romance – Krista Beucler

February 18, 2026February 18, 2026

January 2026 Books

Books Reread

The cover of Mississippi Jack by L.A. Meyer shows a girl in a red dress playing a fiddle and dancing on the cabin of a keelboat on a river

Mississippi Jack by L.A. Meyer***
Bloody Jack book 5 of 12
CW: slavery, n-word, racism, racial slurs
Continuing on with my re-listen of this series, one of my all time favorite series. In this book, Jacky is hiding from the British government who still wants to arrest her for piracy by traveling down the Mississippi River in a keelboat that’s also a floating tavern and musical and theatrical revue. As always it’s very fun, though on a reread, I might like this one a little less than I remember. I just think Jamie is very annoying in this one. He’s always complaining and while, yes, bad things happen to him, bad things happen to Jacky too and she always has a good attitude about it. Also I don’t love the way he treats Clementine. It feels different than the way Jack treats her various beaus throughout the books.
4/5 tall tales

New Books Read

The cover of To The Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage shows an erupting volcano, stars, and the moon — Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster

To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage***
CW: domestic violence, trauma, racism
I liked this but I think not as much as my sister did. Steph is determined to be the first Cherokee astronaut, a journey that will span decades and continents and whose consequences will ripple out in her family and relationships. This is an important book that examines themes of culture, identity, appropriation, and the effects of colonization.
3.5/5 sharks

The cover of Who's Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler shows the title and author on a blank white background rimmed in yellow and purple

Who’s Afraid of Gender by Judith Butler***
Fascinating examination by one of the world’s foremost gender scholars of what everyone’s so afraid of when it comes to ‘the gay agenda.’ Unfortunately, this is one of those books where the people who most need to read it are also the people least likely to. But even if you’re not afraid of gender, this book can still help you understand the fear of the Right and give you the tools to combat it.
4/5 phantasms

The cover of Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman shows Carl running through a circus about to throw a stick of dynamite in his trademark boxers, Princess Donut the cat on his shoulder and Mongo the velociraptor at his heels — Ace Publishing

Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman
Dungeon Crawler Carl book 2 of 8
CW: gore, body horror, death
The second installment of the Dungeon Crawler Carl books follows Carl and Donut down to the third floor of the Dungeon–created when an alien corporation zoned the Earth for mining and killed nearly everyone and everything on the surface, leaving all the survivors to fight for survival in a real life video gameshow being streamed to every corner of the universe. I’m still enjoying these, particularly the audiobooks. I think I liked this one just a little less than the first one, but I am enjoying the development of the geopolitical aspects. I’m interested to see how the governments and corporations outside the Dungeon develop.
4/5 bombs

The cover of Don't Let the Forest in by CG Drews shows a black and white drawing of a boy in a school uniform with what looks like claw marks ripping the image across his face. From the tears, flowers and throrns and bugs creep through — Feiwel & Friends

Don’t Let the Forest in by CG Drews
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: child abuse, neglect, trauma, PTSD, gore, body horror
Impossible to put down. I loved this dark, obsessive horror. I don’t know how to blurb this one (I’m going to try anyway), but I think you should read it. When Andrew arrives back at boarding school for senior year, he’s haunted by something he can’t quite remember, an accident from last year. With his twin keeping an odd distance from him and his best friend Thomas’s abusive parents missing, Andrew is desperate to figure out what’s going on. But there’s something dark awaking in the forest. Can the boys keep it from consuming them and the rest of the school? Obsessed. I’m not saying Thomas and Andrew had a healthy relationship, but I’m also not saying I’m against it.
5/5 monsters

The cover of The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie shows a mustachioed Peter Dinklage as Poirot standing before a shadowy train — Audible

The A.B.C Murders by Agatha Christie*
CW: murder
Always fun to read a Poirot novel. In a challenge to Poirot, a serial killer is working their way through the alphabet. Can Poirot catch them before too much blood has been spilled? This one was kind of fun. I liked the way the reader was led through the mystery because I felt like I was figuring things out a little ahead of Poirot, but then there would be a twist. The Audible full cast performance was very good, and Peter Dinklage was perfect as Poirot.
3.5/5 railway guides

The cover of The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch shows a split image, one side Christmasy with a drawing of the Christmas Prince in a red coat and the other side Halloweeny with the Halloween Prince in black. They eye each other playfully — Bramble

The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch***
A delight. Red, White and Royal Blue meets The Nightmare before Christmas. The Prince of Christmas falls for the Prince of Halloween, but the running of one of the world’s biggest holidays is more fraught than he could have imagined. Is revolution coming to the Christmas monarchy? I loved the banter and the characters and the magic of the holidays. And I loved that it wasn’t just a romance but also a political revolution.
4.5/5 swear word jack-o-lanterns

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
CW: death, suicide, trauma
I really enjoyed this. It was dark, atmospheric, and moody, but also surprisingly hopeful and heartwarming. When a mysterious woman washes ashore nearly dead on Shearwater Island at the edge of Antarctica, the family of caretakers on the island, must decide whether they can trust her with the island’s dark history. I loved the themes of climate change as well as trauma and healing. I really liked the prose. I have one more thought but it’s about the ending. Read More: SPOILERS AHEAD

I was hoping for a happy ending though.

4.5/5 seals

The cover of The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden shows a lit cabin in a winter night. The silhouette of a girl stands before the cabin in the snow. — Del Rey

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden*
**Book Hangover Alert
I didn’t like this book quite as much as Arden’s The Warm Hands of Ghosts, but it was still good. Inspired by Russian folklore, the story follows Vasya, a wild young girl whose grandmother may have been a witch, and the struggle between two brothers Fear and Death. The book examines themes of tradition, religion, and feminism. I loved the magical world and all of the different folktale creatures we get to see. I really loved the examination of Christianity as a way to exercise control and enforce conformity through fear. I don’t really feel like that gets talked about enough. A little sad the bear was the bad guy.
4.5/5 hearth spirits

*This book only includes straight white cis people. Aside from Poirot, who obviously is queer coded, The ABC Murders only includes straight white cis people.

**Book Hangover Alert indicates the kind of book that will leave you full up on love. Satisfied, but wishing the book never had to end. You’ll be lying on the floor with no idea what to do with yourself (other friends have called this feeling Good Book Depression or say that certain books necessitate Floor Time). This is the kind of book that gets its teeth in you and won’t let go easily. After the last page you’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. You’ll bother all your friends trying to get them to read it so that you won’t be alone in your Hangover.

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read Mississippi Jack for themes of slavery and indigenous conflict with colonizers. Read To the Moon and Back for queer indigenous perspectives. Read Who’s Afraid of Gender because it will make you smarter and more thoughtful. Read The Nightmare before Kissmass for queer joy and also revolution and reparation in fantasy. I’m not tagging Dungeon Crawler Carl yet but I have a feeling that as the books go on, they’re going to get more and more political.

Reads marked as part of the Books for a Social Conscience series will regularly address topics like race and racism, colonialism and post-colonialism, LGBTQIA+ experience, feminism, BIPOC experience, social and political issues, history, identity, class, disability experience, immigration, gun violence, poverty, colorism, environmentalism, and more! The goal of these books is to diversify the stories we’re reading, grow our empathy for those who are different from us, and amplify voices who are often silenced.

October 11, 2024October 11, 2024

September 2024 Books

Books Reread

The Tyrant’s Tomb by Rick Riordan
The Trials of Apollo book 4
Continuing on my big Percy Jackson reread, here is the 4th Trials of Apollo book. I have to admit, I didn’t remember this one very well. It’s a good one though. I love that we get to meet some more Roman campers and spend some more time with Reyna. I don’t remember if I thought this the first time I read this book, but Reyna strikes me as kinda ace, and I love that for her. Love the way Apollo develops each book as well. Uncle Rick is really a master of the character arc.
3.5/5 ravens

New Books Read

My Dear Henry by Kalynn Bayron***
Remixed Classics series
CW: racism, homophobia
Last month I read the original Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so obviously immediately I had to read a retelling. This was fun. There’s a lot of homoerotic subtext in the original (there was in much of the literature of the time which was about men doing manly things and included almost no female characters or love plots. This was in response to literature from earlier in the century which was mostly written by women and featured romantic relationships as the main plot). But I digress. In this version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, our narrator Gabriel Utterson is in love with his classmate Henry Jekyll, but begins to worry about him when Jekyll breaks off their relationship and the mysterious Hyde appears. Nice to read a historical fiction that deals with queerness and race in history.
3.5/5 love letters

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
CW: n-word, racism, domestic violence, misogyny
This was my binge book for September, and I had a delightful day doing nothing but reading this book. Weaving forward and backward in time, this book tells the story of two women running a cafe in a small town in Alabama. But it also tells the story of the whole community and all the lives they touched with love and good food and the life they might have ended? (Just a little casual murder that’s never been solved.) This one has more serious themes than the other Fannie Flagg book I’ve read, but it still has her signature humor. Kind of reminded me of a cross between To Kill a Mockingbird and a John Irving novel, which doesn’t seem like a combination that should work, but it does. I liked the structure of it, the way it had the frame of Ninny telling Evelyn the story of Idgie and Ruth and then the flashbacks to them mixed with the newspaper bulletins and the development of Evelyn’s story arc in the present. Certainly there are a few things that didn’t age super well, but overall still a relevant story. Nice to see casual LGBTQIA+ rep in older books like this one.
3.5/5 fried green tomatoes

Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid*
CW: marital rape
This one was very atmospheric. Foggy. Moorish. Very weird to listen to it at the same time I was reading The Pairing. Very different vibes. You know me, I love a feminist retelling. Reid reimagines the story of Macbeth through the Lady’s eyes. A young girl from a French court, Roscilla comes to uncivilized Scotland to wed the Thane, aware of the power of her unhooded gaze to hoodwink men. Macbeth has other profane secrets and ambitions though and Roscilla must learn to navigate this new court and hold onto whatever power she can find.
3/5 veils

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston
The polar opposite of Lady Macbeth. This one was fun. Kit and Theo broke each other’s hearts so when they accidentally end up on the same food and wine tour of Europe, three weeks together seems like it’s going to be unbearable. But they’re adults right? They can be friends again. They can start a friendly competition to see who can sleep with the most locals on the tour, right? What could go wrong? Unless they’re still in love with each other. This wasn’t my favorite of McQuiston’s books, but it was fun. I savored it one city at a time. I liked the way McQuiston positioned food and decadence and the beauty of Europe in summer and the pursuit of pleasure against sex to state the simple truth that we deserve to be happy and to be made to feel good and to enjoy this beautiful world that we live in and enjoy all the delights it has to offer. This book is very spicy, if you’re into that.
3.75/5 French pastries (I guess I’m doing .75s now? I do it on StoryGraph sometimes but I was only doing half points on the blog)

Hera by Jennifer Saint
CW: rape. There’s a lot of rape in Greek myths
Oh, look, another Greek myth retelling. This one is larger in scope than many retellings, tackling the whole life of Hera from her birth to when the influence of the gods began to wane. Hera is often cast as the villain of much of Greek mythology, but Saint does an amazing job of making her a well-rounded, sympathetic character whose motives we understand, even if we don’t agree with her actions. It wasn’t my favorite of Saint’s books, but it is a good one.
3.5/5 peacocks

Swimming Pretty by Vicki Valosik***
This is a nonfiction book about the history of synchronized or artistic swimming which is of course wrapped up in the history of competitive swimming, but also, less well known, is its connection to the history of women’s rights. Valosik takes us all the way through the history of swimming in this fascinating study. The prose is at times a little textbook-y and hard to get through, but for the most part the subject is interesting enough for it not to matter. There are also lots of pictures, so that was nice.
3/5 ballet legs

*This book only includes straight, white, cis people. (Which is maybe historically accurate for Lady Macbeth.) Swimming Pretty focuses on straight, white, cis people, but Valosik acknowledges the history of segregation and racism and access that discouraged people of color from joining the sport.

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read My Dear Henry for a story that deals with race and homosexuality in Victorian England. Read Swimming Pretty to learn about how access to sports like swimming advanced women’s rights.

June 10, 2024June 10, 2024

May 2024 Books

Books Reread

The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan
The Trials of Apollo book 1 of 5
CW: child abuse, gaslighting
After I finished rereading all the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books and all the Heroes of Olympus books, I thought…why not just keep going? So here I am rereading the Trials of Apollo books too. Enjoyable as ever. Apollo, god of the sun, has been punished by his father Zeus, king of the gods, to be a mortal teenager, until he can restore the great oracles, fix the magic of prophesy, and defeat the sinister Triumvirate. This series is full of old friends and new. Big fan of Meg McCaffrey.
3.5/5 dumpsters

The Dark Prophesy by Rick Riordan
The Trials of Apollo book 2 of 5
CW: child abuse, gaslighting, animal abuse
Apollo continues on his quest with help from some familiar friends. I won’t spoil it.
3.5/5 gryphons

New Books Read

Lies We Sing to the Sea by Sarah Underwood
**Book Hangover
CW: femicide
We all know I love a Greek mythology inspired story, especially queer and feminist ones. This one isn’t a retelling, more of a continuation. When Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca from the Trojan War, he kills all the suitors who had been occupying his home and harassing his wife. But he also kills 12 of Penelope’s handmaidens, supposedly corrupted by the suitors. This results in a curse from Poseidon that can only be satisfied by sacrificing 12 more girls every year. But this year, Leto, a girl marked for sacrifice, Matthias, the prince of Ithaca, and Melantho, a mysterious Poseidon-blessed girl, are determined to break the curse. I really enjoyed this one.
4/5 girls with scales around their throats

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske***
**Book Hangover
The Last Binding book 2 of 3
Big fan of these books. The sequel to A Marvellous Light follows Maud Blythe and Violet Debenham as they attempt to help Robin and Edwin to find the last pieces of the contract and stop the sinister plots of the Assembly of magicians. And of course, they fall in love. If you’re looking for a queer, spicy, historical romance, these books are the ones for you.
4/5 illusions

Sandman: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman
Sandman Vol 5
CW: transphobia, gore, murder
I went on a crazy Sandman kick this month. The new Netflix show Dead Boy Detectives (a Sandman spin off) came out and put me in the mood. In this volume Barbie, who first appears in A Doll’s House, must return to her dream land to fight the sinister Cuckoo who is destroying the kingdom Barbie created. This is a good one. Gaiman’s inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters is pretty revolutionary for the 1990s, though not everything aged well.
4/5 dream creatures

Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin
I work at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and one of the temporary exhibitions we have right now is about the Tiktaalik fossil, so I wanted to read a little more about it. This book is by one of the paleontologists who found Tiktaalik and he discusses the patterns we can see in the human body and how they are part of the body plans of ancient animals and organisms. Very informative, though I would have liked a little more of the book spent discussing Tiktaalik.
3/5 fish

Sandman: Act III by Neil Gaiman
Sandman radio play
CW: gore, adult themes
Like I said, a kick. I listened to the Sandman Act III radio play on Audible. It covers volumes 6-8 of the comics. It was very enjoyable. Really good performances, and I always enjoy trying to identify the voice actors.
3.5/5 stories told in an inn during a storm at the end of the world

Sandman: Fables & Reflections by Neil Gaiman
Sandman Vol 6
CW: gore
This volume is a collection of one-off stories from the Sandman universe. There are some really good ones, including the Orpheus ones. The others are a little less memorable, but still good.
3/5 wishes

The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty***
**Book Hangover
The Daevabad Trilogy book 2 of 3
CW: attempted genocide, fantasy racism
I was basically screaming through the last hundred pages of the first book in this series, so I was very excited to read the next one. And now I’m dying to read the third one. I won’t do a summary for this one because I don’t want to share any spoilers. Just trust me, you want to read these.
4.5/5 ifrit

The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation’s Golden Age by Jake S. Friedman*
This was a super fascinating history book about the labor strikes going on in Hollywood in the 1940s, including at the Walt Disney Company. Friedman does a great job of painting portraits of the two men on either side of the conflict: Walt Disney and Art Babbitt, animator and one of the main strike leaders. Friedman humanizes both men and shows how each came to have his own understanding of the world. Just all around a fascinating read if you’re at all interested in unions, Disney, or animation history.
4/5 striking animators

The Court of Mortals by A.J. Lancaster*
Stariel book 3 of 5
This is such a good cozy fantasy series. Thousand Spire is without a ruler and seems to want Win; the Queen of Priden wants to talk to Hetta; and Win’s murderous sister keeps sending monsters into the mortal realm. I really enjoy this series. I love all the characters, and the reader of the audiobooks does a great job.
3.5/5 grouchy Fae siblings

Dinosaurs: 101 What Everyone Should Know about Dinosaur Anatomy, Ecology, Evolution, and More by Matthew Vavrek, Philip J. Currie, and Victoria Arbour
Since I work at a natural history museum, I’m often asked questions about dinosaurs, which I know nothing about. So I was trying to get a good base of knowledge about dinosaurs. This is a good primer for anyone who just wants a brief, easy overview about dinosaurs.
3/5 triceratops

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo*
**Book Hangover
I’ve heard some people were disappointed by this book. I don’t think I liked it as much as Ninth House but there were some really interesting things happening that I’ll talk more about in a moment. Using the language of her Jewish heritage–dangerous in the time of the Spanish Inquisition–Luzia, a scullery maid, can do small miracles. When her employer finds out, she finds herself embroiled in a competition to serve the King. She must convince the world that her miracles are holy and not blasphemous. At first I was confused about the POV choice. It’s kind of an omniscient narrator, and I couldn’t figure out why we were in Valentina’s head or really spending time with any character other than Luzia. The POV choice felt odd and a little unsettling. Then, I was reading a paper about using the painting Las Meninas to teach Don Quixote to students and how the study of the painting can enhance our understanding of the text and vice versa. And then I thought that Las Meninas actually pairs really well with The Familiar too. The weird thing about the painting is that it looks like its perspective makes sense, but the longer you look at it, the more you realize that the space within the painting isn’t quite possible. It’s so mysterious: what is Velazquez painting on his huge canvas? The King and Queen? Us? Perhaps he’s preparing to paint the Infanta. Maybe there’s a huge mirror where we’re standing and the painting he’s working on is this painting. We as viewers appear to be standing where the King and Queen would be standing were they getting their portrait painted, as we could infer from the mirror at the back of the room reflecting them. All this to say that when I think about The Familiar in relation to Las Meninas, the POV choices make more sense to me. The omniscient narrator views the events from many different angles and when those perspectives are all overlaid on the story, the whole picture doesn’t quite line up in a way that I think is intentional.
4/5 milagritos

Sandman: Brief Lives
Sandman Vol 7
This is a good one. Delirium and Dream go to look for their missing brother Destruction. I am a big fan of Delirium and it was fun to see her play off Dream. I also really like the art in this volume. There are several really good panels.
4/5 sigils

Dead Boy Detectives by Pornsak Pichetshote***
The Sandman Universe
CW: gore
This is a more recent Dead Boy Detectives issue, taking place after the events of the show and the first series of comics, but I couldn’t get a copy of the first book of comics. Edwin and Charles are in LA helping some Thai ghosts after Crystal Palace has left the agency. This one was really fun and it was nice to learn more about Thai concepts of ghosts as Edwin and Charles helped out some newly dead Thai kids.
3/5 ghosts

*This book only includes straight, white, cis people. The Familiar does include one lesbian relationship, but for the most part it’s pretty white and pretty straight and pretty cis. The Court of Mortals also has one main gay character, but mostly the book is pretty straight. I know Marius does get his own book though so I’m excited about that. I included The Disney Revolt in this designation even though perhaps the genders, sexualities, and races of those working at Disney at the time weren’t relevant. But I think that may have been something interesting to explore more. Art Babbitt struck me as a bisexual.

**Book Hangover Alert indicates the kind of book that will leave you full up on love. Satisfied, but wishing the book never had to end. You’ll be laying on the floor with no idea what to do with yourself (other friends have called this feeling Good Book Depression or say that certain books necessitate Floor Time). This is the kind of book that gets its teeth in you and won’t let go easily. After the last page you’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. You’ll bother all your friends trying to get them to read it so that you won’t be alone in your Hangover.

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read A Restless Truth for LGBTQIA+ romance in historical fantasy. Read A Kingdom of Copper for Arab inspired fantasy with LGBTQIA+ rep. Read Dead Boy Detectives for Thai lore and mythology.

November 6, 2023November 6, 2023

October 2023 Books

Books Reread

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang***
**Book Hangover Alert
Lots of rereading this month. I reread Kuang’s Yellowface, even though I just read it in May, because Kuang came to speak to my MFA cohort. She was fabulous. So smart and so kind. This book was also just as good the second time. I really admire how Kuang created the character of June–someone who we don’t like, who is not a good person, but is still compelling and complicated, and I have to keep reading about. (About the photo, Kuang told us in one of her chats with my MFA cohort that one of the early design drafts of the book had a maneki neko on the back cover, which is not relevant at all to the story. They’re Japanese, not Chinese, but I guess maybe the designers were like ‘they’re stereotypically Asian? And the book is about Asian stereotypes as perceived by white people?’)
5/5 angry tweets

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians book 4 of 5
This is the Percy Jackson book that I remembered the least about. It was nice to reread it and get to see more of Rachel Elizabeth Dare and Tyson.
3.5/5 hundred handed ones

Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston***
**Book Hangover Alert
Still gay. Still slaps. You can read my original review in the January 2021 blog. I wanted to reread this after seeing the movie, which I think Amazon Prime did a great job with. Of course a lot of the details are missing–there’s only so much of a 400 page book you can put in a 2 hour movie. I was sad Alex’s sister June disappeared, but she was kind of combined with Nora. I was also a little sad the movie cut the Rafael Luna subplot and much of Henry’s family drama. But my biggest beef with the movie, I think, is that the president wasn’t divorced. I really appreciated the family dynamics in the book.
5/5 historical love letters

*A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
The project I’m writing for NaNoWriMo this year is a retelling of A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in a high school a la She’s the Man and 10 Things I Hate About You. So I reread the play. A Midsummer Night’s Dream involves many couples and a lot of confusion as Oberon, king of the faeries and his sidekick Puck do a little matchmaking that doesn’t go quite as planned. I don’t think this is Shakespeare’s best comedy, but it is still great and it’s the first Shakespeare story I remember reading. I also saw it performed at the Globe in London and it was most excellent. So I had fun reading it and underlining good lines and being inspired for my NaNo project.
4/5 faeries

New Books Read

Teach the Torches to Burn by Caleb Roehrig
Part of the Remixed Classics series
In the realm of Shakespeare retellings is this Romeo and Juliet retelling. It’s unfortunately not set in a high school, but is set in the original time and place. The story follows Romeo, who is gay in this version, and explores the question of controlling one’s own destiny. I enjoyed it. It wasn’t how I would have done an R&J retelling, but that is okay. I did really like that Juliet was ace. One thing I struggle with in Shakespeare adaptations is the language. In my opinion the best options are: 1) keep Shakespeare’s language no matter what else you change (this is why Baz Luhrman’s R&J works and the 2013 movie with Hailee Steinfeld does not) or 2) stick to contemporary language (see She’s the Man, 10 things I Hate About You, and Rosaline). Where the Hailee Steinfeld movie goes wrong is by not using Shakespeare’s words, but still trying to use some kind of old fashioned language. It’s just bad. This novel I felt did try a to sound a little old fashioned in its prose which really bothered me during the first half. I eventually got used to it, but I thought Roehrig should have just stuck with a more contemporary voice.
3.5/5 torches

*Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
CW: murder, gore, body horror
I love an Erik Larson history book. Thunderstruck follows the development of Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless communication technology, interwoven with the story of Hawley Crippen, a mild-mannered doctor who becomes an unlikely murderer. Larson seamlessly weaves these two seemingly disparate stories together. I wasn’t as interested in all the technical discussion of Marconi’s invention, but Larson does do a pretty good job of making it understandable for those of us who don’t know much about science or technology.
3.5/5 wireless messages

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
Legends and Lattes book 1
This book has been described as a warm hug of a book, and that is 100% correct. Leaving a life of adventuring, Viv opens a coffee shop in a city that’s never heard of coffee before. With her newfound friends, she has to learn to solve problems without her sword. I just adored it. I love a good found family trope. I love a low stakes reading experience. I love two strong independent women falling in love.
5/5 cups of coffee

*The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa M. Matlin
CW: alcoholism, murder, depression, anxiety
This was my Book of the Month for September and I must say I was disappointed. I’m in general not much of a thriller reader but I thought I’d try it. It sounded spooky and fun for autumn. It was not really that spooky and not really fun. I also wouldn’t say I found myself ‘thrilled.’ Sarah Slade and her husband move into a spooky murder house with the intention of fixing it up and selling it. But Sarah’s Instagram perfect life isn’t perfect IRL. Her marriage is failing and it seems like the house doesn’t want to be fixed. The main character is really unlikable, and while I don’t think that’s a problem in and of itself (see June from Yellowface above), I didn’t find the main character compelling in any way. I didn’t care if she lived or died. I didn’t care if anyone in the story lived or died (except for the cat! I was concerned when the cat almost died). One more complaint which is a spoiler: Read More: SPOILERS AHEAD

I also didn’t feel like Matlin actually decided what the deal with the house was. Was the house actually alive and driving people crazy? Or was it just carbon monoxide poisoning? Instead of the ending feeling ambiguous and open for the reader, it just felt like Matlin didn’t make a decision.

2.5/5 poisoned cats

In Mercy, Rain by Seanan McGuire
Wayward Children companion
This isn’t a novel, it’s a short story companion to the Wayward Children books, but I’m including it on the blog anyway. I usually grab one of the Wayward Children books from the library every time I don’t have anything to read on Libby because my holds won’t be in for a few weeks. But this time I discovered I’ve read all the Wayward Children books that are currently published. So I checked out this short story and the next one. This one is a story about Jack, one of our enduring favorite characters from the series, and it explores her training with Dr. Bleak and her meeting Alexis.
3/5 lightning strikes

Skeleton Song by Seanan McGuire
Wayward Children companion
I’m so glad McGuire wrote this because I’ve been wondering about Mariposa ever since we met Christopher in the first book. I always love exploring new worlds with McGuire’s characters, and this little tidbit was so fun.
3/5 bones

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green***
**Book Hangover Alert
The Carls book 2 of 2
I had to stop in the middle of this one because it returned itself to the library, but I finally finished it! I really enjoyed this book, possibly even more than the first one, though to be fair, I didn’t remember the first one amazingly well (I read the wikipedia page on the first one before I read this one). I liked the examination of power and technology. I liked the found family trope and all the characters (except Andy was a little annoying sometimes).
4/5 alien presences

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! First a caveat: I have decided that simply having queer people and/or people of color in a book is not enough to qualify it for the Books for a Social Conscience distinction. That sets the bar too low. So while in the past I would have marked Teach the Torches to Burn, Legends & Lattes, and the Wayward Children stories, I am not counting them under the new system. We love representation! Don’t get me wrong, but honestly at this point if you don’t have queer people and/or people of color in your book, like what are you doing? I will now be including a new designation: *This book only includes straight, white, cis people.

Anyway, read Yellowface for a nuanced look at anti-Asian racism and racism in general in the publishing industry. Read Red, White, & Royal Blue not only for LGBTQIA+ representation, but also for how those identities interact with life in the public sphere. Read A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor to explore technology, power, and privilege.

*This book only includes straight, white, cis people.

December 31, 2022February 4, 2023

December 2022 Books and End of Year Roundup

End of Year Roundup

Number of new books read this year: 106

Number of books reread this year: 11

Number of books by women, trans, and nonbinary people read this year (only counting new books read): 74

Number of books by BIPOC this year (only including new books read): 34

Number of books by disabled authors this year (only including new books read)*: 3

*This can only include authors I know are disabled. More on the list could be and I might not know. Definite room for improvement in this category!

Breakdown by genre
-Fiction: 86 (classics: 6; contemporary fiction: 7; dystopian: 1; fantasy: 34; historical fiction: 10; literary fiction: 8; mystery: 3; romance: 5; science fiction: 7; thriller: 1: YA*: 4)
-Nonfiction: 12 (travel: 3; essays: 1; history: 1; memoir: 5; science: 1; social science: 1)
-Graphic novel: 1 (fantasy)
-Short story collection: 1 (fantasy)
-Poetry: 3 (poetry collection: 1; novel-in-verse: 2)
-Play: 3 (script: 1; audioplay: 2)

*Many of the fantasy, sci-fi, and historical fiction books I read were also in the YA age range.

First Book of the year: The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All by Josh Ritter

Last Book of the year: The Chimes by Charles Dickens

Best Books of the year (in no particular order):
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan
The House on the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Elektra by Jennifer Saint
The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson
True Biz by Sara Nović
Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Lobizona by Romina Garber
The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar
Disability Visability: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century edited by Alice Wong
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Time Is A Mother by Ocean Vuong
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

Okay actually there were a lot of really good books I read this year, and I cut myself off but I could have kept going.

Worst books of the year:
The worst books of the year have to be the two I didn’t finish reading: Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds and A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair. But my lowest rated books of the year were Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, which was just far too bleak, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, which was actually good if you skip all the parts about Levin, and Life Ever After by Carla Grauls, which was just not good.

Most read author: Maggie Stiefvater (6 books)

December Books Reread

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater***
**Book Hangover Alert
The Raven Cycle book 4 of 4
The stunning conclusion! I didn’t remember this one super well either. I only remembered the relationship that finally happens in this book (trying not to spoil it). Anyway I still love it. I love all the characters. I love getting to see Henry Cheng join the gang.
5/5 robo bees

Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater***
**Book Hangover Alert
The Dreamer Trilogy book 1 of 3
I still love the Dreamer Trilogy too. I don’t think I love it quite as much as the Raven Cycle but I still love it. I love getting to spend more time with Ronan, and getting to know Jordan and Hennessy, and who could have guessed I would learn to love Declan?? My only qualm rereading this book is that there is a lot of (necessary!) build up to Ronan and Hennessy meeting and beginning to work together.
4/5 forged paintings

Mister Impossible by Maggie Stiefvater***
**Book Hangover Alert
The Dreamer Trilogy book 2 of 3
I actually think I might like this one better than the first one. Not that I don’t love the first one, but this book is where things really start to get exciting. And we get to see the development of Ronan and Hennessy’s relationship and Declan and Jordan’s, and also Matthew’s development, which I adore. I also love Farooq-Lane and Liliana. This is also the first time I’ve reread a book that is already on the blog, so if you’re interested in my original review of Mister Impossible, you can read it here.
4.5/5 sweetmetals

The Chimes by Charles Dickens
I really respect that after Dickens wrote an instant classic about ghosts on Christmas, he was like, “I’m going to write more holiday books, and you know what else, besides ghosts, says Christmas? Goblins. That’s what.” Anyway, this book is about goblins. It’s definitely not as good as A Christmas Carol, but still enjoyable. We love a Dickens book in the winter.
3/5 bells

New Books Read

A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger***
This was the Big Library Read, so it was available to check out as an ebook to everyone. I read Elatsoe by Little Badger last year so I was excited to read this one. I didn’t enjoy it as much as Elatsoe. I liked the ace representation, we could always use more of that, and I loved learning about the animal people. But I didn’t love the style of prose and I thought the dialogue felt stilted and awkward.
3.5/5 tornados in nesting dolls

The Kiss Curse by Erin Sterling
Sequel to the Ex Hex
The Ex Hex was my Book of the Month last year in October and it was delightful, so I wanted to read the sequel. This one focuses on Gwyn, Vivi’s cousin. In the first book, Gwyn is dating Jane, the mayor of Graves Glen. In this book, Vivi and Rhys are happily married and Gwyn falls in love with Rhys’s brother Wells. Not to invalidate bisexual people who are in heterosexual relationships, but I would have liked it more if it was a wlw book. As it was, it was sort of the same story as the first book, enemies to lovers, Jones woman falls in love with Penhallow brother. That being said, it was still a super fun light read. The banter was fabulous and I loved Gwyn and her Baby Witches and Wells was delightful.
3.5/5 bags of edible glitter

Part of My World by Jodi Benson
If you didn’t know, Jodi Benson is the voice of Ariel from The Little Mermaid. I had a chance to hear her give a talk about the book when she visited the Disney College Program here at Disney World. Her memoir is full of fascinating stories from the making of The Little Mermaid including stories about Howard Ashman, Alan Menken, and many others involved in the movie and the Disney company. I also loved reading about Benson’s experiences on Broadway. My only complaint about the book is that it’s pretty preachy. Benson is deeply religious, and though I can agree with many of her philosophies, I’m not that interested in reading about how God is the author of her life and He had a grand plan for her and her life, and He gave her great performing talent so that she could spread the word of God. It felt like the last three paragraphs of every chapter, were all the same: her explaining how the story she just told is part of God’s plan. I also would have liked to see her grapple more with the knowledge that the Church as an institution has caused great harm. One story that stuck out to me was when Benson visited Howard Ashman at the end of his life when he was dying of AIDS. She told him she would pray for him. To her, that was the greatest comfort someone could offer. And maybe she believes God truly does love everyone, but she fails to acknowledge that the Church and religious people have probably told Ashman all his life that he was an abomination going to Hell, because he was gay.
3.5/5 mermaids

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
CW: domestic violence, assault, attempted rape, anti-Black racism, n-word
I thought this book was okay. It does seem overhyped to me. I really liked the way Owens described the marsh and all of the nature writing and descriptions. She did a really good job creating and bringing to life the place of the swamp. I thought the plot was a little weak and Kya was kind of a passive character. I wasn’t interested in the romance aspects of the book, and the murder mystery aspect of the book wasn’t that satisfying. It’s also important to note that Owens is wanted for questioning about an unsolved murder in Zambia. I believe people are innocent until proven guilty, but she certainly isn’t helping the investigation, so take that into consideration before you decide to support the book or movie.
3/5 crawdads

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read both Stiefvater books for more LGBTQIA+ representation in fantasy. Read A Snake Falls to Earth for Native representation and LGBTQIA+ representation.

(I stopped being able to change text color. I don’t know why.)

January 31, 2021November 12, 2021

January 2021 Books

Books Reread

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
Tiffany Aching book 1 of 5; Discworld Series book 30 of 41
This series is another of my favorites. I love Terry Pratchett in general, but Tiffany is one of my favorite heroines of all time. She is practical and clever and even at age 9 is ready to take on the queen of the faeries to get her little brother back. It’s hilarious, it’s full of memorable characters, and it should not be missed.
5/5 tiny blue men

New Books Read

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron***
CW: misogyny
My first new book of the year! You know by now that I love fairytale retellings. If you read very many of them, you may think you’ve read every original take on Cinderella, and there can’t possibly be anything new in that story. But boy, have I got news for you. This is another Book Tok recommendation (it’s gay and it slaps), and it’s great for several reasons. One is the dystopian take on Cinderella; the story is set in a world where the Cinderella story is used as a religion to oppress women. The other reason is the gay characters who are secure and unashamed of their identities. There’s nothing wrong with a good coming out story where gay characters are trying to come to terms with their identities, but it’s refreshing to read a story where the characters are already out and secure and ready to go on an adventure.
4.5/5 glass slippers

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon***
Book Hangover Alert**
CW: racism
I don’t read a ton of YA romance but this book was fabulous. Nicola Yoon is such a good writer, I literally sat on the couch all day and read this book until I was done. I loved that this book, while being a YA romance, also engaged with difficult topics like identity, immigration, racism and microaggressions. I loved the way it was like a constellation, the lives of the main characters radiating out to touch other lives. Its ending was great, not too sappy, just the right amount of bittersweet.
4.5/5 Korean karaoke bars

Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva
I was really excited to read this book, because as I mentioned in my December post, I love Charles Dickens. This story is a fictional retelling of how Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol (my favorite Dickens book). But honestly I was kinda disappointed. If you’ve seen the movie The Man Who Invented Christmas, the book was like a not-as-good version of that. So I’d just watch that movie instead. I found Dickens as a character a bit unlikeable (I don’t have any idea if the character is like the real Dickens, but at any rate I didn’t like him). I felt like the Eleanor Lovejoy character was almost not necessary and kind of just annoyed me because Dickens already has a great wife, and why is she not worthy of being a muse? The beginning was a bit slow and I wanted more about exactly what inspired Dickens to write the book other than this mysterious woman and running into people that had cool names like Jacob Marley. Now that being said, I did really enjoy the language Silva used; she describes things in a way that is unique, but also calls to mind Dickens’s own writing and other writing of that era. And the ending was great. Very Christmassy, full of good spirit and cheer, happy, and satisfying.
3/5 Christmas wreaths (the ending really saved this rating)

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston***
Book Hangover Alert!
I just said above that I don’t read a ton of YA romance, but apparently I do this month. Fabulous. Adorable. Couldn’t put it down. I was walking around my house with my phone in front of my face trying to do everything one-handed while I read the ebook. As Book Tok would say, “it’s gay and it slaps.” This book is about the First Son of the United States falling in love with the Prince of Wales and it’s just as wonderful as it sounds. It was also nice to read about the politics of the US in a world where Trump has never existed. It was so hopeful and lovely and I adored it.
5/5 dogs named David

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar***
CW: body dysmorphia
So beautiful. Joukhadar’s prose is just so gorgeous. Also I love birds. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book about Syrian immigrants before so that was really cool and I felt like I learned a lot. There are also trans and nonbinary characters which we always want to see more of. I liked thinking about how those identities are navigated in the cultural context of being a Syrian immigrant. I also loved the way all the threads of the story were woven together from the past to the present; it was super satisfying to read.
4.5/5 mysterious birds

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon***
CW: assault, attempted and reference to sexual assault, racism , misogyny, public executions, oppression, body dysmorphia
Nonbinary authors in science fiction! We love it! The world constructed by Solomon was so interesting. The characters were memorable and the voice of the whole novel was really strong. We had some trans characters and some nonbinary characters, and I read Aster as autistic. I appreciated that while Aster had autistic-coded traits, she wasn’t a one dimensional or stereotypical representation of an autistic. I do have some questions though. I feel like maybe I didn’t quite understand all the science about the ship and their navigation, so if anyone has read it, I’d love to chat about it. I also wondered about the patriarchy. The ship is split into Decks and its a caste system: people born on the lower decks are lower in social status. The Decks also have their own language dialect and culture. Aster says the children on T Deck are called they/them until they are older, while children on Q Deck are all referred to as she/her. But the ship itself is so highly patriarchal and traditional as far as gender roles (like the game of house that Aster and Giselle play). It just seems odd to me that gender roles for adults would be so strict when they weren’t as children. Unless that’s just a T and Q Deck thing and the patriarchy is reaffirmed by the upperdeckers who are in power? Let me know if you want to discuss.
4/5 frozen severed feet

Books read for the Community Cats Podcast blog

My book reviews CCP blog post can be found here.

Let’s Talk About Cats by Anita Kelsey
By a behaviorist and groomer, this book is a combination of interviews, tips, and stories from Kelsey’s work. Though I read it straight through, it is broken down in such a way that you could just read the chapters that are relevant to you or that particularly interest you. Kelsey interviews big names such as Jackson Galaxy, Kate Benjamin, Jennifer Conrad, and the Cat Man of Aleppo. She covers topics like cat behavior, cat vocalizations, what to feed your cat, whether cats grieve or enjoy music, and more. I thought the interviews were really interesting and Kelsey shared good tips and lots of food for thought about how we can make our cats lives the best they can be.
3/5 happy cats

The Cat That Changed America by Tony Lee Moral
I feel bad because the author of the book sent it to me to review for the Community Cats Podcast blog and I didn’t really like it. It is geared for children, but good writing is good writing, and I don’t think it was great writing. I do think the cause of the book is great; it was written to raise awareness about building a wildlife corridor in the Santa Monica Mountains to link different habitats to keep wildlife from being killed on the highways. The book is written from the perspective of P22 a real mountain lion who made his way through LA and now lives alone in Griffith Park. I just felt the anthropomorphization was a little off-putting and inconsistent. Like P22’s name for example, I know that since he’s a real mountain lion, that’s how they identify them, but it’s a terrible name and it’s a bit hard to connect with a character named P22. It’s like how stormtroopers all have letter-number combination names to dehumanize them. And it’s unclear what P22 knows about humans. At first he talks about these metal monsters, but then he seems to know what cars are and what highways are later. P22 is also upset when he learns this other mean mountain lion is his father, and it seemed really odd to give human notions of fatherhood to animals who grow up with no contact with their sire. I sent the book to a friend to see if her kids liked it, as that’s the intended audience. But anyway, I hope they build the wildlife corridor.
2/5 mountain lions

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read Cinderella is Dead for an original take on an old classic starring LGBTQ+ people of color. Read The Sun is Also a Star to learn more about the immigrant experience and the politics of biracial love. Read Red, White & Royal Blue for a hopeful look at what the future of inclusion of LGBTQ+ people looks like. Read The Thirty Names of Night for a look at LGBTQ+ experience as well as Syrian immigrant experience. Read An Unkindness of Ghosts for original sci-fi featuring disabled, neurodivergent, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC characters, and to add another nonbinary author to your library.
Reads marked as part of the Books for a Social Conscience series will regularly address topics like race and racism, colonialism and post-colonialism, LGBTQ+ experience, feminism, BIPOC experience, social and political issues, history, identity, class, disability experience, immigration, gun violence, poverty, colorism, environmentalism, and more! The goal of these books is to diversify the stories we’re reading, grow our empathy for those who are different from us, and amplify voices who are often silenced.