Can't wait to start this new release from Melissa Fraterrigo!

Today's book haul is in deep blue.

Excited to dive in, ahem.

Home from the market and the dogs have already zonked out in the sun. Time for some reading.

I'm only 41 pages in and what I'm struck by in this novel is just how sweet and funny it is. I hadn't expected that at all but am drawing squiggles and hearts and ha has on nearly every page. Off to a great start!

Dipping my toes into this one in a hotel room in Nashville.

Watkins is a marvel here. For a landscape devoid of beauty and differentiation--so much is just just dry sand rolling, rolling, rolling through--Watkins has found and created such a specific and marvel-worthy world. As good as this is, though, it would mean little without the main characters Luz and Ray also made specific and marvel-worthy. The premise of total drought in SoCal and most of southwest, feels especially prescient and timely now.

I adore this story of a girl whose mother has inexplicably sleepwalked to her death and the rippling of that act through the lives of the remaining family members. Ten gold stars for Elvis, the 11-year old narrator. And for the family's border collie Boomer, all the world's gold stars!

Caught this guy with my Rabbit Cake today.

"Blame, the truth, it was something you had to feel for yourself."

"It would never grow old, this kind of ecstatic descent." (losing weight)

"He wasn't just suffering the physical pain of hunger, either. There was something more. He felt what he could only describe as a grief for food . . ."

"The fast food pushed against Billy's stomach, bloating, hurting. He thought about bursting wide open and how good that would feel."