Stephany Writes

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (4.24.24)

The Women by Kristin Hannah (★★★★★)

Print • Owned (Book of the Month) • Historical Fiction • 2024

Short synopsis: Frankie McGrath is only 20 years old and fresh out of nursing school when she decides to join the Army Nurse Corps in Vietnam. Every day is a battle to stay alive and to keep soldiers and the Vietnamese people alive, but the death and destruction is nearly unbearable. After two tours, Frankie comes home and it’s there that the real battle begins. She returns to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam. She returns to a place where PTSD is not a condition, her parents are embarrassed by her, and every time she tries to seek help, she’s turned away. 

I am consistently in awe of Kristin Hannah. The way she can write about a specific period of time and make me feel so deeply for her characters is truly something. I’ll admit that there’s a lot I don’t know about the Vietnam War. It just wasn’t something that was covered as much as WWI and WWII in my history classes, and we all know that the historical fiction genre is flooded with WWII books. This novel had to take an immense amount of research and interviews, but then also an immense amount of writing ability to place us in Vietnam and then to want to cry along with Frankie as she encounters severe PTSD symptoms on her return home. This is a book about war, but mostly it’s a book about the effects of war. It’s about the bonds you make with the people you’re fighting alongside with. It’s about all of the women who served in Vietnam but whose contributions were lost to history. “There were no women in Vietnam,” Frankie is told again and again, effectively erasing her contribution and the contributions of all the other nurses and volunteers who were there in the trenches. This is not an easy read (but are any of Kristin Hannah’s books easy reads?!), but man was it an impactful one and easily tops the list as my favorite book of 2024 so far.

The Comeback by Lily Chu (★★★★☆)

E-Book • Library • Contemporary Romance • 2023

Short synopsis: Ariadne Hui is a strict rule follower who thrives on routine. And living this way has gotten her where she is today: very close to making partner at her law firm. She comes home one day to find a strange man sleeping on her sofa who turns out to be her roommate’s cousin, Jihoon, who needs to stay at their apartment for a few weeks while he mends his broken heart. What she doesn’t know is that Jihoon is an idol in one of the most famous K-pop bands of all time, and while Ari is busy falling in love with Jihoon, all of the Korean media is trying to find out where he went.

What is it about Lily Chu’s writing that takes a plot that is so far-fetched and wacky, but somehow makes it feel real? Let’s face it: This is a wild premise. Imagine coming home one day and suddenly, there’s Harry Styles just chilling on your couch! Of course, the way this plot works is that Ari doesn’t follow K-pop bands and has no idea who Jihoon is until it’s revealed to her, which makes it all the more believable. (I wouldn’t be able to pick out a K-pop bandmember for anything.) Anyway, I just loved this novel so much. Ari and Jihoon were so sweet with each other, and their chemistry just leaped off the pages. I was so, so curious how the author was going to give the two of them their happy ending. For the longest time, I couldn’t see how she was going to do it, which is always the sign of a great romance. Ari went through her own personal journey through this novel, especially as it related to her job and her family, which was separate from her love story with Jihoon, and I really appreciated the way things turned out for her in the end. All in all, a beautiful story. It could have been a smidge shorter (it was nearly 400 pages and that is way too long for a romance novel, in my opinion), which is why it’s not a full 5 stars from me, but still a delightful romance that I can confidently recommend.

The Longest Race: Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on Nike’s Elite Running Team by Kara Goucher (★★★★☆)

Audiobook • Library • Nonfiction • 2023

Short synopsis: In this unvarnished and affecting memoir, Olympian Kara Goucher reveals her experience of living through and speaking out about one of the biggest scandals in running: doping allegations as well as physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of the head coach Alberto Salazar. Kara’s memoir reveals how she broke through the fear of losing everything, bucked powerful forces to take control of her life and career, and reclaimed her love of running.

This is a stunning memoir and one that had me saying, “What the fuck?” over and over again as every new revelation came to light. I didn’t know much about the Nike Oregon Project when I started this novel, and I knew even less about Kara Goucher. I’ve seen her name come up here and there, but the only time I really pay attention to running is during the Olympics. Other people not involved in the running community have raved about this book, so I was curious enough to pick it up. What Kara went through at the hands of her coach was horrifying, and my heart absolutely breaks not only for the abuse she suffered but also for the way she felt she had to keep quiet because her coach was such a Big Deal in the running world. (It’s a great book for anyone who thinks it’s easy for abuse survivors to come forward with their allegations, and why they sometimes may wait years or decades to do so.) I am so glad Kara felt that she could finally tell her story, and I really hope it helps other athletes feel comfortable enough to speak up if they’re experiencing similar abuses.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (4.15.24)

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (★★★★☆)

Print • Owned (Amazon) • Contemporary Fiction • 2022

Short synopsis: Tova is a 70-something woman who has been working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, doing basic maintenance tasks. She befriends all of the animals, but is specifically drawn to Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus.

This book has been recommended to me over and over again, and sometimes when that happens, I become stubborn and refuse to read it because the hype is too much. Once the fervor for this book died down, I decided to give it a chance and I’m so glad I did! This book was exceptional. It was sweet and heartwarming, and I completely fell in love with Marcellus. (There are chapters interspersed through the novel with his thoughts, which is a little weird at first but I grew to love his perspective so much.) Tova was such a wonderful character, too, and so easy to root for. I wanted good things for her always. This is largely a character-driven novel so it could feel slow and meandering at times, but it’s the perfect book for people who do love a character-driven story.

White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad (★★★★★)

Audiobook • Library • Nonfiction (Social Justice) • 2020

Short synopsis: This explosive book of history and cultural criticism argues that white feminism has been a weapon of white supremacy and patriarchy deployed against Black and Indigenous women and all colonized women. Hamad starts from the slave era—when white women fought in court to keep “ownership” of their slaves—through the centuries of colonialism—when they offered a soft face for brutal tactics—to the modern workplace.

This book is not an easy read and it is not for white women who get their feelings hurt easily. I have come to a place in my anti-racism journey when I want to be challenged and I want to listen to how women of color feel about the way white feminism has halted their progress. This book talks about all sorts of different aspects of white feminism that have centered white feelings rather than listening to what women of color have been saying for generations. Hamad talks frankly about the ways white women slaveholders had an active role in punishing their enslaved people, the way women politicians of color have endured so much more vitriol than their white counterparts, and all the times white women have called the police on Black people who are just trying to live their lives (BBQ Becky, anyone?). It is an outstanding book and I am so glad I read it.

About That Night by Julie James (★★★★☆)

E-Book • Owned (Amazon) • Contemporary Romance • 2012

Short synopsis: Rylann has just moved back to Chicago, accepting a job offer to become an Assistant U.S. Attorney, after her long-term relationship ended. The last thing she expects is to come face-to-face with the man who stood her up nine years ago—and he’s the defendant in her case. 

This is a reread for me, as I’m slowly working my way through all of Julie James’ romances again. I love her writing style and the way she writes her characters, and rereading her books has been so much fun. This one was no exception; it was smart, funny, and super sexy. I loved the banter between Rylann and Kyle, and the sweet way they began falling in love. Are there some jokes and slightly misogynistic comments that haven’t aged well in the 12 years since this book was published? Oh, yes. But all in all, I still loved this book and enjoyed my time with it.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (4.8.24)

Come and Get It by Kiley Reid (★★☆☆☆)

Print • Library • Contemporary Fiction • 2024

Short synopsis: It’s 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. 

I had the weirdest reading experience with this book, as I honestly couldn’t have told you its plot most of the time I was reading it, and I’m still struggling to understand the point of this book. This book is mostly about Millie, who is trying to graduate college after taking some time off, and it’s also about Agatha, a professor at the college who is trying to gather research for her next book. It’s also about three girls on Millie’s floor who are sharing an apartment and all of the difficulties that come with trying to live with people who are so vastly different than you. This book should have resonated with me because I felt deeply impacted by the storyline of one of the roommates, Kennedy. She was struggling to find her place at school and had a hard time connecting with anyone else. I also really struggled during my first year of college, and I could relate to everything Kennedy was going through. (Oh, that moment of connection with someone else in your class and hoping you were finally going to make your first friend! I remember that feeling so well.) However, this story wasn’t about three girls making it through a year of college… it was mostly about Agatha and Millie, and I just found them totally boring and their storyline a slog. This book has a 3.46 rating on Goodreads and I should have trusted all of the other people who gave this book a low rating because it just wasn’t very good.

Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen (★★☆☆☆)

Audiobook • Library • Contemporary Fiction • 2021

Short synopsis: Tabitha Walker thought she had it all—great job, great boyfriend, great friends and family. But then it all comes crashing down with a life-altering diagnosis that would affect her ability to have children in the future. Suddenly, she’s faced with an impossible decision of what to do next.

Ughhh… this book. What a disappointment. Let’s get into my issues with it. First, Tabitha was a hard character to root for. She had a martyr-like demeanor and seemed to think her life was in shambles even though she had so much good going on! I couldn’t understand her attraction to her boyfriend whom she had been dating for a full year and had never been to his apartment or met his family. Girl, he’s a walking red flag. Get out! Honestly, all of the men in this novel were pretty mediocre at best and all of the women deserved better. There was some casual fatphobia in this novel that really grinded my gears, especially once a character started to lose weight and it was mentioned how now she can be on dating apps since she’s looking “better.” Fun fact: There is not a weight limit on dating apps! And do you want to date someone who only dates women who are a certain size? Ugh. After reading this book and disliking my time with it, I wanted to seek out reviews from Black women to see if I missed something with my white perspective. What I found were tons of negative reviews from Black women, which was a bit of a relief. As one reviewer put it, this book “felt about as deep as a kiddie pool.” The final nail in the coffin for this one was the ending, which was so bad that I would have thrown my book across the room if I hadn’t listened to it on audio. Skip this book!

Ander and Santi Were Here by Jonny Garza Villa (★★★★★)

Print • Owned • Contemporary Romance • 2023

Short synopsis: Ander is a nonbinary Mexican-American teen who is taking a gap year after high school before enrolling at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Santi is an undocumented Mexican who starts working at Ander’s family’s restaurant, and they swiftly fall in love. But can their love sustain Ander’s upcoming move to Chicago, or worse, can it keep Santi safe from the ICE agents roaming around their town?

I’m writing this review a few hours after I finished this book, and I can feel the book hangover swiftly approaching. I miss these two people already and just want to start the book all over again. This book was sensational in so many ways. I loved the way the Spanish elements were completely infused into the book: the food, the language, the culture, the art. I loved the way Ander and Santi fell in love and how palpable their chemistry felt through the pages. I was deeply moved by the exploration of undocumented people and the way the system works for people who may not be the “ideal” immigrant that the news likes to talk about. Santi left Mexico because it was unsafe for him to be there, but he’s not a standout student or a model minority. He’s just a guy who wants to live a quiet, happy life, and not be afraid every minute of the day. I could feel the tenseness of Santi as he navigated life in the United States as an undocumented person. It’s stressful and harrowing. This is a book that shines a light on what the experience may look like for undocumented people. They just want the right to live a safe, stable life, like the rest of us. This book had a lot going on, as you can see, but it all works together beautifully. This book has earned its place on my favorites shelf, for sure.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

Bookish Q&A

A few weeks ago, Engie posted a bunch of fun bookish questions that she got from a podcast and I am fully stealing these prompts to reflect on my own reading life. Let’s get into it!

1) How do you define mood reading and are you a mood reader?

I define mood reading as taking into account your emotions and how you’re feeling currently when choosing what book to read next. Mood readers don’t stick to a strict TBR list when deciding their next book. Rather, they might have a stack of library books at their bedside table and once they finish their current read, they will peruse that stack of books to decide which one feels right for them to read right now. Maybe that’s a romance because they just read a heavy book or because they’re having a tough week and want something light. Or maybe that’s a fast-paced thriller to get out of a book slump.

I am not a mood reader. I have a very strict TBR list that I try not to deviate from. (More on that below!)

This is not to say I am never a mood reader. Usually, if I’m going through something really difficult (a big change, grief, high anxiety, etc.), I will stick to solely reading romances because they’re easy and light and exactly what I need at the moment. But generally, mood reading is not my thing.

2) Do you have a TBR? Do you stick to it?

Yes and yes. I keep many different TBR lists, such as shelving things as Want to Read on Goodreads, keeping up a list of romances I want to read, and buying books (my bookshelves are their own version of a TBR list). I pull from those lists to create a smaller TBR that I follow. Here’s what it looks like right now:

I read one romance in between each of my other categories:

  • Must Reads – books I want to read ASAP (these are books that have been recommended to me a lot or are very buzzy right now)
  • Books I Own – I pick a section of one of my bookshelves and choose an unread book to slot into the category
  • Goodreads TBR – I use a random number generator to generate a number that correlates to my Goodreads want-to-read shelf

3) Do you cry reading books? If so, what books have made you cry?

It’s rare for me to cry but it does happen. I remember tearing up at the end of The People We Keep by Allison Larkin, but mostly for happy reasons. I cried a lot when I read Two Kisses for Maddy by Matthew Logelin—that book tore me up. I’m sure there have been other instances but I can’t remember them off the top of my head!

4) Do you use reading to escape, learn, or critically reflect?

I use reading to escape and to learn. I credit reading as to why I went from a very conservative Republican (I was hugely anti-abortion and a huge George Bush fan at one time!) to a liberal Democrat because I took the time to read about different perspectives and cultures, and it caused me to do a deep internal shift on my values and what I want from our society as a whole. I love the escape I get from reading (romance is my favorite genre, after all!), but I also want to continue learning and growing as a person through what I’m reading. That’s why I am so committed to reading diversely and reading as many books about social justice and antiracism as possible.

5) What is a book that made you laugh out loud?

Oh, this is hard because it’s rare for a book to make me laugh out loud. This is going to be a very odd choice but the books that Amber Ruffin and her sister Lacey Lamar have published have had a very cheeky tone to them, even when they’re talking about really awful racist incidents they’ve dealt with. Some of the back-and-forth banter in their books has made me laugh out loud. (You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism and The World Record Book of Racist Stories)

6) What is a book that you don’t really know how to feel about?

Hmm… maybe Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. On the one hand, I understood that she was trying to show us a dystopian society that doesn’t look too scarily different from our current reality. But on the other hand, I’m not really sure the point she was trying to make and I think a lot of it got lost in flowery language.

7) Are you more likely to read on a sunny day or a cloudy day?

The weather doesn’t dictate when I’m going to read—I read almost every day regardless of the weather.

8) Do you usually “set the mood” when you read? Candles, lights, etc.?

Nope. I mean, I’ll make sure I have good lighting (whether that’s natural or artificial) so I’m not straining my eyes to read, but I don’t set up any sort of cozy ambiance when I’m reading. I do love to read in my cozy chair in my room and maybe I’ll have a cup of coffee next to me, but that’s about it for setting the mood.

9) Can you leap from book to book or do you need buffer time between books?

I am most definitely a leaper! That’s the benefit of not being a mood reader—I know exactly what’s coming up next to read so I grab the book, a new bookmark, and get to it!

Do you read to escape, learn, or critically reflect?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (3.22.24)

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (★★★★☆)

Print • Owned (Amazon) • Mystery • 1937

Short synopsis: The tranquility of a lovely cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot. She was young, stylish, rich, and beautiful, a girl who had everything – until she lost her life. Despite the exotic setting, nothing is ever quite what it seems…

My second Agatha Christie novel for this challenge, and it was another 4-star read for me! It’s a slower-paced novel, with the murder not happening until more than 100 pages into the novel, but once that happens, everything kicks into high gear and doesn’t stop moving until the end. I had a feeling about this murder and who might be the culprit, and while my instincts were correct, the reasoning was all wrong. There were a lot of characters to keep track of, but thankfully I could flip back to the first chapter where everyone is introduced and their reasons for being on the ship are revealed. That was helpful! This was my second Christie novel where everything took place in a closed environment (this time, it was a ship) so I think I need my next Christie to have a different type of setting/plot. But so far, so good on this challenge of mine!

The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline (★★★★☆)

Audiobook • Library • Historical Fiction • 2020

Short synopsis: The Exiles is the story of three women—Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna—who are all struggling to survive in their own ways. It’s the 1840s and Evangeline is sentenced to 14 years in prison for assault (the circumstances of which are a little suspicious). She’s also pregnant and has to endure a harrowing overseas journey to complete her sentence at Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Hazel is also on that journey—she’s been sentenced to 7 years for stealing a silver spoon. And Mathinna is an Aboriginal girl who has been forcibly removed from her tribe and “adopted” by the white governor of Van Diemen’s Land. 

This was such a heavy book. It was one of my suggestions for March book club, and I think it will lend to a very good discussion, but I couldn’t listen to more than an hour a day of the novel because it was so harrowing. (I really struggle with plots about prison; it’s a big anxiety trigger for me.) But it was also so interesting. I knew little about how Australia was colonized and even less about how it was essentially colonized as a penal colony. It’s something I would get an offhand reference to in historical romances (“he was convicted and sent to Australia”), but I hadn’t realized how horrific it truly was, and how it displaced Aboriginal people. There were a lot of hard things in this novel, but this was also a beautiful portrait of female friendship and female empowerment. I loved the way the women came together in this story, and I thought the novel wrapped up in a wonderful way. It’s a novel I would have a hard time recommending to everyone, but if you’re not scared off reading a heavy historical book, pick this one up.

Heartbreaker by Sarah MacLean (★★★★☆)

E-Book • Library • Historical Romance • 2022

Short synopsis: Adelaide Frampton is known as the Matchbreaker—she uses her superior skills as a thief to help brides avoid the alter. Henry, Duke of Clayborn, has spent his life building an impeccable reputation free from salacious gossip. When the two find themselves on a breakneck journey across Britain to stop a wedding, Clayborn finds it impossible to resist this woman who both frustrates and fascinates him.

I haven’t read a Sarah MacLean romance in quite a while, and I missed her books! In my opinion, she’s writing the best historical romances out there, even if they may be a bit anachronistic. But eh, it doesn’t bother me and I’d much rather read about a badass group of women taking over London than the true reality of women during this time period, you know? This book was so much fun—I loved Adelaide’s character so much and the way she easily went toe-to-toe with Henry. The way they fell in love with each other was so sweet, and I loved the way everything came together at the end. There were so many badass ladies in this novel—from the leader of the “girl gang” that Adelaide is a part of to all the women who are part of their network in different inns and bars throughout London. If you’re looking for a fun historical romance that’s full of female empowerment, give this one a try! (And, really, all of Sarah MacLean’s romances.)

What are you reading?