Despite almost DNF'ing this one in the first few pages because it felt like there were too many characters for my foggy brain to keep straight, The Fiancee Farce ended up being a book that I could not put down (except for when I got sucked into Stardew Valley until 1 am on one occasion). I don't think I have anything especially intelligent to say about it, because I've spent the past week dealing with funeral planning and family and grief and all the attendant exhaustion. But I can attest that it was a great escape from thinking about all of that.

PS. If you want a drinking game as you read: drink every time there is tension/heat/tingling/etc "below her belly button."

It’s tragic that #0 is all there is. Imagine if the project had grown into the community dialogue Mira Bellwether envisioned… Sigh. Glad that I sat down and read more than the bits and pieces I had perused since buying it a couple of years ago. More detailed review to come, maybe, but for now I’ll just say that this is smart, frank, sexy, and quotes Angela Carter, so you know I liked it.

Look, you can sell me on anything if you tell me there are lesbian vampires involved, regardless of how ridiculous it turns out to be.

I originally read The Year of Magical Thinking 10+ years ago, as an assignment in my undergraduate creative nonfiction workshop. I don't remember it making much of an impact on me back then (because maybe there's a 20-year-old who can relate to being an iconic writer who's lost her husband, but it wasn't me), but I decided to revisit it after my father's recent death.

What I've learned from my reread is that maybe less than two weeks after my dad died isn't the time to intellectualize my feelings by going into research mode and reading every book about grief that I can get my hands on. Obviously this is well-written--it's Joan Didion--but listening to the audio book had the tendency to strike me numb and send me spiraling into memories of sitting in the hospital and seeing my dad on a ventilator.

Friends, my hopes? They were so high. I’ve been on a romance kick lately and desperate to read for escapism. And The Headmistress had so much promise: a Lammy-winner with an academic setting, a new-to-me trope to explore, trans inclusion (secondary character), Massachusetts. And a cat! So much to love, or so I thought, and to be fair, I did love the cat. But I found the grandiloquent writing style (why say “mealtime” when you could say “repast hour” instead, I guess?) insufferable.

I have to hand it to Manansala: This book has the most realistic reasoning for no one cussing (a supporting cast full of older ladies who will not abide it) that I've yet to encounter in a cozy, and I liked how often characters had to catch themselves.

I see Arsenic and Adobo talked about a lot when the topic of millennial cozies comes up, and it captures the appeal of the genre while translating it for a younger audience and their concerns (managing familial expectations, figuring out what to do with your life and career, feeling stifled in your hometown, as well as genre concerns like more diverse representation).

I didn't get quite as wrapped up in it as I expected, but I can see why people like it. I recommend the audio book for the way the narrator captures certain characters' accents.

Read for my queer book club after meaning to read it for quite awhile… Very character- and setting-driven historical YA with crossover appeal and the kind of writing that respects its intended audience. I like that this is neither fluffy nor hopeless, and I like how genre-aware it is, as Lily both reads and exists in a lesbian novel and is aware of the endings she and characters like her often face. Even though it’s set in the 1950s and there are huge cultural differences between the protagonist and myself, I relate a lot to Lily—her anxieties about being outed, her fears that her desires are as prurient as those of men seem to her, and her overwhelming desire to see and to know other queer people. That was my early 2000s adolescence; just let me say, the motif about repeating cycles is apt. Recommended.

I think this is going to be my Mary Oliver year, because reaching for her work when life gets especially dark keeps paying off for me.

I kind of hated the romance plot (for personal reasons), which is sad because I’ve wanted nothing more than to find a good cis/trans lesbian romance! But I didn’t like the instalove and the secrecy. I liked Tina as a character, though, and I liked the derby stuff. It’s making me consider enrolling in my local boot camp .

I read this book because I'm feeling at odds with everything right now, and a book by the author of my favorite series seemed as good as anything to try. It's a reverse princess-in-a-tower fairy tale in a couple of ways, and feels like survival horror crossed with fantasy. It's funny but hits harder than you expect it to. And it's definitely one of my favorite books I've read this year.