Reading, Writing, and Me

Pizza Girl  by Jean Kyoung Frazier Overview: Jane is just out of high school, pregnant, and deeply, deeply lost. She has a supportive mom who loves her and an invested boyfriend she met at grief counseling for young people who've lost parents. While staunchly ignoring her pregnancy and still working through her confusing grief over her alcoholic father's death, Jane works at Eddie's pizza shop as a delivery driver, getting invested in the clients she crosses paths with as a means to escape from her old life. None of them matter as much, though, as Jenny, a middle aged mom who's fraying at the seams of her expected life. Despite the odds, Jenny and Jane bond with one another, though their relationship is a murky and strange one. Jane just needs a compass, a tether to the future, and that can be hard to find. Overall: 5 Characters: 5 This book is one of the magical moments where you're reminded of how lovely and comforting reading is. I have little in my life that'

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism  by Amanda Montell Overall: 4 After loving Amanda Montell's first book, Wordslut , I knew I had to pick up her latest title, Cultish , as an audiobook. With an intriguing cover to add to the intrigue, this book blends together Montell's strengths using expertise from her podcast Sounds Like a Cult in subject matter while approaching it from a linguistic angle, which falls in line with Montell's first book and her degree from NYU. It's a fresh angle to examine the well trodden cult topic from, and it allows Montell to broaden the definition of what a cult is or might be beyond the murderous, classically dangerous, on a farm somewhere cults that are the common fodder of the media trend around cults.  Instead, she spends the first section of the book giving an overview of a few classic cults (think Jonestown), keen to point out commonalities, many linguistic, that tied these leaders together. That way, as she discusses things like MLMs

Everything Leads To You  by Nina LaCour Overview: Emi has grown up in LA and, particularly, swept up in the business of Hollywood. Her dad is a professor of pop culture at UCLA and her brother got her internships throughout high school on film lots. The movies are her passion and soon to be her career. This is how Emi and her best friend Charlotte stumble into a massive Hollywood mystery when they discover a forgotten letter at an estate sale for one of Hollywoods most beloved old school actors. Part mystery, part coming of age in the bright lights of LA story, it's a quiet novel that's also impossible to put down. Overall: 4  Characters: 4  Emi is smart, driven, and well meaning. She doesn't seem to quite register the advantages she's been given from her family and connections with getting into the world of the movies, but she's sweet and genuine in a way you're hopeful she'll succeed as she tries to elevate her career. Her supportive family makes up her se

  Bunny  by Mona Awad Overview: Samantha is completely over her MFA program at one of the most prestigious schools in the country. After a questionable relationship with an awkward ending with a faculty member, a bad case of writers block, and being placed firmly on the outs of the clique of girls that make up the rest of her cohort, she's ready to be done with the elitism and pretentious attitudes. Luckily, she has her best friend Ava, who lives in the town around the school but is entirely removed from it, to keep her sane. That is until Samantha starts getting invites to hang out with the clique otherwise known as the Bunnies, and she quickly discovers that there's something darker bonding them together than just being obsessed with each other. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 Samantha is your classic outsider. She has a dash of every bit of that stereotype. She's a bit bitter while also relishing in the fact that she can claim to be the special, different outsider. She has a ra

February has been my best reading month during a school semester (or just generally) in a while. I find myself returning to the pattern that I fell into as a kid. When my life gets overwhelming or I get sad, I've started to once again retreat into books and fill all my spare time with reading. It's honestly made me feel a lot better. Over the winter, I've transitioned the time I spent on TikTok to more time with my Kindle in the morning, at night, and while I'm waiting outside classrooms. And now, I'm adding in audiobooks in place of a certain amount of TV time. While reality TV will always own my heart and I love my Bravo marathons, shifting my focus has also helped how I'm feeling.  Despite being an exceptionally short month, I read a record number of books. I haven't read this many books in a month since I started college, and the only time I've read more in recent memory was April of 2020 when I was trying to escape (at least mentally) from COVID loc

Exciting Times  by Naoise Dolan Overview: Ava moved to Hong Kong to teach English for a while. She doesn't have a broad view of her future. She's not presuming to know anything. She's just there, taking it a day at a time. Then she stumbles into something between a friendship, romantic relationship, and acquaintanceship with a banker named Julian. She outwardly despises him while still enjoying the benefits of his company, namely, the money and job title he posses. Then she meets Edith who is a lawyer. There's a deeper connection, a clearer romantic thread with Edith, but once again, it's far from perfect. While not providing the most enlightened social commentary, the novel does offer an interesting granular look at the complexity of human relationships. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 Ava, much in the spirit of Sally Rooney heroines, is a socialist, and she's happy to bring that up to anyone who breaths. This, of course, opens up the vast room for critique of her cha

Everything I Know About Love  by Dolly Alderton  Buy Everything I Know About Love via Bookshop This is an affiliate link which means I may receive a small commission from your purchase at no cost to you. These are used throughout the post. Thank you for supporting the blog! Overall: 4  If you enjoyed books like No One Asked For This  by Cazzie David , Everything I Know  is likely to be a good fit. It doesn't have the anxiety or the sarcasm, but the eclectic mix of essays sprinkled in with other interestingly formatted ways of telling personal stories endures. Alderton chooses to focus pretty squarely on love to bind these essays together. Mostly romantic but also friendships and love that ends in actual loss. There's dashes of familial love. There's also byproducts of love. Stories about self confidence, battling eating disorders, and having the eternal crisis of what it both means to grow up and grow old.  The book has an interesting format where there aren't chapters

Cleopatra and Frankenstein  by Coco Mellors  TW: homophobia, transphobia, suicidal thoughts, self harm, drug use, alcoholism  Overview: Cleo and Frank meet each other by chance, but their elevator encounter has ripples through the lives of so many fellow New Yorkers. Cleo and Frank embark on a whirlwind two years together along with their various agency and artist friends who are all crumbling behind their various versions of the New York dream. In an exploration of the unintended toxic reactions that can spark even between people who hold genuine love, this book charts the life of Cleo and Frank's spontaneous marriage and everything that happens as a consequence. Overall: 3  I feel like the only person on the planet who's not head over heels for this one. It was just really messy, and not in a fun way. Characters: 3.5 The book is made interesting by its large cast that's followed intimately through the years. It's based on a small yet ever expansive world of a friend g

The New Me  by Halle Butler Overview: Millie hasn't been the most success at transitioning to adult life. She's struggled to hold down a job, getting placed by temp agencies but never landing a full time job. But this new position as the receptionist's assistant at an interior design firm might finally be the answer. Unfortunately, Millie isn't in the best place and Karen, her supervisor, is out to fire her from the start. This is how Millie navigates her new office environment and learns a bit about growing up along the way. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 There's not a character you're probably going to love  in this book, but that doesn't mean they're not interesting. Butler seems to have a fascination with the worst or most unfortunate aspects of people's personalities and how they play out in day to day life. Millie starts off seeming quite abrasive in her almost hostile negative attitude towards life and all of its most minute details. While there'

  Begin Again  by Emma Lord  thank you to Wednesday Books for providing me with an ARC of this book for review purposes. All thoughts are my own and are not impacted by being gifted the book.  Buy Begin Again via Bookshop This is an affiliate link which means I may receive a small commission from your purchase at no cost to you. These are used throughout the post. Thank you for supporting the blog! Overview: Andie Rose is finally walking in her mother's footsteps transferring to Blue Ridge State halfway  through freshman year. Her mom is a legend at the university, and after she passed, it felt like one of the few connections Andie still has left with her. But transitioning to Blue Ridge isn't without complications from blips in gathering ribbons to join a secret society to failing a stats exam to issues with her boyfriend, Andie is starting to doubt if her long held fantasy is all she built it up to be. Still, there's an epic roommate, an RA she's trying to deny sparks

Fleishman Is In Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner  Buy Fleishman Is In Trouble via Bookshop!  This is an affiliate link which means I may receive a small commission from your purchase at no cost to you. These are used throughout the post. Thank you for supporting the blog! Overview: Rachel Fleishman has always been perfectly conventional. After struggling to find love and fit in throughout her childhood, she had a fire to excel in every way having the perfect business, husband, and children and winning over everyone in the cutthroat NYC private school scene to land the best playdates. Toby Fleishman loved that devotion to convention even as he loathed the climber-like air it gave her and her absence at the dinner table as he took on more of the work towards raising the children as she grew the agency. They came to resent each other. And then Rachel disappeared. This is the story, told from the perspective of Toby's college friend, of why Rachel stopped talking to her family and wha

We've made it to the end of January! I sit here on the very last day of the month ready to reflect on how my 2023 has gone so far, how I'm honoring the reading goals I set just a few weeks ago, and share which books I'm so excited to pick up. All in all, I'm really pleased with how January has gone. Admittedly, it hasn't been the biggest test given that I spent a week of January on break and the weeks following in the early yawn of the beginning of the semester where everything is blissfully slow and gentle. Still, I feel like my life has shifted in a way that is better set up to prioritize both reading and blogging. I actually read more after school started than I did in that final week of break. That feels really encouraging. I've also been blogging a ton and have a few blog posts drafted and ready to go at all times because I've gotten ahead on my reading. Even though none of the books I read this month made my list of standout books for the year, I enjoy