So beautiful in its seemingly simple premise: a mom telling her 3 grown daughters a story of her youth while they‘re all home at the family farm during the pandemic. I loved it so much. A bookseller put this in my hands and I‘m glad she did! 💗

It took me a good while to get through, but I‘m glad I read this book. It seems like it‘s the origin of dark academia as a genre, and I‘ve wanted to read it for a long time. The prose is rich and the story of a group of Classics students at college is both bizarre and mundane. It reminded me of Brideshead Revisited even though this was written in the 1990s, with its intense secretive friendships, sibling relationships, class differences, etc.

I‘m excited for my April #botm box! I got the new Sally Hepworth (I always really like her books) and added Familia with my birthday month credit! Now I just need to prioritize reading a bit more on a daily basis. 💗

This started out slow for me- I‘m not used to reading non-fiction- but quickly held my attention. The anonymous author lays out a very cogent and well-substantiated argument for how the British justice system is broken, using examples from his time as a barrister. It‘s scary and convincing.

Ooooh, really good! This was a big cut above your average thriller. Things are not what they seem and I was completely absorbed in figuring out the truth about this small group of neighbors. I‘ve read a few books by Lisa Jewell but this is my new favorite!

This was so much more than I expected it to be. It was a really immersive, absorbing look at the intertwining lives of a group of theater kids at a Manhattan Quaker high school in 2001-2002. Strong themes of queerness in many forms, sex, art, love, friendship, obsession, control, and more. I recommend it!

Oof. This book was a gut punch. I‘m glad I read it, but I don‘t see the humor that other reviews seemed to talk about. It was about the unraveling of a woman in her 40s- her body, her marriage, her relationship with her daughter. I found it hard to read at times and wish I had borrowed it from the library rather than buying it.

I read this book based on the reviews of @Soubhiville and @AvidReader25 who picked it up based on Ann Patchett‘s recommendation. 😋 It was very absorbing. The catalyst is a court case but it‘s about the lives of the jurors during and after the trial. Very interesting book that packs a lot of emotions about grief and desire within a short page count.

While visiting some family in Westchester, NY I went to Split Rock Books in Cold Springs. What a great shop! They were really nice and gave me some book suggestions, including these 2. Tom Lake was on my radar already (from #auldlangspine) but I hadn‘t been focused on The Berry Pickers. I‘m excited to try it!

This got me out of my reading slump and then I turned back to the beginning and read it again. Detailed expressive panels and a story about a queer disabled teen attending her first comic convention with her supportive, geeky mom. I loved it all! I get the sense this was published first in Australia and just came out in the US? It was on display at my indie bookstore as having won an ALA award (Stonewall) this year.

I still say that The Silent Patient is his best book by far, but I liked this one well enough. The narration style was fun, with the narrator talking directly to the reader a lot and teasing with other murder mystery references. And the cast of characters held my interest. It was a solid mystery with a vivid setting on a Greek island. #botm

Zoe‘s eye matches the one on the cover! 😋 That was a happy coincidence.

This book started off slow for me and I felt there were too many random characters throughout. BUT that said, it was really heartwarming and sweet too. My family read this together as a mark up book, and I loved seeing my parents‘ comments written throughout! It was so cute to see their reactions to the story. 💗💗

I was eagerly anticipating the BOTM announcement, but when it came I was disappointed. None of the main books jumped out at me this time, though there are several add-ons that I like. But it‘s ok! I‘m going to lean into the books already on my shelves this month (including some #botm backlog!). 💗 I‘m still excited to see what everyone chose!

Thanks for the #AuldLangSpine recommendation @Librarybelle ! I‘m glad I read this one. I started by listening to it on audio and really didn‘t like the narrators, but it was better when I switched to print. This felt like somewhere between a cozy and a mystery to me, and while parts of the plot seemed rushed or glossed over, I liked the characters and the baking competition. I had fun reading it!

I finished this book last night after flying through the last hundred pages, and I‘m still processing it. My overall impression was that it was sooo creative and playful and just clever, and I was absorbed completely. I also have this nagging feeling that I missed something? Like if you asked me to explain the upshot, I would struggle? I‘m inclined to blame myself for that since I started and stopped more than I usually do. So it‘s a clear pick!

I finished another #AuldLangSpine rec from @Librarybelle and it was superb! I‘m not that into music but through the lens of this pseudo memoir I felt like I was. Opal and Sunny really felt like 3 dimensional people and we got to know them over many years. The racism and other societal problems at the heart of the book were portrayed vividly. I liked the writing style. Overall, I can see why this was on a lot of people‘s lists from last year!

This book felt like a hug for my brain. All the praise I‘d heard was true for this simple but deeply resonant tale of a tea monk and a robot. I borrowed this from the library but definitely want to buy it for myself. Some of the passages just really spoke to me, you know?

Work closed a bit early and they‘ve already announced a late opening due to weather, so I‘m cozied up and ready to read! 💗💗

It was fun being back with these characters again! I really like Ellie, our protagonist, and her old and new friends. Her estranged dad and his new family play a nice part in this story too. I definitely recommend this series to middle grade readers!

Lots of love for this touching and fun multi-holiday story. I totally recommend it! The complex family relationships, the new friendship between the two women, and the budding romances were all believable and richly portrayed. Above all, I wish this town existed in real life because it seems perfect! 💗

This is a spot-on suggestion from my #auldlangspine partner @Librarybelle and there are more lined up next! @monalyisha

What a great first book of 2024! 💗💗💗💗💗 I love the Heartstopper universe and in my opinion it keeps getting better and better. Lots of ways that Nick and Charlie grow in this volume and the friends and family have important roles too. Oseman says that volume 6 will conclude the series (maybe that‘s common knowledge but it was news to me?) and it‘ll be sad to see it end!

The tagged book serves a double purpose here: it‘s a book I‘ve had on my own shelves for a while AND it summarizes this post! I love @Jas16 ‘s idea to do a #24in2024 challenge and I‘ve identified my books. I only included books I still genuinely want to read, and I‘m excited to get started!

I had a great reading month in December, scoring 4 bingos for #bookspinbingo by reading 17 books and bailing on 3. Two weeks of break will do that! Some favorites were Bookshops and Bonedust, The Christmas Appeal, and Hello Beautiful.

Two Swanson books in one day? My library hold on this tiny novella just came in today, so I decided to read it now while it was still December. This was a clever little holiday mystery. I‘m always going to prefer a full-length novel, because there‘s more time to develop characters and all that, but this was a solid read. Now I think it‘s time to read something in a different genre!

So, funny story. I wanted to read this book since I read The Kind Worth Killing, so I went online to remind myself what happened in book 1. After the whole summary including all the spoilers, I realized I HADN‘T read the first one at all! I still read this one and found it creepy and good, but I wish I‘d actually read book 1! I liked the beginning and middle of this more than the end, which felt a bit random. But overall I like this author!

I‘m super excited to read this book! I sometimes like to try a new (or new-to-me) author for #botm but I couldn‘t pass this one up. I was also interested in First Lie Wins so that will probably be a library borrow!

What did everyone else pick?

I‘m glad this book had a satisfying (if abrupt) end because the middle was a little one-note. Overall I liked but didn‘t love it. I liked the setting of the old, family-run hotel and the side characters (I often liked them more than the 2 main characters). I suggest reading it in the Christmas-New Years time frame if you‘re going to!

This was a moving, absorbing story about 4 sisters and their intertwining lives. It very clearly mirrors Little Women (as in, the characters talk about how they resemble the sisters from LW) and is an emotional read. Having 2 sisters I‘m really close to, I connected deeply to the sisters in the book. If I were making my #AuldLangSpine list now, this would definitely be on it! But I do feel like I need a fluffy read now to get over the heartache.

I‘m so happy to say I liked it just as much as the first one! Wonderful characters (Satchel was one of my favorites!) and adventures and coziness. I truly love this series. 💗

I‘m so excited to be paired with @Librarybelle for my first #AuldLangSpine ! The list looks great and includes several books from my TBR and a few I read and loved (2, 10, 19). The 6 pictured are the ones I know I want to read from the list, plus maybe a fun cozy or two. I‘m going to start with the 3 on the left for January and go from there! 💗💗💗

Thanks to @monalyisha for organizing so thoughtfully!

My third and final stop on today‘s bookstore itinerary was Reads & Company in Phoenixville, PA. What an awesome Main Street and the store was so inviting! I absolutely loved the inventory and how thoughtful the displays were. The tagged book, signed, called out to me as well as Amazing Grace Adams which got love from some Littens. If I lived closer I would happily have this as my local indie bookstore. All in all, it was a great bookful day!

Second on my bookstore crawl today was Looker Books in Coatesville, PA. It was awesome! I got to talk to the owner while I was there and she is soooo nice and (of course) bookish. I bought Red, White and Royal Blue, a pretty notebook, and the attached book which she recommended since I liked Legends and Lattes. I told her about Litsy so maybe she‘ll join too! But either way her store is cozy, cute and full of books and puzzles. I recommend a trip!

I went on a bookstore crawl today and Wellington Square Bookshop was my first destination! It was huge and full of comfy settees, tall shelves with sliding ladders, and even a wishing well with stones to throw in and make wishes. And first and foremost, a ton of books including a big kids section. Well worth a visit! I bought Heartstopper book 5 while I was there.

I liked this but didn‘t love it, and I don‘t feel a need to continue the series. I felt like a lot of it was repetitive between the characters, and sometimes the banter was too over the top for me.

I was looking forward to a sweet holiday romance with some depth, but after only a few chapters I had to bail. I felt a little blindsided by a plot point and didn‘t want to continue (I‘m putting it in the spoilers). Bummer! I bet it goes on to be a great book.

I already returned it to the library, so enjoy this picture of Fitz and Zoe!

This was a solid 4 star read for me. I was absorbed in trying to figure out the mystery (what happened to a nanny that used to work for a wealthy family) and felt the ending was satisfying and surprising. It‘s a book I was fine to #borrownotbuy but I enjoyed it!

I really didn‘t like this book. I just found it so angsty and faux-deep and the main character‘s emotions gave me whiplash. It just didn‘t work for me at all.

I really wanted to love this but it just wasn‘t for me. I liked the premise and the writing and Ryder‘s large family (each of whom gets their own book in the series), but there was just too much sex for me. It made me uncomfortable to read after a point. But if you‘re looking for a series that has plenty of sex and good characters, then this might be right up your alley! 🤷🏻‍♀️ I also didn‘t like the disability rep in the second half.

I signed up for #AuldLangSpine for the first time and I‘m excited! It looks like a perfect way to brighten up January! 💗💗

Sophie Hannah does it again! I‘ve liked all of her Poirot books and this one was a very satisfying mystery. It was a little shorter than I picture her books being, but that‘s fine!

I gave it about 3 hours on audio and it just wasn‘t drawing me in. (Emmie is bored, too!) For those who read it, did it get a lot better? I just found both women‘s stories so bleak and depressing. Oh well! On to other books!

This was a fast read that I thought was good but not great. It felt a little melodramatic, like they kept having the same emotional realizations over and over again. But it was definitely enjoyable and I flew through it this weekend!

A colleague of mine wrote a YA mystery that takes place at a school, and she let me read it. It was awesome! I am so impressed with people who write books.

I‘m ready for December with my #bookspinbingo list which includes the tagged book that I‘m super looking forward to! Thanks to @TheAromaofBooks as always for organizing this fun activity. 💗

This was so cool! I appreciated the clever twists to the short stories and the overarching story. Nothing was as it seemed at first! I started this a few years ago and bailed within the first chapter, but I‘m so glad I picked it up again and started fresh.

Does anyone have a suggestion of a mystery like this that plays with the conventions a bit? The book within a book format was fun.

I found this really amusing and fun to read. I listened to the first 2/3 as an audio book and the narration was excellent. I really chuckled at all the silliness and nods to Jane Austen. Beatrice was a great character!

Thanks for the recommendation, @BennettBookworm ! This was a really well done book about a girl experiencing homelessness and navigating her relationships with family and friends. Educators would definitely benefit from reading this.

Hard to read with Tori‘s (and the other characters‘) depression, but I‘m glad I did. This was originally published in 2014, and reading the present day interview with the author at the end of the book was really eye-opening. The tone is very YA and also introduces characters that appear in Heartstopper.

This was a true delight. It reminded me of The House in the Cerulean Sea with charming characters, warm friendships, a bit of queer romance and a magical world. I don‘t read fantasy or cozies usually, but this was one of my favorite books of the year! I highly recommend the audiobook which is performed quite masterfully by the author. 💗💗💗💗💗

… Huh. I‘m not sure what to make of this one. I guess I‘m not sure what all the hype was about?