Gosh this book was wild from start to finish. I listened to the audiobook of it and it was so compelling. Georgia's life is far from an easy one, having lost her mom and her sense of identity after waking up on the side of the road to find a 13 year old's body dumped next to her. After the trauma of that, she gets herself mixed up with some horrible people in an effort to redefine her worth. A story of nightmares brought to life, survival of the strongest (a teenage girl of girl), and shedding guilt over your traumas done to you, Summers wows readers with a harrowing novel in the post #MeToo era. Take your time with this one.

I’m a big believer in books finding *you* when you need them most and “What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding” is a perfect example of this. Laugh-out-loud funny, relatable, warm, colorful, courageous and inspiring. So many of Newman’s fears throughout her twenties and thirties are already beginning to settle in my 22 year old brain and while that’s terrifying, Newman’s ability to live through them and in spite of them, instead of being debilitated by them is brave and encouraging. Wanting it all and not wanting any of it and constantly wondering “what if” is not only a universal feeling, but can be paralyzing for women, but Newman embraces these as best she can. Newman’s you only live one, trust your gut, slut shaming is so 2000s attitude is one I’m glad to be reminded of. I didn’t know Newman was a writer/producer on some of my favorite shows, so that was an additional lovely surprise, too. I hate to say this but…. thank you booktok for the recommendation; I’m now going to send this to all my friends who are already panicking about what to do now that we’ve graduated college.

“Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger of ‘wrong’ ideas.”
From the very first page, I couldn’t put Kindred down. Butler has an incredible voice and way of bringing her reader into the heart and head of her narrator, making you not just feel for Dana, but feel what Dana is feeling. Butler’s perfect balance between science fiction and historical fiction is hard to achieve and she exceeds expectations. I’d be curious to know how this story would differ had it been written today and had Dana been coming home to Kevin in 2021, but maybe the power of Butler’s words is that it wouldn’t differ really at all.

“Men tell stories…. Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over.”
This book took me a moment to get into, but after about 100 pages I could not put it down. I finally get the hype for Kristin Hannah and cannot wait to read more of her novels. I intensely see myself in Vianne and Isabelle and aspire to possess their resilience, vulnerability and beauty. “The Nightingale” is a story as much about the importance of women not only in WWII but in the world, as it is about family, in all of its forms and complexities, and more specifically about sisterhood.
If you read and enjoyed The Alice Network, you’ll love this one even more.

Every single page is filled with wisdom, resilience, and beauty. Tara Westover’s story is an important one and I’m so grateful she thinks so, too. A must read!

“I cannot imagine him leaving them to face music he was too frightened to face himself.” My first of what I expect to be many Ruth Ware books! I couldn’t put it down. Ware’s greatest strength is creating a narrator you have to empathize with. Isa is strong, loyal and smart, but also human and complex; she feels like a friend and the people she loves you love, the people she hates you hate, and as her feelings towards various characters change quickly, you fall behind. I was expecting the ending to leave me a bit more content than it did, but overall I loved the adventure and mystery of Salten.

I’ve only said this once before: if I could give 6/5 stars, I would this book. The Scent Keeper is definitely one of my favorite books of all time, and I knew it would be within the first 50 pages. From the very first page I was captivated by young Emmeline and her father and their quaint, yet very intense life on the island. Bauermeister’s writing style is perfect. She put so much care into every word and detail, from describing who the characters are and want to be to making sure readers can not only visualize each moment, but smell them. Bauermeister's voice is lyrical and poetic. The relationships between every character and even setting is complex and imaginative and beautiful. I love books that drop subtle hints as to where it's going just enough so that when it happens, you feel satisfied and Bauermeister does this effortlessly. Her characters are also incredibly complex and I love the way she pushes Emmeline forward, while also grounding her in her past. The Scent Keeper is a coming of age story, but also so much more than that; it's about romance and family and passion. The story is incredibly unique and I’m desperate to know more about Bauermeister’s process in creating Emmaline’s journey. I also need more. I need to know about her “little fish,” her relationship with Henry and Colette, how Fisher’s reunion with his mom went, how Rene's new career is going, and if Emmeline got another pet. But at the same time, I feel like I’ve learned what I need to from this novel and am completely content with what I now know of the scent keepers.