Keri Blakinger's narrative goes back and forth between her arrival in jail and the experiences that brought her there. She was arrested with heroin, and her case got more attention than most because Blakinger had been a competitive figure skater as a teen, and was a Cornell student at the time of her bust. 

Blakinger's story, in and out of prison is bleak, but as she narrates it in the audiobook isn't so harsh that it's impossible to take in. Her voice is blunt and youthful. She's done some things and seen some things and doesn't shy away from them. She is candid about the race and class privileges that make her story different from those of many of her fellow incarcerees. Now that she is out of prison, her journalism beat is Texas prisons, so she's giving back (and taking names). 

Within the first few pages of the book, college sophomore Lizzie Brandt is caught with her cheating lover and informed that her parents have died, leaving her in charge of her younger siblings (13 and 7). Lizzie is transformed by her new role, but the girl whose boyfriend she was fucking isn't and has it in for Lizzie going forward. Luckily Lizzie has good friends in her two suite mates, a caring next door neighbor at home, and, surprisingly, her tight ass TA turns out to be pretty empathetic.

Adjusting to change and maintaining a GPA while parenting are about more than Lizzie can handle, so of course there's a complicated romance to make things all the more...difficult? Easy? It takes a while to sort that out. 

Zevin, had me at hello

I have my doubts that the love story wouldn't have happened regardless, but "sometimes a girl needs to lose" is a zinger. It's also the Gabrielle Zevin voice that entranced me in her Birthright (chocolate) series and more recently in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. 

As promised by the title, the main character, Naomi, is an amnesiac, rendered so after a fall down a flight of stairs, where she heroically saves the yearbook's new camera, but fails to protect her head. She wakes up as a 16-year-old whose memories only take her through the age of twelve. Naomi the amnesiac wakes to find three boys in her orbit: her rescuer James, her best friend Will, and her boyfriend Ace. Her strongest memories are of James, a hottie who is new to school, so it's not like she's lost time with him anyway. 

Naomi is also adopted, a Russian orphan, an identity that figures in her search for self story.  This isn't my favorite of Zevin's works, but well worth reading. 

Emma Kaplan is showrunner Jo Jones's excellent assistant. We never learn exactly what their age difference is, but I'm guessing about 15 years. Anyway, when Jo takes Emma to a red carpet event, and there's an intimacy to them (that they don't even recognize), the tabloids deem them a couple. Neither is closeted, though neither's sexuality is known to the other. Jo famously doesn't discuss her sex life, and Emma is...an assistant, so who cares. Turns out...they might? It takes a long time for this romance to unfold, and the side characters (Emma's sister Avery and Jo's BFF Evelyn) are more interesting than the leads. It's still a fine read. 

I think non-Christian holiday books and movies are silly, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Christmas movies are silly in a celebrated way. Hanuakkah miracles just don't have the same flair, even if the story is based on a miracle that's not just some baby being born in a barn out of wedlock. Lol, all that being said, the set up for this Passover novel is a set-up. Sam's friend Virginia brings a blind date, Jordan, to Sam's first-night seder. Jordan is a woodworking Sephardic butch by whom Sam is immediately entranced. The problem is that Sam doesn't feel ready to fall in love. The characters are fine, and the sex is sexy. The plot is a little thin, but if you're starved for queer Jewish content, you'll probably like this book. 

Four teens in a Montana town ruled by a megachurch hatch a scheme to rescue themselves from lives they don't want to be living. One of the kids, Genesis, was raised in a cult-turned-community ranch after its charismatic leader who might or might not be her father was sent to jail for financial misdoings. Dustin is a preacher's kid who wants out. Zoe, whose mom is all-in and over her head with the church is just trying to get the lights in her house turned back on and be public with her girlfriend, and Holly is temporarily living with her father after living her worst life with a bunch of rich kids as her friend group in California. They're an unlikely cohort, but the plot comes together plausibly, and the characters make sense. 

This was an okay rendering of grief and queer coming-of-age, but the MC wasn't particularly likable, which is rough for me. 

Oof--Einstein, at least as portrayed her, was a DOUCHE. It's really hard to read how abusive and dismissive he was to his partner. Ugh. The historical part of the book is interesting--what it was like to be a young scientist in turn-of-the-century Europe, including the bigotry against Eastern Europeans and Jews. 

Marlee Matlin overcame a lot to get where she is, and I'm not talking about d/Deafness. She had rocky romantic relationships and maybe not the most solid parenting. Still, she really thrived. I imagine there are a lot of feelings about her in Deaf communities. She has other awkward politics, as well, like being married to a cop. I returned the book before grabbing what she wrote about the uprising after Rodney King's abusers were not convicted, but it was definitely...what someone married to someone in law enforcement would say. 

I thought Minka Kelly was adorable on Friday Night Lights. It's so sad to learn what is behind her sweet-seeming exterior. She was poorly parented by addicts, abusers, and absentees, and before she was a TV star, she was a...scrub nurse!