Stephany Writes

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (10.5.22)

Happy Wednesday! After a rather lackluster reading update last week, I’m coming to you today with three excellent reads, two of which will definitely make my favorites list at the end of the year. I’m excited to talk about these books, so let’s dive in:

You Got Anything Stronger? by Gabrielle Union (★★★★★)

Another excellent essay collection from Gabrielle Union. This book starts with a long chapter about Union’s struggle to conceive a child and ultimately deciding to use a surrogate. It was deeply personal and raw, and I found myself tearing up as I listened to Union express how painful it was to not be able to carry her own child and how scared she was during the entire pregnancy. One of the most powerful and moving essays in this book was Union talking about her stepchild’s decision to come out as trans. It was so, so beautiful to witness the way Gabrielle and her husband Dwyane Wade tried so hard to get this right, to make it a coming-out story that was healthy and open and honest. I want to shove this book into everyone’s hands for that essay alone. Throughout the novel, Gabrielle talks about aging, finding that elusive work/life balance, motherhood, and working in Hollywood. She also includes some really poignant essays about racism, including the time she found herself in a Nazi bar in Croatia (in 2019!!) and basically had to run for her life to escape a bunch of white supremacists. This essay collection is truly outstanding and I hope she continues writing. She has a lot to say and I’m here for all of it.

Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid (★★★★★)

I think I might have a new favorite TJR book. Carrie Soto Is Back was such a fun read, and I loved every minute I spent with Carrie, on and off the tennis court. When this novel begins, Carrie has been retired from professional tennis for six years. Her record of winning 20 Grand Slams (the most by a female tennis player) hasn’t been touched, but then, while she sits in the stands at the U.S. Open, she watches 30-year-old Nicki Chan take her record from her. That doesn’t sit well with Carrie so, at the age of 37, she decides to re-enter the world of professional tennis and take her record back. You guys, this book was so, so good. It was fast-paced, exciting, and filled with fully formed characters who I ended up loving. The thing about Carrie, though, is that she is not a very likable character. She’s ruthless, cold-hearted at times, intense, and solely focused on being the best. It’s not about having fun or being the best she can be; she has to be the best in the world or her whole legacy is tarnished. While she could be infuriating at times, I couldn’t help falling in love with her. She was such an amazing, strong, well-rounded character, and I loved the way TJR explored the myth of the perfect female sports heroine. There’s this idea that our sports heroines need to package themselves in this gracious, accommodating way to make them palatable to us. Why do we even need that? Why is it so necessary that we can relate to our sports heroes, that we need that in order to root for them? It’s an interesting question that TJR attempts to answer during this book, and I think she did a fantastic job.

Pint of Contention by Susannah Nix (★★★★☆)

This was a really sweet contemporary romance that also dealt with heavier themes, such as ALS and grief. In this novel, Maggie has been hired as an executive consultant to figure out why King’s Creamery (an ice cream brand on par with Ben & Jerry’s) is bleeding money. She rents a house next door to Ryan, who happens to be George King’s (of King Creamery fame) stepson, and a hunky fireman to boot. When a newspaper expose reveals Maggie’s real reason for being in town, she becomes enemy No. 1, as everyone thinks she’s there to recommend huge layoffs. (And in this town, King’s Creamery is the largest employer.) So Ryan proposes a solution: he’ll pretend to date her and, in doing so, let the townspeople know she’s not to be messed with. While I ended up loving the way things turned out for Maggie and Ryan, I will say that there’s a twinge of misogyny in their relationship. There were times when I really did not like Ryan; he was holding a lot back from Maggie, but expecting her to be forthright and honest at all times. He could be a bit of an asshole, and while I’m glad Maggie saw through his asshole-y ways, I also expect better from my male romance heroes and he just wasn’t it.

What I’m Reading This Week

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (9.29.22)

Hello from Ft Lauderdale! My mom, stepdad, and all of our pets evacuated on Tuesday to escape Hurricane Ian. I live in a mandatory evacuation zone, as do my mom and stepdad, so we booked an Airbnb on Monday night, prepped our homes, packed up the pets, and took a 5-hour journey to the southeast side of the state! It’s been a wild week, one I will be posting about next week once all of this mess is behind us. (Wonder of wonders, the Tampa Bay area once again escaped a direct hit by Hurricane Ian. How do we keep getting so lucky?! A hurricane hasn’t hit our area in over 100 years!)

For now, I’m sticking to my original posting plan: book reviews! I had hoped to get this post up yesterday but it didn’t happen. Neither of these books is going to make my favorites list, but YMMV.

A Lie for a Lie by Helena Hunting (★★★☆☆)

A Lie for a Lie had the potential to be a wonderful romance but it included my least-favorite twist in these kinds of books (telling you this twist would be a spoiler, so unfortunately, I can’t) and a set of over-the-top parents who engaged in some of my least-favorite behaviors (no, we’re not asking fathers for their permission to marry their daughters anymore). This was a second-chance romance about Rook and Lainey. Rook is a popular hockey player who has been known as a bit of a ladies’ man and is off on his usual Alaskan adventure. Typically, he comes to his cabin in Alaska every summer with his brother to get away from it all, but his brother can’t come this year so it’s just him. Lainey is a marine biologist working on a PhD who comes to Alaska to study wildlife. Rook and Lainey share a very bumpy airplane ride together that bonds them, and then, when they arrive at the airport and Lainey finds out she can’t reserve a rental car, Rook offers to take her to her cabin. (A great premise for a terrible thriller.) Alas, this is a romance novel so nothing nefarious happens. Rather, the two of them spend the month falling in love. And then… Rook has to leave Alaska unexpectedly and wouldn’t you know it: Neither of them leaves any way to communicate afterward. No cell phone numbers, not even a last name. A year later, they reconnect when Rook finds out that Lainey is working at the same aquarium where he’s attending a kid’s birthday party. And, well, I’m sure you know what happens from there. This wasn’t a terrible romance, but I just wasn’t a fan of the far-fetched plot nor did I care for many of the characters. (Open-door romance.)

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare (★★★☆☆)

Oh, you guys. I wanted to love this book so much more than I did. It was beautifully written, a heartbreaking yet also uplifting story about a young girl in Nigeria who simply wants to find her “louding voice.” Adunni wants what girls her age don’t get: a chance at education and a chance to use her voice for good. Instead, at age 14, she is married off by her father to a man three times her age. I showed my naivete here, as I was astonished that this wasn’t a historical fiction novel; instead, it was written in present day, which means these atrocities of girls being married off to much older men and the human trafficking that ensues is a reality for so many Nigerian girls. It’s horrifying. While this book had such a big story to tell, it was one that was very easy for me to set down. And at night, I found myself not wanting to sink into the story, knowing it was just going to break my heart. All in all, it’s a story that I definitely think people should read, and I wish I was in a better headspace to appreciate it.

What I’m Reading This Week

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

My Evolution as a Reader

I don’t remember when I started reading or when I got my first library card, but reading has always been a core part of my identity. Unlike other people who may have fallen off in high school and college when assigned reading was at its peak, I’ve always come back to my books when I need peace and an escape. I was lucky to have a mother who instilled a love of reading in me, and who was always happy to take me to the library on the weekends so I could fill up my arms with new books to read. Let’s discuss my evolution as a reader today, shall we? What was 10-year-old Stephany reading and how does that compare to 20-year-old Stephany and 30-year-old Stephany? It’s been a wild ride.

Elementary School

Once I was old enough to pick out books on my own, I gravitated toward genre series fiction. Give me all of your books about bratty twins, 13-year-old baby-sitters, champion gymnasts, orphans, horseback riders, and kids solving mysteries. I was Here For All Of It. Some of my favorite series included:

  • Sweet Valley Kids/Twins
  • The Baby-Sitter’s Club
  • Goosebumps
  • The Gymnasts
  • The Boxcar Children
  • The Saddle Club
  • American Girl
  • Sleepover Friends

Just looking at the covers of all my favorite book series from my childhood makes me want to reread all of the books, but I know they won’t live up to my memories. (I tried reading the first book in the Sweet Valley High series a few years ago and y’all, Jessica and Elizabeth are TERRIBLE.)

Every Saturday, I would check out 12 books from the children’s section (the most I was allowed to check out at one time) and read them all throughout the week so that I was ready for a new set of 12 books by the next Saturday. At some point during this journey, my mom started making me read one biography every week as a way to balance out all of the silly genre fiction I was reading. But that was fun, too, because I got to read about my favorite gymnasts, figure skaters, and people from history. No prob!

Middle School

I continued reading many of the same series in middle school, although I added a few young-adult series to my repertoire, like Sweet Valley High. Technically, though, my mom didn’t want me reading Sweet Valley High since she thought the content wasn’t appropriate for a 12-year-old. Now that I know the content of some of those books, I don’t blame her. They were dealing with some crazy issues!

At this time, I found myself starting to gravitate toward Christian fiction, too, like the Mandie series and the Christy Miller series. I enjoyed these books so much and loved that they were discussing faith and religion in a way that meant a lot to me. The Christy Miller series, especially, dealt a lot with purity culture. Oh, and of course, I went crazy for the Left Behind series. There was a “kids” version of the series (called Left Behind: The Kids) and I had the entire series in paperback and flew through it so quickly. I wasn’t one to read thriller-type books like this, but it was such a phenomenon in the late 90s/early aughts and I was fully aboard the train.

I don’t think I advertised my love for reading in middle school. I remember that we had SSR (silent sustained reading) periods once a week school-wide, and we were encouraged to bring a book from home. I think I started bringing my own book towards the end of middle school, but was too embarrassed about my love for reading to do so in 6th and 7th grades. My language arts and reading teachers had big bookshelves bursting with books that we could “check out” during class time, so I would usually pluck a book off those shelves during SSR periods.

High School

My love for reading—and my love for hiding my reading—continued into high school. At this point, I started reading more YA books and I remember really, really loving the Love Stories series. Did anyone read this series in the 90s/early aughts? They were like teenage Harlequin romances and I couldn’t get enough of them! My library had a whole rack of these stories and I read them like candy, probably reading some of them multiple times. I also kept reading Sweet Valley High and other genre series about people in high school. I also read a lot of Christian fiction—anything Robin Jones Gunn or authors in that vein.

One of my favorite memories of this time is that my mom started to let me read adult fiction. We would still go to the library together on a near-weekly basis, and we would split off to our separate sections of the library: me to the teen section and my mom to the adult section. And when I was done, I would join her in the adult section where she would usually have a few books picked out for me. Often, these were Christian fiction books, which is the majority of what she read at the time. I fell in love with Terri Blackstock, Tracie Peterson, Dee Henderson, Karen Kingsbury, Kristen Heitzmann, Beverly Lewis, and so much more. I loved these books and still have a fondness for them, although I don’t think they’d hold up to my reread as the person I am today. But I’m glad I got to read these books when I did; they truly fueled my love of reading.

This was also the time I discovered the world of romance novels, and romance novels that had S E X in them. It started when I found a set of romance novels in my great-grandma’s house. I don’t remember why I was there or how I found the novels, but I spent one afternoon laying on the bed in her guest room and devouring a book that involved a man delivering a woman’s baby on the side of the road, and then the two of them reconnecting a few months later. He spent a lot of time kissing her breasts, that’s what I remember most from that book! Ha. It was fascinating to me. I found another romance novel that was similar to that one, but involved a whole bunch of interconnected stories and I basically just skipped to all the sexytimes. (Horny teenager alert!) It was around this time that I also found out that my mom loved Harlequin romances, but would hide them from me. I found her hiding place, though, and during summers, I would spend my days devouring these romances and carefully setting the book back in her hiding place so she didn’t know I was reading them. Ha!

It seems funny to me to think about how women hid their love of romance novels at this time. It was a different time, though, and the romance genre wasn’t what it was today. Plus, my mom and I were conservative Christians and we didn’t even TALK about sex. (Her version of “the talk” was to hand me a book about it.) I’m sure she felt like she was doing something wrong by reading a romance novel, or maybe she didn’t but didn’t think those books were appropriate for me at that time. Who knows?!

College

I maintained a pretty good reading pace in college, but college is where I struggled a lot with my faith. As a result, I read a TON of Christian self-help books during this time. It was prime time for women in their thirties to write books to girls in their late teens/early twenties about how to stay pure and how to “fall in love with Jesus.” And listen, those books were what I needed at that time. They gave me hope and guidance and inspiration. But they also made me question my life and if I was really being pure by reading romance novels. After all, wasn’t I supposed to save myself for marriage? Why was I reading books where unmarried people were having sex? Throughout this time, I would decide that I was no longer reading romances, only books written by Christians. And then… I would miss my romances. So I would go back to them, and then feel so guilty, as if I had failed my future husband and God and myself by reading these “secular” books. Ugh. My poor little college self! (There were Christian romances but ugh, they were so cheesy and poorly written, and I just couldn’t get through them.) My reading life was very chaotic at this point, with a lot of internal angst on what I “should” be reading.

And Beyond

Not much changed after college, and I continued to read the same books as always: Christian books with the occasional romance thrown in there. I didn’t even talk about books much on my blog! As an example, in 2020, I wrote 50 blog posts in my “Books” category. For the first three years of blogging, the only book posts I wrote were book reviews for TLC Book Tours (remember those, friends?!). It wasn’t until 2014 that I started writing monthly book review posts and started to be a little more vocal about my reading life.

In real life, I was still pretty quiet about my love for reading. I didn’t advertise about it, and though I always wanted to bring a book with me to work to read on my lunch break, I felt silly doing so. I guess I just didn’t want to be the weirdo who sits alone on her lunch break reading. Once I had more friends at work, though, and they happily advertised their love for reading and would read at their desks during their lunch breaks, it was almost as if I had the permission to do so myself. This was also around the time when Bookstagram became more of a big thing on Instagram and I started listening to more bookish podcasts. And talking about books with other people meant getting book recommendations and learning that there was a whole wide world of books out there beyond what I was reading. (I also think being part of TLC Book Tours and joining a book club helped me, too, as it introduced me to many books I wouldn’t have otherwise picked up myself.)

Today, I feel like I read much more widely than ever before. I’ve stopped reading Christian books entirely because, well, the Christian church has changed a lot in the past decade and I want very little to do with it now. I still love romances and no longer feel guilty for reading these books anymore, even the ones with very steamy sex scenes. But I also love thrillers and mysteries and literary fiction and YA and contemporary fiction and historical fiction and memoirs and social justice books. I love that I try to seek out experiences and cultures that are so different than my own. I love that I can be a recommendation source for others. And I love knowing that, in another decade, my reading life may look completely different than it does today. Readers are people and, as we evolve, so too does our reading.

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?