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January 1, 2022 By Melanie Sweeney Leave a Comment

Some Books I Loved in 2021

A collage of 30 book covers, all of which are listed in the blog post.

It’s the end of a year, which is a good time to share a list. If I were beholden to sense, I’d have whittled this down to a neat 21 titles to match the year, but honestly, why cut a few just for that? Here are the books that, for whatever reason – their humor, their swooniness, their language, their bold characters, their heart – stood out as I flipped back through my book log. They are here because I tucked them into my back pocket and carried them with me through all the mundane, terrible, and joyful moments of this year, and they survived the wash.

I set some vague goals at the beginning of 2021 – I wanted to read 100 books, and I wanted to share reviews of them. I also wanted to make book-inspired art. The art didn’t last, sadly, and the monthly roundups fell by the wayside halfway through the year, partly because I tend to write loooooongform (see: well, this exact document) and couldn’t always find the time to do it justice and partly because I hit a reading slump and quit writing reviews because I don’t do this as a job, and I don’t write about books I didn’t like as a rule. This is a space of celebration and joy. I’m not sure that I’ll set any particular goals for 2022.

Some stats: I read 110 books this year, not including the dozens of chapter books, picture books, and nonfiction books I read to my kids. (We homeschool, so it’s honestly too many to count.) Eight of my reads were nonfiction, mainly parenting-/homeschooling-related, craft books on writing, and essay/memoir. 102 were fiction. 91 were romance or romantic women’s fiction. (My six-year-old asks often, “Why do you read so many books about people falling in love?” Because, my dear, it feels good.) The rest of the fiction was mainly apocalyptic/climate-related, haha. (I took Emily Henry’s advice from Beach Read and kept my ratio “More swoon, less doom.”) I counted books I reread in their entirety as another book in my count but none that I reread only pieces of. There were only a few. My list includes books by 74 different authors.

I haven’t analyzed all the tropes and themes in the books I loved, but I know my favorite combination is romance and grief. Some standouts are Emily Henry’s books, Trish Doller’s Float Plan, Abby Jimenez’s Life’s Too Short, Sierra Simone’s Sinner, N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy (which begins with The Fifth Season), Alison Stine’s Road Out of Winter and Trashlands, and Miriam Toews’ Women Talking, all of which made my heart ache and, in some cases, made me cry.

My most compulsive, couldn’t-put-it-down, stayed-up-all-night-to-finish book was Alison Stine’s Road Out of Winter. My ugliest cry (and a big surprise on this front) was Sierra Simone’s Sinner. My favorite nonfiction book was Phillip Hurst’s essay collection, Whiskey Boys. My comfort book was Emily Henry’s Beach Read. My biggest laugh was Alexis Hall’s Boyfriend Material. My swooniest, gentlest read was Kate Clayborn’s Love at First.

Audiobooks continue to be the real star of my reading life. (Audiobooks are real books! Listening counts! #AudiobookDefenseSquad) All but seven titles I read this year were audiobooks, though I bought a handful in print after listening to them. My favorite audiobook narrators in no particular order were Julia Whelan, Rebecca Lowman, Zachary Webber, Jacob Morgan, Maxine Mitchell, Joe Jameson, and Robin Miles. Some standout audiobooks for me, also in no particular order, were N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy, read by Robin Miles; Emily Henry’s Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation, read by Julia Whelan; Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall, read by Joe Jameson; Sierra Simone’s Sinner, read by Jacob Morgan; Life’s Too Short by Abby Jimenez, read by Christine Lakin and Zachary Webber; The Hook Up by Kristen Callihan, read by Maxine Mitchell and Teddy Hamilton; and Kate Hope Day’s In the Quick, read by Rebecca Lowman.

The other star was my library. I didn’t differentiate between books I checked out from the library and those I read via a paid subscription service (Scribd mainly, some Audible), but I feel confident in saying more than half came from my public library. Shout out to Harris County Public Libraries and in particular my local branch, which is nothing more than a shack with a single window after our library flooded in Hurricane Harvey. Our librarians are wonderful, and interlibrary loan and e/audio loans have been vital in my access to books this year.

I don’t have a plan for this year-end roundup. I keep a book log, and for some books, I copied dozens of quotations and wrote extensive summaries, and in others, I merely rated the book. So, how about I just share the things I best remember or my favorite quote/moment, and we won’t worry about consistency or the illusion of order? Good? Good.

A book cover with red and blue blocks reminiscent of the Union Jack flag with white outlines of London landmarks and an illustrated man in a suit and another in casual clothes. The title is Boyfriend Material. The author is Alexis Hall.

Boyfriend Material, Alexis Hall: Super funny. Super swoony. Grumpy/sunshine. Fake dating. Luc makes Oliver an “emotional support sandwich.” A quote: “They got this idea that if I turned up and told you how much I cared about you that you’d fall into my arms and we’d live happily ever after. But frankly, they’ve wildly underestimated how fucked up you are.

Women Talking, Miriam Toews: This is a fictional imagining of a true story about Mennonite girls and women who were drugged and raped by a group of men in their community and had to grapple with those men remaining in the community. It uses a frame – the book is a written as a recording of minutes of the women’s meetings in which they decide whether to stay and forgive the men (they will be forced to) or leave. For the heavy subject matter, I found it surprisingly hopeful and not too overbearing. A quote: “There must be satisfaction gained in accurately naming the thing that torments you.”

An abstract book cover with a black background and bright blue shapes -- bird, plane, fish, apple. In pink, the title, Such a Fun Age, and author, Kylie Reid.

Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid: Smart, funny, deeply empathetic. The first chapter and the final scene are perfection.

A book cover with a city skyline on a purple background that fades from dark purple at the top down to a lighter purplish-pink. One apartment building is in color among line art drawings of others, and it has hearts floating out from a lit window. The title is Love at First, and the author is Kate Clayborn.

Love at First, Kate Clayborn: A hug in a book. A quote: “It was the way you said your lover’s name, the way you sometimes softly asserted the fact of their being there, of their being yours.”

A book cover with white and blue shapes that appear to indicate human figures among trees in the snow. In bold orange lettering, the title, Road Out of Winter, and the author, Alison Stine.

Road Out of Winter, Alison Stine: I could not put this book down. It’s set in a near-future Appalachia where winter has come and never lifted. The main character is separated from her only family. She possesses some seeds and skill at growing things. She sets out to reunite with her mother and find somewhere more hospitable. I particularly love how Stine writes about gender in such an environment. A quote: “There had been suffering here forever, even before the cold came. Long ago, we had been forgotten in the holler, forgotten and left to make it on our own with no jobs, no hope of jobs. Now, cold wrung the worst from us.”

A bubblegum pink book cover with an astronaut in full suit, floating. The title is In the Quick, and the author is Kate Hope Day.

In the Quick, Kate Hope Day: It’s Jane Eyre in space! No, really! My favorite aspect of this book was how well Day captures a creative mind at work, especially one creative mind collaborating with another. It’s heady and crackling in the same way that love stories are. Rebecca Lowman’s narration is the perfect accompaniment/vessel in the audiobook.

A bright blue book cover with an illustrated man and woman standing on either side of a podium. The title is The Intimacy Experiment -- intimacy in neon pink lights -- and the author is Rosie Danan.

The Intimacy Experiment, Rosie Danan: The Roommate surprised me in the best way in 2020, and this follow-up lived up to my hopes. The female main character is a former adult performer turned sex educator and CEO. She’s bold and a little brash, a woman wrapped up in many layers of defense, but her vulnerability is what put this book on my keeper shelf. Also, this is essentially a handbook for romantic intimacy. There’s legitimately good advice in it.

A blue book cover with an illustrated man tugging a woman in a ring float through water. There are tropical plants and a bird in the sky. The title is Shipped, and the author is Angie Hockman.

Shipped, Angie Hockman: This is like The Hating Game but on a cruise ship. I liked the audio quite a bit.

A yellow illustrated book cover with a woman at the bottom blowing bubble hearts up to a man at the top. A small dog hangs in the O of the title word, "too." The title is Life's Too Short, and the author is Abby Jimenez.

Life’s Too Short, Abby Jimenez: Check your content warnings before you dive into this one. What sold me immediately with this book is that, in the very beginning, the male main character goes to do something about the incessantly crying baby keeping him awake in the adjacent apartment and winds up offering to help the woman caring for said baby, telling her to go take a shower. As a mother, this is peak fantasy stuff. (No, we would not entrust babies with strangers in real life, but shhhh.) This book was quite emotional. Zachary Webber’s narration absolutely sells heartbreak and helplessness in the audiobook like no one else could.

An illustrated book cover over a man and a woman on a sailboat. The title is Float Plan, and the author is Trish Doller.

Float Plan, Trish Doller: More content warnings with this one, just FYI. The female main character sets out on a sailing trip she was supposed to take with her fiancé who died by suicide. She’s not skilled enough to do the trip solo and winds up taking on an experienced sailor. They follow the itinerary at first but have to start charting a new course. Anna’s journey through grief and into self-sufficiency and acceptance is the heart of this book, but the romance is integral, too. I wanted very much for a Happily Ever After with the two of them together, but this is the only romance I’ve read where the Dark Night of the Soul/the lovers’ separation actually felt like it brought color into the book, like it allowed the story to breathe more fully, and I found myself not needing the HEA. (It is a romance, though, so don’t worry.) Those pages that are usually so fraught and depressing open up the entire book in a way that I found surprising and skillful and very moving.

An orange illustrated book cover with a man and a woman lying on separate pool loungers in their bathing suits. The title is People We Meet on Vacation. The author is Emily Henry.

People We Meet on Vacation, Emily Henry: After Beach Read, I had very high hopes for this book, and Emily Henry did not disappoint. She’s been compared to Nora Ephron for her romantic banter – a fitting comparison, especially since this book pays homage to When Harry Met Sally. It’s about two friends who take an annual vacation together, but they haven’t spoken in two years after something happened in Croatia, and now Poppy intends to salvage their friendship with another trip. There are so many moments I love in this book. The sick/care scene which should not be so . . . hot? The inside jokes that run throughout the book. A monologue in which Alex expresses his worry that he’ll “find out I have fucking dick cancer or something and it’s too late for me.” When he carries her, injured, down a mountain with the caveat that she’s not allowed to call him “Seabiscuit.” A quote: “You make me weird. I’m not like this with anyone else.”

A green illustrated cover of a girl swirling green magic with her hands in a forest and a young, white dragon looking on. The title is Seekers of the Wild Realm. The author is Alexandra Ott.

Seekers of the Wild Realm, Alexandra Ott: This is a middle grade chapter book I read with my kids. Brynn wants to become a Seeker but she’s up against sexism – there’s never been a female Seeker in her village before. She’ll have to compete with all boys for the sole spot, but she’s not even allowed to participate in the training. Meanwhile, Ari proposes a trade: he’ll pass along the training to her if she’ll help him with the baby dragon he found, which he’s been taking care of in secret. The characters all have a magic gift – healing, defense, nature, etc. – and I love that Ari’s is empathy. He does a lot of the work in and for the book that female characters tend to do.

A book cover with a child sitting on multicolored stairs. The title is The Brave Learner. The author is Julie Bogart.

Brave Learner, Julie Bogart: This book is about homeschooling, but it’s more widely applicable to parents, teachers, and anyone working with kids. The part that blew me away: “When adults ask kids to love learning, they’re asking children to find academics pleasurable so that adults will be relieved of the obligation to nag.”

An illustrated book cover. The background is a manila envelope. A man and a woman sit on the top of a red typewriter. The title is Very Sincerely Yours. The author is Kerry Winfrey.

Very Sincerely Yours, Kerry Winfrey: Hot Mr. Rogers. Need I say more? Okay, fine, I’ll say more. I think this book captures a Romance Hero Type that specifically ties into my next book on the list, The Heroine’s Journey. I intended to write an essay at some point about such romance heroes, but alas, I never got to it. So, without a bunch of useful context, I will just say, I think Everett is a romance hero who is on a Heroine’s Journey, and I think such romance heroes are very appealing because of their willingness to collaborate, the fact that they value community and tend to have solid relationships and supports, their performance of caretaking that is typically coded as feminine, and much more. Everett’s job is literally to host a children’s show about feelings, and while he has his own character arc that gives him nearly equal billing as a main character, he also serves as a prominent support person for the messier female main character. Listen, sometimes, we want a romance hero who does all the stuff women have been doing in books forever is what I’m saying. A quote: “‘Buck up, you idiot,’ he told himself, which made him feel like a fraud because he would absolutely destroy someone who told any of his child viewers something like that. He decided to try a different approach. ‘It’s okay to feel your feelings,’ he told his reflection, which made him frown further because how the hell was he supposed to feel a feeling if he didn’t know what it was?”

A black book cover with a gray sculpture of a woman's head which turns into a spiral staircase. Along the stairs, the title is The Heroine's Journey. The author is Gail Carriger.

The Heroine’s Journey, Gail Carriger: The Hero’s Journey but for Heroines! This book compares the two and gives practical advice for writers who wish to craft a Heroine’s Journey.

A book cover with a black and white photo of a couple, the man embracing the woman from behind, around the shoulders. The photo is broken up with large abstract blobs of pink, red, and white, all on a blue background. The title is Seven Days in June. The author is Tia Williams.

Seven Days in June, Tia Williams: Writers are always told not to write books about writers, but – as a writer, ahem – I love them a whole lot! This one is about two writers who, as teenagers, had a brief but intense relationship, and now, as adults, their paths have re-crossed, only to reveal that they have been writing to and about each other in their books! Check your content warnings on this one. A quote: “I’ve changed. [. . .] I believe this is what writers call a character arc.”

A book cover with a close up photo of a man sitting backwards in a chair, loosely holding a microphone and leaning on the chair back. The title is Lead, and the author is Kylie Scott.

Lead, Kylie Scott: Another heads up on potentially tricky content. This is the third book of Scott’s Stage Dive series, which is about a fictional rock band. Scott’s books, to me, are pure escapism with fun tropes and crackling humor and surprising emotional beats. (I don’t mean escapism in a pejorative way.) Jimmy’s sober companion, Lena, realizes she’s in love with him right as he goes through a heartbreaking loss that threatens his sobriety. In the audiobook, Andie Arndt captures the voice of the plucky-but-vulnerable-but-takes-no-shit heroine really well. A quote: “‘You used to drink here. This place is a trigger for you.’ He scoffed and spread his arms wide. ‘This whole world is a trigger for me.’”

A book cover with a photo backdrop of a snowy, Alaskan mountain range. From behind, a woman holds onto her hat and looks down a highway toward the mountains and the title, written like chem trails by an airplane in the sky, Wild at Heart. The author is K.A. Tucker.

Wild at Heart, K.A. Tucker: This is a true sequel to The Simple Wild. It sticks with the same couple and picks up right where the first book left off, so don’t skip the first one. Kind of a marriage-in-trouble book, though they’re not married yet. My favorite thing about it is that both characters get to be grumpy. I love a mildly bratty, petulant heroine, probably because I am one myself. When Calla struggles to adapt to life in Alaska and complains about having to pee in the cold and dark “with wolves and shit around,” Jonah laughs and says, “God, I missed your bad attitude.”

A tropical illustrated cover or a man and a woman on an island with a plane flying overhead and vibrant flowers in the foreground. The title is The Layover, and the author is Lacie Waldon.

The Layover, Lacie Waldon: Another book reminiscent of The Hating Game, but in this one, they’re both flight attendants. The romance is great and gave me all the swoony, swoopy feelings in my stomach, but what I really love about this book is its focus on wanderers. Ava’s parents are wanderers, and she’s spent most of her life apologizing for her own rootlessness, even convinced herself she wants stability, to stay. But on her last trip as a flight attendant before marrying her fiancé and staying put, she faces the reality of giving up her job and her lifestyle, and she finds in co-worker Jack a kindred spirit.

Sinner, Sierra Simone: This book. So, it won’t be for everyone. It’s about a guy who grew up Catholic, but a tragedy in his family made him leave the Church and any real semblance of religious faith. He runs into a friend from his youth – his best friend’s younger sister, Zenny – who is about to join an order of nuns. She worries that she hasn’t been tested enough to know if she’s really ready to take her vows and leave behind a layperson’s life. (Yes, that means sex, among other things.) She asks Sean to help her out with the matter, and despite a lot of guilt and resistance, he agrees. Now, listen, if you’re here for the steamy scenes, you probably won’t be disappointed? They are not, for me, the main draw of the book. I wasn’t as interested in the “taboo” aspects of their relationship as I was in the book’s concern with faith and forgiveness and grief, though the sexual relationship is important and central to the romance and Sean’s character arc. (On that note, definitely check for content warnings.) This book made my list for three reasons: 1) the theological discussions the main characters have and how the book specifically addresses the tension of finding true comfort in Catholicism’s particular rituals and prayers (things that, to me, a lapsed Catholic, feel unreproducible outside of the Church) while rejecting the institution, aspects of which are personally irreconcilable; 2) the methodical interrogation of Sean’s faith, which culminates in one of the most heart-wrenching scenes I’ve ever read; I was so moved, I openly sobbed; and 3) Jacob Morgan’s narration, which is so emotionally layered and authentic and masterful. A quote: “I could tell him every single ugly truth about watching a body fail, watching a body fail as it still holds a person you love beyond measure.”

A red illustrated book cover with a woman in an apron and jaunty illustrations of cakes and baking utensils. The title is Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, and the author is Alexis Hall.

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, Alexis Hall: If you like the Great British Bake Off, you’ll like this book for the judges’ comments alone. It’s set on a similar baking competition show in the UK. The main character is a single mom trying to get out from under the help (and judgment) of her parents. Her daughter is precocious and delightful, and the romance is unpredictable.

A book cover with a stack of books, a glass of whiskey on top, and a chair arm in the background. The title is Whiskey Boys, and the author is Phillip Hurst.

Whiskey Boys, Phillip Hurst: Full disclosure, Hurst is a friend from my MFA, but I have long-admired his writing, and this collection of essays about a lifetime of bartending is achingly tender and funny and empathetic. Hurst renders other people with the kind of care you’d hope for only from your closest loved ones. One of my favorite essays follows a band of craft beer bartenders on a road trip to the headquarters of the new ownership for a training, where they’re convinced they’re going to be drug tested and that the offering of beer at lunch is a trap. As much love letters to people and places and the noble pursuit of a creative life as they are humorous and exciting tales from behind the bar, these essays hold a lot of unexpected wisdom.

Three book covers, each with close ups of architectural details. The titles are The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky, all by N.K. Jemisin.

The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin: The whole Broken Earth trilogy is great, but the first book slowly grew on me until I was completely captivated by the end. Syenite may be my favorite female character in a book ever. She’s prickly, and she tends not to recognize love until she has lost it, but she is trying.

A blue illustrated book cover with a woman in a white lab coat pulling down a surprised looking man for a kiss. Beakers with red potions are in the background. The title is The Love Hypothesis, and the author is Ali Hazelwood.

The Love Hypothesis, Ali Hazelwood: Grad school romance! Girls in STEM! Found family and fake dating! I loved this one. It hit a whole bunch of swoony buttons for me.

A book cover with a school bus driving away down a road covered in water. An eerie sky looms ahead with a gradient of blues, greens, and purples. The title is Trashlands, and the author is Alison Stine.

Trashlands, Alison Stine: The characters in this book are named after real-life endangered things like plants and coastal cities – Coral, Trillium, Miami. It’s set in a future Appalachia (“Scrappalachia”) where pluckers collect plastic trash, the currency of the climate-changed future, which then gets remade into plastic bricks by child laborers and shipped off to the elite cities to the benefit of others. The bricks are used to build homes and other buildings. You will not think of plastic the same way again after reading this book.

A book cover with a cropped photo of a man's bare chest and his hand holding a football. The title is The Hook Up, and the author is Kristen Callihan.

The Hook Up, Kristen Callihan: I expected this to just be a fun escape, but it went to places I didn’t expect. The set up is that a late bloomer and a star college quarterback fall for each other, and they have to deal with his fame and her aversion to the spotlight. I won’t give anything away, but there is a plot twist that turns the setup on its head in a big way, and I found the entire back stretch from that point on really nuanced and interesting. Maxine Mitchell’s narration is really great. And honestly, I love Teddy Hamilton as much as the next lady, but Mitchell’s guy voice gives him a run for his money.

Look at that! Another Extremely Long Book Roundup! If you read this far, I hope you’ve found a book worth giving a try. As always, if you ever want to gush about books with me, I am here for it. Comment or come holler at me on Instagram (@microaffections). Wishing you so many wonderful reads in 2022!

June 2, 2021 By Melanie Sweeney Leave a Comment

May Book Roundup

May here in Texas has been rainy with no reprieve on the horizon, but while my kids have gone a little stir crazy, it’s been pretty good for reading books. I read fifteen books, including romance, women’s fiction, a pretty great middle grade fantasy novel, and two nonfiction books about homeschooling. Let’s dive in!

An illustrated book cover for Float Plan with a sailboat on the ocean over a yellow background. A man with a prosthetic leg and a woman face each other from opposite ends of the boat. — If you have pandemic-fueled wanderlust, you’ll love this trip through the Caribbean!

I kicked off the month with a book I’m pretty certain will end up on my Best of 2021 list this December, Float Plan by Trish Doller. Ten months after Anna’s fiancé dies by suicide, she sets out on the sailing trip he planned for them to take through the Caribbean. She struggles through a rough first leg of the trip and realizes she needs to hire a more skilled sailor to help her hit every island stop on Ben’s detailed itinerary. Enter Keane, an expert sailor whose prosthetic leg has limited his opportunities but not his ability on a sailboat. He offers to help Anna for a drop-off later in the trip. (Also, *alert* he’s Irish.)

Okay, so first, be warned there is a suicide note on page one. I was skeptical about how a romance was going to develop from this beginning in a way that felt believable and, frankly, okay. Anna’s grappling with Ben’s suicide is not a minor part of the book, and while I think Doller takes great care in handling the subject matter, the characters do occasionally have thoughts about Ben’s suicide that are realistic and emotional, if not always entirely free from judgment. I don’t read these as authorial judgments, given the sensitivity elsewhere in the writing.

My favorite romances often have a central thread of grief woven through them. What can I say? I’m a sucker for angst. This one explores that range of pain and happiness thoroughly and with acute insights. Anna begins by following Ben’s itinerary to the letter, so it’s no wonder that every mile she sails, she considers what the trip and her life would have been like with him. “The never knowing is lodged in my heart like a stone, a constant dull ache that throbs during moments like these, when I wonder what our future would have been.” But over the course of the trip, she starts to deviate from the plan. She goes places that weren’t on his list and bypasses others entirely and eventually understands “how sadness and happiness can live side by side within a heart, and how that heart can keep on beating.”

The only way I think the romance part of this works is as a slow burn. It’s a very slow burn, and I was glad for it. It’s also one of the few romances I’ve read where I thought the two characters were very well matched and wanted them to make a relationship work while also being entirely okay with them going their separate ways if that was the outcome. A huge portion of the book is centered around Anna’s journey through her grief and toward finding her own way in the world, gaining true competence at sailing and overall self-sufficiency. She needed Keane after that first rough solo journey, but she truly comes into her own, and it’s so empowering to read.

I knew there would be a point when they fought or separated for whatever reason, (spoiler alert, I guess?) as is usually the case, but while that dark moment often reads as loss, depression, pain, and darkness, this book opens up in a truly breathtaking way. I was so moved and so willing to go anywhere Trish Doller wanted to take me, both through her vivid descriptions of the Caribbean and on the emotional ride.

And it looks like she’s adding at least two more books to this fictional world. I can’t wait to see what she writes next.

An illustrated book cover that lists Emily Henry, the author, at the top, and People We Meet on Vacation across the middle. It's a bright orange cover with green palm trees and two figures reclining in pool lounge chairs. — It speaks to me.

My most-anticipated book of May was Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation. I went in with tempered expectations because I didn’t want my love of Beach Read to make me disappointed by an otherwise great book, and that was a good call. It didn’t push Beach Read out of my favorite spot, but it definitely earns a place in my top reads for this year so far.

Poppy has “Millennial ennui” despite having a great career and her life basically in order (“My life turned out how I hoped it would, and now I just miss wanting something”), and her solution is to repair her decade-old friendship with Alex by going on one of the annual summer trips they used to take before something happened in Croatia two years ago and they stopped talking. The story unfolds with yo-yo-ing timelines, splitting between the current summer and summers past, so we see their friendship grow and change while present-day Alex and Poppy navigate what feels like a point of no return. This trip will likely change everything.

The best part of an Emily Henry book is the crackling banter between her main characters. The things they say to each other, usually funny in the moment, get further mileage as call backs and inside jokes, ones that bond them to each other but also bring the reader in on the dance in a rare, magnetically intimate way that feels a little like falling in love yourself. One such inside joke: on a past trip, a gallery employee tries to sell them a $21,000 bear sculpture they could never afford, arguing that “when art speaks to you, you find a way to make it work,” and after that, the question, “Does it speak to you?” becomes the criteria for every bizarre or embarrassing souvenir they might buy.

But these little jokes also pay emotional mileage. Present-day Poppy worries, “It’s possible that all those little moments that meant so much to me never meant quite the same thing to him. It’s possible that he didn’t reach out to me for two years because, when we stopped speaking, he didn’t lose something precious the way that I did.”

There is also weirdness deeply embedded into the characters, a weirdness that endeared them to me immediately and which gives the book a warm and tender essence. This is a weighted blanket in book form. When Poppy role-plays picking Alex up in a bar, he tells her he doesn’t live around here, and “even if I did, I have a cat with a lot of medical needs that require specialized care. Makes it hard to get out.” This, it turns out, is true. And the cat’s name is Flannery O’Connor, which probably gives you a good glimpse into the academic-minded “study in control” that is Alex Nilsen.

“I love when you get weird,” Poppy tells Alex, speaking for us all. He replies, “You make me weird. I’m not like this with anyone else.” Don’t we all want to be seen as our strangest, most uninhibited selves and loved for it? Don’t we all want to know someone so well that we get a version of them reserved only for us?

This book is swoony as hell is what I’m saying. It speaks to me.

A yellow book cover with a heart and DNA strand below it. Christina Lauren is listed at the top and The Soulmate Equation at the bottom. — Would you want to know if your partner was your genetic soulmate??

I was saving Christina Lauren’s latest release, The Soulmate Equation, so I’d have a likely solid book to fall back on when needed, but I gave in and read it right at the end of the month. No regrets!

Jess is a freelance statistician and single mom who is starting to feel lonely despite having a charming kid, engaged and loving grandparents, and one of the best friends I’ve seen in a book in a while. Dr. River Pena is a geneticist and CSO for an emerging company, GeneticAlly, which predicts soulmate matches from genetic markers. (I’m summarizing, but it’s real science-y!) Jess finds River uptight and rude, but his sample (it’s just saliva!) gets flagged as a diamond level match with her. The algorithm gives them an unheard of 98% likelihood of lasting happiness together. Despite River’s scientist skepticism, this is his life’s work, so if the algorithm is wrong about him and Jess, it could threaten everything. He and his company’s executive board ask her to spend some time getting to know River, hoping to confirm the findings, and to be available for PR that would use their match to boost the company, which is about to go public.

It’s pretty hard to pull off a modern story that hinges on fate, or in this case, seemingly iron-clad science. What I love about this book is that the characters routinely ask the big questions. If you love someone, but you find out your compatibility rating with them is low, would it change how you feel about the relationship? Or, in Jess and River’s case, does a high number sway you to feel something you otherwise wouldn’t have been open to? How much weight do you give the algorithm, and how much choice is left in the face of something so persuasive?

I love that River identifies right away what Jess’s priorities are, how she operates, and what she needs. When she winds up in a bind and every other person in her orbit can’t step up like usual, he tells her, “I want you to call me for help without an apology on the tip of your tongue.” They are attracted to each other physically, but he marvels at her competence at her job, too. They share a respect for the honesty of good data.

I also love the friendship between Jess and Fizzy, her romance novelist best friend, who mines daily interactions for material and pushes Jess to not feel guilty for wanting just a little bit more for herself beyond her work and her child. She’s the one who convinces Jess to enter her sample into the database in the first place. Their relationship feels just as fated to me as Jess’s relationship with River, unconditional and iron-clad, but also, as becomes important with Jess and River, too, a chosen relationship. I laughed out loud when Jess confesses to Fizzy, “I’m lonely, and I feel like such an asshole complaining, but you’re always going to be a bigger asshole than I am, so I can complain to you.” We all need a Fizzy in our corner.

Instead of writing in-depth about one more book, I want to quickly shout out some other titles I really enjoyed this month.

A blue, illustrated book cover for Talia Hibbert's Act Your Age, Eve Brown, with a lavender-haired woman embracing a man, the suggestion of sheet music trailing behind her. — “Surprise! I live here.”

I laughed hard and often at Talia Hibbert’s latest Brown Sisters book, Act Your Age, Eve Brown, and in fact transcribed an entire scene about the invasion of ducks in a pond that ends with the hero exclaiming, “Christ, woman. Read a waterfowl blog!” Someone somewhere needs that tattoo. The gist is that Eve needs a job, and after doing poorly in the interview for a chef position at a B&B, she accidentally hits the potential employer with her car. She winds up working for him and living on the property, and he never stops reminding her that she HIT HIM WITH HER CAR.

An illustrated book cover of Seekers of the Wild Realm by Alexandra Ott with a young girl summoning green magic and looking at a white dragon among trees. — Magic. dragons. and challenging gender norms. A perfect combination.

My kids and I also really enjoyed Alexandra Ott’s Seekers of the Wild Realm, which is a middle grade book about a girl who wants to be her village’s first female seeker and a boy who trades her the training she’s been excluded from in exchange for her help with a baby dragon he’s not supposed to have. There are dragons, magic, and beautiful friendships – and no super scary parts for sensitive hearts. The next book will be out in a couple weeks, and we’ll definitely be reading that one, too. We are currently reading her other series, Rules for Thieves.

A book cover for The Brave Learner by Julie Bogart with the subtitle, "Finding Everyday Magic in Homeschool, Learning, and Life" and a photo of a young child sitting on a colorful staircase. — There’s a free journal that pairs with the book on her website, too!

And finally, I’ve seen Julie Bogart’s The Brave Learner recommended all over the place in homeschooling circles, and I finally got my hands on a copy. Whether you homeschool or teach children in a more formal setting or are a parent whose kids are educated primarily outside the home, this book is so valuable! We often say that we want our children to love learning, but Bogart interrogates that claim early on in the book and argues, “When adults ask kids to love learning, they’re asking children to find academics pleasurable so that adults will be relieved of the obligation to nag.” What we really want, usually, is for our kids to joyfully cooperate with what we have already planned for them. But education isn’t something we should do to our kids. Bogart gives practical tips for fostering that elusive love of learning by meeting kids in their own interests, letting “way lead to way,” and inviting them in with mystery, surprise, enchantment, and more. I recommend it whole-heartedly.

On to June!