Rise to the Sun (2021) by Leah Johnson (You Should See Me In a Crown) is a contemporary sapphic YA romance that takes place over the three days of a summer music festival. Both Olivia and Toni are from the Indianapolis area, but they don’t know each other. Olivia goes to the festival with herContinue reading “Rise to the Sun”
Tag Archives: grief
A Council of Dolls
Wow. There are few other words that do justice to A Council of Dolls, by Mona Susan Power (publication date August 8, 2023). Told in multiple perspectives over several time periods in the late 1800s and through the 1900s, each of the storylines involves a doll given to the little girl that is the mainContinue reading “A Council of Dolls”
Too Soon for Adiós
Too Soon for Adiós by Annette Chavez Macias (2023) was an impulse library shelf pick that surprised me with how good it was! (For being a random pick I knew nothing about.) As the book opens, twenty-nine year old Gabby is dealing with the death of her mother from cancer. She had quit her sous-chefContinue reading “Too Soon for Adiós”
The Sea Elephants
The Sea Elephants (publication date July 11, 2023) by Shastri Akella is the book about grief, queerness, Hindu mythology, and street theatre that I had no idea that I needed. It’s beautifully written, and though it’s not a short book, I wished that I could stay immersed in Shagun world longer. As the book opensContinue reading “The Sea Elephants”
Hope and Glory
Recommend if you’re interested in a family drama set in London with a Nigerian-British family and a sister who’s just come home after her father has died and her family has fallen apart.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Beautifully written, full of quotable lines, Zevin has created a story about the art of making games that also deals with grief and the heartache of the world, and how to keep making art through it all.
Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe
This is an OK, weight-neutral chick lit read lacking in racial representation but set in a southern town. Where are the black people?
You Should See Me in a Crown
You Should See Me In a Crown (2020) by Leah Johnson is so good!! Liz Lighty, senior at a suburban Indianapolis high school, band geek, straight-A student, lives with her grandparents in a small town on the outskirts of Indianapolis that feels very familiar. Her mother has passed away, and her brother is often sickContinue reading “You Should See Me in a Crown”
The Sweetness of Water
Listening to the critically-acclaimed The Sweetness of Water (2021) by Nathan Harris was like watching a disaster in slow motion. I knew some of the characters were going to be hurt, badly, but the journey was so beautifully written I had to keep listening. George Walker is an old man, a transplanted Northerner in aContinue reading “The Sweetness of Water”
The Book of Form and Emptiness
I was really looking forward to The Book of Form and Emptiness (2021) by Ruth Ozeki because I loved her 2013 A Tale for the Time Being. It both exceeded and fell far short of my expectations in different ways. The great: I was hooked from the very first page. Ozeki has the book tellContinue reading “The Book of Form and Emptiness”
Reading While Fat 