Jenna

I really liked Ordinary Love by Marie Rutkoski, thanks to @aaknopf for sending it to me. This book follows Emily as her marriage to Jack falls apart and she reconnects with Gen, her first love from high school. The story jumps between Emily's present-day separation from Jack and flashbacks to when she and Gen first fell in love as teens in Ohio.    Emily's marriage and how it fell apart felt really well done and realistic. Jack's abusive and controlling behavior was not dramatic or over the top, but was shown through moments where he manipulates her or makes casually callous comments or treat her son cruelly. The story captured how someone can slowly lose themselves in a relationship like that, and also how hard it can be to walk away.    I also liked how the book handled Emily as a mother while also trying to figure out who she is outside of that role. She balanced caring for her kids with rediscovering the person she used to be before marriage and motherhood. The class stuff was interesting too - her new wealthy friends kept trying to convince her she needed Jack's money and couldn't live in a small apartment with kids (even though she had a working class background before Jack), and people would look at her and never think she could be queer based on her conventionally attractive appearance. It felt realistic in how people make assumptions.    The characters were well developed with things people would actually do. Emily and Gen's relationship had real tenderness and complexity, and was messy and complicated in ways that felt genuine rather than contrived. The emotion was definitely there throughout, and I was equally invested in both storylines.    I'd highly recommend this one, especially if you like character-driven stories with complicated relationships. The writing held my attention and the way Rutkoski handled both the abuse and the rekindled romance felt honest and emotionally resonant. Really surprised I didn't hear more about this one after it came out, actually!

I had mixed feelings about Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang. The premise was interesting. A young chef is hired by a tech utopia, and lives on a mountaintop during a global food crisis caused by smog that has destroyed most crops. It gets progressively more unhinged as the narrator gets more entwined in their world, becoming involved with the billionaires' daughter, Aida, and even cosplaying as Aida's mom for parties.    I had to suspend a lot of disbelief while reading though. Aida supposedly oversees all these bioengineering labs, but she is only 20 or 21 years old. The book hints that she's been plotting and in charge of research for years, which calls the timeline into question for me. I'm honestly still unclear on some of the timeline and ages, but the whole setup felt a little too brilliant, a little too unbelievable.    The strongest parts for me were the dystopian food elements. The idea that all the fresh food is gone and people are stuck eating this gross government-distributed mung bean flour, and especially the detail about the kids in this world not even wanting to eat a fresh apple because they don't recognize real food anymore, felt genuinely unsettling and worked well.    This was a decent mix of dystopia and rich people behaving badly, and it did hold my attention throughout. The writing about food was fine, nothing that really stood out to me as exceptional. I wouldn't say this is a new favorite or anything. I definitely didn't love it, but it kept me reading. If you're into speculative fiction about climate collapse and extreme wealth inequality, you might get more out of it than I did.

I was not a huge fan of How to Share an Egg by Bonny Reichert. The book is about the author's father's Holocaust experience and how that trauma affected her as a second-generation survivor, but it was barely that. Instead, it felt more like Reichert processing her own anxiety about the Holocaust without really diving deep into the actual experiences that her father went through.    I get that this is technically her memoir, not her father's. But so much of the book was about how she was going to write about his experiences, how he kept asking her to tell his story, how terrifying it was for her to even think about it. And then when we finally get glimpses of his actual survival story, they felt so rushed and surface level. I barely learned anything about what he actually went through, just that talking about it made her nauseous and anxious.    The food writing wasn't even that great, honestly. For a culinary memoir, nothing really felt explored in depth. The descriptions were fine but surface level, and the connections between food and memory felt like they could have gone so much deeper. Like the food was just used as a tool to break up the book into chapters.    I kept wanting to know more about her dad and less about her own feelings about engaging with his trauma. The whole thing read like someone working through their own stuff on the page but too soon, like she hasn't really processed enough before writing this book. If you're going to promise a book about intergenerational Holocaust trauma and your father's survival, you need to actually deliver on that, not just circle around your own discomfort with it. Not one I'd recommend.

The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton has stayed with me long since I finished it. This is Hinton's memoir after having spent 28 years on Alabama's death row for murders he didn't commit, and his story is both devastating and inspiring.    The injustice he faced is genuinely unbelievable. The prosecution's only evidence at trial was a statement that (flawed) ballistics tests showed crime scene bullets matched Hinton's mother's gun. No fingerprints or eyewitness testimony were introduced. In fact eyewitness testimony stating that Hinton was locked in a warehouse working his job at the time of the murders was ignored. That's what put him on death row for nearly three decades. The case against him was shockingly weak (because he was innocent), and yet the system fought his release for years even after multiple forensic experts proved the bullets didn't match the gun. The lengths the state of Alabama went to in order to keep him behind bars even after that is so inhumane and shocking. It's heartbreaking.    It's so sad to learn that Hinton's mother died while he was still imprisoned so she never got to see him freed. So many people from his life abandoned him over those 30 years, just forgot about him, which makes his friendship with Lester Bailey all the more moving. Bailey visited him weekly throughout his incarceration and never stopped showing up.    Hinton is such a strong person. His ability to maintain hope, start a book club on death row, and even befriend a former KKK member shows an extraordinary humanity that most of us couldn't imagine sustaining under such circumstances. This is an important read that exposes deep flaws in our criminal justice system. Highly recommend.

The Book of Love by Kelly Link was a wild ride that I think I sometimes enjoyed, even though I'm still not entirely sure what happened. The vibe was definitely unique with a weird magical atmosphere that is pretty original, and I do like magic in my books, so that part worked for me. However this book is LONG long when it doesn't really need to be. The story follows four teenagers who return from the dead and must navigate magical challenges to remain among the living, but there's so much happening and I'm not convinced it all needed to be there.    Re: the magic system... I'm still confused. I honestly cannot fully explain the rules or what actually went down in the ending. Also the whole Malo Mogge storyline was just bizarre and kind of took over everything. And pls, can someone explain the title to me? I never really understood where “The Book of Love” came from or how it connected to the actual story, and if it was in there I forget (forgive me as it has been a few months between reading and review).    The character dynamics were hit or miss. I actually really liked the relationship between Anabin and Bogomil and wanted way more of their backstory. But we got so much time with Bowie and Thomas, and I could have done without most of that. And why are these teenagers constantly hanging out at bars? The ages did not make sense at all.    That said, there were elements I enjoyed! Link's writing pulled me in, even when the plot felt bloated. If you love weird, atmospheric literary magical fiction and don't mind being somewhat confused, you might enjoy this. Just be prepared for a commitment, both in page count and in accepting that you may never fully understand the magic.

When I randomly decided to listen to The Mind is Burning by Jonathan Hirsch, I went into it essentially blindly... I didn't know he was already a well known podcaster, I just thought the premise sounded interesting. After reading, I feel like the subtitle is misleading. “Losing My Father to a Cult and Dementia” makes it sound like he had a dad and then lost him to these things. But he was literally born to parents who were already in a cult, following spiritual guru Franklin Jones in Northern California. His dad was always aloof and culty. How can you lose something you never really had?    The book focuses on Jonathan reluctantly becoming his father's caretaker as an adult, dealing with the dementia diagnosis while raising his own kids and building his career. His father was never really able to care for him as a child, so there's this weight of obligation mixed with resentment. It poses the question of what we owe parents who were never really there, but honestly, I found myself not super invested in the answer.    The audiobook format is fine. Hirsch narrates it himself and includes interview snippets with his father. If you're hoping to learn about the cult itself, you'll be disappointed. It's way more about the father-son relationship and dementia than Franklin Jones or the cult dynamics. This one didn't fully land for me. If you're really into memoirs about complicated family stuff, or already a fan, maybe you'll get more out of it than I did.

What in the fk was that lol.    Okay so I was here for it but also like... I definitely wasn't here for all of it? I couldn't look away from the mess, which I guess is a compliment? Maybe? The book is basically autofiction (the narrator is conveniently “a woman who had success in several mediums” just like Miranda July herself), which made me constantly wonder HOW MUCH of this actually happened. Ma'am, did you really do all this? Do I need to be concerned?    Here's my thing: I get it. The book is exploring how women suppress their yearning and quiet rage under patriarchal structures and blah blah blah. Very deep. Very meaningful. But my dude, just break up with your husband! You don't have to construct an elaborate web of lies about a cross-country road trip when you're literally 30 minutes away in a motel you redecorated with $20,000. Like there are so many simpler solutions here that don't involve gaslighting everyone in your life!    The narrator was SO self-involved and self-important that I spent most of the book annoyed, but I was also low-key invested in seeing how much worse it could get (spoiler: it got worse). I am not down with cheating, I am not down with the depth of lying this woman goes to, and honestly some of the scenes in this book were... a choice. A deeply uncomfortable choice.    That said, I didn't hate reading about the perimenopause stuff. It was kind of refreshing to see it written about so openly and unglamorized, even if the protagonist's response to it was to make every possible bad decision.    This book is designed to make you uncomfortable and it succeeded! Would I recommend it? I genuinely don't know. Did I have a good time? Also unclear. Am I still thinking about this fever dream some time later? Unfortunately yes.

The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica was deeply unsettling in all the right ways. I listened to this on audio and the narrator did NOT come to play. Her performance really sold the creepy factor, especially when the protagonist was all eager and hopeful about being Chosen. Like girl... we can tell this is not going to go well for anyone. That gap between her desperation and what we could sense was coming made my skin crawl.    I'm always down for some climate fiction, and this one had a really original setup. Bazterrica drops you into this world without explaining much at first, so you're just piecing things together as you go. Post-apocalyptic wasteland outside, creepy religious cult vibes inside at the Sacred Sisterhood - fun times all around!    It really got to me when the protagonist lost her found family - the band of children she'd been surviving with after already losing her original family. And then losing her next friend... No wonder she ended up at the House of the Sacred Sisterhood willing to put up with... a lot. Her desperation to belong somewhere, even in this nightmare hierarchy of Unworthys and Chosens and Enlightened, made total sense. Also even if they were eating actual bugs, I guess maybe it's a little better than eating air.    The pacing worked for me. It's a slow burn that builds the dread really effectively, but overall still a short book. If you're into speculative fiction with some culty religious elements, this'll do it.

Another Dramione fan fic review!! I know. Shocking. This is me now, I guess. A fan fiction reader. This time it's Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love by isthisselfcare on ao3.    This one didn't hit the same for me as Manacled. It was more light and fun. There were some creative moments that took me back to the HP magic, and I did really enjoy that nostalgic feeling. However, the slow burn was way too slow. The payoff from the romance wasn't enough, the burning passion wasn't there... it was too light and fun, essentially. Not enough darkness, not enough brooding.    When I pick up a Dramione fic, I'm here for the angst and the tension. This felt more like a rom-com version when I wanted the emotional devastation. It's not that it was bad (but like keep in mind it is a fanfic), it just isn't what I prefer. If you're looking for something lighter in the Dramione world, this might be more perfect for you and I think it's a general fave. But if you're like me and want your fan fiction to ruin you emotionally? This one's a skip.

Is this poetry? / Or is it really just / aesthetically pleasing line breaks / designed to make mundane observations / feel profound

Is it just writing instagram captions in a cute way
with random breaks
that make you pause
for dramatic effect

Preaching self-acceptance / convincing your audience / that you've convinced yourself / that you are enough / which is marketable / relatable even / but something about it feels performative / like affirmations / crafted for maximum likes

You tell me home isn't a place / it's a person / like this is a revelation / like this hasn't been cross-stitched / onto a thousand pillows / in a thousand Etsy shops

Your wisdom is a collection / of millennial inside jokes / repackaged as revelations / the same memes we've shared / now with line breaks / and your name on the cover

I don't care about your DoorDash orders / what was the point? / none of it is that cute / just write a normal caption / but I guess the joke is on me because only one of us is now probably rich

The Favorites by Layne Fargo was a fun, fast-paced read that easily held my interest. This Wuthering Heights retelling set in the world of competitive ice dancing had me looking up ice dancing routines on YouTube - def did not realize there was such a difference between figure skating and ice dancing.

The audiobook was full-cast which made it very immersive. The interview and documentary-style elements worked really well in audio, and the different voices were fun (hi Johnny Weir) and brought the competitive skating world to life.

The characters are definitely flawed, but their immaturity seemed to fit their age and situation - elite teenage athletes in such an intense environment. I didn't love the ending and how things ended up between Heath and Kat, but it still kept me hooked and reading throughout. I also felt like the mystery of “where was Heath” was pretty obvious and was like girl how do you not consider this possibility, but still it wasn't too distracting.

If you're looking for a compelling read with a fun setting and don't mind messy flawed characters, I'd recommend it.

Open Throat by Henry Hoke follows a queer mountain lion living in the Hollywood Hills, hunting for food in a dry landscape before begin losing terrain to a wildfire. For being narrated by a mountain lion, this was quite a tender little book.

Hoke balances the wildness of this predator with moments of unexpected gentleness. There is humor mixed in throughout, especially the lion's commentary on human behavior from an outsider perspective. The prose made it a super fast read, and somehow this story about a mountain lion becomes deeply moving without ever feeling forced or gimmicky.

It's a strange little book, but I really liked it. I would definitely recommend it if you're looking for something quick yet unique (narrated by a wild animal lol) that still feels emotional.

The Most by Jessica Anthony was a quick, compelling read. This tight novella takes place over a single day in 1957, when Kathleen decides to get into her apartment complex's swimming pool and simply refuses to come out. It's an act of quiet rebellion - she's given up so much (her tennis career, her independence) for a husband who turned out to be deeply disappointing, and this becomes her way of forcing a reckoning.

Anthony neatly captures the constraints of mid-century suburban life in this short novella. There's no wasted space, and the single-day timeframe creates a pressure cooker effect where everything has to come to a head. Despite not remembering all the specific details (lol my memory is so bad), the emotional impact of Kathleen's defiance has stayed with me. She just needed to make a dramatic gesture to break through years of quiet disappointment.

Would recommend if you're looking for a quick but powerful read about marriage and the small rebellions that can change everything.

I loved Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. I really should have read this classic sooner, as a big fan of post-apocalyptic books. Butler wrote this in 1993 but it feels like it could have been published yesterday. Her vision of climate collapse and economic inequality is eerily prescient, and the way she shows how democracy can just... erode when people's basic needs aren't being met is both terrifying and brilliant.

Lauren was such a compelling character to follow. Butler never sugar-coats the extremely harsh realities of this world (I especially hated seeing dogs and children suffer), but there's still hope woven throughout Lauren's journey. The world-building feels authentic. Butler doesn't hit you over the head with exposition, she just drops you into this world and lets you figure it out alongside Lauren.

This is the kind of speculative fiction that sticks with you. There's a reason this book is a classic, and that Butler is considered a master of the genre. If you're a spec fic/sci fi person and haven't read this yet, don't make my same mistake of waiting so long.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey is a short book that spans 24 hours on the international space station. The astronauts, from different countries, go about their day while observing the earth from afar, watching a typhoon barrel towards an island country, reflecting on their lives, one of them grieving a recent family death.

I read this because it won the Booker Prize, which definitely raised my expectations. While it did have some beautiful prose, it had no plot or character development. It's very observational, to a degree that feels a bit precious. I can sometimes get behind a book with little plot, but this one didn't work for me. Maybe I was expecting something more substantial given the accolades, but ultimately I found it forgettable and boring.

Who even am I - Dramione fan fiction?! I literally have never been a fan fiction person and completely shocked myself by reading Manacled by SenLinYu. I was a big HP fan when I was younger (like, a super fan), but due to JK's horrendous takes, I no longer want to support things that make money for her. HP was so impactful for me though, and I loved revisiting some of my all-time favorite characters through fan fiction.

This book was available for free for a long time, and I heard it had been picked up to be traditionally published (removing all the HP elements), which piqued my interest. It's an enemies-to-lovers Dramione (Draco + Hermione for fan fiction noobs) very dark romance, set in an alternate ending HP universe where Voldemort won the war. Lots of trigger warnings - it feels like Handmaid's Tale meets dark twisted HP, and somehow there's a romance in there.

This is fan fiction, so it definitely has some shortcomings. It was extremely long and could use a solid edit - some typos, lots of repetitive Hermione crying. Yet, I was pretty gripped by the story. I love when a book destroys me and this one definitely aims for that effect, so it worked for me. I really enjoyed this intro to the world of fan fiction and plan to read the published version, Alchemised, when it comes out later this year.

This reimagining of Huck Finn from Jim's perspective was a clever and engaging take on the classic. Everett's writing moves at a fast pace, and despite tackling serious themes, there's still humor woven throughout. The code switching was particularly impactful when I heard the changes in diction on audio - I switched between the audiobook and physical edition for this one.

My only mild complaint was that Everett's sparse writing style sometimes left me momentarily confused and having to reread sections to understand what happened - I definitely need more descriptive detail to really sink into a story. But, the imaginative storytelling from a fresh perspective made up for it, and the action really ramped up in the second half. I would recommend it for sure, and you definitely don't need to have read Huck Finn first. You don't need my recommendation either, considering this won both the NBA and the Pulitzer!

I loved this book, just as I did with Kitamura's previous novel Intimacies. This one starts with an actress, currently workshopping a new play, meeting with a younger man for lunch - we don't know the details of their relationship, but the meeting is full of awkward tension. From there, the book progresses in a way that will have you questioning everything, not sure if you filled in the blanks correctly, but in a completely gripping way.

I was completely stunned when I started Part II (if you've read it, you know what I'm talking about). I also read it pre-publication and had no one to talk to about it after, which I desperately needed. This might be a book I need to reread more than any other to pick up on details I missed the first time, not knowing what was to come. I loved this exploration of complex relationships, of what it means to inhabit another person, and the thin line between performance and authenticity. I just admire Kitamura so much and already can't wait for her next book.

Not for me! I had to tone down a lot of my feelings about this book because they def came across as mean when really this book is just very much not my cup of tea. I found it to be an unserious take on what can be incredibly debilitating conditions. I thought overall it was disrespectful considering how destabilizing mental illness can be for some people, when it seems like she can just joke it away from the way she talks about it in this book. All of her funny anecdotes seem so forced to me. I do not recommend this. It made me furiously unhappy!

After reading The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz, I was excited to read the sequel, The Sequel (ha). This book continues the story, following Anna, now a widow after her bestselling author husband's tragic early death. When someone threatens Anna by knowing too much about her story, she is determined to get to the bottom of it. I was pretty invested in this one - Anna is a horrible person (understatement) but very smart and sneaky, and I was interested to see where this would go. The digs on writers (“if they can do it, I can do it”) made me laugh. I had a lot of fun reading these two books and would recommend them if you like books about writers and thrillers with morally ambiguous protagonists.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

My husband and I listened to All Systems Red by Martha Wells on the trip back from a weekend getaway, and it was the perfect quick audiobook we could finish in one drive. This book follows Murderbot, a humanlike robot hired to protect worksites on different planets. Murderbot has hacked its system so it can watch soap operas in its downtime, but when the team it's guarding faces mysterious attacks, it has to actually engage to keep them safe. I thought this was a fun read. Murderbot's inner dialogue made me laugh, and I was intrigued by the action. I'm really excited for the TV show version of this! I however wasn't intrigued enough to keep reading the whole series right now. I think it would start to feel repetitive for me.

Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner was also a book club pick, and I have mixed feelings about it. While I liked it at the time, it didn't really stick with me - in fact, writing this review a couple months later, I can barely remember any details. I appreciated the focus on Amy's character and thought it was an interesting exploration of how severe mental illness has impacts far beyond just the person with the condition - Ollie's instability clearly shaped many aspects of Amy's personality. I stayed interested throughout, but it wasn't particularly memorable in either direction for me. Not a standout, but not a complete disappointment either.

The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson was a fun book club pick for December. This novella follows an American student in England who gets invited to join her rich friend's family for Christmas at their manor house in the Cotswolds. This was a short, quick, gripping read. I really liked the English countryside rich people setting - always a fan of a rich ppl problems story. The mystery kept me intrigued throughout and I definitely did not predict that ending. Would recommend if you're looking for a fun seasonal read with some suspense. 🎄📚

I read Table for Two by Amor Towles for book club. This collection of stories was a big miss for me. This was my first time reading Towles, and honestly, after this experience, I'm not particularly motivated to pick up his novels.

The stories feature characters that somehow become less compelling the more time you spend with them. They weren't overtly horrible people, but they also were not good - take the uncle who was going to trick his family into selling their inherited art to get his own cut. At the end he was just like, well, I got played, but wasn't remorseful at all, didn't learn anything, and then seemed to continue to use the family for his own company since he had nobody else.

And don't get me started on Pushkin. What was the point? He waited in lines and got far for it and then literally was so passive and dumb that he got lost in NYC and gave away all of his money on a ship? Waste of my time.

The novella, Eve in Hollywood, I did like a little bit more, but why did we need SO many perspectives for a NOVELLA? We did not. Even towards the end, new perspectives were being added... like wtf? Was it supposed to be a twist? Yet Eve was of course always just one step ahead of everyone else because she was the perfect manic pixie dream scarred little hero. Meh. Not interesting.

At least it made for some spirited book club discussion, but clearly I do not recommend it 🤣

This was exactly the kind of immersive literary fiction I always crave. The story follows Khaled, who lives in London, as he yearns for his home and family in Libya, to which he cannot return. At its heart are his deep friendships with Mustafa and Hosam - relationships that get redefined through time, shared experiences, and traumas.

I really loved how completely I was able to sink into this story. Khaled's inability to tell his family the truth, starting at such a young age, was quietly heartbreaking, and watching him navigate this burden kept me completely invested. I found it particularly moving how, when Khaled finally has the chance to return home, he's almost paralyzed by the possibility - it captured something so profound about how exile can reshape us. The writing is gorgeous without being showy. It's clear that Matar is a veteran author, though this is the first book of his I've read.

This book felt especially timely for me - I finished it just before Assad was overthrown in Syria, and I couldn't stop thinking about how hope and uncertainty can exist in the same moment, just as they do in Khaled's story. This one was easily in my top books of last year. I would especially recommend it if you love character-driven literary fiction where the emotional weight builds slowly but hits hard.