June had four books. Apparently July said, We can do better than that. This month I finished eight books, ranging from Greek mythology romantasy and psychic mysteries to college love triangles, emotional beach reads, social satire, dark academia and one…
Some books feel intimate. Some books feel enormous. Great Circle feels enormous. Maggie Shipstead’s sweeping novel follows Marian Graves, a woman who becomes obsessed with flying and ultimately attempts to circumnavigate the globe over both poles. Running alongside Marian’s story…
Some relationships end. That doesn’t necessarily mean they stop being part of your life. Heart the Lover by Lily King is a quiet, emotional novel about first love, friendship, ambition, memory, and the strange way the people we knew when…
At first glance, Heart Bones looks like the perfect summer romance. A beach house. A mysterious boy next door. Two young people with only one summer together. Ocean views. But Colleen Hoover doesn’t exactly specialize in uncomplicated vacations. Heart Bones…
There’s something wonderfully entertaining about a novel where almost everyone is dressed nicely, drinking champagne, standing in a beautiful location—and making absolutely terrible choices. That’s Seating Arrangements. Maggie Shipstead’s debut novel takes place over a three-day wedding weekend on the…
After finishing Blood of Hercules, I apparently wasn’t finished with Alexis—or with the collection of dangerous, emotionally questionable immortals surrounding her. So naturally I moved on to Bonds of Hercules. This is book two in Jasmine Mas’s Villains of Lore…
Some mystery series give you a brilliant detective quietly piecing together clues. The Riley Thorn series gives you psychic abilities, a tattooed private investigator, eccentric elderly neighbors, questionable decisions, accidental disasters, romance, and occasionally severed body parts. Honestly, why choose?…
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang: What If Graduate School Literally Sent You to Hell? There are plenty of jokes about academia being hell. R.F. Kuang apparently looked at that metaphor and thought: Okay, but what if it actually was? Katabasis is…
Apparently, all I needed to make Greek mythology even more chaotic was a sarcastic heroine, a terrifying war academy, morally questionable men, and a whole lot of danger. Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas is the first book in the…
June was a little bit of everything when it came to reading. I went from classic feminist fiction to contemporary romance to psychological thrillers, and somehow ended up with four books that could not have been more different from one…