Everything We Read in April 2021

I saw a reel about this book on Instagram while I was deep in the Sunday scaries. I’m not embarrassed to say I read the whole thing on a rainy Sunday evening while listening to Taylor Swift’s redo of Fearless, which is perfect because this book is about a normal girl who is best friends with Lilah, a Taylor Switft-esque country singer. Reagan is sort of a bad girl whose parents send her away from the summer to tag along on Lilah’’s tour (questionable parenting decisions, but OK). Things get interesting when Reagan falls for Lilah’s opening act. This is a cute contemporary YA, and I highly recommend putting one of Taylor’s early albums on repeat while you read. 

My family listened to all these books on Audible years ago while we took a long car trip. I wasn’t interested for some reason and had my headphones in the whole time. Now, years later, I’ve realized I was missing out. These are a rare YA written for boys, but I found myself really enjoying them. The best way I can describe this series is Game of Thrones in space, with a bit of The Hunger Games thrown in. These books take place on Mars in a society that has separated the human species into colors. Darrow, the protagonist, is a Red, the lowest color, and he lives below ground in a community that mines Mars for the helium-3 that makes the atmosphere breathable. The Audible version of these is great, but I actually grabbed the book out of the library because I wanted to read faster. There are actually five books in total, but I need a little break before the last two.

I’ve heard such great things about this book. It’s very whimsical, a story about magical orphan children and their found family. The protagonist is Linus, a middle-aged bureaucrat in the government agency in charge of magical youths. He finds her perspectives changed when he is sent to an orphanage for the most dangerous of magical children. This is a story about overcoming prejudice and living life to the fullest. I found myself wondering sometimes when it would be over, but there were a lot of things to like. 

A read this one last month with mixed reviews. I didn’t love it as much as Tell Me Lies, but I will say I thought a lot about this book. This is a very bougie New York City book, so I recommend it if you want a reminder of the pre-pandemic city!

The Grace Year is The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Power meets Lord of the Flies, but make it YA. This probably would have been better as an adult book, because some of the YA themes seemed a little simplistic for me, but I really liked The Grace Year. It takes place in a society where teenage girls are sent away for a year (their grace year) in order to burn off their magic so they can return and be good wives. But while there, they are hunted by people who want to kill them and sell their magic like a drug. This is kind of a psychological thriller and I really couldn’t put it down.

*Content warning for rape, child abuse, drug addiction.* This book was really beautifully written, but contains a lot of trauma in only about two hundred pages. If you enjoyed Infinite Country, this is another multigenerational immigrant story dealing with the horrors of the U.S. immigration system. Of Women and Salt follows Jeanette, a twenty-something daughter of immigrants from Cuba with a drug addiction as her life intersects with Ana, a young girl whose mother is being deported back to Honduras. This book is pretty heartbreaking and tough to read, but gave me a different perspective.

I’ve never read anything by Haruki Murakami, but really enjoyed this quick little audiobook about how running impacted his writing and life in general. Fittingly, I listened to this on audiobook during my runs, and really enjoyed his perspective on both running and writing and living a balanced life. I’d recommend this for any aspiring runners or readers who need a little inspiration. I definitely want to pick up 1Q84 or Norwegian Wood next.

A companion to Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince, these are stories from Cardan’s point of view, both before and after the series. I usually don’t love this type of companion book, but Cardan is a great character, so I added it to my list at the library. I was underwhelmed, but it’s fun if you really liked Folk of the Air (which is a fantastic series!)

After a year plus of no travel and as we rapidly approach the year anniversary of our cancelled trip to Paris, I needed some good old-fashioned travel lust. One of my friends recommended this book to me a while ago and I finally picked it up. This book was actually published in 1991, but is just as fun to read. The author and his wife move to a small town in Provence, France, from England. He details their life living in rural France and its fun, beautiful and makes me want to go to Provence as soon as possible.

To be totally honest, this book was a little weird. Rachel is a recent graduate working at a talent agency in LA and is completely consumed by her eating disorder. She counts calories obsessively and exercises compulsively. She meets Miriam, a Orthodox girl at her favorite frozen yogurt shop, and then fall into a unique friendship turned romance. This book is very unique- it’s unlike anything I’ve ever read, but is definitely worth picking up.

I love Nora Ephron and have been meaning to read this book forever. This collection of essays is mostly centered on aging, but I think still worth the read for a young twenty-something like myself. The essays are smart and funny and there are a lot of fun New York mentions. To me Nora Ephron is the original young female essayist and its for good reason. Pick it up if you want a fun book of essays!

I was looking for a good mystery and this book was on a bunch of Best Of lists from 2019. This is actually the second part of a series, but now I want to go back and read the first one. Susan is a publisher who fled to a small hotel in Greece after a public scandal (This is what the first book is about!) A family who owns a hotel in England comes to Greece and begs Susan for help finding their missing daughter, a case they believe is connected to a brutal murder at their hotel several years ago. This book is essentially two books in one, and it really keeps you guessing until the end. Recommend for a good, fast paced but well written mystery!

*Content warning: eating disorders, cancer* 

Jayne and June are two sisters who could not be more opposite. They both live in New York city but avoid each other like the plague, until June, the responsible sister,  is diagnosed with cancer and is forced to ask her sister for help. Jayne, widely regarded by family and friends as unreliable and complicated, steps up to help her sister and is forced to face her own demons with family and her eating disorder. 

I really loved this book. As someone who has a complicated relationship with food, this book was immediately deeply familiar to me and definitely triggering. The vision of New York City and the different NYCs that exist depending on your socioeconomic status was very interesting. Definitely pick this book up!

I was in the mood for a historical quick read and found Three Hours in Paris. I read it in one sitting on a rainy Sunday. In 1940, Hitler spent three hours in Paris and never returned and no one knows why. Cara Black erimagines history with a young female spy seeking retribution at the center. Not the best written book, but was a satisfying one sitting read.