Is it weird that I love mermaid storylines but fantasy is one of my least favorite genres? I've had this book shelves since before it came out and even had an ARC but never read it. Just like in Kiera Cass's Siren I loved that sign language representation used when voice isn't an option. The current event themes don't go unnoticed. Everyone deserves a voice!

Open door romance that just made me hungry as they described the food creations going into menu planning. I did really love the little jabs to her ex while they were fake dating- calling him by the wrong name etc to make a point that she was too good for him.

Abandoning. Was trying the audio and I just can't handle the mispronouncing of Cochlear Implant and the need to slur our Deaf main character's voice when he's encouraged to use it and his family not being willing to learn ASL with him. Just rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe someday I'll get my hands on my book and let my internal reading do the text justice.

Cute. Open door romance. Side characters in this one had their own meet-cute romance in "Summer Reading" love me some bookish romcom

Reread over a decade later. What I remembered from my first time through is from the very, very end of the book. Funny that I remembered it as being the complete focus of this specific storyline and it wasn't. Anyway, still amazing as always. I can't wait to discuss it with my book club in a few weeks.

I wish this political season we had a candidate like this story. Someone to flip the narrative on its head.

Welp. Definitely a second book. Oops.
Going back to the first next. Clean romance, friends to lovers trope.

Wowsers! Two top year reads in the same week!?! I literally only picked this up from the title but inside was so much more. Definitely gave off Fredrick Backman Beartown vibes in the writing style but with a deep American south setting that could have also been set in numerous other parts of our country. Filled with dozens of current topics, varying viewpoints and memorable characters.

My new favorite modern day retelling (Rapunzel). Clean romance.

Amazing. I was a week late in getting this one read for my twister podcast episode and that makes me so incredibly sad. This book was fantastic! One of my 2024 favorites for sure.

June 2024
Host of Maggie's Book Bites Podcast
Goodreads.com/MaggieCarr
#2024SpineStack
#MaggiesSpineStacks

Wow. This one will stay with me for a while.

If you were engrossed with Educated (Tara Westover) Between Two Trailers will be equally as powerful.

It is rare to find authors willing to write characters that reflect me but Alison Gervais nailed it (hearing loss in my 20s). I could relate to so much of how Jules convinced herself that she hadn't heard something important, or was overcome with tinnitus or dead hearing aid batteries.

This book reminded me a lot of Tuck Everlasting (Babbitt) crossed with Sherlock Holmes and Sir Watson in a modern day Ashford College Writing Seminar in London.

The dog doesn't die.

Absolutely read "The Girls I've Been" first then jump into this one that takes place between graduation and college. ? Ending leaves it wide open for another book ?

Also, if you still can't get enough of this type of story try "Nowhere Girl: A Memoir Of A Fugitive Childhood" by Cheryl Diamond

(intentionally unrated. you can't rate grief)

But golly you can feel it. Grief is a living, breathing thing that can tether itself to us for a lifetime. What an honor it was to experience it through Whitney's poetry. I've followed her online for quite some time but there is something about reading it sequentially in Harmony has will resonate with everyone.

It's been several years since I read the first book in this duology and in the first moment I was instantly back immersed in the multiple POV narrative of this ongoing storyline. Suspense/thriller isn't one of my go-to genres but I felt a deep connection with Daphne on many levels. All I can say is wow, wow, wow! If you are a library borrower- get your holds in now because when this comes out it's going to have a long wait!

Loved this author at first but lately they all read the same... But once they talk of bondage - I'm out.

3️⃣for3️⃣! Each of the books I've read from Annabel Monaghan have been 5⭐ books! Yes they are trope ladden but they are the perfect closed door romance without tons of explicit content and memorial characters and side characters. Hope she has a long writing career ahead. 🙌

I loved Georgie, All Along (also by Kate Clayborn) and I had read that this book would give me Sadie (Courtney Summers) vibes but despite all that it just felt flat to me. Super bummed.

Maggie's Book Bites Podcast covering books with Animals On The Cover in our latest podcast conversation.

Massive turnout for our Summer Reading Challenge Kick-off. For sure over 350 registrations today. Will update with precise numbers when I see it on Monday...

May 2024
Host of Maggie's Book Bites Podcast
Goodreads.com/MaggieCarr
#2024SpineStack
#MaggiesSpineStacks

This one was way more explicit than I expected it to be for a book set in the 1800s. I will admit to being reminded that we, as women, have less autonomy over our bodies now (in many states) than we did 200 years ago.

Audacious setting and narcissistic father but I enjoyed the main characters.

This one was really good (I liked it even better than Heard It In A Love Song by the same author).

I picked this one up because my family enjoys geocaching together so I thought it was a fun premise but the positive spin on taking care of your own mental health will be what makes this book stand above the rest. Extremely well done!

I've loved every book I've read by Nicole Deese and this one is no exception. It's retracing a memorable last tour map × Christian fiction × light mystery × rom-com. Technically it's the second in the Fog Harbor series but it could be read as a stand alone.

This podcast was a blast to record. We each came at the Gardening topic from different directions and in doing so the titles were the best kind of eclectic. Have a listen! https://open.spotify.com/show/6mKgk3gVlZ06No72W0h9xj?si=MPgJoul9RjCjDNAYw86y8g

Rescued a toad and relocated him from the accessibility ramp to the ivy this morning. #LibraryStaffLife 👏🤣 #OtherDutiesAsAssigned

Memorable meet-cute! 👏👏👏
BANTOR 100% 👏👏👏
Satisfying friends to lovers 100% 👏👏👏
Superb elderly roommates/side characters 100% 👏👏👏

Could see this being a wonderful movie but would likely need to take out some over the top descriptive love scenes and tame them down a bit.

It was recommended to me to read this duology back to back and I can completely see why. A few years pass between the books but it could easily be read as one massive 1,000 page book. Very open door romance but at the same time I wonder how much of it was due to translation? None of the physical romance was romantic- does that make sense? It was all fast and vulgar. One full storyline has no solution (a health problem that seems to disappear...

Wow! Don't read unless you have book 2 ready. CLIFFHANGER! Triggers: parental loss. Trope: Brother's best friend/ friends to lovers romance.

I fell asleep halfway through the last chapter and slept fit fully. Laurie and her family's life after the abusive divorce from her mom from dad gripped my dreams. The judicial system is so broken when kids must continue to visit monstrous parents. This is a story of a farm that saved a mom & her children as well as the hundreds of animals. Written in alternating sections between memoir and Animal Tales. (Photo with our window worm farm 🤪)

My favorite in the series so far, friends to lovers trope. Now I'm ready for the next season on screen.

Tom Hanks × book podcast!

I picked this up because I'm a sucker for female pirates and after reading The First Lady of Iceland's Eliza Reid's book The Secrets of The Sprakkar last year this biography seemed like a no brainer. It was good she just wasn't a pirate. Instead I found the history of a woman way ahead of her time, an unapologetic, trouser wearing fishing woman turned captain who fought to keep everything she earned yet lost throughout her entire life...

Fiercely feminist and riveting!
(Expand Your Horizons Dragon task)

Not gonna lie, I want to plan a Read-A-Thon. Love when readers become authors who write about books & librarians and simply nail all-the-parts. Oh, and there's a romance story inside this title, too. 🤣

I mean... why can't KC write faster? Couldn't stop reading this one and finished in less than 24 hours. So, Ms Center, if you see this could you, maybe... possibly write like a book a week or something? Absolutely loved your author's note at the end as well. (Read as an ARC and highly recommend you preorder or ask your library to purchase- publishes summer 2024.)

I'm a better human being thanks to books that open my eyes to things that have never gotten my attention before. Quick, informative read! I really liked the part where she talks about having her own eyes opened to what it means to be more accessible. Something that definitely motivates me.

I really, truly thought I had one character pegged for something and it turned out not to happen. I'm glad for that but was half-way to being ready to pat myself on the back only to be let down by the fact that I was wrong. 🤷🤦 I learned a lot about Princess Diana (impersonation) and cryptocurrency so I can only imagine the author learned even more in preparing for this book.

Peculiar Treasures was my very first RJG title 16 years ago. I instantly felt like these fictional characters were friends and we were figuring out life together. How mad and simultaneously excited was I to learn that despite this being book #1 that there were 27 books before this in various series and many that have been written since that only intensifies my feelings of holding these forever friends deep in my heart...

Expand Your Horizons 2024: read a book with an animal on the cover ✔️

It took me a bit to understand the flow of the book with multiple POVs, including a perceptive, aging octopus. Brilliantly woven together.

Truth.

The perfect swoony clean romance. Both main characters had a lot to overcome but doing so together built a strong foundation for a relationship neither saw coming.

Expand Your Horizons 2024 task, a book with a one word title.

Spy thrillers aren't my go-to genre but it reads more like the National Treasure movie franchise with more dismembered body parts but predictable in... of-course-someone-will-double-cross-another.

I know cultures are way different in history but I struggle with reading societal expectations and when men don't listen to women when they say no to advances.

So so good! Could be read alone but filled with Easter eggs and nods to earlier AJ stories.

I was instantly drawn in and engaged but by half way though I had fallen asleep multiple times while reading so...

March 2024 (Bible was a 75 day read, finished in March)
Goodreads.com/MaggieCarr
#2024SpineStack
#MaggiesSpineStacks

Just not my sense of humor. All centered with a movies/TV/Hollywood theme which I couldn't care less about.