This was a tough read. Iris and August meet in a bar on the night before he plays in the NCAA championships. There‘s a spark but she has a bf, Caleb who also is playing the next day on the opposite team. Iris stays with Caleb and we follow her descent into hell as she gets babytrapped, financially, emotionally, and physically abused. She manages to escape, heal herself and makes her way back to August. Kennedy is a great writer who can go 👇🏼

I loved this. Holden is about to surprise his bf of 4yrs with tickets to LA for a chance to compete on Madcap Market, a game show Holden and his mother used to watch religiously until she passed away from cancer. However, his bf breaks up with him and he goes to LA wondering where he‘ll find a partner. Enter Leo Min. They agree to pretend to be together to get on the show. This was steamy (for reals if you‘re not into gay sex sit this one out)👇🏼

Mmnnnnnyghuhh, I did not like the MC, Amerie, (Why don‘t we why don‘t we fall in loooove🎶) but had to remind myself we are meeting her not in a normal period of her life but when she‘s in crisis. Her mom has health issues, her bf dropped her because she spent too much time with her mom, and then her job fired her. Anddddd she gets a notice saying her rent is going up 30%. Then she meets astronaut Vincent at a coffee shop and fake relationship👇🏼

I just wanna say I read 5 books of Abby Jimenez since Valentine‘s Day and she is what I needed. Yes, romance has a formula but for me not to get bored of her after 5 books really says something. I coulda picked up another of hers but it doesn‘t get published until April. She writes quirky, original characters, they have great banter. She writes about tough topics. I cried a lot, laughed a lot, felt my heart get full. Thanks Abby. See you in April.

Justin puts out a Reddit post saying he is cursed being the guy who girls date before finding THE ONE. Emma reads and it and responds saying she is also cursed with guys dating her right before they find THE ONE. They decide to date to see if they can break the curse. They fall in love but this book got a little heavy that I forgot I was reading romance because they both have heavy family issues. This book squeezed my heart so hard. Pick!

It‘s 5%enemies to lovers and 95% fake dating and 100% my favorite book of Abby‘s so far. Only Just For the Summer left. Bri is a firecracker of a woman who is approaching divorce day from her cheating husband. Jacob is trying to find a date for the wedding of his brother who is marrying Jacob‘s ex, you know, so it won‘t be awkward. I laughed so hard but just like in her other books there were hits to the heart. What Abby excels at is those👇🏼

I finished this 2 days ago. Popular influencer, Vanessa, has a crying baby left by her sister who has problems with addiction. Enter next door hottie lawyer, Adrian who needs some sleep who doesn‘t know it yet but his gf Rachel is about to reveal to him she‘s married, helps Vanessa with baby Grace. They become friends and more. Vanessa had a tough family hand dealt to her and she handles it with grace, not the baby, but actual grace. lol, pick!

This was Dr.City Mouse who was conditioned to accept the emotional abuse of her now soon to be cheating ex by watching her parents, is coming back from a funeral back to her big city but swerves to miss a raccoon and gets stuck when Mr. Country Mouse pulls her out and introduces her to the life of his small town that has a big heart. All the love she‘s been missing hanging out with people who have money. This was lovely. Another Jimenez hit. Pick!

This was the most horrific book I‘ve read in a while. The first 100 pages just details this super hurricane that obliterates this family living in a podunk town in Florida. A woman gives birth during that hurricane and names the baby after the hurricane, Wanda. My stomach was in my throat those 100 pages. We follow Wanda as she grows up and learns to survive a Florida who has run out of time due to climate change. This book was full of love 👇🏼

My gosh I loved this so much. 2 years after his death, Sloan is still beholden to the grief of losing her fiancé in a motorcycle accident. Until she finds a dog who leads her to his owner, Jason, who is better known as Jackson a bearded, budding rockstar. This was so good. Jimenez is a rockstar at banter, at romance, and at making me sob through the penultimate moment before the HEA when u think it‘s not gonna work out but it does. Pick!

The guy on the left, Zachary Webber, narrates Jason in the tagged book. The other MC, Sloan, Jason‘s love interest is narrated by a woman. They do their own alternating chapters. There is a lot of banter but when they do their own chapters they also voice the love interest. Like Zachary will voice Sloan and when he does it‘s soooooo cute cause it reminds me of Fred Armisen‘s crazy character from SNL, Regine. Hilarious.

I liked this. A female rage story. Nicole and Steve Warby move back to his hometown and join the Lilian Church. When Nicole asks to be on the church council which has only be filled by men, it starts off this chasm of centuries retribution of what the men, especially the priest, call the witch of the woods surrounding the church. This was how everyone needs a villain, I‘m just always shocked when men choose women to be theirs. This was great.

I read this for bookclub this upcoming Friday. A brother and sister grow up in this mansion called The Dutch House and are thrown out of it when their dad dies and their stepmother takes over. I will admit for a minute I thought it was boring. But it got great. Patchett really knows how to write the minutiae between family members that endears them to you. Also, sometimes we think it‘s the place that matters but really it‘s the people. Pick!

@Jas16 😭😭😭Thanks so much for sending this to me. We follow this boy‘s coming of age set in a neighborhood outside Madrid. Growing up he realizes that he‘s a she. With the help of his community and some very colorful women, the she inside of him realizes her full potential. There is a lot of hurt in this book. The internal prison she keeps herself in because of shame and fear of losing family but also her physical safety was hard to read. Pick!

First off much respect to Anne Rice. While most of us think we could write a book, she wrote not only one but several. She gave up Catholicism in support of her son who was gay. One of her books, Cry to Heaven, gave me a huge inkling I might be gay. However, I read Interview back in 9th grade and thought it was boring. I‘m rereading it again for a bookclub next week and man those feelings came back. Her writing is a heaping helping 👇🏼

CJ Leeds went on The Books in the Freezer podcast and said that most of women‘s horror is basically reducing the woman to just being a vessel for childbirth. And there was a neon sign of her statement in here. But Grady Hendrix does such a great job of humanizing these young girls who are basically shunned and dropped off at a home for pregnant girls in the late 1960s. It‘s very readable, it‘s light on the witchcraft for me but I didn‘t care.👇🏼

Litsy, there are times I eat with family and for the 1 1/2 hrs I am with them it‘s pure torture, so I can only imagine what 9 days in a Tuscan villa with 6 dysfunctional family members feels like for Anna. A nagging mother who wants stuff to happen so she can be a mother. An emotionally absent brick wall of a dad. A clingy twin who can‘t take responsibility for his choices. A sister so insecure, who just comes off so hateful and jealous. 👇🏼

OMG IT‘S HERE!!!!!!‘ Alas, I will have to start you tomorrow BUT you‘re here and that‘s all that matters. 🖤🖤🖤

Lol, the amount of times I shouted what?!!!! Or what are you doing?!!!! astounded me. Jane is on sabbatical, living with her husband and 2 kids in a house loaned to them by a friend. She‘s finishing her second book so hopefully she can tenure and nothing will go right. She‘s mulatto and keenly observant on all things mulatto and race. Sometimes being so fixated on one thing doesn‘t allow you to see where the betrayal comes from. Oof. Big oof. 👇🏼

This book kinda hit deep for this gay country mouse. Mimosa is a GN about 4 very super queer people dealing with different issues as they‘re in their 30s. Which in queer world means they feel like they have also become invisible. The thing that hurt the most was seeing a 5 page montage of their friendship as it has grown only for them to grow in different directions realizing that their friendships no longer served them. Which, is sometimes 👇🏼

After reading Woman on the Train and thanking the universe I wasn‘t an alcoholic, I said it was good but that was enough Hawkins for me. Well my bookclub had other ideas. Tomorrow I‘ll be my 13th meeting with them. So there is a river that runs through this town. It starts off with a woman‘s body being found in the river that everyone wants to just say it was suicide. But it‘s not. All the characters in here are somewhat unlikable and messy👇🏼

This GN is about 4 women scientists in cryochambers on a ship headed towards a volatile planet in search of a plant that could cure many diseases back home. Their ship gets hit by an asteroid and they crash land on to the planet. One survives and leaves the other alive scientist for dead because she can‘t open the chamber. Later on her guidance system lets her know the other woman is alive. It turns into a fight to the death because their 👇🏼

I liked this so much. 3 siblings reunite after the death of their parents in the home they grew up in. The home they all believe is haunted. This is about how as adults we can be haunted by the trauma we experience as kids from haunted houses, from parents, from racism. There was a lot in here and it ends up being darkly brilliant. The writing is strange. Sentences will start out lovely but will end jarringly. It disorients you. Pick!

Tom Lake and Unsheltered take my top spots for the year. Books about people ending up nowhere they thought they‘d be written in the loveliest of languages coloring scenes that talk to me months later. The Haar- elderly, gory horror, romance? I loved this book so much. AnnieBot-AI sentience and dysfunctional, abusive relationships-infuriating but give me all of it. Eyes are the Best Part- a daughter finding out she has a starting obsession 👇🏼

Shoutout to the new Barnes and Nobles in Santa Fe who didn‘t have the one book I wanted (isn‘t that always the way) so I came home with this. I really liked this collection of short stories who reminded me of Nathaniel Balingrud‘s short stories. The monsters aren‘t the horror, it‘s the people going through some of the toughest days of their lives. There are some, though, that made me so angry because he would take a character to the edge 👇🏼

This was for bookclub where none of us cared for it. It gets a meh for me because there was a part where there was potential if she had rewritten the book. Is that a meh, Litsy? Idk. There was a man whose whole thoughts on the book were-This is an insult to our group. It‘s an insult to readers everywhere. I wanted to give him a hug. lol Because the book was so bad we went off topic and had some great discussion. Here‘s hoping for a better book!

@sprainedbrain Jenni thanks for posting about this one. It‘s easily gonna be in my top10 this year. Gene is is a trans man on a triple A baseball team when someone from his past shows up and shakes up his season. This was lovely. When the world thinks less of you how do you exist? Are you allowed to hope for something? Are you allowed to want something for yourself? I cried quite a few times on this. This is trans joy at its best. Pick!

Call it the leftover internalized homophobia but I wanted to scream at this pansy pollyanna to get it together. We follow Domenic as he is put into some really hard places during the bachelor and bachelorette parties of his 2 straight friends getting married. 2 words of advice. 1. You can just extricate yourself from your straight friends when they act crazy. 2. Alcohol is not your friend when you have secrets to keep. This book was a hot mess👇🏼

I liked this book so much. It‘s a romance that drags you through the hard stuff. Two divorced men, one from a man and one from a woman are now engaged and are taking part in a tradition known as the early moon. It‘s the trip you take together to enjoy time to yourself before the craziness of getting ready for the wedding. But for these two men nothing will go right. Listening to it on audio in the car I couldn‘t see some of the road cause I 👇🏼

We follow Demani who drives for an Uber like company. Her father has just died. She‘s trying to support herself and her mother who has become paralyzed with depression after the loss of her husband. While driving around the city, there are protests everywhere, even protests protesting other protests. She‘s also queer and falling for a woman named Jolene. This starts out so dark and the out of nowhere the comedy peeks through. So good. Pick!

I‘m pretty sure the title is a playoff of the show The L Word. Messy lesbian drama, pride celebrations, toxic sponsorships, and zombies, oh my. Total Pick!

I loved this book so much. Thanks @Jas16 for sending it to me. It‘s 1960 and newly traded baseball player Eddie is having a horrible hitting slump. Mark is the reporter assigned to him to do a piece to make him more likable. Of course sparks fly.This is charming and sweet, discusses the things we deserve from those who love us. It also discusses grief and I don‘t really feel like there was a climax but I didn‘t care. I was just sad that it ended.

Litsy, you know I didn‘t pick this for myself. It was for bookclub. This was a story of a woman and her journey from sickly daughter to wife to single mother from the Great Depression to the Dust Bowl to her journey to the West. It‘s a hardscrabble life. Everything was so hard and sad. It‘s a good, compelling story but I didn‘t think the writing was all that. My first and last Hannah. A lot of the women at bookclub did not care for this AT ALL.

This book was WILD. WY-ALD. It was written in the early 2000s, in the format of a message board where men post reviews about male escorts and there is one about a guy named Brad and everyone wants to be part of the drama. This book is a trapdoor into a certain hell. It‘s full of lies and you don‘t know what to believe. Near the end the author slaps you with a word from a certain character and shames you. Lol A totally awesome Pick!!!

This was my 2nd time reading this for a horror bookclub I managed to make. My other group , sadly, was not picked up at the other library I used to go to. 😢. I forgot how devastating this book was. There are 2 sisters, an 8yo who we see the whole book through and a 14yo who might be possessed. And despite there maybe being a possession it‘s more about a dissolution of a family that broke my heart. Love this book and Tremblay as an author. Pick!

I want to hate Rachel Harrison and say she‘s a hanger on with the cool horror clique. I want to yell Poser! at her and hate her books. But I can‘t cause she really does the intrapersonal very well between family members. It totally resonates with me no matter how watered down her horror elements are. I would recommend going in blind on this. I did and found it outrageous and hilarious. A young woman after a 6yrs absence is lured home. Pick!

I did not like this book we read for bookclub. There was about 10 of us and I was the lone person who did not care for it. I really dislike books written for the gotcha! moments that sacrifice character and plot development. It was a no for me. I did enjoy the discussion. We laughed a lot and I walked out of there feeling lighter. So that was the win of this book for me.

Ever since reading his Piñata, I‘ve been on the lookout for this and found it. I was not disappointed. Joaquin runs a radio show called Ghost Radio where people call in telling their spooky stories. Joaquin has been close to death most of his life escaping two close calls. Something has been trying to reach Joaquin and as Joaquin starts to pay attention reality starts to blur and smudge and he has no idea what the hell is going on. It was a ??

It is wild to me that the song Kill the Poor by Dead Kennedys features prominently in back to back books I‘ve read.

This was SK‘s It meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The prologue could have been its own brutal short story. A bunch of teens are sent to a conversion camp in the 90s. A camp hiding a very cosmic horror. Years later the survivors will have to go back to finish what they started. This was great. Gretchen doesn‘t care about your feelings or delicate sensibilities cause she just tells it like it is. My only issue here is is that I wish she 👇🏼

@Bookzombie thanks for picking this, Margie. I thought it was great. The language was exact and I felt held by it. I wanted to have a fan to fan myself with because I kept feeling as if I was put right there in the swamp in the middle of a hot summer. Sorry about the lateness, @psalva It‘ll be on its way to you tomorrow.

I read this for bookclub last week. There‘s this grindhouse, zombie apocalypse movie called Planet Terror. In the 1st 5 minutes we find ourselves in the dressing room of a go go club where these 2 topless women are kissing. While watching with the director‘s commentary he says he always puts nudity in the beginning because it‘s proven that people will pay attention to the movie more subconsciously hoping more nudity will show up. Imagine my 👇🏼

I loved this book. Since 1983, there are laws that prohibit humans from killing vampyres. In this world vampyres are a marginalized group living in colonies next to human cities but can never go to school or work a job. In a remote Alaskan town a boy is found dead and everyone is just itching for an excuse to cull a colony. Enter very even keeled, government agent Barbara. This is dark, everyone in the town has secrets. The twists! There is 👇🏼

This was adult Mean Girls meets Erin Brokovich meets The Wicker Man meets The Minotaur. We follow Linda and her family be accepted into a utopian town in the future against something called The Great Unwinding, climate crises, food and resource scarcity, government breakdown, etc. This is what happens when you let large corporations build these towns and let the Ritchie Riches of the world run them. I needed to find out what was happening 👇🏼

As with some music videos where I have no idea wth the video has to do with the song, I have no idea what this cover has to do with the book. I wanted to read the book with the Litsy sci-fi group but could not find that book, but was at a used bookstore where I found another of the author‘s books from 1974. This was great. Time portals open up all over the world and people 500 years from the future walk through. Humanity is about to be killed 👇🏼

In 1997, the body of teenager Tom Jeffries is discovered in the marshland, a year after he had disappeared. 20 years later, a Serial type of podcast revisits his unexplained death in 6 interviews with people close to situation. This was great. A little frustrating because people are always holding something back and you just want to scream-Just tell us!!! This has some nice folklore misdirection, I was starting to believe in Nana Wrack. lol,Pick!

I told myself I would never read this but I am so starved for in person book chat I thought why not. And that is totally on me. I didn‘t care for it. Can‘t wait for bookclub tomorrow.

Soooo…. Eff Doug. Annie is a cuddle bunny AI bot who is owned by Doug. Annie learns all about what it takes to please Doug. Something happens with his trash ass friend Roland and all trust is lost. This gets intense and part of me was hoping that she would either kill Doug or hope she would throw herself out of a window so that people would know that an AI tried to kill herself just to get away from Doug. I liked this, it‘s very readable. Very👇🏼

I read this for my horror bookclub earlier tonight. This book is an ocean of sorrow. It‘s based off an actual woman who killed her child rather than let them be a slave. You know what she got charged and convicted of? Destruction of property. In the book, Sethe and her daughter, Denver live at 124 Bluestone Rd. A haunted house if there ever was one. A man from Sethe‘s past shows up and one thinks maybe the ghost is gone. That is until a young👇🏼