TL;DR: this book is fantastic. It’s very queer, has excellent fat rep, good steamy scenes, features a celebrity/non-celebrity romance, and has found family and a diverse cast of characters.

This book made me cry tears of joy!! I can’t describe how great it is to see fat joy in books, especially queer ones! Our MC is fat and lesbian, and is so relatable to those of us with impostor syndrome and a fear of disappointing people.

One of the things I love most is the MC’s found family. She has a group of friends that rally for her and with her. The friend group is just so amazing. I love the love story and think it’s so well done. There’s also a fun Aunt with her own group of friends!

Definitely recommend for the romance fans 💕

This is one of the most important books I will ever read. This sat unread on my shelf for over a year because I was intimidated by the size and the content. But I am so so glad I finally picked it up. I read this with a (white) friend, and it made the experience that much more impactful. I feel like I got more out of it being able to discuss the different ways slavery and racism still impact our society today and how we have benefitted from white privilege.

I highly recommend reading this book. I knew that what I learned in school was not completely accurate, but I did not realize HOW inaccurate. This book taught me so much, but also made me realize how much more learning I have to do. I never doubted systemic racism was still ingrained in America today, but this book showed me so much of where our racist laws, regulations, policies, and systems came from and how they are able to continue to persist.

One of the biggest takeaways that I had from reading The 1619 Project was that African Americans and Black Americans built this nation and have fought so hard and contributed so much to make it what it is today, but this country continually treats them as less than. That despite being enslaved and being threaten terribly, Black people in the early days of America wanted to be a part of this country and experience the freedom they deserved. The stories of resilience in this book really stood out to me.

Again, I can’t recommend this book enough. I am so thankful to Nikole and all of the authors that contributed to this book. In between each chapter, there are poems, short stories, and photos that really add to painting a picture of the history of our country. This book really shows how much perspective affects our interpretations and teaching of history.

First of all, this book has a fat female MC. We love to see it!! Secondly, she is obsessed with true crime and is writing a dissertation on it for her PhD. I found this story to be really cute and funny, as it was a nice switch-up from usual rom coms. The main character, Phoebe, was a bit annoying at times, but overall I really liked this book!

If you liked Last Night At The Telegraph Club, you will LOVE this. This YA novel follows Aria during the summer after her senior year of high school, as she experiences slut shaming, first love, longing, grief, and gets a dose of adulthood. This sapphic story is not really a romance, but I could feel the feelings so strongly throughout the book.

This book made me smile and tear up, and I felt so many emotions throughout. I loved the main character and her relationships with her various family members, even if some were messy. I got so drawn into this story & was so invested. An amazing YA that the youth needed. Highly recommend it! The audiobook is fantastic.

 I absolutely loved this book! Its about an author who anonymously communicates with a fan that he falls for and ends up living down the hall from. FIRSTLY, the first part of this book is all emails which I LOVE. I love digital communication in books. Secondly this slow build was just what I needed. There’s not a ton of steamy scenes but the build up is 🔥 this Black love story is just perfect.

The female MC has two close (and sometimes overbearing) sisters and an amazing big family. The male MC has a found family that makes me so happy. Lily is such an interesting main character to me as she seems reserved and also full of so much love!!

I also appreciate how this book highlights the issues with the publishing industry, such as lack of diversity and failure to promote marginalized authors, editors, etc.

This romance had me swooning. An amazing debut romance!! And I can’t wait for the next book in the series 😎 highly recommend this!!

The author is in an online book club I am also in, so it’s been much discussed in the book club. Don’t let this cover fool you - this book is not a sweet romance. This story covers grief, loss, heartbreak, friendship, and mental health. I’d heard such good things about this book, so I was excited to be able to read it. It was not as amazing as I had expected it to be, and wanted it to be.

But the book was really good, especially at the end. It just took a bit to get to the really good parts! It is very emotional and I was very invested in the characters. Throughout the book, there are references to future events at the end of almost every chapter, which got a little repetitive. But I loved how this story was told in third-person omniscient. The love interest was very whiny and annoying at parts, which I did not love.

I’ve had mixed feelings about Emily’s books in the past, so when I started this and was annoyed by the miscommunication/lying premise in the first 20 pages, I assumed I wouldn’t like this one. But I ended up LOVING it!

I fell in love with the friend group & main character despite their flaws. This book does such a good job of showing how friendships evolve and change as we get older and enter into different stages of life. And the complicated romance in this book gave me all the feels.

Happy Place contains discussions of grief, depression, and other mental health topics. These topics were handled well in my opinion, and felt so real and raw.

The story is told in the present with flashbacks mixed in. I think this really added to the story!! I definitely got emotional reading this.

So glad the author included queer and POC side characters. We definitely didn’t need another mostly/all white and cis-het book from Emily.

I am not sure I can come up with the words to describe how incredible this book is. This story is about Maddie, who has lived her life trying to please her family and is a “late bloomer,” as she finally sets out to create a life for herself. There are details about Ghanaian culture woven into the story which is very cool. And this book is set in London!

There are depictions of racial microaggressions that Maddie experiences throughout the book, from her flat mates, coworkers, love interest, and strangers. George did an amazing job of weaving these in and showing Black womens’ experiences. And the depictions of mental health struggles were so relatable. I really enjoyed the stream of consciousness writing style of this.

The audiobook is FAB for this. The narrator does an excellent job of matching the writing style. Would definitely read on audio if you’re an audiobook person!!

Loved this novella! Amazing fat rep. 

A very cute and good romance!! I loved the character development.