What I Read in July: Celebrating Fifteen Years on the Internet, and Seven Books Read!

This was a big month, one that really highlighted just how chaotic life can get when you've got a major work event coming up the first week of August, your best friend is imminently getting married, and you're trying to listen to as many audiobooks on your half-hour-twice-a-day commute as possible. (Plus, you know, feeding yourself, sleeping at least six hours a night, and all that other good stuff.)

Thankfully, that also meant there was so much to celebrate in July... including a very important date! 

my bloggoversary!

In late July, I hit a milestone that truly feels mind-boggling once you consider the implications: I started this blog on July 24th of 2010, which means that this year, Playing in the Pages turned 15. Had I decided to pursue teenage pregnancy as a goal, rather than translating my love of oversharing to the Internet, I'd have a high schooler on my hands. 

Clearly, this was well worth celebrating. 

My brother is my enthusiastic annual partner in these endeavors, so we kicked off the day at 85 Degree Bakery for delicious pastries and stocking up on later-snacks, then hit up Barnes and Noble, Half Price Books, and Value Village to pick out some fresh new reading selections. We grabbed lunch from one of our favorite hometown delis, went home for some chill time, and then munched on homemade burgers while watching The Secret of NIMH (It had to be something adapted from a book, after all, to fit the theme of the day). 

Bookstore One: Barnes and Noble

I got a free tote bag because I'm a Premium rewards member - something I genuinely feel is a pretty great move if you spend enough time and money in there - which also gave me an additional 10% off all of my purchases, as well as a $5 credit that I was able to redeem.  

• Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, Amanda Montell
• The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise, Olivia Laing
• The Spellshop, Sarah Beth Durst
• Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan
• Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie 

Bookstore Two: Half Price Books

• What's for Dessert?: Simple Recipes for Dessert People, Claire Saffitz (cookbook)
• The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman

Bookstore Three: Value Village

• The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar
• Selected Stories, Alice Munro
• Pasta & Co. Encore, Marcella Rosene (cookbook)

In total, I spent less than $150 for eight books, two cookbooks, and a tote bag combined... which feels pretty good, for a day that I deliberately try to let myself splurge a little bit. I will say, for all that books are getting "more popular" again and the publishing industry is experiencing a resurgence, these titles feel like they're only getting pricier and pricier... which is why I spent the following day enjoying some library books, as well. 

All told, it was one of the best days out of the entire summer. Definitely a great way to ring in 15 years! 

(Special thanks to my brother, for spending the whole day with me celebrating, and for paying for our morning pastries. I'm so glad you loved The Secret of NIMH as much as I did!)

Seattle Public Library & Seattle Arts and Lectures' Summer Reading Challenge Book Bingo

Bingo Square: "Intergenerational Friendship"

The Reading List, Sara Nisha Adams

"It was strange, the idea that this book wasn't just for him. It was for everyone. All these people who had taken it out before him, people who would take it out after him. Every reader, unknowingly connected in some small way."

An older man who has recently lost his wife and a young girl grappling with her mother's mental health struggles inadvertently strike up an unconventional friendship, after she discovers a mysterious list of books left behind in the library. 

It's pretty rare that a piece of straightforward, contemporary-set, non-speculative, literary fiction just comes up and gets me good. I very rarely seek out the category, to be honest - at its best, it feels sedate and relatively boring; at it's worst, it's impossible to shield really significant flaws in writing, narrative voice, plot, and more, without any exciting genre-affiliated aesthetics or tropes to hide behind. If I'm going to read something about the real world, I'm much more likely to grab a nonfiction read, to be honest. 

But just like it's easy to give Oscars to movies about Hollywood, and it's easy to hand Tonys off to shows about musical theater, it is very, very easy to be someone who loves books, and fall in love with a book about reading. 

But it's not actually about the books mentioned at all, but instead, the transformative power they have to relate all kinds of people, the connective tissue that can run through a reading community, and change lives in powerful ways. Books can make you feel less alone, but people can do that, too, and this particular read in as much about forming a relationship with reading, as it is about forming a relationship with - and showing up for - others. 

And because of the severity of the mental health struggles discussed therein, this was a hard - but valuable - read. It's one I can see returning to again in the future, for sure. And being that I had only been familiar with a handful of titles on the mysterious list myself, it's actually given me a bit of a TBR to seek out in the future, as well. 

five stars! 

Bingo Square: "Read in Public" 

How to Stop Time, Matt Haig

"And, just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live. You just close your eyes and let every futile fear slip away. And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself, Who am I? If I could live without doubt, what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being fucked over? If I could love without fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss the taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?" 

A man with a perplexing medical diagnosis - that his body ages at a fractional rate of a normal human, allowing him to live for centuries - finds himself reflecting on all that he has lost, when faced with the potential for new love. Meanwhile, the shadowy organization that allows him to live covertly has a request he's not sure he can fulfill. 

This was the choice of our Book Club at work, and was, in fact, supplied by one of my work besties. Which made it incredibly awkward when everyone else in Book Club disliked it so much, that all I heard from other people around the office was how getting through it was a dull, hard slog. I actually didn't even fully commit to taking part in actually reading it until about a week and a half before our scheduled meeting. 

And... listen. It was actually pretty easy to get through. Haig has a really straightforward, unadorned style of writing that makes zipping along relatively painless. And on top of that, for about 80% of the book, I would argue that very little of importance happens, and you can kind of just... skim. 

The pacing, I think, was one of the issues that a few of my fellow Book Club members a little bogged down... nothing happens for entire stretches, and the flashback scenes are oddly placed and not all intrinsic to the plot beyond a semi-explanation of our main character's emotional responses. The central plot, also, is only half there, and barely given more shading beyond flat characterizations, which makes character decisions utterly baffling and occasionally - especially for female characters - so lackluster and devoid of life that it felt like they were there more as objects for the male characters to rotate around. 

And then, in the final chapter, quite a lot happens. Not a whole lot of those previous issues are resolved, mind you, but at least it makes it feel like the rest of the book meant something, for all that everything clashes together in the space of mere minutes like planets colliding, without much time at all for de-escalation or falling action. 

While some of the lines were kind of pretty, it didn't help how disjointed and confused the rest of the book felt. 

two-and-a-half stars

Bingo Square: "Hope" 

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, Barack Obama

"We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God had commanded. 

Of course, in the end, God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God's test of devotion. 

But it's fair to say that if any of us saw Abraham on the roof of his apartment building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police, and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason." 

Written in 2006, Barack Obama grounds his political philosophy in bipartisanship, respect, and belief in the innate power of democracy, with the hopes of uniting the country towards positive, meaningful change. 

I was really in a bind when it came to selecting a read to fill this Bingo Square. On one hand, it was such a loosely defined category, that I was struggling to understand what the actual parameters were, and on the other, the world around me seemed to be full of so much chaos and division, that reading anything hopeful felt like a futile effort from jump. So I decided to just get as literal as possible, and picked out a book with the word "Hope" in the title. 

The Audacity of Hope was the book Obama wrote while still a senator, two years after firing up the Democratic National Convention with his tremendous speaking abilities, hoping to build steam towards his first bid at the presidency. He talked about representation, the political machine, opposition leaders he respected, and the various personalities who formed integral aspects of his understanding in Washington DC. He talked about how his faith informed his politics, how his family stood at the core of his greatest motivations, and how he believed that Americans deserved more from their civic leaders. 

It was, in short, one of the least hopeful things I could have read this year. 

The world was a different place when this book was written, in a lot of important ways, and listening to the audiobook - which he also narrated, mind you, and was therefore spoken with his thoughtful cadence and meaningful intonation - felt like watching the world of yesteryear through a funhouse mirror. It made me nostalgic for a simpler time, one that I'm not sure ever actually existed, but might have just been a symptom of the fact that I was in middle school, and didn't yet have access to an machine that lives in my pocket and alerts me, multiple times an hour, to the worst that humanity has to offer itself. Plus, maybe everything just feels a little more hopeful when you're twelve. 

Beautiful book, well written, well spoken. Completely, totally depressing in 2025. 

four stars

Ripped Bodice Bookstore Romance Book Bingo 

Bingo Square: "Fairy Tale Retelling" 

Charming the Prince (Once Upon a Time #1), Teresa Medeiros

" 'Tis fortunate that you've become such an expert on women, is it not? A less able man might have bungled that entire situation.' " 

After being cast aside by her father's new wife in favor of her own demanding brats, Willow takes up the opportunity to be married off to a neighboring lord in search of a bride. Unfortunately, she's also looking to get away from taking care of so many children, which is exactly what he needs her for... and he's trying not to make any more of them, which makes her beauty and charm a very unwelcome distraction. 

I was in a real difficult spot to try and pick a favorite quote out of this one. Here's another one I almost chose:

"Perhaps you should consider a vow of celibacy. I've no doubt God would find it a most impressive sacrifice, much more pleasing in His eyes than if you had wed some stout fishwife with a mustache." 

This whole book is chock full of sarcastic quips, unexpected one-liners, and witty conversations, making it probably one of the more hilarious Historical Romances I've ever read. 

Teresa Medeiros is one of those names that pops up frequently in conversations about what names one might include when constructing a comprehensive Historical Romance canon of work, as she serves as such a formative and relevant voice within the genre, and I can totally see why. And as someone who has had her fair share of frustration with reading Romances from before feminism was apparently discovered in the mid-'2000s - if that - this one was not too bad for its perspectives on women (if you deliberately choose to overlook the somewhat starting age gap implications). 

I will say, for something that professes to be a fairy tale retelling, it's pretty damn difficult to get the shades of it. Beyond the initial starting point of "My Dad's evil wife makes me dress shabbily and do chores and cater to the whims of my bratty stepsiblings" thing, you can't really see this one as being Cinderella beyond page 20. 

three-and-a-half stars

Bingo Square: "Kissing in the Rain"

Beach Read, Emily Henry 

"I did what any reasonable adult woman would do when confronted with her college rival turned next-door neighbor. I dove behind the nearest bookshelf." 

A romance novel author - left reeling from a sudden revelation at her father's funeral - flees to a surprise beachfront inheritance. Unfortunately, her new neighbor is not only a fellow author, but the literary fiction elitist she thought she left behind. As it turns out, there's something they have in common: insurmountable writer's block. But maybe they can fix it together? 

I have stayed off the Emily Henry hype train for quite a while longer than probably anticipated, for someone who has three of her books currently sitting on her TBR shelves ($1 for the trio at my local library, purchased back in January). Of course what made me finally cave was a Bingo prompt... and then the book I ended up reading wasn't even one I owned. 

It was, however, the title that put Henry on the map. And I can see why: the novel is so funny that I laughed out loud, its main characters feel specific and unique and interesting, the ways the two are eventually brought together are compelling and fun to read, and the beachfront location - plus some of the various dates the two went on together - felt like summer. 

I will also say: it's a bit of a weird one. 

Our main hero isn't just a pretentious dweeb, but also a bit of an eccentric (half of their journey together involves following the harrowing story of a cult that ended in tremendous violence, which he's been researching), and our heroine's primary actions are motivated by a concept so bleak and anti-romantic that I spent the entire story waiting for there to be a twisty "gotcha" that would explain it all away, that never came... if anything, it gets bolstered, reinforced, and weirdly validated by the main character by the end of the book (Kind of a spoiler, even though you learn basically all of it in the first chapter: her father cheated on her mother twice, WHILE SHE HAD CANCER, going as far as SECRETLY PURCHASING THE BEACH HOUSE OUR CHARACTER STAYS IN during the course of the novel, all of which our heroine finds out about when the mistress hands her keys and a letter at her father's funeral). 

So you can maybe get why - even though I enjoyed it - this one was a three star read for me. 

three stars

Bingo Square: "Medieval" 

Well Matched (Well Met #3), Jen DeLuca

" 'Needing and wanting are two different things, you know. You can want something and not need it.' " 

Sending a child off to college means prepping your too-big house for sale, right? At least that's what mom April tells herself when she enlists hunky Mitch to help with some final touch-ups before she calls her realtor. When Mitch asks for a favor of his own, the two grow closer than previously anticipated. But can April get over their gap in age and life experience? And is she distracting Mitch too much from his job at their local Ren Faire? 

I wasn't originally planning on reading multiple Jen DeLuca romance novels in 2025, but when the category calls for something "Medieval," sometimes it's just easier to shoot for something "Renaissance" instead... even when it's not actually set during the Renaissance, but in contemporary times, and simply features a Ren Faire as a part of the central plot. Much like a visit to the actual Ren Faire, we're playing fast and loose with time period accuracy here. 

Unfortunately, this read was a little bit of a dud for me - while I greatly enjoyed Well Met, the first in the series, I actually DNF'd Well Played quite a while ago, because I could not get into it. Haunted Ever After was a pretty fun return to DeLuca's writing. I had a little bit more faith going into Well Matched, but just from the central couple alone - both of whom we'd met in the previous installments - I didn't think I'd have a great time. 

And I was pretty much right: I think DeLuca's strengths really lie within her main characters' chemistry and relatability, which means that if you don't click with the main characters or find them a bit unlikeable or unreasonable, you're probably not going to have a great time. I liked the grumpy, no-nonsense vibes of elder sister April in Well Met, but found her a little too obstinate and angry in Well Matched. Similarly, I loved Mitch's happy-go-lucky, golden retriever energy in the earlier novel, but found him to be a little underdeveloped and shallow in this one. I didn't buy into their romance very much - if only in part because I didn't feel like April did, either, as she spends quite a lot of the book playing it down or trying to minimize it. 

The tropes involved - fake dating, friends with benefits, overstepping family members, the surprise return of a deadbeat parent into a child's life - were also not some of my favorites. (Which made it incredibly annoying when they started popping up in other romances I read this year, too.) 

three-and-a-half stars

Bingo Square: "Punny Title" 

The Nightmare Before Kissmas (Royals & Romance #1), Sara Raasch

" 'I don't think our purpose is to prevent all the bad things in the world,' he says. 'I think our purpose is to help people endure those things.' " 

The Crown Prince of Christmas - already on thin ice with his domineering Dad, Santa Claus - gets an unwelcome gift in his stocking on his return to the North Pole for the holiday season: for starters, he's been made central in a marriage plot to consolidate Easter's power by allying it with Christmas. And for another, Halloween heard the news, and immediately sent their own Prince to try and win the Easter Princess' hand, instead. Worst of all, it turns out that the Crown Prince of Halloween is the guy he made out with in an alleyway years before, on the worst day of his life... 

So, just in case you couldn't tell from that description, you need to understand that this is not a serious book. 

Not to spoil anything for you that you couldn't already surmise from the preceding blurb, but the Crown Prince of Christmas ends up making the Yuletide real gay by falling for the Prince of Halloween. The world-building that would allow for this sort of circumstance to arise is similarly bonkers. 

The holidays are affiliated with specific locations, which map over with real-life locations in the world (for instance, Halloween's general location falls in New England). There are full-time residents of the holidays; these ruling royal families involve subjects and everything that monarchies entail, including other lords and ladies, and active factions that also have bearing into the operations of a given holiday. There are tabloids specifically for these holiday-states, that interfere notably with the lives of the holiday representatives and their children. And the economic balance of these holiday-states plays a major part in both the first and second books of the series, as it is measured in magic, but it manifests in their world differently based on the state with which it is affiliated. 

I could go on. I will go on. 

Because honestly, some of the implications of all of these big swings are SO messy: the dominant holiday regime supersedes affiliated seasonal holidays - meaning Christmas holds rank over not just something like the Feast of St. Lucia, but also the other Winter Holidays, like Solstice, Diwali, Hanukkah, etc. because it generates the most magic, or is practiced by the most people - which all goes to say that the Christian colonization structure is firmly in effect here, only, wait! The holidays are still held as secular: even though there super for sure is a Santa Claus, Virginia, there is definitely no affiliation with the real story of Saint Nicholas - nor Mary, Joseph, or Jesus Christ - to speak of. (There's only the sheerest reference, in an attempt to semi-explain the absence, but it's barely a sentence long and doesn't do much by way of contextualization.)

Plus this still raises questions about how the rest of things are going here on Earth. Does China just not exist? Because according to a quick Google search, the numbers of people on a global scale who celebrate Christmas and Lunar New Year are remarkably similar. Shouldn't we have gotten a reference to Lunar New Year being a major player in the holiday realm at some point? (Furthermore, in 2026, Lunar New Year will be celebrated on Tuesday, February 17th... does that mean that they grapple with the likes of Mardi Gras and Valentine's Day for power??)

And on top of all of this, there was a LOT of talk about corset vests. 

Here's the thing, though: I absolutely loved it. I did. It was SO bonkers, wholly relied on you taking every single thing that happened at face value, and was unrepentant about how bananas the entire formation of the world was, that it really did require you to turn off great big chunks of your brain in the most cozily lobotomizing of ways. Every once in a while, you'd get a paragraph that was beautifully written or demonstrated such a care of characterization that it genuinely felt like came from a different story, like a line of gold running through quartz, and it would flash beautifully in the sun until you'd go sailing right over the end of another paragraph into something dazzlingly unhinged again.

I loved the sequel, too - though you'll have to wait to hear about that - and on top of that, I have a hold on the author's next work at the library. Haha. 

four stars

Did you read anything good this summer? Would you have picked up something different to fulfill these prompts? Let me know, in the comments below!

What I Read in June: Summer Book Bingoes 2025!

There are few events in a year that I look forward to more than Summer Reading. It's up there with the likes of Christmas, Eurovision, Mardi Gras, and my birthday, in terms of personally committing to enjoying myself as much as I can.

Summer Reading gives me a chance to sign off on that annual permission slip to revel in one of my longest-running and most passionate hobbies. It encourages me to explore outside of my comfort zone, and look for new opportunities beyond my normal purview. It's about turning longer daylight hours into longer lounging hours, and promising myself "just one more chapter," knowing that the sun will still be there when I finally decide to get up again. 

As for June alone, I read SIX (!!!) books. That's more than I had been able to complete in any individual month so far in 2025 (And a quarter of the books I read, total, in 2024!). It's double what I managed to read in February or March of this year, and triple of what I read in April or May. That's amazing! 

Plus, I'm HAVING FUN. And you've got to remember that that's really the goal, here. 

This success is definitely owed to a couple of specific factors: for instance, I've finally decided that I love listening to audiobooks on my commute to-and-from work every day, which is a cumulative hour of driving time - two hours of listening time, for those of us who listen at two-times speed. Furthermore, I love the days I actually manage to prioritize staying off of Instagram, because it saves me a few of those hours of screen time to invest in other projects. 

I also want to highlight the fact that these reading challenges would not be possible without the incredible resources available through my local library. I have a TBR bookshelf numbering well into the hundreds, and even more ebooks tightly compressed into my Kindle Paperwhite, but the wide-ranging themes and exciting new topics always send me running towards my local library branch. In June alone, my library checkouts included four ebooks on Kindle, five physical copies, and five audiobooks, just to construct my starting block for launching into these challenges.

All told, June was a killer month, that kicked off a really exciting Summer. Can you really blame me for taking so long to get these reviews up, when I clearly required recuperation from all of this fun I was having? 

Seattle Public Library & Seattle Arts and Lectures' Summer Reading Challenge Book Bingo

An annual tradition that began back when I actually did still live in Seattle, this Summer Book Bingo Challenge is exclusively self-imposed and rigorously followed. 

Bingo Square: "PNW Nature"

Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt

"Smart cookie. I am smart, but I am not a snack object dispensed from a packaged food machine. What a preposterous thing to say." 

Three lives - an old woman contemplating her future, a young man seeking the truth of his origins, and a giant Pacific octopus in residence at a local aquarium - meet in a coastal Washington town. 

The book appears to be somewhat universally beloved, with many friends of my acquaintance regularly granting it four or five stars on Goodreads... leaving me frustrated, and bored out of my mind, attempting to blaze through the audiobook on my morning and afternoon commutes from work. 

As it turns out, the answer to this disparity may lie within a lunchtime conversation I had with two of my coworkers - one of whom read the book and gave it 4.5 stars, and another, who listened to the audiobook like me, and... did not. 

Whitney had many of the same gripes I did, which - after discussion between the three of us - seemed to arise from an issue of format ("If you're going to have two narrators, why have one ONLY do the octopus, and the other... literally everything else? And why does he have a pan-Atlantic accent?"). Then again, even Paige could admit to some of the other flaws ("I hated pretty much everything that had to do with the male main character. He was just such a loser."). 

As for me, I had some of my own structural issues, as well: it was too neat. Characters were somewhat preternaturally lucky, for all that they hit their bumpy patches. So many things just HAPPENED to work out, that the entire overarching narrative felt shallow. I get that it's a small town, but yeesh. 

And speaking of a small town, Washington is full up on plenty of cool ones. I'm baffled by the decision to invent an entirely fictional location... not when I could think of at least three small coastal towns off the top of my head that would easily fit the geographical bill. 

(After all, even Tessa Bailey's It Happened One Summer is set in Westport.)

three-and-a-half stars

Bingo Square: "Monsters"

Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, ed. Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. 

"Could be his story's already Horror, yeah? Sure. The way he told it was more... it was more about how there's more to the night, and the land, than we generally acknowledge. Which is to say, when we feel his story in the base of our jaw, in the hollow of our chest, in the sway of our back, then the world clicks that smidge wider, to allow more stuff to be going on." 

A compendium of shorts written by notable Native authors operating within the schema of Dark Fiction, with stories focused on ghosts, monsters, contemporary social issues, and more. 

Short answer: I absolutely loved it. I loved it so hard I read it in only a handful of sittings. I loved it so much I considered just going out and buying my own copy when I was afraid I wouldn't make the library due date in time. I'm probably going to end up buying my own copy for keeps anyways. 

I loved the breadth of genre representation: this collection is classified not just as Horror, but actually Dark Fiction - a confusion I've seen trip up multiple reviewers when discussing this book - a genre whose scope includes Crime, Thriller, Suspense, and even Dark Humor / Satire. I loved how every single author involved was given space to breathe and flex and show off a little. I loved that there were authors I recognized, and others that were totally brand new to me. I love that I now have a reading list of authors to look out for in the future. 

I love how some leaned into myths, monsters, folklore, and legend; I loved how some felt current, contemporary, real, and reflective. I love how some used stereotypes and recognizable tropes as target practice to be knocked down; I love how some claimed new ownership on long-held practices and traditions. I loved how much representation there was - serving as a reminder that no Native American culture is a monolith, but instead, that indigenous Americans belong to wide spanning and far-reaching communities, each with their own unique history and voices. I loved it.

My only critique that I can even come up with is that I personally feel the organization of how the stories were arranged could have flowed a little better in places. That's really it. There's only so much I can say negatively about a book that got me so good that I have two pages of handwritten notes about it, jotted down just to help me sort through all of that gorgeous content. 

I look forward to reading this one again in the future. 

four-and-a-half stars 

Bingo Square: "Resistance"

Pleasure Activism, adrienne maree brown 

"And perhaps that would be fine if the top searches were 'woman on top of someone she could never identify as a family member,' 'strapped women taking tender tushes,' or 'grown up legal-aged professionals of all genders in hot consensual anti-racist role play.' But if pornography is another space in which we practice exploring our fantasies, I have questions." 

A collection of personal essays, interviews, artwork, and more, oriented around the idea that Pleasure is not only worth seeking in all ways on all days, but especially within the scope of social justice conversations and intersectional community organization. 

Parts of this book were thought-provoking, insightful, and edifying... in fact, a lot of it reminded me of taking a Comparative History of Ideas class in college. And parts of it felt sort of self-involved, abstract, and gratuitously provocative... like taking a Comparative History of Ideas class in college.

I wanted something concrete and static to hold on to, something like numbers or data, reinforcing a salient point with evidentiary backup. Instead, this wandering and wordy collection felt like it was constantly shifting attention, in ways that occasionally came off as a little directionless and unsteady. 

The problem is, parts of this are so, so relevant and important - to the point where my phone Camera Roll was filled with pictures of pages while reading, because simply writing down a quote wasn't enough: I needed context to give scope around the ideas that I liked. 

I found myself revisiting notable phrases and concepts as I was otherwise simply going about my day. Pleasure IS vital to successful sociopolitical recruitment efforts; Black women DO deserve to reclaim sexual freedom against dangerous racial stereotypes; the ultimate power in both pleasure and activism IS rooted in community! Imagine an old Uncle Sam-style poster hanging on the wall: Have YOU de-centered the phallus today? 

But all of this gets bogged down by the jetsam cast to the second half of the book, tenuously tied to the orienting concept, with controversial - and almost exclusively anecdotal - takes on explorative drug use, ethical non-monogamy, the idea of going commando in a skirt and sitting your butt directly on grass as a meditative grounding technique... like I said, it reminded me of the kinds of conversations we had back in college. It tired me out a little bit. 

I just really wish this had gone through at least another round or two of editing before publication. Instead of feeling like a commonplace book of scratch thesis development, it could have been two or three different, tightly-directed books... maybe even a really good zine series. 

two stars 

Ripped Bodice Bookstore Romance Book Bingo 

Hosted by the Ripped Bodice Bookstore - with locations in Culver City, CA, and Brooklyn, NY - this annual Book Bingo just celebrated its ninth year, and focuses on Romance novels that fit into unique and humorous categories.

Bingo Square: "Telepathic Connection"

Dark Prince (Carpathians #1), Christine Feehan

" 'A Carpathian male will do anything necessary to ensure the happiness of his lifemate. I don't know or understand how it works, but Mikhail told me the bond is so strong, a male cannot do anything else but make his woman happy.'

'I don't understand how taking away choices would ever make anyone happy.' " 

A psychic seeking to distance herself from her hazardous past tracking serial killers, finds her European vacation interrupted when she's inexplicably drawn to the leader of the Carpathians, a remote blood-sucking population under attack from unknown forces. 

Okay, full cards on the table here: I cannot emphasize enough how much I absolutely disliked this one. 

Enough that I got so sick and tired of their repeated lovemaking sessions that I couldn't help but yell out loud when I realized I was only 30% of the way in. Enough that the generally misplaced and reductive stereotypes drove me to angrily verbally-download the whole thing to my brother after he made the mistake of looking me in the eye as we passed each other in the hallway. Enough that in the last third of the book, I started wishing that the main heroine would get knocked unconscious or locked underground (plot-relevant), so that I wouldn't have to suffer through her narrative voice anymore. 

Things I hated, in no particular order: 

• How small the heroine was. How DAINTY and PETITE. It was only reiterated and reinforced every few minutes, alongside how her silky black hair fell like a sexy curtain, how her blue eyes shone through the darkness like LED headlights about to run me off the road, and how despite how eensy-weensy and Polly Pocket-sized she was, that she also had full, round, perfect breasts. Because of course. 
• How frequently and without any plot necessity at all, violence against women - especially sexual violence - was portrayed as a major motivating factor for the actions of every single bad guy. 
• Not the main Hero, though! He was just domineering, argumentative, obstinate, dictatorial, manipulative, and callous. He deliberately withheld information from the Heroine, turned her into a vampire without her consent, willed her into obedience with vampire powers, and demonstrated tremendous, earth-shattering violence towards OTHERS. But not her! Which makes it okay!
• Every time she was described as shaking her head, I'm surprised that a muffled rattling sound didn't follow. Her main "powers" seemed to be the stunning inability to accurately gauge a situation, and how to find herself in a maximum amount of trouble as quickly as possible. But as our Hero would describe it, it was just her sense of "compassion" that was leading her astray. 

I'm a Christine Feehan believer, for the most part - I really did love Dangerous Tides - but had I been kept in the dark about authorial identity, I think I would have just assumed this was written by a guy (no offense meant, gentlemen sirs), sheerly on the basis of how often our main character breasted boobily into dangerous situations that could only be remedied with violence. 

one-and-a-half stars 

Bingo Square: "Has a Sportsball On the Cover"

Cleat Cute, Meryl Wilsner

"One of the downsides of being a lesbian athlete is other women are always doing hot things around you." 

A rookie hotshot butts heads with the well-established captain of their New Orleans soccer team, but they quickly find something they like in common: each other. As they start spending time together both on and off the field, they learn that the whole teammates-with-benefits thing might be more than just a game to either of them. 

Okay. So. Did I like this book? Yes. Did I enjoy this book? Mostly. 

A few gripes:

• One of the primary concerns of one of the main characters is that the world would someday know about her private life, and more specifically, that she was a lesbian. Somehow, despite her legendary soccer status, her close friendships with numerous lesbian members on the USWNT, and a decade-plus-long career in women's sports, she just never happened to come out, nor had anyone asked directly. Be so for real. 
• I swear, one of the two audiobook narrators has the exact same tone, cadence and expression as a Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse character - to the point where I even googled it to verify that it wasn't true, and still didn't trust it until I found a second source - which made some VERY unfiltered sex scenes VERY uncomfortable for listening. (It was difficult not to just skip through them, but unfortunately, plot-heavy sex scenes exist in this genre, and in this book, so I was stuck.)
• I HATED the dirty talk in the sex scenes. I am definitely not a fan of certain verbiage that was not only utilized, but used to the extreme. The first sex scene also happened only at about the 33% mark, and they were fast and furious with the effing of each other, which just really doesn't do it for me... I'm someone who tends to look for a little more relationship development between characters before that bridge gets crossed. 

However, I did have some real, powerful positives:

• There were mature, (semi) rational adults, with real families, real careers, real concerns, and real side gigs: women's soccer doesn't sustain a rookie paycheck like a "real" job, so Phoebe part-timed as a waitress so her schedule could stay flexible. Grace didn't just make bank playing soccer; she also did sponsorships, brand deals, and commercials. They both had a difficult relationship with being public figures, and the various ways their words and actions were interpreted by the press. It was one of the most realistic and nuanced perspectives on athletic stardom that I've ever read. 
• I liked that they argued and fought. Counterintuitive, I know! But it was another piece of the puzzle that felt realistic and normal to read. I didn't exactly love how many of these arguments stemmed from slightly insane miscommunications - Please, dear reader, never surprise reveal to your friend-with-benefits that they definitely have undiagnosed ADHD after a tense moment with their parents - but I liked that they acknowledged their disconnect, and fought back towards each other again. 

All told, it was a quick, fun, and unique read, that I would probably end up recommending to at least one or two people I know. Maybe people who are just a little bit more invested in soccer, or rapid-fire romance, than I am. 

three stars

Bingo Square: "Haunted House"

Haunted Ever After, Jen De Luca

"There was a lot to process about tonight, but two major themes swam to the forefront. 

Ghosts were real. 

Nick was a damn good kisser. 

She wasn't sure which one was scarier, or more exciting." 

After committing to a house sight-unseen and impulsively moving to a small beach-front town, a woman finds out that her new abode is one of the main stops of the local ghost tour. Good thing the coffee shop owner down the street makes some great banana bread, and might know a little something about raising her spirits. 

I am a fan of De Luca's Ren Faire-oriented Romance series, Well Met, but this is the first I've heard of that she's written outside of that scope. I wouldn't even had known that this book (a recent release, no less!) existed, had I not been looking for a Summer Book Bingo recommendation for "Haunted House" specifically. Naturally, I snapped up the library copy... and finished the whole thing in what was, essentially, one sitting, on a random Monday after work. 

It reminded me a lot of Meg Cabot's recent witchy, small-town-in-New-England Romance - Enchanted to Meet You - though I feel that book focused a lot more on generating a really established sense of setting, aesthetic, and lore. This one, however, took a more direct "You know how it is" kind of approach - you know small beach towns, you know Florida, you know ghosts, you know puns, right? You honestly don't need to think about it too hard. You're in the drivers seat, the car's filled up with gas, and your only job as the reader is to push your foot down. Even then, it's a smooth cruise: just think the words "horniest Scooby Doo episode" or "tamest Ghost Whisperer episode," and drive. 

It's easy entry, just like the banter between the main characters is easy, the friendships come easy, the major mystery feels immediately obvious the second someone acts out of character. It's just a very dip-your-toe-in-and-swim kind of kiddie pool: a little shallow, and easy to splash around in. The ghostly elements are done in such a goofy way it gives carnival funhouse vibes, rather than any genuine spooks. It was silly and obliquely feminist, and full of good humor, so yeah, that feels like a recipe for a pretty good Monday night to me, too. 

four stars

Did you read anything good this summer? Would you have picked up something different to fulfill these prompts? Let me know, in the comments below!

What I Read in April and May

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

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

april

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

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

Be Ready When the Luck Happens, Ina Garten

four-and-a-half stars 

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

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

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

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

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

five stars (obviously)

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

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

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

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

may 

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

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

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

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

Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement, Ashley Shew

four stars

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

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

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

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

Legends & Lattes, Travis Baldree 

three-and-a-half stars 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What I Read in March

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

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

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

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

three and a half stars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

three stars 

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

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

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

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

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

Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner 

four stars 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What I Read in February

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

three stars 

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

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

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

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

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

It really would make a fun Hallmark movie, though. 

The Bride Test, Helen Hoang

four stars

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

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

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

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

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

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni

four stars

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

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

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

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

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