swipe to see the words from this book that stopped me in my tracks and made me cry 🤍

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for this small but mighty collection of poignant and powerful poems!!!

the hype is real. 🐉⚔️🖤

holy moly, i loved this book!!! it unlocked my 13-year-old self who loved the dragonriders of pern and eragon books, who was fascinated by worlds in fantasy books and admired badass female heroines who had a rebellious streak. it swept me up instantly and took me on such a brilliant journey, while giving so many nods to stories, characters, tropes, and other things i looooove. 

if/when you can get your hands on a copy again, hiiiighly recommend this one!!

may’s #alltheradreadsbookclub pick was a good one— a family drama, a slow-burn, a nod/homage to little women (which you know i LOVE), a portrait of love and relationships and choices made over generations. it was layered and lovely, plodding and poetic, subtle but surprising, too. i wished at times it would move faster (and maybe that’s when i was listening on audio mainly) but also appreciated how character-driven it was, and how much time we spent really in the minutiae of these characters’ lives and the dynamics between them. something about it felt written in the past, but maybe it was so well rooted in it’s time and place that i was just taken there? 

he makes pies and loves flowers and is a little grumpy (but a secret softie) and she’s a pop star on the run from her life who loves audrey hepburn and is all sunshine. it’s CUUUUUTE. it’s sweet and fun and fades to black (aka no descriptive sex scenes, so perfect if you’re not into the steamy stuff!). it’s all classic tropes but written in THE VERY BEST WAY like sarah adams, i love you, your books are a delight. 

maggie smith writes like a dream. she spins straw into gold, crafting phrases that truly blew me away and made me pick up my own pen again, inspiration spinning around me. this memoir covers divorce and grief, betrayal, gender roles and parenting, writing, and more, and she’s honest about how it’s not a tell-all, but a “tell-mine.” at times, it felt like there was a bit too much being teased at behind the curtain, a bit too much of saying “i’m not going to say that thing!!!” but honestly, with how stunning it all was, i didn’t really mind. 

and also, i can’t stop thinking about how her son asked what letters in your name would hold the best birds nests. (i think, for me, it’s a lowercase e.) 🪺

this was truly perfect summer reading, set in martha's vineyard (TAKE ME THERE) in a quaint small town, with great main characters. i loooooved that the male MC was the big reader here and that dyslexia was represented so honestly in the female MC. also, the sibling relationship between the female MC and her brother was SO sweet and i really enjoyed seeing it blossom over the course of the story! 

ps— this one might just be included in a particular summer reading guide… 😏