The Darkest Part of the Forest

I have had “read something by Holly Black” on my TBR for years. I have a huge soft spot for fairies in fantasy and that seems to be her sweet spot. I actually have had The Cruel Prince on my shelf since it was published, but I get weird about trilogies and have kinda been…

The Confessions of Frannie Langton

As I was looking for a book that would fit The Reading Women Challenge 2020 prompt #1, an author from Caribbean or India, I remembered this novel that a few of the Caribbean-based bookstagrammers I follow (particularly Cindy at @bookofcinz) had talked about last year when it came out. It sounded pretty interesting and really…

Bad Blood

Even though this scandal happened very recently, and on a very large scale, I have to say that I ready had no awareness of it in real time. To be fair, I was in grad school on the other side of the country, so it does make sense that my general knowledge of Silicon Valley…

A Woman Is No Man

This debut novel received quite a bit of press when it was published last year. I saw many, many reviews from readers who both loved it and found it heart-breaking. And I knew that I wanted to read it, that one day I would read it. But the thing is, knowing how intense of a…

The Ten Thousand Doors of January

So obviously the first thing that drew me to this book was the title. It’s awesome! Plus, I was born in January and it turns out that means I have a soft spot for that name/month (who knew?). But then the cover is also gorgeous and the description sounded great too. Ever since getting really…

Trick Mirror

This recently released collection of essays has been getting a lot of praise from bookstagrammers and reviewers my age. It seemed like Tolentino’s writing was doing a great job capturing the frustrating and ridiculous parts of the millennial reality and, as a millennial myself (actually, I’m the same age as Tolentino), I was super curious…

Ninth House

So many, many, many reasons to read this book. First, Bardugo is one of my favorite authors, so of course I was going to check out her debut foray into adult fantasy. Second, basically there is not a single bad review to be found anywhere for this book. Third, just look at it. Fourth, and…

Celestial Bodies

In my goal of working to read more diversely, I’m attempting to also diversify my diversity… That sounds confusing, but basically, I’m just trying to cast my reading net ever wider. So when I heard about this 2019 winner of the International Man Booker, the first novel translated from Arabic to win this prize, in…

The Deep

Just about two years ago I read Solomon’s debut novel, An Unkindness of Ghosts, and was so impressed with the world-building, the diversity of the characters, the writing…it was a fantastic debut. And it was before I really had any idea about Afrofuturism as a genre, so it felt truly groundbreaking to me. I am…

The Right Swipe

I have had this one on my TBR as a contemporary romance to pick up next time I’m in the mood for one (I love sprinkling these in for fun between heavier reads). And then I moved it up the list a bit because I won the Kindle version in a Goodreads giveaway. Woot! The…