Reading, Writing, and Me

Summer is always one of the busiest times of year where I live, so my Mid-Year Freakout Tag always ends up being pretty late. Still, we're just about halfway through the year, so I wanted to share some favorites and answer the classic tag questions. I'll discuss this more in my July Wrap Up, but this month has been a super slow reading month for me. I'm definitely not setting any records with  books read this year now that I'm working more than full time. I've finished 61 books to date, and I'm hoping I'll manage to hit 100 books this year. Regardless of how much I'm reading, I'm still making an effort and picking up books whenever I can. Best Book So Far 2024 I've read a number of books that I've enjoyed this year (though not too many that I've just entirely fallen head over heels for), so there were a couple contenders for this spot. I think that I have to hand this to Martyr  because I've thought about the book extensively since I

Memory Piece  by Lisa Ko Overview: Giselle, Ellen, and Jackie meet as pre-teens in New Jersey, and the novel follows them through their three very different paths in New York City and spans some sixty years, starting in the eighties and jumping far into the future.  Giselle wants to be an artist. She wants to make a point that art is work, labor. She's a performance artist and manages to get some acclaim. Jackie is a programmer with strong ideas but also a strong affinity for the traditional path, including a compromising but well paying job. Ellen is the idealist who nurtures her squat into a co-op over the years. Their paths collide then stray far from one another before finding their way back as the world enters an apocalyptic future that's not too far from our own. Overall: 3 Characters: 3  I struggled with the writing in a way that heavily impacted my relationship with the characters. The scenes are full of so much backstory that's not actually in-scene that it's h

Having been in the writing community since sometime around 2017, I've seen the rise of writing podcasts right alongside the rise of podcasting in general. But that also means that I've seen shows come and go. Most of the standby writing podcasts weren't supported by major networks and solely relied on the labor of the authors who wanted to create a resource for the community. Shows like First Draft and Write or Die offered me essential information about the publishing industry at the start of my journey and introduced me to a generation of new, amazing authors whose books I loved. While I felt like I was majorly missing some solid writing podcasts for a while, lately, I've developed a new rotation of favorites. I wanted to share my new list of favorite podcasts for anyone looking to expand the writerly podcasts they're listening to.  The Shit No One Tells You About Writing I've been binge listening to this one lately after recently discovering it. The Shit No On

The Mother of All Things  by Alexis Landau Overview:  Ava is done with her life. Her teaching position at the college and her in-progress book are always put on the back burner to compensate for her husband's whims and continue caring for the children mostly alone. When he runs off to Bulgaria to film an independent movie, Ava stays behind in LA to finish the school year before taking the kids to Bulgaria to see if her marriage is worth saving. In Bulgaria, Ava reconnects with her past life in academia and starts taking unconventional steps to put herself first once again. Mother of All Things  attempts to make important points about the realities of being a woman and a mother in society today and how the progressive veneer simply excuses just how little has changed without fully executing on any of its promises. Overall: 3 Characters: 3 I had a really difficult time with this book for a lot of reasons, but the characters are a big part of that. It's hard to connect with Ava si

June was a great reading month for me, not in a conventional sense. I only read 5 books this month, which will seem low if you regularly read my wrap-ups, but I had so much joy around books and reading this month that it feels like a major success. I've made weekly library trips, giving myself a constant rotation of new and exciting books. I even took a date to the library to get his library card since he was new to town! I should be employed by the library for how much I promote them, especially the summer reading challenges. I still haven't won any of the raffles, but I'm having a great time, clocking a ton of reading, taking extra library trips, and inspiring my own writing along the way. stats. June hit what seems to be my new average reading month. Since podcasts and music have currently displaced audiobooks in my life, my reading totals have sliced in half, and I'm consuming a lot less nonfiction. I'm totally okay with that because  I'm still reading a sim

Mother Doll  by Katya Apekina  Overview:  Zhenia has a lot of problems. Her marriage is stale and exists more for convenience than love. Add to that the realization that she's pregnant–when neither of them wanted kids. But as her grandmother slowly dies across the country and Zhenia feels adrift, she's tempted to keep the baby. Then, she gets a call from a medium named Paul who says he's channeling her great-grandmother who needs to tell her an important story about her coming of age during the revolution in Russia to be able to release her soul. Zhenia decides to accept the message and the baby, her life suddenly unfurling at once. Overall: 5 Characters: 5 This book is brilliantly written, and that means the characters are great. They all just feel so deeply real–flawed, tangible, messy, wonderful. Apekina isn't shy about sharing the parts of these characters that society wouldn't stand behind. Zhenia has cheated on her husband throughout their marriage with a man

Help Wanted  by Adelle Waldman Overview: Town Square is a massive corporation that has a million microcosms scattered across the country. This book focuses on one store in this big box chain located in Potterstown, New York, a struggling upstate community that gets a bump from annual summer traffic. More specifically, the book focuses on the Movement team that unloads the trucks and breaks out the goods in the store and the drama and connections that unfold among the members as a shake-up in management opens new opportunities for the team. With a large cast of tight-knit characters, this book dives into the dying world of the big box store and the people who depend on their survival. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 All of the characters in this book are likable in a way that you'll be very familiar with if you've ever worked a retail or service job. The team covers a massive span of ages and life experiences, and dealing with difficult situations at work help everyone come together in

Funny Story  by Emily Henry Overview: Daphne and Peter were supposed to get married. That is until he finally decides to fall for his childhood best friend, Petra, at his bachelor party and calls off the whole wedding. He also kicks Daphne out of the new house they just moved into. So Daphne lands in an apartment with Petra's ex-boyfriend who was also newly in need of a roommate. So, while Daphne's perfect romance gets ruined, a new meet cute begins with her accidental roommate, meaning that her new couple-story will always start with, "It's kind of a funny story." Overall: 4 Characters: 4 I like Daphne and Miles. I don't feel super connected to them, like I did with the cast of Book Lovers , but I wanted to see them happy in the end. Because every Emily Henry book has to revolve around a woman with a bookish career, Daphne is a children's librarian who newly moved to Michigan for her ex-fiance. She loves her job but has no other connections to the town, s

If you missed it, I moved back to my hometown after going to college in LA for the last three years, and while I'm so excited to be home for so many reasons, being reunited with my library is one of the biggest exciting things about being home. I promise you there is no better library in the world. So when I got off work early a few weeks ago, I drove straight to the library to get a massive haul of books to hopefully get myself out of a reading slump.  I've since been to the library again between getting this haul and actually finishing this blog post, so you'll see a new library haul on the blog pretty soon, but I wanted to show you my first mega haul that I was super excited about. Also, as of June 1, adult summer reading is starting, and I'm irrationally excited about it. I participated in summer reading most summers as a kid in school, and it's so cool that I can continue doing it now that I'm old (not really but older than a high schooler). At my library,