While I hated considerably less books than I did last month, I don’t know that I’ll ever write a book review better than that one. So don’t get your hopes up.

Here’s what I read in April! Don’t forget that all sales from the links in this post go to benefit Twice Told Tales: our new/ used bookstore in McPherson KS.

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The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentil
Download the audiobook here.
Order your copy here or in person at Twice Told Tales

I really like this author’s works–I LOVED The Woman in the Library and I might even have liked this one more than that if it weren’t for all the… tedious inaccuracies that I kept catching throughout the piece. It’s so important to get a reader/ editor from the place where you’re going to set your book if you’re not terribly familiar with it.

It felt like there was a lot of research done to determine, say, the names of streets and certain landmark businesses in Lawrence, which was fun! Love it when my favorite bookshops and restaurants get a shout out in fiction! But then other basic things were overlooked. For example, an American would never say “I just got out of hospital.” They’d say, “I just got out of the hospital.” I know it’s small but it really sounds strange to an American ear. Also, there’s no such thing as the Kansas Police Department. Here, it’s the [City] Police Department (so, in this case, Lawrence Police Department) or the [State} Bureau of Investigation (Kansas Bureau of Investigation). 

Anyway, if you’re not an insufferable snob like me, and you really enjoy mysteries and have even a passing interest in the conspiracy-theory community, you’ll probably love this book!

When You Are Mine by Kennedy Ryan
Listen to the audiobook here.
Order the paperback here.

What… the fuck, Kennedy Ryan. And I don’t mean that in a good way. Technically, I didn’t finish this book. But I read 90% of it. Until I realized that it was part of a duology and this story would not be resolved at the end. At which point I actually threw this book in the trash so no one else would be subjected to it. YOU’RE WELCOME, MCPHERSON KANSAS.

All the marketing for this story makes it seem like such a fun rom-com. A cutie girl who grew up in foster care with few resources starts her own vintage resale shop and falls for a dark and broody millionaire in a forbidden lovers trope. Fun right? NO! Everyone has endured the worst trauma imaginable. And the author goes into too much detail. Like, a lot a lot of detail. Which would be fine if it served the plot in any way but it does not at all.

Content warnings for childhood neglect, severe childhood SA, kidnapping, graphic description of a shooting, spousal r*pe as a form of punishment (which, by the way, no one–including the author, seemed to think was a big deal. They kept saying, “I’m so glad he didn’t hurt her.” What the fuck you guys.) And there’s probably more but I definitely quit after the last one.

Anyway–Kennedy Ryan has been getting so much attention lately! This is one of her earlier works, so I am eager to read a more recent book of hers. But I checked the reviews on StoryGraph and it sounds like her books generally have a lot of trauma in them. So… we’ll see.

Worry by Alexandra Tanner
Download the audiobook here.
Buy the hardcover here or in-store at Twice Told Tales.

Ordinarily I don’t enjoy books in the “depressed twenty-something woman who lives in NYC” genre but I rather enjoyed this one. Maybe because it’s about sisters and I currently have such a complex, non-relationship with my sister that a story about sisters who love each other–even if they hate each other, was what my soul needed. But also, this story stayed on the humorous side of realistic. It didn’t get too depressing but it still felt very honest.

I liked the way that this book found a way to put words to the existential yearning of “god I wish I could just put down my phone and live my life!” Also it made me miss my sister.

Till Death Do Us Part by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn (pub date: Aug 13)
Pre-Order the Audiobook here.
Pre-Order the hardcover here.

Sometimes I need to hear from someone else before I know exactly how I feel about a book. And this is one of them. That’s why as soon as I finished this book, I gave it to my book bestie, Shulah. She loves mysteries and thrillers like I do. She also loves wine and this book takes place in the wine world (really made a case for natural wines and now I want to try some out).

Ten years ago June’s husband (to whom she’d been married for only a week) drowned and his body was never recovered. Now, a decade later, she’s ready to settle down with a new husband and a new life. But… suddenly she starts seeing her first husband almost everywhere she goes. And before she can commit to this new life, she needs to find out if she’s just seeing things or if he really is alive.

Funny Story by Emily Henry
Download the audiobook here. (My favorite narrator by far.)
Order the hardcover copy here or in-store at Twice Told Tales

THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEEN LOOOOKING FORRRR!!! I’m sad this book is over because wow I loved it. It’s everything I want in a romance. It’s Emily Henry’s best work IMO. It busted me out of my reading rut thank goodness.

Daphne and her fiance Peter break up when Peter leaves her for his best friend, Petra. Petra leaves her long-time boyfriend, Miles to hook up with Peter. Which leaves Daphne out on the street and Miles with a free room in his apartment. So they become roommates.

The banter: impeccable. The fake dating: somehow perfectly believable. The side characters: utterly delightful. The spicy bits: maddening. In a great way. I have no complaints about this book and considering the mood I’ve been in lately–that’s nearly a miracle.

(In the middle of writing this a customer asked me what I’m obsessed with, and I so quickly sold this book to her. I worry that I overhyped it? But I know I didn’t.)

Open Wide: A Cookbook for Friends by Benny Blanco
Order here.

I read this book from page 1, skipping nothing. I think Benny Blanco is such a weirdo with a big heart. The way he talks about stuff is just strange and delightful and he seems to always default to a position of generosity when he talks about other people. Reading about how he stocks his kitchen is such a treasure. Hearing why he likes certain foods or memories of times with buddies is so endearing and also hilarious.

What I loved about this book is the way it’s organized. When I was just mindlessly flipping through it felt so random to me. One page you have a recipe for tres leches cake, another page you have a recipe for fried chicken, then a breakfast burrito, then oatmeal cookies. But once I sat down to read it, I recognized that each chapter is split up into different menus that he would make for different themed parties with his friends! Which is honestly the only way that I ever want a cookbook to be organized for as long as I live. Never again do I want to be expected to come up with my own menu.

Anyway–will I ever make anything from this book? Probably not. I have so many cookbooks and I still get all my recipes from Pinterest. I’m just gonna pass it off to a buddy so they can enjoy.

April started off kinda shitty in the reading dept but we ended on such a high note! Spring has sprung baby!

I’ve had a serious case of… readers block? Is that what it’s called? A rut? Eh. Anyway, I just haven’t felt like listening to my audiobooks and I’ve been reading my physical books even more slowly than usual. And that’s how I ended up reading one, solitary book in March. Which is actually great because I need space to air my grievances. In this essay, I will…

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‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
Buy the paperback here.
Download the audiobook here.

Three Truths from My Life:
1. From my calculations, 75% of the people I’ve met, describe themselves as “huge” Stephen King fans.
2. When I explain that I’ve never read a Stephen King horror book before and ask each of these people what I should start with, every single person told me a different title. And he has written enough books that, mathematically, this fact adds up.
3. When I figure I can’t go wrong with anything (due to the vastness of answers), and then tell people which book I settled on, without fail, everyone made a face like they were swallowing a burp and said, “Oh no.”

So that felt cool!

First of all, it’s “APOSTRAPHE Salem’s Lot”. Because the town is actually called Jerusalem’s Lot. Which means, is this book actually pronounced “suh-lem’s lot”?

Secondly, even though every single one of you (I guess I’m just writing this as a letter from me to the whole Church of Stephen King) told me (way too late I might add), that you hated this book, no one explained to me why they hated it. If it was the story, I actually didn’t mind the story at all. If I had known it was a vampire novel, I never would have picked it up (I can not emphasize how much research I did not do before deciding on this book–I literally picked the one that felt best in my hand). That being said, the story was captivating! I really liked the primary characters (and even a few of the side characters–those that I could keep straight. Even the baddest bad guys were compelling). But UGH I hated his writing style.

You could rip off the first 200 pages of this book and not miss a thing. I can sum up the whole Part 1 in two sentences: This story takes place in Maine. It is gloomy.

I was prepared for 1970’s sensibilities and tried not to hold them against him. The f-slur is very prominent. The way he talks about women, fat people, gay people, Black people, Asians, Mexicans, disabled people, old people… (almost) all people is straight up gruesome.

I like to read dark and twisty thrillers. I’m not too sensitive to read a brutal scene every now and again if it serves the story. But this was on another level. The excruciating detail that he included in one particular scene where a man is beating his wife made me feel like if I was Stephen King’s wife and I read that, I’d sleep with one eye open. But when it was over, I thought for sure that with that much detail, this was going to come back into the story to play an important role. I even predicted how it could potentially serve the story. But no. Nothing much really even happens with those characters. That was more or less the end of their story. I just felt like the author really wanted to feel what it was like to hit a woman. And then make millions off of it.

The insistence on explaining the minutia of every single thing really obliterated any momentum or even tension that happened to build. We’ll be in a really wild part of the story and in the middle, the character catches a whiff of something that reminds them of, I don’t know, a tuna fish sandwich that he saw his fifth grade teacher eating one day. So, now we have to dedicate the next six pages to this fifth grade teacher and her life story and where she moved to once she retired and what it looked like as she chewed. Or whatever. And then when you’re nearly falling asleep, you remember we were in the middle of the climax of this story! So we get back to that. And that happens over and over and over and over again for 662 pages.

Sure, there’s an argument to be made for over explaining everything but this is an essay on why I don’t like Stephen King. I honestly think it all comes down to I don’t like the way this man wastes so much of the reader’s time. It doesn’t feel like this man writes with the reader or even the story in mind–it feels like he does it all for himself. Which is his prerogative, I suppose. It’s all so he can prove that he can get in there and experience what it’s like to touch this tree or beat the ever loving shit out of a pretty girl.

NOW, I say all of this with the full understanding that this book was not only written in 1975 but that King was coked out of his mind and that this was only his second book, and that authors grow and change in their craft like any other artist. If his current Twitter presence is any indication, I’m sure that he has grown and changed as the culture has shifted and as he’s gotten sober. I’m sure as a person he’s excellent. But I don’t feel compelled to pick up another one of his books any time soon.

I think that if I had discovered Stephen King’s writings in the 1990’s like all my peers did, I’d probably have a really nostalgic place in my heart for him and collect him like they do. And I don’t begrudge anyone for having that at all. But having sampled him in 2024, there are a lot of other places that I’m going to turn for my horror needs moving forward. Authors like Tananarive Due, Toni Morrison, and Stephen Graham Jones are where I’m going to be looking.

I’ve never written this much about a single book outside of school. The irony is not lost on me.

PS: In the spirit of “I’ll try anything twice,” a friend at book club did convince me to give The Shining a try and I believe I’ll do it. Not any time soon. But one day.

Woof. I’m ending February in a reading slump. I’m just in one of those moods. I don’t want to listen to any audiobooks because I haven’t got the attention and all my physical books are a trudge. That’s okay though because the two books I read in February were incredible 5* reads. Honestly–I think I’m just struggling to get anything to follow up after these two.

Between these two books I read this month and the Kiley Reid and Tia Williams books I read last month, I think that I’m ready to admit: I need way, way, way more literature by Black women in my life in 2024. So, I’m excited to be more intentional with that.

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Token by Beverley Kendall
Download the audiobook here. (OH! She’s currently on sale for less than $5!!)
Order the physical copy here.
(Or as of the moment of this blog post, we have a used copy at Twice Told Tales.)

After her most recent experience of being the Token Black Girl at a corporate gig, Kennedy Mitchell decides she’s done doing this work for free. She and her best friend team up to begin Token, their boutique PR firm that helps “diversity-challenged” companies and celebrities.

This is a cute, fun romance with all the typical romance tropes–but this one has such a cool and realistic foundation! It has a short fake-dating moment (the most unrealistic, eye-roll-inducing trope IMO) which required no suspension of belief on my part! I look forward to more books by Beverley Kendall in the future!

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi
Download the audiobook here.
Order the book here.
(Or as of the moment of this blog post, we have a used copy at Twice Told Tales.)

Akwaeke Emezi writes in so many genres. I read The Death of Vivek Oji a few years ago and was really enchanted by her grasp of the complexities of grief and the way she walks with her characters through it. But she also has excellent YA and even Children’s books.

YMAFODWYB (only complaint, that title is too damn long) is technically a “romance” but when it came to shelving it in my store, I couldn’t put it in there. This book has a few sex scenes but that is not all it takes to make a book a romance! This book has grit and grief and ooooh it is messy. Feyi is a messy, messy bitch. And we adore her. We are rooting for her. Even in the complexity of love and grief and struggle.

I realize I didn’t tell you what this book was about but who cares. Just go read it and then let’s chat.

January

How to Sell A Haunted House by Grady Hendrix 4/5

Weyward by Emilia Hart 5/5

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (re-read) 5/5

The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell 4.50/5

February

I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai 4.50/5

March

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson 4.75/5

Four Winds by Kristin Hannah 5/5

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert 3.75/5

April

The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren 4/5

A Likely Story by Leigh McMullan Abramson 4/5

Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile 4/5

Happy Place by Emily Henry 4.5/5

May

You Were Always Mine by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza 4.5/5

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld 5/5

The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer 4.75/5

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver 5/5

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe 5/5

June

The Museum of Ordinary People by Mike Gayle 4.5/5

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 4/5

The Whispers by Ashley Audrain 3.75/5

My Murder by Katie Williams 3/5

July

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 5/5

Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens 5/5

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher 4.50/5

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll 5.5/5

August

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston 4/5

Firebirdy by Sunmi 4/5

Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena 4.75/5

My Name is Iris by Brando Skyhorse 4/5

None of This is True by Lisa Jewell 5/5

On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to be Good by Elise Loennen 4/5

September

The Couple at No. 9 by Claire Douglas 5/5

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell 3.75/5

Not Like the Movies by Kerry Winfrey 4.5/5

October

The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman 3/5

All The Feels by Olivia Dade 5/5

The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young 5.5/5

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides 4/5

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam 2/5

November

Curves for Days by Laura Moher 5/5

The Only One Left by Riley Sager 3.75/5

The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon 4/5

The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose 4.5/5

O Pioneers by Willa Cather 4/5

For Never and Always by Helena Greer 5/5

December

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters 4/5

Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings 3.75/5

Here in the Dark by Alexis Soloski 3.5/5

Season of Love by Helena Greer 5/5