This was my first time reading anything by Jamie Ford and I am so excited that he's now one of my favourite authors. I love the way he writes and in awe of how he creatively wove together 6 different storylines--all Asian women--leaving nothing to the imagination as he describes them so intimately and powerful in their own right. Ford blew my mind with this literary piece of fiction and can't wait to get my hands on his next work.

Cynthia D‘Aprix Sweeney excels at describing an upper-class family dynamic intensifying as four entitled brothers and sisters look to claim their rightful inheritance after their brother, Leo, throws their trust fund in jeopardy. Sweeney‘s attention to detail in creating the characters and their personalities is what I appreciated most; however, they were left with open storylines, leaving me wondering if the build-up was worth it.

Kali is a powerful storyteller in this coming-of-age book. She weaves several different stories but primarily follows the life of Luce, a young woman of Mexican and Belgian heritage living in the 1930s in Denver, Colorado. Luce possesses what is known amongst her Latin American culture as the gift of sight, reads tea leaves, and has visions of events. Luce navigates society on the cusp of the civil rights movement from a mixed-race perspective.

Even after the last residential school closed, Indigenous children are still being flown in to school far away from their roots to get an education under “Canadian” standards in Thunder Bay. But students are dying with no clear answers on on how or even why. Journalist Tanya Talaga and her incredible storytelling are on full display about systematic racism, abuse, the failure of the policing and justice systems in Canada, and Indigenous rights.

I really enjoyed this refreshing take on narrative nonfiction. Not only was it interesting to read Lori‘s account of her sessions with her patients and their personal stories but her interactions with her own therapist. The way in which she weaves humour in is also brilliant. My takeaway is the most obvious thing we seek for in therapy is often the most difficult—to have a honest relationship with ourselves and be brave enough to do so.

I‘m not sure if I was expecting something gripping from Ferguson but having read his books before, I know that his style is to let the reader “read between the lines” and pick up on subtleties to put together the whole narrative. Written in first person, Jack‘s intelligence and sense of humour is what kept me curious on how it would end even though I picked up and put down the book more often than I would have liked. #justfinished #octoberreads

Picked this book up several days ago and couldn‘t put it down until I finished it. For a summer read, you won‘t be disappointed. A rich beautiful heiress dies the morning after her annual July 4th party and it gets complicated from there with love, scorned exes and millions at stake to her fortune. A “whodunnit” novel and with the author weaving back and forth narrating from different character accounts make it all the more interesting 🤔

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Working on self-development in the new year with Dzogchen Ponlop‘s Emotional Rescue. The last decade was a lot of ups and downs for me. Some traumatic things happened and left scars that you couldn‘t see but could only feel in the body. This book shows us how to free ourselves from being victims of our emotions by gaining the awareness and self-understanding. It has been and will continue to be a journey of healing.

Indulging in feel-good #romance novels around the #Christmas season. Something I rarely do 🤗

Imagination is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives. Our imagination enables us to leave our routine everyday existence by fantasizing about travel, food, sex, falling in love, or having the last word—all the things that make life interesting. Imagination gives us the opportunity to envision new possibilities—it is an essential launchpad for making our hopes come true. It fires our creativity, relieves our boredom, alleviates our pain,