Stephany Writes

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (5.2.22)

Happy Monday, friends! I have great news to share: my passport renewal was approved and I should get my new passport sometime this week. I never ended up paying for the expedited passport, and now I’m glad I waited because it turns out that I didn’t need it after all. Woohoo! Niagara Falls trip is a go.

Last week, I finished four books! A very good reading week for me, indeed. Three of those were five-star books. Have I become more lenient with my rating system this year? I’ve rated 17 out of 42 books five stars—40% of my reading this year. (!!!) Am I just picking books I know I will love? Am I being less critical of what I read? Who knows!

Here’s what I read last week:

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan (★★★★★)

I read 70% of this book last Sunday and even stayed up late to finish it because I had to know how it would end! It was a fantastic dystopian novel, even though the setting felt more real life than an unimaginable future. Hannah lives in a post-pandemic world (a pandemic that rendered women who were diagnosed with the disease infertile) and now, abortion is fully illegal. What’s more, only the most serious convicted felons are imprisoned in this world. Other convicts are instead “chromed,” in which their skin is genetically altered to match the class of their crime for a period of time. Yellow is for low-class felonies and red is for murder. Hannah is a Red, as having an abortion is considered a murderous offense. This book was so propulsive and there were so many great twists and turns. It was published in 2011, so the plot feels oddly prescient for what’s in the news today. It has a pretty low Goodreads rating (3.6) and normally I wouldn’t read a book with such a low rating, but I’m glad I gave this one a try because I really, really loved it.

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain (★★★★★)

This book took me almost the entirety of April to read, as I read it very slowly and carefully. This book is truly a masterpiece and such a unique way to tell the history of Black people in America. There are 80 essays from 80 different Black authors in this collection. Each essay covers a five-year span of history starting with 1619 and continuing through to 2019. The essays are short, maybe just a few pages long, and each writer takes their own unique spin on their essay. Maybe they discuss an important court case at this time, or an important Black figure, or how their own history intersects with that of someone born hundreds of years before them. The book is broken down into sections spanning 40 years and at the end of each section was a poem, some of which I skimmed and some of which touched me incredibly deeply. All in all, this book is an excellent addition to an anti-racism library and I encourage everyone to pick it up.

“But the past is close. The slave codes of 1705 are close. The past is filled with people who carried out evil acts with foresight and determination, supported by the complicity of their peers. It contains progress but just as many reactionary entrenchments of old power. White supremacy became the norm in America because white men who felt threatened wrote laws to foster it, then codified the violence necessary to maintain it. They can maintain it with the same intention today, if we allow it.” (p. 81)

The Lemon Sisters by Jill Shalvis (★★★☆☆)

Brooke and Mindy Lemon used to be close when they were younger but after Brooke was in a helicopter crash that almost took her life, she changed, left her hometown of Wildstone, and hasn’t been back in the six years since the accident. All of that changes when Mindy arrives on Brooke’s doorstep, frazzled and with her three kids in tow. Mindy needs a break from her life. Her husband works all the time and she’s worried he’s cheating on her, and being the sole caretaker of three children has caused a mental breakdown. So they decide to switch places for a few days: Brooke will take care of Mindy’s kids and Mindy can take a break. Brooke decides to go back to Wildstone with the kids and it’s there she has to come face-to-face with her past—and the guy she left behind. This story is quintessential Jill Shalvis, who is one of my favorite contemporary romance authors. It’s more about the women and the issues they need to work through than the romance, which many people might appreciate. I did love the themes of marriage after kids and asking for what you want, as well as healing from trauma and finding your way back to yourself. This would have been an easy 4-star read from me, but there was some fatphobic language that rubbed me the wrong way so I docked it a star because of that.

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (★★★★★)

Well, the reviews were right: This book is a gem! It was such a delightful read with characters who were so easy to root for and an ending that made me smile. When Lillian receives a letter from her best friend Madison, asking her for a favor, she decides to drop everything and help out her friend. What Madison needs is for Lillian to take care of her twin stepkids who will be coming to live with her. Oh, and um… they might have a propensity to burst into flames when angry. The fire doesn’t hurt them, but can wreak havoc to the people and world around them. What I loved most about this book were the twins, Bessie and Roland, who are two sweet children who have had an unlucky lot in life and just need someone who is going to be in their corner. Lillian was also a character I really loved, especially her take-no-shit demeanor. All in all, an excellent read that will have a place on my favorites list.

What I’m Reading This Week

  • Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz (print) – This is our May book club pick and I’m about 100 pages in. It hasn’t really grabbed my attention yet, so we’ll see how it goes.
  • Feel the Heat by Kate Meader (e-book) – My current romance, which I’m also not fully invested in yet. Might be a downer week for books!
  • Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson (audiobook) – I’ve decided to give the Truly Devious series a go, after reading some great reviews. YA set at a private boarding school in Vermont? Sign me up!

What are you reading this week?

Categories: Books

How I Choose What to Read Next

I am not a mood reader. In fact, until I got more involved with the book community through podcasts and on Instagram, I didn’t know there was any such thing as mood readers. You just let your… mood… dictate what you’re going to read next? That sounded CRAZY to me. For as long as I’ve been conscious about my book selection habits, I’ve been a strict TBR list reader. (TBR = to be read) I set my list and I rarely deviate from it. Whenever I try to be a mood reader (I did this during the early stages of the pandemic when it was hard to easily get books from the library), I feel off-kilter. I feel out of control when I don’t know the next few books I’m going to read. My TBR list brings me comfort and stability.

I thought I would talk about my process for setting my TBR list. Prepare yourselves. There are multiple spreadsheets and a very convoluted selection process involved.

How I Set My TBR List

I house my TBR list in the same spreadsheet where I keep my reading log. This spreadsheet has tabs for:

  • 2022 – Current reading log.
  • TBR List – My upcoming TBR list.
  • Unread Shelf 2022 – One of my reading challenges. I list out all of the books I want to read in each category and check them off as I go.
  • Reading Challenge 2022 – My other reading challenge. I’ve listed out all of the books I need to read and whether I own the book and/or it’s available as an audiobook through Libby. I check off the books as I read them.
  • To Read – Romance – A running TBR list solely for my romances.

I also have a separate spreadsheet where I’ve listed out all of the books I own, both in print and on my Kindle. Am I a little anal-retentive about my reading life? Why yes, yes I am. Is the fact that I have spreadsheets for my spreadsheets the reason I’m consistently exhausted by all my hobbies? Maybe.

Let’s first talk about my main TBR list spreadsheet. I change up the way I choose books to put on this TBR list frequently, but here’s what it looks like right now:

I set my TBR list in batches of five books at a time. Once I’m nearing the end of a five-book list, I’ll go through the upcoming five-book list and request any library books I need. I’ll also create a new five-book list at this time. Each five-book list includes: 1-2 books from my reading challenge, 1 book from the Unread Shelf Project, 1 book from my “must reads” list, 1 book from my Goodreads TBR, and 1 book from my Owned spreadsheet. This reading challenge (where I’m trying to read all of the books I added to my Goodreads want-to-read list before 2018) has changed up the way I’m setting my TBR list because I want to make sure I’m working through the list at a good pace. I switch between choosing 1 or 2 books for this challenge per five-book list, just to keep things fresh.

I can typically work through a five-book list within a month, maybe sooner if the books are short or I’ve abandoned one. These lists are essentially monthly TBRs but I don’t like to list them that way because if I finish a five-book list early, I want to be able to move right along to the next list.

I mentioned two different TBR lists in the above paragraph: Must Reads and Goodreads TBR. Let’s go into what those are real quick:

  • Must reads – I keep a separate list (are you keeping track of all my lists?) of 10 different “must reads.” These are books that I don’t want to get lost in my Goodreads want-to-read list. They’re the books I really want to read as soon as possible, so I keep them separated from my other book lists and make sure I read at least one book from this list every month.
  • Goodreads TBR – These are books I pull from my Goodreads want-to-read list. I try to cull this list frequently and keep it under 250 books, otherwise it feels super unmanageable. To select a book from my Goodreads TBR, I go to random.org, put in how many pages my want-to-read list is (currently it’s at 12), and whatever number it gives me, I’ll go to that page of my want-to-read list and pick a book.

So that’s my full process of selecting the books that will go on my TBR list. And even though I’m not a mood reader, per se, I do keep my mood in mind when I’m putting together these book lists. For example, I try not to have too many nonfiction books on the list at a certain time. If I’m going to read a heavy social justice book, I try to make sure all of my other books are a bit lighter, like YA or contemporary fiction. I also make sure that at least 2 of the 5 books (ideally 3) are by or about BIPOC or the LGBTQ+ community. A lot of times, I’ll fill out a five-book list and none of the books are diverse. So I’ll swap out some books, like maybe different books from my Goodreads TBR and Must Reads list, to make sure I’m not solely reading about white people. (I make this point to say that it does take conscious effort to make sure I’m reading about different perspectives and diversifying my book lists. The publishing industry is very white-washed and heteronormative, but if you make the effort, you can have a diverse reading list.)

How I Pick My Romances

Now, where does romance reading fit into my book selection process? As noted above, I have a separate list for my romances. I keep a running list of the romance authors I’m reading now (I try to read through the entire backlist of all of my favorite romance writers). Right now, I’m reading through the works of Lauren Layne, Tessa Dare, Jill Shalvis, Kate Meader, Helena Hunting, Julia Quinn, and Susannah Nix.

Typically, I keep a long list (usually 10 books) of romances that will be coming up for me to read. Once this list starts to dwindle, I’ll spend some time searching for new books to add to the list. I do a mix of backlist romances from my fave authors as well as frontlist titles that are getting buzzed about. (I’ll usually mark them on want-to-read on Goodreads, and I look through that list frequently when pulling new book titles to read.)

I’m also trying to be cognizant of the fact that the romance genre can be very white and very heteronormative (although it has gotten better in recent years!), so I try to pick a queer romance or a romance from a BIPOC author for every two non-diverse romances I read. Here’s what my list looks like right now (the first list includes backlist romances and the second list includes diverse romances):

Since I am often always reading a romance, I don’t include my romance reads into my overall TBR list. I just pick the next book on my list once I finish the romance I’m reading. (Here’s how I read two books at one time: I’ll read 50 pages of my non-romance, and then switch over to my romance. I’ll read 50 pages or a certain percentage of my romance, and then switch back to my non-romance. And so on and so forth.)

Book Club Books

The last piece of the puzzle is book club books. Thankfully, I’m only in one book club so I only have to worry about fitting in one extra book per month. Most of the time, I just slot in the book when I feel like reading it (maybe I am a bit of a mood reader after all, ha). Sometimes it’s because our meeting is coming up and I haven’t read the book, other times it’s because I just finished one of my five-book lists and want to read it before starting my new list. There’s truly no rhyme or reason to when I read a book club book! (I do try to request the book from the library as soon as we decide on it, just so I have it around when I want to pick it up.)

Final Thoughts

I am a little embarrassed to share my system for choosing what books I’ll be reading because it’s really so, so complicated. I’ve written over 1,300 words on how I choose what books to read! That’s ridiculous. I envy people who just request books willy-nilly from the library and don’t live and die by a TBR list. I have a friend who, every time she needs more books to read, will just head to the library, pull up her Goodreads want-to-read list, sort by rating, and look through the stacks to see what books are available. That’s truly astonishing to me!

But you know what? I like this system. I like all of my spreadsheets and lists. I like that I’ve made it a fun game of choosing what to read. I’m sure my system will change and evolve over time. (I used to be the person who would just go to the library and peruse the stacks!) But I like that I always know the next 10 or so books that I’ll be reading. Whenever I finish a book and I don’t have the next one lined up immediately, I feel a little panicky. My weird, complicated TBR system brings me comfort and joy, and isn’t that what we want from our hobbies?

Tell me your process for selecting books to read! I’m fascinated by everyone’s different processes.

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (4.25.22)

Happy Monday! I had a fabulous weekend where my Saturday was super busy and I lazed around all day Sunday. The perfect weekend, in my opinion. I have three books to review with you guys today—my April reading has been very, very slow and I’m falling way behind on my Goodreads goal. Oh, well! It’s all just for fun and I refuse to make reading a competition.

Let’s dive into the reviews, shall we?

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (★★★★★)

I don’t know why I thought this book was going to be a light-hearted YA novel because it most definitely wasn’t. Trigger warnings abound here, especially for suicide, depression, bipolar disorder, and death. In this novel, we follow Finch and Violet, two teens who are going through incredibly difficult times. Violet’s sister died in a car accident a few months ago and her parents seem to act like everything is back to normal, but she is still mired in grief. Finch has his own battles, namely with an undiagnosed mental illness that causes him to have high highs and low lows. (Likely bipolar disorder.) When Finch and Violet are paired together for a school project, they start to discover that they have a lot to learn from each other. This book was beautiful, gut-wrenching, and heart-warming. There is a twist near the end that I wasn’t fully expecting, and it took my breath away. Well done by the author! All the Bright Places is not a book I would recommend to everyone, but I would recommend giving it a shot if you can handle the triggers.

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake (★★★★★)

Oh, how I loved this romance! It’s been really hard to find good f/f romances, and this was the best I’ve read. Delilah Green left Bright Falls after college, but now, 12 years later, she’s back to photograph her stepsister’s wedding. That means facing the family she left behind—her stepsister and stepmother who always made her feel out of place. What she doesn’t expect is to be hit on by her stepsister’s best friend, Claire, at a bar the first night in town, nor to start developing feelings for Claire. What follows is a really sweet love story between two women as well as a story of self-discovery and healing from familial trauma. Delilah’s fears of abandonment felt so true to my own experience, and I loved the way Claire continued to prove she was there for her. I thought this book was so well-written, perfectly plotted, and sexy as hell. I can’t wait to read more from this author!

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee (★★★☆☆)

Set in the early 1900s, The Downstairs Girl follows the story of a teenaged girl named Jo who is squatting in the basement of a printshop with Old Gin, a man who took her in when she was a baby. By day, Jo is a lady’s maid for a wealthy family and by night, she anonymously pens the Dear Miss Sweetie advice column for a newspaper. Dear Miss Sweetie not only doles out advice to young ladies, but also takes on race and gender issues affecting society at this time, which cause a backlash and threats to unmask the anonymous Sweetie. What I loved about this book is that I learned so much: about the suffragist movement and how exclusionary it was, about the way Asian people were treated during the Gilded Age, and about the way women were viewed in society at this time. There was so much I didn’t know! Like, I vaguely knew that white women excluded Black women and women of color from their suffragist movement, but man, to see it written so plainly in this novel truly brought this injustice into sharper focus. What I didn’t like about this book is that it tried to take on too much; there were so many different plotlines and things started to get a bit messy about midway through the book. I wasn’t exactly sure the point of the book: is it about race and gender during the Gilded Age, or about Jo’s own self-discovery as she tries to find out who her parents are? Is it a story about an Asian woman coming of age, or a discussion about segregation during this time? It was all a bit… messy. The best way to describe this book is that it’s a YA book that reads like a YA book. Which is fine! That’s the point. But if you like your YA to not read like YA, this isn’t the book for you.

What I’m Reading This Week

  • Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain (print) – I am nearly finished with this book! I’ve been dipping in and out of it all through April, reading a few essays every day. It’s an excellent collection and I’m really glad I picked it up.
  • When She Woke by Hillary Jordan (print) – I’m reading this book to fulfill the April prompt for the Unread Shelf Project, which is to read a book published by an indie press. It’s hitting a little too close to home based on what’s in the news right now (synopsis: in a post-pandemic society, women can be labeled as murderers for having abortions, which are fully illegal). The book was published in 2011, so it’s feeling a little too prescient. But it’s really good, too!
  • Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (audio) – I’m going to try to sneak in a third audiobook this month, and while this book wasn’t on my radar when it was published, a lot of trusted sources have raved about it so I’m going to give it a try. It’s only 7 hours on audio.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (4.11.22)

Happy Monday, friends! I had such a lovely weekend, especially considering that the weather cooled down dramatically. It seems like we always get a surprise cold front every April and it’s always much appreciated. I was even able to turn off my A/C for a bit, which was really nice. We’ll be back up in the 80s this week, but it was great to have this reprieve from the heat.

Last week, I finished two books and both were 4-star reads. A good reading week, indeed. Here are my reviews:

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins (★★★★☆)

I enjoyed this thriller, which can most definitely be categorized as a “popcorn thriller.” It’s a bit of a homage to Jane Eyre with Jane being a dog-walker in a rich neighborhood and Mr. Rochester (Eddie) being recently widowed when his wife and her best friend died in a boating accident. I loved the way the story played with the themes of Jane Eyre (which is one of the few classics that I really like!) within the bounds of a contemporary thriller. You’ll likely figure out where the story is going, but I still found it enjoyable.

The Switch by Beth O’Leary (★★★★☆)

I really enjoyed this contemporary novel, which is a bit of a cheeky nod to The Holiday. In this novel, Leena is a twenty-something who has been running on fumes since her sister’s death and when she botches an important presentation at work, her company forces her to take two months of paid leave. Eileen is 79, recently divorced after her no-good husband left her for someone else, and is ready to enter the dating world again. Leena who lives in a flat in London hatches a plan with her grandma Eileen to switch houses for two months. Eileen can live in London and have a few flings in the city and Leena can stay at Eileen’s home in a small, rural town and get away from her life for a time. It’s a sweet story that goes back and forth between Eileen and Leena’s points of view. Both stories were engaging and fun, and I just love a cast of characters that are in their eighties. We really do not get enough stories of people in this stage of life, and it was so refreshing. There was a lot of romance in this book, but it was a light touch and I think it added just enough to the story without being overpowering. There is a bevy of trigger warnings for this book, though—grief, domestic abuse, cancer, and death of a loved one—so take care if you do decide to read it.

‘Never been one for worst-case scenarios,’ Jackson says. He crouches to dip his roller in the tray; his wrists are flecked with paint now, new, brighter freckles. ‘When they happen, you cope. And it’s usually one you’ve not thought of that gets you, so why worry?’

God, what I would give to think like that. The sheer simplicity of it. (p. 179)

Same, girl, same.

What I’m Reading This Week

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

March Reading Wrap-Up

Good morning, friends! I really love putting together these reading recaps. They are a fun way to look back on my month of reading and pull out a few interesting (to me?) statistics. March was an excellent reading month for me—I read 13 books, which is a feat I haven’t been able to pull off in a long, long time. Turns out, I can get a lot of reading done on a long month that includes a four-day staycation!

Books Read

  • The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun (★★★★★ – e-book, Libby) – A sweet queer love story set on a Bachelor-type show
  • The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard (★★★★★ – print, library) – A gritty, dark thriller that I couldn’t read at night but also couldn’t stop turning the pages
  • The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny (★★★★☆ – audiobook, Libby) – The latest in Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series wasn’t her best, but still stands out from the crowd
  • Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling (★★★★☆ – #ownvoices, print, owned, Thriftbooks) – An excellent essay collection from someone I greatly admire
  • Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade (★★★★☆ – e-book, Libby) – A fun love story involving a fat main character but I could have done without the fanfiction elements
  • Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (★★★★☆ –  print, owned, Target) – An approachable how-to on forming habits, but there’s nothing anything new here
  • Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People by Nadia Bolz-Weber (★★★☆☆ – print, owned, Thriftbooks) – A slim essay collection written by a pastor
  • Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley (★★★★☆ – print, library) – A YA love story with heavy themes of grief
  • Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead by Elle Cosimano (★★★★★ – print, library) – The second book in a ridiculously fun mystery series
  • Dear Martin by Nic Stone (★★★★★ –  #ownvoices, e-book, Amazon) – A heartfelt YA novel about a Black teenage boy who writes letters to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson (★★★★☆ – #ownvoices, audiobook, Libby) – A powerful series of letters written to people we have lost due to police violence, gun violence, and more
  • Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America by Jeff Chu (★★★☆☆ – #ownvoices, print, library) – Stories of what it’s like to be queer and Christian
  • One Dance with a Duke by Tessa Dare (★★★☆☆ – e-book, Libby) – A historical romance that could have been 75 pages shorter

Book Stats

  • # of books read: 13
  • # of pages read: 4,131 pages
  • Genre breakdown: Nonfiction (39%), Romance (23%), Mystery/Thriller (23%), and YA (15%)
  • Format breakdown: print (54%), e-book (31%), and audiobook (15%)
  • Fastest read: Dear Martin by Nic Stone (2 days)
  • Slowest read: The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny (16 days)
  • Star average: 4.1
  • % of books by or about BIPOC or the LGBT community: 38%
  • Abandoned books: 2 (Pride, Prejudice & Other Flavors by Sonali Dev and Long Shot by Kennedy Ryan)
  • Goodreads goal check-in: I set a goal of 135 books this year and currently, I am right on track!

Superlatives of March

  • Favorite book of February: The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard
  • Favorite romance of February: The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun
  • The book I thought I would love more than I did: Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America by Jeff Chu
  • Most deserving of the hype: Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead by Elle Cosimano
  • Least deserving of the hype: Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

What was the best book you read in March?