This book is incredibly witty and moves very quickly. It's an embellished autobiography, and the author has a caustic sense of humor that wouldn't be out of place at Hollins. I think she overuses her footnotes sometimes, but her comedic timing and impeccable fashion sense overrule that misstep.

This book was very intriguing. I really enjoy Jon Krakauer's writing style - it is easy to get sucked in. I'm not sure if I can believe everything he posits about the FLDS church, but it is certainly an interesting perspective on the subject. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in conspiracy theories, cults, or a view of Mormonism that is outside the mainstream.

Um, am I allowed to write a review that’s entirely heart eyes emoji? Because that’s how I feel about this book! I really enjoyed THE WEDDING DATE and this book, starring secondary character Carlos, is even better.

It’s filled with lines and even whole scenes that had me laughing out loud and reading to my partner (that sour cream scene 😂).

Beyond that, it was far from your stereotypical romance novel (and I say that with the love of someone who reads a fair bit of romance). Carlos isn’t hyper masculine, yet also not a beta male. Carlos is also as fully formed and complex a character as Nik, rather than being just Generic Handsome Man With Occasional Feelings. There isn’t a central secret one is keeping from the other - the tension all comes from the normal uncertainty of a new relationship. It’s practically relaxing.

I loved Nik’s group of girlfriends. The friendships felt lived in and real. It’s also effortlessly diverse. It never felt like “and now we are talking to the Asian friend.”

My only quibble is that some of the dialogue felt stilted. Characters sometimes spoke in overly complicated sentences I don’t think real people would say in service of getting exposition out there.

I do need a book about Courtney and her cupcake shop like, yesterday, though!

DARK MATTER is a sci-fi psychological thriller in which physicist Jason Dessen is kidnapped and drugged, awakening to find himself in a world similar to but fundamentally different to his own. Finding his way home takes him through the darkest places in both his mind and the universe.

My very first note in my book journal about DARK MATTER is “this book is not fucking around” and it only got more bananas from there. This book took my breath away, figuratively and literally. I actually was holding my breath through some scenes!

The spare writing style - short sentences, hurried conversations - conveys Jason’s fear so viscerally. Every time he was faced with a new, more hopeless situation, the pit in my stomach grew. The idea of being faced with endless permutations of your universe and yourSELF made me feel physically ill.

This book is mind-bending without being snooty about it. I never felt confused or overwhelmed by the logistics of the box, though maybe that’s due to years of loyal Doctor Who viewership. It also never felt like the plot was spinning its wheels, even through the large chunk of the book where Jason and Amanda were repeatedly trying new multiverse versions. (By the way, strong THE DREAM THIEVES vibes with the medication to induce alternate realities there.)

So, I might be a few years late on this one, but oh man, am I glad I finally found my way here.

Teenage Abby is fashion-obsessed, plus-size, and gay. When she lands her dream internship at a local boutique, she wasn’t expecting the job to come with her dream girl. In THE SUMMER OF JORDI PEREZ (AND THE BEST BURGER IN LOS ANGELES), Abby learns how to navigate new friendships, new love, and being the star of her own story.

Y’all are gonna think I only write 😍😍 reviews, but I loved this book! If teen romance stories like SLOPPY FIRSTS or TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE were about gay teens, this is that book! It’s got a similar mix of sweetness, teenage anxiety, and letting the characters be their weirdo selves.

I love that this is a happy queer story. I love that it isn’t about gay pain or death or even about coming out. I love that Abby is femme and loves bright colors and lipstick and no one questions if she’s “really” gay (except her mom, but that rings true in a different way). As someone who doesn’t “look” queer, it literally made me cry to think about how great it would have been to read this book when I was younger. I’m so glad we are slowly diversifying the kinds of queer people we see in our stories.

Plus, this idea that you aren’t relegated to being the sidekick just because you don’t match mainstream beauty norms. This book is fully aware that it’s making these points and how important these stories are.

I enjoyed that this was a rare single-perspective YA novel. However, I do wish we could have seen more from Jordi. She remained an enigma for much of the book.

I loved Abby’s friendship with Jax - it captured that weird way it’s easy to be vulnerable with someone new. However, I think the conflict at the end of that storyline rushed by too fast.

In conclusion, MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE!

Thanks to Algonquin Books for providing me with a free e-ARC via NetGalley.

At 17, Jodi McCarty was sentenced to life in prison for manslaughter. 18 years later she finds herself suddenly released. She tries to return home to West Virginia, falling in love with young mother Miranda along the way and trying to escape the way her past always seems to circle back on her.

This book, y’all. How is it not in everyone’s hands yet? Maren captures the simultaneous freedom and oppression of rural life with writing that is beautifully lush, yet never flowery. SUGAR RUN has the most solid sense of place I’ve seen in a long time, nailing that way summer in Appalachia can close in on you. You feel submerged in that heat and trapped in the past with Jodi.

This book is all about cycles and patterns and that slow realization that you may never escape the path you’re on. Some readers may find themselves frustrated with the way life seems to happen to Jodi, but to me it rang true with the way people’s options are narrowed with every system working against them: the prison system, parole, rural economies, drug trade, homophobia. The way Jodi felt the “choiceless” life of prison followed her out was so visceral. Then add to that how unequipped she was to live as an adult outside of prison for the first time - she may be repeating patterns but she was also set up to fail on multiple fronts, and it was so painful to watch that spool out slowly. (Note: I think this book might make a good pairing with DOPESICK if you want the nonfiction version of this story).

My heart broke over and over again for the ways each person lost control of their lives, from Jodi as a manipulated teenager to Miranda’s unhappy marriage to little Kaleb witnessing these dysfunctions. Cycles repeating across lives, families, and generations.

I know it’s so early, but I think SUGAR RUN could be a top book of the year contender for me.

In THE POET X, Xiomara is a young teenager used to defending herself and her body with her fists. Upon entering high school she learns the joy of pouring her emotions into words and poems. Her constant struggles with her religious mother force her to keep her poetry and new boyfriend under wraps, until everything blows.

I rarely read poetry and the phrase “novel in verse” usually sends me running. THE POET X is an incredible exception. I read the whole thing in less than a day, and when THE THING happened I cried so, so hard.

I was lucky enough to see Acevedo read from this book last summer, and it was so wonderful to hear her voice in my head as I read. Xiomara leaps off the page, a barely contained twist of emotions and love and pain. Part of why I love YA is that the characters feel their feelings, and this is a prime example.

I wasn’t raised this hyper-religiously, nor do I have immigrant parents, but my god, that crushing feeling of knowing your parents do not understand you or your needs. Plus, that dawning understanding that you will never be allowed to be your full self within the church. Too real.

One thing I really liked was Xiomara’s relationship with Caridad. It was that perfect share-everything-but-not-quite-everything friendship I remember from my own high school girl friends. The same with her brother, how you can live in the same house and still not know each other.

I don’t really know what else to say except that I’m sorry it took me so long to read this!

THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET is told through a series of vignettes by Esperanza, a young Chicana girl in a poor neighborhood in Chicago. The stories cover much of her childhood and introduce us to the lives, loves, and pain of her friends and neighbors.

I always struggle with how to review classics, because what else is left to say, and particularly for this one, what is there for a white lady like me to say?

I can say that I’m so glad I finally got around to reading THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET, and feel a bit cheated that I missed it in my school curriculum.

Esperanza’s stories so beautifully tell us what seem like mundane stories of daily life, but slowly, systemic racism and sexism move from something in the background to something seemingly inescapable. Though, isn’t that still the mundane everyday?

Former MTV VJ Dave Holmes tells the story of his weird, unplanned life in PARTY OF ONE, detailing coming to terms with his sexuality, auditioning for MTV in a whim, and all the music he loved along the way.

Usually celebrity memoirs are either forgettable nothings or overly self-important, and this is neither. Alternately funny and serious, Holmes takes his self-acceptance ups and downs seriously, but never his weird quasi-celebrity status.

There are a lot of jokes in here that would sound try-hard from other writers, but in Holmes hands, they’re the perfect mix of funny and nostalgic.

Holmes also writes so wonderfully about coming out in the midst of a Catholic upbringing and in a society that, in the ‘90s, was only just beginning to understand and accept gay men. The whole cultural journey from repulsion to “every gal needs a gay BFF” to just getting to be a normal person is covered over the course of Holmes’ career.

PARTY OF ONE is a wonderful light read with a real heart at the center of it. Plus, it’ll make you want to dig through your music collection for all your fave ‘90s jams.