Stephany Writes

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (9.27.21)

Happy Monday! This was a big family-focused weekend, and it was really lovely. I went to my nephew’s birthday party, which took place at a big trampoline park, and I even got on the trampoline for a while, which was a whole lot of fun! I also got to see Mikaela for a writing date, although we had a shortened meeting since the Panera we went to closed at 7! (Our writing dates are usually two hours long, and we arrived at 6.) It’s so weird to see how staffing shortages are affecting companies like Panera. The Panera nearest to me closes at 3 p.m. every day! Crazy. Sunday was spent with the fam, watching football, which was delightful as always.

I finished two books last week, and I’m hoping my reading pace will pick up a little now. I was slowly reading through Caste (25 pages per day) and A Place for Us was a nearly 400-page book that really felt like a slog for me.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (★★★★★)

This book is truly excellent. It is so well-researched and well-written, and some of the research truly blew my mind. In this book, Isabel Wilkerson posits that there have been three caste systems in place: the original caste system of India, the caste system established by Nazi Germany, and the caste system in the United States that puts white, wealthy people at the top of the caste and Black people at the bottom (originally established during slavery and continues to this day). The comparisons to the U.S. caste system and Nazi Germany’s were especially chilling—like the fact that the founders of the Nazi party used U.S. race laws as a basis for developing Nazi laws. And even for them, some of our laws (like the one-drop rule) were too harsh. There was also a passage about how people in the U.S. would gleefully send postcards to family members to show and describe lynchings that were happening near them. Or how in Germany, former Nazi leaders aren’t revered. There aren’t statues of them. And, in school, teaching about the history of Nazism is super important. All of that seems pretty obvious things that should be done, and yet, in the United States, we are just now reckoning with all of the Confederate statues we have and the Confederate leaders whose names line streets and schools. Not to mention, even talking about slavery and race is becoming illegal in schools (critical race theory, anyone?). Anyway, this book really blew my mind. It was a hard read but an incredibly important one, especially for white people. We have to read these stories. We have to better understand how we are complicit in this system.

A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza (★★★☆☆)

Gosh, this book was such a slog for me! I expected to like it more than I did since it’s gotten rave reviews from everyone on my Goodreads list, but it just wasn’t for me. The novel focuses on an Indian-American Muslim family as they gather to celebrate the wedding of their oldest daughter, Hadia. She’s invited her younger brother, Amar, who has been estranged from the family for three years. The novel jumps back and forth in time, spanning decades as we learn more about this family and how Amar came to be estranged. The book read more like a series of vignettes, dropping us into a different time and place every few pages and from the point of view of either Hadia, Amar, or their mother. I think where the novel lost me, though, was in the last few chapters of the book, which take place nearly a decade after Hadia’s wedding and is just a series of navel-gazing chapters from the father’s point of view and honestly, I didn’t care to hear from him at all. Maybe it’s my own father issues at play here, but it felt like a redemption arc that I wasn’t here for. I basically skimmed those chapters and by the end of it, I really think that section could have been removed and the novel would have been just fine. Maybe even better. Anyway, not a favorite for me but most people rave about it, so I am most definitely in the minority here!

What I’m Reading This Week

I’m currently making my way through Rising Star by Susannah Nix, a contemporary romance that takes place in Hollywood, which is one of my favorite settings, especially for romance. Either today or tomorrow, I’m going to start One Two Three by Laurie Frankel. Her previous book, This is How It Always Is, is one of my favorite books but I’m trying to temper my expectations for this one. Surely it won’t be as good as that one, right?!

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (9.20.21)

Happy Monday, friends. This weekend was a bit of a quiet one for me, which I needed after an emotionally draining week. I didn’t even have the energy/inspiration to do my usual Wednesday and Friday blog posts! Whaaat. This week, I was also less inclined to read and more inclined to lump on the couch and watch episode after episode of Brooklyn 99 (which I’m rewatching and finding it to be such a comfort right now).

Somehow, though, I finished two books this week—a short, 5-hour audiobook and a contemporary romance that took me ELEVEN DAYS to read (unheard of for me, especially for a romance novel). Neither book was particularly great (in my opinion), so I’m hoping the problem with my reading life right now is just that I’m not reading anything super engaging, not that I’m losing my reading mojo.

I’m Not Dying with You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal (★★★☆☆)

In this YA novel, we follow two high school girls during a particularly brutal night in their lives. Lena and Campbell don’t know each other before the novel begins but will form an unbreakable bond by the end of it. The novel starts during a football game at the high school. Campbell is working at the concession stand and Lena has stopped by to get a Coke when a fight breaks out right outside the stand. The police are called as things escalate and Lena and Campbell have to figure out how to find their way out of the melee without getting hurt themselves. The novel switches back and forth between Lena and Campbell’s perspectives, and it should be noted here that Lena is Black and Campbell is white. Obviously, they are experiencing this night in two vastly different ways, and I found it to be such an interesting way to tell this novel (especially considering a Black author wrote Lena’s perspective and a white author wrote Campbell’s.)

YA novels can sometimes be hard to rate because, many times, the ones that may fall flat for me may be perfectly written for younger readers. I love it when YA books don’t feel YA, but I also recognize that’s not the point of this genre either. This is the kind of book that will likely be incredibly impactful for high school readers, but for me, I found it hard to sink into the story. There were so many details that didn’t make sense and seemed thrown in just to create tension. And so many other details were left out of the story, making it hard to form a connection with the characters. All in all, a book that is probably best left for the readers the YA genre is intended for.

Hang the Moon by Alexandria Bellefleur (★★★☆☆)

Annie has come to Seattle to visit with her best friend, Darcy, for two weeks… and to tell her that her job is relocating her to London. She decides to surprise Darcy with the visit, only to find out that Darcy is away on vacation with her girlfriend and won’t return for a few days. Enter: Brendan, Darcy’s brother who has had a crush on Annie his whole life. Brendan has some free time and decides to show Annie the best of Seattle while she’s here, and maybe also convince her that love isn’t a waste of time. Sparks fly between the two of them and it makes Annie question what she wants: Does she really want to move to an entirely new country for a job she doesn’t even really like? Or has she found her happily ever after in Seattle? It’s a sweet contemporary romance, but considering that it took me 11 freaking days to read it, it didn’t really keep my attention. I didn’t believe in the chemistry between Annie and Brendan, and I grew very tired of all the rom-com tropes (especially the grand gestures from BOTH characters at the end). I’ve read two novels by this author and neither have been particularly great, so I think she’s just not for me.

What I’m Reading This Week

  • Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson – Still slowly making my way through this book (which I think is part of the reason why my reading has slowed down so much lately). I should finish it sometime this week, though!
  • A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza – Another book I am reading oh-so-slowly. I only got through 150 pages last week! Ergh. I’m enjoying it, so I don’t want to abandon it, but I will also be happy when I finally finish it and can move on to something else.
  • The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary – I loooooved Beth O’Leary’s debut, The Flatshare, and I’m hoping that I enjoy this one just as much! I’ll start it today or tomorrow.

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (9.13.21)

Happy Monday, friends! This weekend was a good one, albeit quieter than I would have liked. That’s how it goes sometimes. I was super happy on Sunday, though, because it was the first Football Sunday of the season. It was so much fun to spend the day at my mom’s watching the games (the Dolphins game was a nail-biter—still can’t believe we squeaked out a win!)

I finished two books last week and both were 4-star reads. Woop!

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (★★★★☆)

This was an excellent thriller, and I can understand why it was such a hyped book of 2019. The story begins as Theo Faber, a psychotherapist, begins a new job at The Grove, a forensic psychiatric hospital. It’s there he meets Alicia Berenson, who was found guilty by reason of insanity of killing her husband. Since the day she killed her husband, she has not spoken and refuses all kinds of therapies. Theo believes he can be the one to get Alicia to talk again (which is the main reason he joined The Grove; Alicia’s story was splashed all over the news and he was intrigued by it). As with all thrillers, there are many twists and turns, revealed through Theo’s sessions with Alicia as well as Alicia’s own journal entries. The ending truly shocked me (and seemed to come out of nowhere), but it wasn’t super far-fetched, in my opinion. It was the right amount of shock that had me wanting to reread the book immediately to see how I missed the clues. Well done, Alex Michaelides!

Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny (★★★★☆)

I don’t want to talk too much about the plot of this book, since it’s the 14th in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series and these books must be read in order. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, friends. Do not slide into this one without knowing everything that led up to it! It’s just not going to have the same impact. Anyway, I loved this book and the two main mysteries. There were so many great details involved and I’m always happy to be in Three Pines, surrounded by my favorite characters. They have become a comforting place for me. In these books, there is always a plotline involving the overarching police force and Gamache’s place within it, and this time, those scenes lacked a little bit of the intrigue that they usually have. Still, this was a wonderful book and it’s hard to believe that I’m veering closer and closer to being caught up with the series!

What I’m Reading This Week

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (9.7.21)

Happy Tuesday, friends! I had a lovely long weekend, although I didn’t get up to too much—just my usual writing date with Mikaela and then a lovely date night where we watched Booksmart (what a great movie!) And the rest of my weekend was spent deep-cleaning my apartment, napping, and finishing up the books I was reading! Nothing too exciting around here. 🙂

Since I missed my reading recap post last week, I have a double dose of book reviews today. Let’s get into it.

The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn (★★★★☆)

The second Bridgerton book was a great one and left me feeling really excited about how this book will be adapted for the Netflix show. It follows Anthony, the oldest Bridgerton sibling who is still dealing with the death of his father a decade ago. He knows he needs to marry and sets his sights on Edwina, a sweet, beautiful young woman whose family will benefit from the match. Unfortunately, Edwina’s older sister Kate is not keen on the match and isn’t afraid to let Anthony know it. In the process of Anthony trying to win Kate over, he finds himself wanting to win her heart instead. And oh man, were the scenes between Anthony and Kate so much fun. They had great banter and it’s going to be delightful to see how this translates to the small screen. At times, Anthony could be pretentious and even a bit mean, but he won me over by the end, especially with the way he cared for Kate and helped her through her trauma. And Kate! Kate was so easy to love and root for. She was feisty and intelligent and funny and had a big heart for her family. All in all, I loved this book!

The Guncle by Steven Rowley (★★★★☆)

The Guncle was one of my most anticipated reads this year, and while it was a bit slow to start, by the end, I was completely captivated by these characters. Patrick, a former sitcom star, is suddenly thrust into the role of caretaker to his 9-year-old niece and 6-year-old nephew when their mother dies and their father enters rehab. Patrick—or GUP, as the kids call him, which stands for Gay Uncle Patrick—is dealing with his own grief while also trying to help these kids through theirs. It’s a character-driven novel and, as such, it moved very slowly for me. Eventually, I came to appreciate what this book had to say about grief and family and queerness. It was really beautiful! Also, once I read a review that imagined Neil Patrick Harris in the role of GUP (since a movie adaptation is in the works!), I was all in. He’d be the perfect casting, quite honestly.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (★★★☆☆)

I went into this story knowing very little about it; I just knew that Casey McQuiston’s Red, White, and Royal Blue was my favorite book the year I read it and I couldn’t wait to read her next release. One Last Stop follows August, a girl in her early twenties who moves to NYC on a whim. While taking the subway one morning, she meets Jane, a hot-as-hell Asian woman who gives August her scarf to cover up a coffee stain on August’s shirt. And then she keeps seeing Jane on the subway again and again and again. What are the odds that Jane is always in the same subway car as her? That’s when she discovers Jane’s secret: she’s displaced in time. The last thing she remembers is living it up in NYC in her twenties in the 1970s; she’s been stuck on this subway for the last 45 years. What’s August to do but help Jane find out how to get back to where she’s supposed to be while also, oh yeah, trying not to fall in love with her. There was so much to love about this novel—the LGBT representation and details about what it was like to be gay in the 1970s, the cast of supporting characters that I just adored completely, the magical element that was fun to unravel. However, I found it to be overly long (it needed at least another round of heavy edits; there’s no reason for the book to be 400+ pages) and sometimes a bit boring and repetitive. It also had really long chapters, which is a bookish pet peeve of mine. Still, it was still a great sapphic love story with a satisfying ending that made me feel a lot of things!

The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood (★★★☆☆)

I’ve had this book on my to-be-read shelf since 2017, after hearing Anne Bogel recommend it on her podcast (What Should I Read Next). It’s also gotten lots of rave reviews, so I was excited to finally dive in last week! This book is about Ona, a 104-year-old woman who befriends an 11-year-old boy who comes to her house every Saturday to help out (as part of a Boy Scouts initiative). But when the boy unexpectedly dies, it’s his father who comes to the house to finish out his son’s commitment. Quinn is an absentee father who never really knew his son, but through helping Ona, he comes to terms with his grief, his life, and his son. It’s a heartwarming book for sure, but it didn’t quite grab me in the same way it’s affected other people. Maybe because it’s a character-driven novel and I didn’t really like many of the characters. Maybe it was the writing itself (overly flowery writing) that just wasn’t to my taste. It’s the kind of book where I can understand why people love it and can also understand why people hate it. A solid 3-star read for me.

What I’m Reading This Week

  • Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny (audio) – I’m halfway finished with the 14th book in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, and I am loooooving it. Some side plots are giving me anxiety, but mostly, I’m enjoying the novel.
  • Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (print) – I’m reading this book for the Unread Shelf Project’s September challenge, which is to read a book that you want to learn from. I am confident that this book is going to do exactly that!
  • The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (print) – I’m finally reading this much-discussed thriller (I started it last night). On Goodreads, it has a 4.13 rating with nearly 775,000 reviews and many trusted sources have given it 5 stars. So, I’m going into it with high expectations—we’ll see if the book lives up to them.
  • Hang the Moon by Alexandria Bellefleur (e-book) – My romance of the week! I haven’t started this novel yet, but I’m looking forward to diving into it today!

What are you reading?

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (8.23.21)

Hi, friends! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I had such a great time in Chicago and can’t wait to recap it all for you guys this week. I also really, really, really, really, really enjoyed having a full 9.5 days off work. It was rejuvenating for me! I haven’t had time off like that since the end of 2020 and it was much needed.

But now it’s Monday and I’m back in the swing of things: work and meal planning and step counts and workout goals. I’m also getting my first-ever COVID test today! Can you believe I’ve never had to get one? Crazy, right? Well, I’m getting one today to make sure I didn’t pick up the virus during my travels—it’s not a CDC requirement to get tested after flying domestically, but I’m doing so for my peace of mind. With the way this Delta variant is going (and having fully vaccinated friends who have tested positive recently!), I just want to be sure I’m not walking around with an active case of COVID even though I’m always masking up when I’m in public. I wanted to wait a full 72 hours from my flight (we arrived home around 7pm on Thursday), which is why I’m only getting it now. Fingers crossed for a negative result!

Anyway, enough of that talk! Let’s dive into what I’ve been reading over the past two weeks! I finished four books and liked them all. Here are my reviews:

It Takes Two to Tumble by Cat Sebastian (★★★☆☆)

This queer romance had so much going for it, but ultimately, it fell flat for me. As the story begins, Phillip is returning home from being at sea for a few years and isn’t sure how his children will react, especially once he starts receiving word that his children keep driving away their governesses. Ben is the town’s vicar and has taken the children under his wing until their father comes home. When Phillip returns, he finds his children aloof with him and enamored with the vicar. But Phillip can’t blame them—he also finds himself easily enamored with Ben. Ben is smart and kind and funny and incredibly good-looking. And the truth is that Ben feels the same way as Phillip—he can’t help being drawn to this brooding seaman with a heart of gold. Soon enough, Phillip and Ben’s attraction to each other is too big to ignore, but what are they to do? Phillip is leaving to go back out to sea and Ben has plans to marry his childhood best friend in a few month’s time. It’s a really beautiful story about queerness and love and family, but it was almost as if the author took the adage of “show, don’t tell” in regards to writing too far. There wasn’t enough detail or depth to really sink into the story, and the characters felt one-dimensional and ultimately forgettable.

Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano (★★★★☆)

This novel was so excellent, and I’m glad it lived up to my high expectations. After Finlay is overheard talking about the plot of her latest romantic suspense novel at Panera, a nearby patron believes she’s talking about a real-life murder she’s planning—not the one she’s writing about. So she contracts Finlay to kill her husband! (Totally normal.) She’ll pay her $50,000, which is money Finlay could really use, seeing as she’s way behind on writing her book and her electricity was just turned off that morning. What follows is an outstanding novel filled with hijinks and a twisty-turny plot as Finlay learns just how hard it is to be a contract killer with a soul. I loved this thriller. It was well-paced and just plain fun. And sure, I had to suspend belief for the ending, but eh, by that point, I was so heavily invested in Finlay’s story that I didn’t mind. I’m so excited there’s a sequel, too!

Handle with Care by Helena Hunting (★★★☆☆)

Handle With Care is a contemporary romance novel that gave me all of the happy feels! Lincoln is summoned back to NYC after his father dies and leaves him in charge of his huge media company. For the past few years, he’s been spending time in Guatemala and other South American countries building homes and trenches. But now that he’s become acting CEO, he has to learn to look and act the part. Enter: Wren. As a public relations expert, she’s tasked with helping Lincoln become the best CEO he can be—that includes giving him a makeover, setting up social media profiles, and helping him with the speeches he has to make. Of course, this is a romance so you can guess what happens from here: Lincoln and Wren fall in love with one another and chaos ensues. It’s a sweet story and I loved the chemistry between Lincoln and Wren, but some of the side characters (like Lincoln’s mother and brother) almost read like caricatures, not as real people. They were so villainous, with no nuance to their characters at all, and because of that, the plot kind of went off the rails at the end. Ah, well. It was still a fun romance with great main characters that were easy to root for.

I See You by Clare Mackintosh (★★★★☆)

My goodness, this was an excellent thriller! When Zoe sees a photo of herself in an advertisement in the newspaper, she’s determined to find out how it got there. The next day, there’s another woman in the ad and a different woman the day after that, and so on and so forth. It’s only when she realizes that one of these women is involved in a robbery and another woman was found murdered that she really starts to worry. This fast-paced thriller will have you on the edge of your seat, especially as everything comes together in the end. It was truly shocking! After reading this book, I’m really glad I don’t use public transportation because I would be terrified to be alone on a train! Eeks.

What I’m Reading This Week

I’m about halfway finished with The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn, which is the second book in her Bridgerton series (and what season 2 of Bridgerton will focus on!) It’s great so far—I’m loving the banter between Anthony and Kate. I also just started The Guncle by Steven Rowley, a book that has gotten a ton of buzz. I have high hopes for this one! And, finally, I’m going to start an audiobook this week—What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young.

What are you reading?