A lonely rich girl impulsively swaps places with a girl named Shona while being evacuated because of the London Blitz, and finds a whole new family and life. One of my favorites.

Funny and sad and sometimes horrifying. The audiobook is excellent.

I'm really not the audience for delicate, slice of life literary fiction but the first person format made this more relatable, even if still kind of obscure. I may read the sequels because I'm curious about the lockdown story.

#BookSpin #DoubleSpin #BookSpinBingo

Also read from my #BookSpin list: Horizon, Some Desperate Glory, Wonder Engine and The Operator (DNF)

This poor book! I don't think any of the posts about it are actually about it. 😂

Nothing wrong with this, it just wasn't holding my interest. I probably would've finished the audiobook except one of the narrators put way too much emphasis on everything and it irritated me.

Anyone else think so? #Pemberlittens

A fun and swoony romance and two #ISpyBingo spaces filled, could life get any better? 😂 My full review on my blog: https://willaful.wordpress.com/2024/05/22/funny-story-by-emily-henry/

Just the perfect #URC category for this. Do keep reading... it is so worth it!

#QueerBooks

#BookChain

36. set in a different time period 1800s/2020
37. at least five years older than Last Book. 2020 /1996
38. shorter than Last Book. 417/262 pgs
39. different time of year than Last Book. Winter /Summer
40. same format. ebooks
41. more words than Last Book's title. 3/4
42. fewer letters than Last Book's title. 24/21
43. published in a different decade than Last Book. 2024/1986
44. different area of country. rural England/London

One of many heartbreaking moments. Mark can't even conceive of an accepting parent. 💔

(I don't think it's much of a spoiler to mention Eddie's faith is justified.)

Lovely, lovely book. How did Sebastian manage to follow up We Could Be So Good with something worthy of it? Is that even allowed?

#HistoricalRomance #LGBTQ+

#MiddlegradeMonday #timetravel One of the powerful and gorgeous books of my childhood. Creep is an unwanted child whose mother keeps him locked away; when he escapes one day, he slips in time to the Industrial Revolution with no idea he's done so.

“A ten-year-old getting high on pills. Foolish children. This is what we're meant to say: Look at their choices, leading to a life of ruin. But lives are getting lived right now, this hour, down in the dirty cracks between the toothbrushed nighty-nights and the full grocery carts, where those words don't pertain. Children, choices. *Ruin,* that was the labor and materials we were given to work with.“

cont.

Before I got into #JustDance my choice would undoubtedly have been “She's Having My Baby.“ But I've encountered so much horror since. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlW7T0SUH0E&t=6s

My aspirational figure, Moominmamma.

Do you suppose Haynes introduced the clue-in-the-Parrot?

An intriguing, slightly mystical young adult romance. I loved how it incorporated elements from different cultures and mythologies into its theme, and that the art is really important to the story, not just illustrating the words. It would make a fantastic animated movie.

#BlameItOnLitsy

@Faranae I'm tempted to use this for URC “fine art on the cover“ 'cause it's so gorgeous or should I go more conventional?

Kindle users, there's a 3 months free trial of Kindle Unlimited right now!

https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/comments/1cnzoii/free_3_months_kindle_unli...

(Might be US only, I don't know.)

44 of 100 · 44%
Your rank: #12 of 86 users on this list
You beat the avg. score of 29

I'm surprised it's not higher, honestly. I love these!

My suggestions: Cress Delahanty; Tam Lin/Pamela Dean, Dragonsinger/Anne McCaffrey; The Tightrope Walker/Dorothy Gilman; The Season of the Witch/James Leo Herlihy; The World of Henry Orient/Nora Johnson/Inside Daisy Clover/Gavin Lambet; The Silver Metal Lover/Tanith Lee; Cluny Brown/Margery Sharp

“I'd started to see how being big for your age is a trap. They send you to wherever they need a grown-up body that can't fight back.“

My first #LGBTQBookBingo2024 bingo! Also my #TBRTarot read for “book by a male author, and my read for #queerbc

I didn't like this quite as much as Khorram's previous books. The main character, Jackson, can be challenging to like, which is part of the story arc and it does pay off well in the end. But there was a lot of internal lusting, which I personally find boring.

My biggest complaint though, was the ending is too tidy (cont.)

I started this book while waiting for my daughter at the library, and just finished the intro, about the widespread cultural impact of West Side Story, when I looked up and saw on the display in front of me, a book called A Place for Us.

I got 35% and had far more favorites than I expected! I don't generally think of myself as an 80s movies fan. I tagged “Beetlejuice“ because i watched it during a very depressed time of my life and it made me laugh so hard, I'll always be grateful for it.

I think I've watched all the movies on the list I want to watch.

Doing a hybrid #BookSpinBingo card this month. This includes five books from my #BookSpin list, including the BS and DS, plus a number of general categories. I'm too eager to read some of these to wait!

Had a good #BacklistReadathon month! Read books by D.E. Stevenson, Holly Black, Rebecca Serle, T. Kingfisher, Taylor Jenkins Reid and a story by Anna Marie McLemore.

My #TBRTarot read was Rebecca. (made into a movie twice.)

#ChildrensClassicRead2024

So fun to revisit Pippi! This is the edition I had as a child.

I read the 2020 translation in ebook and found some differences from mine. Pippi refers to “fly poop“ -- I was positive I had never seen that, and indeed it was “fly speck“ back in the day.

And while in the old translation, Pippi ate a “rosy mushroom,“ in the new one it's a “beautiful red death cap toadstool.“ I'm not sure which I find more appalling! 😂

#BookSpin for May

A book I love so much, I will never, ever see the movie. I own a hardcover, gorgeous old paperback, and ebook. Back before it was reprinted and digitized I had a second emergency backup hardcover.

27. different time of year than Last Book.
28. different format than Last Book. (audiobook)
29. same source as Last Book. (library)
30. more words than Last Book's title.
31. same country or world as Last Book. (America)
32. published same decade as Last Book. (2023)
33. title has fewer letters than Last Book's title
34. title starts with one letter above or below the first letter in Last Book's title.
35. fewer pages than Last Book.

“She has big brown eyes, a gift for climbing trees, porch railings, and rock walls, and an insanely vexing habit of mixing up potions and leaving them all around the house to become murky jars of pond water and expensive wasted spices. Her pixie cut has grown out in quarantine into a sort of surfer-boy cut. I once asked her to invent the worst name in the world and her answer, almost immediately, was “Pubert Squelch.“

Didn't love either of my #BookSpin books this month, but I read them!

Also read three other books from my list: Alone Together, edited by Jennifer Haupt; The Other Half of the Grave by Jeanienne Frost; Serendipity edited by Marissa Meyers. And I didn't like them much either! I guess it's been a grumpy month, or maybe nothing can compare to a total eclipse of the sun. 😁

“Hours passed, like a kidney stone.“

The moments of wit or interest aren't nearly enough to make up for the curmudgeonly feel of the book overall, to say nothing of the casual racism, homophobia and transphobia. I originally DNF'd this and I wish I'd stuck with that decision, since I used to love this author.

#DoubleSpin

The narrator was excellent, with a charming Australian accent, and it seemed like a book that should be made for me -- boys falling in love! Online friendship! MUSICAL THEATER! --but I just found the story so dull. And kind of depressing, with the main character being bullied so much.

I've hung out with quite a few romance authors, though I don't know if anyone would have heard of them. (Erin Satie, Olivia Dade, Cecelia Grant, Megan Frampton.)

Got to meet Lois Bujold at a signing and have her sign a book for my mother-in-law, for her 80th birthday. Possibly her oldest fan, though who knows?

The author kept going to this well for far too long, IMO. I may read the second book though, just because it's narrated by Will Watt and I suspect he can make anything interesting.

Short comic about lockdown experiences, particularly for queer folk. Some are too true to be funny.

“I'm not going anywhere, but you don't need me, Aurora. You're strong and sweet and funny. You're smart and affectionate and you're all those things without me. You don't need anyone but yourself, but you can have me anyway.“

“And there ain't nothing y'all fear like hearing
the holy truth
pouring out of the mouth of some dumb hillbilly.“

This first seemed too similar to the first book in the series, but then the plot veered and I wound up liking it much more. The characters are very relatable: both Russ and Rory have serious issues with their parents, but he's responded by trying not to attract any attention, and she's responded by acting out for negative attention. Working at summer camp together, they learn to trust and rely on one another.

“I don't trust poetry. You think you're reading about an intense love story, but then you find out it's actually about a shoe.“

Not a huge pick for me, but I liked it more than I expected to. Yay for sex positivity in New Adult romance. Main criticisms are breaking the fourth wall a little too much and a ridiculously perfect happy ending.

Can't remember all my justifications, d'oh!

Crochet ballet: 1950s housewifery complicated by the installation of a new kitchen. Knitting is involved.

Solar troller: Just the perfect book for this prompt. She calls him at the break of dawn and dispenses snarky insults.

Floral laurel: characters named after flowers.

Lupine goldmine: fields of yellow flowers.

Mortal portral: Yup!

Retail Greyscale: Shop with a very weird, creepy museum.

I made my card really easy this month, because I'm traveling. Considered just passing entirely for April, but where's the fun in that?

Well, this month was just sad. I read two books featuring professional skiers -- was there one ski hill cover? NOPE.

I got Big Fab Bingo!

Yesterday
Still Missing/Beth Gutcheon Loss, wistfulness, trying to hold onto the past

Get Back
Role Playing/Cathy Yardley Two people crushed by circumstances finding themselves again

Ticket to Ride
A First Time for Everything/Dan Santat Travel

My Guitar
I Must Be Dreaming/Roz Chast Surreal

Norwegian Wood
Til There Was You/Kathleen Eagle
Main character is a forest ranger and most of the book is set at his station.

#BookSpinBingo Another good month. Making a lot of inroads on my TBR. Of course, I'm also adding to it daily. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Friends, I am going to New York City! Any lesser known delights I should be sure to catch? We're going to see the eclipse and then my husband has business meetings, so I'll be on my own some of the time.

#BookSpin for April.

Starting off the #TransRightsReadathon with this short follow up to I Wish You All The Best.

Argh! I just downloaded the ebook of this to check something and discovered it has AUTHOR ANNOTATIONS which weren't included in the audiobook! So now I have to read the whole thing again! 😂