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! 💗

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!