What I’m Reading (3.22.22)

Happy Tuesday, friends! I have a whoooole lot of book reviews for you guys today—five, in fact! I had a very low-key weekend, which meant I spent the majority of my time curled up on the couch reading. My favorite! Let’s dive into the reviews, shall we?

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny (★★★★☆)

This book, the 17th in Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, is not my favorite of the series but it was still a very good mystery. I think it needed a stronger edit (it was far too long) but I do like that the pandemic was mentioned. It was vague and in Penny’s fictional world, everything went back to normal after the vaccines were available (if only!), so that felt a little triggering to me, but it was interesting to see the pandemic have a place in a recent work of fiction. It makes me wonder how other authors will address it! There’s a central mystery here, a murder to be solved, and then lots of other side plots that were hard to follow at times. There was a lot of time spent on side characters and side plots that were never fully developed. Even still, I love being in this world Penny created and I will always love my time spent with Gamache.

Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People by Nadia Bolz-Weber (★★★☆☆)

This was an enjoyable read, as Christian pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber writes a series of essays on all the different people she’s met who have made an impact on her faith and her life. It could be a person in her church who she just can’t get along with or a young girl on a flight who needs someone to talk to. Nadia has an approachable writing style and I really like how she explains certain Christian concepts in footnotes—super helpful for people who didn’t grow up in a church setting and may not know what things like the Eucharist is. Two things to note: Nadia has no problem swearing in her book and it’s also very Jesus-y (she is a pastor, after all). So if profanity or Christian-speak bother you, I’d steer clear. Otherwise, it would be an easy read that you could probably finish in one afternoon!

Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley (★★★★☆)

I always love a sweet YA romance and this one didn’t disappoint. After her brother dies, Rachel returns to her hometown where she has to work with her former best friend and long-time crush, Henry, at his family’s bookstore. When she left town a few years ago, Rachel sent Henry a letter confessing her love to him, but he never responded to it. Now she’s back, grieving, and unsure how she feels about Henry after all this time. I really loved both Rachel and Henry so much and this book hit me in my feels, watching Rachel grapple with the grief of losing her brother. It would destroy me to lose my brother and I just wanted to give Rachel a big hug (and send her to weekly therapy!) All in all, a beautiful story about grief, teenage crushes, and books.

Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead by Elle Cosimano (★★★★★)

I’m always a little apprehensive about the second book in a series, especially when I loved the first one so much, but I’m happy to report that this book (the follow-up to Finlay Donovan is Killing It) is just as good as the first. Someone has put a hit on Finlay’s ex-husband (via a post on an Internet forum), and Finlay has to find out who it is. She’s drawn back into the world of contract killers, the Russian mob, and crazy disguises as she and her nanny/partner-in-crime Vero try to track down who is behind this post while trying to save Finlay’s ex-husband’s life for the sake of their young children. It’s a fast-paced thriller with lots of fun twists and turns, an exciting love triangle, and great espionage, and I loved it from beginning to end.

Dear Martin by Nic Stone (★★★★★)

I flew through this book in two days, and it was excellent. As others have stated, this book should be in every high school library because it discusses important topics of race, police brutality, gun violence, and affirmative action in an accessible, powerful way. Justyce is a high school senior who is headed for an Ivy League school in the fall but can’t seem to escape his Blackness and all the people who look down on him because of the color of his skin. There’s the cop who tries to arrest him even though he was doing nothing wrong, the white guys at school who think he’s a thug, and a horrifying incident while he’s driving in the car with his best friend Manny. It’s a story that gripped me from the get-go. I loved being in Justyce head, and even more, I loved the letters he wrote to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (hence the title), as he grapples with his identity, race, and how to make a difference when sometimes it feels like nobody will look past the color of his skin. I very much want to press this book into the hands of Black teen boys who want to see themselves reflected in novels, and into the hands of anyone committed to anti-racism.

What I’m Reading This Week

• Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson (audio) – This short audiobook (it’s under 5 hours) is sure to pack a punch. I’m one hour in so far.
• Long Shot by Kennedy Ryan (e-book) – I haven’t read anything by Kennedy Ryan, but she seems to be a prolific Black romance author so I’m crossing fingers and toes that this book works for me!
• Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America by Jeff Chu (print) – I’m going to start this book today, and I have a feeling it will be incredibly impactful.

What are you reading?