ashleyholstrom's Reviews (1.38k)

Helen Hoang is a treasure! I love this romance series so much because they aren’t only romances. The characters are real and deep and human. In The Heart Principle, Anna and Quan have to learn to trust each other when they’ve been unable to trust others for most of their life. And that is really beautiful. There’s a lot of grief and other devastating things going on, which happens to be my jam.

✨ From Burnout is the New Pink at Crooked Reads.

This is incredible. Anna Mehler Paperny makes herself completely vulnerable in this heavy book about her multiple suicide attempts, psychiatric hospital stays, and experiences with a rainbow of medications and treatments. But the meat of Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me is her journalistic work on how the medical field does a disservice to psychiatric patients. She interviews practitioners, scientists, and fellow mentally ill humans to get the full scope of the impact depression and suicide has on the world—and why we feel like we aren’t supposed to openly talk about it.

A note: Please do not pick up this book until you’re in a strong, healthy mental state.

✨ From Ugh, Mental Health and the Internet at Crooked Reads.

Leni and Nelly are two BFFs on the cheerleading squad who organize taking a knee during the national anthem at the first football game of the school year. But the only one who gets punished for it is Nelly, who is Black. Their friendship is on the line, as are their futures, as Leni recovers from her latest concussion and Nelly has to figure out how to expunge her suspension from her record. It’s a story of figuring out who you are and what you’ll stand—or kneel—for.

Put Why We Fly on your radar for October.

✨ From Ugh, Mental Health and the Internet at Crooked Reads.

If you like learning about cults and/or language and/or multi-level marketing, you need to get your hands on this book.

✨ From Ugh, Mental Health and the Internet at Crooked Reads.

John Green is so important to me. I read Looking for Alaska as a lost 15-year-old, not-so-sneakily reading and rereading it during geometry class. It feels right that his first work of nonfiction comes during my 30th year. I’ve grown up reading Green’s books, watching his videos, and trying to think deeply about things the way he does. His work always reminds me that the world is worth learning about. Even when—especially when—everything feels dark and terrible and hopeless. 5 stars.

✨ From On Burning Yourself Out on Books at Crooked Reads.

I went in expecting a badass feminist take on mythology, and was pleasantly surprised with a collection of personal essays framed by the female monsters of mythology. Excellent.

✨ From On Burning Yourself Out on Books at Crooked Reads.

A really lovely memoir by the wonderful Kelly Williams Brown, queen of Adulting and graciousness, and the easy crafts that helped her get through her darkest days.

Content warning for attempted suicide. I wish I’d known this before diving in.

✨ From You Know What Rules? Science and Sunshine at Crooked Reads.

I don’t have the words that can do this book justice. Majit Thapp is an incredible artist, and her illustrations speak volumes over the sparse words that connect the images throughout the book. Feelings is a year in Thapp’s life, told through the ebbs and flows of six seasons: the anxiety of monsoon, the exuberance of high summer, the desolation of winter. Each page is a marvel.

✨ From 9 Emotionally Devastating Mental Illness Graphic Memoirs at Book Riot and You Know What Rules? Science and Sunshine at Crooked Reads.

The Way She Feels is a really moving memoir in comics, essays, and lists about a life with borderline personality disorder. Courtney Cook writes about how no one writes about BPD (there are, like, four books out there on the topic), and her work makes the disorder a little less scary, taboo, and misunderstood. She writes candidly about her experiences with self-harm, dermatillomania (obsessive skin-picking), and numerous hospitalizations in an astounding way that feels like reading a friend’s diary. In fact, it often feels like she was one of my friends in high school. The book is raw, but also full of humor, heart, and oh so many bright colors.

✨ From 9 Emotionally Devastating Mental Illness Graphic Memoirs at Book Riot and You Know What Rules? Science and Sunshine at Crooked Reads.

A fascinating dive into the lives of four women who became obsessed with crime, but not in the weird “I wrote love letters to Ted Bundy” kind of way.

✨ From Heart-Eyes for Days at Crooked Reads.