There is some very strange and intense fat phobia going on in this book. If that bothers you, skip it. If it doesn't, read on. 

This book tore my heart out. Ander is nineteen, taking a gap year between high school and college. They works at their family restaurant. Ander is proudly nonbinary and gay. The story begins with their perspective which is joyful, funny, and also unsure of themself and the future. 

Ander gets fired from the family business so he will focus on his art. When Santi is hired to replace him, Ander's interest is immediately piqued. There's definitely some insta-love happening in this one, but the author does it so well that is completely believable and endearing. 

This is a story of queer love between people of color, and it is also a story of what it feels like to live in fear every day. It is about what it feels like to be an immigrant in this country, what it means to be undocumented, and about the very real terrors and injustice enacted on so many communities by ICE. Please believe me when I say this book is both beautiful and incredibly heavy. 

There is no way I could capture the beauty and hope and resilience of this love story in my own words. This book is truly special. If you're ready to get out your tissues and also to feel angry (and hopefully contact your government representatives), please don't miss this book. 

A sweet graphic novel about being one of seven siblings, Squished portrays a life many of us cannot imagine to in a very relatable way. If you liked Allergic, this is every bit as wonderful. 

Avery is the second oldest of seven siblings, she has just finished fifth grade, and she is excited for this big summer before middle school. Through hijinks and typical kid activities, Avery tries to earn money to make a room of her own in the basement.  But life has different plans that what Avery had in mind. 

There are several well developed subplots in this book, which is impressive for the format and for the way the author brings them together in the end. I loved all of this and I highly recommend you read it. 

Milk Fed is A Very Strange book about Rachel, a 24 year old lapsed Jew living life in extreme calorie restriction- always hyper focused on her next portion controlled meal. (Although as a reader, Rachel reads as older than 24 to me, but that's a small aside.)

Rachel has loved men and women, but has tried fervently to fixate on men. When an attractive large woman at the frozen yogurt shop keeps overserving Rachel, something begins to develop. Since this book is short and swift, I won't get into the relationship that develops other than to say both women are figuring out what it means to be with a woman in their culture and in their own minds. 

This book is heavy on spice and steam (not in the typical romance novel fasion, also this part gets wacky), and it is also gratuitous with food descriptions. There are also ample details about Rachel's calorie restriction and body dysmorphia. I found it strange in the vein of Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder and Big Swiss by Jen Beagin. If you like a weird one, this is worth a try. 

The Senator's Wife is a well paced domestic psychological thriller told from multiple points of view. Sloane is married to a senator named Whit. It's a second marriage for both of them, but they've known each other for years. In fact, they were together with their former spouses when they died. It's a messy story that draws you in from the opening pages. 

With that tragedy behind them, Sloane and Whit are trying to manage political life and a charitable foundation. Things go awry when Sloane needs a hip replacement and a young, attractive woman is hired to be her caregiver after surgery. 

I think it's best to go into this book knowing little else. I enjoyed it and it read quickly and easily from start to finish. Liv Constantine knows how to tell a story that is easy to imagine and visualize but not so bogged down in details that it loses a compelling pace. I did see some of the end coming and felt the final bit was a little saccharine for my taste, but overall this was a fun thriller that I'd highly recommend for a beach read this summer. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. 

This book is about Edi and Ash, best friends since preschool. Now in their forties, the unthinkable is happening and Edi is dying from ovarian cancer. 

Edi and her husband make some unlikely choices to protect their son from the realities of hospice, and so Ash steps in to be Edi’s caretaker and primary loved one as she prepares to die. 

While the plot is very heavy, this book manages lots of humor and levity. It was easy to read, which surprised me. I found many quotes that stood out in some way, either because they made me cry or laugh (or both). I wanted a little more depth and believability from the storyline with Edi’s son and husband. I also thought the portrayal of grief at the end was very romanticized and the only discomfort was very low stakes, again not so plausible in my experiences with loss. 

Overall, I enjoyed this book but it wasn’t everything I hoped for. 

Adelaide broke my heart into pieces and then put the pieces back together better than before. Does it sound cheesy? Yes, but I truly mean it. This book touched me with its openness about how abuse when we are young shapes who we become, it’s full and undiluted show of depression, and the beautiful and realistic ways one can come back from rock bottom. 

Adelaide is a twenty something from the US living in London. When she meets Rory Hughes, she’s not looking for a soul mate but becomes convinced it is serendipity. As she pours her love and time into him, Rory never returns the favor. Starting from the end and working through the past, this book slowly shows us how an unhealthy relationship can bring out so much grief, trauma, and self doubt. 

This book is lovely and perfect, but it is extremely heavy. I suggest checking content warnings if you need to, and there are many. But on all of them, the author writes with respect, hope (but not the annoying kind), and sincerity. I highly recommend this for fans of Sorrow and Bliss and Maame. 

I couldn’t put it down. I did cry. I did laugh. Not to be missed. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an ALC in exchange for my honest feedback. 

Queen of Thieves was the enjoyable and well paced historical fiction that I needed. I was a bit reluctant to pick this up because I'm burned out on WWII genre fiction, but the post war setting enticed me to give it a chance. And I'm glad I did. 

Told in two perspectives, our main characters are Nell and Alice. Nell is a young woman struggling to find her way, living at home while working in a miserable factory job and knocked up by her first flame. Alice is the leader of a ring of female thieves, aka hoisters. When Nell has a random run in with Alice, she has an opportunity to join the gang. Little does Nell know how quickly her life will be much, much more complicated than it already is. 

This book gives big BBC period drama and Peaky Blinders vibes. If you love stories about old London and crime rings, this one is for you. There are lots of content warnings to mention so please check those before reading if you need to, but I won't list them here because it definitely goes into spoiler territory. 

This was a fun, quick read for me. My quibbles are that one of the character development devices was exceptionally cheesy and that while there was some depth to Nell and Alice, I found them tending towards the static and predictable side. I greatly enjoyed the strong pace and the way the author wove together the transitions from one point of view to the next. I will read from Beezy Marsh again. 

Odder is a novel in verse about otters being nurtured in captivity. Odder is a pup when she is taken in, found without her mother, and the animal caretakers set an ambitious goal to rehabilitate her for release into the wild. This means making sure she does not bond with humans and that she develops a drive to feed herself, among other skills. 

In a such a short package, Applegate creates a beautiful and emotional picture of what life might be like as a wild animal in captivity and what it is like for the humans that hold such an important responsibility to those animals. The poetry is both lovely and written in very accessible language, I think this would be a great read along with a younger middle grades reader or an independent read for an older MG kid. 

Like everything I've read from this author, Odder is a book I happily recommend. If you like animals and a story told in verse, put it on your TBR ASAP!