Stephany Writes

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (9.7.21)

Happy Tuesday, friends! I had a lovely long weekend, although I didn’t get up to too much—just my usual writing date with Mikaela and then a lovely date night where we watched Booksmart (what a great movie!) And the rest of my weekend was spent deep-cleaning my apartment, napping, and finishing up the books I was reading! Nothing too exciting around here. 🙂

Since I missed my reading recap post last week, I have a double dose of book reviews today. Let’s get into it.

The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn (★★★★☆)

The second Bridgerton book was a great one and left me feeling really excited about how this book will be adapted for the Netflix show. It follows Anthony, the oldest Bridgerton sibling who is still dealing with the death of his father a decade ago. He knows he needs to marry and sets his sights on Edwina, a sweet, beautiful young woman whose family will benefit from the match. Unfortunately, Edwina’s older sister Kate is not keen on the match and isn’t afraid to let Anthony know it. In the process of Anthony trying to win Kate over, he finds himself wanting to win her heart instead. And oh man, were the scenes between Anthony and Kate so much fun. They had great banter and it’s going to be delightful to see how this translates to the small screen. At times, Anthony could be pretentious and even a bit mean, but he won me over by the end, especially with the way he cared for Kate and helped her through her trauma. And Kate! Kate was so easy to love and root for. She was feisty and intelligent and funny and had a big heart for her family. All in all, I loved this book!

The Guncle by Steven Rowley (★★★★☆)

The Guncle was one of my most anticipated reads this year, and while it was a bit slow to start, by the end, I was completely captivated by these characters. Patrick, a former sitcom star, is suddenly thrust into the role of caretaker to his 9-year-old niece and 6-year-old nephew when their mother dies and their father enters rehab. Patrick—or GUP, as the kids call him, which stands for Gay Uncle Patrick—is dealing with his own grief while also trying to help these kids through theirs. It’s a character-driven novel and, as such, it moved very slowly for me. Eventually, I came to appreciate what this book had to say about grief and family and queerness. It was really beautiful! Also, once I read a review that imagined Neil Patrick Harris in the role of GUP (since a movie adaptation is in the works!), I was all in. He’d be the perfect casting, quite honestly.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (★★★☆☆)

I went into this story knowing very little about it; I just knew that Casey McQuiston’s Red, White, and Royal Blue was my favorite book the year I read it and I couldn’t wait to read her next release. One Last Stop follows August, a girl in her early twenties who moves to NYC on a whim. While taking the subway one morning, she meets Jane, a hot-as-hell Asian woman who gives August her scarf to cover up a coffee stain on August’s shirt. And then she keeps seeing Jane on the subway again and again and again. What are the odds that Jane is always in the same subway car as her? That’s when she discovers Jane’s secret: she’s displaced in time. The last thing she remembers is living it up in NYC in her twenties in the 1970s; she’s been stuck on this subway for the last 45 years. What’s August to do but help Jane find out how to get back to where she’s supposed to be while also, oh yeah, trying not to fall in love with her. There was so much to love about this novel—the LGBT representation and details about what it was like to be gay in the 1970s, the cast of supporting characters that I just adored completely, the magical element that was fun to unravel. However, I found it to be overly long (it needed at least another round of heavy edits; there’s no reason for the book to be 400+ pages) and sometimes a bit boring and repetitive. It also had really long chapters, which is a bookish pet peeve of mine. Still, it was still a great sapphic love story with a satisfying ending that made me feel a lot of things!

The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood (★★★☆☆)

I’ve had this book on my to-be-read shelf since 2017, after hearing Anne Bogel recommend it on her podcast (What Should I Read Next). It’s also gotten lots of rave reviews, so I was excited to finally dive in last week! This book is about Ona, a 104-year-old woman who befriends an 11-year-old boy who comes to her house every Saturday to help out (as part of a Boy Scouts initiative). But when the boy unexpectedly dies, it’s his father who comes to the house to finish out his son’s commitment. Quinn is an absentee father who never really knew his son, but through helping Ona, he comes to terms with his grief, his life, and his son. It’s a heartwarming book for sure, but it didn’t quite grab me in the same way it’s affected other people. Maybe because it’s a character-driven novel and I didn’t really like many of the characters. Maybe it was the writing itself (overly flowery writing) that just wasn’t to my taste. It’s the kind of book where I can understand why people love it and can also understand why people hate it. A solid 3-star read for me.

What I’m Reading This Week

  • Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny (audio) – I’m halfway finished with the 14th book in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, and I am loooooving it. Some side plots are giving me anxiety, but mostly, I’m enjoying the novel.
  • Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (print) – I’m reading this book for the Unread Shelf Project’s September challenge, which is to read a book that you want to learn from. I am confident that this book is going to do exactly that!
  • The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (print) – I’m finally reading this much-discussed thriller (I started it last night). On Goodreads, it has a 4.13 rating with nearly 775,000 reviews and many trusted sources have given it 5 stars. So, I’m going into it with high expectations—we’ll see if the book lives up to them.
  • Hang the Moon by Alexandria Bellefleur (e-book) – My romance of the week! I haven’t started this novel yet, but I’m looking forward to diving into it today!

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (8.23.21)

Hi, friends! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I had such a great time in Chicago and can’t wait to recap it all for you guys this week. I also really, really, really, really, really enjoyed having a full 9.5 days off work. It was rejuvenating for me! I haven’t had time off like that since the end of 2020 and it was much needed.

But now it’s Monday and I’m back in the swing of things: work and meal planning and step counts and workout goals. I’m also getting my first-ever COVID test today! Can you believe I’ve never had to get one? Crazy, right? Well, I’m getting one today to make sure I didn’t pick up the virus during my travels—it’s not a CDC requirement to get tested after flying domestically, but I’m doing so for my peace of mind. With the way this Delta variant is going (and having fully vaccinated friends who have tested positive recently!), I just want to be sure I’m not walking around with an active case of COVID even though I’m always masking up when I’m in public. I wanted to wait a full 72 hours from my flight (we arrived home around 7pm on Thursday), which is why I’m only getting it now. Fingers crossed for a negative result!

Anyway, enough of that talk! Let’s dive into what I’ve been reading over the past two weeks! I finished four books and liked them all. Here are my reviews:

It Takes Two to Tumble by Cat Sebastian (★★★☆☆)

This queer romance had so much going for it, but ultimately, it fell flat for me. As the story begins, Phillip is returning home from being at sea for a few years and isn’t sure how his children will react, especially once he starts receiving word that his children keep driving away their governesses. Ben is the town’s vicar and has taken the children under his wing until their father comes home. When Phillip returns, he finds his children aloof with him and enamored with the vicar. But Phillip can’t blame them—he also finds himself easily enamored with Ben. Ben is smart and kind and funny and incredibly good-looking. And the truth is that Ben feels the same way as Phillip—he can’t help being drawn to this brooding seaman with a heart of gold. Soon enough, Phillip and Ben’s attraction to each other is too big to ignore, but what are they to do? Phillip is leaving to go back out to sea and Ben has plans to marry his childhood best friend in a few month’s time. It’s a really beautiful story about queerness and love and family, but it was almost as if the author took the adage of “show, don’t tell” in regards to writing too far. There wasn’t enough detail or depth to really sink into the story, and the characters felt one-dimensional and ultimately forgettable.

Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano (★★★★☆)

This novel was so excellent, and I’m glad it lived up to my high expectations. After Finlay is overheard talking about the plot of her latest romantic suspense novel at Panera, a nearby patron believes she’s talking about a real-life murder she’s planning—not the one she’s writing about. So she contracts Finlay to kill her husband! (Totally normal.) She’ll pay her $50,000, which is money Finlay could really use, seeing as she’s way behind on writing her book and her electricity was just turned off that morning. What follows is an outstanding novel filled with hijinks and a twisty-turny plot as Finlay learns just how hard it is to be a contract killer with a soul. I loved this thriller. It was well-paced and just plain fun. And sure, I had to suspend belief for the ending, but eh, by that point, I was so heavily invested in Finlay’s story that I didn’t mind. I’m so excited there’s a sequel, too!

Handle with Care by Helena Hunting (★★★☆☆)

Handle With Care is a contemporary romance novel that gave me all of the happy feels! Lincoln is summoned back to NYC after his father dies and leaves him in charge of his huge media company. For the past few years, he’s been spending time in Guatemala and other South American countries building homes and trenches. But now that he’s become acting CEO, he has to learn to look and act the part. Enter: Wren. As a public relations expert, she’s tasked with helping Lincoln become the best CEO he can be—that includes giving him a makeover, setting up social media profiles, and helping him with the speeches he has to make. Of course, this is a romance so you can guess what happens from here: Lincoln and Wren fall in love with one another and chaos ensues. It’s a sweet story and I loved the chemistry between Lincoln and Wren, but some of the side characters (like Lincoln’s mother and brother) almost read like caricatures, not as real people. They were so villainous, with no nuance to their characters at all, and because of that, the plot kind of went off the rails at the end. Ah, well. It was still a fun romance with great main characters that were easy to root for.

I See You by Clare Mackintosh (★★★★☆)

My goodness, this was an excellent thriller! When Zoe sees a photo of herself in an advertisement in the newspaper, she’s determined to find out how it got there. The next day, there’s another woman in the ad and a different woman the day after that, and so on and so forth. It’s only when she realizes that one of these women is involved in a robbery and another woman was found murdered that she really starts to worry. This fast-paced thriller will have you on the edge of your seat, especially as everything comes together in the end. It was truly shocking! After reading this book, I’m really glad I don’t use public transportation because I would be terrified to be alone on a train! Eeks.

What I’m Reading This Week

I’m about halfway finished with The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn, which is the second book in her Bridgerton series (and what season 2 of Bridgerton will focus on!) It’s great so far—I’m loving the banter between Anthony and Kate. I also just started The Guncle by Steven Rowley, a book that has gotten a ton of buzz. I have high hopes for this one! And, finally, I’m going to start an audiobook this week—What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (8.10.21)

Hi, friends! Comin’ at ya on a Tuesday for my reading update—surprise! 🙂 After lamenting about my slow reading pace lately, I somehow finished four books this week. Well, it’s not all that shocking considering that one was a short audiobook (7 hours) and another was The Count of Monte Cristo, which I’ve been reading for 8 months. Hehe. Let’s dig into my reviews:

Foreplayer by Kate Meader (★★★★☆)

This was a really great hockey romance, especially considering both the male and female protagonists were hockey players. When the novel begins, Mia is training to earn a spot on Team USA’s women’s hockey team for the upcoming Olympics while Cal is gearing up for another season of the NHL. Mia’s brother (and Cal’s teammate) encourages her to reach out to Cal for extra training, which she does, and of course, sparks fly and they start to fall for each other. Unsure how Mia’s brother will react to the news, they keep things under wraps for the most part. While Mia could sometimes get on my nerves, I enjoyed the banter between the two characters and could definitely feel their chemistry. The ending was overly sappy, but I kinda loved it anyway.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune (★★★★★)

Well, I have another contender for my favorite novel of the year! This book is not something I would typically gravitate to, considering fantasy isn’t a go-to genre for me, but everyone I know has raved about this book and I can definitely see why. Linus is a caseworker at DICOMY, the Department in Charge of Magical Youths, and spends his time investigating orphanages to make sure everything is on the up and up. Now, he has been put on a super-secret assignment to investigate the goings-on at the Marsyas Island Orphanage. At this orphanage, six magical youths have been classified as dangerous by DICOMY, including one child who is the literal son of Satan. Linus, a quiet man who leads a quiet life, isn’t sure he’s up to the task. What he’s not prepared for is discovering how enchanting these children—or how captivating their caretaker, Arthur Parnassus, is. PLEASE READ THIS BOOK. It will make you laugh and cry and just want to do so much better for those who are deemed different or dangerous. I loved every minute I spent in this world and was so sad to say goodbye to these lovable characters.

A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost (★★★★☆)

You may remember that last week I said I was going to start the audiobook of Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Well, I started it and quickly stopped it when I realized the narrator was the same as an audiobook I just listened to, and her voice just grated on me. So instead I pivoted to this supremely funny memoir from the Weekend Update host on Saturday Night Live. Colin Jost isn’t someone I know very well (I only catch clips of SNL here and there, and rarely are they Weekend Update clips), but his memoir came highly recommended by a colleague and I finally decided to give it a listen this week. And I am so glad I did because it was funny and heartfelt and an all-around good time. Colin talks about his time on SNL, crazy traveling stories, and his experience of 9/11 as his mom was a first responder. There’s also a whole chapter on poop that I skipped because nahhh. I really enjoyed this memoir, though, and it is excellent on audio.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas (★★★★★)

I finally finished this tome! It took me 8 months to read, but man, what an enjoyable 8 months it was. I am really going to miss spending every day with the Count and all the cast of characters. And what’s even crazier to me is that even though this book clocks in at nearly 1,300 pages, I can definitely see myself returning to this book and reading it over and over again. It was that good, and I am sure there is so much I missed during my first read-through. After Edmond Dantes is sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit right as he’s about to marry the love of his life, he vows to get revenge on those who wronged him. It’s a story of betrayal, of love, of hope, of redemption. It’s perfection. The cast of characters is vast and the story arc is long and winding, but it all comes together so perfectly in the end. If you want to read this book but are intimidated by the length, please consider downloading the Serial Reader app. It sends you a short snippet of the book every day, breaking down this tome into 208 “issues” that make getting through the book so much easier. (And the app is free!)

What I’m Reading This Week

Yesterday, I started Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano, which is one of the buzziest books of 2021, I think! I am about 60 pages in and thoroughly enjoying it. I’m also dipping in and out of It Takes Two to Tumble by Cat Sebastian, a queer historical romance, which has been really fun, too.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books, Recurring Series

Five for Friday: The Bookish Edition

Happy Friday, friends! I have a really excellent weekend ahead of me and I’m excited to kick it off with a low-key Friday at home.

For today’s Five for Friday post, I thought I’d make it a themed one: all about some bookish topics that have been floating around in my brain. Let’s dive in:

1) About once a year, I get the itch to trim down my TBR list on Goodreads. Earlier this week, my TBR list had over 375 books on it and it was stressing me out. Honestly, a part of me just wanted to delete every book on that list and start fresh, but I worry that I would regret taking such drastic action. My other thought is to trim down the list to just 100 books, and I’m actively trying to get there (I’m currently at 221 books—not sure how I’m going to remove another 120 books!) I don’t know how everyone uses their Goodreads to-be-read list. For me, it’s an important part of my book selection process, but I feel like all the books I really want to read are getting lost in the 300-odd other books that were cluttering up my TBR. I want to be more intentional about the books I add to my TBR. We’ll see if that’s possible, though. There are so many shiny new releases that I want to read and older books that other people rave about that I want to be sure I get around to someday. The plight of a bookworm!

2) I’ve long identified as someone who reads a lot. I read at least triple of what people in my book club read, and they are very much bookworms like me. When I lamented to them last month that I might only read 8 books in July, they looked at me like I was crazy. (“Is that bad? I don’t think I’ve ever read 8 books in a month! I’m happy if I can get to four.”) I’ve felt a shift happening in my reading life, where I don’t feel as if I have to read at such a frenetic pace anymore. And it’s causing me to have a bit of an identity crisis, to be honest. If I’m not the girl who reads 2-3 books per week, then who am I as a person? Am I really a bookworm if I’m not checking off books left and right? (The answers: I’m still the me I’ve always been and YES OF COURSE DON’T BE RIDICULOUS.)

It’s almost as if I’m at a fork in the road of my readerly life. On one side is allowing myself the space to do what feels good and if reading less is what feels good, then I should do that. On the other side is finding creative ways to add reading time back into my life. And because I’m still very much married to my readerly identity, I’m choosing the latter. Which brings me to my next point.

3) Here’s the thing: Everyone can make time for reading, but not everyone does. And right now, I’m not making time for it as much as I was in the past. So, I got to thinking about how I could make more time for reading and the idea came to me pretty instantaneously: reading days! The idea for reading days is that I’ll pick out 1-2 days per week, based on my schedule, and aim to read for at least 2 hours on that day (any reading I do before bed doesn’t count, since that’s already an ingrained habit). I can split up the reading anyway I want (maybe 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes on my lunch break, and an hour when I’m done with work), but I must commit to at least 2 full hours (more if I can fit it in!) I already did a reading day on Wednesday and it was so pleasant. I did a half-hour during a morning work break, 15 minutes during an afternoon work break, and then an hour and fifteen minutes when I finished with work. (And then I got in some extra reading time before bed!) Today will be the second reading day of the week and I am so looking forward to it!

(And that, of course, is the key. If these reading days ever feel like a chore, then I’ll stop doing them. For now, they feel really fun!)

4) On an episode of Book Talk Etc, the hosts had a really interesting discussion about their reading life and the books they’ve read during the first half of 2021. It got me thinking about my own reading journey in 2021! Most especially, looking back at how I’ve rated books this year. This hasn’t felt like a sensational reading year for me for some reason; I feel like I’ve rated a lot of books 3 stars. In looking at the stats, I’ve rated 35% of my books 3 stars or lower, and 65% were given 4- or 5-star ratings. I don’t know if this is normal for me or not (I’d have to look back at previous years and I don’t feel like doing that right now), but one of the hosts had a similar percentage to me and seemed aghast at her percentage (meanwhile, the other host had only given 18% of her books 3 stars or lower). I know I’m a bit more critical of books than other people, and I don’t want to give a book 4 or 5 stars unless I really liked it and would recommend it. So maybe that’s why? I don’t know but I’m hoping that the second half of 2021 brings me a lot more 4- and 5-star reads.

5) Speaking of the first half of 2021, why don’t we play a fun game of my top three reads of the year so far? This was actually supremely hard to narrow down, so I’m going to give a few honorable mentions:

  • Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is most definitely my favorite read of the year, and I read it in January. Nothing has come close to knocking it from its top spot!
  • When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors was sensational. It’s hard read but an important one.
  • Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds is an incredible story-in-verse about a young boy on his way to avenge his brother’s murder. He gets on an elevator and, at every floor, it stops and someone steps on. Listen to this one on audio—it’s only 90 minutes!

Honorable mentions go to Dear Emmie Blue by Lia Louis, Know My Name by Chanel Miller, and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab.

How many books are on your Goodreads TBR? What’s one of the top reads of 2021 for you?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (8.2.21)

Good morning, friends! This weekend was a weird one because alllll of my plans got canceled. I decided to make the best of it, though, and make it a reading weekend. I was able to finish two books over the weekend, which definitely helped cut down my deficit on my Goodreads goal (I started the weekend 11 books behind on my goal and ended it with 8). There’s always a silver lining to canceled plans. 🙂

It’s been two weeks since my last reading update and I have 5 books to review with you guys today! One of them may even be a contender for my favorite read of the year.

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge (★★★★☆)

This book takes on the subject of race—but from the lens of race in Britain. Eddo-Lodge covers the history of race and racism in Britain, which was a subject I’ve never learned about, certainly not in school and neither in the antiracism reading I’ve been doing in the past few years. In the novel, Eddo-Lodge discusses white feminism, the racist experiences of Black Britains today, and the relationship between class and race. It was a fascinating book that taught me so much, especially as there was a lot I didn’t know about the types of racism experienced in European countries, which are both similar and dissimilar to racism in the US.

How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole (★★★☆☆)

I enjoyed this contemporary romance about a present-day royal, but I think something was missing from it. The story follows Beznaria who lives in Ibarania, a nation off the Mediterranean Sea, and is tasked with finding the princess of Ibarania. She believes she has found it in Makeda, an American-born girl who is barely making ends meet and was just laid off from her job at a grocery store. Beznaria travels to the U.S. to meet Makeda and convince her to come back to Ibarania with her. What follows are hijinks and many days spent on a cargo ship where they pretend to be married. I felt a bit confused about Makeda’s backstory and why she was so against being a princess—it wasn’t clearly explained in the novel and it left me wanting more. I also wanted a whole lot more from the romance between Bez and Makeda. They barely spent any time together so it was hard to believe they fell in love in such a short time! All in all, a rather lackluster romance.

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali (★★★★☆)

I loved this sweet yet heartbreaking story about two young lovers in 1950s Iran and the stationery shop where they met. Roya is a teenager in 1953 when she meets Bahman, an idealistic young man who is working hard to keep Iran’s prime minister in power. But then, on the day they plan to wed, they are separated and the next time they lay eyes on each other, 60 years have passed. There was so much to love about this book: the Iranian culture, Roya’s character, and the way everything came together in the end. It’s a lovely story—maybe not one that will stick with me long-term, but definitely one I will think of fondly when it’s mentioned in passing.

Steal Me by Lauren Layne (★★★★☆)

Steal Me is the second book in a Lauren Layne romance series following a trio of brothers who are NYPD cops. In this novel, Anthony, a police captain, and Maggie, the waitress at the cafe his family frequents become embroiled in a case together. For the past few months, Anthony has been chasing a burglar they’ve nicknamed Smiley due to the smiley-face stickers he leaves at every house he terrorizes. It’s only by chance that Maggie sees a police sketch of this burger and realizes it bears a striking resemblance to her ex-husband. Maggie and Anthony become thrown together as the case heats up, and of course, when that happens, you can imagine that they start feeling some sort of way about each other. It’s a sweet romance with a lot of heart (I especially love Anthony’s sex-obsessed grandma, hehe), however, I do want to mention that there’s a suicide subplot that is not given the sensitivity it deserves. I really wish the author had left it out of the story because it wasn’t needed.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (★★★★★)

I loved this book so, so much. It may be in the running for my favorite of the year. This novel is a reimagining of Dinah’s, the only daughter of Jacob, life. (Jacob from Genesis, that is.) Dinah is an oft-forgotten character as women in the Bible typically are, and this book was a beautiful exploration of what her life could have been. The novel follows the trajectory of Dinah’s life and it was just sensational from the first page to the last. I especially loved the way Diamant centered the women’s perspectives. The name of the book, The Red Tent, honors the tent that women had to go to when they were menstruating. It’s always been seen as a place to keep “unclean” women away from men, but Diamant gives us another perspective: this is where women can fully rest and be freely themselves. Free to gossip, free to make plans, free to laugh with their sisters. It’s really beautiful when you think of it that way.

What I’m Reading This Week

I’m starting my week off with brand-new reads! That’s always fun. Today, I’m going to start The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune, which I’m reading to fulfill August’s prompt for the Unread Shelf Project (a book bought from an independent bookstore). My romance for this week will be Foreplayer by Kate Meader, which is a hockey romance (with a really silly title, let’s be honest). And, finally, I’m going to start Bel Canto by Ann Patchett on audio. This book has gotten mixed reviews from my Goodreads list (though it has a 3.92 rating with over 250,000 reviews!) with lots of people saying it moves really slowly, so I’m hoping that by listening to it, I’ll be able to enjoy it more.

What are you reading?