Ashlyn

It was Mormons all along!

To start off, I received and advanced reader copy of this book from NetGalley and The University of Chicago press. 

This book really wasn't for me. While I appreciated how comprehensively researched this book was, I went into it expecting more of a pop science non-fiction book, which it is not. This book is a very thorough history of human's relationship with Mars and the cosmos more generally. It covers culture all around the globe in every time period from ancient civilizations to today and explores the role that Mars has played in religion, mythology, early science, and pop culture. There was a huge variety of topics and I personally found the last chapter/conclusion on the future possibilities of Mars exploration and the pitfalls to avoid (e.g. brining Earth's current division, consumption, colonialism, and capitalism) really compelling. I think this book is more tailored to an academic audience who wants a primer on this topic as it reads much more like a textbook than something from Bill Bryson, Mary Roach, or Yuval Noah Harari.

While I'm not someone who has an ADHD diagnosis, I really enjoyed this book, especially compared to other books that generally fall into the productivity and organization genre. I recently read Atomic Habits by James Clear and Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte and while they both had their moments, I found Succeeding with Adult ADHD to provide much clearer, more practical methods for building habits and increasing personal productivity. Author Dr. Abigail L. Levrini structured this book with so many tools to help the reader get exactly what they need from each. The chapters are divided into small sections that can be read in about ten minutes and there is a specific icon placed frequently in the book that is intended for the reader to check in and make sure they have been focusing on the content rather than skimming or pushing their eyes over the page. Each chapter ends with checkboxes for each of the main points–the reader is encouraged to check off the concepts they believe they have studied enough and leave the others unchecked as a reminder to review them again in the future. There are repeated patterns to start out each chapter, making it familiar and easy to read. While I found some sections to be much more relevant to me than others, Dr. Levrini starts most every section with a list of questions that the reader can use to determine if the upcoming chapter will be relevant to them. The reader is encouraged to skip those sections or jump around to something that is more interesting.

This book has a great balance of cited research, anecdotes and examples, and exercises, with diagrams and worksheets that the reader can choose to fill out to complete the exercises if desired. The book is approachable and written in very conversational language. The sections discussing the science behind the techniques in the books are clear, concise, and still easy to read. I appreciated the author's approach to discussing medication as an option for treatment and something that should typically be combined with other mechanisms like therapies.

Overall this Dr. Levrini presents a practical manual to time management, social relationships, and organization. The author addresses topics that might be viewed as basic to some readers in a very human way, never patronizing the reader.

Thanks to the APA and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced reader copy of this book to review.

In What Remains, Rupert (Ru) Callender presents his journey to becoming an undertaker, his wealth of experiences working in the death industry, and how it relates to his personal experiences with death and punk music scene. Each story, each death, reveals something new about the author's past experiences or philosophy in life.

As someone who's familiar with the death positive movement, it's interesting to compare Callender's approach to writing and the industry to a similar author and creator like Caitlin Doughty. Callender explicitly says at the beginning of the book that death scares him.

I am not part of the death positive movement, although I have the greatest respect for those who are.

lost

loved ones

To properly honour someone, they - we - should be seen in our entirety.

The Natural Death Handbook

Like its predecessor Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble by Alexis Hall follows our main character, Paris, through a season of the competition show Bake Expectations. Paris find himself fretting through every detail of the show and the stakes are raised even higher when he starts to develop a relationship with one of the other contestants, Tariq.

Readers should be aware that while the format and premise is similar to Rosaline, Paris is a very different book. The demographic leans more new adult as our main characters are students in their very early twenties. The novel does not delve as deep into the details of Bake Expectations like Rosaline does–to its benefit as that format would have felt stale in a follow-up book. Readers who were expecting a romance may be a bit disappointed as the romance is really a side element and plot device to highlight Paris's mental health journey. Paris learning more about himself, gaining confidence, receiving a diagnosis, and learning better anxiety management skills is where this book really shines. The portrayal of generalized anxiety disorder in this book and the resulting character development are quite earnest. The banter between our main characters is witty and fun.

Generally I did not love this book, but I attribute that more to my tastes and expectations than the quality of the writing. I didn't find any of the characters particularly relatable and I didn't love the format of the second part of the book. I loved being able to see more of the aftermath of the show and how Paris dealt with it but found it somewhat tiring to read through the (realistic) social media posts deriding the main characters and exalting the contestant portrayed as racist and homophobic. The pacing felt a little uneven between the two sections as well.

Thanks to NetGalley and Forever for providing me access to a digital ARC of this book to review.

After going missing in action, Viola Caroll decides to start living as her authentic self. When she hears of her dearest friend, Justin de Vere, the Duke of Gracewood, suffering after returning from war, she pays him a visit and the two develop a re-relationship, stronger than ever. 

Author Alexis hall brings some beautiful character writing to this novel. I particularly enjoyed the way that they handled Gracewood's grief and PTSD, demonstrated Viola and Gracewood's long-standing and deep friendship, and portrayed Viola's burgeoning self-confidence. The dual POV structure highlights the complex emotions that the main characters are having about themselves and each other.

Some of the plotting didn't quite come together for me. I liked that we got to spend some time knowing Gracewood's younger sister and charge Miranda, but some of her subplot distracted me from the core of the story, especially in the third act. I found the pacing to be a little uneven, although similar to many other romances–our protagonists do realize their love for each other early on in the book, but they do wait a long time to act on it and once they do, they're nearly inseparable. It's a slow burn but manages to avoid the third act breakup trope entirely, a huge plus for me!

I'm not typically a reader of historical romance, but I found this novel to be quite accessible. It brought lots of period appropriate elements in while not requiring contemporary readers to have a lot of knowledge about the setting. Anyone looking for a joyful queer romance that can also handle some tough subjects with delicacy will enjoy this story. I've already seen lots of buzz about this novel on BookTok and it deserves its popularity in a growing cohort of recent queer romances.

Readers should know that there's some misgendering (mostly by referencing Viola's previous surname and title) and a portrayal of PTSD including mentions of suicide and addiction. The audiobook I reviewed included a preface by the narrator with this content warning as well.

Thanks to Hachette Audio, Forever, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this audiobook to review.

I really enjoyed this collection of short stories. I'm a frequent reader of both romance and sci-fi and most of these stories had a unique spin on combining the genres. I appreciated that many of these stories were written by and about women and people in the LGBTQ+ community. My enjoyment of the stories certainly varied across the collection; a few were spectacular and really captured my imagination while a few I found a bit lacking. The stories I liked the most walked a line between bittersweet and heartfelt optimism and many had me intrigued and asking questions right up until the end. If you're looking for this collection to present a specific thesis or theme aside from the genre, this might not be the collection for you. I'd recommend this anthology to most sci-fi readers and while I binged the entire book in a couple of reading sessions, the stories can be read independently.

Thank you to Rebellion/Solaris and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC of this book.

First off, thank you to NetGalley and North Atlantic Books for providing me with an ARC of this book and giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.

I think this book's biggest flaw is how it was marketed and the blurb that was provided. From just reading the blurb, it seems like this book will be a strong argument for drug legalization and will be primarily focused on this topic, with the author drawing on her own experiences as support and to provide a narrative structure. In reality, this book is closer to a memoir, with most of the content being about the author, her family, and her experience as a lawyer working in this field. I did appreciate the personal touches in the book and had that been what I was expecting from the description, I think I would have been able to give this book a slightly stronger review. Given my expectations, I was hoping for the content to be overall more informative and to provide me with some resources for learning more but I found it lacking.

In addition, there were some sections that needed some additional editing, which is to be expected to an extent with an ARC and I hope will be corrected in the final published edition. There were a few formatting errors and missing punctuation (which to be fair, may have been related to how Kindle devices display PDFs, not the actual manuscript), although I ultimately did not weigh that strongly in my review. I did notice however, a few paragraphs that were repeated nearly verbatim in multiple sections and a few confusingly worded sentences that seemed in direct conflict with points made just pages earlier.

Despite its faults, there were some very interesting pieces. I particularly enjoyed the section on epigenetics and generational trauma and wished that would have tied in more strongly to the central thesis. The section on supervised consumption services at the end was also interesting and could have been longer–I particularly would have liked to hear more about the ongoing studies about these services so that I was more easily able to learn more.

A cozy, wholesome delight. 

My one gripe is with the love triangle aspect, which was a huge throwback to the YA fantasy I loved ad a teen, but as an adult, I don't love. 

I really liked the magic system in this book and the mythos of the world really drew me in. It would make a fantastic animated series. I did find some of the narration through inner monologue repetitive and odd at times and the romance didn't really seem earned.

Firstly, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, for providing me with an ARC of this book. The following is my honest review of this book.

Aly seems to always find herself “fixing” those around here–whether it's her exes, her parents' marriage and subsequent issues, her co-workers, or even strangers. Her friends and co-workers, Tola and Eric, encourage her to make a side-gig out of doing this emotional labor and target it at women aiming to fix up their boyfriends. The business is really taking off when a popular influencer hires their services for her tech entrepreneur boyfriend, but Aly quickly realizes that he's her estranged childhood best friend and first love.

This book is witty and fun to read, although slow-paced (not my personal preference). For falling into the romance genre, the friendship between our two main characters is far more heavily featured than a romantic relationship; the romantic interest, Dylan, is not introduced until twenty percent of the way through the book and the main characters only get together in one big public confession of love in the very last chapter.

The best friend characters felt a bit stereotypical at times, Eric in particular fell into the “gay best friend” trope, but the book was quite self-aware of this, even giving Eric the line:

“Every straight girl wants the only two gays she knows to get together. The fact that we both sleep with men is not enough of a connection.”

Generally thought the content in the book was interesting band engaging, although as someone who works in software, I would have loved a longer book with more technical details. Some of the examples are fairly dated at this point; an update would be very interesting. 

Read a few pages and the language was all very dated and very outsider looking in to a community she doesn't understand or belong to. 

It's very well written but not what I'm looking for right now.