Reading, Writing, and Me

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 are...

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 ...