I’m always excited to share my recent reads, but I gotta say I’m especially so to share this batch of books. Each of the books I read this month was fantastic. While I highly recommend all 4, I especially LOVED The Midnight Library if you’re looking for a place to start. I’m excited to pass off my copy of the book to my mom so I can discuss it with her.
As always, I’d love to hear from you: What’s a great book you recently read?
What I Read This Month:
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
[CW: Suicide]
Synopsis from Bookshop: Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything differently, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?
In The Midnight Library, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
My thoughts: After hearing both hosts of the Bad on Paper podcast RAVE about this book, I knew I had to read it. Wow, it did not disappoint. I instantly related to Nora Seed in the sense that she is questioning the decisions she’s made in life. I’m sure we’ve all wondered what life would be like if we never quit playing the violin. Or what if we had stayed in a previous relationship.
Nora Seed gets to actually live out those regrets and starts to realize that things aren’t so perfect in those lives either. This book does deal with suicide, but I found it to be uplifting more so than a downer. If you’re not in the headspace for a book with talk about suicide, though, skip this one.
While I read a lot of books I love, a book rarely sticks with me and I can’t stop thinking about it. This is definitely that kind of book. I’m someone that can torture myself over big decisions and wonder about all the what if’s. It got me seriously thinking about life, the paths we do or don’t take, and whether there really are regrets in life.
My Rating: 5/5 Stars
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The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo
Synopsis from Bookshop: Lucy and Gabe meet as seniors at Columbia University on a day that changes both of their lives forever. Together, they decide they want their lives to mean something, to matter. When they meet again a year later, it seems fated–perhaps they’ll find life’s meaning in each other. But then Gabe becomes a photojournalist assigned to the Middle East and Lucy pursues a career in New York.
What follows is a thirteen-year journey of dreams, desires, jealousies, betrayals, and, ultimately, of love. Was it fate that brought them together? Is it a choice that has kept them away? Their journey takes Lucy and Gabe continents apart, but never out of each other’s hearts.
My thoughts: Ugh, I loved this book so so so much. It gutted me in the best way. I don’t know how I missed the hype around it when it first came out! I learned that there is a huge cult following for it and so many people reached out when I posted about it on Instagram.
I’ve realized my favorite genre of romance is what I think of as a “slow-burn” where you follow the same characters for a long period of time. By the end, I was SO attached to both Lucy and Gabe having felt like I watched them grow up. I found myself both rooting for them but also torn about their relationship.
I no doubt LOVED this book, but it also left me with some complicated thoughts. Lucy is far from perfect as a person and does some truly shitty things to her husband. She’s always been torn between her husband and Gabe but neither are the perfect, supportive person she needs. It made the book feel realistic — life isn’t always black and white.
My Rating: 5/5 Stars
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Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour
Synopsis from Bookshop: There’s nothing like a Black salesman on a mission.
An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Midtown office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya, and eating his mother’s home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC’s hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the thirty-sixth floor.
After enduring a “hell week” of training, Darren, the only Black person in the company, reimagines himself as “Buck,” a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. But when things turn tragic at home and Buck feels he’s hit rock bottom, he begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America’s sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.
Black Buck is a hilarious, razor-sharp skewering of America’s workforce; it is a propulsive, crackling debut that explores ambition and race, and makes way for a necessary new vision of the American dream.
My thoughts: This book is SUCH a wild, bumpy, brilliant, ride. This novel is written as a fake guide to being a salesman by the main character. It kind of reminds me of the musical How to Succeed in Business.
Fun fact: I (briefly) worked in open call sales at Yelp. It was NOT for me, but I’ll forever be grateful for the sales training. This book hyperbolizes that start-up culture vibe but is also scary accurate in some of the specific details of what it’s like to work in sales at a start-up. Let me tell you, it’s LOUD, there’s always music blasting and people cheering, and more snacks than you could ever need.
I read this book for a book club I’m in and it was interesting to hear everyone’s thoughts. The main character, Darren AKA Buck is no doubt an asshole for a chunk of the book. But yet I also wanted him to have a happy ending.
Black Buck is SO smart, and an eye-opening conversation on race, systemic racism, and white supremacy… but wrapped up in a fun, fast-paced, package.
My Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
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The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren
Comes out May 18, 2021
Synopsis from Bookshop: Single mom Jess Davis is a data and statistics wizard, but no amount of number crunching can convince her to step back into the dating world. Raised by her grandparents–who now help raise her seven-year-old daughter, Juno–Jess has been left behind too often to feel comfortable letting anyone in.
But then Jess hears about GeneticAlly, a buzzy new DNA-based matchmaking company that’s predicted to change dating forever. Finding a soulmate through DNA? The reliability of numbers: This Jess understands.
At least she thought she did until her test shows an unheard-of 98% compatibility with another subject in the database: GeneticAlly’s founder, Dr. River Pena, a stuck-up, stubborn man she already knows. But GeneticAlly has a proposition: Get to know him and we’ll pay you. As the pair are dragged from one event to the next, Jess begins to realize that there might be more to the scientist–and the science behind a soulmate–than she thought.
My thoughts: I’m a sucker for anything by the writing duo Christina Lauren. When a friend of mine sent me an early copy of this book which comes out in May, I couldn’t resist diving in right away.
This book no doubt has the signature Christina Lauren charm. I found Jess to be such an awesome main character, someone I’d want to be friends with, and you can see why the people in her life will do anything to support her. I sometimes grow sick of the “enemies to lovers” trope in a romance but was happy this one took some twists I wasn’t expecting.
I was SO fascinated by the idea of a dating app that uses your DNA. It’s so interesting to think that perhaps some people are meant to be together. I’m not sure I’d use this kind of app myself (but maybe out of curiosity?) and I definitely wouldn’t want to use it to check the compatibility of someone I was already dating. For a light, frothy, fun, romance it brings up a lot of interesting thoughts about “soulmates” and destiny.
I’m not sure it’s my favorite by CL, but it’s definitely up there. I have a feeling this book is going to be a beach read favorite this summer.
My Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
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Jill @ RunEatSnap says
I can’t wait for the new CL book!!! I also LOVED The Light We Lost. I’m going to check out Black Buck. I read a LOT of good books in February also – check them out on my blog http://runeatsnap.com/what-i-read-february-2021/
Kayla says
I can’t believe it took me until now to read The Light We Lost — I’m reading her other book More than Words now. Excited to see what you read this month!