club. “UNPUTDOWNABLE,� according to a woman with a lot of Instagram followers.

I very rarely agree with these influencers or made-up sounding publications. It is an infrequent occurrence that I put down a book and immediately begin referring to it in intense one-word statements.

I did not do anything of the kind upon finishing this book, but there are two Book Marketing’s Greatest Hits terms that I would ascribe to this book:
FUNNY
and
HEARTWARMING.

This was a really good read. So good it cursed my brain and now I will have to live out my days speaking like the faux-Reese Witherspoon who writes her book marketing copy, my words forever taking up precious space that could be devoted to pretty pictures or actual, you know, synopses.

But I’ll try to stop talking about all my irritations with the idea of blurbs and give actual reviewing a try.

I really miss reading this.

It was half feel-good fiction, half-romance, and while I kinda wish it’d been one or the other...I’m not that mad.

Because both halves were - sigh - A DELIGHT. (Lift your curse from me, O The Oprah Magazine!!!)

In another rare occurrence, I liked these characters a lot. I consider it a stroke of luck if I enjoy so much as a single character in any book, so finding one in which I like multiples??? Nothing short of a miracle, my dear boy.

Bottom line: In conclusion, I will henceforth be reading everything Linda Holmes writes, and also please let me live inside this book thank you.

------------
reread update

messing with what works (rereading a book i liked several years ago) and surviving.

------------
update

raising this rating because i really miss reading this book

------------
pre-review

this did the trick.

review to come

------------
tbr review

i need a book where everything is bad and then they all live happily ever after, and if this book turns out not to be that book i will explode]]> 3.80 2019 Evvie Drake Starts Over
author: Linda Holmes
name: emma
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/10
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: romance, non-ya, recommend, 4-and-a-half-stars, reviewed, best-contemporaries, i-love-these-characters, owned, reread
review:
There are some things books just love to call themselves.



“WRENCHING,� a book’s front cover will yell, and say it's a quote from like the Delaware Post-Tribune or the Huntington Park Journal or the Winding River Bend Rural Paper. “IMMERSIVE,� shouts a glorified neighborhood book club. “UNPUTDOWNABLE,� according to a woman with a lot of Instagram followers.

I very rarely agree with these influencers or made-up sounding publications. It is an infrequent occurrence that I put down a book and immediately begin referring to it in intense one-word statements.

I did not do anything of the kind upon finishing this book, but there are two Book Marketing’s Greatest Hits terms that I would ascribe to this book:
FUNNY
and
HEARTWARMING.

This was a really good read. So good it cursed my brain and now I will have to live out my days speaking like the faux-Reese Witherspoon who writes her book marketing copy, my words forever taking up precious space that could be devoted to pretty pictures or actual, you know, synopses.

But I’ll try to stop talking about all my irritations with the idea of blurbs and give actual reviewing a try.

I really miss reading this.

It was half feel-good fiction, half-romance, and while I kinda wish it’d been one or the other...I’m not that mad.

Because both halves were - sigh - A DELIGHT. (Lift your curse from me, O The Oprah Magazine!!!)

In another rare occurrence, I liked these characters a lot. I consider it a stroke of luck if I enjoy so much as a single character in any book, so finding one in which I like multiples??? Nothing short of a miracle, my dear boy.

Bottom line: In conclusion, I will henceforth be reading everything Linda Holmes writes, and also please let me live inside this book thank you.

------------
reread update

messing with what works (rereading a book i liked several years ago) and surviving.

------------
update

raising this rating because i really miss reading this book

------------
pre-review

this did the trick.

review to come

------------
tbr review

i need a book where everything is bad and then they all live happily ever after, and if this book turns out not to be that book i will explode
]]> Before I Let Go (Skyland, #1) 60568471
It couldn’t save their marriage.

Yasmen wasn’t prepared for how her life fell apart, but she is finally starting to find joy again. She and Josiah have found a new rhythm, co-parenting their two kids and running a thriving business together. Yet like magnets, they’re always drawn back to each other, and now they’re beginning to wonder if they’re truly ready to let go of everything they once had.

Soon, one stolen kiss leads to another…and then more. It's hot. It's illicit. It's all good—until old wounds reopen. Is it too late for them to find forever? Or could they even be better, the second time around?

Award-winning and bestselling "powerhouse" author Kennedy Ryan is at her absolute best in this compelling, scorching novel about hope and healing, and what it truly means to love for a lifetime (USA Today).]]> 391 Kennedy Ryan 1538706792 emma 4
FINALLY, SOME GOOD F*CKING ROMANCE!



this book has everything: yearning.

that's the end of the list. the only requirement for a good romance is yearning, and this has that in spades. between this and you deserve each other (the greatest romance of all time, sorry), i'm starting to think second-chance romance between two soulmates who have started hating each other is the perfect formula.

in addition to all the yearning (how many times can i use one word in this), this has the most delicious food descriptions, great parenting, fun friendships. it's such a blast.Ěý

yes, it had too much smut for me and my 18th-century-lady sensibilities, but that's not enough to make this anything other than a great time.

bottom line: thank god this is just the beginning of a series.

4.5]]> 4.32 2022 Before I Let Go (Skyland, #1)
author: Kennedy Ryan
name: emma
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/28
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: romance, non-ya, authors-of-color, diverse, to-buy, recommend, 4-and-a-half-stars, reviewed
review:
a girl never forgets her first (kennedy ryan book)

FINALLY, SOME GOOD F*CKING ROMANCE!



this book has everything: yearning.

that's the end of the list. the only requirement for a good romance is yearning, and this has that in spades. between this and you deserve each other (the greatest romance of all time, sorry), i'm starting to think second-chance romance between two soulmates who have started hating each other is the perfect formula.

in addition to all the yearning (how many times can i use one word in this), this has the most delicious food descriptions, great parenting, fun friendships. it's such a blast.Ěý

yes, it had too much smut for me and my 18th-century-lady sensibilities, but that's not enough to make this anything other than a great time.

bottom line: thank god this is just the beginning of a series.

4.5
]]> Beach Read 52867387 A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no-one will fall in love. Really.]]> 400 Emily Henry 1984806734 emma 4


like, it’s probably gotten to the point that people who don’t know anything about me or read my reviews know that. probably the people who do all they can to avoid my crossing their digital path (and i imagine these people must exist judging by the number of john green fans i’ve angered alone) know it too.

it’s just that true. it's at the core of my identity.

i love her and i shout it from the rooftops on the reg.

i was very, very, veryveryvery excited to hear she was doing a rom-com, way outside her then-usual genre of Young Adult Magical Realism About Funny Brave Prickly Young Women Who Have Magic Or Are Magic Or Are Uniquely Capable Of Seeing Magic, And Their Funny Fun Unique Bands Of Friends.

(my favorite genre.) (may i pray every day that it will come back someday.)

in fact i think i commented a concerning all-caps something or other on her instagram announcement to convey the sheer breadth of my excitement, an event which i’m sure was mildly to severely frightening and yet she handled with grace and poise.

with each passing day i grow more convinced i am a concerning presence on the outskirts of emily henry’s online life.

but i digress.

as i wrote this, my goodreads review of this book contained five updates. yes. i am currently updating my original review, and yet i have already written five small reviews. in addition to the big one. again. excitement.

this book was NICE. it is not my favorite emily henry book (a very tall order), but it does act as the first step in the execution of one of my most hoped-for dreams: an emily henry book in every genre. which in turn is a step toward the pinnacle of my wishes: that all books be written by emily henry.

a step in the right direction.

this is a very cute and fun romance that spends way too much time on an almost inexplicable cult subplot. i diagnose this as "emily henry's weirdo brain having to come out somehow," and because it isn't coming up with whimsical magic systems for YA this is an alternative.

still, i enjoyed this so much. even if i mourn that era. which is why i started this reread –Ěýi have finally admitted to myself emily henry is a romance writer and i can't auto-4 star to kill time.

it is also often more Rom than Com. there’s a lot of Character Development and Relationship Arcs and Changing Life Paths here. it is overall a more serious book than that crazy-cute cover would imply.

which is the perfect real-life execution of one of the themes of this book: literature is no less literature-y for being written by women, or for being written for women, or for ending happily.

books are books and books are good.

especially if they’re written by emily henry.

bottom line: <3

4.5

-------------------
reread update

deciding to reread all emily henry books as a cry for help]]> 3.99 2020 Beach Read
author: Emily Henry
name: emma
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/11
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: non-ya, arc, from-publisher-author, owned, recommend, reviewed, owned-multiple, romance, 4-and-a-half-stars
review:
everybody knows i love emily henry.



like, it’s probably gotten to the point that people who don’t know anything about me or read my reviews know that. probably the people who do all they can to avoid my crossing their digital path (and i imagine these people must exist judging by the number of john green fans i’ve angered alone) know it too.

it’s just that true. it's at the core of my identity.

i love her and i shout it from the rooftops on the reg.

i was very, very, veryveryvery excited to hear she was doing a rom-com, way outside her then-usual genre of Young Adult Magical Realism About Funny Brave Prickly Young Women Who Have Magic Or Are Magic Or Are Uniquely Capable Of Seeing Magic, And Their Funny Fun Unique Bands Of Friends.

(my favorite genre.) (may i pray every day that it will come back someday.)

in fact i think i commented a concerning all-caps something or other on her instagram announcement to convey the sheer breadth of my excitement, an event which i’m sure was mildly to severely frightening and yet she handled with grace and poise.

with each passing day i grow more convinced i am a concerning presence on the outskirts of emily henry’s online life.

but i digress.

as i wrote this, my goodreads review of this book contained five updates. yes. i am currently updating my original review, and yet i have already written five small reviews. in addition to the big one. again. excitement.

this book was NICE. it is not my favorite emily henry book (a very tall order), but it does act as the first step in the execution of one of my most hoped-for dreams: an emily henry book in every genre. which in turn is a step toward the pinnacle of my wishes: that all books be written by emily henry.

a step in the right direction.

this is a very cute and fun romance that spends way too much time on an almost inexplicable cult subplot. i diagnose this as "emily henry's weirdo brain having to come out somehow," and because it isn't coming up with whimsical magic systems for YA this is an alternative.

still, i enjoyed this so much. even if i mourn that era. which is why i started this reread –Ěýi have finally admitted to myself emily henry is a romance writer and i can't auto-4 star to kill time.

it is also often more Rom than Com. there’s a lot of Character Development and Relationship Arcs and Changing Life Paths here. it is overall a more serious book than that crazy-cute cover would imply.

which is the perfect real-life execution of one of the themes of this book: literature is no less literature-y for being written by women, or for being written for women, or for ending happily.

books are books and books are good.

especially if they’re written by emily henry.

bottom line: <3

4.5

-------------------
reread update

deciding to reread all emily henry books as a cry for help
]]> You Deserve Each Other 50027029 When your nemesis also happens to be your fiancé, happily ever after becomes a lot more complicated in this wickedly funny, lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy debut.

Naomi Westfield has the perfect fiancé: Nicholas Rose holds doors open for her, remembers her restaurant orders, and comes from the kind of upstanding society family any bride would love to be a part of. They never fight. They're preparing for their lavish wedding that's three months away. And she is miserably and utterly sick of him.

Naomi wants out, but there's a catch: whoever ends the engagement will have to foot the nonrefundable wedding bill. When Naomi discovers that Nicholas, too, has been feigning contentment, the two of them go head-to-head in a battle of pranks, sabotage, and all-out emotional warfare.

But with the countdown looming to the wedding that may or may not come to pass, Naomi finds her resolve slipping. Because now that they have nothing to lose, they're finally being themselves--and having fun with the last person they expect: each other.]]> 368 Sarah Hogle emma 5 - when you perfectly toast a bagel. I mean we all know how easy it is to underdo that bad boy so it’s still a weird squishy bread circle or even more likely, burn that baby till it’s glorified charcoal but when you really find that sweet spot...(chef’s kiss)
- baking cookies and then eating them while they’re still warm, and then you eat a whole tray because if you made them they don’t count as caloric
- genuine, believable enemies to lovers where you really feel them fall in love and also it’s funny and also everything is perfect.



Aka this book.

Because I am extremely picky about books and am disappointed by most of what I read, I like to do this very adorable and charming thing where when I like one thing, I assume I will like everything that is similar to it.

I very much enjoyed The Hating Game (possibly to an extent in which I compared myself both to a jack o’lantern and a gif from Disney’s Tangled in my review, I don’t know, who’s to say), and so I assumed I would like every rom-com. Especially ones that were actually funny.

Especially-especially of the enemies to lovers.

And, like the new Star Wars movie and orange-flavored Skittles and every other disappointing thing, that was not to be.

But finally, FINALLY, my suffering has been rewarded.

Because...dare I say it�

This book is better than The Hating Game.

I KNOW.

Look at us. Hey! Look at us. Who would’ve thought?

Not me.

This is The Hating Game in terms of tropes and plot and the overall yay-falling-in-love feeling it gives off, but with better characters. And more humor.

GOD. This is so funny it doesn’t make sense. Since when are books funny? When was the last time I truly laughed at a book and I wasn’t laughing out of all the anger and hatred in my cold dark soul?

Not sure. Well before this, I’ll tell you that.

But it wasn’t just a barrel of laughs my friends. It also made my heart hurt, but in the good emotional way where you’re like, oh my god...fools...just love each other...kiss already...except also don’t because the drama and conflict and miscommunication and will-they-won’t-they (they will) is the fun part.

Basically what I’m saying is: I don’t know how to love anything without being obsessed with it, and I already want to read this eleven more times.

Bottom line: I didn’t play Animal Crossing for this! ANIMAL CROSSING!!!

--------------
project 5 star update

welcome back to PROJECT 5 STAR, a project in which i revisit all the books i've ever given five stars, mostly out of cynicism and masochism, but in this case just as an excuse to reread the most perfect romance novel of all time.

and it remains that!

(updated review to come)

--------------
reread 3 update

works every time.

desperately trying to stave off post-sarah hogle release depression with lily

--------------
reread 2 update

serotonin: peaking

buddy (re)read with my taste twin and the one who has to cave to peer pressure

--------------
reread 1 update

simply rereading this so i can write a kickass review and not because i've been searching for a reason

--------------
pre-review

please don't tell anyone i burst into tears at the gushy part of this book. it'll ruin my bad-boy image.

review to come / POSSIBLY FIVE STARS

--------------
tbr review

just saw this quote from this book: “I’m a miserable cynic (a newer development) and a dreamy romantic (always have been), and it’s such a terrible combination that I don’t know how to tolerate myself� and instantly started reading it because girl if that ain't me]]> 3.90 2020 You Deserve Each Other
author: Sarah Hogle
name: emma
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/26
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: romance, non-ya, funny, i-love-these-characters, recommend, slump-worthy, 5-stars, favorites-2020, reviewed, owned, project-5-star, reread
review:
The best things in the world are as follows:
- when you perfectly toast a bagel. I mean we all know how easy it is to underdo that bad boy so it’s still a weird squishy bread circle or even more likely, burn that baby till it’s glorified charcoal but when you really find that sweet spot...(chef’s kiss)
- baking cookies and then eating them while they’re still warm, and then you eat a whole tray because if you made them they don’t count as caloric
- genuine, believable enemies to lovers where you really feel them fall in love and also it’s funny and also everything is perfect.



Aka this book.

Because I am extremely picky about books and am disappointed by most of what I read, I like to do this very adorable and charming thing where when I like one thing, I assume I will like everything that is similar to it.

I very much enjoyed The Hating Game (possibly to an extent in which I compared myself both to a jack o’lantern and a gif from Disney’s Tangled in my review, I don’t know, who’s to say), and so I assumed I would like every rom-com. Especially ones that were actually funny.

Especially-especially of the enemies to lovers.

And, like the new Star Wars movie and orange-flavored Skittles and every other disappointing thing, that was not to be.

But finally, FINALLY, my suffering has been rewarded.

Because...dare I say it�

This book is better than The Hating Game.

I KNOW.

Look at us. Hey! Look at us. Who would’ve thought?

Not me.

This is The Hating Game in terms of tropes and plot and the overall yay-falling-in-love feeling it gives off, but with better characters. And more humor.

GOD. This is so funny it doesn’t make sense. Since when are books funny? When was the last time I truly laughed at a book and I wasn’t laughing out of all the anger and hatred in my cold dark soul?

Not sure. Well before this, I’ll tell you that.

But it wasn’t just a barrel of laughs my friends. It also made my heart hurt, but in the good emotional way where you’re like, oh my god...fools...just love each other...kiss already...except also don’t because the drama and conflict and miscommunication and will-they-won’t-they (they will) is the fun part.

Basically what I’m saying is: I don’t know how to love anything without being obsessed with it, and I already want to read this eleven more times.

Bottom line: I didn’t play Animal Crossing for this! ANIMAL CROSSING!!!

--------------
project 5 star update

welcome back to PROJECT 5 STAR, a project in which i revisit all the books i've ever given five stars, mostly out of cynicism and masochism, but in this case just as an excuse to reread the most perfect romance novel of all time.

and it remains that!

(updated review to come)

--------------
reread 3 update

works every time.

desperately trying to stave off post-sarah hogle release depression with lily

--------------
reread 2 update

serotonin: peaking

buddy (re)read with my taste twin and the one who has to cave to peer pressure

--------------
reread 1 update

simply rereading this so i can write a kickass review and not because i've been searching for a reason

--------------
pre-review

please don't tell anyone i burst into tears at the gushy part of this book. it'll ruin my bad-boy image.

review to come / POSSIBLY FIVE STARS

--------------
tbr review

just saw this quote from this book: “I’m a miserable cynic (a newer development) and a dreamy romantic (always have been), and it’s such a terrible combination that I don’t know how to tolerate myself� and instantly started reading it because girl if that ain't me
]]> My Name Is Emilia del Valle 217245557 In this spellbinding historical novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea and The Wind Knows My Name, a young writer journeys to South America to uncover the truth about her father—and herself.

In San Francisco 1866, an Irish nun, left pregnant and abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia Del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman.

To pursue her passion for writing, she is willing to defy societal norms. At the age of sixteen, she begins to publish pulp fiction under a man’s pen name. When these fictional worlds can't contain her sense of adventure any longer, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at the San Francisco Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan.

As she proves herself, her restlessness returns, until an opportunity arises to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. She seizes it, along with Eric, and while there, begins to uncover the truth about her father and the country that represents her roots. But as the war escalates, Emilia finds herself in danger and at a crossroads, questioning both her identity and her destiny.

A riveting tale of self-discovery and love from one of the most masterful storytellers of our time, My Name is Emilia del Valle introduces a character who will never let hold of your heart.]]> 304 Isabel Allende 059397509X emma 0 4.07 2025 My Name Is Emilia del Valle
author: Isabel Allende
name: emma
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read, authors-of-color, arc, diverse, from-publisher-author, non-ya, historical, tbr-arc, tbr-owned
review:

]]> Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope 211934934 A revelatory and powerful memoir by the Nobel Peace Prize nominee Amanda Nguyen, detailing her tumultuous childhood and groundbreaking activism in the aftermath of her rape at Harvard.

At a Harvard fraternity party in 2013, the trajectory of Amanda Nguyen’s life was changed forever when she was raped.

The American-born child of Vietnamese refugees, Nguyen had long dreamed of attending Harvard, and it had become a place of refuge from a childhood filled with turmoil and trauma. Determined to not let her rape derail the life she’d worked so hard to create, she opted for her rape kit to be filed under Jane Doe, knowing that an active court case tied to her name could hurt her odds of working for NASA after graduation, a goal she’d been working toward for years.

But she was shocked to learn this choice meant she had only six months to take action before the state of Massachusetts destroyed her kit, rendering any future legal action impossible. Nguyen knew then that she had to surrender to a law that effectively silenced survivors of sexual assault, or fight for a change.

A deeply affecting memoir of grief, survival, and hope, Saving Five details Nguyen’s winding journey of recovery and action, which ultimately led her to create the Sexual Assault Survivors� Bill of Rights, one of the only unanimously passed laws in the history of the United States. Both a tribute to resilience and a lesson on healing, Saving Five is an inspirational story for the ages.]]> 224 Amanda Nguyen 0374615918 emma 4
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 4.44 2025 Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope
author: Amanda Nguyen
name: emma
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: nonfiction, non-ya, memoir, arc, authors-of-color, diverse, 3-and-a-half-stars, to-review, recommend, unpopular-opinion
review:
i love memoirs

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> Not Quite Dead Yet 220223963 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder—now a hit Netflix series—returns with her first novel for adults: a twisty thriller about a young woman trying to solve her own murder.

In seven days Jet Mason will be dead.

Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. I’ll do it later, she always says. She has time.

Until Halloween night, when Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder.

She suffers a catastrophic head injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a deadly aneurysm.

Jet has never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her former best friend turned sister-in-law, her ex-boyfriend.

She has at most seven days, and as her condition deteriorates she has only her childhood friend Billy for help. But nevertheless, she’s absolutely determined to finally finish something:

Jet is going to solve her own murder.]]> 400 Holly Jackson 059397705X emma 0 to-read, unreleased 4.44 2025 Not Quite Dead Yet
author: Holly Jackson
name: emma
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read, unreleased
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping]]> 123029113 A whimsical and heartwarming novel about a witch who has a second chance to get her magical powers—and her life—back on track, from the national bestselling author of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches.

Sera Swan used to be one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead, lost most of her magic, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her Guild. Now she (slightly reluctantly and just a bit grumpily) helps her aunt run an enchanted inn in Lancashire, where she deals with her quirky guests' shenanigans, tries to keep said talking fox in check, and longs for the future that seems lost to her. But then she finds out about an old spell that could hold the key to restoring her power�

Enter Luke Larsen, handsome and icy magical historian, who arrives on a dark winter evening and might just know how to unlock the spell’s secrets. Luke has absolutely no interest in getting involved in the madcap goings-on of the inn and is definitely not about to let a certain bewitching innkeeper past his walls, so no one is more surprised than he is when he agrees to help Sera with her spell. Worse, he might actually be thawing.

Running an inn, reclaiming lost magic, and staying one step ahead of the watchful Guild is a lot for anyone, but Sera Swan is about to discover that she doesn’t have to do it alone...and that the weird, wonderful family she’s made might be the best magic of all.]]> 336 Sangu Mandanna emma 0 new dream job alert 4.38 2025 A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping
author: Sangu Mandanna
name: emma
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read, non-ya, magical-realist-urban-whatever, diverse, authors-of-color, fantasy, tbr-arc, tbr-owned
review:
new dream job alert
]]> The Dream Hotel 218695937 A novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.]]> 336 Laila Lalami 0593317602 emma 4
update: never mind. please do not check me in.

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 3.70 2025 The Dream Hotel
author: Laila Lalami
name: emma
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: arc, authors-of-color, diverse, literary-fiction, non-ya, 3-and-a-half-stars, to-review, to-buy, recommend, sci-fi, dystopian
review:
i'm ready to check in!

update: never mind. please do not check me in.

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> <![CDATA[The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them]]> 39927906
THE TRUE BUT UNLIKELY STORIES OF LIVES DEVOTED—ABSURDLY! MELANCHOLICALLY! BEAUTIFULLY!—TO THE RUSSIAN CLASSICS
No one who read Elif Batuman’s first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. “Babel in California� told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University during a conference about the enigmatic writer Isaac Babel. Over the course of several pages, Batuman managed to misplace Babel’s last living relatives at the San Francisco airport, uncover Babel’s secret influence on the making of King Kong, and introduce her readers to a new voice that was unpredictable, comic, humane, ironic, charming, poignant, and completely, unpretentiously full of love for literature.

Batuman’s subsequent pieces—for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and the London Review of Books� have made her one of the most sought-after and admired writers of her generation, and its best traveling companion. In The Possessed we watch her investigate a possible murder at Tolstoy’s ancestral estate. We go with her to Stanford, Switzerland, and St. Petersburg; retrace Pushkin’s wanderings in the Caucasus; learn why Old Uzbek has one hundred different words for crying; and see an eighteenth-century ice palace reconstructed on the Neva.

Love and the novel, the individual in history, the existential plight of the graduate student: all find their place in The Possessed. Literally and metaphorically following the footsteps of her favorite authors, Batuman searches for the answers to the big questions in the details of lived experience, combining fresh readings of the great Russians, from Pushkin to Platonov, with the sad and funny stories of the lives they continue to influence—including her own.
]]> 304 Elif Batuman 1783784512 emma 4
all the selin-heads know that the protagonist of the idiot and either/or bears striking similarity to their author, which makes this book, about elif batuman's postgrad discovery of her love of russian literature, like a fun behind-the-scenes.

it's a lot denser than the selin books, and seems to have less recognition of what is and isn't objectively interestingĚý(which i respect), but generally i find myself enamored with batuman's perception of the world.

bottom line: i'd read whatever she writes.]]> 3.70 2010 The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
author: Elif Batuman
name: emma
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: nonfiction, non-ya, memoir, owned, 3-and-a-half-stars, recommend, reviewed
review:
is there any better feeling than discovering a book you didn't know about from one of your favorite authors?

all the selin-heads know that the protagonist of the idiot and either/or bears striking similarity to their author, which makes this book, about elif batuman's postgrad discovery of her love of russian literature, like a fun behind-the-scenes.

it's a lot denser than the selin books, and seems to have less recognition of what is and isn't objectively interestingĚý(which i respect), but generally i find myself enamored with batuman's perception of the world.

bottom line: i'd read whatever she writes.
]]> Family Happiness: A Novel 56913183 A modern classic from Laurie Colwin (Home Cooking), one of the most beloved romantic comedy authors of all time; the story of a woman who has everything... at least on the surface.

Polly Solo-Miller Demarest has it all: a dashing lawyer husband, two beautiful children, and a cushy Uptown apartment. And yet... she feels trapped. Trapped by the pressure to be the perfect daughter to a distinguished family. Trapped in her marriage. Which is why Polly, much to her own shock, finds herself embarking on a thrilling affair with a painter--and a search to discover what she really wants from life. A thoroughly charming novel about finding balance and content, Family Happiness is a delightful yet thought provoking work of romantic comedy from an author at the peak of her powers.

The cover for this 2021 reissue is by Olivia McGiff.]]> 288 Laurie Colwin 0593313542 emma 0 3.74 1982 Family Happiness: A Novel
author: Laurie Colwin
name: emma
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read, tbr-owned, owned, non-ya, literary-fiction
review:
laurie colwin books are all about family happiness. and i love them all!
]]> Notes to John 223889073 An extraordinary work from the author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights

In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had had “a rough few years.� She described the sessions in a journal she created for her husband, John Gregory Dunne.

For several months, Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter, Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work, which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods. There were discussions about her own childhood—misunderstandings and lack of communication with her mother and father, her early tendency to anticipate catastrophe—and the question of legacy, or, as she put it, “what it’s been worth.� The analysis would continue for more than a decade.

Didion’s journal was crafted with the singular intelligence, precision, and elegance that characterize all of her writing. It is an unprecedently intimate account that reveals sides of her that were unknown, but the voice is unmistakably hers—questioning, courageous, and clear in the face of a wrenchingly painful journey.]]> 224 Joan Didion 0593803671 emma 0 to-read 3.67 Notes to John
author: Joan Didion
name: emma
average rating: 3.67
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Audition 216247518 One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. A mesmerizing Mobius strip of a novel that asks who we are to the people we love.

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an elegant and accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, and young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In Audition, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day—partner, parent, creator, muse—and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us best.]]> 208 Katie Kitamura 059385232X emma 4
(review to come / thank you to the publisher for the arc)]]> 3.90 2025 Audition
author: Katie Kitamura
name: emma
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: non-ya, literary-fiction, diverse, authors-of-color, owned, from-publisher-author, arc, 4-stars, to-review, recommend
review:
everybody needs to read this book immediately. i don't want to talk about anything else.

(review to come / thank you to the publisher for the arc)
]]> Madwoman 204593567 A gripping story of motherhood and motherloss and the brutal, mighty things women do to keep themselves and each other alive, MADWOMAN marks the arrival of a major fiction talent.

The world is not made for mothers.
Yet mothers made the world�

Clove hasĚýgone to extremes to keep her past a secret. Thanks to her lies, she’s landed the life of her dreams, complete with a safe husband and two adoring children who will never know the terror that was routine in her own childhood. If her buried anxiety threatens to breach the surface, Clove (if that is really her name) focuses on finding the right supplement, the right gratitude meditation.Ěý

But when she receives a letter from a women’s prison in California, her past comes screeching into the present, entangling her in a dangerous game with memory and the people she thought she had outrun. As weĚýraceĚýbetween her precarious present-day life in Portland, Oregon and her childhood in a Waikiki high-rise with her mother and father, Clove is forced toĚýfinally unravel the defining day of her life. How did she survive that day, and what will it take to end the cycle of violence? Will the truth undo her, or could it ultimately save her?]]> 336 Chelsea Bieker 0316573299 emma 3
reading this book felt like itching a mosquito bite.

you know what's going to happen, and you're not excited about that outcome, but at the same time it's the only thing that staves off the ever-present itching that would otherwise drive you insane.

in other words, it was annoying and predictable, but i enjoyed the process anyway.

bottom line: a goodĚýbeach read type book for people who hate gwyneth paltrow.

(3.5 / rthanks to the publisher for the copy)]]> 3.71 2024 Madwoman
author: Chelsea Bieker
name: emma
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/13
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: owned, non-ya, mystery-thriller-horror-etc, from-publisher-author, arc, 3-and-a-half-stars, unpopular-opinion, recommend, reviewed
review:
it's so important to see yourself represented on page

reading this book felt like itching a mosquito bite.

you know what's going to happen, and you're not excited about that outcome, but at the same time it's the only thing that staves off the ever-present itching that would otherwise drive you insane.

in other words, it was annoying and predictable, but i enjoyed the process anyway.

bottom line: a goodĚýbeach read type book for people who hate gwyneth paltrow.

(3.5 / rthanks to the publisher for the copy)
]]> The Best Girls 46031873
An excellent student from a poor, traditional family in Seoul, the narrator has absorbed the same message her whole life. Only a boy can provide the family with dignity and wealth. Not her. Not her three sisters. Receiving approval only for uncomplaining sacrifice, she has resolved to take on her family’s troubles. She is a good girl. And she knows what good girls must do.

The Best Girls is part of Disorder, a collection of six short stories of living nightmares, chilling visions, and uncanny imagination that explore a world losing its balance in terrifying ways. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single disorienting sitting.]]> 20 Min Jin Lee 1542015286 emma 0 3.96 2019 The Best Girls
author: Min Jin Lee
name: emma
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read, non-ya, nowhere, literary-fiction, diverse, authors-of-color
review:
i will read everything min jin lee writes, from grocery lists to amazon exclusive short stories
]]> Italian Food 152987
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700Ěýtitles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theĚýseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-dateĚýtranslations by award-winning translators.]]> 376 Elizabeth David 0141181559 emma 0 4.30 1954 Italian Food
author: Elizabeth David
name: emma
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read, classics, non-ya, nonfiction, nowhere
review:
my favorite thing (book) about my favorite thing (eating)
]]> My Mother Cursed My Name 199798160
Felicitas Olivares is ten years old and terribly disappointed when she meets her estranged grandmother for the first time. Olvido is nothing like a grandmother should be. She is strict, cold…and dead.

Olvido is convinced the only way her spirit will cross over is if her body is buried in Mexico, though she hadn’t been back since she crossed the border to the United States decades ago. When this plan fails to help Olvido move on, she decides that she must have more unfinished business and determines that it involves her daughter, Angustias. She must do whatever she can to make sure Angustias is in a better place regarding family, job, husband, and God—but maybe not in that order.

Heartbroken about her mother’s passing and desperate to put her tiny Texas home in her rearview mirror as quickly as possible, Angustias doesn’t understand why suddenly everyone in town seems to be conspiring to set her up with every eligible bachelor in town, offer her jobs, and invite her and Felicitas to church every Sunday.

Only her daughter, Felicitas, knows Olivido’s plan but she can’t bring herself to tell her mother the truth—or the fact that she sees ghosts. But she’s not the only one who’s been keeping secrets. As Olvido and Angustias continue to follow the tradition of trying to steer the course of their daughters� lives the way they see fit, all three Olivares girls must learn how to communicate and actually listen to one another, work to overcome generations� worth of well-intentioned mistakes, and finally find home.]]> 336 Anamely Salgado Reyes 1668038005 emma 3
while i didn't like the writing of this (please, for the love of god, use the word "said") or the repetitiveness (we are forced into the same dialogue roughly 900 times), and it could've been 100 pages shorter, and there is some real bad interpersonal behavior on display here...

i enjoyed this!

i liked the story, and i liked the grumpy granddaughter / ghost grandma dynamic. and it made me hungry as hell.

bottom line: another win for food descriptions.

(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the copy)]]> 3.89 2024 My Mother Cursed My Name
author: Anamely Salgado Reyes
name: emma
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/12
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: authors-of-color, from-publisher-author, diverse, magical-realist-urban-whatever, non-ya, owned, 3-and-a-half-stars, recommend, reviewed
review:
generational family drama about magical women yay!

while i didn't like the writing of this (please, for the love of god, use the word "said") or the repetitiveness (we are forced into the same dialogue roughly 900 times), and it could've been 100 pages shorter, and there is some real bad interpersonal behavior on display here...

i enjoyed this!

i liked the story, and i liked the grumpy granddaughter / ghost grandma dynamic. and it made me hungry as hell.

bottom line: another win for food descriptions.

(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the copy)
]]> <![CDATA[The Passengers on the Hankyu Line]]> 223854441 Welcome aboard the Hankyu Line train!

Come along on a heartwarming, funny, and perfectly cozy voyage with the charming and relatable passengers—including one dashing dachshund—whose lives intersect and affect each other on one of Japan’s most romantic railway lines from international bestselling author Hiro Arikawa.

Between the two beautiful towns of Takarazuka and Nishinomiya, in a stunning mountainous area of Japan, rattles the Hankyu Line train. Passengers step on and off, lost in thought, contemplating the tiny knots of their existence. On the outward journey, we are introduced to the emotional dilemmas of five characters, and on the return journey six months later, we watch them find resolutions.

A young man meets the young woman who always happens to borrow a library book just before he can check it out himself, a woman in a white bridal dress boards looking inexplicably sad, a university student heads home after class, a girl prepares to leave her abusive boyfriend, and an old lady discusses adopting a dog with her granddaughter.

With stories that crisscross like the railway lines, the Hankyu train trundles on, propelling the lives and loves of its passengers ever forward.]]> 256 Hiro Arikawa emma 0 3.83 2008 The Passengers on the Hankyu Line
author: Hiro Arikawa
name: emma
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read, tbr-arc, tbr-owned, authors-of-color, arc, contemporary, diverse, non-ya
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Where Are You Really From: Stories]]> 221739723 A psychologically complex, genre-bending story collection from the author of Disorientation that reimagines narrative, one story at a time

A mail order bride from Taiwan is packed up in a cardboard box and sent via express shipping to California, where her much older husband awaits her. A teenage girl with body dysmorphia meticulously plans how to kill and cook her downstairs neighbor. An American au pair moves to Paris to find herself, only to find her actual French doppelgänger. A father reunites with his estranged daughter in unusual as a background actor on the set of her film. And in “Casualties of Art,� a writer’s affair with a married artist tests the line between fact and fiction, self-victimization and the victimization of others.

In these six singular stories and a novella that pivot from the terrible to the beautiful to the surreal, Elaine Hsieh Chou confronts the slipperiness of genre and the very nature of storytelling itself. With razor-sharp perceptiveness, she peels back the tales we tell ourselves to peer beneath at our treacherous desires, our self-deceptions and our capacity for cruelty, both to ourselves and each other. Provocative and expansive, Where Are You Really From is a visionary achievement that explores the limits and possibilities of our humanity.
]]> Elaine Hsieh Chou 059329839X emma 0 4.36 2025 Where Are You Really From: Stories
author: Elaine Hsieh Chou
name: emma
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read, tbr-arc, tbr-owned, literary-fiction, non-ya, diverse, arc, authors-of-color
review:

]]> Bestiary 43297216
One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman’s body. She was called Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterwards, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her grandmother; a visiting aunt arrives with snakes in her belly; a brother tests the possibility of flight. All the while, Daughter is falling for Ben, a neighborhood girl with strange powers of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother’s letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies a myth–and that she will have to bring her family’s secrets to light in order to change their destiny.

With a poetic voice of crackling electricity, K-Ming Chang is an explosive young writer who combines the wit and fabulism of Helen Oyeyemi with the subversive storytelling of Maxine Hong Kingston. Tracing one family’s history from Taiwan to America, from Arkansas to California, Bestiary is a novel of migration, queer lineages, and girlhood.]]> 259 K-Ming Chang 0593132580 emma 4
the creepy crawly gross surreal way that three generations of mothers and daughters are haunted by generations of violence and gendered expectation...how it's presented through entwined mythology and magic...the cruelty and the forgiveness and the anger and the love it shows without ever ever directly telling...

why does this book have a 3.44 average rating??

besides the egregious grossness, i suppose.

bottom line: this is why i can't stop reading low-rated books.]]> 3.46 2020 Bestiary
author: K-Ming Chang
name: emma
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: non-ya, magical-realist-urban-whatever, diverse, authors-of-color, owned, 4-stars, recommend, reviewed, unpopular-opinion
review:
books about the violence of womanhood <3

the creepy crawly gross surreal way that three generations of mothers and daughters are haunted by generations of violence and gendered expectation...how it's presented through entwined mythology and magic...the cruelty and the forgiveness and the anger and the love it shows without ever ever directly telling...

why does this book have a 3.44 average rating??

besides the egregious grossness, i suppose.

bottom line: this is why i can't stop reading low-rated books.
]]> <![CDATA[One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This]]> 213870084 From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in the heart of an Empire which doesn’t consider you fully human.

On Oct 25th, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.â€� This tweet was viewed over 10 million times.Ěý

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This chronicles the deep fracture which has occurred for Black, brown, indigenous Americans, as well as the upcoming generation, many of whom had clung to a thread of faith in western ideals, in the idea that their countries, or the countries of their adoption, actually attempted to live up to the values they espouse.Ěý

This book is a reckoning with what it means to live in the west, and what it means to live in a world run by a small group of countries—America, the UK, France and Germany.â€� It will be The Fire Next Time for a generation that understands we’re undergoing a shift in the so-called â€rules-based order,â€� a generation that understands the west can no longer be trusted to police and guide the world, or its own cities and campuses. It draws on intimate details of Omar’s own story as an emigrant who grew up believing in the western project, who was catapulted into journalism by the rupture of 9/11.Ěý

This book is his heartsick breakup letter with the west. It is a breakup we are watching all over the U.S., on college campuses, on city streets, and the consequences of this rupture will be felt by all of us. His book is for all the people who want something better than what the west has served up. This is the book for our time.]]> 208 Omar El Akkad 0593804147 emma 0 to-read 4.68 2025 One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
author: Omar El Akkad
name: emma
average rating: 4.68
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Nothing Serious 213344055 A disillusioned tech executive goes into an obsessive spiral when her best friend—and longtime crush—is implicated in a woman’s death.

Edie Walker’s life is not going as planned. At thirty-five she feels stuck: in her career, in her love life, and in her tiny San Francisco studio apartment. It doesn’t help that her best friend, Peter Masterson, is basically the über successful male version of her—and she’s hopelessly, unrequitedly in love with him. But when Peter breaks up with his girlfriend of seven years, Edie thinks her life might finally be turning around. He’ll discover how toxic dating-app culture is and realize Edie has been right for him all along.

Except Peter almost immediately lands a date with Anaya Thomas, a gorgeous, whip-smart professor and writer of feminist literature whom even Edie—reared in the culture of tech bros—is smitten by. Unlike the women Peter has dated before, Anaya is like an alternative-reality version of Edie—one with shampoo-commercial hair and a meaningful career, who definitely doesn’t spend her weekends scrolling social media alone in her apartment. It’s only a matter of time before Peter falls head over heels for this woman; Edie herself is infatuated after one meeting.

Then Anaya is found dead in her apartment—right after a date with Peter.]]> 272 Emily J. Smith 006338583X emma 2
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 3.34 2025 Nothing Serious
author: Emily J. Smith
name: emma
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: mystery-thriller-horror-etc, non-ya, arc, 2-stars, to-review, nope
review:
what if you had a crush so bad that a committed murder couldn't cure it? that's the real horror story.

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> Excellent Women 178565 Excellent Women has at its center Mildred Lathbury, a clergyman’s daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those “excellent women,� the smart, supportive, repressed women who men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors—anthropologist Helena Napier and her handsome, dashing husband, Rocky, and Julian Malory, the vicar next door—the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived in a vanishing world of manners and repressed desires.]]> 256 Barbara Pym 014310487X emma 0 3.92 1952 Excellent Women
author: Barbara Pym
name: emma
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read, non-ya, library, classics
review:
my favorite thing for a book to be about
]]> Love 456911 202 Toni Morrison 0375409440 emma 0 to-read 3.71 2003 Love
author: Toni Morrison
name: emma
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Must I Go 58410934
Increasingly obsessed with Roland's intimate history, Lilia begins to annotate the diary with her own rather different version of events, revealing the surprising, long-held secrets of her past. She returns inexorably to the memory of her daughter Lucy. This is a novel about life in all its messy glory, and of a life lived, by the extraordinary Lilia, absolutely on its own terms. With great candor and insight, Yiyun Li navigates the twin poles of grief and resilience, loss and rebirth, that compass a human heart.]]> 368 Yiyun Li 0241978688 emma 0 to-read 2.86 2020 Must I Go
author: Yiyun Li
name: emma
average rating: 2.86
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Saving Agnes 57693166 Winner of the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel

Agnes Day is mildly discontent. As a child, she never wanted to be an Agnes—she wanted to be a pleasing Grace. Alas, she remained the terminally middle class, hopelessly romantic Agnes. Now she's living with her two best friends in London and working at a trade magazine. Life and love seem to go on without her. Not only does she not know how to get back into the game, she isn't even sure what the game is. But she gives a good performance—until she learns that her roommates and her boyfriend are keeping secrets from her, and that her boss is quitting and leaving her in charge. In great despair, she decides to make it her business to set things straight. Saving Agnes is a perceptive, fresh, and honest novel that has delighted readers and critics on both sides of the Atlantic.]]> 224 Rachel Cusk 1250828201 emma 2
it is so crazy that it was THE rachel cusk who wrote this book. the mind that brought us the spare monologues of the outline trilogy also came up with all of these adjectives. i guess everyone has to start somewhere.Ěý

this is a debut in every way: earnest, overwritten, underedited. our protagonist contains all of the wisdom of her prodigy author, who is not yet the cusk we know. she’s preoccupied by the same topics then as now, but has less insight into them.Ěý

agnes is a bit self-insert, with neither she nor the narrator perhaps as aware of her privilege and silliness as intended.Ěý

this is a worthwhile read for cusk superfans who want to see where she came from, but just over 20 years after its publication, not for many other reasons.Ěý

bottom line: like a time capsule!

2.5]]> 3.59 1993 Saving Agnes
author: Rachel Cusk
name: emma
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1993
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: owned, non-ya, literary-fiction, 2-and-a-half-stars, unpopular-opinion, eh, reviewed
review:
life is just giving a performance and being like "is this right? who knows" the whole time.

it is so crazy that it was THE rachel cusk who wrote this book. the mind that brought us the spare monologues of the outline trilogy also came up with all of these adjectives. i guess everyone has to start somewhere.Ěý

this is a debut in every way: earnest, overwritten, underedited. our protagonist contains all of the wisdom of her prodigy author, who is not yet the cusk we know. she’s preoccupied by the same topics then as now, but has less insight into them.Ěý

agnes is a bit self-insert, with neither she nor the narrator perhaps as aware of her privilege and silliness as intended.Ěý

this is a worthwhile read for cusk superfans who want to see where she came from, but just over 20 years after its publication, not for many other reasons.Ěý

bottom line: like a time capsule!

2.5
]]> When We Grow Up 211004059 For fans of Fleishman is in Trouble and Such a Fun Age, an electrifying novel about six longtime friends whose tropical vacation is interrupted by an unexpected crisis, forcing them to ask how strong their bonds really are

Clare is supposed to be the grown-up one. Married to the love of her life, with a major deal for her first novel, she has everything she thought she wanted. So then why does it all feel so wrong? When she agrees to a weeklong vacation in Hawai'i with five of her oldest friends as they each approach thirty, she is hoping for an escape with the people who know her best. There is Jessie, who won’t stop talking about her new boyfriend; Mac, trying to pretend he hasn’t outgrown the group; Kyle, the eternal peacemaker; and Renzo, who brought them all together but keeps picking fights. And then, of course, there’s Liam, who Clare has barely seen since high school but somehow can’t get out of her head—or her bed.

But when a terrifying news alert shatters their peace, it becomes harder to ignore how much the world has changed since they were teenagers. As the resentments and tensions that have always simmered just beneath the surface begin to boil, Clare must ask if their shared history is enough to sustain their friendships, or if growing up might mean letting go.

With crackling wit and emotional fearlessness, When We Grow Up is a provocative portrait of friendship in a world that feels ever more unrecognizable and a searing exploration of what it means to be a good person.]]> 288 Angelica Baker 1250345774 emma 2
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the arc)]]> 2.92 2025 When We Grow Up
author: Angelica Baker
name: emma
average rating: 2.92
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: arc, from-publisher-author, literary-fiction, non-ya, 2-stars, to-review, nope
review:
i'll know i'm fully healed when i can resist adding every low-rated lit fic i see

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the arc)
]]> Universality 214269374 Remember—words are your weapons, they’re your tools, your currency: a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of truth and power from a "powerful new voice in British Literature� (The Sunday Times).

Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar.

An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers, Who wrote it? Why? And how much of it is true? Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, the book focuses in on what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean.

The thrilling novel from one of the most acclaimed and incisive young novelists working today, Universality is a compelling, unsettling celebration of the spectacular, appalling force of language. It dares you to look away.]]> 176 Natasha Brown 0593977300 emma 3
finally, my long nightmare is over.

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 3.48 2025 Universality
author: Natasha Brown
name: emma
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: literary-fiction, authors-of-color, diverse, non-ya, arc, 3-stars, to-review, unpopular-opinion, eh
review:
writing a book that blows me away and then not publishing anything else for a million years is cruel and unusual.

finally, my long nightmare is over.

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> <![CDATA[Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People]]> 199534697 A surprising and beautiful meditation on the color blue—and its fascinating role in Black history and culture—from National Book Award winner Imani Perry

Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways. Blue skies and blue water offer hope for that which lies beyond the current conditions. But blue is also the color of deep melancholy and heartache, echoing Louis Armstrong’s question, “What did I do to be so Black and blue?� In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world’s favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey—an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.

Perry traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to their many embodiments of contemporary culture, drawing deeply from her own life as well as art and history: The dyed indigo cloths of West Africa that were traded for human life in the 16th century. The mixture of awe and aversion in the old-fashioned characterization of dark-skinned people as “Blue Black.� The fundamentally American art form of blues music, sitting at the crossroads of pain and pleasure. The blue flowers Perry plants to honor a loved one gone too soon.

Poignant, spellbinding, and utterly original, Black in Blues is a brilliant new work that could only have come from the mind of one of our greatest writers and thinkers. Attuned to the harrowing and the sublime aspects of the human experience, it is every bit as vivid, rich, and striking as blue itself.]]> 256 Imani Perry 0062977393 emma 4
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 4.35 2025 Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People
author: Imani Perry
name: emma
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: arc, authors-of-color, non-ya, nonfiction, to-review, to-buy, recommend
review:
covercovercover

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> The Bee Sting 62039166 From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.

Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil―can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written―is there still time to find a happy ending?]]> 645 Paul Murray 0374600309 emma 4
i physically couldn't put this book down.

not in the can't get enough way you say when you mean "i loved this book so much." iĚýcouldn't put it down because when i did i got so overwhelmedĚýwith anxiety that i felt ill.

my animalĚýbrain responded to the unrelenting series of tiny cuts presented in this book with an actual fight or flight response. ultimately i had to give into the agoraphobia and stay inside my house for a full day (canceling plans, rescheduling errands, missing myriad notifications) to knock out the final 400 pages. it was too debilitating.Ěý

people talk a lot about hanya yanagihara's a little life as maybe the most upsetting book of all time. to me, this one was worse.

we follow dickie, inheritor of his father's car dealership in a small country town in ireland; his wife, imelda, the most beautiful woman around; their daughter, cass, navigating a toxic and intoxicating friendship with the coolest girl in school; and their son, pj, who is texting a stranger from the internet a lot.

each of them is so lonely, too sensitive for the world and the paltry, mundane wounds it gives us. from climate change to doomsday prep, academics to bereavement, sexuality to solitude, every burden life has to offer found its way to this family, and each and every one hit its mark.

i found myself so miserable while reading that i tried to belatedly bargain with the book: if this story has a happy ending, i'll love it. if these characters have a moment of familial connection and contentment, i'll five star it. if any of the characters tells a single one of their secrets to any of the others, it'll be my favorite book ever.

i'm not a big fan of sad books, not because i chafe at the idea of being unhappy for even a moment (that too) but because i find myself less impressed with stories that exist on a narrow emotional scale. even the moments of happiness in this book are told reflectively, a now-suffering character casting their eye back on a perfected past.Ěý

while i wanted more than anything for these people to find happiness, that wasn't (solely) because they were so incredible and i was so invested in them. i wanted a change to the one-note narrative i'd been immersed in for 650 pages.

the fact that it didn't come and i'm still impressed with this book is high praise.Ěý

it doesn't seem like hope appears on page, but i had it anyway. in spite of it all, this book is brilliantly, hilariously written, with unique style and consuming story.

bottom line: i hated it and i loved it and it infuriated and devastated me and i craved being done and never wanted it to end and isn't that just life.]]> 3.92 2023 The Bee Sting
author: Paul Murray
name: emma
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/07
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: non-ya, literary-fiction, historical, owned, recommend, reviewed, 3-and-a-half-stars
review:
no one talk to me. i need to lay facedown with fairytale of new york on repeat and think about this book until i feel better.

i physically couldn't put this book down.

not in the can't get enough way you say when you mean "i loved this book so much." iĚýcouldn't put it down because when i did i got so overwhelmedĚýwith anxiety that i felt ill.

my animalĚýbrain responded to the unrelenting series of tiny cuts presented in this book with an actual fight or flight response. ultimately i had to give into the agoraphobia and stay inside my house for a full day (canceling plans, rescheduling errands, missing myriad notifications) to knock out the final 400 pages. it was too debilitating.Ěý

people talk a lot about hanya yanagihara's a little life as maybe the most upsetting book of all time. to me, this one was worse.

we follow dickie, inheritor of his father's car dealership in a small country town in ireland; his wife, imelda, the most beautiful woman around; their daughter, cass, navigating a toxic and intoxicating friendship with the coolest girl in school; and their son, pj, who is texting a stranger from the internet a lot.

each of them is so lonely, too sensitive for the world and the paltry, mundane wounds it gives us. from climate change to doomsday prep, academics to bereavement, sexuality to solitude, every burden life has to offer found its way to this family, and each and every one hit its mark.

i found myself so miserable while reading that i tried to belatedly bargain with the book: if this story has a happy ending, i'll love it. if these characters have a moment of familial connection and contentment, i'll five star it. if any of the characters tells a single one of their secrets to any of the others, it'll be my favorite book ever.

i'm not a big fan of sad books, not because i chafe at the idea of being unhappy for even a moment (that too) but because i find myself less impressed with stories that exist on a narrow emotional scale. even the moments of happiness in this book are told reflectively, a now-suffering character casting their eye back on a perfected past.Ěý

while i wanted more than anything for these people to find happiness, that wasn't (solely) because they were so incredible and i was so invested in them. i wanted a change to the one-note narrative i'd been immersed in for 650 pages.

the fact that it didn't come and i'm still impressed with this book is high praise.Ěý

it doesn't seem like hope appears on page, but i had it anyway. in spite of it all, this book is brilliantly, hilariously written, with unique style and consuming story.

bottom line: i hated it and i loved it and it infuriated and devastated me and i craved being done and never wanted it to end and isn't that just life.
]]> The Memory Collectors 219401075 Four strangers time travel to the past and find themselves stuck on the day all their lives were changed in this stunning speculative mystery from award-winning film and television producer Dete Meserve, perfect for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Wrong Place Wrong Time and The Paradox Hotel.

What would you do if you could spend an hour in your past? Four strangers in the beach town of Ventura, California are about to find out.Ěý

Elizabeth aches for one more precious hour with her son who died in a senseless accident. Andy is desperate to find his first love who vanished after a whirlwind romance. Logan craves the rush of surfing and mountain climbing, yearning to reclaim the freedom he lost after a misstepĚýlanded him in a wheelchair. Brooke is looking for an hour of relief from the guilt of an unforgivable mistake.

Enter Aeon Expeditions, the groundbreaking time travelĚýinvention of Mark Saunders—which allowsĚýsome lucky clientsĚý the chanceĚýto spend an hour in their past. Even though Aeon’s technology ensures time travel can’t alter the future, all four clients,Ěýincluding Mark’s ex-wife Elizabeth,Ěýyearn to revisit the hour that changed their lives forever.Ěý

But when their “hour� extends beyond sixty minutes, they find themselves stranded in the past. As their paths intertwine unexpectedly, they unearth shocking secrets hidden in the shadows of their shared All their lives were shattered the same night on a secluded highway by the beach. As they delve into the hidden truths of that pivotal hour, a startling revelation emerges. They were not alone. Someone else was present, harboring deadly intentions.

The Memory Collectors is a heart-wrenching, genre-bending novel brimming with hope, grief and second chances.

]]> 336 Dete Meserve emma 0 4.21 2025 The Memory Collectors
author: Dete Meserve
name: emma
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: to-read, tbr-arc, tbr-owned, non-ya, fantasy
review:
me when i'm going nostalgia mode
]]> <![CDATA[Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism]]> 223436601 An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them.

From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite.

Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.�

Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.]]> 400 Sarah Wynn-Williams 1250391237 emma 0 to-read 4.36 2025 Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
author: Sarah Wynn-Williams
name: emma
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Crush 213870131 When a husband asks his reluctant wife to consider what might be missing from their marriage, what follows surprises them both—sex, heartbreak and heart rekindling, and a rediscovered sense of all that is possible

She’s happy and settled and productive and content in her full life—a child, a career, an admirable marriage, deep friendships, happy parents, and a spouse she still loves. But when her husband urges her to address what the narrow labels of “husbandâ€� and “wifeâ€� force them to edit out of their lives, the very best kind of hell breaks loose.Ěý

Using the author’s personal experiences as a jumping-off point, Crush is about the danger and liberation of chasing desire, the havoc it can wreak, and most of all the clear sense of self one finds when the storm passes. Destined to become a classic novel of marriage, and tackling the big questions being asked about partnership in postpandemic relationships, Crush is a sharp, funny, seductive, and revelatory novel about holding on to everything it’s possible to love—friends, children, parents, passion, lovers, husbands, all of the world’s good books, and most of all one’s own deep sense of purpose.]]> 288 Ada Calhoun 0593832027 emma 2
-----------------
tbr review

sounds juicy

(2.5 / review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 3.04 2025 Crush
author: Ada Calhoun
name: emma
average rating: 3.04
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/10
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: non-ya, arc, contemporary, 2-and-a-half-stars, to-review, eh
review:
you would not believe how many quotations there are in this book. it’s giving when you would finish an essay but be wildly short of word count and just perform in text citations like a madman till you got there.

-----------------
tbr review

sounds juicy

(2.5 / review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> The Road Through the Wall 17349744
Exposing the murderous cruelty of children, and the blindness and selfishness of adults, Shirley Jackson reveals the ugly truth behind a 'perfect' world.]]> 194 Shirley Jackson emma 3
much of the delight in shirley jackson is the way she sees right through the world, to a creepy core few of us can perceive. in her books, she holds all of these cards, slowly granting the reader one strange and unexplained card at the time until, in the climax, she drops them all.

it seems like jackson has a huge hand in this book, but she never quite let the reader see it.

90% of this book is made up of almost vignettes, moments in the lives of a number of households living on one street in california. there are ominous-feeling moments to be sure (no one writes children like shirley jackson), but they never seem to build on each other.

although maybe i just missed something. if there are roughly 80 characters and all of them have similar names (hallie and harriet, marilyn and mary), there's not a snowball's chance in hell i'm going to keep trackĚýof them.

bottom line: even shirley jackson's meh is good to me.

3.5]]> 3.53 1948 The Road Through the Wall
author: Shirley Jackson
name: emma
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1948
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: non-ya, mystery-thriller-horror-etc, classics, owned, 3-and-a-half-stars, recommend, reviewed
review:
one of history's scariest writers, shirley jackson, writing about one of the world's scariest subjects: children.

much of the delight in shirley jackson is the way she sees right through the world, to a creepy core few of us can perceive. in her books, she holds all of these cards, slowly granting the reader one strange and unexplained card at the time until, in the climax, she drops them all.

it seems like jackson has a huge hand in this book, but she never quite let the reader see it.

90% of this book is made up of almost vignettes, moments in the lives of a number of households living on one street in california. there are ominous-feeling moments to be sure (no one writes children like shirley jackson), but they never seem to build on each other.

although maybe i just missed something. if there are roughly 80 characters and all of them have similar names (hallie and harriet, marilyn and mary), there's not a snowball's chance in hell i'm going to keep trackĚýof them.

bottom line: even shirley jackson's meh is good to me.

3.5
]]> <![CDATA[Where the Mountain Meets the Moon]]> 5983694
In the valley of Fruitless Mountain, a young girl named Minli spends her days working hard in the fields and her nights listening to her father spin fantastic tales about the Jade Dragon and the Old Man of the Moon. Minli's mother, tired of their poor life, chides him for filling her head with nonsense. But Minli believes these enchanting stories and embarks on an extraordinary journey to find the Old Man of the Moon and ask him how her family can change their fortune. She encounters an assorted cast of characters and magical creatures along the way, including a dragon who accompanies her on her quest.

Source: Jacket flap]]> 278 Grace Lin emma 4 my favorite person's childhood favorite!

this is everything middle grade should be: a fun, unique adventure with a lengthy and memorable cast of characters and interesting lessons that aren't annoying or boring.

plus this one had beautiful illustrations and a theme of the power of stories no reader can resist.

bottom line: i wish i read this in my bygone youth!]]> 4.31 2009 Where the Mountain Meets the Moon
author: Grace Lin
name: emma
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: authors-of-color, children-s, diverse, fantasy, owned, recommend, 4-stars, reviewed
review:
had me at my favorite person's childhood favorite!

this is everything middle grade should be: a fun, unique adventure with a lengthy and memorable cast of characters and interesting lessons that aren't annoying or boring.

plus this one had beautiful illustrations and a theme of the power of stories no reader can resist.

bottom line: i wish i read this in my bygone youth!
]]> The Emperor of Gladness 219848315 Ocean Vuong returns with a big-hearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing � formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness � are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.]]> 416 Ocean Vuong 059383187X emma 0 to-read, unreleased 4.38 2025 The Emperor of Gladness
author: Ocean Vuong
name: emma
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read, unreleased
review:
new ocean vuong novel? i used to pray for times like these
]]> Pale Fire 7805
Nabokov's darkly witty, richly inventive masterpiece is a suspenseful whodunit, a story of one-upmanship and dubious penmanship, and a glorious literary conundrum.

Part of a major new series of the works of Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita and Pale Fire, in Penguin Classics.]]> 246 Vladimir Nabokov emma 0 to-read 4.17 1962 Pale Fire
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: emma
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> What Hunger 219445683 A haunting coming-of-age tale following the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, Ronny Nyugen, as she grapples with the weight of generational trauma while navigating the violent power of teenage girlhood, for fans of Jennifer’s Body and Little Fires Everywhere.

It's the summer before high school, and Ronny Nguyen finds herself too young for work, too old for cartoons. Her days are spent in a small backyard, dozing off to trashy magazines on a plastic lawn chair. In stark contrast stands her brother Tommy, the pride and joy of their immigrant parents: a popular honor student destined to be the first in the family to attend college. The thought of Tommy leaving for college fills Ronny with dread, as she contemplates the quiet house she will be left alone in with her parents, Me and Ba.

Their parents rarely speak of their past in Vietnam, except through the lens of food. The family's meals are a tapestry of cultural memory: thick spring rolls with slim and salty nem chua, and steaming bowls of pho tái with thin, delicate slices of blood-red beef. In the aftermath of the war, Me and Ba taught Ronny and Tommy that meat was a dangerous luxury, a symbol of survival that should never be taken for granted.

But when tragedy strikes, Ronny's world is upended. Her sense of self and her understanding of her family are shattered. A few nights later, at her first high school party, a boy crosses the line, and Ronny is overtaken by a force larger than herself. This newfound power comes with an insatiable hunger for raw meat, a craving that is both a saving grace and a potential destroyer.

What Hunger is a visceral, emotional journey through the bursts and pitfalls of female rage. Ronny’s Vietnamese lineage and her mother’s emotional memory play a crucial role in this tender ode to generational trauma and mother-daughter bonding.]]> 288 Catherine Dang 0349125775 emma 0 4.15 What Hunger
author: Catherine Dang
name: emma
average rating: 4.15
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read, tbr-arc, tbr-owned, arc, authors-of-color, diverse, literary-fiction
review:
i don't know how this book can be for fans of both jennifer's body and little fires everywhere, but i'm going to find out
]]> Back After This 198563641 From the New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over and Flying Solo, a podcast producer agrees to host a new series about modern dating—but will the show jeopardize her chance at finding real love?

Cecily Foster loves to make podcasts. She fiercely protects her colleagues, dearly adores her friends, and never misses dinner with her sister. But after a disastrous relationship with a colleague who stole her heart and her ideas, she’s put romantic love on hold.

When the boss who’s disappointed her again and again finally offers her the chance to host her own show, she wants to be thrilled. But there’s a catch—actually, two catches. First, the show will be about Cecily’s dating life. And second, she has to follow the guidance of influencer and newly minted relationship coach Eliza Cassidy, whose relentlessly upbeat attitude seems ready-made for social media, not real life.

Cecily would rather do anything other than put her singledom on display (ugh) or take advice from the internet (UGH). But when her boss hints that doing the show is the only way to protect a friend’s job, she realizes she has no choice.

To make matters more complicated, once she’s committed to twenty blind dates of Eliza’s choosing, Cecily finds herself unable to stop thinking about Will, a photographer she helped to rescue a very big and very lovable lost dog. Even though there are sparks between the two, Will’s own path is uncertain, and Eliza’s skeptical comments about Cecily’s decision-making aren’t helping. On the one hand, Will seems great. But on the other hand . . . don’t they all?

As Cecily struggles to balance the life she truly desires and the one Eliza wants to create for her, she finds herself at a crossroads. Can Cecily sort through all the advice and find a way to do what she loves without losing herself in the process?]]> 320 Linda Holmes 059359925X emma 4
in return, i receive more good books.

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 3.83 2025 Back After This
author: Linda Holmes
name: emma
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: non-ya, romance, arc, 4-stars, to-review, to-buy, recommend
review:
if a romance author writes even a single book i like, i will pledge my loyalty to them for all my days.

in return, i receive more good books.

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]> <![CDATA[The DallerGut Dream Department Store (DallerGut Dream Department Store, #1)]]> 199396641 What if there was a store that sold dreams? Which would you buy? And who might you become when you wake up?

In a mysterious town hidden in our collective subconscious there's a department store that sells dreams. Day and night, visitors both human and animal shuffle in to purchase their latest adventure. Each floor specializes in a specific type of dream: childhood memories, food dreams, ice skating, dreams of stardom. Flying dreams are almost always sold out. Some seek dreams of loved ones who have died.

For Penny, an enthusiastic new hire, working at Dallergut is the opportunity of a lifetime. As she uncovers the workings of this whimsical world, she bonds with a cast of unforgettable characters, including Dallergut, the flamboyant and wise owner, Babynap Rockabye, a famous dream designer, Maxim, a nightmare producer, and the many customers who dream to heal, dream to grow, and dream to flourish.

A captivating story that will leave a lingering magical feeling in readers' minds, this is the first book in a bestselling duology for anyone exhausted from the reality of their daily life.]]> 288 Miye Lee 1335081178 emma 3
in truth, this was cute and fun and not much else in a way that made me miss middle grade books.

in other words if this were written for upper elementary school aged children, rather than for me, i would have liked it more.

i loved the world, and it was so creative, but romance and adult problems just didn't fit. they should've cut all of that, added in some light banter and maybe some forgotten homework, thrown in a couple side quests, and called me a happy camper.

as is, i didn't connect to the characters, and this felt kind of boring and forgettable.

bottom line: sorry for saying "i would have liked this book more if it was a different book."]]> 3.68 2020 The DallerGut Dream Department Store (DallerGut Dream Department Store, #1)
author: Miye Lee
name: emma
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: authors-of-color, diverse, fantasy, non-ya, 2-and-a-half-stars, unpopular-opinion, eh, reviewed
review:
sounds dreamy!

in truth, this was cute and fun and not much else in a way that made me miss middle grade books.

in other words if this were written for upper elementary school aged children, rather than for me, i would have liked it more.

i loved the world, and it was so creative, but romance and adult problems just didn't fit. they should've cut all of that, added in some light banter and maybe some forgotten homework, thrown in a couple side quests, and called me a happy camper.

as is, i didn't connect to the characters, and this felt kind of boring and forgettable.

bottom line: sorry for saying "i would have liked this book more if it was a different book."
]]> Flashlight 219743621 A novel tracing a father’s disappearance across time, nations, and memory, from the author of Trust Exercise.

One night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the beach. He’s carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later Louisa is found washed up by the tide, barely alive. Her father is gone, presumed drowned. She is ten years old.

In chapters that shift from one member to the next, turning back again and again to that night by the sea, Susan Choi's Flashlight chases the shockwaves of one family’s catastrophe. Louisa is an only child of parents who have severed themselves from the past. Her father, Serk, an ethnic Korean born and raised in Japan, lost touch with his family when they bought into the promises of postwar Pyongyang and relocated to the DPRK. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her family after a reckless sexual adventure in her youth. And then there is Tobias, Anne’s illegitimate son, whose reappearance in their lives will have astonishing consequences.

What really happened to Louisa’s father? Why did he take Louisa and her mother to Japan just before he disappeared? And how can we love, or make sense of our lives, when there’s so much we can’t see?]]> 464 Susan Choi 037461637X emma 0 4.48 2025 Flashlight
author: Susan Choi
name: emma
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: to-read, tbr-arc, tbr-owned, non-ya, literary-fiction, arc, authors-of-color, diverse
review:
if a book is long and character-driven, there's a 90% chance i'll like it
]]> Gifted & Talented 211004124 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes the story of three siblings who, upon the death of their father, are forced to reckon with their long-festering rivalries, dangerous abilities, and the crushing weight of all their unrealized adolescent potential.

Where there’s a will, there’s a war.

Thayer Wren, the brilliant CEO of Wrenfare Magitech and so-called father of modern technology, is dead. Any one of his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children would be a plausible inheritor to the Wrenfare throne.

Or at least, so they like to think.

Meredith, textbook accomplished eldest daughter and the head of her own groundbreaking biotech company, has recently cured mental illness. You're welcome! If only her father's fortune wasn't her last hope for keeping her journalist ex-boyfriend from exposing what she really is: a total fraud.

Arthur, second-youngest congressman in history, fights the good fight every day of his life. And yet, his wife might be leaving him, and he's losing his re-election campaign. But his dead father’s approval in the form of a seat on the Wrenfare throne might just turn his sinking ship around.

Eilidh, once the world's most famous ballerina, has spent the last five years as a run-of-the-mill marketing executive at her father’s company after a life-altering injury put an end to her prodigious career. She might be lacking in accolades compared to her siblings, but if her father left her everything, it would finally validate her worth—by confirming she'd been his favorite all along.

On the pipeline of gifted kid to clinically depressed adult, nobody wins—but which Wren will come out on top?]]> 512 Olivie Blake 1250883407 emma 0 4.01 2025 Gifted & Talented
author: Olivie Blake
name: emma
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read, arc, fantasy, non-ya, tbr-arc, tbr-owned
review:

]]> The River Has Roots 211004176 Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.

“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.�

In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.

There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.

But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters� bond but also their lives will be at risk…]]> 133 Amal El-Mohtar 1250341086 emma 4
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)]]> 4.22 2025 The River Has Roots
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: emma
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: sci-fi, non-ya, fantasy, diverse, authors-of-color, arc, 3-and-a-half-stars, to-review, to-buy, recommend
review:
you say "novella about sisters encountering fae" but all i'm hearing is fairytale

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
]]>