Stephany Writes

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (1.13.20)

Happy Monday, friends! And welcome back to my “What I’m Reading” series, which took a break for a few weeks as I wrapped up last year with my “Best of 2019” posts. I’m so ready to talk about what I’ve been reading again. Instead of rehashing all of the books I read since I last wrote one of these posts, I’m only going to talk about the books I’ve finished so far in 2020. There are five and one of them is most likely going to make my favorites list at the end of the year.

Books Finished

1) Brazen and the Beast by Sarah MacLean (★★★★★) – MacLean’s newest historical romance might be her most feminist one to date (and that’s really saying something). It’s the Year of Hattie for Hattie Sedley who aims to take control of her father’s shipping business and secure her future. She’s going to start the Year of Hattie by losing her virginity but all of her carefully laid plans could be ruined when she finds a man tied up in her carriage. It’s a super fun, super feminist story that I couldn’t put down. I am so glad I chose to start off my 2020 year of reading with this book!

2) Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan (★★☆☆☆) – I really thought this book was going to be perfect for me. It was billed to me as a treatise on the mother/daughter relationship from someone who has a moderate-to-good relationship with her mom. In the book, Kelly is in her young twenties, traveling abroad, and nannying for two children whose mother has just died from cancer. Witnessing their grief and having to shoulder the responsibility for these children causes her to reflect on her own mother and the way she was raised. It’s a good book, but it just didn’t touch me the way I expected it to. For me, it was “just ok.”

3) The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai (★★★★★) – This book completely destroyed me. The story is told in alternating timelines: in the mid-1980s and in 2005. In the 1980s storyline, Yale is a gay young man who is watching friend after friend die from AIDS, and worrying about his own mortality. The 2005 storyline is about Fiona who was 21 when her brother Nico, one of Yale’s best friends, died from AIDS. She’s now in her forties and trying to find her daughter who has disappeared into a cult. It’s a powerful, heart-wrenching story about the AIDS epidemic, what it was truly like for the people who lived it, and the lasting impact it had on those who were left behind. There aren’t many stories about this (even the author said in her Author’s Note that it was really difficult to research for this book because there just isn’t a lot of information or real-life accounts). It’s only the third book I read in 2020 and I already know it’s going to make my favorites list at the end of the year.

4) The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai (★★★☆☆) – I loved this contemporary look into the dating world, as many romances either make dating apps seem like the worst thing in the world or pretend that they don’t exist at all. Rhiannon Hunter is the owner of Crush, a Bumble-like dating app, and has a one-night stand with a man named Samson that seems like it could evolve into something more. Until Samson ghosts on her… only to show up a few months later as the face of Matchmaker, one of Crush’s rival dating apps. I loved the look into dating apps and what dating is like right now, but it only earns three stars from me because I never felt like I connected with Rhiannon and some of the scenes felt over the top and out of place in the narrative.

5) Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton (★★★★☆) – This novel taught me so much about the history of Cuba and the injustices Cubans still face today. It follows a journalist named Marisol who goes to Cuba after her grandma dies to spread her ashes. During this visit, Marisol learns so much more about her grandma and her life before her family left Cuba in 1959. And, with the help of a very cute family friend, she learns about the Cuba of today. This book is a love story to Cuba and Cuban people, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

What I’m Reading Now

1) Beyond the Point by Claire Gibson – I’m listening to this on audio and I have about six hours left. It’s a great (fictional) insider’s view of the military from the perspective of three women.

2) The Governess Game by Tessa Dare – I started this historical romance on Sunday evening and I’m flying through it. I am such a fan of Dare’s writing and characters!

Up Next

1) Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb – I’ve only seen rave reviews of this book and I’m pretty sure I’m going to love it, too. After all, it’s about my new favorite subject: therapy!

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (12.23.19)

Happy Christmas Eve Eve! (Christmas Adam, I think we’re calling it now? Ha.) I am working today but then have the next two days off and Thursday, I’m working from home so it should be a very easy work week for me! I’m so excited about it! Also on Thursday, I’m kicking off this year’s “Best of 2019” series! I love doing these posts so very much and I can’t wait to recap my year on the blog. 🙂

I had a good reading week last week, as I finished two books and loved both of them! Here are my reviews:

Books Finished

1) Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan (★★★★★) – This book was fascinating and horrifying at the same time. It follows the month-long psychotic break that Susannah Cahalan had when she was in her early twenties and had no prior history of mental illness. The progression of her illness, from obsessive thoughts to paranoia and hearing voices that weren’t there, was horrifying, and I’m not sure how Susannah was able to write about it in such a vulnerable way. It had to be so hard to remember those dark days, even worse to recognize the toll it placed on her family when she was deep in the throes of psychosis. (There was a lot she didn’t remember so she had to rely on medical notes, footage from hospital cameras, and her parents’ journals.) Susannah ended up being one of the lucky ones, someone diagnosed and treated and able to live a full, healthy life afterward, and it’s frightening to think what could have happened if she didn’t have family fighting so strongly for her and one of the top neurologists in the country consulting on her case. Anyway, it’s a really compelling story that I found hard to put down and I wholly recommend it.

2) Lennon Reborn by Scarlett Cole (★★★★☆) – I really loved this romance, the last in Cole’s Preload series that followed four of the five members of a heavy metal band. This story is about Lennon, the drummer, who was probably my least favorite person before this novel redeemed him. The members of this band met in a group home so they all have very tragic backstories, but Lennon is the one who has never really dealt with the trauma and pain, instead letting it fester and make him an angry person. So I was a little apprehensive about this book, but man, was he redeemed. I loved his character arc and especially loved the way his relationship with Georgia helped to heal him, but not in a superficial way. In a way that showed him he was worthy of love and worthy of giving love. It was a special book and I’m so sad that my time with this band has come to an end!

What I’m Reading Now

1) The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny – I’m six hours into this audiobook and thoroughly enjoying it. (Amber was right – the Inspector Gamache books on audio are excellent!) Unlike many of the other books in the series that take place in a small Canadian town called Three Pines, this book is set at a monastery. It’s a little hard to keep all the characters straight but it’s been an easy, comforting listening experience.

2) Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner – This book is a tome at almost 500 pages so it’s not one I’ll be speeding through. The book follows two sisters throughout their lives starting when they were very young. Character-driven novels aren’t normally my favorite, but this one is keeping my attention so far.

3) Well Met by Jen DeLuca – My romance for the week! It’s a nice change of pace from Mrs. Everything, even if the writing isn’t as good as I’d hoped.

Up Next

I actually haven’t decided what I’ll read when I’m finished with the above books! I have a romance queued up (Hate to Want You by Alisha Rai) but nothing beyond that. After I finish Hate to Want You, I’ll make a decision if I want to try to read something quick (like another romance or a thriller) to finish before the end of 2019, or if I want to start a longer book (I have The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai checked out from the library) that I’ll carry into 2020 with me.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (12.16.19)

Happy Monday! It’s hard to believe that Christmas is next week and the end of 2019 is the week after. Time flies! I had a pretty good weekend – met one friend’s fur-baby and another friend’s actual baby, and had a lovely Saturday night shopping with my mom. It’s going to be a crazy week at work, but I think I’m ready for what awaits me. We’ll see!

Last week, I finished four books so it was a most excellent reading week for me. Here are my reviews:

Books Finished

1) Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore (★★★☆☆) – A fun historical romance novel, Bringing Down the Duke takes place in the late 1800s and follows the story of Annabelle, a woman who is 25 and unmarried and joins the first female group to attend the University of Oxford. She ends up joining a suffragist society and encountering the Duke of Montgomery on the street, and then again, at his home when the Duke’s brother invited the society to come there for a party. It’s an inventive plot that I really enjoyed. The reason I only gave it three stars, however, is because I just didn’t believe in the romance. The characters felt two-dimensional and their encounters always left me wanting more. Still, a good debut and I’m excited to read the next book in the series!

2) The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger (★★★☆☆) – I struggled between two and three stars for this novel, ultimately settling on three. It’s about a group of parents who are trying to get their 11-year-old kids accepted at a new magnet school opening up in their town that’s solely for gifted students. It definitely gave me Big Little Lies vibes, but my biggest problem with the novel is just how awful all of the characters were, especially to each other. It seemed like every relationship was a toxic and contentious one, especially the friendship between the four mothers that the story revolves around. Even still, it was an interesting look into how far parents will go for their children (and for appearance), even more so with everything that happened with the college admissions scandal.

3) Runaway Groom by Lauren Layne (★★★★★) – This book was so much fun! It’s perfect for fans of The Bachelor – and even for those who aren’t (like me, ha). Ellie joins Jilted, a dating reality TV show where a man who has two failed engagements under his belt tries to find love. Unlike The Bachelor, though, which ends with a proposal, this show ends with a wedding. Gage, a successful movie star, isn’t thrilled about being on Jilted but he agrees to be on it because he doesn’t have much going on in between films. He doesn’t expect to meet someone like Ellie, someone who isn’t trying to be over-the-top with her attention and even seems to visibly dislike Gage. Which, of course, makes her all that more intriguing to him. Their love story was so sweet and fun, and I really, really love the way it ended. A perfect romance!

4) Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Ann Fowler (★★★★☆) – As you might expect from the title, this novel explored the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, who was married to F. Scott Fitzgerald. She married him when she was barely 18, against her parents’ wishes, and their marriage was a wild ride. Scott was a difficult person to be married to and all Zelda wanted was to establish her independence. She wanted to be someone more than Scott’s wife, but that’s just not how the world worked in that time. I loved Zelda’s character so much. She was fierce and feisty with a heart of gold. This novel felt tedious at times (as novels exploring the entire life of one person tend to be for me), but I’m really glad I read it if only to get a fuller picture of who Zelda Fitzgerald was.

What I’m Reading Now

1) Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan – Y’all, this book is so damn good. I thought it would be freaky, considering she has a psychotic break with no prior history of mental illness, but it’s really not. It’s fascinating and so well-written.

2) Lennon Reborn by Scarlett Cole – This final novel in Cole’s Preload series follows the member of the band I know the least about and seems to be the most contentious. Lennon is the band’s drummer and the youngest of the group, and he really breaks my heart. This novel is his redemption story and I’m loving it so far.

Up Next

1) The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny, on audio – My hold for the physical copy of this book came in this week, but I didn’t have time to pick it up at the library. The e-book has a wait but the audiobook was available for immediate download, so I’m going to try this series on audio for the first time ever! (Amber raves about the series on audio, so I’m excited to give it a try!)

2) Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner – I’ll be diving into Weiner’s latest sometime this week. It has pretty good reviews from trusted sources, so I’m crossing my fingers it’s a good one for me as well!

3) Well Met by Jen DeLuca – A cute romance that’s getting a lot of positive buzz! I’m excited to sit down with this novel right after I finish Lennon Reborn.

What are you reading right now?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (12.9.19)

Happy Monday, friends! I spent my weekend decorating my apartment for Christmas and I love the way everything turned out. The cats are currently very interested in the tree (it’s already fallen once, but luckily, that was before I put any ornaments on it) and Ellie tried to play tug of war with one of my tinsel garlands as I was decorating so… we’ll see how things go this year, ha.

It’s been a few weeks since my last reading update so I have four books to review with you all today! Two I loved, two I felt ambivalent about. So it goes!

Books Finished

1) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (★★★★☆) – Station Eleven is the kind of atmospheric book that sticks with you. Even weeks after finishing it, I’m still thinking about it. It follows a series of people who have survived the Georgia Flu, a pandemic that wiped out 99% of people in the world. There’s a traveling theater troupe, a man and his brother who found out about the flu right as it was happening and were able to barricade themselves inside, and another group of people stranded in an airport. It’s a slow, meandering story and I loved listening to it on audio as I could sink right into it. It’s not a book that’s for everyone, but it really worked for me.

2) American Love Story by Adriana Herrera (★★★★☆) – Oh, how I loved this novel! Herrera’s romances are just so great and her writing style has improved leaps and bounds from her first two novels. American Love Story is about Patrice who has moved to Ithaca, New York to become a professor at Cornell and reconnects with Easton, the assistant district attorney of Ithaca with whom he had a torrid love affair some months back. Their love story was beautiful to witness, especially because they were both so scared of what awaited them in a relationship but couldn’t deny their growing feelings for one another. There was also an important secondary plot weaved in involving Black men being stopped by police and harassed. Both Patrice and Easton had to grapple with this in very different ways. This storyline culminated in a way I wasn’t expecting but was dealt with using sensitivity and heart.

3) Still Me by Jojo Moyes (★★★☆☆) – This novel concludes the Me Before You trilogy and I felt like this novel was just okay. At times, Lou felt like a caricature and did things that had me rolling my eyes. (Like the beginning of the novel, as Lou is going through customs at the airport and starts texting with her mom. NOBODY WOULD DO THIS.) In this novel, Lou has moved to NYC to become the personal assistant to a very rich man’s wife. They live in a ridiculously expensive apartment across from Central Park and Lou is tasked with helping the wife manage all of her appointments and charity events. She’s also halfway across the world from her new boyfriend, Ambulance Sam, and that causes a lot of tension. This book gave me a lot of anxiety, especially the scenes between Lou and her boyfriend, and it just wasn’t the enjoyable reading experience I expected from a Moyes book. I’m glad I read this trilogy, however, seeing as Me Before You is one of my favorite books, and liked getting more from Lou and her antics.

4) The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman (★★★☆☆) – This book seemed tailor-made for me, and I really loved the first three-quarters of it. It follows Nina who works in a bookstore and keeps herself busy (and her anxiety at bay) by filling up her time with trivia nights, book clubs, and more. She lives alone with her cat Phil and her only family is her mom who lives halfway around the world and has never been great at being a parent. Then she finds out that the father she never knew about has died and she has an entire family living nearby. Sisters and a brother and nephews and nieces. It throws her carefully ordered world for a loop. I loved Nina’s character but have to agree with another reviewer that she reads as neurodiverse and I think the story could have been much stronger if that had been explored. I also kind of… well… hated the last quarter of the novel and the way things wrapped up. I think the love interest turned out to be a shitty person and I found the family dynamics to be a little too perfect at the end. (It really drives me crazy when an author tries to redeem EVERYONE in a novel – that’s not reality. Some people cannot be redeemed.) Anyway, it was a bit of a disappointing read for me, meh.

What I’m Reading Right Now

1) Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler – When I finish this novel, I will have completed my A-Z reading challenge, hooray! I started the audiobook completely blind: I don’t know anything about Zelda or F. Scott Fitzgerald or their marriage at all, so I’m letting the story sweep me away.

2) The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger – I’m halfway through this novel that I picked for my July BOTM selection and it’s both enjoyable as well as frustrating. (I really have little patience when female friendship is written like a competition.) It’s a story about a gifted school that is starting in a community and a group of moms who are trying to get their kids accepted into the school.

3) Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore – Another BOTM selection for me that I’m getting around to right now! This is historical romance but the thrust of the novel involves the suffragist movement of the late 1800s and I am here! for! that!

Up Next

1) Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan – I’ve been nervous about reading this book because it’s about a woman who presumably suffered from a psychotic break, but I’m in a good place with my mental health right now and I think I’m ready to tackle this book.

2) Co-Wrecker by Meghan Quinn – I’m on the lookout for more romance authors to read and found this book on the Goodreads page of someone who reads a lot of romance (I’m talking 150+ romance novels a year!). I’ll start it this week.

What are you reading right now?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (11.25.19)

Happy Monday, friends, and happy short week for many of us. I love Thanksgiving week so very much and I’m so excited for what awaits me: my birthday, Thanksgiving dinner, and my cruise in 5 days! Woohoo!

I only finished one book this week and that’s because I abandoned Anne’s House of Dreams a little over 100 pages in. It’s not that there was anything wrong with it but I just found myself not very interested in what happens next in Anne Shirley’s life anymore. I think the first three books are the best and I think, going forward, I’ll stick to those three during my rereads.

Here’s my one lone book review, some chatter on what I’m reading now, and a fun cruise edition of what’s coming up next!

Book Finished

1) Big Bad Cowboy by Carly Bloom (★★★☆☆) – Like I mentioned last week, I forgot I had even put this book on hold until I came off the waitlist. It’s a story about Travis, who has moved back to Big Verde after a stint in the military. He’s now the legal guardian of his nephew, Henry, a precocious five-year-old, and trying to sell the ranch his dad left to him. Maggie is a longtime Big Verde resident who is frustrated by the number of men who see her as just another friend, definitely not girlfriend material. But when Maggie and Travis – dressed, respectively, as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf – have a sexy tryst at a costume party, Maggie starts to think there may be one guy in town who’s ready to see her as more than a friend. I thought this romance was fine – the sex scenes were hot and I really loved the connection between Maggie and Travis – but there was something lacking about the rest of the novel. It seemed like it relied on the trope of mistaken realizations too much and I could see through them from a mile away. Not sure I’ll be picking up anything more in this series, but it’s a fine for what it is: a light-hearted romance.

What I’m Reading Now

1) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel – I’m a little less than halfway through this audiobook. I’ve been putting it aside to listen to podcasts during my drives. It’s good but hasn’t really gripped me. It’s one of those books that’s easy to set down yet draws me right in when I pick it up again. I’m committed to finishing it this week, though!

2) Still Me by Jojo Moyes – This is the third and final book in the Me Before You trilogy and I’m enjoying it. Some of the scenes are a little over-the-top and almost seem out of place in the narrative, but overall, it’s been a nice, easy read.

3) American Love Story by Adriana Herrera – Eeks, I just adore Adriana Herrera’s books! She writes characters so well. I’ve been critical of her writing at times, mainly because I feel like she has such an important story to tell but that story gets lost due to grammatical errors and other issues that could be solved with a better editor. So far, her writing seems to have vastly improved from the previous books, which is thrilling. I’m really liking this book a lot!

Up Next

Since I leave for my birthday cruise on Saturday, I thought it might be fun to discuss what books I’m bringing with me! I love bringing easy, light-hearted reads with me on cruises – stuff I can fly through. I aim to bring a book for each day of the cruise. Here’s what I’m bringing:

1) The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman – I read my first Abbi Waxman book (The Garden of Small Beginnings – so good) while on a cruise so why not read another one by her in the same locale? I bought this book a few months ago and haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. A cruise seems like the perfect excuse to finally crack it open!

2) Waiting for Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey – I was stoked to find out that the e-book for this much-anticipated rom-com was available for immediate download on Libby. It has a startling low Goodreads rating (3.5!) but many trusted sources have rated it highly so I’m hoping I’ll love this one.

3) Ghosted by Rosie Walsh – I picked up this novel while it was $1.99 on Kindle and it seems like the perfect light-hearted read for my cruise!

4) Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum – My fourth and final book. (I aim to have a book to read each day of my cruise.) I’ve had this book on my TBR for years and it’s time for me to finally give it a go!

What are you reading right now?