Links I love

 

I hope that everyone had a good week.  I ended up improving and then feeling worse yesterday - I had to get a chest x ray and luckily it's not pneumonia but I definitely have bronchitis or something.  I'm on a Z-Pac. This has been a long road to recovery.

1. What happens to unsold Girl Scout cookies (didn't even believe that was a thing)?
2. Five expansive horror tales set in New York. 
3. More teens are getting hooked on gambling. 
4. Updates on the wonderful Carli Lloyd, formerly of the USWMNT.
5. What does nitpicking really mean?
6. Should judicial evaluations be made public?
7. How the horrors of dating can lay the groundwork for a good thriler.
8. Some revolutionary stories about and by Arab women. 
9. The best historical fiction books of the century so far. 
10. Some songs that Dolly Parton wrote, that you didn't know she wrote. 
11. Your sarcasm is showing and its history is pretty violent. 
12. Wellness hangouts are the new happy hour. 
13. Indie booksellers name the top books of 2025. 
14. Overrated fantasy novels and what to read next. 
15. 5 Classic novels that almost had different endings. 
16. Some of the best small press books of spring, 2026.
17. Ten fictional professors ranked by plausibility.
18. ALA fights against book banning bill.
19. Need more whimsy in your life? Start letter writing.
20. I could always use help with this.
21. The best horror movies from the 1990's.

Also, THIS!! This was amazing on so many levels and was SO COOL TO WATCH!!!  I was in second grade when The Challenger disaster happened and I'm not going to lie, I totally was on edge until everything was all clear - God Bless our astronauts.

I'm looking for a few new podcasts to listen to - what is everyone enjoying?  I'm currently reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and listening to Not Quite Dead (which has a really great premise).  

Please feel free to visit my Pangobooks store!

REVIEW The Academy by Elin

 

I needed something a bit more fun and a novel by an author that I have enjoyed in the past so I picked this novel.  Cunningham and one of her brothers attended a boarding school instead of public school and Hilderbrand was fascinated by the culture surrounding these settings, so together, they decided to write this book. The book follows students and their teachers at fictional Tiffin Academy, a school in Western Massachusetts and begins on move in day when the community finds that their ranking has jumped approximately 17 spots to number 2 on the rankings list. And to make matters more dramatic, there's a new app that outs people's secrets, which is in addition to the normal drama at any school.

There is a lot going on in this book - there are a lot of characters with a lot of backstory and I had to remind myself to be patient and let the authors pull everything together. It's a typical Hilderbrand book in that it shifts between perspectives, sometimes very, very quickly (which I don't mind at all since it keeps things interesting). I felt that I was there in the setting with the characters experiencing what they were experiencing as they experienced it and the book itself is very, very fast paced so it moved.  I finished it very quickly. I loved that it felt like a Hilderbrand book as I'm generally a fan of hers. 

There is one major thing that I was not a fan of: there is one story line that was begun and wasn't resolved.  I think that this is a two book series so I'm truly hoping that the next book reveals it because I'll be super upset if it isn't. 

Generally solid.  

Links that I love

 

We had some warmer weather here this week but now it's back to being coldish.  I'd like to see more 60's and 70's please.  For those celebrating Easter, I hope that you have a nice holiday!  I am working through the flu currently.  It hit me hard Monday into Tuesday. 

• This emotion seems to play a big role in addiction.
• Study further identifies estrogen's positive3 effects on women's health.
• Three habits to help with stress management - these make sense. 
• These real life women inspired Disney Princesses.
• Anthony Palmini and narrating romantasy audiobook.
• What we know about coffee's impact on the heart is wrong. 
• I may try this practice. 
• Which Disney Princess are you?
• Why do we say "hit the sack?" 
• What do palms symbolize on Palm Sunday?
• Tana French has a new book out.
• The 2026 shortlist for the International Booker Prize.
• Here's an easy looking recipe to try. 
• 5 discontinued easter chocolates that people want back. 
• I like big books and I cannot lie. 
• How addiction became a big motif in crime fiction. 
• Every state's favorite Easter candy.
• Takeaways from the men's tune up World Cup games. 
• 15 short nonfiction audiobooks that are 7 hours or less. 
• 12 dark revenge filled books if you're feeling ragey. 
• The finalists for this year's Lambda Literary Awards.
• For those of you interested in WW2, please check this out.
• This looks fantastic and I want to try!
• If you like Rebecca Yarros, try these books.  If you do ACOTAR, keep reading past the first book. They get better. Promise.
• How much sleep do you really need and is getting too much sleep a bad thing?
• The story behind alpine divorce.

If you can, please gift to this 529 account. I also have a Pangobooks store - visit if you can!

REVIEW I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver

 

This book satisfies two of my challenges: the Popsugar Challenge (book where there is a non binary or trans main character) and the Library Love challenge.  I loved this book and I loved that this was the sort of book that Mason Deaver needed when they were a teenager.  So wonderful for me too.  I feel like I learned a lot. The literary world is so much better because this book is here.

I knew that I would love this book when it made me cry in the first few chapters.  It is absolutely nightmarish but not in your face or over the top and it was that subtleness that really got me. Ben DeBecker has been kicked out of his home at Christmas time after coming out to his conservative parents about being non-binary.  He luckily is able to call his older sister, Hannah, who is estranged and had left right after graduating from high school. She jumps into action and picks him up, gets him enrolled in school and gets him a (good) therapist. Ben spends the first part of the book in fear that they will be outed, rejected and have to return to the terrible environment that they were in previously. However, he has a lot of support and some bright lights - Mariam is a non binary social influencer that is very supportive of Ben and Nathan, a young man that Ben meets at his new school. 

This was a very compelling story that captured me and moved quickly. It is so effective in establishing that young, non-binary (or even anyone that has a sexual or gender orientation that is different from what the dominant society says is "normal,") are always experiencing a baseline level of fear and stress - nothing is ever seemingly safe in their world. Every word, action and look is second guessed.  Are they going to be outed? Is the person that learns of their gender or sexual expression going to accept them or be violent or something in between? What would be considered normal questions, are not necessarily normal questions to Ben - they are still trying to figure themselves out and then they have to figure out the world around them, all the while being a teen. 

When I put this book down, I felt much more emotionally and intellectually intelligent. I learned about the non-binary landscape all the while enlightening me on an experience that I never had and helping me to have compassion for people that are going through these difficult transitions in their own lives. I adored this book and would recommend it highly. 

REVIEW: Vladimir by Julia May Jonas

 

Not going to lie, I've had this book forever but I only started reading it because Netflix has released a limited series. THe first line was so promising: " When I was a child, I loved old men and I could tell that they also loved me."

And that legitimately sets the tone for the rest of the novel. The narrator and main character is a female professor in her late 50's at a small liberal arts college in upstate NY. She has a crisis when her older husband, also a professor, is accused of sexual harassment and improper relationships (many of them sexually consummated) by former students of his.  They have always had agreements about boundaries in their relationships but now that everything is so public, the narrator gets her revenge by developing an infatuation with another much younger professor - Vladimir. He's a wildly successful, young and attractive novelist that arrives on campus with his wife and their child. 

I generally enjoyed how the novel started - it was so promising. I enjoyed seeing an older woman embrace her sexuality and who she was.  Her creativity started to blossom after her infatuation started. And I really appreciated how it took on things like relationships - the narrator and her husband seem the most solid even though their boundaries may be questionable, but the gender roles in the relationship are still so strict. She has his dinner on the table for him. Every night. No matter what.  He took care of all the finances. But then we got the last third of the book and things just went completely off the rails in a way that I just couldn't get behind. I honestly wondered if the author felt like me - and just wanted to get to the end of the book in a rush and so ended it the way that she did. 

Not my cup of tea, this one.  Pass on it - you're not missing anything. 

Links I love

 

Last week had a lot going on for me work wise and life wise. At least I have some fun links to share though! I'm listening to Future Boy by Michael J. Fox and reading I Wish You all the Best by  Mason Deaver and The Academy. 

• Memoirs about losing a parent when in childhood.
• The Bell Jar is getting an adaptation with Billie Eilish. There's an adaptation of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow too!
• This supplement can help in perimenopause.
• What is the Kennedy curse?
• 6 female writers that shaped modern science fiction.
• Why you should consider holding hands during your next fight?
• Morning might be the best time to exercise.
• Ten best books to read with interesting female protagonists. 
• Microwalks and your steps.
• 9 Novels about women in the wild. 
• Because who doesn't need a new podcast to listen to?
• Why readers are taking up Grannycrafts.
• Historical novels set in South Africa.
• The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards have been announced. 
• Bridgerton's diversity - what's up with it?
• Cursive is back, but should students be learning it?
• The Inside Literary Prize announces its shortlist. 
• Lift your weights, especially if you're female. 
• 8 coastal cities that look divine. 
• Emotional abuse in college sports.

Please feel free to make a gift to our child's 529 account or visit my Pangobooks store.

REVIEW A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah Maas

 

I read this physical book, did not listen to it.  I tend to find listening to non fiction is easier than reading it in some circumstances!  

This book is short for an ACOTAR book, and is a nice respite from the heavier, longer and more action packed other novels in this series. Feyre and Rhys have returned to Velaris to prepare for and celebrate solstice, which is also Feyre's birthday. Everyone is also trying to come to terms with what they had experienced in the prior novel. Most are coping well, except for Nesta, who is a hot mess, seemingly an alcoholic and is having a hard time moving forward. 

I enjoyed this novella. It's like a larger epilogue to the last novel, clears the palate and gets us ready for the next novel. It moved very quickly and was very refreshing - exactly what I needed in the moment that I picked it up. I enjoyed learning about the characters' everyday lives and their everyday struggles.  I also became much more fond of Azriel and Mor, who are hands down my favorite ACOTAR characters. I appreciated how Maas seems to be setting up the next novel, particularly in her chapters surrounding Nesta and Cassian (not going to lie, I'm not a fan of Nesta. At all.). Maas uses alternating points of view in this book, which is different from the prior novels and which was VERY effective in setting up the next book.  It's nice to get to know the other characters in the Inner Circle as well, which isn't something that happens as well when the story is told just from one point of view. 

Generally, I really liked this book. The ACOTAR books seem to get better with each book and I'm looking forward to the next book, as well as the ACOTAR books that are set to be released at the end of the year.

REVIEW The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iverson

 

I selected this book to fulfill one of the prompts for the Popsugar Reading challenge of 2026 - which called for one of the books to have a garden playing a seminal role in the novel.  I didn't want to re-read The Secret Garden, so here we are.

Harriet has always been considered odd.  Her father has gone missing and so she ultimately takes advantage of the newfound and unexpected freedom afforded to her by his disappearance. She forges her own path, by hanging out in her own home and tending to her garden. However, when an inspector appears and begins to question her father's disappearance, she becomes acutely aware of how truly vulnerable that she as a woman in the Victorian era is. She puts her trust in people that perhaps she shouldn't have and here we have the conundrum: being caught and trying to solve a mystery.

There's a lot of mystery to cover - what happened to her dad and mom, why a strange man is courting her and what happens to her. The mysteries move very, very slowly in unfolding. I found it to move almost so slowly that I was losing interest. And then we have the answers explode in one very big explosion at the end of the book and by the time that this happened, I honestly didn't care at all. I had lost so much interest and didn't care. The garden was such an instrumental part of the book, but I never really fully understood why and wanted more of an explanation. 

Not a great read and I was happy when I was done.  On to the next!

Links I love

I'm so looking forward to the longer days and warmer weather. And Tulips. I love tulips.

•  Can you name all the sitcom dads?
• What causes spontaneous human combustion?
• Modern day Thelmas and Louise in crime fiction.
• The scandalous story of Lucy Locket.
• What was being a ninja really like?
• Resources for learning about different topics.
• How John Grisham lost his love of baseball. 
• Peanut butter vs almond butter: is one better than the other?
• This years GS cookies, ranked. 
• Finalists for the Lambda Literary awards.
• I love me some True Crime and  these look good. Some of these look pretty good too. 
• This Roman fort was found...in Scotland?!
• Lemon peels...in the sink?
• Some bone healthy foods that no one talks about.
• 6 random facts about the spring equinox.
• Why do airplanes have tiny windows?

I hope that everyone has a great week!  Please don't forget that I have a Pangobooks store that you should check out!

REVIEW: All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert

 

I was totally on the Eat, Pray, Love bandwagon. Not going to lie.  It's one of those books that I re-read at different times in my life in order to learn something (along with Handmaid's Tale, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Wild by Cheryl Strayed). I was curious to see what this book could teach me, if anything.  And what I learned is that I'm very much like Elizabeth Gilbert in many ways, although I haven't ever had to go through what she had to go through to write this book.

This is a memoir and it is about Gilbert's relationship with Rayya Elias - who Gilbert met, incidentally, because she was Gilbert's hairdresser (yup!), then her closest most bestest friend for many years, and finally her lover/partner until Rayya died from cancer. This includes, BTW, the time that Gilbert was married to her husband from Eat, Pray, Love and Committed era. When Rayya got sick, it seemed that Gilbert figured out that the relationship was romantic, intimate, and sexual (even though she'd been working for years to deny it). Gilbert then left her husband and moved to be with Rayya in order to care for her during her last few months (in a house that Gilbert bought for her essentially). This plan went majorly off the rails when not only did Rayya live longer than the doctors predicted but slid back into a full blown addiction in the last months of her life. She was addicted to heroin, alcohol, you name it and Gilbert was there to not only witness it but to experience the effects of those addictions on their relationship. When I say things got ugly, I'm not really doing it justice because they were U-G-L-Y without any alibi in sight anywhere. It got so bad that Gilbert contemplated killing Rayya and making it look like an accident.  

The story is very well told. Gilbert is a good author if nothing else. It's a love story, a story of passion and obsession, a story about codependency and love addiction, a story about an addict relapsing, a story about grief, a story about confronting the darkest side of your own nature when your life spins out of control.  Rayya is brought vividly to life in technicolor. Having said that, I've come to view Gilbert with a tad sense of skepticism and caution: trust but verify.  I simply can't help but believe that this woman would write anything that she thinks would sell. And maybe this was her complete rock-bottom moment - when her grand passion and co dependency for Rayya led her down so many dark paths that she thought that she would actually kill her.  What I didn't need, was the self helpy, preachy part because guess what?  She's been peddling this stuff for YEARS.  I loved the gritty memoir. I loved reading about what happened with her and Rayya and the ups and downs and her experiences but I could do without the preachiness from someone that, in my humble opinion, hasn't learned from any of the other experiences that she has had and written about.  It also felt really icky and exploitative. Of Rayya and her last days.  

::shrugs:: would I recommend it?  Yes, but go in forewarned and don't be afraid to chuck it if it gets to be too much for you.  

REVIEW Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

 

Shelby Tebow, a young and new mother, has gone missing in her upscale Chicago suburb during a late night run. Everyone starts looking at the husband. However, local doula Meredith and her daughter go missing shortly thereafter, which places this theory into doubt. Eleven years after the disappearances, Meredith's daughter has seemingly reappeared and people are trying to figure out what actually happened. The book bounces not only between different perspectives but also be tween different timelines. 

I don't know that I can be as thorough in my review since I don't want to give away too much - this is a thriller and a mystery after all. I felt like the buildup was very well done; however the end was too neatly presented to me with a bow on top and felt very, very predictable. The "villain" was very different in the end, character development wise, than at the beginning although if you're a complete sociopath maybe that isn't too much of a stretch (although I found myself saying - "Oh come ON really?!" a lot). I actually really enjoyed having the perspective of the other child in th e family after his sister disappeared and when she reappeared.  It's often a perspective that gets lost, so I truly appreciated it being there. 

That being said, I wish that I had a better story to follow and buy into. This just didn't do it for me.  I had to suspend my disbelief a bit too much. 

Links I love

 

It's still winter here but it's definitely getting warmer.  I've been so busy at work with getting prepped for things and digging out of the hole that vacation brings. I hope that everyone had a good week.

• Books with strong female leads.
• What the percentage on chocolate actually means.
• While I love having more daylight, daylight savings makes my sleep schedule weird. Here's why we have it. 
• There's a mountain mafia?
• Daniel Radcliffe and fav books/return to Broadway.
• Where to stream all of the best pic nominations.
• Historical fiction about women fighting fascism. 
• The best fairy books for adults.
• Here are the finalists for the 2026 Aspen Words Literary Prize.
• Indies choice lists are here.  
• Why is Anne Boleyn so fascinating?
• Books set in Iran and books about Venezuela.
• ?The books behind the Oscar nominees.
• The Oscars are Sunday night, here is how to watch. 
• The best mystery books of 2026 (so far).
• This was a fun quiz.
• 6 historical figures that died in bizarre ways. Cause you know, I'm morbid. And like history. 

REVIEW The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

 

I read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett many, many moons ago and enjoyed it.  She's exactly my type of author and this novel was not only shortlisted for the Pulitzer but was on the Women's Prize for fiction so of course I had to read it and it was well worth it. 

Danny and his older sister, Maeve, spend the vast majority of their childhood in an extravagant home in Pennsylvania called the Dutch House since the former owners were (you guessed it - Dutch). Their father loved it and bought it without telling their mother, who hated it. Their mother ultimately leaves and their father remarries a stepmother that isn't fond of her new stepchildren (and they are kicked out after he dies!).  This novel is told from Danny's perspective.

I LOVED the writing style.  It was quick and easy and never something that I considered to be a chore (which, let's be real, some books absolutely are!). But it's not really historical fiction. At all.  It's more of a novel about families and relationships - and could have taken place at any point in history. I loved Maeve and Danny. All the characters frankly were so colorful and lively it was like I was in the middle of things while they interacted around me. I loved how Danny and Maeve interacted with each other - they love each other and it was both touching and divine to experience. The book moved very well - I never felt that it was too slow or too fast, although it seemed like there were a lot  of rich white people problems!

Definitely recommended. 

REVIEW: Good for a Girl by Lauren Fleshman

 

I was nervous about reading a book about running.  I came to utilize running later in life. As an athlete, I had always had running used as a punishment and not something to really be enjoyed. And I was nervous about an athlete memoir.  But this was different.  Ms. Fleshman tells her story but she also exposes the difficulties and issues in the running world (both amateur, collegiate and professional) that so negatively impacts the women that choose to engage in this activity. 

Fleshman, in describing her experiences, confronts things like eating disorders head on. There are often explicit descriptions of disordered eating and the impact that it had on the runners that she encountered, including herself. She discusses puberty (and its impact on runners), going pro and the competitive pressures that high level runners often faced. I loved that her book put into words the struggles that female athletes often faced, but remained silent about. She combined scientific studies with her own story in order to tell these stories and it was effective.  The writing was simple and effective.  

This is an important book, although read with caution if you are worried about eating disorder issues. 

Links I love

 

During the last week in February, we were in St. John, USVI.  It is my favorite of the islands and also the smallest of the three.  This weeks links therefore will likely be longer because we skipped a week. We got in last Saturday, arriving home at close to 2 AM. We were all pretty happy but tired.

• Netflix has a new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice coming out and here is the trailer. 
• 10 books that changed Martha Hickson's life. 
• The finalists for the PEN Faulkner award.
• 6 islands with dark histories. 
• 9 black women who changed history. 
• These novels look good!
• Should your  muscles shake during a workout?
• I'm always looking for quick breakfasts that are also healthy. 
• Suicide prevention for midlife women.
• disney villains inspired by real people. 
• 10 places that look like they're from ACOTAR. 
• The best music biopics according to Rotten Tomatoes. 
• Daylight savings and how it impacts your sleep. 
• The culprit behind the death of reading. 
• Women's long prize for fiction is announced. 
• 9 Women who were written out of history books.
• What inspired Romeo and Juliet.
• The history of Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.

I hope that everyone has a good week!

REVIEW The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden

 This novel is all over the place given that it's being made into a movie in short order. It's a very quick and easy read too, which provides a nice break. Millie is the main character of this novel and she lands a really great job as a housemaid after being released from prison. She's hopeful and wondering if her background is a secret from her new employers, who hired her so quickly that she wonders if a background check was actually performed. Her new boss, Nina Winchester, however, is incredibly odd and really abusive in Millie's eyes.  Everything is soon flipped on its head in this novel.

This was a super quick read for me and exactly what I needed after some heavier reads. I couldn't put the novel down and kept reading even when I knew that I should be sleeping, working, cooking dinner, whatever. The plots are pretty good, but sometimes I want an easy read and this gave me that. I didn't  have to chart out characters or plots.  

I will say this - it's a very gory thriller. There is a lot of abuse, domestic violence and other not  so fuzzy or friendly things in it that might give you pause. 

Very much glad that I read it.  

links I love

 

Happy Sunday.  Assuming the TSA hasn't all left their posts, we're experiencing the Carribean!  This week will be slower than normal for posts. I hope you enjoy your week!

• 6 soups that can help with your immune system. 
• What are "the yips?"
• A reader's guide to Freda McFadden.
• Books for Armchair Travelers.
• Books for avid Toni Morrison fans. 
• I guess this isn't a shock.
• The LA Times books honorees.
• This is so cool.
• 6 abandoned places that you can visit. I love this one too

I hope that you have a great week!  See you on the other side!

REVIEW: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

 

I will admit, I was intimidated and worried about reading any novel by Octavia Butler, but I wanted to give it a go because I love dystopian fiction, fantasy and novels that critique society and this novel hit all the spots. Besides, Ms. Butler is the WOMAN.  I am so glad I read this novel.  

This is the first book in the Earthseed duology series, which many have hailed as classic sci-fi.  The story begins in the year 2024 (this novel was published in 1993 FYI) and revolves around the life and family of teenager Lauren Olamina and her family. They live in a gated community in the suburbs of what remains of Los Angeles and it is widely considered to be one of the safe areas of the city. The community is trying to salvage their society but it has been ravaged by drugs, homeless, violence, crime, theft, war, disease and water shortage (sound familiar?). Survival seems to get harder each day. Lauren has a condition called hyperempathy, which makes her really sensitive to the pain of others, often experiencing it as they experience it. It is told in the form of Lauren's diary entries, which I found to be really effective in conveying the story. 

I really enjoyed the novel's themes of family, faith, hope, community but also human's capacity to inflict violence upon each other.  Butler's prose is engaging and vivid, although the novel itself is hard to read, in the sense that what she writes about can be hard to digest. I loved meeting her characters and watching them develop throughout the novel. I definitely would recommend this novel and I hope to read Parable of the Talent at some point. 

REVIEW Motherland by Julia Ioffe

 

I picked this up because I was curious about this aspect of Russian history and Russia is all over our news, still. I was also a history major so it appealed to me.  What I learned was very surprising, particularly with regard to one of Communist Russia's legacies.  

Early in the Bolshevik Revolution, in 1917, women not only gained the right to vote, but they gained the right to no fault divorces, child support and free higher education. Abortion and birth control were also legalized within the same time frame. by 1920, women were required to work under the new regime. Journalist Julia Ioffe, a Russian born journalist, follows this history from its unique and optimistic beginning to the unraveling of this idealism at the hand of male leaders. Interspersed is a personal history of the women in her own family. She also tells of the history through female leaders, such as Alexandra Kollontai, the wives and daughters of Russian political leaders and the ordinary people. Ioffe and her family emigrate to the US in 1990, but when she returns to Russia as a journalist in 2009, she finds that the very stereotypes that the women in 1917 were trying to dismantle have returned. 

 This book was obviously widely and thoroughly researched and I learned so much that I hadn't known previously.  I did find the parts about Ioffe's own story more interesting, however although I loved the parts about Putin and Navalny.  It is incisive and illuminating in  its history and I would highly recommend this to anyone seeking to better understand Russian. 

Links I love

 

It's been brutally cold here this week.  On Sunday, the windchill was seriously ten below zero.  I don't like the extreme heat, but this has been way too cold. We enjoyed a quiet Sunday watching the game and eating snacks! We're watching The Olympics too (ouch, Lindsey Vonn!). 

Happy Valentine's Day!

1. 18 historical romances to read just in time for Valentine's Day. 
2. Why couples should have other couples as friends.
3. Health benefits of matcha.
4. I'm looking forward to some of these adaptations.
5. Best Disney books for adults (and which BookTok is obsessed with).
6. I love watching Ms. Norwood bake. 
7. The Starbucks food order that is high in protein.
8. 6 reasons to take a lunch break.
9. James Van Der Beek passed away this week (RIP Mox).  He had colorectal cancer.  Here's some information on that cancer, which is rising among people my age (I'm 46).
10. The 800th episode of the Simpsons is up!
11. The most anticipated romantasy books of 2026. 
12. Hidden mountain towns in Italy that look like a snow globe. 
13. How Thomas Harris found Hannibal Lecter.
14. The hidden women's labor behind modern classics. 
15. Some books to pick up for Black history month. 
16. Frozen smoothie mixes ranked from best to worst.
17. What spinster actually meant and how the meaning morphed. 
18. Draco Malfoy and the Chinese New Year
19. Memoirs about r elationships and dating.
20. The most romantic places to go in each state.
21. Make sure you have a hobby.
22. A beginner's guide to translated books.
23. Some good high protein dinners. 
24. The symptoms of Menopause and how to recognize them
25. What does "wuthering" mean in wuthering heights?
26. What makes a good book to movie adaptation?

I hope that everyone has a good long weekend!

REVIEW Homeschooled by Stefan Merrill Block

 

I read this because I was fascinated by the concept of a parent homeschooling and having experiencing homeschool lite during Covid. This memoir offers a glimpse into one boy's experience homeschooling and then re-integrating into school for High School. It isn't really about homeschooling though as much as it is about the  complex relationship that he had with his mother - which at points made me absolutely cry. 

At 8, Stefan Block moves with his mom, older brother and dad from Indiana to Plano, Texas. He calls Plano an "almost perfect nowhere," which I wouldn't know about not having ever been to Texas let alone Plano. It seemed that the decision to homeschool Stefan was based upon very effervescent and fluffy reasons and, when he finally was homeschooled, there was very little oversight into what was actually being taught to him.  He did math, which was his only structured subject, but then, essentially left to his own devices. Having said that, the decision to homeschool seemed to be also  based upon his mother's own dark and tragic and, quite frankly, sad history. At some point, it fell to Stefan to end the homeschooling experiment and break his mother's heart. 

What I LOVED about this book is that it is told from the child's perspective and Block doesn't try to correct what is obviously a child's observations with his own now adult wisdom. It was almost painful to watch him adapt to his mom on an almost daily basis as any child would and to read him describe that sort of mental gymnastic. It wasn't until Block was an adult that he could fully grasp that her life and his were shaped by a fear so powerful it became  destiny. And yet, he didn't reject her. At all. Instead, he loved her fiercely and showed us that love by writing this memoir that told her story alongside his. 

So good. It is one of the few books that actually made me cry. 

Links I love

 

I hope that everyone is ready for the Super Bowl!  We have Patriots fans here so people are all geared up! I think that by the time you've read this, I've completed my taxes and am working on another review!  Life and my job have been really, really busy. 

• -February has some good true crime and mystery books coming out. 
• 15 translated books to read this year. 
• Foods that reduce anxiety.
• Washington Post is gutting its book coverage.
• 12 novels about Galentine's day.
• NY has a new archbishop.
• 5 claustrophobic crime novels. 
• 19 Winter Olympic Storylines they're watching.

Please don't forget that I have a Pangobooks store!

Links I love

 

This week has been a tough one for us weather wise. On Sunday and into Monday, we got over a foot of snow, taking a while to dig out - luckily it was the light fluffy snow!

This week was also the 40th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. I was in 6th grade in NY at the time, but the teacher that was part of the launch was from NH. This was one of those moments, for me, where I can tell you where I was exactly when it happened. 

• Ideas for historical fiction.
• What are the Terminator movies really about?
• Women in espionage: a reading list. 
• The best nonfiction books: the 2026 Duff Cooper Prize
• 15 books set in Essex. 
• 5 novels with unsympathetic main characters. 
• There's a film option for Frozen River. 
• The impact of book bans on teens.
• Some of the best foods to keep in your car during winter weather emergencies.
• Catherine O'Hara passed away, sadly.
• Memoirs and the AIDS epidemic. 
• Why Book Retreats are the next big thing in travel.
• Ideas for the slow cooker that I'd like to try.
• Bookish planners and supplies to help with your reading. Sticker sets too!
• Where to watch the Super Bowl in Boston.
• 5 common misconceptions about ADHD that people still have. 
• The literal meaning of the phrase "ducks in a row".

I'm currently reading Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (I'm VERY late to the game but better late than never) and listening to Careless People. 

REVIEW Broken Country by Claire Leslie Hall

 

This was the book selection for our book club this month and I enjoyed it, although I wish that I had read it not back to back with Cursed Daughters because there was some overlap in themes and tropes. Beth and Frank are living what to, many people, appear to be a fulfilling life. They love each other and work together on the farm that they own, very closely. They seem to share everything and lead a life that many would envy. However, two years previously, their son Bobby died on the farm and Beth blames Frank for that tragedy as Frank was supposed to be watching out for their son. One day, a man and his son come to the farm after their dog escapes, gets onto Beth's farm and is shot. The man is Gabriel Wolfe, Beth's first love. And so begins a love triangle that literally changes lives. 

I definitely enjoyed this novel, but I think that I would have enjoyed it more if I had read it at a different time then directly following Cursed Daughters.  Hall uses dual timeline narrative, which I always adore because it is a very effective way to keep me, the reader, hooked into things and wanting to know more about how we got to where we got. I found it very easy to empathize with the characters, the decisions that they were making and the justifications that they had for their actions. At the heart of this novel are themes of love and loyalty: to family, to partners and children, to values.  

There were also elements of a thriller that made this novel very enjoyable to me. The plot had twists and turns that I didn't always figure out. I definitely also felt that I was immersed in the lives of the characters: it was easy to picture myself at the farm or in the pub with the characters, hearing, seeing and smelling what they were.  Definitely one to read.

Links I love

 

We've had a lot of snow this week and celebrated Civil Rights Day on Monday. My son also visited Montreal for the first time on his own to visit a friend at McGill.

I hope everyone had a good week. We are experiencing a massive storm and very, very low temps.  Fingers crossed we survive without losing power OR having frozen pipes. We're looking at over a foot of snow here. In that vein, here are the ten worst blizzards in US history. 

1. Our Episcopalian bishop made national news.
2. Are you one of these four types of introverts?
3. Timeless female authors that wrote under male pen names.
4. The 2026 Edgar nominations are out.
5. 5 Booker Prize nominated mysteries.
6. The National Book Critics 2025 list.
7. On T Swift and the heart of reinvention.
8. 6 books about Ohio.
9. These look so yummy.
10. Does Caffeine actually boost metabolism?
11. Spotify has an audiobook sync feature.  I'm excited about this since I've been getting more into audiobooks. 
12. Domestic dysfunction - thrillers that focus on the family. 
13. Many Americans read zero books in 2025 (which is CRAZY to me) but a reading challenge is here to change that. 
14. Difference between winter storm watch and winter storm warning.
15. The best epic fantasy novels as recommended by Christopher Paolini. 
16. 50 books from the last 50 years that we should all read.
17. Classics that shine on audio.
18. 6 libraries that aren't homes to books. 

I hope that everyone stays safe this weekend!

REVIEW: Cursed Daughters by Oyinkin Braithwaite

 

Very few books have ever moved to tears and this was one of them. The Falodun family as at the center of this novel. All of the women in this novel share some things in common: heartbreak, sadness and the inability to hold across a man. These things are shared across generations. In 1994, 19 year old Monife meets Kalu, who is known as "Golden Boy," a man that she believes is perfect. We know that the relationship doesn't end well because in the first chapters, Monife has committed suicide by drowning herself. Their love story is rolled out over the course of approximately 350 pages. Monife's death is perhaps the biggest character in the novel because it follows her cousin, Ebun, around and her daughter, Eniiyi, looks eerily like her (she's also born on the day of Monife's death). Eniiyi falls in love with Zubby, who she saves from drowning and, during the relationship, has visions of Monife. 

This was, surprisingly, a quick read for me, given the length of the novel.  Braithwaite's graceful writing touched upon topics that were visceral to me - the relationship between mothers and daughters, our relationship to the past, familial relationships and the ability to learn from major and tragic mistakes. The characters were interesting and fairly well developed, although one or two were pretty predictable (Golden Boy's mother for one). I won't lie - Ebun's relationship to her daughter reminded me of my relationship to Eniiyi in that I got it on an almost cellular level. 

I definitely enjoyed it. 

REVIEW I, Medusa by Ayana Gray

 

I almost didn't pick up this book - quite frankly, Medusa's nickname given to her by her sisters turned me off and made me roll my eyes. They call her "Meddy," and I didn't think I could get past it, but I'm glad that I was able to and read this novel.  I legitimately flew through this novel in about 2-3 days, which is a record for me. 

We all think we know who Medusa is right? She's the girl with hair of snakes that turns men to stone, often viciously and mercilessly. She's ultimately beheaded by Perseus. Then, in 2020 the below statue appeared in NYC. 

It was seemingly in response to the Perseus statue at the Met and was picked up as a symbol of the #metoo movement, fighting against sexual harassment, sexual abuse and rape culture.  After all, Medusa took back her power in that sculpture by beheading the original beheader. Ayana Gray attempts to tell us how Medusa came to be a powerful symbol of that movement in this novel by telling us of who Medusa was before she became the mythological creature that we all thought we knew.

This novel takes place in Ancient Greece, where Athens is the center of culture and all things wonderful. Medusa is the mortal child of two sea gods, and has grown up very isolated on an island with her parents, and two immortal older sisters. She wants more than the island can offer - adventure, knowledge. Her parents want to marry their daughters off to the highest ranking official that will them - they're objects and pawns in a game of power brokering. They exist only to serve their parents' goals. Medusa is whisked away after a situation crops up with her sister's husband to be, to train as an acolyte in Athena's main temple in Athens. Due to the color of her skin, she is "othered" and pigeonholed by the other acolytes. Her relationship with the sea god Poseidon takes form during her time in Athens, along with the presentation of a number of red flags (HINT: Poseidon is a AHOLE).  By the time we get to the last section of the novel, Medusa has reclaimed her power and accepted herself. 

I LOVED this book.  Gray seemed to really get the nuances of the complicated relationships women have with each other, even when trying to support each other. She also nails the blowback and punishment that women get when they speak out against the status quo and call BS on horrific, unfair and, quite frankly, shitty treatment at the hands of men and, sometimes, other women. This novel was a spot indictment of the many ways that women are mistreated and oppressed in their lives.  

A definite MUST READ. 

1/12 of the Library Love Challenge.

On the Popsugar Challenge, this satisfies reading a book about new beginnings AND a book about a platonic friendships between a male and female (Athena has a male best friend on her parents' island named Theo)

Links I love

 

I hope that everyone had a good week!  Playoff football is all the rage in our house!  I am, sadly, a Jets fan which means my team will never be in the playoffs but I live in New England, so we still watch a lot of football, particularly this season.  I have a cold that I'm fighting with.  Boooooo.  I'm generally feeling better, which I attribute to being somewhat healthy and being vaccinated. 

• Where two reading challenges meet.
• Texas A and M is banning who?
• I loved God in the Woods, and NPR has now interviewed Liz Moore.
• What does "cooked" actually mean?
• Mysteries that occur at Oxford University.
• New books from big names coming out in January. 
• Here are some book recommendations from NPR for your next book club meeting. These are from Book Riot. I'm looking forward to the releases by Tayari Jones and Jeanette McCurdy - I've loved both of the authors' releases in the past. 
• Definitely another one to try. 
• Dunkin through the decades.
• Some of the biggest historical anniversaries this year and why they matter. 
• Burnout vs. depression and how to tell the difference. 
• I don't care how overextended he is, he's still a jerk. Finish it already.
• The psychology of why we discuss the weather as small talk. 
• Six books to read after the movies you love. 
• The most anticipated books in translation for 2026. And the most underrated books of 2025. 
• Here's another reading challenge.
• A short history of romantasy.
• What do college students lose when libraries are ignored?
• How fanfiction made this author a literary scholar.
• Why does this year's flu feel worse?
• winter fruits that boost your immune system. 
• Here's what skibidi means. 

Please don't forget that I have a Pangobooks store and a goodreads profile! Please feel free to check out both!

REVIEW The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

 I am not going to mince words or waste your time - I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone. This novel is placed in time just after the American Revolution. The Bill of Rights and Constitution have not yet been ratified although they have been sent out to the States. It's so early, that the American currency has to still compete with the pound, as both are in circulation. Women are certainly still considered to be the property of their husbands or fathers or other male figure in their lives. 

The novel itself is centered on the life of Martha Ballard, a midwife who is living and practicing in VERY rural Maine (of note, she was a real midwife whose journals are one of, if not THE primary resource for life at that time.  Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote this book about her, which I highly recommend if you like history).  This novel fills out her character and its flaws in the telling of the story. Martha is called upon, early in the novel and in between birthing children, to examine the body of a man that has been found dead in the Kennebec River. A few months earlier, she had visited and treated the local vicar's wife, who had been the victim of a horrific gang rape. This novel is Martha's, and her community's attempt, to piece together the truth of what happened to the man in the river and the vicar's wife. 

The writing style and construct were absolutely what sold it for me.  This novel was definitely thoroughly researched but the information was presented in a readable, entertaining and very easy fashion. A non-linear timeframe was used. This is my favorite construct and I find it to be very effective in keeping me interested and guessing as to what is going on or has happened. I loved the characters and I particularly loved the relationship between Martha and her husband, which was seemingly quite egalitarian.  

Definitely a must read.