Book Lovers

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by Emily Henry
First sentence: “When books are your life — or in my case, your job — you get pretty good at guessing where a story is going.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher
Release date: May 3, 2022
Content: Oh. Well, there’s a LOT of sexytimes. And swearing. It will be in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Nora has grown up in New York, a pair of sisters of a single mother who passed away when she was in her early 20s. She has worked hard, getting a job at a literary agency and working her way up to be a respected and successful literary agent. The problem is that she hasn’t really ever taken time out for her social life. Sure, she has boyfriends, but they never last: inevitably going the “small-town romance cliche” route having their lives changed by a woman they met while on a trip in some small town somewhere. So Nora’s sister, Libby, put together a “small-town romance” checklist, convinces Nora to go to a small town in North Carolina for a month, and proceeds to try to get Nora to have a small-town romance experience of her won. Except, the first person Nora bumps into is Charlie Lastra, an editor from the city who is not Nora’s favorite person.

You probably know where it’s going to go from here. My favorite thing about this — aside from the palpable chemistry betwen Nora and Charlie — is that this is book is perfectly aware of what it is. Henry takes all the small-town romance cliches and satirizes them while absolutely being them at the same time. It made for a smart, fun, thoroughly enjoyable book. And yes, all the sexytimes were very swoon-worthy, adding to the tension between Nora and Charlie. I also liked them as characters, though: Henry gave them each a complex and believable backstory that made them interesting characters to spend time with.

I’ll put it this way: I have enjoyed all of Henry’s romances, but I think this one is my favorite.

Tiny Habits

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by BJ Fogg
First sentence: “Tiny is mighty.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s pretty basic, with nothing too technical. it’s in the self-help section of the bookstore.

I don’t usually read self-help books, but I heard a small interview with Fogg on the NPR book podcast and thought it sounded interesting. Fogg is a behavior psychologist (and someone my husband knew at BYU), and has spent years string what makes people tick. And how habits form and are kept. It really boils down to this: behavior is motivation plus ability plus a prompt. The problem with most self-help stuff is that it focuses on motivation. And Fogg breaks it down to something simpler: it’s not motivation, it’s the action. We are trying to do something too big. Anyone can do something tiny, right? So, start there. Find a place that a habit fits into your life (a good prompt) and then start super small. Floss one tooth. Take a sip of water. Design the habit to fit with your life. Oh: And celebrate every. single. time.

It’s kind of fascinating to think about, how staring small with something can help habits grow. He had a lot of good insights into behavior and forming (and breaking) habits. I think it got a bit repetitive by the end but it mostly was a good and interesting read. And maybe I’ll even start trying out some tiny habits.

State of the TBR Pile: March 2022

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Now that my End of Program Exams are over, and the only homework I have is able to be done on Wednesday when I go in for my internship, now I get to read what I want. Ah, if I only wasn’t working full time…

What’s currently on my pile:

The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill
Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley
Ballad & Dagger by Daniel Jose Older
Love Radio by Ebony LaDelle
The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez
Dessert Can Save the World by Christina Tosi
Network Effect by Martha Wells
The Aquanaut by Dan Santat
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

The first four are ARCs that have made it home. I don’t pick the up much anymore, but sometimes people hand them to me at work and I can’t say no. There’s only one holdover from tha past few months! (aren’t you proud of me?) and the erest just seemed fun. Except Saraphina, which is a re-read because the covers are SO PRETTY.

I am aware that this is a pretty white pile. I do need to be more conscious about diversifying.

What’s on your pile this month?

Audiobook: Four Hundred Souls

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Edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
Read by a full cast (too many to list!)
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: It does not sugar coat history. There are mentions of lynchings, rape, use of the n-word, and mild swearing. It’s in the history section of the bookstore.

I’ve had this on my TBR pile (the large one, not the small one by my bed) ever since it came out a year ago. And then I got a great idea from a bookstagrammer: read a little every day in February for black history month. I tried to get it done by the end of the month and almost made it. It was easy to break down into little sections: the book spans 400 years, but every author gets a 5 year period, and the sections are broken up into 40 years chunks. Each individual author gets to choose what they want to talk about: some focus on an event, some on a person, some on an idea. Many chose to relate their essay to the way the country is today. It’s less of a history book and more of a “how history has impacted today” book, which I appreciated. Not all essays were equally interesting, but there was enough for me to keep engaged. That, and the essays were generally very short – less than 5 minutes in audio. The narrators were all really good, for the most part. I think some of the essays were read by the authors, but since the narrators didn’t announce themselves before they began reading, I wasn’t sure. (They do all say their names a the end, but it was hard to match them up. Mostly I was like “Oh, they read? Cool!”)

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it and learning about the history of Blacks in America. Fascinating well-done book.

Monthly Round-Up: February 2022

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I have to be honest: sometimes I set my blog on automatic, having scheduled things out for a while, and then I forget I have it. I am glad I have it; it’s a record of nearly 20 years of my reading, but I do forget about it sometimes. Like this week: I was supposed to do this yesterday, so it could go up first thing this morning… and, I forgot. Oh well. It happens sometimes.

My favorite this month:


Measuring Up

There’s a reason it won the Cybils: it’s a delight. As for the rest:

Graphic Novels:

Cranky Chicken
Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms
Chunky
Across the Tracks
My Last Summer with Cass
Borders
In the Shadow of the Fallen Towers
The Legend of Auntie Po
My Body in Pieces
Salt Magic
Jukebox
Nubia: Real One

Adult Fiction:

Love & Saffron
Exit Strategy

What were your favorites this month?

Nubia: Real One

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by L.L. McKinney and Robyn Smith
Support your local independent bookstore: Buy it there!
Content: There is some violence and an instance of sexual assault. It’s in the graphic novel section of the bookstore.

I’ll be upfront about this: I haven’t loved a superhero comic this much since Ms. Marvel. I love Nubia and everything about her, from her moms, to her desire to do the right thing, to her friends, and pretty much everything.

Nubia knows she’s different, stronger, faster, but she’s always had to hide it her entire life. But now that she’s 17, she is tired of being shut in all the tme. She’s conflicted though: kids who look like her are usually portrayed as perpetrators, not the heroes. But, when her best friend is assaulted, Nubia makes a tough decision to step towards her destiny and embrace who she knows she is.

I loved this one, effortlessly blending the injustices towards Black kids by the police, white anger (and white privilege), and a story about a girl trying to find her way together. The art was sometimes rough, but the story made up for it. I am so happy I finally read this, and I can’t wait for more!

Jukebox

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by Nidhi Chanani
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are some intense moments. It’s in the middle grade graphic novel section of the bookstore.

Shaheen’s dad is always going on about musicians and records, and she just wants to tune him out. But when he goes missing, she and her cousin, Tannaz, go looking for him and discover a time-transporting jukebox in a record store that Shaheen’s dad was always frequenting.

From there, it’s traveling through time trying to figure out what the jukebox is doing and where Shaeheen’s dad is. Full of historical facts and bits of music, this is a delightful graphic novel! Shaheen starts the book out hesitant and withdrawn, but the idea of finding her dad helps give her courage. it’s fun, it’s a smartly drawn book — I loved the historical bits — and full of music facts. Perfect for anyone who enjoys music.

Salt Magic

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by Hope Larson and Rebecca Mock
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some death and it’s mostly adult problems. It’s in the middle grade section of the bookstore because it’s not quite adult either.

It’s 1919, and Vonceil’s older brother Eber has just come home from the war. She thought it would be just like before he left: they would be best buds. But he comes back changed, more serious, and marries his sweetheart right away, which makes Vonceil mad. And then Greda shows up. She’s a woman Eber met in France who has come to pick up what she thought they had When she finds out that Eber is married, she reveals that she’s a witch, and curses their family’s farm. Vonceil realizes that it’s her responsibility to fix the problem, so sets off after Greda to write the wrong.

It’s part historical fiction, Oklahoma in the early 1900s, but it’s mostly a fairy tale as Vonceil learns Greda’s story and faces down witches n her quest to support her family.

It’s a fun graphic novel, and I enjoyed the story. But, I wonder if it’s one that kids will really like? It’s a fairy tale, yes, set in America, which is unique. But it’s also about adults with very adult problems. It also lacks in the diversity department; there’s exactly one non-white character. Maybe it’ll find its audience somewhere. I didn’t dislike it but it wasn’t the best one either.

My Body in Pieces

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by Marie-Noëlle Hébert, translated by Shelley Tanaka
Support your local independent bookstore: Buy it there!
Content: She talks about weight and body issues. It will probably be triggering for some. It’s in the graphic novel section of the bookstore.

This is a memoir by a woman looking back on growing up overweight. She expresses her loathing of her body, the bullying by classmates (and parents), the small things that hurt to hear, and the effect they had on her and her self-perception.

It’s not an easy graphic novel to read. Done in stark black and white charcoal drawings, I sometimes lost the thread of what was supposed to be happening. But, the message came through: talking about how a person looks is damaging. The small messages that you think help actually hurt. Society puts so much pressure on women to look a certain way, and that is so very detrimental to our mental well-being.

The art style kept me from loving it as much as I wanted to, though it did have me in tears by the end. And the final panel? It’s the message we all need to hear. Repeatedly.

The Legend of Auntie Po

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by Shing Yin Khor
Support your local independent bookstore: Buy it there!
Content: There is a death, but nothing graphic. It’s in the middle grade graphic novel section of the bookstore.

Mei bakes the pies for the loggers and workers in a camp in the Sierra Nevadas in 1885. Her father runs the kitchen, and the two of them make a good team. She’s happy enough, even though she’s Chinese and knows that she won’t have the same opportunities as her best friend Bee, who is white. That doesn’t stop her from trying to learn more, from telling stories of the legendary Auntie Po, and from being the best person she can be.

That makes it sound trite because this was a really solid graphic novel. I enjoyed the historical context, knowing that the conflicts that existed between the white people and the Chinese workers were real. But I also enjoyed the larger-than-life feel of it, as well. Is Auntie Po real? Did he help the loggers? Did Mei see her? I also thought the adult characters were pretty great from Hels the foreman to Hao, Mei’s dad.

A really solid book from Khor. I can’t wait to see what she does next!