Let me be honest: I am not a romance reader. I find it difficult to read when my eyes are rolling across the floor at some of the dialogue or character descriptions. I am, however, a MASSIVE fan of rom coms (embrace your contradictions!), and this book delivers. Two characters with chemistry and emotional barricades that need to be torn down during a fake relationship on an English university campus, genuine and beautiful female friendships, and enough song references to build a reading soundtrack? Honey and Spice deserves a handful of popcorn with every turn of the page.
'Juniper and Thorn', a retelling of the Grimm fairytale 'The Juniper Tree', captured and entranced my mind completely while reading it and after. Reid fully embraces the darkness of the original tale while adding enough story of her own to enchant you, break your heart, and chill you to the bone. Shot through with mythic themes and gothic horror, Reid's tale is one of fear and survival, hope, yearning and defiance.
This is one of my favorite books and Reid is very quickly becoming a favorite author as well! A must read! Her writing is stunning!
Kirby offers up some dark, giddy feminism that really hit the spot for me during this time of BS. I had no idea what was happening when I started the first story, then I did, and I was like 'Yeeees!'. I live for Cassandra, watching the destruction of her temples with a smirk on her face, remembering that these men are barefaced cowards.
"...men who think her mad driving her to madness. She wishes she could move far away to an islan and own a bird."
Word.
#1 on my "I wish I'd read the book first!" list.
If you haven't watched the movie adaptation of this book on Netflix yet, wait! Devour the book then definitely watch the movie because they did a fantastic job capturing its bizarre essence. But, if you can, let this eerie road trip adventure unfold page by page the first time you experience it. This book is a subversive journey through genres that ends with a big red bow that may or may not be dripping with blood. If you like complicated relationships, inner dialogue, puzzles that don't feel like puzzles, and don't mind things getting a little weird, this wonderfully strange novel is for you.
After encountering a series of exes, soon-to-be-married serial dater Lola finds herself tempted by the workings of a cult using her as a subject for their romantic experiment. Lola must assess her feelings for Boots, her uncomplicated fiance, as well as confront the fragments of her messy past that awaken old parts of herself. Lush with beautiful writing and biting descriptions of men, Cult Classic is a smart, hilarious novel that pokes fun at modern dating norms.
A novel I return to when I can't read anything else. This unabashedly funny debut chronicles the post-academic life of writer Peter Cunningham. Martin’s characters are all sharp and easy to love, despite their errors. They drink too much, lay out their ambitions, overanalyze, pursue destructive relationships, and mine the dreadful ends of experience for something to poke and laugh about. There's even a love triangle. A brilliant book that names the unnameable gloom of being unsure and writing in the 21st century.
Looking for something truly unsettling? This is the book. I've never read anything quite like it -- but also, reading it felt somehow inevitable, as if I've been haunted by it before.
Abbi Waxman has done it again! Alongside some of your favorite Bookish Life of Nina Hill characters, Laura & the other residents of Maggie's house will surely encourage all of us "adults" to cut ourselves a break, take a leap of faith, and find (or finally recognize) the people that feel like home.
"This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever fallen in love with a culture that was devouring their own."
If you like Dune you need to read this, if you like Ann Leckie books you need to read this, if you like language or court intrigue or spy novels you need to read this, if you like action movies that are actually mostly incisive barbs and diplomacy - you need to read this. Picture a delicate mashup of the Giver and the Expanse series but set in an ancient empire (one could also call it a militaristic death cult) that names its warships after poetry.
Arkady Martine absolutely deserves to be up there with science fiction greats like Herbert, Leckie, and Tepper.
