I‘m so glad I didn‘t wait any longer to read this poignant book about Clover, a young NYC death doula. It was moving without being cliche, and I liked the character development. Definitely a Pick for me.

Hey friends, does anyone have a working e-reader that they‘re not using that I could buy? I don‘t usually read e-books BUT I am now getting access to ARCs/galleys as a bookstore owner and it would be useful to have a device other than my phone to read on. I figured I‘d ask! Thanks and hope everyone is making it through this soul crushing time. I appreciate this community as a safe space. 💗

For the #comfortreadathon I‘m settling in with my cats, a blanket (though it‘s 75 degrees out… in November), and a mystery my dad lent me. I‘m in the middle of The Collected Regrets of Clover, but that feels a little too somber and contemplative. I think something scandalous and outlandish will be better at holding my attention. My goal is not to be on my phone for chunks of at least an hour.

This was a graphic novel that was fast to read. I enjoyed it well enough but didn‘t love it like I was expecting to. I can‘t put my finger on why. The ending felt a little predictable/normative? But it‘s a cute story about vegetables brought to life by a witch and how they feel about becoming more human-like. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I finished this in the nick of time for tomorrow‘s book club! I found it very interesting. I‘m not sure whether I‘ll read more by Lisa See but it was cool to learn about a time and place that are unfamiliar to me (China in the 1400-1500s).

Ready for November and the #bookspin challenge!

I understand why this is such a beloved book. Strange, beautiful, grotesque, contemplative… for a book that was under 200 pages, it will stay with me for a long time. 💗

Creepy and full of surprises! I was fully absorbed in this thriller, which is what I was hoping for. It‘s about a girl who was attacked in the woods while playing with her friends 20 years ago, but the would-be killer was caught and everyone has tried to heal. Now she has to go back home when a development happens in the case. Obviously new details come out about that summer when they were 11. You‘ll want to keep reading until the end!

What a well crafted, insightful middle grade book! Will is a 7th grader who‘s been having unexplained digestive and energy problems. Right at the start of the book he‘s diagnosed with Crohn‘s disease. He and his family navigate the medical and social aspects of it as Will thinks critically about what he learns in church about his developing feelings for boys. It‘s just a really nuanced book that I will totally carry in my store! Highly recommend!

The author wanted this book to be a cozy joyful escape for her readers after years of Covid, and I think she achieved that! A librarian with a sentient plant as her assistant flees the warring capital city and goes to her hometown, a remote island. She finds a community and uses the library‘s spell books to improve the island. Lots winged cats, cloud bears and merhorses. And jam. And several love stories. Strong Legends and Lattes vibes.

I know that Elizabeth Strout won the Pulitzer Prize and is a great author, but I found this book super bland and boring. I enjoy books that are people stories with little plot, but this was just… so dull to me. For those who like her, can you explain why? I don‘t mean that in a snarky way; I genuinely want to understand who to recommend her books to when my store opens. Thanks!

This weekend I volunteered for 7 hours at the library book sale. Frankly, I‘m impressed that I only came home with 4 books! 😋 Where should I start?

Really good! I usually like Moriarty, with Nine Perfect Strangers as the main exception. I was worried this would be too upsetting or grim, but it wasn‘t. Now I can discuss it with @BennettBookworm ! ☺️

I could not make it past 30 pages of this ARC. I feel weird being negative about it because I believe it is an Own Voices story by an autistic author, but I truly hated the writing. It felt like a diary, not something that went through any sort of editing or organization.

Coming out in January! I really liked this middle grade graphic novel about a 12 year old with 4 younger siblings. They all get chicken pox at the same time and spend a week in the house together, and chaos ensues. The author (it‘s autobiographical) grew up in the 90s, and I LOVE how the book shows and explains things from that setting that I remember from my childhood. Lots of growth, humor, nuance. Raina Telgemeier-esque.

I‘m 60 pages in and all the awkward back and forth is just too much. Probably if I were in a different mood I‘d stick it out, but I just feel like the author is trying too hard. And if I really miss Roy Kent that much I‘ll just rewatch Ted Lasso. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Meh, it was an okay novel but nothing great. I‘ve read other books that feel similar and this one never felt particularly suspenseful or tense. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Really lovely. 💗 I found this quiet story of two families sad, beautiful, and hopeful. Tomorrow I‘m going to discuss it in a new-to-me book club!

I‘m so glad I rediscovered this book after all these years! Absolutely charming. Not a fan of this cover at all but what‘s inside is delightful! 💗

Good but not great, but it might be that I wasn‘t paying close enough attention? But some of it was a little confusing.

It‘s time for the October 2024 #bookspin list! I love this exercise each month. 😋 The tagged book I‘m already 2/3 through so that should be an early finish. I‘m in progress on a few others too. But I like the mix of library and owned, and all different genres. I hope October is a very bookish month for us all! 💗

Now it feels like fall! Rereading this book is an autumn tradition for me. 💗💗💗

This sequel didn‘t work for me, but I don‘t want to dwell on that because House in the Cerulean Sea is one of my top 5 books of the last decade and I don‘t want to tarnish that. I wouldn‘t discourage anyone from reading this, and I hope it resonates with you in the best possible way!

This was sooo good! The more I read by Sager the more I want to read. This was spooky and a great mystery about a neighborhood where something terrible happened 30 years ago. Highly recommend!

I‘m finding the political messaging a little heavy-handed, and it sometimes takes me out of the story. I‘m trying to just let that wash over me, though, because I LOVE Cerulean Sea and have been looking forward to this sequel for months. 💗💗

Fun and murderful, just like I expect from Maureen Johnson! Although this is not part of the Truly Devious series, this snarky queer young adult protagonist feels tonally similar to Stevie.

Having read 5 books by Maureen Johnson before, I just had this feeling while cracking open the book: “there‘s going to be a map.” Sure enough!

Ok, I‘m going in…

… Hmm. I wanted to like this one and move on to her other books and the rest of the Jackson Brodie series, but I just didn‘t connect. I found her writing style fairly exhausting, and each story was so grim and unsatisfying. Oh well, not for me! 🤷🏻‍♀️

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! 💗