Stephany Writes

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (6.20.22)

Hi, friends! Long time, no talk, eh? I had a lovely time away on my trip to Niagara Falls with my mom and I cannot wait to recap the trip on the blog and show you guys all the amazing photos I took. The Falls are truly breathtaking! Unfortunately, two days after coming home from my trip, it finally happened: I tested positive for Covid. Womp, womp. I made it two years and three months at least?! I’ve spent the past five days laying on the couch watching TV and reading, and while my symptoms haven’t been pleasant, it could have been much worse and for that I am super grateful. I’ll be writing a post all about my experience with Covid, though, so stay tuned. 🙂

Today, I have a ton of book reviews for you! I didn’t get nearly any reading done on my vacation but a Covid quarantine meant I was able to just lay around and read as much as I wanted to! (I’m not always able to read when I’m sick, but I was able to with Covid—a silver lining if there ever was one.) Let’s dive into the reviews, shall we?

The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane (★★★★☆)

I enjoyed this YA story that deals with dark themes—eating disorders, suicide, grief, and depression, to name a few—and is interwoven with a sweet love story that keeps things from feeling too dark. Zander is spending her summer at Camp Padua, a camp for at-risk teens. Her parents hope that being in a different environment will be a balm for her after a tragic event. It’s there she meets people who may seem “crazy” at the outset, but wind up becoming the people she can be the most herself with. It’s a story about friendship and love and loss and how to keep moving forward when life feels unimaginably hard. I thought the ending was a little too cutesy-perfect, but it was also nice to see these teens who have been dealt a rough hand get a happy ending.

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz (★★☆☆☆)

Oof, unpopular opinion alert! I did not like this book. I should have trusted a good friend who told me it was boring and not worth my time, but then other people raved about it, so I wanted to give it a shot. I shouldn’t have bothered, quite honestly. The Plot is about Jacob Finch Bonner who is a struggling author teaching at a third-rate MFA program. One of his students in the program brags about this incredible idea for the book he’s writing, which annoys Jacob. This student promises that the book will be a bestseller, will get a movie deal, etc. And then the student dies… and Jacob’s like, “Hey, why don’t I write this book and become a famous best-selling author instead?”

There was just so much I didn’t like about this book. Jacob, for one, was such a boring, blah, and one-dimensional character. He was just not someone I wanted to root for. I found all the long-winded soliloquies about the writing craft and how important writing is to be so very mind-numbing. I am just not here for people who are so precious about writing. (These are often the people who also find literary fiction to be the best, and maybe only, genre to read.) The foreshadowing in the book was so heavy-handed that I could see the ending coming from a mile away, and I’m not even someone who’s good at guessing the ending to thrillers. All in all, this book did not work for me at all.

Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn (★★★☆☆)

I’m sad that I didn’t love this book as much as I thought I would, as I had such high hopes for Penelope and Colin’s romance! I liked the story but I really did not enjoy Colin’s character. He was moody, temperamental, and cynical at times. It seemed like every time Penelope did something that Colin didn’t think was “appropriate,” he lost his temper at her and it was disappointing. He’s written as such a fun, light-hearted, sweet man in the Netflix show and I wanted more of that character from him. Penelope was a wonderful character to root for, though, and I enjoyed her character arc throughout the novel, especially as her secret comes to light (I won’t spoil it, but if you watch the show, you know what it is). And even though I didn’t love Colin in this book, there is an interesting idea in this novel of what happens when you start to truly get to know the person you’ve loved from afar and recognize that they are as human as you and have their own set of vulnerabilities and weaknesses and issues to contend with.

Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier (★★★☆☆)

For me, this was a very uneven thriller that struggled from a lack of focus. The story starts with a kidnapping: Marin and Derek’s four-year-old son Sebastian is kidnapped a few days before Christmas at a busy shopping plaza. The story then moves forward one year; Sebastian is still missing but the trail to find him has gone cold. Marin and Derek are still married but living seemingly independent lives. Then, Marin finds out that Derek is having an affair with a younger woman and this seems to spark something in her. She may have lost her son, but she’s sure as hell not going to lose her husband, too, so she has to figure out what to do about her husband’s side piece. The story moves back and forth between Marin’s point of view and McKenzie’s, the woman Derek is having an affair with. And honestly, I was simply bored by the whole plot up until the last 50 pages. It didn’t feel like it was going anywhere, the whole kidnapping plot faded to the background, and all of the characters were kinda blah and one-dimensional. Thankfully, those last 50 pages saved the book because the twist at the end was so very good! I was really impressed with the way the author revealed the twist and the way it all came together in the end. I just wish the author had given us a bit more excitement during the first 250 pages because it was such a slog until the end.

Almost Just Friends by Jill Shalvis (★★★★☆)

I really enjoyed this contemporary romance! It was the kind of book where I felt bereft when I finished it because I didn’t want to be done with these characters. The novel follows Piper who has spent most of her life taking care of her younger brother and sister. Their parents died when Piper was a teenager and while they were in the care of their grandparents, Piper had to step up into the mother role for her siblings. Now, her siblings are off on their own and Piper is finally ready to live a life of her own: she wants to sell the house her grandparents owned and leave their small town in California to attend medical school in Colorado. And then her siblings come home, both harboring major secrets that have the potential to ruin all of Piper’s best-laid plans. Not to mention, Piper’s elderly neighbor’s son has just arrived back in town and he also has the potential to ruin her plans with his tall, dark, handsome, and steady presence. It’s a story about family and sacrifice and, yes, plans. And also love, loss, grief, and learning to live with that grief. I really, really enjoyed this novel.

What I’m Reading This Week

  • Pony by RJ Palacio (audio) – I am so close to finishing this audiobook… just about an hour left. I’m not loving it as much as everyone else seems to (sensing a theme in my reading lately?), but we’ll see how the ending plays out.
  • The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite (e-book) – I just started reading this f/f historical romance so I don’t have many thoughts about it yet. But I’m hoping I enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the last book of hers I read!
  • Outlawed by Anna North (print) – This book has a low Goodreads rating (3.5) but maybe I’ll end up enjoying it more, since I’m in a weird reading mood these days.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (6.6.22)

Happy Monday, friends! It’s the Monday I’ve been waiting for: I just have two days of work this week and then I’m off for a glorious 13 days. I am so excited! Mom and I leave on Wednesday afternoon for our trip to Niagara Falls. I’ll have a post up on Wednesday but after that, this blog will be quiet until Monday, June 20th. I’ll be back with some reading updates and trip recaps!

Last week, I finished two books and really liked them both:

Things That Make White People Uncomfortable by Michael Bennett (★★★★☆)

Michael Bennett is a former defensive end who played most of his career with the Seattle Seahawks. He’s now retired, but he wrote this book in 2018 when he was still an active NFL player. This book covers a wide range of topics, from Colin Kaepernick to the way the NFL doesn’t take care of its players to women’s rights to the time he was a victim of police violence and aggression. The writing is clunky at times and sometimes an essay would jump from one thought to another with little cohesion. Still, I gave this book four stars because it was incredibly impactful and I am really astonished at the way Michael Bennett was willing to be so open and honest, not just about his struggles but about how he feels about the NFL. I love watching pro football, but I can’t lie that there’s a part of me that always feels guilty that I do because the NFL has a ton of issues—the way it treats its players, the fact that it’s 2022 and there still have never been any Black owners of any team (!!!), the way Colin Kaepernick has been black-listed from the league for taking a knee during the national anthem despite being a great QB… I could go on. I support anyone’s decision to take a knee because the military does not fight for our right to stand for the anthem. They fight for the right for us to have the freedom to stand when we want or kneel if that’s what we want to do to make a statement.

Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly (★★★★★)

I loved, loved, loved, this sweet queer romance, which took place on the set of a cooking reality TV show. Dahlia has entered the competition on a whim, needing something different in her life after her divorce. London has entered the competition because they want to use the prize money ($100,000) to build a charity for LQBTQ+ youths. London has recently come out as nonbinary and not everyone in their life (or everyone on the reality show) is supportive. This is the first novel of any kind that I’ve read with a nonbinary main character and I just loved the representation. I loved London so much; while they were steadfast in what they believed about themselves, they had a strong vulnerability about the way others reacted to them. I also loved the dichotomies of Dahlia and London’s personalities; where Dahlia is bubbly and personable, London is grumpy and quiet. They made such a sweet pair, and their love story was one of my favorites. I also love any book set on a reality TV show, and this one truly delivered.

What I’m Reading This Week (& on Vacation)

I thought I’d take you guys through what I’m reading now and what I’m taking with me on vacation. This won’t be a vacation where I’ll get a ton of reading done (likely just on the plane), but I still like to bring a ton of options (thank god for Kindles!) so I have enough reading material at my fingertips.

  • The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane (print) – I’m about 200 pages into this YA story set at a summer camp for “troubled youths.” I’m pretty positive I’ll finish it before Wednesday.
  • Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn (e-book) – I have this romance queued up to start while I’m on vacation, which is Penelope and Colin’s story. Shonda Rhimes announced that their story is going to be the focus of season 3 of Bridgerton and I am so excited for that!
  • The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz (e-book) – In between pages of my romance, I’ll start this novel that got a lot of buzz last year. It seems to get mixed reviews from my trusted sources, so I’m going in with low expectations.
  • Almost Just Friends by Jill Shalvis (e-book) – Just in case I zoom through Romancing Mister Bridgerton, I have this romance downloaded to my Kindle to read.
  • Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier (print) – This is my “in case of emergency” book that I’m bringing on my trip. I am 99% sure I will not get around to it, but just in case I hate The Plot, I’m packing this as a backup.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

May Reading Wrap-Up

Books Read

  • Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz (★★☆☆☆ – print, library) – a historical thriller about a woman in the 1800s who wants to be a doctor
  • Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson (★★★★☆ – audiobook, Libby) – a YA thriller about kids at a boarding school in Vermont who are trying to solve a decades-old mystery
  • Yours in Scandal by Lauren Layne (★★★★☆ – e-book, owned, Amazon) – a fun romance about the mayor of NYC falling in love with his opponent’s daughter
  • The Maid by Nita Prose (★★★★★ – print, owned, Book of the Month) – a truly heartwarming story that is part-thriller and part-character study
  • All the Feels by Olivia Dade (★★★★☆ – e-book, Libby) – a sweet romance about a TV star falling in love with his handler
  • The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (★★★★☆ – print, owned, Tombolo Books) – an impactful slim book that compiles two long letters: one to Baldwin’s nephew and one to America
  • Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad (★★★★★ – audiobook, Libby) – a beautifully written memoir about a woman who gets an aggressive form of leukemia at 22 and the road trip she takes after finishing treatment
  • Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (★★★☆☆ – #ownvoices, print, owned, Book of the Month) – a fictionalized retelling of a court case that involved poor women of color being sterilized against their will
  • Cream and Punishment by Susannah Nix (★★★★☆- e-book, owned, Amazon) – a contemporary romance novel involving the trope of “second chance romance” that was exactly what I needed
  • Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon (★★★★☆ – print, owned, Thriftbooks) – a fictionalized retelling of the Hindenburg disaster that left 35 people dead and what may have happened to cause the explosion

Book Challenges

  • Book Club – Our May pick for book club was Anatomy: A Love Story, but we didn’t get to discuss it this month since a bunch of people were feeling under the weather on the day we were supposed to meet. The friend who recommended it gave it 5 stars but most of us gave it 3 or fewer stars, so it was going to be a spicy book club!
  • Unread Shelf Project – In May, the prompt was to read the shortest book on my shelves, so I picked up The Fire Next Time, which is just 102 pages. I’m really glad I finally picked up this book! I bought it at my favorite local indie bookstore last year because I knew I wanted to have this book on my shelves.
  • Goodreads Challenge: I only read one book off my Goodreads Challenge list (wherein I’m reading all of the books added to my Goodreads TBR before 2018), which was Flight of Dreams. It was such a good book and I can’t believe I waited so long to read it!

Book Stats

  • # of books read: 10
  • # of pages read: 3,226 pages
  • Genre breakdown: Fiction (40%), Romance (20%), Nonfiction (20%), YA (10%), and Mystery/Thriller (10%)
  • Format breakdown: print (50%), e-book (30%), and audiobook (20%)
  • Fastest read: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (3 days)
  • Slowest read: Truly Devious, All the Feels, and Between Two Kingdoms (9 days)
  • Star average: 3.8 (down .5 from last month, oof!)
  • % of books by or about BIPOC or the LGBT community: 30%
  • Abandoned books: 4 (Feel the Heat by Kate Meader, Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma, Read Between the Lines by Rachel Lacey, and Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong)
  • Goodreads goal check-in: I set a goal of 135 books this year and currently, I am 4 books behind schedule. Eeks!

Superlatives of May

  • Favorite book of May: The Maid by Nita Prose
  • Favorite romance of May: All the Feels by Olivia Dade
  • The book that will stick with me for a long, long time: Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad
  • The book I thought I would like more than I did: Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
  • The book that had me googling the most to learn more about the facts presented in the book: Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon

What was the best book you read in May?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (5.30.22)

Hello, friends! Happy Monday. It’s Memorial Day here in the U.S., a day for us to honor the fallen soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. I have complicated feelings about patriotism and it’s hard to be proud of this country—both its past and its present—but I do believe in honoring our military, paying homage to those who have lost their lives, and striving to make this country better. That’s all we can do, right?

Changing gears dramatically, it’s time for some book reviews! I have two four-star reads for you guys today, so it was a pretty good reading week for me.

Cream and Punishment by Susannah Nix (★★★★☆)

This romance was pure fun! I really enjoyed it, especially the character arcs of both Lucy and Tanner. In this novel, Lucy and Tanner are former partners; Lucy broke up with him after Tanner said the L-word way too early in their relationship (in her mind, at least). They’re both trying to move on when Tanner gets a job in the content marketing department of his family’s (incredibly successful) ice cream business. The team lead of that department? Lucy. Eeks! Throughout the novel, we find out why Lucy broke up with Tanner and the really sad home life she has. Her whole goal is to get a promotion so that she can finally move out of her mom’s house and not be the sole provider/caretaker/maid/etc for her brother and mom. I found Lucy’s incessant need to take care of everyone around her to be relatable; it can be so, so hard to establish boundaries with family members because they’re family and shouldn’t you do everything in your power for them? At times, I just wanted to shake her, though, because her mom was being so blatantly manipulative and I wanted Lucy to develop a goddamn backbone. (I also felt like Lucy’s mom lacked a bit of nuance; it was sometimes hard to understand why Lucy felt such a strong need to take care of her when her mom was just so awful to her all the time.) Eventually, though, Lucy learns to stand up to her mom and find her own happiness with Tanner. (Tanner had his own internal demons to deal with, although I found the way things turned out in the end for him to be a little too picture perfect.) A good, easy, unremarkable romance novel!

Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon (★★★★☆)

I really enjoyed this historical fiction novel, which is based on the real story of the Hindenburg disaster of 1937. In this novel, the author reimagines the people and their experiences onboard the Hindenburg airship as well as what may have happened to cause the explosion that left 35 people dead. (To this day, a specific cause has never been identified, although many theories abound.) The novel brings together the stories of five specific people on the Hindenburg: the journalist who is on the airship with her husband, the stewardess who has a secret, the cabin boy who is just trying to help his family, the navigator who is in love with the stewardess, and the American who may not be exactly who he seems. While survivors of the disaster are quick to say that their time onboard was uneventful, Ariel Lawhon thinks differently. How can people spending three days in close quarters have such an uneventful flight? I thought this novel was such an easy one to sink into. I loved getting to know all of the different characters, and I particularly enjoyed the way the author structured the novel—especially how the sections started getting shorter and shorter in the hours leading up to the explosion, giving the novel a quickened pace. I spent a lot of time looking up zeppelins (which is the type of aircraft that the Hindenburg was; in today’s terms, it’s essentially a blimp) and what the interior of a Hindenburg class of aircraft looked like. (It reminded me a lot of a cruise ship… but in the air! Can you imagine?!) All in all, a really easy, interesting read that taught me a lot about this time period from an entirely different angle. (This novel takes place two years before the official start of WWII, but Nazism and propaganda are very much discussed, especially considering the Hindenburg had swastikas all over it.)

What I’m Reading This Week

  • Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly (print) – I’m a little more than 50 pages into this queer romance and I’m very much enjoying it. The setting for this novel is a cooking reality show and it makes me want to binge past seasons of Masterchef right now!
  • Things That Make White People Uncomfortable by Michael Bennett (e-book) – I’ve read just 50 pages of this essay collection and I’m already highlighting the hell out of it. Michael Bennett is a former NFL defensive end and I’m really looking forward to his views on the NFL and their approach to racial justice.
  • Pony by R.J. Palacio (audio) – Once I come off the holds list for this book (which should be within the next few days), I’m going to start it on audio. It gets excellent reviews, so I’m looking forward to starting it!

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (5.24.22)

Hi, friends! I had one of those reading weeks that spanned the gamut; in fact, I have three books to talk about today, all of which have different ratings—a 5-star read, a 4-star read, and a 3-star read. How fun!

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad (★★★★★)

This book, you guys. It gave me a similar reading experience to Chanel Miller’s memoir, Know My Name, which recounts the time she was sexually assaulted by Brock Turner and the ensuing trial. Both memoirs are so beautifully written and so powerfully raw. Neither hold any of their emotions back and show you the messy, gritty side of trauma. In this book, Suleika recounts her experience of being diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of leukemia at age 22, right when she was starting her life after college. She spent the next few years in cancer treatment and afterwards, she takes herself on a solo road trip to visit the people who reached out to her and helped her during her treatment. What I appreciated most about this memoir is that Suleika doesn’t hold back with her emotions. She exposes the dark side of being a sick person; how you can grow to hate someone who is giving you life-saving treatment because it’s going to make you sick, how debilitating it can be to be so dependent on other people at a time in your life when you’re supposed to be experiencing total independence, and how it can be so hard to understand the lives of your caregivers, their need for time away and time apart, when you can never get “away” or have time “apart” from your illness. She doesn’t aim to be this beautifully serene and strong cancer patient or wrap up her treatment in this pretty package; she’s honest about the times when she was hurtful to the people around her and unable to understand their needs. I found the chapters on Suleika’s road trip to be less compelling than her cancer treatment (which feels weird to say…), but I am so grateful that she was able to find the words to talk about this time in her life because I can imagine it will help others better understand the lives of cancer patients (especially young cancer patients) and be a balm to those who have gone through cancer treatment themselves.

All the Feels by Olivia Dade (★★★★☆)

I really liked this contemporary romance, especially since it featured a plus-sized main character and her weight wasn’t a central plot point. In this novel, Lauren has been tasked with “baby-sitting” a celebrity named Alex, as a favor to her cousin. Alex has gotten into a few public spats and Lauren’s cousin (who is also the showrunner for a very successful Game of Thrones-esque TV show that Alex stars in) is hoping that Lauren can keep him from getting into any more trouble until the show is over. Well, this is a romance so we know what happens from here: Lauren and Alex end up falling in love… but can their relationship survive the rigors of Hollywood? This novel definitely gave me “all the feels” (heh), most especially because this book was about more than Alex and Lauren… it was also about Lauren’s inability to take up space, her belief that she’s not worthy of attention and love and support. Watching her come to terms with these feelings and make an effort to stand up for herself was really beautiful. And the love story itself was so sweet, too, and had a supremely satisfying ending.

Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (★★★☆☆)

This novel came highly recommended from Sarah of Sarah’s Bookshelves Live. We don’t have very similar book tastes (sometimes her five-star reads are a hit for me and sometimes they are a huge miss), but this novel sounded interesting and very prescient. The novel is a fictional retelling of a real-life case (Relf v Weinberger), which involved the involuntary sterilization of young girls at family planning clinics in the South. This novel follows a young nurse named Civil who is fresh out of nursing school and takes a job at a family planning clinic. Her first day on the job sends her to a one-room cabin where a family of four is living, and she’s tasked with giving the two girls there (ages 11 and 13) birth control shots. It’s only after she’s given the shots that she learns about the side effects of this drug, and she begins to grapple with her role as a nurse. Do these girls really need to be on birth control so young? What is in this drug the clinic is giving out to poor Black women? This grappling will take her on a journey that will lead her to a courtroom that will set a precedent that holds true to today. It’s a powerful story but I struggled to connect to these characters and feel the emotion behind what was happening to them. I felt a bit distant from the action, which made it hard for me to get really invested. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the structure of the novel. Like all historical novels these days (or so it feels like), there was a present-day storyline (2016) and a past storyline (1973), and I just don’t think the present-day storyline was necessary. A lot of times, it spoiled what was going to happen throughout the novel, which was disappointing. I think this book would have been better served written as a straight historical fiction novel with perhaps an epilogue to show us what happened to everyone involved afterward. All in all, this was a good novel that shines a light on a piece of history that needs to be told, but it’s not one I’m rushing out to recommend.

What I’m Reading This Week

  • Cream and Punishment by Susannah Nix (e-book) – I’m loving this contemporary romance by one of my faves. It’s exactly the kind of romance I love.
  • Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon (print) – I just started reading this book last night so I don’t have much of an opinion about it just yet. I picked it up to fulfill my reading challenge of reading all of the books I added to my Goodreads TBR before 2018.

What are you reading?