thoughts on books

Category: contemporary fiction

  • is this a cry for help by emily austin

    The divine Emily Austin just does not miss. She is our generation’s voice of the weird lesbian. This book is part love letter to libraries, part deep character study on panic disorder, part narration of a local news station Facebook comment section. I feel like Emily Austin read an unfortunate Facebook comment section under an article about challenges in her local library and thought “what if this were a novel?”

    Darcy is back at work at the library after being off for 2 months due to a mental breakdown. Her ex-boyfriend Ben died and she doesn’t know how, and feels somewhat responsible. He never knew that they broke up because Darcy is gay. It’s years later and Darcy is happily married to Joy. But she is trying to understand her own growth from trying really hard to be liked to being a strong adult that is good with boundaries.

    I highly doubt I need to say this but don’t read it if you have radical right wing beliefs. It isn’t a testament to left wing beliefs or anything, but the small but loud radical right agenda is analyzed here, and found lacking. Also- this is way more character study than intricate plot, but it does have a strong arc for Darcy and background every day life reality.

    In the Hollywood version, Darcy will be played by Cara Delvigne. Joy will be played by Amanda Seyfried. The unfortunate Declan Turner will be played by Joseph Gordon Levitt.

    It isn’t as funny as “Everybody in this room will someday be dead” nor as irreverent as “Interesting Facts about Space,” but I really loved it. Emily Austin has matured in her writing and clearly has a knack for everyday heroes.

    Thanks to NetGalley and Atria for the ARC. Book to be published January 12, 2026.

  • young fools by liza palmer

    This novel follows two women, Cherry and Helen. They are, at times, best friends. As a part of an exclusive writer’s program called Heyward House, they are both colleagues but also competitors. Helen comes across as extremely self-centered, entitled, with a terrible attitude. Cherry comes across as a fighter and a good friend. The story is very meta as it appears to be about real life events and it makes you wonder how much is about real life. Helen and Cherry both plan to publish a novel and they assume they will be successful. Helen gets very angry, condescending and jealous of Cherry’s success. Helen looks up to a woman named Tess because she is wealthy although she struggles with mental health and addiction.

    Jealousy is such a gross, pitiful emotion. Helen uses Cherry’s likeness in her fiction and really paints herself as being a better person than she is. Helen is super unlikable. But because the book is about fictionalized accounts of frenemies, it makes you really wonder if this is the author’s own attempt to do the same. This is not a feel-good, heartwarming tale, and it is not dramatic, over the top. The negativity that Helen brings Cherry is mostly academic. There are no thriller-type plotlines. This is really a book about female friendship and how awful women can be. I did find it to be slightly misogynistic, I think women are better than this.

    Audiobook review- the performance was great, the narrator was engaging and the narrative was easy to follow. This is great on audio and produced well.

    Thanks to NetGalley and Brilliance Publishing for the ARC. Book to be published 9/9/25

  • good hair days by grace helena walz

    Good Hair Days is a lovely nod to Steel Magnolias. Not quite as funny, and just as tragic, the Georgian ladies in Good Hair Days have some family secrets that aren’t helping anyone, and a fabulous local hair salon called Junes. Georgia is the older sister, her younger sister June runs the family beauty shop, called “June’s.” This is named for the eldest daughter in each generation, except Georgia is for some reason, exempt. She was a star athlete and went to a prestigious university and now lives in Atlanta. The family brags about her success, but her secret is that she is a secretary in a crappy apartment living paycheck to paycheck. June has also gotten in some financial distress as she owes 50,000 and is in the midst of renovating the salon. She has asked her older sister for help. Their mother died of breast cancer years ago. They were tested for the BRCA gene, Georgia had it but June did not, so she had a pre-emptive double mastectomy years ago.

    All setting, it was easy to get caught into the family secrets and their back-and-forth banter, it is clear that the author is writing a close knit family that loves each other tremendously, they are only lying to each other in order to protect them in some way. Small town Georgia seems quaint and strong on community, no discernible downsides, there isn’t any mention of economic hardship or racial tension. It’s too happy of a story for that, although the ending is pretty tragic.

    Lots of nods to Steel Magnolias, they love Dolly Parton and often quote the movie, I think the narrative is a bit guilty of nostalgia, but you know this going in. Although I felt that the story dragged on in parts, overall it had pleasant characterization and world building. I found myself remembering the plot of Steel Magnolias as I read. Fans of the movie and stage play will surely find more I may have missed. I thought the author did a great job of adapting the material for a modern audience, although I would have liked to have seen more modern validations of the rural south. This is a very wholesome book.

    Audiobook review- I thought this was well acted and the accents were very charming. It was easy to keep the nearly all female cast straight. The performance was intentional and also endearing.

    Thanks to Netgalley and Thomas Nelson/Zondervan for the ALC. Book to be published November 11, 2025.

  • joy moody is out of time by kerryn mayne

    Joy told her twin, 21 year old daughters, Cassiopea and Andromeda, that on their 21st birthday they will be taken to 2050. She runs the Joyful Suds Laundromat. The girls were homeschooled, no TV, no internet, to keep them safe. Their neighbor Monty loves them and runs his own business. Joy also has a terminal glioblastoma and hasn’t told anyone. Cassie and Andie are going to time travel to 2050 in order to save the world.

    This book has really different pacing. You can’t think of it as beginning-middle-end. It goes in a different direction at 50% of the way through, which is pretty intriguing. The characters are easy to love but their behaviors are confusing. I didn’t love it, but some will! I liked it and I’m glad I read it.

    Although the blurb suggests magic/fantasy, it’s more of a mystery or coming of age book. If you’re in the mood for something different, put this in your TBR.

    Audiobook review- appreciate the performance. Australian narrator and good dialogue. This story is good an audio.

    Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan audio for the ALC. book to be published 8/18/25

  • well actually by mazey eddings

    A fun enemies-to-lovers second chance romance. Eva is a journalist, her career isn’t the hard hitting journalism she expected, but she eats hot dogs with B list celebrities and social media content creators. She sees an ex boyfriend, Rylie, on TikTok and she stitches him to expose him as ghosting her when they were in college. Never expecting anyone to see it- she has only 200 followers. Only discovering the next morning it has blown up. Rylie has her on his podcast and seems to enjoy the attention, even though it isn’t great attention. He somehow convinces her to give him a second chance and go on a series of dates in order to redeem himself.

    Eva and Rylie have incredible chemistry! Great banter and if you like enemies-to-lovers- this is not one to miss. For me, way too many spicy scenes, but this is a preference and not indicative of the material. I see a lot of reviews talking about how much they loved Rylie, for me, it took me awhile to warm up to him. 30% of the way in, I really disliked him. That says a lot about the enemies-to-lovers trope… we need that moment in which we see the “why” behind their behavior.

    Recently we have more and more stories about bisexual people in a heteronormative relationship and this one was done very well and respectfully. There is some internalized biphobia but the characters are aware of it and learn and grown through their issues.

    My first Mazey Eddings title and definitely not my last!

    Audiobook- well acted, one female narrator who does a good male voice without sounding mocking. 5 star performance! Easy to follow on audio due to the great pacing.

    Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ALC. Book to be published 8/5/25.

  • the future saints by ashley winstead

    The setting is a rock band that explodes into stardom after grinding in the Indie Rock circuit for years. “We may be devils but in the future we’ll be saints” is the line that Ginny says in their youth that inspires their band name, The Future Saints. In a somewhat coincidental way, they are assigned a new manager Theo from the record company the same day they go viral on TikTok. Their former manager, Ginny, died in a drowning accident. Ginny was frontgirl Hannah’s sister. And Hannah keeps seeing her and talking to her everywhere. Her bandmates are excellent characters.

    Told in alternating POV (Hannah/Theo) as well as interviews and transcripts. I absolutely loved it. This is not really a romance, romance was such a small piece of this, but I can’t fault the publisher for marketing it as romance.

    At its core, this is a book about the very human desire to want to bring someone back from the dead. Raised to never give up and that determination will make you successful, Hannah just doesn’t want to let Ginny go. And she melts down on a very public stage, having issues with depression and alcoholism. Strong comparisons to Britney, Whitney, and Amy.

    There are 3 things you want to have in a musical act; talent, looks and presence. But if you can only have one, pick presence. And the public loves her, connects with her talent an raw emotion and grief. This book is so emotionally powerful. How can we be lovable in this kind of grief stricken madness?

    If you like books about the grieving process, music industry, and human connection, you will love this book. Boy oh boy I cried.

    Don’t skip the acknowledgements. There are 4 indie bookstores named and I immediately followed all of them on instagram. Bucket list to visit them someday if I land in their towns.

    Thanks to NetGalley and Atria for the ARC. Book to be published January 19, 2026.

  • ps you’re the worst by chloe seager

    “Life is hard so I started lying to people’s faces. Hiding my feelings. Avoiding conflict. Going along with things. Taking the “easy” route. But nothing about where I’ve ended up as easy.”

    Becky is a non-confrontational people pleaser. And you know what they say about people pleasers? Never pleased a person in their life. At 29, she lives with her mom (for free) but resents her mom’s rules. She hates her job. She is irritated with her friend for planning her wedding and is jealous. She hates her other friend’s boyfriend and thinks he is a cheater. She feels abandoned by her father, whom she hasn’t seen in 20 years. And Becky still carries a torch for her ex, Max.

    One day she goes to a tarot card reader and misinterpreted the cards thinking she is about to die. So she sends off six letters that are pretty mean and telling all of the people in her life what she really thinks. Soon she realizes that she has made a huge mistake and tries to deal with the aftermath of finally telling the truth.

    Becky is a bit of a mess, she is whiny and kind of unlikable at the beginning, but ultimately this is a “growing up” story. This is really a great story and I love how it turned out, differs than I expected. Becky really does get better than she deserves by the ending. The minor characters are well drawn and easy to keep straight and understand.

    The moral of the story is really to not be stagnant in your life and to be honest with yourself so you can be honest with others. This was an easy and pretty heartwarming story.

    Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC. Book to be published 11/18/2025.

  • the ten year affair by erin somers

    Cora and Sam meet at a baby class; there is an instant connection as they both hate the same mom. They begin having an affair that lasts ten years. At the same time, they don’t, and Cora stays faithful to her husband Eliot. And so this narrative intertwines two scenarios.

    I was expecting this to be like The Names, where each chapter described each scenario and they were all cohesive stories. But this is different, the narrative switches within the paragraph at times, showing the reader what was happening. This definitely is confusing, but also creative. They aren’t that different, no butterfly effect here. I was so invested in Cora and Sam’s romance, although it was destined to end badly.

    Who among us hasn’t looked back and wondered what could have been?

    For fans of;
    Sally Rooney, Claire Lombardo
    Sliding Doors- metaverse type stories
    Unlikable characters
    Messy everyday life

    Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the ARC. Book to be published 10/20/25.

  • backslide by nora dahlia

    A double timeline and double POV second chance romance- Noah and Nellie connected in high school but something happened to make them archenemies. Now, their friends Ben and Cara are renewing their vows and having a big wedding party. They have a big group of friends that is spread across the country and Nellie doesn’t spend a lot of time in Northern California so she has to get her bearings. She curses herself as she notices she is still attracted to Noah, now a orthopedic surgeon for the LA Dodgers (lol).

    Great pacing, easy to read. I really felt the chemistry between the MCs. The culture of the 1990’s had a lot of nostalgia and charm. Because this was a reunion of sorts we had a larger supportive cast. The frenemy Lydia was a bit too unlikable and as a character I thought she was a bit one sided. The other minor characters really led to a camaraderie and helped moved the MCs forward. I think second chance dual timelines are really hard to pull off, because to not “spoil” the early timeline you have to leave out a lot in the later timeline. But the dialogue and character development was so good that it worked very well.

    Fans of dual timeline and Elissa Sussman will enjoy.

    Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books, the Gallerinas, for the ARC. Book to be published October 21, 2025.

  • sunny side up by katie sturtino

    Really cute story that is an obvious homage to Carrie Bradshaw. It’s like if Carrie Bradshaw was a recently divorced millennial size 14. She has a blog where she names her potential boyfriends as nicknames. She has her own boutique PR firm. She has 3 equally fashionable and girly friends that she often lunches with in Manhattan.

    After dating Zach seven years, they get married and divorce after only 3 months.

    She joins a recent divorced ladies group and they decide to go to the Bahamas to celebrate. Although she has always been a size 12, now she can’t even fit into a size 14. On manhattan this counts as plus sized. She takes the experience of bathing suit shopping as inspiration and starts a bathing suit company.

    I really thought that the body acceptance vs body positivity language really landed. It is way more accessible to accept and be neutral about your body rather than to celebrate it. I have been a size 18W and a size 2, I can definitely relate to all of her body image issues. I’ve lost and gained over 1000 pounds in my lifetime, so I can tell you that although dieting is unhealthy and doesn’t work long term, I will never stop dieting because the world just treats you so much better when you are in a smaller body.

    The sexual freedom in the book isn’t for me, not necessarily my generation, but I also appreciate the sex positive message, particularly within the framework of high fashion, high socioeconomic status body image culture.

    Sunny has a judgmental mom, an infuriating ex, and fun friends. It’s not all that relatable to a common woman in middle America and it’s a bit hard not to be jealous of Sunny who is very successful and privileged in a lot of ways. And it can be hard to listen to someone whine about their successful, glamorous life.

    That said, I really enjoyed this and it is great on audio as well. Well acted and good New York accents and parent and man accents.

    Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ARC. Book to be published June 24, 2025.