Reading, Writing, and Me

I Hope This Finds You Well  by Natalie Sue Overview: Jolene is stuck in an office job she hates but can't give up because it stops her from being thirty-three and living with her parents. After getting bullied all through high school, Jolene's life hasn't gotten much better, especially as she realizes after an HR glitch that all her co-workers are gossiping about her. Equipped with the new power to read everyone in the office's correspondence, Jolene sets off on a mission to manipulate her co-workers and insulate herself from the impending layoff. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 I liked all of the characters in the novel, and Sue does a good job of revealing slowly to Jolene and the reader what makes all the office villains complex and compelling. Jolene is cutting and sharp and closed down to the world for good reason. It hasn't been nice to her. Jolene was bullied as a kid; she's made out to be an outsider by her coworkers as an adult. I thought the book did a great ...

You Didn't Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip by Kelsey McKinney (Out February 11) Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for sending me an advanced copy for review purposes. All opinions are my own.  Overview: Kelsey McKinney takes a deep dive into gossip through a series of essays in a spinoff of her podcast, Normal Gossip. On the podcast, McKinney and her co-host delve into stories from strangers, perfect bits of juicy gossip, and in this series of essay, McKinney breaks down different types of gossip and gossip adjacent constructs (urban legends, parasocialism, conspiracy theories, anonymous gossip, why Chat GPT can't gossip, etc) in well researched, thoughtful essays that infuse her personal experiences as a lifelong gossip and internet resident with scientific literature, literature-literature, and pieces of the art world. Overall: 4.5 Notes: I'm going to be totally honest and say that while this was an early "most anticipated" of 2025 for me, ...