Stats: 170 books read in 2025, including 24 audiobooks, which equals 48,554 pages and 280 “hours” (I listen at 1.25x pace, so it’s a little less) of reading.

Favorite fiction: Atmosphere, The Night Circus, The Island of Missing Trees, This Summer Will be Different, Sorcery and Small Magics, If We Were Villains (which is best read after listening to Judi Dench’s voice doppelganger talk about all of the Shakespeare plays).

Favorite nonfiction: Midnight in Chernobyl and Challenger by Adam Higginbotham (listen to the audiobooks), Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench (again listen to the audiobook), A Walk in the Park (ditto), The Book of Alchemy.

Biggest disappointment: James. And Yellowface.

Only two books I DNF: Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders and You, Again by Kate Goldbeck.

I had two main goals: 1) listen to 1 nonfiction audiobook a month and 2) to read for at least 5 minutes every day. Besides continuing the daily reading, I haven’t decided what my goal for 2026 should be. Ideas?

Click to read all of my oh so pithy reviews by month.

Otherworldly by F.T. Lukens. FT Luken’s stories are about the only YA fic I read anymore, because they are just fun stories. I liked this book better than Spell Bound. Solid world building and story telling although I could have done with a little less “cooing” about the teenage relationship from the adult characters.

Mrs. Mike: The Story of Katherine Mary Flannigan by Nancy and Benedict Freeman. I used to really love Canadian Mountie stories and younger me would have lapped this up. Unfortunately, it appears that it’s not as true of a story as the authors pretended (there may not have even been a Mike Flannigan!) and that does change how I read it as an adult, like the FMC being 16 and the colonialism throughout. Also Janette Oak definitely lifted a whole bunch of “inspiration” from this book.

*You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith. I’ve never been married and therefore have never divorced. I’m not a mother. And yet, I could completely empathize with the author. Her prose is lyrical and I loved how there weren’t any answers, not really, but there’s healing in our experiences. Beautiful.

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez. It had been long enough since I’d read the first two books in the series, that I completely missed the connections and Easter eggs unless they were pointed out. Despite that, I really enjoyed this one and their complex messy lives. There wasn’t as much romance as her other books – just two characters with a lot of issues and trauma coming together, but it felt real.

Linking this series together as I basically read them all back to back. The Wild Wynchesters series by Erica Ridley: The Governess Gambit (0.5), The Duke Heist (1), The Modiste Mishap (1.5), The Perks of Loving a Wallflower (2), The Rake Mistake (2.5), Nobody’s Princess (3) and My Rogue to Ruin (4). A few years ago a friend recommended The Perks of Loving a Wallflower but as it was the 2nd book of a series, I held off, but something made me want to read them this year. They’re great fun – a found group of 6 siblings with varying talents who rescue the distrodden around them, all mixed with romances and brooding looks. The love scenes are fairly tame, just 1-2 scenes in the main books, but the men are refreshingly without misogyny. The Duck Heist was my favorite of the bunch.

Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise. I started reading this one last year and finished it this month. It started out strong, then the plot seemed to fade away. I loved the parts where Jane was in the asylum and her memories about Neverland, but Peter’s character (and Jane’s for that matter) weren’t well developed. I haven’t decided if I’m going to check out the sequel about Hook.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Richardson. It’s an engaging story and I really enjoyed it and the development of the characters. It does deserve side-eyes for equating the plight of the blue-skinned people of Tennessee and the racism faced by Black people in the time period. The ending was unnecessarily melodramatic and a departure from the rest of the book.

My Rosebud Boy by Rainbow Rowell. Just a short official flower shop/tattoo artist AU on the Simon Snow trilogy. Not sure I’ll ever have enough tidbits of these two.

Women Talking by Miriam Toews. It certainly is A Choice to name a book “Women Talking” and have the first person narrator be a man, who interrupts and talks over and for the women, and who, at the end, I know more about than any other woman in the book. Shame because it was a great idea for a book.

Shark Heart by Emily Habeck. I still don’t know what I think about this book. Surreal and lyrical in places, weird in others.

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Synder. I appreciated the little nuggets of wisdom, but I think I was hoping for just a little more practical advice.

Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir by Pedro Martin. A fun memoir of a boy who travels down to Mexico with his family to bring back his grandfather. I’ve lived in Tucson when I was a kid and I have memories of crossing the border for weekends – what an absolutely different world it was just 30 years ago.

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff. This book was not for me. It’s supposed to be a “Hatchet” or “My Side of the Mountain” resilience story, only in a historical context (takes place in the 1700s in Jamestown). I was distracted for pages because of directions not making sense and rivers flowing in the wrong direction and how a malnourished girl could run for days without stopping and how winter just ended in 5 days and ice and snow pack disappeared in a day. There were some gorgeous sentences and I can see why others might have liked it.

*Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Bills by Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea. Audiobook. I loved every bit of this book. Judi and Brendan’s banter was adorable and I was just blown away by Judi’s memory and her ability to quote all of these passages from different plays. You could tell that she and Brendan are good friends. I listened to the audiobook and I didn’t realize until a few chapters in that it wasn’t Judi reading the book, but another actress because she sounded so much like her. Barbara Flynn’s vocal acting is superb. The last chapter is with Judi’s real voice and Brendan and she is just a fucking delight. What a treat.

*The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. Thoroughly enjoyed – it was just a fun book. I really loved the beginning of the book, where the expats were adjusting to their new roles.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. Book club book. It’s the first of a 4 book series that supposedly spans 60 years of friendship between the two main characters. There was a lot that I related to: being “the smart one”, having teenage crushes, etc, but the way that these two girls were pursued by men in their 20s and 30s was nauseating. Uncertain if I’ll read the rest of the series.

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston – a sweet romance, but honestly would have worked better if the protagonists were at least 10 years older. People in their 30s can also have romances.

*The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty. Audiobook. I’ve been wanting to read this one for ages and I’m so glad I did. A thoroughly enjoyable “pirate” adventure with an older ensemble of characters.

A Brilliant Night of Stars and Ice by Rebecca Connolly. A novel about the Titanic, told in part from the viewpoint of the captain of the Carpathia. Overall, a solid story, even if nearly half of it took place after the rescue, where not much happened. Although, if you’re going to have characters discussing about the mysteries of God, after a traumatic experience where over 1500 people were not miraculously rescued, it would be nice to have some exploration of doubt.

Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose. Interesting characters, an overall compelling plot and a twist at the end that I thought I saw coming and then talked myself out of (although I still don’t buy some of the character’s motivations).

Hot Earl Summer by Erica Ridley. The 5th book of The Wild Wynchesters). Fun characters as always, the plot was more than a little quirky. I still don’t know why they didn’t start sleeping together immediately when they both were expressing interest – could have been a great fringe-benefits to feelings trope.

*Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham (audiobook). It’s definitely a book to keep you up at night. I think the most troubling aspect of it was seeing the rampant Russian propaganda (and this was at a time when Gorbachev was at least talking about being more transparent) and how the current US government is parroting the same propaganda. It was also so terrifying to walk through how it could have been stopped if it wasn’t all run by government Yes Men. Excellent reporting and writing.

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros. I think I was about 50-100 pages in when I had the realization that this is truly Twilight with smut. Not that that’s a bad thing – sometimes you do just want the marshmallow read. I have no idea what the plot was.

*The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. This was an excellent read about Martha Ballard, a real life midwife back in colonial times. The setting was so atmospheric and it was just utterly engrossing. I also loved the (edited but real) journal entries.

Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett. What a wonderful ending to the trilogy. I loved all of the books so much.

Making It So by Patrick Stewart (audiobook). His voice is fantastic, I definitely recommend that if you are going to read it, go for the audiobook. He certainly lived an interesting life and I especially liked the earlier parts about his life growing up in extreme poverty. The parts in the middle dragged a bit with too much name-dropping and it could have been shortened by at least 3 hours. It also became evident that he could benefit from some therapy.

The Brightness Between Us by Eliot Schefer. The sequel to The Darkness Outside Us which blew me away when I read it a few years ago. I don’t think it needed a sequel but I enjoyed this one.

Confessions of a Forty-Something F##k Up by Alexandra Potter. I think I saw some chatter about it on booktok (or the facebook equivalent) when I decided to pick it up. It was enjoyable, Cricket was awesome, and I liked the focus on friendship (which was why I was a little disappointed by the ending, but I guess you can’t have a chick lit romance without being paired by the end).

James by Percival Everett. A retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the escaped enslaved person. Truth: I’ve never read Huck Finn (I read Tom Sawyer which I enjoyed well enough but not enough to read more), so I was coming at the story pretty blind. There was much that I loved, but there were plots that were so frustrating in story crafting that it hampered my enjoyment. Probably one of my biggest disappointments in reads for the year because it had been so highly recommended.

More Confessions of a Forty-Something F##k Up by Alexandra Potter. The sequel obviously. So we’ve now moved in to the era where the pandemic is being used as settings for books; I’m not sure how I feel about that. Cricket was still awesome in every way. The reason for the second-act conflict was at least unique, even if I felt like it was an issue that should have been addressed years before.

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang. Book club book – my choice because I had heard great things, but um. The author doesn’t trust her audience at all. Everything is heavy handed. Everything. The main protagonist is such a caricature of every stereotype imaginable. I guess it’s supposed to be satire, but it didn’t quite land there.

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H. An interesting and engrossing reflection on being Muslim and queer, with reinterpretation of the Quran – I loved the turning of scripture.

The Green Hills of Earth by Robert Heinlein. A bunch of short stories written in the 1950s about future space colonization of the moon, Mars, and Venus. I’m sure some of it was really progressive thinking at that time (like having a woman in space!), but falls flat now. Enjoyed the stories about adjusting to new planets.

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar. A gorgeously provocative fairy tale. I recommend the physical book, because the illustrations add to the story.

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker. When I become supreme ruler of the universe, I’m going to forbid male writers from describing women by their breasts or hips. I loved the deep friendship between the main characters forged from trauma – so beautiful!, but it employed some of my least favorite writing techniques: namely, ending every chapter on a cliff-hanger, and holding back information from the reader for big reveals.

Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom by Katherine Eban (audiobook). This may not have been the best book to be reading when you hear that the imbecilic government is defunding and dismantling the FDA, whose job in regulation of the world’s supply of drugs was virtually impossible before. I’m just so fucking angry. It was a very well written book and very disturbing and made me go and examine where each bottle of pills had been manufactured.

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik. I was in the mood for some escape fantasy and it was a fun book. Some day I’ll probably read the whole series but there are 9 books and I don’t do long series well anymore.

*If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio. This is not a perfect book. It’s slow in places. Some of the characterizations and plot do not make sense. And yet, it consumed me for days. It’s nerdy Shakespeare and theater and yearning.

*The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (audiobook read by Tatiana Maslany). I’ve been wanting to reread The Hunger Games since Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes came out, so with a release of another book in the series, this seemed like a good time. Plus the 10th year edition audiobooks are read by the Tatiana of Orphan Black and that’s definitely the way to experience these books again. Her voice work is so good – not only were the characters separate from each other, but the pacing, the slight hitches or pauses in the narration just added so many layers. I felt like I was there.

A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn. It took at least half of the book to even get to the mystery, but it picked up after that. You’ve got a plucky heroine who ashews cultural expectations, an escape to the circus, and a fake marriage. It was enjoyable and I’m planning on reading more from the series.

And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou. I realized recently that I’ve never read any of her work, and what a better time to start than National Poetry month, and there’s a reason why we are talking about her writing, because it is beautiful and moving.

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin. I liked the alternating timelines but I had some difficulty keeping characters apart, and at the end, I honestly had no idea how the murderer was related. It definitely had a gothic feel to it and left with some unanswered questions so I’m probably going to read the sequel.

Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez. I think Abby has transitioned from romance to more women’s fiction with a side of romance, because this one was definitely on the heavier side. It was still an engaging, fast read.

*Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbottom. I was one of the million school age children who were traumatized by watching Challenger explode on tv and I’ve always been fascinated/horrified by it. My grandpa worked at Thiokal so I was aware of the O rings and their failure but I had no idea about the whistleblowers and those who had vainly tried to prevent Challenger from taking off that morning. It’s a fascinating listen (same narrator as Adam’s other book Midnight in Chernobyl), and even though I knew exactly what was going to happen, it was told so well that I had half a hope that it could be different. I highly recommend listening to the two books back to back.

Still, The Sky by Tom Pearson. I picked this up because of National Poetry Month. It’s series of narrative poems from the perspective of Icarus and the Minotaur. There was some really lush language and I loved the structure of the poems (other reviews tell me its Sapphic verse), but I didn’t know who was at the center of each poem and I was very easily lost. There’s an audiobook performance that I’m interested in checking out.

Bluets by Maggie Nelson. A meditative prose/poetry book on life and loss through the color blue. It was beautiful.

Starfish by Lisa Fipps. Middle grade was mean and I’m so glad I never have to go back. I thought the “beat poetry’ format worked really well for the story.

A Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourn. The second book of the “Veronica Speedwell Mystery” series. Thoroughly enjoyable, but man what a slow burn!

*Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green. I really like John Green’s nonfiction books. While not quite as engaging as Anthropocene Reviewed, it’s very informative and personal. And also exceedingly depressing knowing that through the loss of USAID, we’ve just condemned millions more people to die from this horrific disease.

Girls Made of Glass and Snow by Melissa Bashardoust. A Snow White retelling, sort of like Maleficent, with the focus on the relationship between the stepmother and Snow White.

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn. Book club read. An “action movie” type of book, only with women in their 60s who are trying to retire from being assassins, only their old organization is intent on killing them. Enjoyable, definitely needs to become a movie – we had fun discussing which older women should be cast for each role.

Love at Second Sight by F.T. Lukens. I really don’t read YA anymore, but FT Lukens is the exception. It was enjoyable and funny, if not as developed as some of their other books, and the characters were at least a year too young to be believable. Well, no, the arguments and drama definitely fit with that age, it was just the rest of the plot that needed them older. The friendships with the group was definitely the best part.

Captive Prince, Prince’s Gambit, Kings Rising by C.S. Pacat. I’ve seen these books and fanart on social media forever, so finally borrowed them from the library and read them over a weekend. Captive Prince was definitely the weakest of the books and if it hadn’t ended basically in the middle of the plot, I probably wouldn’t have continued on. They did get better and the conclusion was satisfactory, but I can’t say I really recommend them, however, I can see why they were so popular.

The Dark Lord’s Daughter by Patricia Wrede. It’s not as good as the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, but it’s a charming story where a modern girl gets stuck in a fantasy setting. Her computer becoming her familiar was the best part. I think it’ll get better as the series progresses.

*The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge. I honestly had no idea what kind of story I expected this to be, but the language was lush and rich and the story was very compelling and dreamy.

Magic Kingdom for Sale by Terry Brooks. I loved these books as a young adult and I picked it back up as a whim. It didn’t hold quite up to my memory (why is an American waxing poetically about the superiority of a monarch?) but I think I’ll revisit the rest of the series.

Can You Keep a Secret by Sophie Kinsella. Not my type of book, because I honestly don’t know women who are so judgemental about the designer of other’s clothes and there was so much second hand embarrassment from the main character which had me squirming. Also, in this day and age, I’m less interested in “the billionaire owner loves me!” types of stories. It’s sad to hear about the author’s death though.

Rewitched by Lucy Jane Ward. Enjoyable, cozy fantasy, but honestly, rather forgettable. I did like the older mentor whose solution to everything was to have a big feast.

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. (audiobook and book club book). This really is a must read, to see how the last 70+ years was a set-up and an ushering of Donald Trump and the propaganda reality we are in now. That said, I didn’t particularly like the narrator – she had a tendency of pausing for quotes and Kristin Kobes Du Mez used a lot of quotations, so it was very irregular in pacing.

*Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy. I adored this book. Yes, it most likely existed as either fanfic first (or was heavily inspired by those fandoms), but it really was the best of fanfic: twisted tropes, enemies to friends to something more, unrequited pining. I can’t wait for the second book.

The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez. I’ve liked pretty much all of the books I’ve read by this author, but this one by far has been my least favorite and has made me hesitant in picking up the other two books in the series. I will rant more in the comments if you wish.

*Uncommon Measures by Natalie Hodges. Libby does a “Big Library Read” every year and this was the book for this year. I really enjoyed it. It’s a memoir by a Korean American woman who had trained to be a violin soloist, using physics and neuroscience and music as metaphors and exploration. It was really beautiful.

Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn. This definitely did not end up being the book that I thought it was going to be. The magical realism played a much smaller part of the story than I thought it would. Still, the exploration of Hawaiian mythology and what does home mean and how do you connect to a home that has been so completely colonized were very resonate.

*Everything is Tuberculosis. The audiobook version popped up on Libby after I finished reading the ebook. John Green is a fantastic narrator (not surprising). In the three weeks between the two readings, we learned about how cuts to funding closed clinics throughout Africa and I am even more despondent.

Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Maehrer – one of my knitting group recommended this book. It’s silly (yes, yes, you don’t really have feelings for each other) and the plot was engaging.

One Night in Hartwood by Emma Denny. I bought the ebook over a year ago and decided to finally read it for Pride month. Lots of yearning and angst, but very little happened for the majority of the book. There’s a sequel (and will probably be a trilogy).

Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Maehrer – sequel to above. It’s a solid middle book with silly plots and lots of yearning.

A Gentleman’s Gentleman by TJ Alexander. Another Pride read about a trans man in a Regency setting. Again, there wasn’t a lot of action in the book, but I was surprised by the twist reveal of a character’s identity.

This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel. The first couple of chapters, where in a flashback, the MFC is describing how she and her husband dated – where she was a resident and he would work in the ED waiting room so they could see each other on break and eat forgettable food and then he took her home and let her sleep and then made her food was the most romantic scene I’ve ever read. Ever. I swooned. And the interactions with them as parents with their kids was believable and charming and almost made me reconsider my child-free stance (almost). And then there were other parts that fell a little flat (like the MFC, a doctor, freaking out about hormone blockers years before her daughter would need them).

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plan to Take Over America and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan. Audiobook. You just need to switch KKK for MAGA and it’s a ringer for what’s going on today. It’s a troubling and engrossing read, but I’ll admit, I was a little disappointed at the way the woman “took them down” as I doubt it would work to take down our latter-day MAGA plague.

Dear Mothman by Robin Gow – aw, this was a sweet middle grade book about a trans kid and finding acceptance.

The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas. I thought the first half was boring and way too much like the Hunger Games without any real consequences. It got better after that.

Icarus by K. Ancrum. I’ve had this one on my to-read list for a long time because I love modern retellings and the myth of Icarus is one of my favorites. I loved the friendships throughout the book, I’m not sure that the chemistry between Icarus and his love interest was really that believable, but I loved the twisting of the myth throughout.

*Every Summer After by Carley Fortune. I want to spend my summers on a lake falling for the boy next door. I loved the flashbacks of them falling in love, which was better than when they were adults. My one peeve: Delilah was done so wrong and I’m mad that the reconciliation happened off screen.

How to Seal Your Own Fate by Kristin Perrin – the sequel to How to Solve Your Own Murder. I realized when I picked up this book, that although it’s only been a few months since I read the first book, I had already forgotten how the murderer was. The switch between modern day and old diaries still worked well.

Network Effect by Martha Wells. Audiobook. I drove out to Utah and back and listened to more Murderbot on the drive. This was really long (especially after the novellas) and I slept through at least an hour of it, but I really enjoy Kevin Free’s voice. And I loved Murderbot and ART’s “relationship.” as well as Amina’s and Murderbot (teenagers!).

Fugitive Telemetry by Marth Wells. Audiobook. The listen on the way back. It felt jarringly out of order. I feel like I should have listened to Systems Collapse instead to complete the story line.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy. Random friend posted about this and it sounded really intriguing. The setting was so atmospheric, I literally felt like I was on the edge of the world, but it also was unrealistic (I get that climate change is accelerating in this sometime in the future, but the changes described were too rapid to be believable) and I was really disappointed by the ending.

*The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong. I don’t know how I first stumbled on this book (it may have been recommended here as “cozy fantasy.” I really enjoyed it. It felt a little like the Monk and Robot stories, in that it’s a story of a peddler on the road having some small adventures, and I loved how the characters were introduced and became integrated together. It’s charming.

*Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (audiobook). You know, I don’t think I’ve reread Catching Fire since the first time I devoured it in a 5 hours plane ride (I’ve seen the movies), so there was a lot that I had forgotten, particularly before the Quarter Quell. I loved it as much as I did the first time. And again, Tatiana Maslany makes the book come alive – her voice acting is so incredible.

Melt With You by Jennifer Dugan. It was okay. I really struggled to engage with it – it’s not that there was anything really wrong with it, but at one point, I realized that I was rooting for the MC to just ditch the “ex best friend she’s pining over” and hook up with a random girl introduced that chapter.

Blood over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang. Some of the reviews said that if you loved R.F. Kuang’s writing, you’d love this story, and maybe that’s why, in spite of some incredible world building and a unique magic system, I was disappointed in the story. It was, just like Yellowface, so heavy handed in the lessons that you were supposed to learn about sexism and classism and racism. I would have liked it much better if the author had trusted her readers with the story she was telling, instead of hitting you on the head repeatedly. (It’s also made me realize that as interesting as Babel and The Poppy Wars sound, I’m probably wise to just avoid RFK’s works for now).

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Gann (audiobook). Overall, a really engaging story about an event in history that I knew nothing about (but apparently inspired authors like Herman Melville and Alfred Lord Tennyson). There was some odd pacing choices in the book with what the author chose to focus on, and it should have been longer to really get into the return and the subsequent trial. The narrator, Dion Graham was excellent – it’s my second book of his that I’ve listened to and he has such a nice cadence to his voice.

Celestial Monsters by Aiden Thomas. Sequel to The Sunbearer Trials. Not as good as the first book unfortunately. The plot was tedious, the split first person perspective diluted any character development.

System Collapse by Martha Wells (audiobook). I finally finished the Murderbot series! I think, if I were to go back, I’d read Fugitive Telemetry before Network Effect, because having the change in chronology was really jarring. I do love how Martha just keeps hammering down about how evil corporations can be. I listened to this and then watched the Murderbot tv series – Kevin Free will always be my preferred voice for Murderbot.

*The Incandescent by Emily Tesh. Highly enjoyed this novel about a teacher at a British magic school. I loved the aspects that focused on the administration demands of teaching (felt realistic), and I also loved the magic system and how it caused tension. I was not invested in the love story, and the ending felt a little rushed.

The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer. If you’ve read Braiding Sweetgrass, there really isn’t anything new here, but Dr. Kimmerer has a lyrical way of making you care about the way you interact with nature and how it interacts with you. The illustrations were beautiful.

*This Summer with be Different by Carley Fortune. After reading Every Summer After last month, Becky recommended this one as it was her second favorite Carley Fortune book. It gave me finger tingles and swoony feelings and Felix is the best book boyfriend. I also adored the friendship between Bridget and Lucy. My petty annoyances:
1-Lucy insisting on carrying Bridget’s luggage at the airport because she’s 6 weeks pregnant – this author has kids!!! She should know better.
2- Lucy’s clothes. Who the hell goes to visit the country and only has flimsy sandals when they are climbing rocks? And wears nightgowns?
3- the point about Bridget not wearing underwear with her wedding dress was so bizarre and random that I just stared at that page for a while.

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry. Emily Henry’s books always make me yearn for a deep intimacy, where that person knows you better than anybody. She definitely knows writers better than medical residents. It was better than Happy Place. But the secondary characters had no personality and the whole premise and mystery made no sense. It felt a lot like it was lifted from The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or The Thirteenth Tale with the mysterious old woman telling her story. Where were the women in her past?

My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan. Becks also convinced me to sign up for a read-along where we read the book in 3 parts and Julia answered questions and read a bit on a zoom call. This is my first book that I’ve listened to of Julia’s and I can see why she is so highly regarded as a narrator – seriously, she is so good as a voice actor. All of the emotions, all of the accents were really well done. And hearing about some of the background behind the book and its creation was really interesting. The book has some fantastic reflections of grief and love and death that were really profound and interesting. That being said, I thought the actual story was weak. There was a political side plot that I absolutely abhorred. I was annoyed by most of the side characters. The trailer for the Netflix movie looks awful – the book is actually a novelization of a screenplay that has since been adapted and produced, so it’s not exactly the same as the book.

P.S. I Hate You by Lauren Connolly. Another recommendation by Becky. It included a reference to bioluminescent areolas. And a neurologist who had to go in for an emergency surgery (I don’t need a medical editor, I just need better googling skills). I overall liked the book, although it’s interesting that it was another romance-novel-about-death. And contrary to the majority of reviews, it was not too spicy. I’ve felt for a while that these modern romances were lacking heaving bosoms and unabashed horniness and this felt like a rectification.

*You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson. I read their Lord of the Butterflies last year and really loved it, so after their death this summer, I was craving more of their poetry. Andrea had a way of seeing all of the pain and horror of life, but also seeing its beauty too. They will be missed.

*Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. The completion of the Hunger Games. Wow, I had forgotten the majority of this book, such as Katniss going out to the different districts. It’s true that it’s not quite as strong as the other books, but the last 1/4 still made me cry (the scene with Buttercup!). And again, Tatiana Maslany is just a brilliant narrator. She needs to be reading all of the books.

Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis. An enjoyable book about a dark wizard who lost his memories and decides maybe he doesn’t want to be evil.

The Situationship by Abby Jimenez. Short story that takes place in the Part of Your World series. I had forgotten about all of these characters.

*Kills Well With Others by Deanna Raybourn. The sequel to Killers of a Certain Age. I think I liked this one even better, as it didn’t require as much set-up. I have no doubt that there will be more books.

A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna. I really loved her first novel and this was equally enjoyable. Lots of fun secondary characters. The very definition of a cozy fantasy.

Magdalene: Poems by Marie Howe. She won the Pulitzer this year and of course that book of poetry had a wait list weeks long, so I checked out this one instead. There were some breath-taking lines of poetry that really resonated, and a bunch that fell completely flat. (I also think I wasn’t Catholic enough to understand them.)

The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses by Malka Older. I think this will be the last book of the series that I read (if she writes more), because while I love the setting and the mysteries, I am so beyond done with the “romance” between Mossa and Pleiti. You are f*cking adults. Communicate. Your. Concerns. To. Your. Partner. Which makes me sad, because I’m interested in the reveal that Earth may have been reseeded and what does that mean.

School of Shards by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko. The last book of the Vita Nostra trilogy. While not as good and as mind-blowing as the first book, it was a great conclusion to the series. I’m already itching to reread them all. I highly highly recommend this series to anybody wanting a magical education system that incorporates philosophy and grammar in a brooding Russian setting.

Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune. Not as good as This Summer will be Different, and the last 1/4 rather fell apart, but I enjoyed the escapism.

Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocomb. The premise was really interesting, about a young Black scholar discovering that his musical composer ideal may not have composed the works that he said he did. I loved the main characters, I loved the way that music was portrayed. The “villains” got a little cartoonish at the end, but the way the story was revealed throughout was excellent.

Birding With Benefits by Sarah T. Dubb. The premise was silly but still an enjoyable read about finding yourself in middle age. Plus birds. It made me want to go birding. Just not in Tucson in the middle of summer, thank you.

Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich by Norman Ohler. A fascinating look at how methamphetamine (developed by Merck) and cocaine were used throughout Nazi Germany, both soldiers and officers. I also learned about Hitler’s personal doctor and how he created concoctions of pig liver and pancreas which Hilter took daily and may have lead to his cognitive decline in the last few years of life. I’m not sure how much of it is accurate, but it was definitely thought-provoking.

A Dark and Secret Magic by Wallis Kinney. A magical witchy tale inspired by Hades and Persephone. The atmosphere was spot on, the descriptions of food made me hungry (and there’s recipes at the end!). The secondary characters didn’t get much depth, unfortunately, and the plot was a little thin in parts.

Bridge to Terabitha by Katherine Patterson. I loved this book so much as a kid, so when it showed up on my library’s libby page, I eagerly checked it out again (and Jacob Have I Loved). It’s still a lovely and powerful book and I still cried. I’m not sure that a teacher randomly driving a 10 year old student to a museum an hour away would fly today, and I definitely did not notice all of the fatphobia and subtle homophobia before. But the magic of Terabitha and the hot shocking grief still ring true.

*Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Patterson. I think this is my favorite of her books – Louisa is such a prickly heroine. I love how both this book and Bridge to Terabithia push back on gender norms and expectations.

*One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune. Her books are the perfect end-of-summer read of nostalgia and I loved the main characters and Nan. I had some quibbles, but they didn’t detract from enjoying the book.

August Blue by Deborah Levy (book club book, audiobook). An interesting premise: a woman keeps noticing another woman while she is visiting different places in Europe (Greece, France, England) and becomes mildly obsessed with her. It’s a short book, and it still felt too long. The reveal of the woman was, honestly, disappointing and I’m not sure we’re ready for COVID books. That said, there were also some really interesting themes about family (especially adoption) and failure.

*Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt. I have such vivid memories of reading this series when I was a young teenager and it was lovely revisiting them. I don’t think Dicey and her siblings would have survived on today’s prices. I remembered quite a bit of the story and I just love the way she describes water as almost another character.

Goldilocks: Wanted Dead or Alive by Chris Colfer. The artist for the comics was not as good as his usual illustrator, and honestly it didn’t add much to the universe.

Tonight We Rule the World by Zack Smedley. It’s contemporary YA which really isn’t a genre I read anymore, but it was beautifully written. There are some very complex, nuanced characters in this book and it’s a pretty deep subject matter.

New and Selected Poems by Marie Howe. This won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Her poems about the death of her brother were sensational – so engrossing and you could just feel her grief. Her other poems didn’t hit me quite as hard. As with Magadalene, I felt that because I’m not Catholic, I couldn’t quite get what she was saying.

Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne. I was looking for something fun and this hit the mark about a queen’s guard and a magician setting up a bookshop. It’s a series and I’m so bad about reading on in the series.

*Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt. There are some scenes in the book that I remember so vividly, like the scene where Gran tells Dicey that she has to wear a shirt and the shopping mall. It’s a great book and still holds up, although now as an adult, I don’t know why her mom dies in the end. I still love this book, one of my favorites of the series.

The Women by Kristen Hannah. I loved the plot and the characters, particularly the portrayal of the war in Vietnam; it really was very immersive and you thought you were there in the frontline. That being said, I found the writing a lot more simplistic than expected? It was my first Kristen Hannah and some parts were rather breezy for the plot.

A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt. A romance between a nearly 17 year old and a 13 year old doesn’t hold up as well these days, even if it is just budding and doesn’t become anything more and Dicey is mature for her age. I adored the secondary character of the Bishop and his loss of faith.

Seventeen Against the Dealer by Cynthia Voigt. My library doesn’t have the ebooks of the other three books in the series, so I skipped to the last. Again, its age shows in the subplot where Dicey, barely 21, is talking about getting engaged and married, which just is not a plot that you see at all anymore (for good reason). And I know that the author was trying to tell a moral story about Dicey’s failings in not being aware of her family and their problems or blindly trusting people, but reading it as an adult, I can’t say that I really see those as flaws. She was aware of her family, she spent dinner with them every night. She had made a close relationship with Cisco, of course she would trust him after working with him for nearly 2 months. Anyway, I saw a review stating that they thought that Cisco was Dicey’s dad and I can really see that. I honestly wish that I could have had more books of the Tillerman family.

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore (audiobook). The subject was fascinating, the way that these women fought for justice for years while in severe pain and dying was brutal to listen to. That said, I thought it dragged in places. and it annoyed me that the author kept referring to them as “girls” even though they were in the mid-20-30s.

Accomplice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer. I thought it was a trilogy. It is not a trilogy. There was so much exposition for so late in the series, and even so, there wasn’t enough to explain the ending. There were also too many POVs.

A Waltz on the Wild Side by Erica Ridley. The last book of the Winchesters, and unfortunately, probably my least favorite. And the whole reason was because suddenly, the FMC had a trained badger and tarantula that she would whip out. Why? Who knows. That seemed to carry through the rest of the book. On the only hand, the one and only sex scene was probably my favorite of the series. So a mixture of reactions!

Mr Collins in Love by Lee Welch. A queer re-imagining of Mr Collin’s character from Pride & Prejudice if he was gay and autistic. It was sweet, but it ended too soon.

Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher. Carrying on her tradition of twisted fairy tales (this one of a mix of Snow White, but also Snow White and Rose Red), this was perfectly creepy and original with just a touch of romance. My only quibble was that I felt like she kept forgetting that it was set in a desert.

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. I have no idea how I feel about this book. It’s beautifully written – you can just picture the sparse landscape through, but I had a hard time believing the narrator. I loved the slow development of friendship and community between these women and the probing question of what makes you human when you’re all alone. I’m still thinking about it.

The Summer War by Naomi Novik. I think it would have been better as a full length novel, but it was certainly enjoyable. I really loved the family relationship between Celia and her brothers as well as her father.

*Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed. One of my favorite books I read this year. Maybe it’s because I read The Six last year about the first female astronauts and Challenger this year, but I inhaled this book and just loved every moment of it. So good.

Holes by Louis Sachar. Reread because I found out that there was a sequel. It was shorter than I remembered, but the way all of the different storylines tied together is still brilliant.

Small Steps by Loius Sachar. It wasn’t as good as Holes, but it was still a fun story with engaging characters.

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix. I’m not a horror fan, so I probably wouldn’t have read it if not for my friend challenge. Definitely creepy and at times gory.

*A Walk In the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon by Kevin Fedarko. Audiobook. Listened to this driving down from Utah to Arizona – we finished the epilogue just as my parents dropped me off at the airport to fly back. Funny, engaging, informative, emotional – this was a fantastic “travelogue.” Kevin did an incredible job describing the harsh and awesome wonder of the Grand Canyon as well as his (somewhat naive and foolish) attempt to hike the entire canyon. I especially appreciated all of the insights in to the Native populations who have lived along the canyon all along. I enjoyed it so much that when we stopped at Navajo Bridge at Lee’s Ferry, I bought the hardcover so I could see all of the gorgeous photos that Pete had taken. Pete also published a coffeebook of his photos that I’m seriously considering buying, even though it’s expensive.

*The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad. I don’t really read self help books but I found the review at NPR intriguing. This was a beautiful book. I used to journal a lot on paper and online but I haven’t in over 10 years and I am always drawn to the journals at book stores, and this made me yearn for those days. The essays were real and poignant and I loved so many of the prompts. I borrowed this from the library, but I think I want a physical copy of it.

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. Reread (one of many). I find this book so enchanting and such a unique take on the Cinderella story, although I was much more aware of the main character’s age and the young romance this time around. Still, a favorite (don’t watch the movie).

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. It took me months to read this one and I’m still conflicted about it. It would have been So! Much! Better! if the author hadn’t made the main character 16. It takes place at a college! She behaves like a college student! It wasn’t needed and it was distracting and annoying. I also struggled with “Arthurian legend in the United States” although that came together better by the end. The literal black girl magic was awesome and unique and I’m sure this will become more of a focus in the future books.

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty. Friend recommendation. A very unique take on some arabian myths and legends. I’m not sure what to make of the ending, but it is a trilogy, so maybe it’ll make more sense soon.

Cinder House by Freya Marske. Another fairy tale retelling. A completely unique retelling of Cinderella (with some Sleeping Beauty threads as well). I enjoyed this – definitely with Freya’s writing style. My only quibble is that it could be just a touch longer, but I think where she leaves it, it could be developed into more stories (as I mentioned there are hints of Sleeping Beauty). Unlike Ella Enchanted, this one is definitely for adults (no barely 16 year olds getting married!). I enjoyed the queer romance and only wish that there had been just more when Ella was corporal.

Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons Withe Racism in Medicine by Uche Blackstock. Audiobook. A poignant memoir, with a close examination of racism throughout medicine- I especially loved her stories about her mother as a physician in Brooklyn. I think it’s approachable enough for the general public.

The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry. A lovely book about grief and family. I thought the magical realism fit really well with the story. There’s a twist at the end that I did not see coming.

A Tale of Two Castles by Gail Carson Levine. One of her YA books (it’s really closer to middle grade) that I hadn’t read before. She really didn’t know what kind of story she was writing so it took a while for the plot to develop, but it was a cute mystery.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. As I hadn’t read any of Shirley Jackson’s works besides The Lottery, Halloween sounded like a good time to pick it up. Eleanor was such an unreliable narrator and so hot and cold about all of the characters she interacted with, that I’m still not sure what exactly happened. I also had not expected it to be so intimately queer – Eleanor’s relationship that was developing with Theo was so interesting.

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods. A sweet novel about a secret bookstore, but ultimately forgettable (two months after finishing it, I can’t remember the ending.)

Mate by Ali Hazelwood. Choosing to set your story about werewolves in northwestern Washington is certainly a brave choice. But I really could go with never reading about knotting again. I also thought the motivation to keep the two main characters apart was meh at best.

Flip by Ngozi Ukazu. I struggled with the first bit, because it was sometimes hard to tell when the main characters were each other, but then by the middle, it had morphed into this really lovely story about identity and falling in love with yourself.

*Katabasis by R.F. Kuang. So so so much better than Yellowface. Academia as Hell felt right on point and I liked the different explorations of different cultures beliefs in hell or the afterlife. I enjoyed the characters and how their relationship changed throughout.

Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan. A lovely story weaving three characters lives together around different events of recent history. The ending was a touch too tidy, even for a middle grade book.

A Study of Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas. There were two flaws – one, I thought this was an Enola Holmes book, so I was a mite confused at the beginning, and two, I had already read a book series about a strong-headed Victorian woman who solves murders (the Veronica Speedwell novels). I think these would benefit from me revisiting them. The background aching flirtations were some of my favorite parts.

*The Night Circus by Erin Morgensteen. Beautiful. Everything about it was beautiful. I loved everything about this book. Magical and dreamlike. It felt like I had everything that I wanted in The Starless Sea: atmosphere and intersecting characters, plus the plot to pull the story forward, which I felt fell apart in the last half of Starless Sea – I didn’t feel that here. It’s definitely a slow-build, so I understand why others weren’t as enchanted.

Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore. Somebody said that this was their favorite book they read this year, so of course, I had to read it. It was not mine. I didn’t buy the romance between the main characters, I didn’t understand why the dead husband was lingering around. That being said, the Jewish rituals and exploration of gender from that perspective were so well done.

Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree. The first book didn’t need a series, but it was enjoyable. And the thieving goblin gal was my favorite.

The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow. I have very mixed feelings about this book. I can see why everybody loved it and I should have loved it, especially since it incorporated different POVs (second person?? gimme!) and the writing was lyrical, but it fell flat. The “rewinding of the story” with the time travel got old and I was bored through a bunch of it.

Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May. This was a sequel of sorts to Wintering which I read last year – that book was better, although there were some lovely chapters. I just didn’t think it achieved what the subtitle alluded to.

*Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson (audiobook). This was such a good book, exploring the connection between the caste systesm in India, Germany, and the US, and how that has influenced expectations of how different people should act and behave, more than race or ethnicity. Really well researched.

Tilt by Emma Pattee (book club book). It’s a novel about a woman’s experience after the big Portland earthquake that is supposed to happen at any time now. I should not have read this as my bedtime story. Gave me nightmares. Hey, who wants to have an emergnecy prepareness outing?

What to Do When I’m Gone by Suzy Hopkins and Hallie Bateman. Really lovely little book of some letters that a mother wrote her daughter.

The Mother Code by Carole Stevens. Well. It’s a premise where the US creates a pandemic that kills all of the humans on earth, except for a few children who are immune and raised by robots that had been programmed to act like mothers. There were not enough female characters.

*The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. I did not know what to make of this book when I first started reading it, but by around 1/3 into it, the different story lines started to weave together, and I absolutely loved it. It’s a beautiful exploration of a recent history that I knew little about with some very interesting perspectives.

The Favorites by Layne Fargo. It took me way too long to figure out that this was a literal modern Wuthering Heights retelling, rather just an “inspired by” novel. I can’t say that the soap opera “behind the scenes” montages were my favorite, but if you’ve ever been completely absorbed by ice dancing and imagined that Tessa and Scott were secretly dating, this is the book for you.

A Thousands Ships by Natalie Hayes. Primarily telling the story of the war between the Greeks and the Trojans from the perspective of the women involved. It was fascinating (even if I still struggled to keep them all separate) and there was still too much focus on the male characters!

Game Changer by Rachel Reid. Yes, I fell in love with Heated Rivalry like half the country. So of course I had to read the books. The only reason to read this is so you can realize how much better written Heated Rivalry is (and then to also realize that Jacob Tierney is a god because he took both of these books and made a perfect story). It wasn’t bad, but the writing was stilted and lacked emotion and I honestly got bored with the sex scenes. It’s only 90k words and it took me a week to read it. The ending was perfect though.

*Take Me With You by Andrea Gibson. I just can’t get enough of their poetry and I’m so sad that we (collectively) are going to have to.

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid. I am so so glad that Jacob Tierney found this series inspirational, because if the roles were reversed, none of us would have experienced the joint dreamy hallucination that this last month has been because I would never have had turned it into a series. I’m also glad because Jacob really expanded the emotional connection between Shane and Ilya than what was presented here in the book. Opening the book reading how much Shane “hated” Ilya and was disturbed about their affair (so much self loathing!) still in 2016, was rather shocking after watching the series on repeat, absorbing all of their micro expressions. It definitely got better and I adored everything that happened at The Cottage, but I didn’t experience the kicky feet and swooning that I did with the show. Maybe it would have been different if I hadn’t seen the show first? (Although honestly, if it hadn’t been for the show, I never would have read beyond Game Changer).

In short, this is an example where the movie (or tv series as it is) is better than the book, but the tv series was also faithful and expansive to the books in a way that I haven’t seen before. And this is an example of a review that’s more about the tv series than the book – ha!

The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides. What a fascinating look at a very controversial figure (James Cook) and his last voyage that ended up with him being killed – it’s well researched and non-apologetic. It did drag in places.

Coffeeshop in an Alternative Universe by CB Lee. Sappy and overly earnest, but I loved the friend groups.