Napolitano‘s writing is unmatched. She is such a craftsman when it comes to building meaning through language. It‘s never just the story for me, it‘s always her writing that sticks with me. Her characters and their surroundings are always so crisp. She‘s at the top of the game, and I‘ll buy every book she ever writes. Ten out of ten.

963 pages of the smallest font imaginable. Not during the summer, 👹. I love the back half of the Penn Cage tale, and I‘ll absolutely come back to this…some colder day and maybe on the Kindle. Now I‘m off to choose a book that‘s not an arm workout to carry to the beach.

The title says it all, but add in some depth and some tough topics. I liked it a lot!

LOVEEEEEEEED it!!!! A look at the life of two people who should‘ve been together all along. In the same vein as Eleanor and Park (obvs) and Talking at Night. I need more of these books that are gritty and raw and full of emotion but not reliant on trauma to justify actions and emotions. This will be one of my faves of the year, no doubt.

Sooooo excited about this one. Takes me right back to the love I have for Eleanor and Park 🤩

Thank you so much, @Texreader I really appreciate your generosity ❤️

Yikes. Creeptastic. I love that this is from a kid‘s perspective, and the lack of long paragraphs and the many page breaks guarantee that you‘ll fly through it just like I did. Interesting. Tense. If there‘s a sequel, I‘m definitely reading it.

It‘s $1.99 on kindle today 🤩🥳

Every educator & every person who cares about public education NEEDS to read this book. If you‘re shell-shocked by the absolute absurdity that occurs at local school board meetings, you need to read this. If you don‘t understand why teachers/librarians are attacked for simply providing literature that represents ALL students, you need to read this. If you care about kids, you need to read this. It‘s pulling the curtain back and exposing Oz. ✊✊✊

“The principal also told her not to take it personally when residents…accuse her of being a pedophile, or to wish for her to contract monkeypox and die. ‘What you‘re going realize…is that [the parents] don‘t love all people,‘ the principal told [the teacher], before suggesting that such harassment was now an unfortunate but unavoidable part of being a public educator in America.”

“…it wasn‘t laughable. It was ignorant. And ignorance so easily morphs into evil.” 🎯

“America‘s public schools, since their very creation, repeatedly have become ground zero for this country‘s most divisive battles over politics and civil rights—from the fights over evolution and segregation to those over sex ed and school prayer.”

I loved it! Maybe I‘ve found my next Abby Jimenez 🤞🤔. Off to request the backlog of Christina Lauren books from the library.

It‘s a love letter to books, their importance, and the power they have to create empathy and change people. This one will be in my top five for 2024, no doubt. This book is EVERYTHING!! Backwards small towns and how they got there, people standing up against those that fuel fear about the “problems” but ARE the problems, and people learning to love each other. This book needs to be flung frisbee-style at every reader everywhere. 10/10 🏆✊🫶👏🤟

Even the author‘s note in this book is perfection. Everything in this book is perfection.

“Offer (Delvin) lemonade and yammer on about the weather. Meanwhile she was making lists of books that Delvin‘s kids shouldn‘t be allowed to read. When you have everything, the only luxury left is taking things away from others. It was an indulgence that Lula Dean certainly seemed to relish.”

Thirty-four pages in and I‘m OBSESSED!! Small town, Little Free Library, banned books, schools bowing down to bs demands for books to be removed from library shelves, and people that are about to fight against it. HELL, YES!!!! ✊✊✊

This was a good read, a page-turner especially thanks to the super short chapters. At times, I felt there was too much going on and too much to keep track of, and there was a part at the end that felt emotionally manipulative. It‘s still a pick, but I‘m not certain it should be on the best books of the (half)year lists that I‘ve been seeing it on.

“She had sat in his childhood bedroom and noticed laundry neatly folded, the bed sheets freshly made. His mother had knocked on the door with oatmeal cookies. He was the kind of boy who would become the kind of man that needed tending.” I almost gave up on this book 45 pages in, and I‘m SO glad I didn‘t. It is excellent.

Alright, so I‘m all caught up on Abby Jimenez. I loved this one just like I‘ve loved all of the others. What am I supposed to read now? Hopefully something in that stack of library books will pique my interest 🤓

Sometimes, a whole bunch of holds come in on the same day 🤩

This is the second Emily Henry I‘ve tried, and they just don‘t stick for me. I‘m an outlier; people LOVEEEE her, but she doesn‘t do it for me. There were some funny parts in the first 100 pages that I read, but there were also too many unnecessary details and I got bored. I‘m sure it‘s a me problem. Moving on…

“I miss (him),” Pea Eye said. “I get to expecting to hear him talk and he ain‘t here. My ears sort of get empty.” 🖤😭

A little over halfway through this chunkster. I‘m so glad I joined Annie and Hunter of ‘From the Front Porch‘ for this read-along. Loving it!!

Loved it! Suzanne Collins is a genius. I‘m going to watch the movie versions of Catching Fire, Mockingjay, and this one to prep myself for the next installment. Might just go ahead and preorder it 😎

My aunt found this fabulous rotating bookcase at an antique store, and my sweet father-in-law fixed it up for me. The first authors to go on the shelves: Elizabeth Strout, Maggie O‘Farrell, and Ottessa Moshfegh, along with my Olive Editions 🫒

It‘s working for me so far, and that‘s saying a lot considering I‘ve only wanted to read romcoms for the last three months 🤪😅🤓

Ok, no. The two characters didn‘t seem to have any actual connection beyond ‘you‘re hot and I‘m hot and I can‘t stop looking at your lips.‘ I feel like they didn‘t really know each other at all. Secondly, I cuss like a sailor but reading the F word as an adjective randomly in back to back paragraphs when it‘s really not necessary to the story is off putting. There were opportunities for the characters to develop, but I gave up at halfway.

I‘m going to stop buying books one day, but today is not that day. How does one not buy the latest release by Garrett M. Graff??

I forgot to take a picture before I returned it to the library, so I borrowed this one from Amazon. They won‘t mind, though, because I couldn‘t resist the BOGO 50% off sale and bought the Abby Jimenez books I didn‘t own, this being one of them. This was another good one. All of her male leads are just perfect ❤️

Don‘t let the cover and the terrifying Huck Finn fool you. This is a BEAUTIFUL edition that includes illustrations of various characters and scenes. My mom found it at a thrift store for $4.98, and considering James is one of my favorite books of the year so far, I‘m over the moon about it! 😍🤩

Meh, there were some eye-rolly moments for me with this one, and I think the cover is a bit too light-hearted-looking for the history the two main characters have with each other. I didn‘t love the first third of the book, skimmed some parts, skipped a rather large chunk when “the time together is over like we said it would be”🙄 and skimmed enough of the end to know what happens. Not awful, but not for me.

One of the best teacher gifts I‘ve ever received 😍😍😍

Yesterday was full of college baseball, dogs, and reading. I finished up this one early this morning and it‘s another win from Abby Jimenez. It wasn‘t my favorite, but still very enjoyable and touched on some pretty serious subjects. On to the next in the series…

“I‘ll die someplace and so will you—it might not be no better place than Lonesome Dove.”

“It ain‘t dying I‘m talking about, it‘s living,”
Augustus said. “I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.” ✊🫶

As goofy as I found *the writing to be, I still liked the storyline. I‘m a sucker for second chance romance, country music, the cool outsider girl who knew who she was even way back in her high school days, all that jazz. I do wish there had been some more soul-rousing conversations between the two of them. Like say what you want and mean it; you‘re grown ass adults, bare your soul. Haven‘t you been pining for this exact moment? Get on with it!

Yall…. What in the…😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

About 75 pages in, but there‘s something mildly irksome about the writing. Occasionally, I read a line and grimace. He has caught of whiff of her lotion/perfume/whatever twice now and it has “made his head swim” both times…. They “frolicked in the rain” then “traded bashful glances” when they got back in the jeep…. 😵‍💫😑

Another victim of the time of the year, I think. The story is set up to be chapters from ten different females about the death of one particular teen. Keeping up with the various characters felt like a task that I‘m just not up for currently. I made it halfway through. November-ish, I might try again when my brain can focus and I‘m open to the sadness that seems to encompass these ladies. I didn‘t hate it, just didn‘t care about it.

Oops…flailed around a bit this morning and accidentally spilled my coffee on the edge of this library book. I can really amaze myself with my ability to jack some shizz up 🫠😵‍💫But I‘m really liking it, so I hope they‘ll at least let me keep it if I have to pay for a replacement. 🤪

Another good one! Jimenez‘s books are a little slice of cuteness and fun but never cheesy. I‘m currently mildly obsessed with reading all of her books bc it‘s all my brain can handle currently, but I‘m so glad I‘ve found her work and I‘m pretty sure I‘d love them any time (not just end of crazy school year time). Any suggestions for other non-cheesy authors in the same vein as Jimenez? Others you love as well?

In between books and nothing is sticking. So many promising holds have come into the library, but they‘re getting returned unread 🫠. I try, I get about thirty pages in and then I‘m over it. It‘s not the books, it‘s the time of the year and the pressure of preparing middle schoolers for EOG testing. It‘s awful, to be honest. Eight pages into this book. Wish me luck 🍀🤞😩

It‘s my Litsyversary and my actual anniversary! What a day?! 🤩❤️🤗

I‘ll never pass up a copy of either of these books. Here‘s my current collection, and I can‘t tell you how many I‘ve given away to gifts to my reader friends. #sundayfunday @BookmarkTavern

Late Independent Bookstore Day post: Of course I found my way to some bookstores yesterday. The Wolfe book was on the freebie shelf, and I haven‘t even read the first in Lyla Sage‘s series, but because I really love the covers, I went ahead and bought the second one. And the socks, well, that‘s just how I live my life. There‘s reading books and there‘s buying books, and I‘m really good at both. 😆🤷🏼‍♀️

I like to say things like “I don‘t read a lot of romance” or “romance isn‘t my jam,” but I‘ve learned that Abby Jimenez is absolutely my jam, so I‘ll be reading everything she has written or ever writes 🤷🏼‍♀️. I really loved this one, even more than Yours Truly and that‘s saying a lot.

Sometimes you go to a thrift, pick up a book, and fall in love. Does this copy have its dust jacket? No. Is it first edition? Yes. Do I already own this book? Yes. Do I need another copy? No. However, something happened when I saw the spine on that shelf in Goodwill and now we‘re very best friends 🤩🫶❤️

The cover is BEAUTIFUL, but to be quite honest, I needed more daily thoughts, more voice from the typewriter. The premise is so smart, but for me, the execution was lacking. I also would‘ve loved some chapters from the mom‘s perspective because I have some questions…

You know what I love about these books? That they‘re out there for young adults to learn what healthy, respectful, caring relationships look like and sound like. If whomever you‘re with doesn‘t treat you like Nick and Charlie treat each other, it ain‘t it.

My birthday was Wednesday and I picked up this hold from the library on Thursday. Coincidence? I think not… 👵🏻👵🏻