“Beach read” is all about location. An interesting overview of Washington‘s life that includes good, bad, and ugly- and illuminates the places where certain historians (whom Coe dubs the “Thigh Men of Dad History”) have exercised a particular lens in interpreting primary texts.

About halfway through, and I‘ve paused to take a (hopefully brief) crying break.

Such a surreal conceit to get at such real emotions. #ARC

Yesssss!

PM Press is having an “Amazon fucked a small independent publisher” sale - and my order has just arrived. 5 out of 6 of these books were 75% off. (Nisi Shawl was the couldn‘t-resist full price purchase. Because Nisi Shawl.)

The explanation & list of books:
https://blog.pmpress.org/2023/03/08/75-off-these-well-traveled-titles/

I finished what I‘ve been calling “the crying book” on my lunch today and predictably burst into tears one last time on the way. A beautifully written memoir of grief and loss that hits very close to my own fears for my aging parents.

The final chapter reveals the true conclusion of an earlier conversation and hits the perfect ending note. (I‘m still crying, though). #ARC

Dunbar discovered an advert in the archives from Pres. George Washington, offering a reward for the return of a fugitive enslaved woman - a woman whose testimony would decades later be taken down in two abolitionist newspapers. Between research on Ona and the experiences of other enslaved people, Dunbar rebuilds a biography around a young woman to root for - and again smashes the persistent lie of the good slave owner.

A remarkable exploration of America‘s changing views on abortion through the 19th c, through the lens of the life‘s work of a single New York provider. In addition to the biographical & abortion-related information, learned a lot of the social history of New York in the decades before and after the Civil War.

Restell was a fascinating woman, and her depiction here is complex, very warts-and-all. #ALC

Couldn‘t figure out why there were still three tracks and about an hour of listening time left when the word “Epilogue” was uttered. The final track of this ALC from libro.fm is an interview between narrator/reader and the author- very cool bonus!

I love this book and I need it to be pubbed now (May 2023? May?!). Each chapter describes a different person‘s encounter with the same book - from original author to slush reader to student in class - and how no one reads the same book or gets the same experience out of one. I burst into tears at least twice, and I‘m not sure whether the first time was happiness or sorrow. Absolute catnip for readers. #ARC

The sales rep loved it. It had a strong start, so I pushed to read it before a rec deadline. But I lost steam partway through, when a side character‘s abortion-regret kept threading into the main story - and I actively disliked the style of the ending: more in a spoiler comment below. #ARC

The humor in this hit me exactly right, but it‘s not for everyone! The serial killer of the tagline is the cause of a lot of “I can‘t believe I‘m going to be killed by THIS loser!” self-deprecating inner monologue at the start. Post-escape, the protag goes to Vegas, meets interesting people, and brings a different serial killer to their door. If “funny” & “serial killer” can coexist in the same book for you, well, I enjoyed it! #ARC

I just gave mine away which reminded me I hadn‘t reviewed it. A memoir on parenting in general and parenting while/after transitioning. I thought it well-written & accessible to cis people, but I was a bit put off by some of the distancing from the wider queer/trans spectrum. But much respect to her for living as who she was in the ‘00s. Also contains an interview with her wife, & essays by various famous friends on their own parents/parenting.

“In The Art of Logic, I wrote about pedantry being precision without illumination. In this case it‘s even worse: it‘s precision with active obfuscation.”
What perfect phrasing!

An enjoyable exploration of growing into one‘s (still changing & growing) queer identity through extensive analogies to various aquatic creatures. Anyone who took the long way round to figuring out who they are will find something to enjoy - but it feels written to and for a queer audience, particularly those with genderqueer/fluid identity & the BIPOC members of the queer community. #ALC

Ahhh, I‘m so stressed out by the narrative! (It‘s good! But I‘m nervous because I know from the previous book that the author will definitely let bad things happen to her characters, and there‘s quite a few pages remaining for things to go more wrong.)

I‘m really enjoying this book so far - queer memoir meets aquatic science essays - but it‘s the second audiobook book in a row that delves into fat phobia and into past black-out drinking. The second section has a LOT of disordered eating/starving oneself. And the section I‘m in now is a consideration of all the sex they had that they didn‘t want - & often can‘t remember & couldn‘t consent to as a young person. ⬇️ #ALC

Sometimes an author is so delightful in person that I have to read their book - even if a confessional-essay-style memoir isn‘t my usual thing. Nora uses humor both to address and deflect from her grief and her more vulnerable moments. I‘ll admit I didn‘t find it quite as hilarious as the two coworkers who rec‘ed it to me did, but it‘s a good listen. #ALC

I enjoyed the concept and the slowly unfolding creeping darkness of the story/backstory. But I‘m not sure whether I like the book as a whole? I‘m not generally a horror novel reader, though, so even though this particular one won the Philippine National Book Award, my ambivalence may be genre related.
CW: sexual assault

“Colors, Margot divined, were not like rainbow creations, there were more complicated than they appeared, like adults, changeable, possibly untrustworthy.” #ARC

This October Farro Bowl is GOOD, y‘all.

I love Leanne Brown‘s previous cookbook & use it all the time - I haven‘t really dug into this one, though I read most of the essays when I bought it. But I had an oddball ingredient that I wanted to use, and I found a use for it in this recipe which I predict I‘ll be putting in heavy rotation in the future. (Assuming it does well as leftovers, too.)

“I also discovered that sitting in a cafe watching people go by was just like watching a river.
It could only happen in a city with a long history.
The sight of modern-day people streaming past old, weighty buildings of frightening shapes and colors — that was exactly what a river was.
It was how I came to understand that what made a river frightening was the chilling infinitude of time itself.”

I was at a reception & E.M. Tran pulled an ARC out of her purse for me- so it went to the top of the TBR. Multigenerational family saga tracing a Vietnamese family in New Orleans back through time to Sài Gòn and beyond, with a focus on mother-daughter & sister conflicts, through the lens of birth year animals and elements. Pulls one of my fav literary tricks: the narrators are reliable-ish but lead readers to make bad assumptions on partial info.

Travel days are good for powering through audio. I‘m not the target audience for YA, so a lot of the interpersonal problems made me cringe a little. But the look-behind-the-curtains of the K-pop world by an insider made an intriguing and high-stakes background for teen romance and frenemies alike. Thanks to Libro.fm for the ALC: I see it took me so long that the sequel is out! (Same reader, which is good - she was excellent.)

This is the first book in awhile to hold my interest and not let go. It‘s surreal. It‘s gripping. It‘s self-referential in a way that puts it in conversation with itself and its readers.

It‘s really hard to describe but easy to see why author Jason Mott won the National Book Award for the novel: it‘s truly a hell of a book. I can‘t wait to meet the author-which feels really weird to say about the author of a book featuring a horrible book tour!

I‘m halfway through and somehow more annoyed by Leo with every passing chapter. The picture is from several chapters back, but feels illustrative. Perhaps Hannah‘s side of the correspondence would make less obnoxious the overbearing advice from unpublished man to published woman, but it would not make him less whiny.

Is it terrible that my hopes that something bad happens to him is a major motivators in keeping me reading?

#ARC but post-pub

I read this in a day. My biggest critique: I hope the finished copy names the source for the stunning stats at the opening frame chapter. This book tells the stories of three love couples in contemporary India, their struggles to stay together, to be recognized - and to avoid being murdered over their romantic choices. The writing is top notch, but the material is pretty heavy.⬇️

It‘s been awhile since I‘ve read a mystery near the cozy end. Less investigating-with-science! than the cover copy led me to expect; much more wild theorizing and then seeking confirmation. I did enjoy the love story, though.
CW for threatened sexual assault, in the context of campus big name pressuring women with less power - and not taking no for an answer.

I LOVE this ARC! Helen only has a few days left before her death, and she wants to spend them with her girlfriend: kind, beautiful Edith. But a regular client sends her to do some augury & the case she doesn‘t want to take soon proves impossible to ignore. Fantastical 40s noir, with a lesbian PI, magic, demons and angels? Yes, please.

A fun, horror-adjacent summer read; ARC for August. Lucy from Dracula & Bertha from Jane Eyre have survived the men who ended their lives - Lucy as vampire, Bee as something else. They‘ve moved to California to escape the reach of Rochester and keep Dracula‘s ashes from reassembling, but their pasts won‘t let them go so easily. The metaphors are obvious, but the plot line less so, and I was definitely rooting for Lucy throughout.

The cover copy leans hard into the quirkiness of the POV character‘s coping mechanism. But despite obsessive/loving descriptions of the attempt to recreate a place that never existed, most of the story is bleak description of what drove Bonnie to Three‘s Company. Krystal should be sympathetic, but despite hating Bonnie‘s treatment of her, I disliked her, too. I thought it was going somewhere interesting, but … well.

“written in support of the French Revolution…going on to play a key part in America‘s war for independence”
Today I learned the two revolutions overlapped; I didn‘t realize that the American revolutionary war lasted for more than a decade (a decade seemed enough!), despite being a history fan as a kid.

Weird thing to learn from a book about book exteriors/marketing.

It took special effort to get this ARC for the store, so I felt I‘d better read it immediately. I enjoyed it, but I don‘t know how to describe it? POV character Gil is odd but slowly charmed me over the course of the book. I‘d say very little happens: except I gasped and nearly cried. A little beauty in the sentences reflecting the natural beauty that drew Gil to AZ. A little sorrow, as current loss tangles with older grief. And a little hope.

This has the feel of a book meant to be sold as merch during a speaking tour. A fine message- kindness is important- stretched out for too long & supported only by anecdotes from her life. Honestly, if it were marketed as a memoir, I might have more patience for it. But I do at this point expect personal growth & business books to have some social science underpinning, no matter how tenuous.

41% down w/ 3 hours 21 minutes left- but I‘m done

Added to my TBR several years, moves & a full state ago, I wish I‘d read it closer to when it was written- it‘s very contemporary to a past decade. I enjoyed the emails-via-Yahoo!groups frame and wanted to know how all the braided stories turned out. Two major caveats though prevent me from recommending it: when encountering their love rivals, one character got real racist, real fast (anti-Asian, specifically) and another became smugly fatphobic.

Wow. One day in April, 1955, almost 700k American women turned into dragons and flew away. Some after eating their husbands. Society immediately tries to forget it and say it could only happen once. This is the story of a girl who will eventually be a scientist, growing up in the aftermath of losing an aunt she‘s not allowed to speak of, taught to keep everything- that her sister was her cousin, her thoughts, feelings- tucked close to her chest.

#ARC The sales rep was right: I enjoyed this book so much I‘m almost mad about it. Simone‘s a reserved recipe researcher whose dream magazine job pivots to video. Ray is a sunshiney kitchen manager whose accidentally posted video becomes the mag‘s first hit- so they‘re paired up. Despite initial clashes, they become closer with believable conflicts and misunderstandings along the way. Simone‘s adjustment to Ray revealing they‘re nonbinary takes⬇️

Luli Wei decides to become a star in the early days of talkies, in a Hollywood studio system run by Fae. She‘s determined to do it on her own terms, not discovered by someone who‘ll use her up, not relegated to “maids, funny talking or fainting flowers” - but if ambition in any woman is seen as monstrous, that perception is magnified if the woman isn‘t white.
Full of magic, very queer, and will not hold readers‘ hands for world-building. #ARC

Nora‘s scriptwriting career allows the author to lampshade the moment that per narrative convention Leo is supposed to return... and doesn't. Her greater heartbreak over a short relationship than the long death of her marriage and her unsuccessful attempts to hide her heartache from her kids establishes interesting interior conflicts and a resolution that feels more earned than the version where the hero always returns after the commercial break

“I think the power of books is that- that they teach us to care about others. It‘s a power that gives people courage and also supports them in turn.”
Finished this today - a quick read, heavy-handed on the allegory but in an enjoyable way for readers… but I‘ve got reservations/questions about the translation decisions, and the #ARC doesn‘t contain the translator‘s note. So I‘m going to check out the finished copy before choosing a rating.

A pretty messed up female narrator, lots of literati references, hints at potentially dark directions for the plot.

Just the worst cover. I was told the inspiration was reversing the male gaze of a book cover like Lolita, but it really lands at “dated romance,” which isn‘t necessarily the same reader #ARC

I loved the characters and the initial complication, I got a bit thrown by the business model of the hero‘s company (that is… not how social media revenue works), and I was a bit concerned that some of the hijinks well into the book would cause me to tap out from second hand embarrassment (I do better with rom than romcom) - but I stuck it out, and the author stuck the HEA. Would recommend!

A fairly satisfying romance with good supporting characters. I appreciated that the happily ever after required both characters to work on pieces of their lives beyond the relationship itself. This romance bucks the alternating POV trend- we only ever know what Niki is thinking, not Sam.

Happy Diwali! Let‘s see if I can finish this romance *before* the holiday ends!

The author really makes all the difference in a book like this. Despite urban legends, the majority of books confirmed to be made from humans were created by 19th c doctors during the rise of clinical distance - the idea that the body on the autopsy table is an object to be studied rather than a human. In the author‘s attempts to identify, respect, and re-humanize the people behind the books, she also provides hope in our capacity for empathy.

A coworker has been recommending this one; another warned me about eugenics part of the story (which… it‘s about a taxonomist from the turn of the previous century-I am unsurprised by the racism, but Jordan *actively campaigning* for eugenics laws was more than I‘d have braced for) and I STILL hopped on twitter twice to exclaim about this book. Thanks, Libro.fm for the comp copy!
CW: extensive talk of suicidal ideation, eugenics/racism/ableism

“By embracing our supposed hypocrisies, we undermine the argument of our opponents- those who would use our shortcomings as an excuse for doing nothing.”

The ominous excerpts from the beyond-restrictive Arcadia Gardens Homeowners Association continuously ramp up the tension in this quick read about Sophia, her husband, and her nearly perfect house. #ARC

This cover design is so good it makes me angry.

I am crying over how perfect this book is. It hooked me with the hilariously terrifying goat (“Answelica was a goat with teeth that were the mirror of her soul — large, sharp, and uncompromising”) and tricked me into big feelings.
Pretend you‘re getting it for your child, niece, nephew if you feel too old for a kids‘ book, but read it before you pass it to someone the ‘right‘ age - you won‘t regret it. #ARC