Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe is a Court Salish woman living in Tacoma, Washington. In these essays, she writes about her family, her history, and her concerns as a queer indigenous woman. The essays' topics are wide-ranging and deeply personal. She writes about food, culture, her relationship with her mother, her queerness and more. Throughout, who she is and what her passions are loud and clear. Recommended.

An enemies-to-lovers fantasy romance that's been getting a lot of hype. Iris and Roman are both competing for a columnist job in a land where the gods are at war. Iris's brother is away fighting, and Iris writes him letters that disappear, but it turns out that someone else is getting them - and one day, he writes back, starting a correspondence. Pretty predictable and I'm not sure I'm invested enough to read the sequel.

Annie's great aunt Frances was a tad eccentric, living much of her life under the impression she would be murdered after her fortune was so told when she was a teenager. And then... She is. Annie and others are in a race to figure out whodunit, and the winner gets Aunt Frances's money. A quirky mystery in a small town drawing comparisons to Knives Out. Not perfect, but a good read.

Ivy and Mack were best friends, but are no longer on speaking terms after a big blow-up; instead, Ivy hangs out with Henry, and they can geek out over a fantasy show they both love. Then Ivy's parents leave on a trip, and late at night she writes a fan-fic of the main character, Weston...who comes to life. Cute, funny, sapphic, friends-to-enemies-to-lovers romance as Ivy discovers she needs Mack's help dealing with Weston.

I'm picky about poetry, but really liked this one, a collection of poems about fatherhood, with all the joy and anxiety that can provoke. The tone ranges from light-hearted to serious, as some poems also contemplate the challenges of parenting in a society where a Black boy will someday be a Black man, and shift its view accordingly. I'm looking forward to reading more of Smith's work.

My Kindle reading streak has reached a full year! I still love a paper book, but my digital reading has been increasing over the years to about half so far in 2024.

Janelle Monae expands the world of her concept album "Dirty Computer" with these novellas and short stories written with five different co-authors. All the stories explore a dystopia where New Dawn has created a dichotomy between "clean" and "dirty", the latter being where Black, queer folks find themselves, and are often in very real danger of having memories erased or worse. Thought provoking and well done.

I was SO excited to get my hands on a new book by Yangsze Choo, since I loved THE NIGHT TIGER. In THE FOX WIFE, Choo draws on the Chinese mythology of foxes to tell a compelling, lyrical story of Snow, a fox in a revenge mission, and Bao, an investigator of mysterious deaths that may be the work of a fox. With an evocative atmosphere and complex characters but deliberate pacing, this is a book to sit down with in long stretches and get lost in.

Author Safiya Sinclair reflects on growing up in Jamaica with a Rastafarian father who became abusive and how poetry saved her. This has everything I love about memoirs, teaching me about another's experience and drawing the reader in like a confidant.

I do not understand poetry, for the most part, and this one did not convince me otherwise. Didn't love or hate anything, just confusion all around. I'll try another by Ada Limon, though, I don't think this was one of her best known.

I forgot to take a pic before I returned the book, so here's the Google results when I searched the title 😂

Read this one for book club, otherwise I wouldn't have finished it. Allende is passionate about immigration and tells the story of multiple characters who emigrated for difficult reasons, from Samuel on Kindertransport during WW2 to Anita arriving from El Salvador in 2019. The overly didactic and expositional writing style were frustrating, and I think she tried to do too much in less than 260 pages.

The sequel to The Hands of the Emperor and The Return of Fitzroy Angursell finds Cliopher, Viceroy of Zunidh, heading up the government and getting ready to retire while missing his friend, the Last Emperor, who is off on a quest. Some slow moments in this looooong book, but I love these characters and the payoff of watching Cliopher experience his own unique adventures was well worth it

Author Angie Cruz tells a story inspired by her own mother and others who had similar experiences moving from the Dominican Republic to Washington Heights in the 1960s. Fifteen-year-old Ana is the hope of her family, married off to a man much older than her, yet she still manages to carve out a life for herself in a new country. Her experiences and that of her family are sometimes hard to read about, but it's both realistic and hopeful.

Sam and Sadie bond over video games as kids, have a falling out, but reconnect in college. They create a video game together and, over the course of 20 plus years, share the ups and downs of life. The story itself becomes almost like a game, as their friendship has stops and restarts. They love each other but they use each other, frustratingly don't talk about things and assume the worst. And Sadie struggles to have her contributions acknowledged.

I only have a few pages left in my current journal, so of course had to buy myself 2 new ones on my latest book store run. Which one shall I use first?

This was a reread for me and if anything I loved it even more the second time around. Who knew a 900 page book about a paper pusher in the government could be so riveting? But it is, because the characters of the emperor, Artorin Damara, and his Secretary, Cliopher Mdang, are wonderful. The friendship between them and others in the emperor's household, as well as Cliopher's governmental reforms (maybe TOO perfect) are just a delight to read.

Perfect reading set up...dogsitting and books this weekend!

Our unnamed narrator begins with the fall of Saigon and the escape of South Vietnamese refugees to America, where he lives and works while working as a spy for the Viet Cong. This is a book in which no single word is wasted, its meaning important and often double, beginning with the title itself. As a result, I'm rating it a pick even though the violence, while fitting, was too much for me at times. Great book club pick!

It took me awhile to get into this episodic story of Mia Tang and her family, immigrants from China who run a motel for the cheap and mean Mr. Yao. Mia's friend Lupe and Mr. Yao's son Jason, and the "weeklies" who live at the hotel and pay by the week, are all excellently drawn secondary characters. Before I knew it, I really cared about what happened to the Tangs and loved seeing how everyone came together in a positive way in the end.

Short stories of different times and places, but always related to the friendship between the narrator and James, as well as James' death, interspersed with detailed pencil drawings like looking through a kaleidoscope. This complicated little book was hard to follow. Every new story had recurring images and characters: they're not interconnected, yet each vignette doesn't really make sense on its own, either. Clever, but not entirely enjoyable.

Daunis Fontaine is 18, a white and Ojibwe woman who's unenrolled,, and her identity is complicated by her constant bridging of two cultures. When meth production (and addiction) threatens her community, FBI investigators ask her to be a confidential informant, and Daunis must navigate helping them and lying to her family. Reese's book club put this one on my radar, and I'm so glad because it was FABULOUS. Give me more by this author soon, please!

The golem, Chava, and jinni, Ahmad, return in this sequel. They are friends, meeting at night to walk and argue. But as time goes on, Chava realizes that people will start to be suspicious of her as she never ages, and Ahmad keeps everyone at a distance. Reading was okay, but I felt vaguely dissatisfied. Events just kind of meander along, the narrative of characters all separated pulled me in disparate directions, and the ending was heavy-handed.

Two lonely people meet and bond over a shared list if books. I have read a lot of "books about books" and have high expectations for them. An early scene in the book takes place in a very depressed library where a 17-year-old listening to music and playing with her phone at the circ desk is called a "librarian", so it started off on the wrong foot for me and never really fully recovered after that. Just an okay read for me.

This is an intricate, challenging, beautiful, and heartbreaking exploration of the legacy of slavery in the lives of one family and their community. Whether Beloved is really the ghost is left open for debate, but her presence ultimately changes Sethe and Denver as they grapple with the past. A deserved Pulitzer Prize winner, and just as worth reading now as when it was published in 1987.

This memoir has been getting a lot of press lately, where much of the focus is on the fact that Ashley's father was incarcerated. But... it's really so much more. It's about her relationships with family members that she loves but who are imperfect. It's also about memories - those we want to forget and those we want to imprint indelibly. And it's all wrapped up in lyrical writing that was an absolute pleasure to read.

This sort of epic fantasy with complex world-building, political maneuvering, and a large cast of fabulous characters is, quite simply, my kind of read. It was long but didn't feel that way, because I was fascinated by every new development. The story ended in a satisfying way still leaving some threads for further books in the series, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here.

Nevada Baylor runs her family's PI business, and gets called in to capture Adam Pierce and turn him in - alive - to his family. The only problem is Adam is a Prime fire magic user, and he doesn't want to be caught. Nevada realizes she's expected to fail, and then Connor "Mad" Rogan becomes a reluctant ally. He wants to rescue his nephew, Gavin, who got mixed up with Pierce. Good world building, but lots of set up to the series with no resolution.

The collaboration between Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray tells the fascinating story of Belle da Costa Greene, the woman who worked as J.P. Morgan's personal librarian, acquiring items to add to his phenomenal collection of manuscripts and art. She also had a secret - she'd been born Belle Marion Greener, a Black woman, but along with her mother and siblings is passing for white. A bit repetitive and clunky, but worth reading.

Weekend reading! I took last week off, and this is the second book I finished. Review to come soon 😊

Esme grows up at the Scriptorium where her father works defining words for the new Oxford English Dictionary. Starting with grabbing a fallen slip for "bondmaid," she begins collecting words.

You know those books you sink into immediately, knowing they are perfect reads for you? This was one for me. I loved the historical details about the creation of the OED and the meditation on language, especially what gets left out.

Three perspectives - Nella, Eliza, and Caroline - and two time periods make for a compelling read. It was fun to see how Caroline's discoveries matched up with the events in 1791. I loved the research scenes at the British Library, and if Caroline has a few coincidental discoveries, I could mostly forgive it. My only quibble was how closely certain events in the two time periods mirrored each other. A solid first novel; I'd read more by Penner.

A man wakes up from a coma and quickly works out that he's on a spaceship - but he has no memory of who he is and why he's there. Weir uses that memory loss to perfectly balance tension between what's happening on the spaceship and the events that led to Ryland Grace being there. The scientific details throughout the book lend credibility to even the most mind-bending events. It's a really fun adventure story and a satisfying read.

This complex book is difficult to summarize. The complicated structure of multiple storylines, characters and time frames takes patience to see it develop, but allows the reader sympathizes with everyone. At its heart, it's a story about stories - both their importance to humanity and also the coincidences that allow some stories to go on while others are lost to time and mold and neglect. Comes out September 28 - DRC from the publisher.

How to summarize such a book? It's been called a mystery, and there is a mystery, but it's more of a character study. Janina narrates, and we come to know her in all her eccentricities: loving animals, convinced that astrology has the answers, and increasingly frustrated that her voice is not heard by those in authority. As a reader, I found her sympathetic, even in all her oddities, and the denouement was less of a surprise than an inevitability.

Amber Ruffin, a comedy writer and cast member on Late Night with Seth Meyers and the host of her own late night Amber Ruffin Show, and her sister Lacey Lamarr relay stories of sometimes funny but always appalling racism that they experience as Black women in America. I laughed out loud a few times, but mostly it was maddening 😡

The second book in the world of The Goblin Emperor does not disappoint! Celehar, the Witness for the Dead who helped Maia learn what happened to his father and brothers, is now serving in Amala. When a young woman washes up in town dead, he very quickly discovers it was murder, and begins his investigation, witnessing for her and learning about her life and death. A satisfying story that stands completely on its own.

This one is a little inside baseball, er, librarianship - but it's an excellent collection of thought-provoking essays that were previously published on a blog and as Library Journal columns. Stephens pushes librarians to think technology and outside of the box, but always brings it back to the central idea of meeting people's needs through library services.

1. My job, my family, my friends, my house...and that I'm only dogsitting another 3 days!

2. Probably how satisfying it was to get a large painting job completed at home, though I'm sure I'll forget it was this week/month exactly.

3. Back in June I traveled to my sister's to see my niece and nephew for the first time in a year and a half.

I'm a day late, but thanks @kspenmoll for the tag!

In this essay collection, YA novelist John Green explores human life in all its richness, mundaneness, absurdity, and joy. Each gives a rating on such items as Kentucky bluegrass, sunsets, plague, and more. Many started as part of his podcast, but you don't have to be familiar to enjoy and relate to this excellent essay collection.

I forgot to take a picture of the cover before returning it to the library, so here's something I give five stars

George Washington Black grows up in slavery on Barbados, but his life takes a turn when his master's brother Christopher "Titch" Wilde has Wash assist his scientific endeavors. Covering multiple years and continents, this coming-of-age tale explores the nature of relationships and how theirs could never be a true, equal friendship. Wash's adventures in the world fascinated me from beginning to end.

Welp, it was bound to happen eventually. Started this one evening and, 76 pages in, just wasn't invested and decided to move on. Slightly confused world building and awkwardness to it - I think I had the self-published version so I'm not sure if later traditional publishing worked out some of the kinks.

This one isn't out till September and the copy asked that reviews be saved for pub date, so let me just say it's a fitting second book in a planned trilogy and I loved every minute.

E-book review copy received free from the publisher. Thank you!

My library patrons LOVE Elin Hilderbrand, so I decided to try one of her books this summer. What I expected: light beach reading set on Nantucket. What I got: murder mystery and a cast of compelling characters with secrets. This was a fun read, I'll definitely try more of this author's books.

Clever mystery within a mystery, featuring an editor who searches for the missing pages of a manuscript, and referring to classic mysteries throughout. A fun read, and I'll look forward to checking out the sequel.

I just finished this duck this afternoon and I love it. (It's small, the body is probably about four inches.) Everything from the tagged book has been super adorable.
#knitting
#knittersoflitsy

I can see why this essay collection has been getting attention since its publication. The essays are topically very different from each other, but most reflect in some way on James Baldwin, race in America today, and in a sense it's a record of collective grief, responding protest, and looking forward with hope. An excellent collection that may just leave you fired up.

My weekend is all booked! And apparenly I'm seeing red ♥️

The third in Sonali Dev's Raje romance series riffs on Sense and Sensibility but also is a story all its own. This one focuses on Yash Raje, who is campaigning for governor, and India Dashwood, a yoga instructor who isn't sure she wants to let Yash back in her life after he ditched her ten years ago. I enjoyed the characters and their back stories, as well as glimpses of the other couples in the series. Can't wait to see what Dev does next!

A group of men are murdered by a man calling himself al-Jahiz, a notorious sorcerer who let djinn into Cairo. Fatma works for the agency that deals with this kind of supernatural event, determined to bring the imposter to justice. A fantastical steampunk 1912 Cairo is fully realized, and the characters of Fatma, her lover, Siri, her unwanted partner, Hadia, and other side characters are fabulous. Start with the short story A Dead Djinn in Cairo

This is one of those rare books that's even better as a reread! Kamet, the slave of the Mede ambassador fro THE QUEEN OF ATTOLIA gets his own story. When his owner dies, he takes an opportunity to escape, traveling with an Attolian soldier, even though he knows that their companionship will only be temporary. Start with THE THIEF, though, to really appreciate how the pieces come together in this series.