Lilah and Shane are madly in love…only on screen. The stars of a beloved paranormal drama can’t stand each other in real life, so it’s a recipe for disaster when they reunite to film the show’s final season. Lilah left the show five seasons ago to try to make it as a big time movie star, and Shane can’t help but resent her for it. And their little tryst that lasted but one season of the show before it imploded certainly doesn’t make matters any better. With the world watching them and their careers after the show on the line, Lilah and Shane are forced to play nice. As the show forces them back together, Lilah and Shane become closer than ever and have to decide if they can make their relationship work this time.

 

Thank you so much to @netgalley and @randomhouse for the ARC! This was a cute celebrity romance book with a fun story and characters. It was definitely an enemies to lovers and forced proximity vibe with some good banter and spice. The storyline didn’t feel super original to me but I still enjoyed the characters and their backstory. Will They or Won’t They is available now! 

Jack Masterson is a world wide bestselling author of a famous children’s series called Clock Island. After quitting writing under mysterious circumstances, Jack resurfaces with a contest, with the latest book in the Clock Island series being the grand prize. Lucy Hart found comfort in the series growing up, and now shares her love reading as a teacher’s aid. Lucy’s goal is to adopt Christopher, one of her students whose parents tragically died, but her goal feels out of reach due to her lack of stability and finances. When Lucy earns a spot in the contest, she aims to win so that she can finally adopt Christopher. But she will have to contend against the whims of Jack, the other contestants, ruthless book collectors, and Hugo, the handsome Clock Island illustrator. 

 

This book was absolutely adorable! It was like Charlie & The Chocolate Factory meets Big Fish. I love the world that Shaffer created and all of the characters were so lovable. The Clock Island books sounded so fun and like something I would have read as a child! I really enjoyed all of the challenges that Lucy and the other candidate had to go through. This was a super heartwarming and charming story. 

Jack and Elizabeth meet in a romantic fever dream of artistic expression and individuality in Chicago during the 1990s, each of them bursting with desire to differentiate themselves from their oppressive families and claim a place in the underground art scene. Twenty years and a child later, they struggle to recognize each other, and the forgotten dreams of their youth taunt them. The book examines what wellness means to them throughout the various stages of their lives and relationship. As both a couple and individually, Jack and Elizabeth are forced to realize that they cannot expect their partner to complete them without individually reconciling their prior aspirations against their unfulfilling careers, the struggles of parenthood, and painful memories of their adolescence. 

 

Thank you as always to @netgalley, Nathan Hill, and @aaknopf / @penguinrandomhouse  for the ARC. I loved The Nix and was so excited to see another book by Hill, and was even more excited when my request for an advanced copy was approved. I absolutely loved this. The last chapter was probably one of the most perfect things I have ever read. I legit highlighted the whole thing. This book did an excellent job of examining relationships under the influence rapidly changing technology and the social media-era need of demonstrating perfection. There were a lot of great discussions regarding philosophy, photography and art, the placebo effect, ethics in medicine, algorithms, sexual insecurity, and the curse of wealth, among many other themes. I really enjoyed the competing narratives of Jack and Elizabeth. Ambitious but extremely well-executed, Wellness is a sprawling novel with deep themes and an incredible examination of life in the twenty first century. I highly recommend adding this to your TBR! Wellness hits shelves everywhere on September 19.

A quote I loved: “Beyond all the poetry, beyond all the songs, love is this, my dear: it’s an expansion of the self. It’s when the boundaries of the self spread out to include someone else, and what used to be them now becomes you.”

Abe one more! “Behind curtains, this, he thinks, is what lovers do—they are alchemists and architects; pioneers and fabulists; they make one thing another; they invent the world around them.”

Violet Sorrengail has trained her whole life to be a Scribe, entering a life of quiet among books and history. But as the daughter of the general of Navarre, she is forced to join the hundreds of candidates working to become dragon riders. Violet has to pass through a plethora of physical and mental challenges at Basgiath War College, and as a smaller and frailer person than everyone else, she had to work twice as hard. With fewer dragons willing to bond with Riders, many would kill Violet just to better their own chances of success, while the rest would kill her just for being the general’s daughter—Xaden Riorson being at the top of that list. Violet needs to use every edge that her intelligence can give her just to survive each day, especially as the war grows more deadly and she comes to suspect that leadership is hiding the entire truth from the cadets.

 

Y’all I was so nervous to read this book because the hype was INTENSE! And it took me over a month just to get a copy! I always think that I don’t really like fantasy all that much but then I read things like this and ACOTAR and love them so maybe I need to reassess. 😂 This book definitely lived up to the hype for me. Was it essentially Divergent with dragons? Yes, but that didn’t make me like it any less. All of the characters were amazing, including the super cool dragons, and I really enjoyed how Violet was able to overcome so many obstacles with a lot of smarts, self belief and hard work. And her relationship with Xander was the best. The only thing I don’t like is that now I have to wait until November for the next book! Can’t wait to see where the rest of the series goes! 

July 2023 book club book! I’m excited to discuss this one with my book club.

June has been jealous of Athena since college. Athena was the first to get a book deal and has been an instant success, while June always comes up short. So when Athena dies in an accident, June steals Athena’s unpublished manuscript about Chinese laborers during Wold War I, makes some edits, and publishes it as her own under the racially ambiguous name Juniper Song. The book is an instant best-seller, but June’s success is threatened when she is accused of stealing Athena’s work. As June fights to protect her literary reputation, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves. 

This book was super thought provoking as it explored themes of racism, diversity, and cultural appropriation. Should authors not write stories about people of different ethnic groups? Should authors never write about cultural or racial experiences that they have not personally experienced? I don’t have an answer but the book really raises some good points on both sides. (And I was reminded of similar conversations taking place regarding other books, specifically American Dirt.) June’s character was delusional but so well written, and Kuang did a really good job of creating an entire person, rounding her out, and letting us inside her head. This was a really well-written and sharp book that I will be thinking about for a while!

A quote I loved: “Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, it’s opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hurts too much.”

In All In, Billie Jean King recounts her life’s journey to become her true self. She talks about how she fell in love with tennis, her incredible career, and her famous win against Bobby Riggs in straight sets in The Battle of the Sexes. But going beyond the game, King talks about how finding tennis was able to unlock a path towards living a full and honest life. King details the struggles she endured with women’s equality in tennis, and how she was able use her fame and tenacity to help level the playing field between men and women. One of history’s most accomplished tennis players, King also details her personal relationships, her experiences with being outed as a lesbian by a former girlfriend, and how she continues to advocate for freedom and social justice after her retirement from tennis.

I’ve really grown to love sports over the last ten years or so, and Billie Jean King has always been such an icon in tennis and equal rights. It was so interesting to hear her detail her life and detail more about her journey, accomplishments, and coming out. I knew about some of her achievements in tennis, but it was fascinating to learn about how much of an innovator for women’s inclusion across the board she is, and how she has dedicated her legacy towards equality. And y’all know I love when the author reads their audiobook!

Jude has been Molly’s nemesis for as long as she can remember. Growing up as neighbors should have made them close, but Jude thinks Molly is a goodie two shoes and Molly thinks Jude is a slacker whose sole purpose in life is to mess with her. After years of an all out prank war, they stopped contact after one practical joke went too far. Molly and Jude are forced together again when their siblings decide to plan a giant party for both sets of parents, and the pranks start anew. Forced to work together to plan the surprise party, the two develop a sort of begrudging friendship. But when they each show up to the party with dates that are essentially each others’ clones, Molly and Jude are forced to consider that the line between hate and love is much blurrier than they thought. 

Thank you so much to @netgalley, @readforeverpub, and @meredithschorr for the advance copy! The cover of this book is the absolute cutest. I really liked the pranking between Jude and Molly—it kind of reminded me of Jim and Pam from The Office. Molly’s character was super relatable for me, and I really sympathized with her feeling stuck in her job and people pleasing tendencies. I think she and Jude brought out the best in each other! The dynamics with their families were also a great added layer. This was a fun read! Someone Just Like You releases July 25!

By day, Elsie is an adjunct physics professor, hating her life as she teaches entirely uninterested students and responding to their ludicrous emails, all with the hope of earning tenure. But when she’s not drudging her way through teaching ungrateful undergrads, she works as a fake girlfriend, passing herself off as whatever version her dates need her to be, to supplement her almost nonexistent salary. Elsie’s entirely different personalities collide when she scores an interview at MIT—and learns her fake boyfriend’s brother Jack is the head of the physics department. Jack, who thinks Elsie is a librarian, accuses her of being a fraud. Elsie and Jack clash hard; he’s an experimental physicist who wrote an article that tanked her mentor’s career, and she’s a theoretical physicist who dreams of landing a solid job so she can go back to working on what she truly cares about. Elsie is prepared to do whatever it takes to land the job—but will falling into Jack’s orbit where she can be her true self tempt her to put her most guarded theories of love into practice?

Ali Hazelwood is an automatic author for me, and I will read anything she writes! All of her books are so smart and funny, and Love, Theoretically was no different! I really liked the tension between Jack and Elsie. Their characters were so different but also so similar, and I loved the way their relationship grew. I also loved how Elsie grew individually throughout the book, and I loved her friendship with Cece. This book was more academic than her other works, but I really enjoyed that. I’m not much of a science or math person, but Hazelwood writes about STEM in a way that is fun, empowering, and  engaging (and that I don’t feel like I can’t understand what’s going on lol). The Olive and Adam cameo was the cherry on top! 

McBride’s poignant memoir details her experience as a transgender woman navigating her own life while also working as an activist fighting for transgender rights. She details her struggle with gender identity, coming out to those in her community, becoming the first transgender person to address the Democratic National Convention in 2016, her fight for laws protecting gender equality, finding love, and coping with the crushing loss of her beloved husband. My Bride discusses political milestones, historical context, and cultural and political debates against the backdrop of her own life experiences. 

This book was so good and I really admire Sarah McBride. I’m astounded by her accomplishments—it’s incredible to see someone my age having achieved so much. I loved the way she was able to honestly convey her story and her points while also recognizing her own privilege and advocating for others. Her voice is so strong and important, and she is so incredibly courageous. Through this book I learned a lot about the history of civil rights laws in the context of the transgender community, which was very interesting to me as a lawyer. I was also so moved by her discussion of her relationship with her husband and his battle with cancer, it was absolutely heartbreaking. This was a great memoir that reminds its readers that while progress has been made, there is still a lot of work left to achieve equality for all.

Lucy Young is tired. Tired of being broke, tired of living with infuriating roommates, tired of working hard at her job but receiving no recognition, and tired of disastrous dates. She wishes she could just skip ahead to the good part of her life, where she has everything figured out and has achieved all of her dreams. So when she stumbles upon a curious wishing machine in a tiny shop, that’s exactly what she wishes for. The next morning, Lucy wakes up in an unfamiliar bed next to an unfamiliar man in an unfamiliar house, sixteen years in the future. She is married with two children, and has her dream job. As Lucy steps into her new life, she learns that things are never 100% perfect. As she starts to learn of how her life went over those missing sixteen years, she’ll have to evaluate whether she can go back to the present, and if she even wants to.

Thank you to @netgalley, @sophie_cousens, and @putnambooks for the advance copy! I was super excited that my request for this book was granted because I love the two other books I read by Sophie Cousens (Just Haven’t Met You Yet and This Time Next Year) and I am happy to report that The Good Part blew both of those out of the park! This book was laugh out loud funny, but it also nearly moved me to tears at times. The story and all the characters were so genuine, heartfelt, and lovable. This was a great book about navigating through life’s hardships and to not take for granted every moment, because you never know when it could be taken from you. I absolutely loved Lucy’s relationships with her family, especially with her future son Felix, who was hilarious and so brilliantly written. Such a wonderful book! I highly recommend snatching this one up when it releases on November 7!