Happy New Year

 

Happy Reading!

Waiting on Wednesday: Jagged Little Pill

Hi All,

Just stopping by to let you know about a book that I am waiting on.

 
Summary from Goodreads:

A timely and gutsy YA novel based on the Tony and Grammy Award winning musical from Alanis Morissette, Diablo Cody, and Glen Ballard!

Swallow it down—what a jagged little pill . . .

Jagged Little Pill: The Novel follows the intertwining lives of five teens whose world is changed forever after the events at a party.

Adopted Frankie struggles to see eye-to-eye with her mother—who would rather ignore a problem and preserve their “perfect” life than stand up for what’s right. Jo just wants her mom to accept her queer identity—and is totally crushed when Frankie, the only person who really gets her, finds herself infatuated with someone new. Phoenix tries to find his place at the new school and balance wanting to spend time with Frankie but knowing he also has to help out with his sick sister at home. Bella wants to enjoy the end of high school and just head off to college without a hitch. Everyone expects Frankie's brother Nick to be the golden boy, but even though he just got into his dream school, he’s not even sure he's a good person. Each of their stories intersects when Bella is sexually assaulted at a party, and it looks like the perpetrator might get away with it.

Moving, heartfelt, and raw, Jagged Little Pill: The Novel draws on the musical’s story and gives readers deeper glimpses of the characters. It’s a story about the power of voicing your pain, standing up for what’s right, and finding healing and connection.

 

Happy Reading!

Book Date: Such Big Dreams

Hi All,

It is a Book Date Monday! I am so excited to share that I received early access to this one. 

Author: Reema Patel
 
Summary:
A savvy former street child working at a law office in Mumbai fights for redemption and a chance to live life on her own terms in this fresh, propulsive debut novel about fortune and survival.

Rakhi is a twenty-three-year-old haunted by the grisly aftermath of an incident that led to the loss of her best friend eleven years ago. Constantly reminded she doesn’t belong, Rakhi lives alone in a Mumbai slum, working as a lowly office assistant at Justice For All, a struggling human-rights law organization headed by the renowned lawyer who gave her a fresh start.

Fiercely intelligent and in possession of a sharp wit and an even sharper tongue, Rakhi is nobody’s fool, even if she is underestimated by everyone around her. Rakhi’s life isn’t much, but she’s managing. That is, until Rubina Mansoor, a fading former Bollywood starlet, tries to edge her way back into the spotlight by becoming a celebrity ambassador for Justice For All. Steering the organization into uncharted territories, she demands an internship for Alex, a young family friend from Canada and Harvard-bound graduate student. Ambitious, persistent, and naïve, Alex persuades Rakhi to show him “the real” India. In exchange, he’ll do something to further Rakhi’s dreams in a transaction that seems harmless, at first.

As old guilt and new aspirations collide, everything Rakhi once knew to be true is set ablaze. And as the stakes mount, she will come face-to-face with the difficult choices and moral compromises that people make in order to survive, no matter the cost. Reema Patel’s transportive debut novel offers a moving, smart, and arrestingly clever look at the cost of ambition and power in reclaiming one’s story.
 

Happy Reading!

Bookworm Bingo

One more bingo before the new year! I thought that this would be a fun one to do over the next few days. Anyone want to play along?

 

Happy Reading!

Waiting on Wednesday

Hi Everyone,

Stopping by to let you know about a book that I am excited to read. 

Author: Meredith Schorr
 
Summary from Goodreads:
Emerging journalist Adina Gellar is done with dating in New York City. If she's learned anything from made-for-TV romance movies, it's that she'll find love in a small town - the kind with harvest festivals, delightful but quirky characters, and scores of delectable single dudes. So when a big-city real estate magnate targets tiny Pleasant Hollow for development, Adi knows she's found the perfect story - one that will earn her a position at a coveted online magazine, so she can finally start adulting for real...and maybe even find her dream man in the process.

Only Pleasant Hollow isn't exactly "pleasant." There's no charming bakery, no quaint seasonal festivals, and the residents are more ambivalent than welcoming. The only upside is Finn Adams, who's more mouthwatering than the homemade cherry pie Adi can't seem to find - even if he does work for the company she'd hoped to bring down. Suddenly Adi has to wonder if maybe TV got it all wrong after all. But will following her heart mean losing her chance to break into the big time? 

Happy Reading!

Book Date: Memphis

Hi All, 

Stopping by to share a Book Date Monday with you. I received an early copy of this one and am excited to share it with you! 

Author: Tara M. Stringfellow
 
Summary from Amazon:
A spellbinding debut novel tracing three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her family’s legacy.

Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.

As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush.

Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.

 

Happy Reading!

Stacking the Shelves

 Hi All,

Just stopping by to let you know about a few books that I am Stacking my Shelves with. Have you read this series? What did you think?

Happy Reading!

2022 Pop Sugar Challenge

Hi All,

Just stopping by to let you know about the 2022 Pop Sugar Challenge. Here are the prompts:

• A book published in 2022
• A book set on a plane, train, or cruise ship
• A book about or set in a nonpatriarchal society
• A book with a tiger on the cover or "tiger" in the title
• A sapphic book
• A book by a Latinx author
• A book with an onomatopoeia in its title
• A book with a protagonist who uses a mobility aid
• A book about a "found family"
• An Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winner
• A #BookTok recommendation
• A book about the afterlife
• A book set in the 1980s
• A book with cutlery on the cover or in the title
• A book by a Pacific Islander author
• A book about witches
• A book becoming a TV series or movie in 2022
• A romance novel by a BIPOC author
• A book that takes place during your favorite season
• A book whose title begins with the last letter of your previous read
• A book about a band or musical group
• A book with a character on the ace spectrum
• A book with a recipe in it
• A book you can read in one sitting
• A book about a secret
• A book with a misleading title
• A Hugo Award winner
• A book set during a holiday
• A different book by an author you read in 2021
• A book with the name of a board game in the title
• A book featuring a man-made disaster
• A book with a quote from your favorite author on the cover or Amazon page
• A social-horror book
• A book set in Victorian times
• A book with a constellation on the cover or in the title
• A book you know nothing about
• A book about gender identity
• A book featuring a party
• An #OwnVoices SFF (science fiction and fantasy) book
• A book that fulfills your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge

Advanced

• A book with a reflected image on the cover or "mirror" in the title
• A book that features two languages
• A book with a palindromic title
• A duology (1)
• A duology (2)
• A book about someone leading a double life
• A book featuring a parallel reality
• A book with two POVs
• Two books set in twin towns, aka "sister cities" (1)
• Two books set in twin towns, aka "sister cities" (2)

 

Happy Reading!

Book Date: Getting Good At Being You

Hi All,

Happy Book Date Monday. Just stopping by to let you know about my current read.

Happy Reading!

End of the Semester

 

Happy Reading!

Waiting on Wednesday

Hi All,

Just stopping by to let you know about a book that  I am waiting on.

Author: Multiple Authors
 
Summary from Goodreads:
Love is in the air in this is a collection of stories inspired by romantic tropes and edited by #1 New York Times-bestselling author Marissa Meyer.

The secret admirer.
The fake relationship.
The matchmaker.

From stories of first love, unrequited love, love that surprises, love that’s been there all along, ten of the brightest and award-winning authors writing YA have taken on some of your favorite romantic tropes, embracing them and turning them on their heads. Readers will swoon for this collection of stories that celebrate love at its most humorous, inclusive, heart-expanding, and serendipitous.

Contributors include Elise Bryant, Elizabeth Eulberg, Leah Johnson, Anna-Marie McLemore, Marissa Meyer, Sandhya Menon, Julie Murphy, Caleb Roehrig, Sarah Winifred Searle, and Abigail Hing Wen

 

Happy Reading!

Book Date: Feel Your Way Through

Happy Book Data Monday. I am excited to be enjoying this one this week :)

 

Happy Reading!

December Book Bingo

 

Happy Reading!