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We Are All So Good at Smiling by Amber McBride My rating: 4 of 5 stars Beautiful, haunting, a viseral story about how depression feels. View all my reviews

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center My rating: 5 of 5 stars 4.5 stars rounded up. Katherine Center never disappoints. Her characters are sweet, quirky and just so lovable. I really loved this story that's centered around face-blindness and I loved the element of how that impacts the way we move thought the world. I loved the bits around her making art and I loved the way the book made me feel. Center's comments at the end of the book about the romance genre were also very touching and wonderful to read. Here's to more books that lean into hope and positive anticipation. with gratitude to netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. View all my reviews

When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book was nominated for my book club but didn't get picked. I was curious so I decided to read it anyway and I am so glad I did. What a marvelous story and so well told. I knew almost nothing about the refugee camps and what day to day can look like and i really loved reading this story of love and perseverance. View all my reviews

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff My rating: 4 of 5 stars 4.5 stars This was perfect on audio! I loved the characters and I really enjoyed the way they interacted with each other. It's funny and fun to read. Recommeded. View all my reviews

The Block Party by Jamie Day My rating: 4 of 5 stars I love reading these neighborhood mystery stories. This is the story of a group of families who live in the same block and how their lives intersect and crescendo into a murder during the annual block party. You know there's been a murder right at the beginning but you don't know who or why. And then the book rewinds and tells you the story of the families and how they overlap with each other and piece by piece you start seeing all the secrets and it keeps you guessing until the very end. Nothing is really what it seems and everyone has multiple secrets. I really enjoyed my time with this one. with gratitude to netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review View all my reviews

Everything's Fine by Cecilia Rabess My rating: 3 of 5 stars I know this book has garnered a lot of controversy for the blurb. The blurb is unacceptable and also not representative of the book. I don't know if this author wrote their own blurb or even had a say in it. If so, this egregious mistake should have been caught and corrected. If not, I want to make sure we don't punish the author for something they had no say over. This is the story of Jess and Josh. It's mostly the story of Jess navigating spaces where as a black woman she's consistently in the minority and undermined. She's incredibly smart and very hard working and yet consistently experiences racism, misogamy, and some micro and some macro-agressions. Josh stands up for her sometimes but then lets her down spectacularly other times. His political and personal beliefs are wildly opposed to Jess' and yet he is also kind and loving to her and truly seems to think...

Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley My rating: 5 of 5 stars I put off reading this book because I knew it was going to be really, really sad. And it was. It was so incredibly sad. It was beautifully written and living close to Oakland and visiting Oakland at least 5-6 times a month, it felt like I should read this story that's based on some horrific true events. I am glad I read it but it also was really sad. View all my reviews

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado My rating: 4 of 5 stars I took a while to read this book because I knew it was going to be really sad. And it was. The horrible story of abuse and gaslighting told through a creative and beautiful memoir reminds you that abuse is not reserved for a certain kind of relationship and it exists between same-sex. relationships too. It's heart wrenching and brutal. View all my reviews

Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire My rating: 5 of 5 stars This might be one of my all-time most favorite series to read. The Wayward children series is so creative, so original and each of the books is so unique. This one might be one of my favorites in a long time, which is a little odd to say because the subject matter is so tough and so heart wrenching. I really really appreciated the author's note in the beginning, it allowed me to enjoy the story and be present instead of triggering the whole time. I felt so much compassion and love towards Antoinette, who loses her father and her life from thereon is never the same. One day, she walks through a door and finds herself in the place where the lost things go. But like all the places in these books, things aren't what they first seem. This book is so sad and yet so very beautiful. I really loved the themes around innocence, loss and time. with gratitude to netgalley and Macmilla...

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka My rating: 4 of 5 stars This story was hard to follow for quite a bit of the beginning but eventually I couldn't stop reading because I wanted to know what happened to Maali and what the photos were about. As the story slowly unravels, we learn so much about Sri Lanka's political situation and get to know these amazing and interesting characters. This book has some of the best one-liners I've read anywhere. It's visual, rich and an experience unlike anything. But it also requires patience and endurance to be willing to stick with it. View all my reviews

Gone Tonight by Sarah Pekkanen My rating: 4 of 5 stars 3.5 stars, rounded up I really liked this fast-paced story about Catherine who is a nurse at an elderly home and her mother, Ruth. They have been together all their lives and have a very close dependable relationship. Until things start to unravel. Catherine catches her mother in one lie, and then another, until she is not sure she can believe anything her mom says and their paths start forking. This story goes back and forth between the present time and Ruth's diary entires about her past. While I liked the diary entries, it felt a bit like telling more than showing so made those parts of the story feel like I was reading someone's synopsis of a book. Unlike so many mystery books, this one didn't have any dislikable characters and I found myself rooting both for the mom and the daughter. I read this one in a single sitting and I am sure you will, too. With gratitude to netgalley and ...

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty My rating: 4 of 5 stars I can be hit or miss on Moriarty's books and I didn't want something that was a gimmick so I kept picking this book up and putting it back down. But as my vacation winds down, I felt the pull towards something light and flowing. And I knew she would deliver. This book turned out to be surprising for me. There wasn't one big twist or revelation. In fact, as woman who's been married 20+ years with teenage kids, there was a lot of interesting food for thought in this story if you're willing to look past the superficial bits. It was an interesting narrative on the stories we tell ourselves and how time and experiences can alter our perspective in ways that feel irredeemable. And yet how we always (at any moment) have the option to change the course of our life and choose what we remember or where we shine the light. Resentment breeds more resentment and gratitude breeds more ...

The Third Person by Emma Grove My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is the story of Emma who is transgender and trying to get approval for hormone replacement therapy. So she starts seeing a therapist and slowly they uncover that she has a history of trauma and Dissociative Identity Disorder. The rest of the book is Emma struggling with her therapist and his lack of professionalism and ability to deal with her disorder (in fact, I'd say the therapist is abusive too often.) and her journey working her way through some of her trauma, etc. It's really heart wrenching in parts and really disorienting in others. It made me feel really angry at incompetent therapists who do more harm than good and it also broke my heart completely to read all the trauma she had to endure as a little girl. People can be so very cruel. Many people commented on how big this book is, since I read it as an ebook I didn't realize that until I started it but to me, it was a f...