Cat Winthrope worked hard to get what she has: social standing, a luxurious lifestyle, and her husband William. Neena Ryder hasn’t had such a well-off life and is ready to do whatever it takes to move up in the world. When Neena and her lackluster husband move in next door to the Winthropes, Neena gets to know Cat and learns of all the things she could have. Neena becomes obsessed with William and closer with Cat. Beneath their cordial relationship is a wealth of deception, temptation, and toxic jealousy. And the desire for a perfect life turns dangerous.

I love a good domestic thriller, and this one definitely delivered! It’s been a while since I’ve read a thriller and this one was great. This was a quick read with short chapters and I was able to get through it quickly. Both Neena and Cat were super flawed and unlikeable characters and the drama and mind games between them were juicy. The writing was good and suspenseful and kept me wanting to know what happened next. I also like that the ending resolved the story fully. Sometimes thrillers leave plot lines open or end on a bit of a cliffhanger and as a person who likes to know everything I appreciate that this novel didn’t do that. Overall this was a good one and I recommend it!

Everyone at the Bexley School believes that Sage Morgan and Charlie Carmichael are meant to be…even though Charlie seems to have a new girlfriend every month, and Sage has never had a real relationship. When Luke Morrissey shows up on campus, his presence immediately shakes things up. Charlie and Luke are drawn to each other the moment they meet, giving Sage the opportunity to spend time with Charlie's twin brother, Nick. If Charlie and Sage are meant to be, why can't Sage stop kissing Charlie's brother? And why can't Charlie stop thinking about kissing the new boy at school?

Thank you so much to @netgalley for the ARC! If you like high school drama (think Never Have I Ever vibes), look no further! I could totally see this being made into a movie or series. I really loved Charlie’s character and how he was able to embrace who he was with some encouragement from his friends and introspection. All the raw high school emotions were depicted so well, I felt like I was back in high school listening to other people’s drama! Sometimes Sage’s character was annoying and the drama was a little too much (like so much of this heartache could be avoided if people just talked about how they felt), but as a book targeted to a YA audience it makes sense that things more dramatic and the emotions more heightened. The audiobook performance was great and I really liked the narrators. 

As a young child, Aubry develops a strange and incurable illness: she cannot stay put in one place for longer than three days, or she will rapidly start to die. Thus begins her lifelong journey to outrun her curse. She travels the world, never able to return to where she has previously been. The longer Aubry travels and the more places she sees, it becomes clear that the world she treks is not the same as it is to everyone else.

Thank you to @netgalley and @avidreaderpress for the ARC! This book was described as The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue meets Life of Pi, which was an intriguing combination. The story was interesting but sometimes I struggled with the plot as it was kind of chaotic and difficult to keep some of the locations straight. I feel like the book tried to be too much like Addie LaRue. Aubry is a French woman whose life is forever changed by a curse brought on by an ignorant mistake, which is essentially the premise of Addie. The curse was never fully explained in this novel however and that really frustrated me. It felt like the book was coming to a close several times but when it finally did end,  nothing was resolved. I did enjoy all of the people and places Aubry visited along the way, and the writing itself was very good. I think this would have got a higher tasting from me if there was a true denouement, but the end left me with more questions than anything. 

Violet and Eli were rivals in high school and spent all of their time trying to one-up each other. Ten years later, they find themselves both back in their home town and working at together at an event venue. Their rivalry continues at work, and the stakes are higher than ever with a $20,000 bonus on the line. Each wants to win and will do whatever it takes. They can’t stand each other but the attraction is there, so they decide to enter into a dangerous agreement—enemies with benefits. But the trouble is, beneath all the name calling and teasing, they’re not as irritated by each other as they used to be. 

This book has been sitting on my Kindle for a while, and I’m glad I finally got to it! The banter between Eli and Violet was hilarious and I really enjoyed the work place rivalry. Each character was so well written and I loved the dual point of view as we really got in each of their heads! Their chemistry was so good and they worked out so well together because they were similar in a lot of ways. I also really enjoyed Eli’s family and their characters were a great addition. Apparently this is a series with each book featuring a different brother. After reading this one I’ll definitely have to pick up the rest!

Mourning the loss of her late mother and escaping a toxic relationship with a psychologically abusive man, Iris uproots her London life and moves to New York City, a place her mother loved as a young adult. Feeling more connected to her mother than she has since her passing, Iris allows her best friend Bobby to drag her out to explore the city. Which is how she stumbles upon the Belotti Gelateria, a feature in her late mother’s scrapbook. Iris meets Gio, the handsome shop owner, and learns that the business is in danger of closing because Gio’s uncle, the sole keeper of the store’s famous gelato recipe, is in a coma. When she samples the gelato, she instantly realizes that the recipe is the exact same as the gelato her mom made growing up, leaving her to wonder how her mom came to get the recipe and what her connections to Gio’s family really are. Iris offers to help Gio recreate the recipe. But when his uncle wakes up from his coma, all of the secrets Iris has kept threaten her new life and her budding romance with Gio.

Thank you @netgalley, @randomhouse, and @josiesilverauthor for the ARC! This was a heartwarming story full of love, loss, friendships, and overcoming past traumas. Iris’s character was so well developed and I loved her and felt for her so much. Her journey to overcome the trauma of her past relationship and live with the grief of her mother’s loss were so poignant and you couldn’t help but cheer her on. I loved how the Belottis embraced her and their family dynamic was so fun and felt so authentically New York and Italian. Gio was so well written to and I love his character and how he and Iris cared for each other. The slow burn between them was perfection. Overall this was a great read that lovers of the holiday, New York, and gelato will devour! A Winter In New York is available October 3! (On October 3rd, he asked me what day it was. Iykyk) 

Emilie Hornby had the worst Valentine’s Day ever. She rear ended Nick Stark on the way to school, lost her summer internship due to a scoring error, and caught her boyfriend kissing his ex-girlfriend. But when Emilie wakes up the next day, it’s February 14th. Again. And again. Nothing Emilie does seems to get her out of the time loop or make her terrible day any better. So she decides to say “screw it” and live a day of no consequences, which ends up with her and Nick living their best version of Ferris Beuller’s Day Off. But when the time loop finally ends and she has to go back to reality, will Emilie have the courage to take charge of her life and live for herself?

This book was super cute! I love a good time loop story and this one was a lot of fun. There was a lot of humor but also some deeper emotional moments and I really appreciated how the story didn’t shy away from Emilie’s feelings as a child of divorce. It was a great balance! The book also had a lot of Taylor Swift references, which I really enjoyed (and was very fitting for the @bookishswiftiesclub read-a-thon)! I loved Emilie and Nick’s characters and how they were able to help each other overcome what was holding them back. Their day off made me think of the song “Me and My Dog” by boygenius. Great rom-com for my fellow Swifties! 

⚠️ content warning: domestic violence 

This novel follows three generations of Palestinian women in a conservative Arab family living in Brooklyn. Fareedah came to the United States with her husband and children as a refugee, and pushes her family to maintain their culture at whatever cost. Isra marries Fareedah’s oldest son Adam, coming to New York from Palestine when she is only seventeen years old, with hopes for love and more freedom in America. Deya is Isra’s oldest daughter, mourning the loss of her parents and living with her grandmother Fareedah, and not wanting to get married and follow the customs and traditions expected of her. The novel alternates between the voices of these three women, and as the story progresses Deya learns more of her family’s troubled past and the dark secrets behind what really happened to her parents.

This has been on my TBR for a while and I’m so glad I finally got to it! I read it in a day and found it quite gripping and wanted to know what would happen next. Deya’s narrative was my favorite and I found myself always looking forward to her parts. An other thing I loved what how Isra, Sarah, and Deya all loved reading and how it helped them challenge the norm and gave them an escape from their situation and the courage to want more. The book tackles some heavy subjects so definitely check triggers warnings if you’re interested! This is such an important story and I loved how Rum was able to give these women a voice. Sometimes the novel got a little repetitive and lacked some nuance; the message seemed to be that all women are oppressed and all men are abusive oppressors. While that definitely is the experience of many woman, I think it would have been more powerful to also see healthy relationships and families. Overall this was a super important feminist story that I recommend!

⚠️ content warning: human/sex trafficking, rape, murder, torture, graphic descriptions of violence 

Aninyeh is a young girl in Ghana who watches her family murdered before her eyes before she is kidnapped and trafficked. She becomes Nena, the scared teenager who escapes from the evil man that bought her. After her escape she is adopted by the Knights, a powerful and connected family who show her love for the first time in years. As an adult, Nena works as an assassin for the pan-African entity called the Tribe, where her father is the chief counsel member. Her mission is to terminate the Tribe’s enemies, no questions asked. Nena knows her place within the Tribe and unquestioningly follows orders—until the demons of her past return and threaten her carefully reconstructed world.

Wow, what a debut from Agnoe! Definitely check trigger warnings if you’re interested in this because the violence is REALLY intense and was too much for me at some points (chapter 34 was particularly disturbing). But the story was so good and unique! The dual point of view kept me really interested in wanting to know how Nena got to where she is now. Nena’s character grew so much and she was so well developed. It was wonderful to see how she regained her power after all of the atrocities that she suffered. The plot was fast and I was hooked from the start. The audiobook performance was excellent. Definitely recommend this if you love intense thrillers!

Poet Javier Zamora’s memoir details the story of his migration from El Salvador to the United States alone to join his parents when he was only nine years old. 

This memoir was so beautiful. Zamora’s writing is magical and has the ability to transport readers to exactly what he experienced. I really enjoyed the format that the memoir was written in as well. Zamora recounts the events in a gripping way and I couldn’t put this book down. I really want to know what happened to Chino, Pati, and Carla too and loved how they all helped one another. What an incredible moving memoir! As an immigration lawyer, stories like these are especially heart wrenching for me and help me learn so much about my clients and the things that they go through. I was also delighted to read that Zamora lives in Tucson and volunteers with The Florence Project, an absolutely wonderful organization here in Arizona that provides free legal and social services to detained migrants.  

I was really excited to read this book and I am so sad to say it disappointed me. A lot. 😭 Anastasia was one of my favorite movies growing up, and as an adult (and a Russian major) I’ve learned much more about the history of the Romanov family and the Russian Revolution. As a novel, this book failed for me for a couple reasons. 

From a writing standpoint, the plot was incredibly slow for the first half. Then the second half just got really weird. The story felt a little clichéd, the prose was simple and bland, and everything just seemed to drag on. I expected much more action but it felt like nothing happened for the longest time. The character development was also pretty mediocre and the Romanov family was depicted as victims who were kind and did nothing to deserve their exile. And while of course no one deserves the fate that ultimately befell the Romanovs, there is a lot more gray area in their innocence and the tsar’s ability as a leader that were not addressed. I would have loved to have seen more flaws from the main characters because they came across as quite flat. 

My main issue with the book is how it addressed history. While I get that this book is targeted towards young adults, I didn’t appreciate that the novel made it seem like the ONLY reason behind the Russian Revolution was to catch magic users. There are a lot of complex events that happened that lead to the Revolution (and many atrocities that Russians suffered), but instead of picking even just one of those topics to discuss and perhaps educate young readers, an entirely fantastical reason was created with all others carelessly swept aside. While it can be fun to romanticize and retell history, it can also be incredibly dangerous if actual events are not properly acknowledged. And don’t even get me started on how Rasputin was handled. 🥴

This book had a lot of potential and the synopsis piqued my interest, but this book really let me down. For what it was, it was ok? But it could have done so much more.