“Ummm ghost sex??” is a common refrain from reviewers, and I can also delight in the confusion behind that question. It requires an extra bit of focus in the beginning to properly follow who/what is happening, but once I figured that, I couldn‘t stop reading. Thomas has died but due to administrative error his death has been reversed until the error can be remedied. What he does with the extra time is fairly predictable but a riot just the same.

Sigh. Loving this #BookMail 😌

This is a tough one, to read or discuss. Here‘s an auto-fiction which likely aligns with the author‘s own youth leading up to/following a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Brief, raw chapters capture the pain & confusion surrounding turbulent months and years where she partied hard with her friends, alienated her parents, regularly hallucinated, and attempted suicide over & over before she‘s medicated and sent away to a school for difficult kids.

The film The Wedding Date (2004) has a special place in my heart, so it was the title alone that had intrigued me, how the romance would play out, and if there would be any similarities to [16-year-old SPOILER] Debra Messing & Dermot Mulroney‘s whirlwind love story. Readers, Guillory is great, and she made sure this book had a little bit of everything. It was difficult to NOT immediately order the rest of the series. Looking forward to more!

✨#NewBooks acquired 🤗

“The overarching clarity offered by this pandemic is that it‘s not any single generation that‘s broken, or fucked, or failed. It‘s the system itself.”

A book that me feel so seen... Petersen is an incredible writer and she herself is a millennial and is able to speak to burnout from personal experience while adding on to the testimony of many others, and pointing to stats that exemplify why life‘s so precarious & burnout so prevalent now.

Pretty sure this is my new favorite (ONLY favorite??) self-help book. I hate most of the advice I receive, related to finding a new job or “just being happy” as it so often negates how I am actually feeling and makes it seem like I‘m losing at life for not being positive all the time. I‘ve already recommended this to a friend who feels similarly, and I think I might keep recommending it to the people in my life doling out more unsolicited advice.

Cried many tears today, felt chills while listening to the incredible poetry from this young woman. Highly recommend watching & listening if you didn‘t catch it live.

I‘m here for every gymnastics book especially now that I didn‘t get my Olympic fix last year. No worries, Audrey Lee & the rest of the US National Team went to Tokyo anyway. 🥇I‘d be lying if I didn‘t admit to crying through the last 50-70 pages which portrayed the event finals and a hell of a redemption... without spoilers I‘ll just say that these girls made a great team. I hope our next IRL team sticks as many landings while mending many hearts.

#BookMail ✨😊 2 from subscription boxes, the rest from publishers! Most looking forward to the tagged nonfiction.

Reminded of Stranger Things & My Best Friend‘s Exorcism, I knew that Williams had written something special. Esme is an average teenager trying to earn money through a babysitting business established with her best friend. They have a monopoly on the best families so the new girl in town, Cassandra, knows to approach them. The thing is though, that since Esme turned 17 some weird things have been happening...and Cassandra might have some answers.

This is a necessary read—sad & moving, simple & sharp. Justyce writes letters to Martin Luther King, trying to figure out what‘s raging within him. He wants to keep a level head and not play into ignorance. He might like his friend SJ even though things are never really over with his sometimes girlfriend Melo— but his mom does NOT want him dating a white girl. He‘s a senior with an eye on the future. Despite the pressure, he can confide in Martin.

Excellent for the ilk currently obsessed with gory page-turners or shows like Criminal Minds. As a YA this might be missed, but be sure not do. The audio in particular is fabulous and disturbing.

Life update: exactly 2 months ago our landlord sprung on @BookBee89 & I that she was planning to sell the property and not interested in renewing our lease. I nearly had a meltdown but after 5 intense weeks of searching we found a cute little apartment not far from where we were. We moved in over Christmas and are starting to feel settled. Pictured is 1 rainbow of many I made while re-organizing. 🌈Thankfully no books were harmed in the process.

Sharing a few books I think we should all be reading right about now.

Coming off of my birthday weekend, celebrating my 30th 🤭, I thought I‘d share the stack of books I treated myself too! 📚📚📚📚#BookHaul

It was super lowkey, drank wine and mojitos with the husband, made a stop at my indie bookshop, visited my parents, and then binged most of Take a Hint, Dani Brown (which is just as lovely as Chloe‘s story).

You‘re doing a good job. 👏🏻

I‘ve been somewhat absent, keeping my head down in between the pages of whatever keeps my attention. Hope you‘re all finding good books to get you through. Hang in there. 💕

It‘s been one month inside with my books & anxiety... I‘ve read a little bit, taken some walks by the beach, and imbibed much wine. I have at least another 6 weeks of this routine to endure. Hope you are all taking care 💕

Thankful for these and all the other books in my house as we enter into much more time spent at home.

Hope everyone is doing okay. My anxiety is high but I‘m trying to find solace in reading.

My thriller stacks keep growing and growing.... but the genre keeps disappointing me so I keep putting off picking any of these up.

Though, Karin Slaughter has kept me occupied in the last couple months. Her writing is at least still reliable.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Filthy & shameless, this memoir is wonderful.

Another #BookHaul ! Just can‘t help myself lately. 😄📚📚

Reminiscent of Chloe Caldwell or Lidia Yuknavitch but written in a pseudo epistolary format full of lower case words & few punctuation marks, Wilder constructed a collection of stream of conscious observations & feelings that follow the years after her mother's death. Several sentences hit me at my core while others were much like those in group chats between best friends. Wilder is my age exactly and every pop reference was all too relatable.

There are many stand-out sentences that made me consider how Buchanan uses language in a way few would, but in a way that bleeds beauty through the page. There‘s a dull, aching quality that stands out, allowing me to indulge in a hundred pages in a sitting as the main characters, husband & wife, remain in place, together but apart, pondering what the hell they're going to do next and whether or not that will include staying together and/or alive.

Abi Daré is a new, important voice bringing attention to the issues still plaguing young people in Nigeria who are essentially being sold into a slave trade, working for free for the rich. The story takes place in 2014-2015 during the most turbulent change of Adunni's life following her abrupt marriage to a much older man, despite her young age, and her fatal mistake that prompts her to run away from everything to work & live in Lagos.

Bought more books (with a gift card).

Who‘s surprised?? 😁

I‘ve been waiting for the latest in the Stillhouse Lake series (tagged) so I figured I‘d pick up these others that had been on my list for too long. 📚📚📚📚♥️ #bookhaul

Fabulous and sad, a pleasure to read and learn from. I‘m for sure a forever fan of Bianca Marais. I‘d highly recommend to fans of her last book and of historical fiction.

Can‘t review properly without more space so I‘ll leave you with a quote: “I know better than anyone how the heart can play the most terrible tricks on the mind. It's a traitorous beast that can't be trusted at the best of times, but even less so when it's so utterly broken.”

This was exactly the riot I was expecting and hoping for! And, though I am typically a huge proponent of hard copies of books, if you're already a fan of Ali Wong and her standup, I believe you'd be crazy to pass up on the opportunity to listen to her raunchy narration here. I forgot just how dirty some of her bits were, but it's refreshing, really to see a woman let loose and show such freedom and confidence in her past and present.

This is HEAVY. Every time I though Nicole had hit had the worst day of her life, there was another life-ruining scenario for her or her friends/family. Less than 100 pages in there is death and treacherous addiction and lies and heartbreak and the story escalates. She is extremely lucky in that even after getting hooked on a taste of heroin and obfuscating her life from her family‘s concern, they push on, filled with worry and a desire to help.

Last week‘s haul was a doozy. I was very stressed at work so I ordered quite a few books from Book Outlet, went to the Strand over the weekend, and my fave local CT bookstore. 🤓📚📚📚📚📚

Wow:
“How strange that a person can look back on her life & see all the tiny decisions/actions— even moments of inertia in which nothing appeared to be happening— all the trailing comets of them hurtling forward like fireworks, not into nothingness/insignificance, but toward a future moment, a split second in which everything came together in an explosion of certainty & unity so that you could only gasp: Oh! So that‘s where it was all leading to.”

This haul meant a lot to me not just because it came from Books Are Magic but because of the time I got to spend with friend & author Bianca Marais before and after ☺️ #bookhaul

Got these lovelies a couple weekends ago at another book sale in Brooklyn. I always gravitate toward the indie presses! #bookhaul 😍

I really am just so excited about this witchy #bookhaul and all the wonderful books I‘ve been collecting this fall!

Incredibly relatable, speaking to varying levels of familial bonds & lack thereof by different voices. My writing instructor was included as were several of my favorite authors: Carmen Maria Machado, Melissa Febos, Kiera Laymon... It‘s well-worth a read whether or not you & your mother are close. The stories sparked many emotions, mostly empathy. I so respect writers who chose to share these pieces of their realities. I crave more of this honesty.

In a style that floats between traditional prose & modified verse AND first/second/third person, Yrsa tells a heart-wrenching story of her mother‘s troubles following a young pregnancy with her brother then Yrsa‘s own life as she‘s exiled to her grandparents‘ house because her mother had a boyfriend who couldn‘t be trusted with Yrsa‘s growing body. There she was subjected to following strict religious rules while parsing her burgeoning sexuality.

Had a fabulous weekend with a bookish friend and collected books and brews on an adventure through Brooklyn. Here are my favorite purchases! #BookHaul

OH NO I'M DONE 😭And as I finished we got the enormous news that Simon & Baz‘s story IS NOT THAT OVER YET AND oh wow this is definitely the kind of focus on Baz I was hoping for! This was such a fun adventure through the mundane, expansive, ever-changing American landscape. I was on the edge of my seat throughout. There was plenty of danger and magic and laughter and some sorrow. Lovely.

😍 It's 1999 & Lincoln is a mildly unhappy 20-something who just started on the night shift in IT at a local paper. He's living at home with his mother and is often criticized by she & his sister. When he starts reading the flagged emails being exchanged between two employees at the paper, he guiltily chuckles at & falls for one of the writers, a movie reviewer, as she complains about her boyfriend & consoles her friend‘s lack-of-baby woes.

Finished just in time for the pub day of book 2!! Though I found many of the spells silly, the plot here really moved and the content is classic Rowell. 😍 Looking forward to diving into more Simon & Baz tonight when I see Rainbow herself and get my hands on Wayward Son!

I‘ve been on a roller coaster of emotion these last several weeks. My husband & I got news that a friend passed away unexpectedly at age 29 & though it took a day to hit me, it really packed a wallop. I wasn‘t reading much as we waited for a date for the wake/funeral and then we spent the past weekend crying & remembering him. The shining light through it all, aside from the rest of our dear friends was a job offer (!!!) and, always, new books 💕

The story required much attention as the present changes each time Kate wakes up from one of her dreams in the olde world of Albion & Shakespeare. Her boyfriend & her best friend are the only constants for her in 2000 where her sanity is questioned as she becomes more & more invested in her 16th century life & the actions she could take which, hundreds of years down the line, may prevent the collapse of civilization. I was rapt.

In the style of Celeste Ng, Lauren Groff or even Hanya Yanagihara (?!!), Keane has also crafted a near-perfect emotional family epic. Spanning the time from patriach Francis Gleeson's & his partner‘s first days on the force in the early 70s, through to present day, she artfully styled meandering sentences that made me sigh/gasp/tear up, & left me desperate for more of her excellence, but really desperate for the rest of the Gleeson/Stanhope story.

This is my stack of signed editions, part 1 (I have 2 more events to go to!)— I went to listen to Sarah Elaine Smith and she was pretty cool, her work fascinating, and I just happened to snatch up signed copies of these other 2 new releases 😊 #bookhaul

I had the utmost pleasure listening to debut authors and well established writers speak throughout last weekend while I was at Catapult‘s annual writer‘s conference 🤩 These are the books (signed!) I went home with, along with the draft on my manuscript which I was there editing between lectures and readings. I highly recommend for any NYC-area writers!

I‘m so behind on posting reviews but that doesn‘t mean I won‘t keep posting my #BookHaul s 🤗 Did you get your #BOTM box yet??

Though Reid wrote another unputdownable story which I sped through in a few sittings, when I think too hard about the plethora of characters I can't help but poke holes in the weak reasons for the animosity that broiled behind the scenes as the band's music shot up the charts. I was also dubious of the formatting which allowed the characters to confess in interviews, recalling too accurately what happened as they accrued fame/money/drugs.

So enjoyed this perspective on the very conservative parts of the country which many liberals are always quick to discredit as dangerous for the LGBT+ populations there. The author made a great point about how even though some towns/states are vehemently working against them it is still their home & they want to stay and flourish regardless. I also liked how she described & aligned her transition with her travels across the country for this book.

Been pretty MIA packing and moving, but I got to take a break yesterday to converse over drinks (and books, duh) with @CareBear 🤗 It was exactly the kind of afternoon I needed! These are the two lovelies I left the shop with 📚

Lucky me I got to do a bit of traveling this weekend to meet and hang out with Bianca Marais! It was an extraordinary pleasure as she is one of kindest people you‘ll ever come across. ☺️ I hope you put these both on your TBR if you haven‘t already read them. Or do! I‘ve read Hum twice and adored it even more the second time. 💚