This is a book that my partner's therapist sent home for me to read, and it took me ages to get through not because it's a bad book, but because I had a hard time finding times when I wanted to be sad or to sit in the feelings that I knew the book would stir up. It took me a few concerted efforts interspersed with long breaks to get to the final chapter, but I think it was worth it. Most of the first half of the book felt like it would have been more revelatory if I hadn't already read a couple of books about toxic parenting and spent a lot of last year going through steps similar to the ones McBride outlines, but the further I read the more useful/interesting information I uncovered. I will probably seek out more information on codependency.

One thing that frustrates me about books like this is that so many of them are heteronormative. Although McBride clarifies toward the end that she only defaults to "he" when discussing the partners of her patients and women like them because it's easier for her to write that way, and that the information applies to queer women, too, this statement comes pretty late in the book and feels insufficient. It seems obvious to me that gender plays out in relationships between women differently than it does in relationships between women and men, especially in relation to women who have trauma related to their mothers. I need a lesbian version of this book, if it exists.

A memoir mixed with reporting that successfully argues its thesis that queer people exist and make their lives and advocate for change in red states, but that already looks a bit dated from the vantage point of the increasingly radicalized political landscape of post-Trump America. As much as I liked Samantha Allen's writing, I found it difficult to share her confident vision of an America that is marching steadily along a path of progress and increasing queer acceptance. I just kept wondering about how her interview subjects are doing now and feeling sad about how much worse things have gotten since 2019.

I stumbled upon this while browsing at the library and checked it out because, well, my brain is different, and so are the brains of many if not most of the people in my social circle. While the simple art style wasn't my favorite (and I found it difficult to tell some characters apart because their designs were so similar), I enjoyed reading about the experiences of neurodivergent people in Japan. I think that this book serves two functions: assuring neurodivergent readers that they are not alone, and informing neurotypical readers about the variety of lives that neurodivergent people lead; and it does both of these pretty well. Worth a read if you come across it and enjoy nonfiction manga.

While my feelings were not as strong as those of my coworker who (kind of?) recommended it, Lessons in Chemistry did not really work for me. Fans of The Big Bang Theory and simplistic girlboss feminism will feel differently, as this book's inclusion on multiple Best of 2022 lists reflects.

There are a lot of middle grade and YA books that I missed out on when I was younger out of a combination of factors: my precocious reading level and curiosity about forbidden things leading me to eschew age-appropriate material and check out adult books as soon as possible, and a lack of reliable guidance (or the motivation to seek out such guidance) regarding which books in various series came first. So His Dark Materials has languished for years on my mental TBR, waiting for a combination of interest and good cold weather to push me into starting.

This Christmas I got both, with record low temperatures and a suggestion from my partner that it might be a good time to give Philip Pullman a try.

I suspect that The Golden Compass is the sort of book to grow richer with rereadings, ideally first consumed in childhood and revisited much later. While I didn't have that experience, I still greatly enjoyed the one I did. Pullman writes with a bracing respect for young readers, refusing to patronize them or shield them from the sinister implications of the story they're reading, and giving them a rough-edged and compelling heroine to piece things together alongside. There is much in the way of adventure, fascinating societies, and talking bears to engage the wonderment of readers of all ages.

It was interesting to read this for the first time in the context of 2022, when conservatives are engaged in "groomer" discourse that reveals their own deep-seated obsession with children's sexuality. I would say that perhaps they would benefit from reading a book that seems to have much to say about people such as themselves, but I suspect that they would misconstrue it.

This book tore my heart out.

The Song of Achilles wasn't a high priority for me--I am skeptical of BookTok darlings--but I read it for book club. It was slow to get going for me, but once Patroclus and Achilles became friends it clicked. There's a lyrical sparseness to Miller's writing that I felt reflected the distance between our world and antiquity, and I loved how sensual it was--I tasted the figs and felt the salt water on my skin. Although I felt unsure of my feelings for a lot of the book, the ending brought it all together--I realized how much Patroclus had changed and been made better by love, even if his beloved was profoundly flawed.

I loved The Girl I Want is So Handsome, so when I saw that my local library had more Yuama on order, I immediately placed a hold for it. But I'm not sure about The Summer You Were There. I like that one of the characters is a writer, and I generally like fake dating as a trope, but the execution felt off-kilter. There are obviously some secrets, potentially dark ones, looming in the background, so I hope that their revelation in Vol. 2 ties things together. As it is right now, the characters don't have a ton of chemistry and I find their interactions weird.