Hallett‘s books are always a crazy ride! This one wasn‘t my favorite but I still liked it and flew through it. The style of telling the story through emails, texts, memos, reports, etc is fun to read between other denser books.

It‘s getting realer every day! I‘ve moved to PA, my lease started on the storefront, and I‘m making decisions every day that are getting me closer to actually opening the bookstore. 😳😬😁 A few months ago I shared a different logo but this is the one I chose, designed by the lovely @BennettBookworm 💗. So around November, Bookish Notions will open in Media, PA and online! I‘ll post the link when it gets closer in case anyone wants to see!

Thanks to @AvidReader25 for putting this on my radar last month! What a completely charming book about 4 siblings sharing their allowance so they can each have a solo adventure one Saturday a month. The book was written in 1941 but still resonates today. I‘ll look forward to reading more in the series about the Melendy family! 💗

Magical, puzzle-y, and set in a whimsical hotel with a strange history, this middle grade novel would be perfect to read in the winter. The main character Elizabeth normally lives with her unkind aunt and uncle, but they send her away for the holidays and she doesn‘t know why (or how they can afford it). An adventure ensues and along the way she finally meets some people who like and value her. And she gets up to some mischief!

Here is my September #bookspinbingo list! I‘m already reading numbers 2, 6, and 15 as carryovers from last month. I‘m excited to see where they fall on the bingo board! @TheAromaofBooks

Now that I‘m a member of a new library (since we moved last week), I plan to make frequent trips and have already put in lots of holds! 😁

August was a good reading month for me and I got 3 bingos! Tagged is probably my favorite book from the month. Now on to September!

TFW you realize you have accidentally picked up your third book in a row about twin sisters! 😂 I just gasped!

I have no idea why this sat on my shelf unread for 5 years, but once I picked it up it was a really fast read. It‘s a novel about identical twin sisters, both of whom are really into grammar/linguistics from a young age, and the family that surrounds them. I liked it. I kept thinking it was a true story, probably because the last book I read WAS a true story about identical twin sisters. But whether fiction or memoir, it was a solid story.

I read this after seeing the recent review by @Brooke_H and it was a fast and interesting read about identical twins who were adopted by different families and only learned of each other as adults. The writing is chronological and told in alternating diary entries (ish) of both women. I found it fascinating.

I still have acute vertigo, like yesterday, so all I can do is sit in bed with my head stationary. (I have a PT appointment later and I really hope that helps). I just read this in one sitting, and I‘m not sure if my lukewarm feeling is on the book‘s merits or the circumstances. The main character is a cypher, so I didn‘t connect to him. But I don‘t think you‘re supposed to. At 227 pages there wasn‘t a lot of room for character development.🤷🏻‍♀️

Someone in the book world referred to this as “the book of her career,” so naturally I had really high hopes. This just… wasn‘t very good. I agree with @jlhammar that the writing itself was clunky, and the characters didn‘t feel genuine in their emotions. Then the last 10% became outrageously sci fi, but not in a “that‘s so clever I never saw it coming” way. More like “that‘s impossible and I don‘t buy it, this is stupid” way. Bummer!

Fun! I liked this book more than the first one in the series and thought the audio was well done. The narrator constantly breaks the fourth wall to talk to the reader and help them try to solve the crime. I didn‘t solve it but I liked all the twists!

Today I‘m in bed with a nasty bout of vertigo, which I haven‘t had (thankfully) in over a decade. So it was a perfect time to finish up this audiobook, and I‘ve got another one cued up on Libby. 💗

I‘m attending an author event today through Looker Books in Coatesville, PA! The first book was super fun and fantasy-y and I‘m excited to read the sequel, which is now signed!

We just moved to PA yesterday, but I had registered for this event before the move was scheduled. Unpacking is going well, the cats are settling into the apartment, and now I‘m one step closer to opening my bookstore in Media!

Yay for shared bookishness!

No one is more surprised than I am to learn that I hated this book. I liked the concept of a romance within competitive chess, but the MC Mallory is so idiotic that it pained me to listen. My eyeballs were going to roll back in my head for all the times I scoffed at her cluelessness. Every chapter she was newly confused as to why Nolan (who fell in love with her the first time they met for no apparent reason) was spending time with her/saving 👇

I‘m about 100 pages into this and it‘s a fun, light read so far. I don‘t usually like alternate reality books (they freak me out!) but the main character isn‘t taking things that seriously as her life is changing with each different husband, so I‘m not stressing about it either. Having a chill moment with Zoe but then I need to buckle down with packing… not my favorite thing but I need to power through so I can move to PA and start my bookstore!

Oooh, creepy and good! This was a recent #botm selection and I liked it a lot. This is my 6th book by Pekkanen and I think she consistently writes great thrillers!

So, so thought provoking and interesting. I read Daniel Mallory Lavery‘s first book Texts from Jane Eyre when he was Mallory Ortberg, and the trademark humor and broad literary references were present in this latest essay collection. If you are Catholic and better acquainted with Greek mythology, you will get even more of the allusions than I did. Lavery examines everything from a transmasc lens and generously shares many insecurities and joys.

Absolutely beautiful in its character development. I wish it had been longer. This has been the summer of Ann Patchett for me. I‘m so glad I finally got on board!

Following up on the Olympics, I read this middle grade graphic novel about a Black girl who overcomes her family‘s historic discomfort with swimming/pools to compete on her middle school swim team. The story was good, and I liked the intergenerational friendships portrayed in the book, but I really didn‘t connect with the art style. And one plot point was so ridiculous it was distracting. It was hard to really enjoy the reading experience.

What a beautiful book. At its heart are close siblings Maeve and Danny and the story of their lives. The titular house is a mansion in the Philly suburbs where they grow up. In the sweeping nonlinear narrative you get to know them so well. Like Tom Lake, it‘s just a quiet story of a life, but told in such a compelling way. I‘m discovering that I really like Ann Patchett! And for the part I listened to on audio, Tom Hanks was just perfect. 💗💗

I agree with other Littens who have pointed out that the ending is more compelling than the earlier parts of this book. It felt like for a long time not much happened, though some of that became more interesting once you learned the twists. Overall, I liked but didn‘t love this book. It was cool reading in the Acknowledgements that the main house in the book is modeled after a real house where the author lived in college!

While some of the books I read as a kid haven‘t aged well (in my opinion), these are just as enjoyable to read today and I will definitely stock them in my store! 💗

As I continue my project of vetting picture books for my bookstore, here is my favorite of this batch! Even though Library Lion was written in 2006, I find the story and illustrations delightfully nostalgic, reminding me of going to my local library in the 80s and early 90s. A new favorite!

Hmm. I expected to like this more than I did. The ending was fairly satisfying, but I didn‘t love the characters (especially the main character) or think the magic was fleshed out enough. Oh well! At least I read it quickly. 🤷🏻‍♀️

From my August 2024 #bookspin list, I‘m determined to start with the tagged book because I‘ve had it out from the library for over a month. I‘m really excited for all of them, really! I wanted to find a way to get “credit” for all the picture books I‘m vetting lately for my bookstore, so I added 2 slots for 20 picture books each. And a few mood reads from the library and that I own, as usual.

Any favorites on the list?

Couldn‘t put it down! I was completely drawn into this multiple timeline story of a rich family, the summer camp on their grounds, and 2 missing children investigations 14 years apart. I felt the smallest bit let down by the last 75 pages, but that could just be me. I‘d still give it 4.5 stars though, and I want to see what else she has written!

I have one lingering question that I‘ll put as a spoiler, for those who have read it.

I have never added an extra book to my #botm box, but I was really excited about the choices and decided to go for it! The tagged book was my main pick, and then I added the latest thriller by Pekkanen (I always love her books alone and in her writing pair). Also, lately I‘ve seen such rave reviews for All the Colors of the Dark that I had to see what the fuss was about! So excited for all 3!!

Thanks for the rec @marleed @NikkiKey94 @Breanne1 !

Awww! This was exactly the adorableness I needed this weekend! Especially now, it was cool reading about an alternate timeline in which a female Democrat, the main character‘s mom, won the presidency in 2016. I loved how his relationship with Prince Henry blossomed and the ways they unlocked each other‘s best selves. Just all the warm fuzzies for this one!

Oooh, this was fantastic!! So much more going on than a typical thriller. It was fun trying to keep up with all the twists and turns and I was really rooting for the main character. Highly recommend!

Hmm. I didn‘t love this. Everything was a little too cheesy for my tastes and I knew the plot points long before they happened. Both main characters sort of annoyed me. I had been building this up for months, but it didn‘t meet my expectations. Oh well! 🤷🏻‍♀️

This was soooo good! I thought I had things figured out but I was so wrong!! Definitely a well above average thriller.

Thanks for the giveaway @ImperfectCJ !

I picked up this book on a whim when I walked by it at the library. It‘s more abstract and stream-of-consciousness than my usual fare. It‘s “about” the daughter and granddaughter of an Irish poet, and what they inherit from him (not in the literal sense). And there are lots of birds throughout. At times it felt profound and at others it felt nonsensical, but I was along for the ride and didn‘t try to force too much linear realism on the language.

I must not be in a graphic novel mood lately. 🤷🏻‍♀️ This story was fine but it just didn‘t grab me that much. It might be me and not the book, though. I think I‘ll try some non GNs for my next few reads.

This is a graphic novel version of the original YA novel. I had trouble relating to it. It was about a girl who joins a new school in high school and is bullied by a girl who doesn‘t even know her. The girl, Yaqui, beats her up really badly. The whole book centered around that. I‘m lucky in that I never experienced that at my schools. I don‘t always read about characters like me, of course, but this one felt particularly hard to connect with.

Fun! A story from a series about a middle schooler who is at a special school for spies. This episode takes place at the mandatory wilderness training over the summer and involves different generations of spies. It reminds me a bit of the Framed! series by James Ponti.

Fun! There was some good misdirection in this book which featured the charming characters from The Postscript Murders. Harbinder Kaur, the DI, was not a big focal point of this one, and I would have liked to see more of her. This story was very literary, taking place around the world of publishing, writing retreats, book clubs, etc. I liked it and was surprised by the ending!

At the pool on a (finally) cool day. Better for reading than swimming!

Fingers crossed! I *might* have good news to share soon about landing a storefront for my bookstore!! 😬

My job ended a week ago, so I‘m ready to start this next adventure!

I liked but didn‘t love this book. Both characters- the slumping ball player and the reporter doing a story on him- were easy to like, and there was no real mystery that they were going to get together. And then things just kept going well… I guess it felt a little one note because of that? Not that I wanted bad things to happen to them, but the book didn‘t have much to propel it forward.

I‘ve read a lot of middle grade graphic novels, and this one wasn‘t a favorite. It stayed too on the surface with each character where there were opportunities to be more nuanced. And the art style didn‘t grab me that much. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Here is my #bookspin list for July! I‘m really excited for everything on my list. Two of the books I already finished today, so maybe they‘ll be on the same row once the board comes out tomorrow!

I tagged one of the books on my list because I am only an hour into the audiobook and I‘m loving it so far. Tom Hanks, please read all my books to me!

I‘m so glad I stuck with this one, and now I need the sequel! For the first few chapters on audio, I was really not liking this. But as soon as I switched to print the characters really came to life. I love how much of a badass Evie is while also being cute and lusting over her boss. And the Villain‘s inner monologue is really cute too. The book is campy and fun and at times gross (just for shock value) and has heart. 💗 But what a cliffhanger!

Ha, what a fun graphic novel! Katie wants to go to summer camp with her friends, so she raises money by doing odd jobs in her apartment building. When she starts cat sitting (for her neighbor‘s 200+ cats!) things get zany, especially when super heroes get involved. I would read more of this series. 😋

I went with this one for my July #botm because I‘ve heard great things! It sounds like a book I‘ve read before but we‘ll see how this author covers that topic. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Very interesting! I‘m glad I read this book as I didn‘t know much about sociopathy.

I‘m glad I finally read one of Hazelwood‘s books! I liked the academia setting and a lot of the banter. The FMC annoyed me in some ways but overall I thought it was a good book.

Oh, Phoebe and Marigold. 💗💗💗

I thought this was good but not great. A middle schooler named Gemma who is 6 feet tall struggles to fit in at school and is shouldering taking care of her family since her mom left. She and her brother really love baseball, and that‘s at the heart of this graphic novel. I didn‘t really connect to the characters, and the whole thing was a bit bleak. But not bad. 🤷🏻‍♀️

What an unusual, nuanced graphic novel. There‘s nothing juvenile or simple about this story. No easy morals or cliches. It‘s a story about a teenager named Harriet whose family has just moved, and how she spends the days while her parents are working multiple jobs. The circumstances are revealed slowly and even at the end there is a lot that isn‘t spelled out. I would recommend this for adults as well as teens. Very thought provoking.

It‘s always a good time for a little Phoebe and her Unicorn. 💗💗💗 Just such a delight.

As much as I love Everything, Everything and The Sun is Also a Star, this book didn‘t do it for me. For 75% of the book it was slow and one dimensional. The preachy main character annoyed me and the plot was stagnating. Then at the end it suddenly took a surreal, horrifying turn which certainly woke me up but was completely out of sync with the rest of the book. I think there was a good book in this idea, but I wasn‘t a fan of the execution.