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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