One of the trends I see on social media is ADHD. Since the Pandemic, especially, many adults have been diagnosed with ADHD (especially women) and they are coming to terms with these diagnoses with memes, reels, articles, and books. Yes, the book market has risen to the challenge, and I find myself suddenly overwhelmed by…
May I be so bold? It’s a no, thank you. Here’s the rub: Native voices and Native perspectives are really important to me, have been for my entire life and I consider them to be woefully underrepresented. So, there is no way I am going to tell you not to read Wandering Stars by Tommy…
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep began a series of disappointing books that I would read from March into April. While there are things to like about this book, especially for old-style bookworms, the writing is often confusing and distracting and the book is entirely too long. I enjoyed reading it, despite its many faults,…
I had quite a wild ride with Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo. It is not a long book but I went in knowing next to nothing and it took some time for me to acclimate to the setting and the style and the structure. And then I was tempted to DNF the book but…
I couldn’t help but like Angeline Boulley’s Firekeeper’s Daughter. It ticked some enormous, interest boxes for me, so even if it was just okay, I would have been engaged. But it was better than okay. It’s a good read and a well-done YA thriller (light on the thriller but heavy on the YA). I enjoyed…
I know that technically Easter will have passed by the time it’s April this year (by one day), but that’s not normal, so it’s no wonder I missed it when I was writing the What to Read in March blog. I suppose it doesn’t matter much, anyway, as I have almost no books to recommend…
Do you like cultural satire? Do you like absurdism? How about the 1980s? How about existential musings? Don’t mind it when there isn’t much of a plot? Yet dramatic things happen? If this is you, run don’t walk to read White Noise by Don DeLillo, if you haven’t already. I mean, it’s been around since…
There is a list of reasons why readers think Stay True by Hua Hsu should not have won the Pulitzer (memoir). I think the most compelling (if also backwards) of those reasons is that the award builds expectations that this book cannot live up to. If it didn’t have that Pulitzer hanging over its head,…
Let me tell you, defending my opinion about this book at book club—despite the gal way across the circle who was one-hundred percent with me—got heated. Literally, my face was super hot, uncomfortably hot. Some people really love this book, turns out, and are willing to contradict anything I say in order to defend it.…
I’m not sure that A Long Petal of the Sea is Isabel Allende’s most lauded work. I have been meaning to read her, but I started here only because it was a book club thing. This is one of Allende’s more recent books (2019, out of the 28 listed on her site; she’s published four…
I wasn’t sure about this one by Jennifer Moorman because it’ didn’t really grab me. It wasn’t the characters, story, or setting, which were all cute right from the get-go, but the writing style. However, because I had an ARC in hand and wanted to give it a fair shot, I read on… until I…
It is the month for St. Patty’s Day and it is the month for the Oscars. It’s also just another month, the third month of 2024, and a time when we’ll still be book-clubbing and TBR reading and noticing a few of the new books. As for Irish literature in honor of St. Patty’s Day…
A truly strange book, The Seep by Chana Porter is extremely short (for long-form) science fiction. In fact, it’s really a novella and has small pages, large margins, and space between the lines. And really, I suppose, the book itself isn’t that strange, but the feeling while reading it is of being among strangeness. It…
I really enjoyed Little Thieves by Margaret Owen. I enjoyed it so much that I didn’t even notice it was first person, present tense until I was practically done reading it, which is a testament to when that very thing works for YA. First-person is the most popular POV these days for YA and present…
A book club read, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell is another great read of 2024, for me. I’m even going to call it a favorite. It has little things (and one big thing) wrong with it, but overall, it is an amazing book that deserves book club reads and awards and whatnot. It helps that I…
Valentines Day is a couple weeks away. Some of you will choose to ignore this holiday, and that’s one way to do it. Others of you will take the opportunity to put a wreath of hearts on your door, make a reservation at a fancy restaurant, and curl up with some chocolates and a good…
I felt like I was doing cartwheels while reading Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, and I mean that in a good way. Or like I was watching Garmus do cartwheels. Her writing style, characters, and plot are so free-wheeling. The subject matter is often sad, serious, and even brutal, but somehow this book is…
Mothman’s Curse by Christine Hayes is a fun, little, middle grades read and I would definitely recommend it for MG readers (maybe even late elementary school) who like mysteries and spooky stuff. It is somewhere in the neighborhood of Scooby Doo but with tween and younger protagonists, but when reading that level of creepy in…
Oh boy. I might catch it for even reviewing (or reading) this series. And I might catch it for what I have to say about it, by a completely different readership. I probably shouldn’t have even bothered and avoided both forms of angry customers, but I have read and I have judged accordingly and there’s…
I kinda wish The Truth About Horses by Christy Cashman wasn’t titled The Truth About Horses. And I also wish the cover were different. Though it almost looks self-pubbed and the title is lackluster and maybe even cheesy, the book is pretty solid. Despite some rather specific things I will find to complain about, overall…
the starving artist 