What I Read in April 2025

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April 26, 2025 marks the first time I’ve missed being a bookstore owner since we sold the shop back in September. It was Independent Bookstore Day and I kept remembering the dramatics of how that day felt. You’re so excited so you make big plans! Like stuffing give-away bags or bringing in musicians or pop-up shops or planning an extra special story time–and then the day before you find a way to convince yourself that there’s no way anyone’s showing up and you’ve just wasted a ton of money on things no one will use and you won’t be able to pay rent and then you’ll have to close your store and the world will end and then and then and then…

And then inevitably–the whole community shows up and buys you clean out of everything. Which is both a blessing and a curse. Such is life as a small business owner!

Anyway, I promoted the hell out of different indie bookstores across the country to my dozens of followers on instagram and it felt really good. I feel like I have a unique perspective as someone who has a lot of insight into the world of bookselling and small business ownership but no longer has to keep a customer-service personality at all times. I feel like I have a lot to say in that regard but I have no idea what people want to know. I’m really good at answering questions or chatting about a topic presented to me–not so good at coming up with the topic myself. Which is why this blog has had one singular theme for the past… 4? years?

April also marks another first since I sold the store–I read an audiobook!! 😀 I’m back, baby!! Anyway–let’s get into what we’ve been reading.

Out of the Woods by Hannah Bonam-Young

One of my dear internet friends, Jackie, had an HBY author event at her store in Florida. When it was over, she sent me a signed copy of this ARC because she knew how much I loved the last book in this series. Jackie and I didn’t even meet through being booksellers! I love the internet even more than I hate it.

Anyway I ADORED this book! Oh, I related to this main character so much. She and her husband have been married for 10 years and she is in kind of an “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life” sort of space right now. Sound like someone else you know (points at self)? She even had a parent die just after she graduated from high school (just like me). Uncanny.

Anyway–she and her husband are feeling a little… stagnant in their marriage and decide that they need to go on a week-long couples’ camping trip in the wilderness. Even though neither of them have ever gone camping before. So fun.

I liked this book because of the way that Hannah Bonam-Young can take romance (a genre that can, let’s be honest, get kind of repetitive at times) and turn it into something that we’ve never seen before. I mean I, at least, have never read a contemporary romance about a married couple! Usually once they get married, they become supporting characters in other stories within the series but they’re done. They lived happily ever after, after all right? Well… maybe not.

Anyway–because of her ability to spin this genre on its head while keeping what we love about it, I’m a loyalty reader of HBY from now on.

Now, onto something completely different…

A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

I found myself at Red Fern Booksellers in Salina KS and while I was there I saw the cover of this book and I was drawn in. First of all–something about reading books that take place in the south is almost a guaranteed yes for me. I don’t know why. And I had no idea what I was looking at with this cover but I loved it. But finally, I saw this was written by T. Kingfisher–an author that most of my friends are obsessed with. The only other thing I’ve ever read by her was a middle grade book about a baking wizard who has a sourdough starter as a familiar and a gingerbread man that sits on her shoulder everywhere she goes. Highly recommend, btw.

But generally speaking I’m not that into middle-grade OR fantasy. So that was kind of a one-off for me. But this was a horror book–and I’ve been trying to get myself out of my contemporary romance rut. So I snagged this. And DAMN IT WAS SO GOOD!

Look, I can’t tell you what this book is about but I can tell you that it’s hilarious. So even when it’s scary–the tension relaxes a lot with the narrator’s side-track rants or little jokes. Which is what I need in my horror, tbh. The rest that I can give you is just a list of words and phrases and hope it’s enough to convince you to read it: grandma’s house, rose. garden. filled with. thorns, suburbia, buried family secrets (literally), and… VULTURES.

Oh! And then I read an audiobook in two days. Finally. I’ve missed plowing through books and that’s basically the only way that I can do that.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

This is one of those that I keep hearing about everywhere–everyone saying it’s so good. And I gotta agree. I loved this one!

At first I worried that it was just going to be a typical sad-girl-book (which used to be my bread and butter but I just can not abide these days, personally). And, sure, there’s a sad girl. But… nah. You know, plot-wise it’s a LITTLE like A Man Called Ove. LOL!

Our main character goes to a really fancy hotel to… how do people on the internet say this? Unalive herself. But then she runs into a bride who is hosting her wedding in this hotel this week and she begs her not to ruin her wedding by making everyone look at a corpse being wheeled through the lobby in the morning. A fair ask, I think. Despite the bummer-sounding opening, this book was really funny and really endearing. I can see it being turned into an excellent dark rom-com starring Allison Brie as Phoebe and Julia Garner as Lila. (I do want to say that in addition to suicide there’s an infertility and divorce theme running through as well.)

Anyway–I love the way that books have these somewhat kooky premisses so that they can really dig into something a lot bigger. Like, this book is ultimately about the way that it’s so hard to ask for what you need. Or even recognize it, sometimes. And A House With Good Bones has to do with generational trauma and also about how sometimes the people who hurt us the most have a lot of hurt inside of them, too.

All of these were five star reads for me! And I’m excited about the books I’ve snagged to read in May, too!

What I Read in March of 2025

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I do find it ironic that immediately upon starting my reading instagram account, I took a month off from reading at all. I don’t know what happened here–it’s like my brain said, “Hold ON! The books from February were just too good and I’m not ready to move on!”

Actually, that’s not true. I know exactly what happened. It’s that when I’m reading, it’s very tempting to look at my phone. I am constantly Googling while reading. I want to get a visual for what’s happening in the story. Like when the author says that the main character walked out in a stunning, backless, emerald green, high neck mini dress with blouson sleeves. And I’m like, “Wait… backless AND high-neck? And blouson sleeves? This sounds heinous. Give me a second.” And then this pops up and I’m like, “Ohhhh”. That’s very helpful to me.

But then after I Google the dress or the location of a story or a song that someone is singing in the book, then my thumb immediately hovers over Facebook or Instagram and I’m sucked back into the “real world” (is it?) where I’m hearing about the latest abhorrent thing someone in our administration has done.

My tension gets high and I start feeling knots in my stomach and I feel the need to share all the shit that is making me feel this way so that I’m not alone in feeling this way. But… GOD why would I want other people to feel this way?! I’m no one’s news source they don’t have to hear it from me. I recently started implementing a practice wherein if I must share information that sends me into a rage–I immediately share a video of something silly to balance it. So… for example, someone is making plans for war in a group chat instead of congress? Cool. Here’s that but also… here’s a video of a schnauzer in rain boots.

Anyway, last week I was falling back into old patterns of feeling bad for things that no one should ever feel bad for. Like, not reading “enough”? Or creating a bookstagram account and then not posting on it for a month. But, like, what’s the purpose of reading? To have fun. For me the whole point is to have fun. It’s fun when I do it! It’s not fun when I give myself homework.
Why did I create that account? Was it to be a consistency queen or get a certain number of followers? No, it was so that I could have a space to post on my grid about what I was reading and to have another place to scroll (when I must scroll) that doesn’t have an algorithm filled with weight loss ads and Elon Musk’s face. So, honestly, on both fronts I’m winning.

Yesterday I was zoning out, scrolling for my allotted 15 minutes at a time on Instagram and I happened upon Elsie Larson’s IG stories. She talked about how during her social media break she finished writing her first novel. Someone asked her, “When will your book be released?” And she said something along the lines of, “I’m not sure it’ll ever be released. That’s not necessarily why I wrote it.” And the way I put my phone down for a second and had to talk to myself about it.

I responded and was honestly shocked that she wrote me back. I’m always astonished when people who have a billion followers respond to my messages. The world is wild. But this is it exactly. This is the energy I want to build into my 4th decade on this planet. I’m no longer doing things because I want to find success in it. I’m doing shit because I want to find enjoyment in it. And that’s it. That’s what it’s all about for me.

Anyway–sprinkled throughout this post are photos of things that I found enjoyment in this month that weren’t reading:
-Finishing Severance and then finally allowing myself to indulge in all the silly fan theories and memes.
-Happening upon a mural that reminded me of my best friend’s kid.
-This Christmas Cactus that my dear friend gave to me and when she did I was like, “Oof this is not going to survive me.” But look at her thriving!
-Taking makeup-free selfies.
-Endless video calls with Kinzie as we continue to build out our second round of the Empowerment Experience (which will start on April 8 and I can’t be more thrilled).
-Sitting on the porch in our new patio furniture while Nala fixates on a spot where she one time saw a baby snake.


Not pictured:
-Endless hours of me playing The Sims 4 and recreating my favorite TV characters homes (most recently Carrie Bradshaw moved to town and she’s struggling as a freelance writer and looking for love).
–This YouTube account which follows a delightful man who, in the midst of burnout and grief, bought a cottage in the Scottish countryside and is working (pretty much alone and with relatively basic skills) to fix it up and make his life more beautiful. I feel so proud of him and it makes me want to find and add more beauty to my own life.
-Dates with Ryan. This month I took him on a surprise date. We only went to the movies (we saw Micky 17 which I found deeply hilarious and excellent–much to my surprise) but the fact that I wouldn’t tell him anything about what we were doing was actually more fun than anything we could have done. Well, that and the fact that we blew the budget we were going to use on dinner at the concession stand.

Where are you finding enjoyment these days?

What I Read in February 2025

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I don’t recall if I mentioned this last month or not but my primary reading goal for this year is to spend more time with books that I’m really enjoying and not absolutely plow through them. I don’t know if my reading habits have actually changed with this goal or not but I do know that my perspective about it has changed in a way that I like a lot. 

I used to say: I’m a really slow reader.
Now I say: I’m enjoying this book, so I’m spending more time with it.

This is almost always true because if I am not enjoying a book right off the bat, I DNF that thing so fast. So any book I’m spending much time with is a book I’m enjoying!

In addition to spending February reading a whopping two books—this coming week also marks one month with Nala already! Getting to know one another has been more challenging than I expected. She’s only our second dog but we had Fiona for seven years so I felt like I was kind of an expert dog owner. That’s so funny because now I realize I was an expert at Fiona.

Fiona and Nala are so different. Fiona was so treat motivated and Nala only wants certain treats and only when she is in the mood. You could set your watch by Fiona. She wanted to wake up at the same time every day, go to the bathroom at the same times every day, eat at the same times every day and she’d make it happen. Nala… takes her time waking up. I get up before she does and she stays asleep for as long as she wants to. I make her breakfast and sometimes she eats it right away and sometimes it sits there for a little while. She’s very “I’ll get to it when I get to it”. There are so many differences and we’re still learning how to communicate with each other. I’m remaining curious and trying to let her just be who she is. We’ll figure one another out in due time.

On to the books!

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

Ryan and I took a trip to Watermark books and I had a vague memory that Grady Hendrix had a new book coming out. So I asked about it and the bookseller’s eyes lit up. She grabbed this and pressed it into my hands and said, “Oh it is sooo good!” Then she immediately told me about how excellently this author described the horror of experiencing a pelvic exam for the first time. She said, “I can tell that he was instructed by people who have been through it and he really listened.” Most interesting book review I’ve ever received from a stranger. Especially because I actually didn’t know the first thing about this book. I just knew that I liked the last Grady Hendrix book I read and wanted to read this one.

So this book takes place in a home for unwed mothers in the 1970’s. And I’m struggling to want to tell you any other part of the part of the story. It’s not that there’s a lot of spoilers or anything but it’s more that I want you to experience it for yourself.

There wasn’t a single moment of this book where I wasn’t absolutely hooked. Nothing was boring. There were no lulls at all. It was a wild-ride. As I understand it, Grady Hendrix usually writes really campy horror books! How to Sell a Haunted House definitely felt that way and all the other books that people recommend to me by him sound that way. But I wouldn’t describe this as campy and silly at all. It was scary. It was real. It was horrifying. It was a love letter to all of the girls who spent time in these homes–abandoned by their families at such an unbearably vulnerable time of their lives.

I do recommend reading the content warnings on StoryGraph before you start reading. This book is about teenagers (one character is 12) who are pregnant. At least one character was a victim of abuse. There are a few different scenes of childbirth (and Grady Hendrix can be quite graphic at times). Also, the babies are removed from their mothers. There’s a lot of heartbreak in this book but I can’t help but notice the worst parts of this story are the things that actually happened to children all across our country before Roe v. Wade.

The Love Lyric by Kristina Forest

You know what I love about Instagram (there are plenty of things that I am struggling with at the moment) is the way that we are able to follow and interact with all kinds of people that we admire. For me it’s my favorite authors.

I started following Kristina Forest after I read The Neighbor Favor. I like her! She’s a lovely follow. So when she started talking about how her latest book about the Greene sisters. I’d only read the first one so I went down to my local bookstore and pre-ordered The Love Lyric!

One thing about me–I’m uninterested in reading a series “in order”. If a series needs to be read in a specific order, I’m not reading it anyway. I hate a series, honestly. I’ll read books that take place in the same universe that work as stand-alones. But when that story is over I want the story to be over. It’s bad enough when my favorite television show ends on a cliffhanger and I have to wait a week to see what happens. But if I have to wait years? Why would I do that to myself? Why do you all do that to yourself?

Annnyway–tangent over. After the last book I needed a pallet cleanser so I reached for my absolute go-to genre: romance written by Black women. These books just never let me down, man!

This book has all my favorite tropes: normal person falls for a celebrity, he falls first, she’s a powerful badass at work. I highly recommend! And now I have book two, The Partner Plot, to look forward to!

Finally, I started an Instagram just for my reading and where I can talk about books, owning a bookstore, the politics of reading, yadda yadda yadda. It’s @xoxo.books and you’re welcome to follow if you’d like.

What have you been reading?

What I Read in January 2025

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Yes, I am sitting down to type this on *checks calendar* February 8th. I usually pride myself on writing my overviews closer to the end of the month–it’s actually really fun for me so I love doing it. But, look, I got distracted. On February 1, we went to the animal shelter and a few days later we brought home a sleepy sweetheart named Nala.

I’m just now realizing that there are so many topics that I want to write about–but I sat down here to write about my reading last month. And I don’t want this to become 500 pages of what’s been going on (though I fear I could do it). So for now, I’ll stick to reading. But if you are interested in learning more about Nala or what I’ve been doing since selling the bookstore, or how my reading life has changed since then or anything else at all–let me know. I’ve been feeling a strong pull back to blogging again as I’ve been consuming social media less and less these days.

This year I attempted the StoryGraph’s January challenge (for the third year in a row) and for the first time ever, I read every single day in the month! And… I’m still going strong! I’ve never had a reading streak last this long before and I’m really excited that I am back in the habit of this hobby that I really love. Thanks StoryGraph!

Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See

I picked this one up after my friend Kory recommended it. I grabbed it from Watermark books in Wichita while my friend Shulah and I had a pre-holidays day together to eat mediteranian food and browse bookstores. It was perfect. Anyway, when I got home I saw that my copy had been signed! What a fun delight. And honestly this happens a lot when I shop at Watermark. I grabbed the latest Grady Hendrix a few weeks ago and what do you know? That one is signed too!!

Anyway, back to the book:

This book was surprisingly different for me. I usually shy away from fantasy or historical stuff because I’m already a slow reader and it can be tough to get into a whole new world that I’m not already familiar with. And this story is set in 1400’s China–I found myself Googling everything just to soak it all in and make sure that I knew what was going on. I liked that the author didn’t dumb anything down for the reader, though. You could either rely on context clues (which I could have easily done, I just wanted a crystal clear mental picture) or Google it–and Lisa See has a whole site devoted to things you’ll probably need to Google in this book.

It’s about Tan Yunxian, a real woman during the Ming Dynasty who learned medicine from her grandparents, back when there were no women doctors (and the relationship between women patients and male doctors was bonkers). The story dives into her close friendship with a local midwife as well as all the other women in her life and explores the challenges and benefits associated with being the only female doctor around.

My main issue is the title—Lady Tan’s Circle of Women—is kinda misleading. She doesn’t really gather her circle until the last 40 pages. I was hoping for more of that female bond throughout the book but it’s more about what prompted her to create or appreciate her circle of women. A title like “Lady Tan: Woman Doctor” would have suited the story better since she had such a long life to explore even after the book ended.

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue

I discovered this book because I had about 30 minutes to kill on an extremely snowy day and decided to browse the public library. I find myself extremely overwhelmed at the library–unless there’s something specific I’m looking for. So I tend to just keep myself to the new release rack when I’m there. Well, on this particular day the new release rack was super picked over. But this book was there (as well as the next book I talk about) and I though it looked cute. I think we should all be judging books by their covers but that’s another post for another day.

I loooved this book. I read it SO FAST! Which—I recently learned is something that authors find offensive? But I just mean I was hooked from the get-go and I ignored so much of my life so that I could crawl into this book and live there for a while. The plot twists were GLORIOUS and made me giddy. 

Now, I am basically allergic to what I call “depressed single girl” books where the main character is so sad and makes terrible choices that I can’t even begin to bring myself to understand and then I’m annoyed at them and also kind of depressed, myself (like, My Year of Rest and Relaxation or Luster, for example). I was worried that was what this was going to be. Thankfully, there was so much humor and lightness around it all that it kept me from becoming depressed and I was never confused about Joleen’s motivations. 

To me it’s giving Fleabag meets Office Space—a woman trying her best with misguided (but hilarious to the audience) coping mechanisms just trying to survive in the wake of trauma and the utter boredom of her office job.

Five stars. I loved it so much. Also the office setting was impeccable. 

Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten

One thing about me is that I’m always going to turn my nose up at the concept of a celebrity memoir and then fall deeply, deeply in love with it.

I could write an entire post about all I loved in this book just like I did with Stanley Tucci’s. I could not believe how much I related to Ina’s story. From her childhood, raised by a distant primary parent. To meeting and marrying Jeffrey and spending the rest of her life being surprised at all that she’s capable of when she’s supported by someone who loves her and wants her to be her whole self. To diving all in on buying a store–something she knew absolutely nothing about at all. And then, finally, the utter weirdness and gutwrenching boredom after selling that store and then having nothing to do–and thinking, “Welp. That was the cool thing I did with my life. I guess I’m done doing cool shit, now.” Ina and I have SO MUCH IN COMMON!

I wish I could write a letter to Ina Garten thanking her for this book from the depths of my soul. I mean, I suppose I could. I would do anything to hold her hands and look in her eyes and say, “Oh my god. Thank you. Thank you for going before me and showing me that I’m not done. I’m not even close to done. I’m only 42 and I don’t have much to do right now in this particular season of my life but I have a lot of life left and a lot of time to make incredible things happen for me and people around me.” I wonder what my version of multiple cooking shows, dozens of cookbooks, and buying and renovating a Paris apartment will be? I can’t wait to find out.

Okay. Those were the three books I read this month! What did you read??

DNF this month: My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. There was actually nothing wrong with this book at all. It’s just that after it took me forever to read Lady Tan, I was looking for something extremely punchy and a quick whodunit. Well… guess what. The “who” who dunit is listed in the title. And for some reason, I didn’t put two and two together. So this was less of a mystery–which was just not what I was looking for in that exact moment.

What I Read in 2024 (and a plea to start using StoryGraph)

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It’s that time of year where I beg of you to drop Goodreads (boo, Amazon!) and start using The StoryGraph to track your reading. There are so many reasons that I love StoryGraph and I’ve definitely sung those praises in the past*. But this year they rolled out a new feature that I absolutely adore–allow me to tell you about it.

I don’t know if you’re like me but sometimes I don’t like reading book reviews or even the blurb on the inside of the cover because of the spoilers. Sometimes I just want to know if the book will be for me without giving it all away! And they understand. So, they started offering a feature called “StoryGraph Preview”. They use AI (their own AI, mind you–this isn’t connected to, like, Chat GPT or anything like that) to create little blurbs to describe who will enjoy this book. I love this so much!!! It’s a feature that you have to opt-in to. So if you want to see this, you’ll have to go into your settings to get it going, but here’s an example.

I just bought this book the other day so hopefully I’ll be starting it soon.

*Other reasons that I love StoryGraph: Any money made on this app doesn’t go to Amazon or Jeff Bezos–it goes to Bookshop.org which supports indie bookstores (and obv the app creators)!! It’s Black Woman owned. You can mark a book as DNF (my biggest gripe with Goodreads). You can do 1/2 and 1/4 star reviews. If you’re thinking you don’t want to switch to a different app because you’ve been using Goodreads for so long and you don’t want to lose your data, never fret! You can upload your Goodreads data into StoryGraph. Yeah, that’s right. They’ve thought of everything.

But my favorite part is THE DATA THAT THEY COLLECT?! They know way more about my reading than even I do. Which is fun. Every month there’s a cutie little graphic to show what you’ve read and how you’ve liked it. Here’s a very quick look at my 2024 Books in Review (but there’s so much more info–I just don’t want to bore you:

Since, I’ve written reviews of each of these books, I think that I’ll go ahead and just link to each of the reviews and keep a simple list. But also please know that I am very generous with my DNF’s and my finished books have an average rating of 4.5 so believe me when I say you can’t go wrong with almost any of the books I read this year (with the exception of Salem’s Lot, Till Death Do Us Part, and The Mystery Writer).

In no particular order, my absolute favorites were:

Family Family by Laurie Frankel

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams

Funny Story by Emily Henry

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

Daydream by Hannah Grace

Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

Wild Love by Elsie Silver

What I Ate in One Year by Stanley Tucci