I loved Carty-Williams' debut Queenie, so I was really excited to dig into her latest.

Dimple Pennington is an overly sensitive, 30-ish Black woman living in London and attempting to make a career as an influencer. Her father, Jamaican playboy Cyril Pennington, has spent most of his life trolling for women, which is why Dimple has four half brothers and sisters, raised by three different mothers. When Dimple goes through a bad breakup with her abusive boyfriend Kyron and a shocking event occurs, she reaches out to her estranged siblings for help. And, let the fun and family drama begin!

Carty-Williams is an expert at fleshing out larger-than-life, flawed characters. Like Queenie, all the Pennington siblings are vividly drawn, each a relatable mix of attitudes, foibles, heart, and personality. Abandoned by their father, the five siblings bond--through an at-times twisted timeline of events--to realize they have more alike then they thought. And, like with any true-to-life family, their journey from tenuous to whole is not easy or smooth, but, in Carty-Williams's deft hands, humorous and enjoyable.

The complex characters and their compelling relationships propped up some of the more unbelievable and outlandish plot points. And, a few times, Dimple seemed too ridiculous to be believable. Yet Carty-Williams quickly course-corrected and pulled me back into rooting for this lovable, emotional girl.

As seems to be my go-to nowadays, I listened to parts of this audiobook while also reading the hardcover. The narrator, @daniellevitalis, was astonishingly good! She did a fab job bringing out the humor of the tense situations and the differences between the siblings' personalities. She was especially effective as the voice of Dimple.

If you like messy family dramas flavored with dashes of social commentary and real-life relationship issues, I think you'd enjoy this book.

In this book, Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan shares her experiences as the first woman Public Editor of the New York Times & her career in journalism. She shares anecdotes about columns she wrote, experiences she had with colleagues, & the "big" issues she sees in journalism today--the lack of trust from the public, the mainstream media's tendency to cover politics as a horserace, the lure of propaganda and a public that doesn't have a shared belief in facts, and the misogyny and legacy thinking that hamper newsrooms and their work.

I loved the portions of this book that spoke to Margaret's work as oversight for The New York Times. The public editor position was eliminated in 2017, one year after Margaret moved on, which is a shame considering it seems like the position--and Margaret's work in it--provided some much-needed perspective and accountability for the paper and its work.

I also liked the behind-the-scenes info Margaret shared. Her insight into the missteps--and the reverberations of those missteps that we still see today--regarding the press's coverage of Hillary Clinton's emails and the rise and presidency of Donald Trump are intriguing, especially due to her close access. She does offer some solutions to the BIG issues she sees with journalism today, yet they seem rather pat and unrealistic considering the level of divisiveness and the reality that many Americans no longer believe in a shared set of facts.

I would have liked to learn more about Margaret's personal life and its challenges amidst this intense work. Many of the sections also contain work we can find on the internet. While this book is interesting, I feel like it's not as comprehensive and effective as it could be. Still, hearing from a well-regarded female journalist who broke the glass ceiling and provided accountability for "the paper of record" is absolutely worth the time.

Props to Lisa Flanagan for a stellar narrating of this audiobook. And thanks to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the free copy in exchange for an honest review. I did my usual listen to some/read some of this book.

This moody, slow-paced story mixes familial drama, magic, and romance to create a story perfect for reading during the Halloween/fall season.

In the Puget Sound lies the fictional island of Saoirse. Governed by a town council and the tendrils of witchcraft and magic, its residents and their livelihoods revolve around an orchard. When a fire damages the orchard on the same night that Lily, one of the town's teens mysteriously dies, events are set in motion that set the stage for the story, which switches between characters and years.

The main characters are Emery and August, tethered by their childhood romance and the events of that fateful night. Emery lost her best friend, yet also lost her boyfriend, since August was widely believed to be Lily's murderer and left the island to avoid the suspicion and harassment. When August returns to bury his mother's ashes on the island, his and Emery's romance and the truth about the fire and Lily's death finally come to light.

Young sets a terrifically atmospheric, charged setting. The fictional Puget Sound island of Saoirse is a character in-and-of-itself. I loved the descriptions of the trees, air, birds...just everything. It really helped anchor the mysterious and dangerous aspects of the story.

The relationship between Emery and August was done well, but I felt that the other characters didn't have enough presence (some had just one or two short chapters in their voices) to support the reveals at the end. And I wish the first half was as fast-paced as the second.

Overall, though, this novel is a great book for fall. If you love a cauldron of romance, intrigue, mystery, and magic, pick up this one today (see what I did there?).

Former BET style editor Prescod explores the racism prevalent in the style and beauty industries in this eye-opening memoir. Using her childhood experiences growing up in an affluent white suburb and her work as both a fashion and beauty editor as references, she examines how the "white, blond, blue-eyed, super-skinny girl" standard set by a society as the attainable for beauty perpetuated racism, while also harming Black girls with unrealistic goals for beauty.

Prescod doesn't sugarcoat her experiences or her choices--she knew she was an acolyte of this stereotype, but that only came later when she was older and able to assess how it damaged both her behavior and society as a whole. Her inability to speak up and fight back against stereotypes of beauty and her place as the "token Black girl," led to binge drinking and an eating disorder, which she details openly and honestly here. She also speaks to her own treatment of other people, which helped feed into the stereotypes and toxic culture.

I loved how she examined it on a personal level with honesty, while also shining a spotlight on society's systemic issues with racism in beauty and style. This book is an enlightening nonfiction choice for people who want to learn more about not only the industry and its ills, but about the exerpeince of a Black woman whose open and honest about her struggles and the systemic issues that caused her and Black women in general harm. Great read!

I love TJR books so I was happy to finally read her latest. It wasn’t up there with the GOAT TJR (Evelyn Hugo!) but it was still really good.

TJR is best at creating larger-than-life characters who engage readers with their complexity. Carrie Soto is absolutely one of those.

A tennis phenom, Carrie is upset to see her championship record beat by a younger player. At 37, Carrie’s been retired from tennis for 5 years now, but once her record is beat, she’s itching to get back on the court and reclaim her title.

Coached by her father, Javier Soto, Carrie’s wins and losses are always filtered through the close relationship she has with her father.

I loved how fierce and unapologetically competitive Carrie is. I felt like TJR was speaking to the double-standard in sports where women are expected to be driven but docile, while men’s outrageous behavior is celebrated as acceptable for them because they’re thought of as stronger and more serious than women.

Carrie’s emotional growth in this novel was a joy to read/listen to. She realistically grew from a competitive, hyper-focused, brash tennis player and person to a “new” Carrie who was still all she was before, but was finally able to form close relationships with others in addition to her father. She didn’t stop being competitive and arrogant—she was still those and much more.

I’m not a huge tennis fan, but I was absolutely on the edge of my seat reading/listening to the matches in this book! TJR did an amazing job describing the action.

If you love TJR or just love fun, emotional, engaging contemporary fiction, give this book a read.

And, if audiobooks are your thing, this is a GREAT one. Stacy Gonzalez does an amazing job narrating Carrie, plus other narrators add fun as tennis announcers, etc. It’s absolutely an exciting listen!

With his usual humor and surrealism, George Saunders returns to the short-story form with this amazing collection. These nine stories are trademark Saunders--surreal, quirky, and fun--but, most importantly, they comment on larger, more profound societal and political issues with astute precision.

I both read and listened to parts of this book, which was enjoyable, especially since many of the stories are narrated by celebrities, including Jack Brayer ("Ghouls"), Melora Hardin ("Mother's Day"), and Tina Fey ("The Bold Mom of Action.". The title story, "Liberation Day," is read by Saunders himself and is the longest story in the collection. In it, people, who come on hard times, can "apply" to be props in rich people's live performances. The "Speakers" literally have their memories wiped out, are restrained against the wall on a stage, and must perform for a person who has the means to pay their families for the ownership. In this case, a trio are performing Custer's Last Stand for Mr. U. and his rich friends. While the main mind-wiped Speaker considers it an honor to do this work, he doesn't remember his family (who are being paid by Mr. U.); he thinks he's in love with Mrs. U, who is molesting him; and he's upset when Mr. U's son Mike brings in a Resistance group intent on taking this indecency down. While funny and action-packed, the whole idea of this seems far-fetched--until you remember how far people will go to survive in today's world, how some are forced to be degraded or harmed just to survive.

All of the pieces in this thought-provoking collection have the same undercurrent. In "Ghoul," Mike, a performer in a twisted theme park called Maws of Hell, is part of a hierarchical and dangerous livelihood where performers are killed if they say out loud that they realize their park never gets any visitors. In "The Mom of Bold Action," a mom gets irrationally angry and vindictive when her son is pushed down by a mentally unstable man. Each story seems to have people made worse or harmed or controlled by a society that, as a whole, has forgotten how to be humane and decent. It's a society that dehumanizes out of selfishness, arrogance, and/or and societal class structures. Is Saunders commenting on where he sees today's America going?

If you're a Saunders's fan, you love this collection. And, if you've never read Saunders or just read his book, Lincoln in the Bardo, I highly suggest you give this collection a try and absolutely read Tenth of December. Both of these collections are filled with stories that will make you chuckle, amaze you with their surreal brilliance, and absolutely make you think and rethink issues that are prevalence in real-life today. Read this and see a short-story master give us readers brilliance to chew on.