FOR THE LOVE OF READING

I’ve gone through phases with my reading – sometimes I devour books at an extreme pace, three a week, and sometimes it takes me a full month to read a single book.  This is not a unique experience, nor is my identifying it revolutionary at all.

I’ve been a reader for as far back as I can remember.  My mom always tells the story of me and my sister memorizing one of the Angelina Ballerina books basically as early as we could talk, and I guess I never stopped picking up books.  I used to practically live in the library – I would bring a bag and take home as many books as I was physically allowed to on my library card, only to come back the next week, already having finished those books.  I was lucky enough to grow up in a town that has a really good public library system, and I never found myself wishing for a better selection.  I pretty much never had to reread books (although of course I did, because who doesn’t love rereading books?).

Being someone who read so much at such a young age, especially with all of the adults telling me that I was reading so far above my grade level, I developed a bit of a superiority complex about how well read I was (and let’s be honest, I still have that superiority complex).  That meant that I was reading books at far too young – I remember being in sixth grade reading an adult book that had very adult scenes (I vividly recall reading some of the pages aloud in the locker rooms as me and the other eleven year old girls in my gym class got changed).  I don’t necessarily think that middle schoolers shouldn’t be reading books from the adult section, and I had a very healthy relationship with my parents so I could ask them questions about things I maybe didn’t understand.  However, so much of what I was reading went straight over my head.

I was reading all of these dark and heavy books, and it only got worse as I got into high school.  There’s nothing wrong with dark and heavy books – some of them are my favorites still.  I actually had a conversation with my roommate the other day about how I rarely read happy books (but maybe that’s something to bring up with a therapist, not in a blog post).  The books themselves wasn’t the issue – the issue was the attitude I developed about it.  I suddenly was embarrassed to be reading books with colorful covers, books that could be deemed “childish.”  

But I still liked reading those kinds of books, even if in secret.  I would read them in my room, not bringing them to school with me.  I would get them in eBook form, and I wouldn’t log them on my Goodreads account (or Storygraph, but the time I got to college) for fear of anyone seeing it.  This is the first time I’m admitted aloud that I read all four of the Off Campus series books, the college hockey romance ones.  And why am I so embarrassed to admit that I read all of them?  

Somewhere along the way, my love of reading turned into a love of being well-read.  I still love reading long and pretentious books that explore dark themes, but it’s exhausting to only read those.  It came to a climax when I was in my senior year of college – I could only bring a handful of books with me, since I didn’t have room for everything and I also knew I wasn’t going to be reading that many of them in the short semester, and the books I happened to bring were entirely classics (some modern classics as well).  And I love reading classics, but having my entire physical TBR as hard to read classics did not make me excited to read.

And that brings me to my question – when did reading for me turn from something I did because I enjoyed it into something I did to prove to myself I was better than everyone else?  I’ve recently been reading more “fun” books that are lighthearted or that don’t require too much thought, and those books are just as good as others.  I picked up the first Pretty Little Liars books just for fun a few weeks ago, and I hesitated before adding it as “currently reading” on my Storygraph because I have a few friends who would probably raise an eyebrow at that.  But why should I be ashamed of reading a fun book that I enjoyed when I was a kid?  Just because it’s not necessarily “intellectually stimulating” does not mean it’s not worth reading.

Last week, I had to get an oil change – my very first time going to get one, since this is the first year I’ve ever owned a car.  I knew I would be sitting around at the mechanic’s as I waited for an hour or so, and I went to grab the book I was in the middle of, but stopped.  I was reading Better Off Wed by Laura Durham, a 2005 book with a colorful and campy cover I got out of a little free library about a wedding planner who gets caught up in a murder investigation.  I had so much fun reading it, but I didn’t bring it to the mechanic’s office.  I was already nervous, since it was my first time going and I don’t know much about car stuff, and I didn’t want to stand out even more than I already do as a young woman (who so clearly has no idea what’s going on) by bringing such an unserious book.  I didn’t bring it with me, and instead scrolled on my phone as I waited for my car to be ready.

If I could go back in time and change that visit, I would have just brought the damn book.  I had fun reading it, and I wanted to bring it, and the prospect of shame was what stopped me.  I need to stop getting in my own way – I can’t imagine any one single person at the mechanic’s shop would think less of me for reading a book that wasn’t War and Peace or whatever.  I read for the love of reading, and it’s time I stop being ashamed of reading a young adult book every now and then – especially since so many of these “fun” books are extremely well-written and, well, much more enjoyable to read than those dense classics full of words I have to look up.

I don’t know if I’m the only one that feels this way, but if I’m not alone, my challenge to you is to bring the fun book with you next time you’re in public.  No one is going to judge you for it – speaking from my own experience, I have never once looked at someone and been like, “they’re reading THAT book?” So why am I doing it to myself?  Reading should be fun, and it’s time I started letting myself have fun again instead of hiding the fun books away and only reading them on my phone.

REVIEW: QUEEN BEE BY AMALIE HOWARD

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the Advance Reader’s Copy!

Plot | one | two | three | four | five
Characters | one | two | three | four | five
Writing | one | two | three | four | five
Setting | one | two | three | four | five
Pacing | one | two | three | four | five
Enjoyment | one | two | three | four | five
Ending | one | two | three | four | five

RATING: 3.25 STARS

I thought that Queen Bee looked like a fun read, so I was delighted when my request for an ARC through NetGalley got approved.  I spent several days delving into the Lyra’s world of Regency-era revenge and mischief, and I overall had a good time there, although there were a few things that fell flat.

Plot |I thought this book had a really solid plot.  The story progressed well, with the dual timeline as Ela’s naivety got the best of her and Lyra let herself get consumed by the thought of getting revenge.  I was worried at the beginning that this book would be a lot of sitting around and talking, but I was pleasantly surprised by the different parties and settings that progressed the plot forward.  I thought that the plot was enjoyable and fun to read, and I found myself getting lost in some of the story.  Do I think there could have been a little more action and a little less sitting around?  Yes, but the sitting around wasn’t ever boring.

Characters | The characters in this book is what really fell flat for me.  While I found that I actually really enjoyed Lyra, she was one of few characters that I actually felt connected to and truly liked.  It’s about time that we get more books about teenage girls who are fueled by spite, because I was once a teenage girl, and let me tell you, almost everything I did was fueled by spite.  She had an interesting character arc and she went through development, and I really enjoyed getting to know her throughout the course of the story.  However, I couldn’t get past my hatred for Poppy as a character.  And I get it, we’re supposed to hate her, she’s the antagonist.  But I thought she was too much of a caricature of herself.  Maybe that’s just my personal hatred for the “mean girl” trope in young adult books – this book, amongst others, takes away the nuance that I find so interesting in books.  Poppy was mean just for the sake of being mean, and my god, she was awful.  Always making a scene, always dragging everyone else down.  I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to hang out with her, and yet everyone flocked towards her because she was rich or whatever.  It seemed so unlikely that anyone would ever take her side, and I just couldn’t understand her motivations.  She was mean because she wanted Lord Ridley for herself?  It seemed so over the top, and it was honestly exhausting.  The rest of the characters were fine, although they didn’t make much of an impression on me.  Lord Ridley, the love interest, was just kind of there, and the only thing he really had going for him was the fact that he was soon going to be in a position of power.  I liked him in the three-years-prior portion, but he was just such a nothing man for the rest of the book.

Writing | Although I didn’t love the characters in this book, I thought that the writing was compelling.  I felt really immersed in the book, and once I got into the story, I was really into it.  I’ll definitely be picking up more of Amalie Howard’s books in the future, because I truly believe that my dislike of the characterization comes from personal preference and nothing else.  The story progressed well on the page, and I really enjoyed getting to know Lyra and her world as we moved back and forth through the years.

Setting | The setting was immersive, especially when they moved locations.  I’m always worried when I read a Regency-era book that it’ll be contained just to the sitting rooms (or whatever they call them), but this one had a lot of different places for me to travel to with the characters.  Different homes, different parties, the lake at one point, even the woods.  It felt like a real place to me, although the place where it loses points is the part in the middle of the story where Ela was sent away.  I didn’t feel as though I had a good grasp on where she was, which made it hard to care, so I wish we had gotten more there.

Pacing | The pacing of this book was compelling and interesting, although I had some problems with it around the end (I’ll get into that in the ending section).  I find that dual timeline books can always be hit or miss for me, and this one was a total win.  I usually like one timeline much better than the others, but the one from three years in the past and the one of current Lyra played well off of each other, and I never felt like they were switching too often or too infrequently.  The pacing was consistent throughout (except for the end), and the story progressed at a very enjoyable speed.

Enjoyment | I am a person who judges books mainly on my gut instinct, without putting too much thought into it.  If I enjoy it in the moment, then I’m probably going to like the book.  I found this one to be enjoyable because of the revenge plot and Lyra’s characterization and because of the general progression of the plot, but for me, some of the enjoyment was taken away because of the rest of the characters.  If Poppy had made a little more sense to me (or maybe if the people who followed Poppy made a little more sense to me), I would have enjoyed this much undoubtedly much more, but I kept getting caught up rolling my eyes at her.  And it’s a difficult slope to walk – I’m supposed to be rolling my eyes at her, I’m supposed to hate her, she’s literally the antagonist, but it was just so overdone for me.  I think she would have been a much more interesting and less flat character if there was more nuance regarding her mean-girl-ness.

Ending | Listen, I didn’t dislike the ending.  I liked the development of Lyra’s character, and her realizations about revenge.  However, Church’s return felt too convenient – she shows back up and suddenly everything is miraculously fixed.  I love a story being tied up in a neat bow as much as the next person, but it all happened way too fast.  The pacing for the rest of the book was so solid that it took me off-guard how quickly the entire conflict was resolved.  Also, I was not a fan of so much of the climax just being Poppy standing there screeching.  But putting that aside, Lyra’s story had a nice ending (although a little fast), and I was happy with the events themselves, although I think the way they progressed left a little bit to be desired.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, and thought it was well-written.  Perhaps my dislike of some of the characterization comes from me being a little older than the intended audience (I’m a young adult, but not in the way that books are classified), but I still do enjoy reading a lot of young adult books.  I will definitely be picking up another book by Amalie Howard, and I think anyone who wants more Regency-era books, especially about a compelling female main character who is driven by revenge, would really enjoy this one.

Do you have Queen Bee on your TBR for its release on April 4?  What are you excited for about it?  Let me know your thoughts!

MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022

It’s been an interesting and busy year – as you may have noticed, I haven’t posted a blog post in a while; in the past six months, I’ve graduated college, moved to a brand new big city, and started my very first full time job. So I’ve been very busy and have neglected this page. But now that it’s a new year and I’m starting to find my grove in adult life, one of my 2023 resolutions is to get back into the Twin Speaks blog! And while I’m doing this, Sophia is managing our Instagram (make sure to follow us @twlnspeaks)!

While I’ve been busy this year, I also managed to spend a lot of time reading, and I read around 150 books this past year, which is absolutely insane. So here is my list of the 10 best books I read in 2022!

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

I got this book from the library as a whim because I thought the cover was pretty, and it ended up completely blowing me away. It tells the story of two different generations, but the meat of the story is in the earlier generation, with a forbidden love story between two people living on Cyprus, one on the Greece side and one on the Turkey side. It was a beautiful story that completely grabbed me and hasn’t let me go since I first read it. It also has a tree as a narrator, which I found super unique and really interesting. It was beautifully written, with complex and lovable characters, a great plot, and a rich setting. One of the easiest five stars I’ve ever given a book!

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

My absolute favorite book of all time is Beartown by Fredrik Backman, so it’s no surprise to me at all that I absolutely loved this book and gave it five stars. Ove is so grumpy and negative, but by the end of the book it’s basically impossible not to love him. I don’t typically cry over TV shows, books, or movies, but this is one of the few books that have had the honor of make me not just cry but sob over the ending. I love the way Backman tells stories, and his writing style is so unique and amazing that he is an instant-read author for me for sure. And this book is being turned into a movie starring Tom Hanks, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with it and how they adapt it for the big screen.

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

I read Homegoing in 2022 as well and loved it, but when I finally got around to reading Transcendent Kingdom, I was absolutely floored. It’s a beautifully written novel about a complicated relationship between a grad student and her mother who is going through a mental health crisis. This book is such a rich portrayal of family ties and family grief, and it holds the honor of being another book that made me shed a few tears. I read it towards the beginning of the year, but it continues to hold a grip on me, and it’s a storyline that I continue to think about and truly think I will for years.

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

I was surprised when this book snuck it’s way into my favorites of the year. One of my 2022 book resolutions was to read more nonfiction, and I was expecting that to feel like a chore, but it really didn’t. This storyline was so interesting, and I think Krakauer did a really good job weaving together the murder that happened as well as the background of Mormon fundamentalism (which is something that I think the Hulu show was lacking). I was completely hooked on this story, and I recommend it to anyone looking to get into nonfiction.

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

Another nonfiction book made the selection! As someone in my early 20s who recently moved to a new city, this book was exactly what I needed to read. Alderton is funny, relatable, and her insights hit me over the head with how much I needed to hear them. I also think it’s a new TV show on Peacock as well, which I definitely need to check out. I’ve been recommending this book to all of my peers who have recently graduated college and moved to new places, and I think that if you’re in the same boat, this could be a good read for you!

Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman

I was fortunate enough to get hold of this book before it was released (thank you NetGalley!), and I’m so glad that it’s finally out so that everyone else can read it too! It follows a queer Muslim character as she grows up in Queens and finds herself among the streets of New York. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who needs plot in their books, since this is much more of a character study than anything else, but the writing is gorgeous and the characters are so rich and complex and I absolutely fell in love with the main character Razia.

The League of Gentlewomen Witches by India Holton

I love romance books, so I’m surprised that this is the only one of that genre to have made it onto this list. Although this is the second book in a series, I liked this one more than the first one, and I don’t think you need to have read the first one to enjoy this one. It tells the story of a witch and a pirate who were born to hate each other, but find themselves stuck together while both trying to steal something that they believe is rightfully theirs. This book had my giggling and kicking my feet in the air, and it’s just the right amount of silliness that I love in my romance books. I cannot recommend this enough – a romance book with sword fighting and flying houses! What more could you want?

The Things We Do To Our Friends by Heather Darwent

Unfortunately, this book isn’t out yet, so I can’t force everyone I’ve met to read it, but I was lucky enough to get a copy of this early (again, thank you NetGalley!), and I was obsessed with it. It’s dark and confusing in a similar way to Bunny by Mona Awad, and it explores the complexities of female friendship in a similar way. It’s dark and twisted and grabs you in from the very start as the story starts to unfold in front of you. It’s out January 10, and I can see this book becoming an instant hit.

Of Woman and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

This book was actually also on my dad’s list of favorite books of 2022, which made me laugh a little, but I can see why! I’m a sucker for an intergenerational family story, and this book follows a bunch of different generations of a Cuban family, specifically the women of the family. It’s beautiful and spans many decades and settings, and I instantly loved it. It was also a fairly short read, so this can get you ahead on your reading challenge on GoodReads or Storygraph pretty quickly!

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

This is another book that weaves different generations together, this time with a female pilot and the actress a hundred years later playing her in a movie. I definitely found the storyline following the pilot to be much more interesting, but the actress’s storyline also brought everything together. This was a great read about being a female in male dominated spaces, such as Hollywood or in the piloting world, and I really enjoyed seeing how their lives were the same yet so different.

There’s my top 10 books of 2022, in no particular order! Stay tuned for my least favorite books of 2022, which will be coming shortly (and, if you’ve read any of my previous posts, you’ll know how much I love to talk about books I hated).

What were your favorite reads of 2022? Did you agree or disagree with any of mine? Let me know in the comments!

REVIEW: LIGHTLARK BY ALEX ASTER

Lightlark by Alex Aster has gotten a lot of social media attention recently, and most of it has been bad. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life seen a book’s Goodreads rating drop from 4 stars to less than 2 stars in one day because of how many one star reviews people were giving it. Of course, this made me incredibly intrigued, and I knew that I absolutely had to read it and see if these one star reviews had any basis, especially since my TikTok for you page went from people praising this book and telling me that I absolutely had to read it to people saying that it was horrible and hating on Alex Aster in the span of around five hours.

The Lightlark Controversy, (Poorly) Explained

I’m going to try to explain what is going on with this book, but there are so many moving parts and so many things that I’m bound to forget some or explain some poorly. A few months ago, I saw Alex Aster posting on TikTok promoting her book that was coming out. Most of these were either talking about the tropes that were in the book or talking about how excited she was that her book became a viral sensation on TikTok and that it was coming out soon. I thought nothing of this; if I had a book coming out, I would probably be doing the same thing. She was also posting about how the rights to turn it into a film had been bought before the book came out, and I remember thinking “Oh, good for her,” and then moving on.

More recently, however, once people started receiving arcs and actually reading the book, they started complaining that the tropes and quotes that Alex had been posting to promote her book weren’t actually in the book. Then, the idea of diversity within characters was brought up, since people were mad that the one “diverse” character in the book was a lot like tokenism.

And with the attention of her book, information about her background started coming out. Now, this is the part that gets a little muddled in my opinion. I’m not sure if she ever claimed to be self-made or anything, but it came out that she comes from a very privileged background and her sister is a millionaire with potential connections in the publishing world, which people did not like at all. (Another interesting thing that came up is that she also had a failed attempt at a music career – Addison Rae was even paid to promote it).

Once more and more people got the book and began to read it, they began to review-bomb the Goodreads rating, giving it hundreds of one star reviews and causing a lot of controversy.

My Review of Lightlark

I decided to read Lightlark to form my own opinion. I tried to go into the book without the preconceived bias that TikTok had given me (but who knows if I successfully did that).

The fact of the matter is that this is not a very well-written book. I found that the majority of this book was info-dumping, which was exhausting and confusing to read. The world-building wasn’t woven into the story but instead just slapped onto the page in paragraphs and paragraphs of descriptions. I also found some of the worldbuilding to be very lazy, especially the names. Nightlings? Sunlings? Moonlings? It’s just a little too on the nose for me.

The characters themselves were very surface level, especially Isla, who I found to be a very nothing protagonist. She fell into the trap of supposedly being an amazing fighter and “special,” but her personality was so boring and nothing about her character explained why she could beat a 500+ year old in combat. She was so boring and a blank slate, and she had no chemistry with either of the “love interests.” Honestly, I spent the whole time assuming that she was actually in love with Celeste, since Celeste was the only character that she seemed to have any chemistry with.

Aside from the big picture things, I also found the physical writing to be not great. Every sentence had the same structure and felt very choppy, and most of the writing was telling rather than showing. Some of the descriptions of things (see below) caused me to physically put the book down and question my life choices:

• “Lightlark was a shining, cliffy thing”
• “The sun had fallen. It was just a yolky thing…” (This one was the opening sentence of a chapter and happened only a few pages after the first one)

The concept of the book was compelling, but I found it to be poorly executed. The curse was not explained very well, the pacing was all over the place, and I found it to just kind of be boring.

Do I think it deserved all of the one star reviews from people who haven’t read it? No. Do I think Alex Aster deserves all of the hate that she is getting? Absolutely not. I think if you’re curious, you should give the book a chance and see what you think, but just know that I personally thought that this book got incredibly overhyped before its release.

Have you read Lightlark by Alex Aster? What do you think about this whole controversy? Let me know in the comments!

The Problem with Persuasion (2022)

I am a big fan of Jane Austen, both novels and movie adaptations. From reading Northanger Abbey to watching Clueless, I can never get enough of her universe. I’ve always found the Pride & Prejudice 2005 vs. 1995 debate to be funny and unnecessary, since each of them have their own separate strengths. In my opinion, there can never be too many Jane Austen adaptations. At least, I thought that until I watched Netflix’s 2022 adaptation of Persuasion.

This adaptation of Persuasion confused me, not because the plot itself was particularly confusing (for the most part, the plot structure followed that of the book) but because I could not for the life of me figure out who the intended audience of this movie was. Anne’s constant breaking of the fourth wall and use of modern slang suggested that the writers of this adaptation wanted Anne to somewhat embody Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s portrayal of Fleabag. However, this poses some problems in my mind.

The venn diagram of people who enjoy Fleabag and people who love Jane Austen is pretty much just a circle. Maybe I’m stereotyping here, but to me, it seems like anyone who has watched and enjoyed Fleabag loves reading Jane Austen, and anyone who loves reading Jane Austen has watched Fleabag or is intending to watch Fleabag. For that reason alone, turning Anne Eliot into a Fleabag-esque character doesn’t make sense from a viewership standpoint; it’s not a selling point that Anne is like Fleabag because people who watch Fleabag were probably already planning on watching any adaptation of Persuasion that was released.

I completely understand the idea behind the inclusion of modern slang and having Anne break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience; it sort of felt like a way to try to make the dialogue, the story, and Austen as a whole more accessible and for a wider audience, since, sometimes, the writing style and dialogue can be confusing. But there are tasteful ways to do it, and I do not think that this adaptation correctly did it. Modernizing the dialogue should still be timeless, but even in just the time between the production and the release of this movie, some of the lines were already ridiculous and dated.

I also question the choice to modernize Persuasion as opposed to any of Austen’s other works. Northanger Abbey, for example, is about a teenager who is coming of age and growing up before the readers’ eyes; the youth of Catherine’s character makes it more sensible that she would be speaking in slightly more modern slang. But with Anne Eliot, who is Austen’s oldest protagonist, and Persuasion, which is Austen’s most mature novel, it falls flat and seems out of place.

Another reason why Persuasion was an odd choice out of all of the Austen novels to “give the Fleabag treatment to” is that Persuasion, as Austen’s most mature novel, is most likely not going to be the first Austen experience that a lot of people have. Which brings me back to the question: who is this novel for? The modernization suggests it’s for people who are unfamiliar with Austen, but the source material itself suggests otherwise.

One thing I’ve noticed as well is that people whose favorite Austen novel is Persuasion also tend to be Austen purists; they don’t want any even minute changes to their beloved novel. Which means, in my opinion, that this movie was doomed to fail from the start.

But in my eyes, the moment this movie failed was when I learned that Henry Golding was not playing the love interest. How are the casting directors of this movie going to take one look at Henry Golding and decide to put him in a period piece and NOT make him the love interest and instead cast a stiff, unlikeable Captain Wentworth? Henry Golding as a love interest was a missed opportunity, and I need to see him in more period pieces immediately.

I’m interested to hear other people’s thoughts on Persuasion (2022), especially people who haven’t read the books or are otherwise unfamiliar with Austen. Maybe I’m being a close-minded Austen snob with my dislike of this movie, and I’m fully open to that possibility. But either way, Henry Golding needs to be the love interest in a period piece.

Have you seen Netflix’s 2022 adaptation of Persuasion? What did you think? Please let me know in the comments!

REVIEW: THE STEMINIST NOVELLAS BY ALI HAZELWOOD

I admittedly was not the biggest fan of Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis or Love on the Brain (which I know is a pretty controversial opinion). One of my main critiques about those books was the fact that a lot of them seemed to just drag on and on and were much too long for the story they were telling, which is why when I heard about the novellas that she was writing, I was excited. I was hoping that the stories she was telling in these would work better in the shorter form and that the pacing would work better than in the novels.

There are three STEMinist novellas: “Under One Roof,” “Stuck With You,” and “Below Zero.” I listened to all of these on audiobook, and each of them took me around three hours maximum to listen to them, which means I listened to most of them all in one sitting.

One thing I thought was cute and good about these stories is the structure with all three of the friends being in all three of the stories, each one following a different friend. I really liked that format, especially since when the previous main character would show up in the next book, I would get excited and feel like I was seeing a friend. I also really liked seeing the development in characters continue through the three books, even though I wish there was a little bit more of each friend.

I also think that Ali Hazelwood knows how to write a scene with tension. I found myself giggling and gasping during all of the interactions between the love interests.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much all that I liked about these books. I was hoping that the shorter format would fix a lot of problems I had with Ali Hazelwood’s full novels, but really, it just made them feel rushed. I think that she needs to find her length sweet spot, since some are too long and slow and some are too short and rushed.

Also, it took me around halfway through the second book to put together the fact that Ali Hazelwood has given us the same exact story five times, just packaged in a different scientific career for her main characters. All the books follow the exact same structure and format, and all of them are just miscommunication tropes that take up an entire story, which is one of my least favorite tropes. Most of them are so frustrating to listen to because if the characters simply listened to each other for five seconds or acted like grown ups.

The writing and characters were juuuuust different enough that it took me a second to put two and two together that these are all basically the same story, but once I did, I couldn’t look past it. I think Ali Hazelwood built really rich and developed characters in the first book that she wrote, but it feels like she is incapable of creating new characters and has just been reusing them over and over again.

This is also a much smaller critique, but I don’t understand her obsession with talking about the size of her protagonists. I understand mentioning it at some points in the stories for description purposes, but in these books, it felt like I was constantly being hit over the head with these.

That being said, there was something about these novels that were so entertaining and that I couldn’t put down. I’m not sure what it is, since when I look at these books with a critical lens, I get so frustrated with them. But when I turn my brain off, I cannot get enough. Which is why I continued to write everything that she has written, despite the fact that it’s continually the exact same story over and over again. And I will be reading whatever it is that she writes next.

Have you read any of the STEMinist novellas by Ali Hazelwood? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!

MY FAVORITE NONFICTION BOOKS

I have never been a huge fan of nonfiction books, especially growing up; I found them often kind of boring. In my mind, school was for learning and reading at home was for escapism and for reading made up stories. So recently, when I’ve found myself starting to read a little bit more nonfiction, I was very surprised. Although, full disclosure, when I say that I’ve been reading “a little bit more” nonfiction, what I mean is that I read about four nonfiction books per day instead of zero.

Here is a list (in no particular order) or my favorite nonfiction books that I’ve read recently.

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

One great thing about this book is that it reads almost entirely as if it were a fiction novel. This book follows, as the title suggests, three women throughout the United States and their vastly different lives. One thing that really drew me to this book was that, despite the women this book follows’ differences, there were common themes threaded through each story. It was an easy to read book that I think makes this a great nonfiction option for people who tend to stray away from nonfiction and turn more often to fiction books.

Cultish by Amanda Montell

This was my most recent nonfiction read, and it was an absolutely fascinating look into the language and habits that cults and cult leaders use to trap people into their toxic lifestyle. What was especially interesting about this book, however, was the fact that, while it did focus on some of the well-known cults like Jonestown, it also talks about exercise cults like SoulCycle and pyramid schemes. The analysis of how these groups that aren’t widely shown as cults use the same tactics as the well-known cults was so interesting to look at.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

I’m kind of cheating by including this book in this list because I didn’t read it by choice, I read it years ago in my 10th grade English class. But this book is so enthralling and so heartbreaking and such an interesting look into the disaster on Mount Everest. It definitely stuck with me for a long long time, both because of how well written it was and how devastating it was. It’s not a book that I would have ever picked up on my own, so I’m glad that I was basically forced to read it for class in high school.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Everyone and their mother has read this book at this point, so I’m just adding to the loud chorus of people praising this book. It’s a very sweet memoir about a woman and her mom and the way she tries to stay connected with her mom’s culture through food after the dead of her mother. This book made me cry, but it also made me laugh, which is, in my opinion, a sign of a great book. It’s such a touching and well-written story about a mother-daughter relationship that captured me and I think is going to stay with me for a long time.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

This is another book that pretty much everyone is at least aware of, probably because they saw the movie starring Michael B. Jordan (which was excellent, might I add). I actually watched the movie before reading the book, but the movie piqued my interest enough to want to check it out. The book is definitely more fact-based and less dramatized, with a lot more statistics and facts about prison and incarceration, and while I understand why they made the changes for the movie that they did, I’m glad that I also read the book because I feel like it gave me better insight into the main themes of the books and the problems with prisons that exist, particularly in the American south.

Those are my favorite nonfiction books that I’ve read in recent years, but I’m always looking to expand my TBR list and diversify my reading habits, specifically with more nonfiction books, so if you have any other recommendations, please let me know in the comments! 

REVIEW: I KISSED SHARA WHEELER BY CASEY MCQUISTON

I’ve read Red White and Royal Blue and One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (you can read my reviews of them by clicking the titles!), so I was very excited to get approved to have early access to their YA debut, I Kissed Shara Wheeler. And while I had some problems with this book, I did overall enjoy reading it, and I thought it was really cute.

Chloe Green is so close to winning. After her moms moved her from SoCal to Alabama for high school, she’s spent the past four years dodging gossipy classmates and a puritanical administration at Willowgrove Christian Academy. The thing that’s kept her going: winning valedictorian. Her only rival: prom queen Shara Wheeler, the principal’s perfect progeny.

But a month before graduation, Shara kisses Chloe and vanishes.

On a furious hunt for answers, Chloe discovers she’s not the only one Shara kissed. There’s also Smith, Shara’s longtime quarterback sweetheart, and Rory, Shara’s bad boy neighbor with a crush. The three have nothing in common except Shara and the annoyingly cryptic notes she left behind, but together they must untangle Shara’s trail of clues and find her. It’ll be worth it, if Chloe can drag Shara back before graduation to beat her fair-and-square.

Thrown into an unlikely alliance, chasing a ghost through parties, break-ins, puzzles, and secrets revealed on monogrammed stationery, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to this small town than she thought. And maybe—probably not, but maybe—more to Shara, too.

Fierce, funny, and frank, Casey McQuiston’s I Kissed Shara Wheeler is about breaking the rules, getting messy, and finding love in unexpected places.

RATING: 3 STARS

As a fan of McQuiston’s other books, I was excited to pick up their YA debut, I Kissed Shara Wheeler. And this book definitely made me feel all warm and fuzzy like One Last Stop and Red White and Royal Blue did; it’s a heartwarming queer story about overcoming adversity and learning more about yourself, especially in a super religious, southern high school.

But one thing I couldn’t help but notice about this book is that I feel like it tried to do too much at once, to the point that it felt like it should have been about three separate books. The plot felt a little bit disjointed at times; there was the part when Chloe, Rory, and Smith were all trying to figure out what happened to Shara, there was the time after Chloe finds Shara, and there was the whole graduation plot. It just didn’t feel very much like a cohesive plot; instead of all of these subplots being woven together, it was like one was written to completion and then the next one would start. Because of this, I found the pacing to be really strange, and I feel like this book was trying to do all too much at once.

Overall, though, I think this book has an important message. I’m probably a little bit older than the target audience for this book, but the world definitely needs more YA books like this, so I recommend this book to anyone who needs to be reminded that they’re not alone in high school.. 

(Also this is such a dumb criticism I had, but as someone who was involved in high school theatre, the fact that a high school had enough operatic singers to put on Phantom of the Opera felt incredibly unrealistic to me, and it continually took me out of the plot.)

REVIEW: SEE YOU YESTERDAY BY RACHEL LYNN SOLOMON

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the Advanced Reader’s Copy!

I’ve heard such great things about Rachel Lynn Solomon’s books (both her young adult books and her adult books) that even though I haven’t gotten around to picking up any of them, I knew I was interested in See You Yesterday, her new release coming out soon.  I’m very thankful for the opportunity to read this one early, because I really enjoyed it!

See You Yesterday tells the story of Barrett Bloom, a college freshman who’s hoping for a fresh start.  She’s had a rough time in high school and is excited to start anew – but then Lucie Lamont, her ex-friend from high school, is assigned to be her roommate, she’s humiliated by a classmate in her physics class, she bombs her interview for the school paper, and to make matters worse, she accidentally sets a frat house on fire that night.  The next morning when she wakes up, it’s not the next morning at all, but the first day of class again.  She’s stuck in a time loop, unsure of how to get out – and Miles, the boy from her physics class, has been stuck in the same loop for months.

RATING: 4 STARS

This book was so cute and charming – I found myself grinning like an idiot at the pages as I read it.  Barrett was a lovely main character.  She was hilarious and loud and unapologetic, and my favorite part was that she didn’t lose those traits when she developed and grew as a character.  Her development was so interesting to read about, as she had to relive the same day over and over again and tried different things each time.  Talking to Lucie, to Cole, to her mother, to everyone all helped her develop, and I loved getting to see her shine on the pages.  It did make me kind of sad for her that she went through all of this development but that everyone she spoke do didn’t remember it the next day when the clock reset.  I wanted her and Lucie to get along, and every time they did, it just started right back at the beginning the next (same) morning.

I liked Miles as a character too, and I liked his growth as well (not as much as Barrett’s, but that’s always what happens when it’s first person narrator).  His dynamic with Barrett was so charming, and I loved getting to see him open up and let loose a little.  The build up of his romance with Barrett was believable and fun and I couldn’t help but root for them.

The other characters were fun as well – I liked getting to know Lucie as she and Barrett got used to each other (or more like Barrett got used to her as Lucie’s memory kept resetting with the days), and I liked Barrett’s mom a lot.  The characters really came alive on the page, and they were all dynamic and realistic and well developed, which I really enjoyed.  They were all humorous and fun and had nice touches in their development (I loved Miles and his brother continually calling each other by ridiculous nicknames).

The time travel element of this book worried me before I started it, because I was a little apprehensive about getting myself into a book that had such a big emphasis on physics.  And while I will admit that a little bit of it did go over my head, for the most part it was explained in an interesting and simple way, and the story was structured in such a way that I could easily follow it.  Physics was not at the forefront of most of this book, which I liked because truth be told, I do not like physics and I do not understand it.  Where it was there, it was easy to understand and made a lot of sense, but I was grateful that it didn’t take up too much of the story like I was worried it would.

I was worried that the plot in general would be overdone (because of Groundhog Day) or repetitive (because Barrett and Miles were essentially going through the same day over and over again) and I was pleased to find out that it never was.  Barrett and Miles seemed determined to have a good time or to figure out what was going on, so each day was vastly different from the others and the pacing was done really well.  The author didn’t focus too much on the minute details of how each day was the same, so it didn’t feel like this book dragged on too much.  My only main complaint in regards to pacing is that the ending seemed a little rushed, but the book was so enjoyable that that’s a minor thing.

Overall, See You Yesterday is a charming and funny book that I’m super grateful for the chance to read early.  I was impressed on its ability to handle some more difficult and heavy topics while still being mostly lighthearted.  The main character Barrett really sold me on this book – it would not have been even half as enjoyable without her at the forefront.  I would definitely recommend that everyone pick up a copy when it’s officially released soon!

REVIEW: THE WILDERWOMEN BY RUTH EMMIE LANG

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book!

I’m a sucker for a good family dynamic in a book, and I’m a sucker for an adventure story (especially if that adventure is a road trip).  So when I saw that The Wilderwomen was a book that had strong female characters, a complicated family relationship, AND an adventure, I was sold.  Add in the fact that there’s an element of magic with the psychic powers the main characters have, and I knew I had to get my hands on a copy.

The Wilderwomen tells the story of Zadie and Finn, two sisters whose mom walked out on them five years previously.  Even with their psychic powers – Zadie has premonitions in which she can see the future and Finn can see “echoes” of other people’s memories – they don’t know where she is or why she left.  When Finn decides that she needs to find out what happened, Zadie is along for the journey.  With only their powers and a vague idea of how to use them to help, they hope to travel across the country to find their mom.

RATING: 4 STARS

I think the best part of this story was the main characters.  I loved Zadie and Finn – they were complex and interesting characters even without their abilities, and then when you add in the abilities, it just made them all the more captivating.  I loved learning about their motivations and their vulnerabilities and I especially loved their interactions with each other.  The sibling dynamic was so interesting and really drew me in.  I liked Nora, their mother, as a character as well, but definitely not as much as her daughters.  I found that Nora was a lot harder to forgive and understand.

The plot was also (for the most part) really interesting and captivating.  Like I mentioned, I love adventure road trip stories, and this was one that ticked off those boxes.  The only issue I had with the plot was a little bit of the pacing – at some points it felt like it dragged on just a little, and I was anxious to get on with it and find out what happened next.  What I did like about the pacing was the back and forth between the past and the present, which let us as readers get to know Nora, even though she was largely absent from the rest of the story.  The plot, especially with the addition of the flashbacks, was well-crafted.

What else about this book that was well-crafted was the abilities.  For the most part, I found everything to be easy to understand without being over-explained, which I do think is often the downfall of books set in the real world that have elements of fantasy in them.  But I really liked the explanations of the abilities, and the interjections of Finn’s echoes and all of that.  The only part about it that I didn’t totally love was the ending.  I found the wrap-up of the plot and the climax to be a bit confusing, and I just feel like it didn’t necessarily have the pay-off I was waiting for.  Even so, I really liked the plot and the magical elements of this book.

With such a strong duo as the main characters, I was also pleased by the supporting cast as well.  Myron and his daughters as well as Joel stick out in particular as dynamic and interesting minor characters who felt extremely developed, which I really enjoyed.  Everyone was quirky and a little zany, but still felt grounded in reality (if that statement doesn’t contradict itself too much).  Every interaction was integral to the plot, and if what the characters were saying wasn’t that important to their development, at the very least it was entertaining (I’m looking at you, Joel, you were so fun to read about).

I think where this book particularly shines is with its portrayal of all of the relationships.  Zadie and Finn’s sibling relationship was complex, their relationship with their mom was explored a lot, and their relationship with others was just as developed.  I really liked seeing Zadie’s development in terms of her relationship and interactions with Joel, and I thought that the way that Lang explored all of the relationships was extremely fascinating to read about (wow, how many times can I use the word “relationships” in one paragraph?).  Overall, I really think that’s what this story is about at its heart, and it’s an extremely touching story when you look at it through the interactions and developments between the characters.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, although some of the pacing could have been more consistent.  If you’re looking for a fun read with an interesting cast of characters and a compelling plot, this is definitely one you’ll want to pick up come November when The Wilderwomen is officially released!