Stephany Writes

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (9.19.22)

Hi, friends! I had such a wonderful, relaxing weekend that included a small shopping trip for fall decor. My apartment was sorely lacking in fall decor and it was fun to pick up some pumpkins and signage from Target and Homegoods this weekend. It’s looking a lot more festive now!

I finished three books last week, one of which I loved very much and two of which I was rather “meh” about. Let’s discuss!

A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus (★★★★★)

Oh man, A Place to Hang the Moon was just the sweetest, most uplifting story I have read in a long, long time. It’s a middle-grade historical fiction novel that takes place during WWII and centers on three adorable children: William, Edmund, and Anna. They are orphans who have just lost their grandma who was their sole caretaker, and so a plan is hatched: these children will join a group of other schoolchildren their age who are being evacuated to a safer village to live with families for the duration of the war. The hope is that William, Edmund, and Anna will find a family willing to adopt them. I don’t ever want to have children of my own, but I felt fiercely protective of these three children while reading this book. Every time I turned on the audiobook, I thought to myself, “Oh, I hope my babies will be okay today.” They had my whole heart. I also found this book to be so educational about a part of WWII I knew very little about (schoolchildren being evacuated to safer villages) and it was interesting the way that played out. All in all, the sweetest story that will definitely make my favorites list this year.

Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery (★★☆☆☆)

As a long-time Anne of Green Gables fan who recently reread the series and was happy to find it did hold up to my childhood memories, I am very sad about my experience reading Emily of New Moon. It had none of the magic of AoGG. While I did love Emily’s character, I did not love the adults in this novel who were just so awful and terrible to Emily. (Her aunt she lived with and her schoolteacher, especially). But the book fully jumped the shark for me when a 36-year-old man was introduced who had the most uncomfortable relationship with Emily (who was 11 or 12 at the time). He kept asking Emily if she thought he was attractive (ew), spent way too much time alone with her (blegh), and when Emily talked about how she had a hard time writing about “love things” in her novels, he told her he could teach her (GROSS). This plotline did NOT age well, and it grossed me out so much. Also, there was way too much talk of drowning kittens and I’m not here for that.

A Dangerous Kind of Lady by Mia Vincy (★★★☆☆)

In this historical romance novel, we’re introduced to Arabella and Guy. They were once promised to each other when they were children, but Guy broke Arabella’s heart when he announced an engagement to another woman. It’s a few years later and Arabella is still unmarried and if she doesn’t get married soon, her father will disinherit her. It’s not marriage that Arabella wants, though; it’s the freedom to be who she wants and do what she wants. With Guy back in town, the two of them can’t seem to stop running into each other, but it seems like Guy doesn’t want much to do with Arabella. However, she’s got a plan for how she’s going to save her inheritance and keep her freedom, and Guy’s just going to have to get on board. I liked this book, but I didn’t love it. I thought it was oddly paced, in that the book seemed to have a natural conclusion about 75 pages before it actually ended. From there, it just seemed to drag on and on and I wasn’t fan of the way the dark moment unspooled the plot. All in all, a pretty forgettable romance. (Open-door romance.)

What I’m Reading This Week

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (9.12.22)

Happy Monday! I have two full weeks of book reviews for you guys today, and I gave ALL of these books 4 or 5 stars! It has been a wonderful few weeks of reading for me, and I am so glad for it because my reading has been very up and down this year (kind of like my moods, haha). These books are the ones that have reminded me why I love reading so much. Let’s dive in!

The View Was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta (★★★★☆)

The View Was Exhausting is a romance involving an up-and-coming Hollywood actress named Win. She’s Indian and making a name for herself as a serious actress has been rife with racism, microaggressions, and misogyny. Thankfully, there’s Leo, her long-time fake boyfriend who is always there when she needs him. For years, Win and Leo have been fooling the public with their storybook romance; behind closed doors, they’re just very good friends. Or are they?! I really loved this romance and thought it was really cleverly paced. It didn’t go to the places I expected it to go, and there were some serious plot twists that I wasn’t expecting. Not your “typical” romance, but a great one nonetheless. (And while not fully closed door, the sex scenes are minimal in this one.)

Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert (★★★★☆)

What an absolutely fun romp this was! I truly enjoy Talia Hibbert’s books and it seems like each one in this series is better than the last. In this novel, Eve Brown is a bit of a hot mess. She flits from job to job and doesn’t seem to take anything very seriously. But then her parents draw a line in the sand, cutting off her inheritance until she holds a job for at least a few months. Enter: a very cute B&B in need of a chef. Eve knows how to cook and she needs a place to stay, so she thinks, why not? The owner of the B&B is a very grumpy, very hot man named Jacob who is autistic and completely lovable, even with all of his grumpiness. I loved the rapport between Jacob and Eve, and especially the way they both grew to care for and watch out for each other. I also really love the way Hibbert explored autism in this book and the different ways it can show up for people. A lot of time, autism is used as a strong character device and can sometimes come off as disingenious. In this book, it felt so different. Yes, Jacob had autism but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to interact with people, have relationships, or have a full life. I really appreciated it! There were some turns this story took that I didn’t love (mostly involving her family), but all in all, this was an excellent romance with fantastic representation. (Open-door romance. Much chili peppers.)

The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women by Jessica Valenti (★★★★☆)

As someone who was embroiled in purity culture in my teens and early twenties, I found so much comfort in this book. It also made me feel angry and frustrated by all the ways the Christian church has devalued women as a whole. Growing up, I felt as if it were my responsibility to be pure, to not cause my “brothers in Christ” to stumble, to dress modestly, to not even think about sex no matter what. I’ve been trying to write a blog post about this experience because it truly shaped the person I am today and the reason it took me so long to come to terms with my own sexuality, not just being queer but also having an enjoyable, healthy relationship to sex and masturbation. The Purity Myth dispels a lot of the myths surrounding purity culture (as its title would suggest!) and dives deep into many different subjects, including the anti-abortion movement, abstinence education in schools, manliness vs femininity, and porn. I wish the author had included a chapter on how to reclaim your sexuality after purity culture (it’s never made sense to me that we’re supposed to never think about sex until we’re married and then, ding, we’re married and now it’s okay to have sex and we should be perfectly sexual beings!), but all in all, it was a good book that I’m glad I finally read.

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau (★★★★★)

Oh goodness gracious, how I loved this book! It was the kind of book that just completely transported me to another time and place (Baltimore in the 1970s) and was just so enjoyable to read. I loved the characters, the setting, the plot… all of it just worked for me. When Mary Jane begins, the titular character Mary Jane has just been hired to be the summer nanny for Izzy, the only child of Dr. and Mrs. Cone. Dr. Cone is a psychiatrist and soon after Mary Jane starts her job, she’s informed that a very big rock star and his wife will be living with them for the summer while the rock star deals with his addiction. Thus begins the most transformative summer of Mary Jane’s life as she becomes completely enraptured with the Cone family and these new celebrities that enter the household. This book is just plain fun and it’s one I keep recommending to people because I loved it so much! I loved Mary Jane and her sweet naivete, I loved Izzy and her adorable way of seeing the world, I loved Jimmy and Sheba (the celebrities) and the way they accepted Mary Jane so easily. I was so sad to say goodbye to these characters when the book was finished!

Hook, Line, and Sinker by Tessa Bailey (★★★★★)

This is the second book in Bailey’s Bellinger Sisters series and I liked it more than the first! In this story, we follow the Bellinger sister we were introduced to in the first book, Hannah, who is an assistant for a movie director and is ready to take that next leap in her career: She wants to create music soundtracks for movies. She’s working on the set of a new movie now and when she suggests they move some of their filming to the town of Westport (where the first book was set), she’s surprised when everyone is on board. It’s there that she reconnects with Fox, the man she met when she was in town with her sister and who she has been nonstop texting with for months. Fox is a bona fide ladies’ man who is developing strong feelings toward Hannah, but can’t stop the voices in his head saying he’ll never be enough for her and that he’s not made for commitment. I just really, really loved this romance. Were there some issues with it? Sure. But overall, I found Hannah and Fox’s friendship that developed into a romance to be so sweet and lovely to witness. I enjoyed this exploration of the playboy who wants to be taken seriously, and this idea of the stories we tell ourselves and how to move past them. All in all, an excellent romance that gave me happy feels! (Open-door romance.)

What I’m Reading This Week

  • Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery (print) – I picked up this book while I was in Canada because is there any better place to pick up an L.M. Montgomery book than Canada? I have about 100 pages left and y’all, I am not loving it. There are wayyy too many chapters where the main character writes a letter to her father and those chapters are so long and boring (lots of telling without showing).
  • A Dangerous Kind of Lady by Mia Vincy (e-book) – I’m about halfway through this book and I am just having so much fun with these characters. Fingers crossed it doesn’t go off the rails at the end!
  • A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus (audiobook) – I have heard so many rave reviews of this middle-grade book, and the reviews are right. This book is precious and likely to be a new favorite.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

August Reading Wrap-Up

Books Read

1) The Hellion’s Waltz by Olivia Waite (★★☆☆☆ – e-book, Libby) – A sapphic romance that just never really got going for me.

2) The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (★★★★★ – print, owned, Amazon) – A beautiful story-in-verse about a teenager who is trying to find her place in the world.

3) Book Lovers by Emily Henry (★★★★★ – print, owned, indie bookshop) – A very buzzy romance that lived up to the hype for me.

4) The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley (★★★★☆ – audiobook, Libby) – A sweet story about found family, friendship, and love.

5) I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (★★★☆☆ – print, library) – Maya Angelou’s memoir about the early years of her life; beautifully written, but a little hard to get into at times.

6) Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon (★★★★★ – e-book, Libby) – A wonderful romance that takes place in a newsroom. The characters were just delightful!

7) To the Brink by Cindy Gerard (★★★★☆ – e-book, owned, Amazon) – One of my favorite romantic suspense books that I reread for the third time, and finished in under 24 hours.

8) Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado (★★★☆☆ – e-book, Libby) – A sweet YA romance involving a fat protagonist that had excellent representation but the story wasn’t executed as well as I wanted.

9) The View Was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta (★★★★☆ – audiobook, Libby) – A really fun romance involving a Hollywood starlet and the fake romance she has with a famous playboy.

10) Home Before Dark by Riley Sager (★★★★☆ – print, owned, Book of the Month) – Such a great thriller involving some paranormal elements and a very creepy old house.

11) Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert (★★★★☆ – e-book, Libby) – A sweet romance involving an autistic man who is running a B&B and needs a chef, and the girl who answers his ad and turns his life upside down.

12) The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women by Jessica Valenti (★★★★☆ – print, owned, Thriftbooks) – An excellent primer on purity culture. It’s a bit dated (written in 2009), but most of what is discussed in the book still holds true.

Book Challenges

1) Book Club – Our book club book this month was All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle, a book that I read earlier this year! I always love when I can “skip” the book club book, feels like cheating! We had a range of opinions on this book: I gave it 5 stars and loved it wholeheartedly, but we had a few people who gave it 3 stars and weren’t as sold on the book as I was.

2) Unread Shelf Project: The prompt for August was “a book chosen by your friends or family” and I turned to Instagram for this prompt, selecting four books off my shelf and running a poll on Stories. The overwhelming winner was Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton. I read a little over 100 pages and then abandoned it because I just cannot deal with backstabbing female characters or anorexia subplots. No thank you!

3) Goodreads Challenge: I knocked four books off my Goodreads Challenge this month! Two I read and two I abandoned. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and The Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti were good books that I’m glad I finally got around to reading. I abandoned Missoula by Jon Krakeur because I just don’t know if I’ll ever be in the mood to read about a rape case (it’s certainly not in this weird emotional space I’ve been in lately). I also abandoned The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord, which was more of a “wrong time” kind of book. I’m keeping it on my Goodreads TBR and hoping there will be a time in the future where I can read this book (the plot involves a teenage girl’s mom having a cancer recurrence and I started this book during a week where I learned of four people dealing with loved ones dying from cancer, and I just could not.)

Book Stats

  • # of books read: 12
  • # of pages read: 4,010 pages
  • Genre breakdown: Romance (42%), Nonfiction (17%), Fiction (17%), YA (17%), and Mystery/Thriller (7%)
  • Format breakdown: e-book (42%), print (42%), and audiobook (17%)
  • Fastest read: To the Brink (1 day)
  • Slowest read: The Authenticity Project/The View Was Exhausting (14 days)
  • Star average: 4.0
  • % of books by or about BIPOC or the LGBT community: 50%
  • Abandoned books: 4 (Tiny Pretty Things, The Anthropocene Reviewed, The Names They Gave Us, and The Spanish Love Deception)
  • Goodreads goal check-in: I set a goal of 135 books this year and currently, I am 4 books behind schedule.

Superlatives of August

  • Favorite book of the month: Book Lovers by Emily Henry
  • Least favorite book of the month: The Hellion’s Waltz by Olivia Waite
  • A popular book I didn’t love: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  • A popular book that totally lived up to the hype: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
  • The book that I was most surprised to love: Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Soloman

What was the best book you read last month?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (8.29.22)

Happy Monday, friends! I thought I would have a much bigger reading recap for you guys, since I took last week off but I went through a fun period of starting and abandoning books left and right. I think I ended up abandoning like 3 or 4 books last week! Ack.

Anyway, I have two books to review today as I at least ended up finishing something last week. Let’s dive in:

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado (★★★☆☆)

In this YA romance, Charlie Vega is a fat, Puerto Rican teenager who loves writing romances online. She has a best friend, Amelia, who is thin, Black, and beautiful, and she always seems to be coming in second to Amelia, especially with the guys at school. Charlie’s mom, who used to be fat but then lost a bunch of weight, is continually pushing weight-loss shakes at her. And then there’s Brian, a cute classmate of hers who she starts flirting with and it seems like she could really have her own love story with him. This novel is your classic adorable YA love story, and it has excellent representation. However, for me, it was a very YA story. Which is fine! It’s YA, after all. And I’m not its intended audience. I found Charlie to be so grating at times, but teenagers can be like that, you know? I felt like there wasn’t any nuance to her relationship with her mom and it wrapped up in a way that didn’t feel real and didn’t address the real issues at the heart of their relationship. All in all, a fine book that I think will appeal to a younger audience, but it wasn’t my favorite.

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager (★★★★☆)

I think thrillers might be my perfect antidote to a reading slump. Whenever I feel blah about my reading life, I can usually count on a thriller to pick me up. In this novel, Maggie Holt’s father has just died and she finds out that she has inherited the haunted house that made her family famous. They lived in this house 25 years ago but a series of suspicious events involving ghosts and other paranormal activity caused them to leave in the middle of the night, never to return. Maggie’s father ended up writing a best-selling book about their experience living in this house for two weeks, and ever since, Maggie has been trying to forget about the book and the house. Unfortunately, now she has to return and find out just how much of the book was fact and fiction. I really liked this thriller and I found Maggie to be a super enjoyable character. The novel definitely had me wondering just how much I believe in ghosts and paranormal activity, for sure. Not one of the best thrillers I’ve read, but a good enough story to keep me entertained last weekend.

What I’m Reading This Week

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (8.17.22)

Happy Wednesday! I have a mid-week “What I’m Reading” post for you today, as I finished up these four books over the last few days (as of Sunday night, I didn’t have any books to share with you yet!) There is a good mix of books here: a romance I adored, a feel-good novel, a classic memoir, etc. Enjoy!

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (★★★☆☆)

Maya Angelou’s memoir of her life from her early years to age 16 was a good read, but ultimately, it wasn’t super memorable for me. It always feels a little strange to rate a memoir but if I’m rating this on writing style and pacing, it didn’t quite work as well for me as I would have liked. It was graphic in parts (fair warning: there is an explicit child rape scene), but there was such a strong sense of place in the novel. Maya Angelous can write and I was fully drawn into her world, both the highs and the lows. I’m glad I finally read this memoir, but I can’t say it’s one I’m rushing out to recommend.

Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Soloman (★★★★★)

What is it with romance novels these days and hitting me directly in my feels? I just finished Book Lovers, which had a really impactful side plot with a main character’s anxiety issues. And then in this one, the main character has depression and the way it impacts her life and her relationships is very similar to the way my anxiety disorder impacts my own life and relationships. This novel is almost like a love letter to The Parent Trap, except the kids are grown adults who work together and the parents are their bosses. Ari and Russell work together at a news station; Ari is a meteorologist while Russell works in sports. They are casual friends, but nothing more than that. Until, that is, the Christmas party when their bosses—who used to be married to each other—have a major fight. Over the last few months, their bosses have been at each other’s throat, leading to a toxic work environment that’s dragging everyone down. But Ari and Russell have a feeling there’s more to all of these fights, and they hatch a plan to get their bosses back together. In the process, though, Ari and Russell start to realize they might have feelings for one another. Ooh, boy, was this an adorable workplace romance! I loved it so much; I seriously had such a dopey grin on my face during any scenes between Ari and Russell. I loved that Russell wasn’t the typical six-pack-abs, chiseled man that so many romance novels describe. He was a self-proclaimed fat guy, and I have been waiting for someone like him in my romances. This is the kind of novel I immediately wanted to reread when I finished it, and it will have a place in my heart for a long time.

To the Brink by Cindy Gerard (★★★★☆)

This book has an indelible mark on my soul. It’s my fourth time reading it, and I loved it just as much as the other three times I’ve read it. It’s a bit dated at this point, published in 2005 (I giggled to myself when I came across the line, “he flipped open his cell phone.”) I was sitting on the couch over the weekend and fragments of this story started coming to me, and I realized that when I finished the book I was reading, I was immediately re-downloading this novel to give it another reread! And I’m so glad I did. I finished it in a day because I just could not put it down for anything. In this military romance, Darcy has been kidnapped by a terrorist group and her ex-husband, who is a former Special Forces soldier, has to find her and get her out alive. It’s fast-paced and super sexy, and I just loved falling back into this world I know and love so well. I’ll probably make my way through the rest of the books in this series again, because why not?!

The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley (★★★★☆)

What a lovely story this turned out to be! I love that more authors are exploring the idea of loneliness and companionship, especially loneliness in older adults. I’ve been going through my own period of loneliness, so there’s something comforting about reading stories like these. This novel begins with a journal called The Authenticity Project that a man named Julian leaves at his neighborhood coffee shop for the shop’s owner, Monica, to find. The journal encourages the person who finds this journal to be as authentic as possible when writing a new entry and then to send the journal on its way. The journal passes through many hands in the book and it’s fun to see how the stories connect and this little family that forms because of the journal. This is just one of those feel-good, found-family novels that make me so glad I am a reader.

What I’m Reading This Week

What are you reading?