Booked and Busy

In the last few years, I’ve reignited my love of reading. Like most people, I’ve been tracking the books I’ve read and the books I want to read (TBR) via Goodreads and Storygraph. And as much as I love being able to have the information ready, I’ve been longing to track things in an analog way. This year I decided to keep a book journal.

I’m kind of impressed that I’ve been able to keep it for three months. More than that, I actually enjoy it!

So far, it’s just been basic stats, short reviews, and lists of books I’d like to read but I love having a place where I can put all of my bookish thoughts.

Join me on Goodreads and Storygraph

March Reading Wrap Up|| Bookshelf



March was a fairly good reading month for me. I didn’t read a ton of books but I really enjoyed everything I ended up reading!

I’ve started adding more independent and self-published authors to my TBR pile. In March I read three books by two indie authors, a romance by Tasha L. Harrison and two books in a cozy mystery series by Mairi Chong.

In Her Closet by Tasha L. Harrison, was the only 3-star read of the month. It’s a very spicy romance about a sex blogger, Yves Santiago, struggling to let go of some pretty heavy baggage from a previous relationship while attempting to write a book based on her blog. It was a quick read and overall, I was satisfied with it. However, the story felt a little bit dated with good reason. It was published in 2010.

I read the first two books, Death by Appointment and Murder & Malpractice, in the Dr. Moreland Mystery series by Mairi Chong. Dr. Moreland is a Scottish GP recently released from a mental health facility. She settles back into her practice and solves two murders while dealing with her hospitalization’s consequences on her professional reputation. I gave both of the books 4 stars. I enjoyed the mysteries of each of them. But, I enjoyed that Chong is writing a complex female main character.

56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard is a contemporary thriller set in Ireland. It’s also the first book I’ve read that has Covid and the resulting lockdown written into the story. We met Oliver and Ciara who meet just before Covid becomes the new normal. They decide to move in together as the shutdown forces people into “pods” to try to figure out if they can make their new attraction into something more. The timeline jumps as we get glimpses of their meeting, how the relationship progresses through lockdown, and when the police are ultimately called to the apartment when a decaying body is discovered. Can they figure out exactly what happened or has quarantine provided the killer with the perfect plan for murder? I initially gave the book three stars but as I found myself thinking about it for weeks after, I bumped it up to four! I know some authors have been reluctant to write about the pandemic because we’re still in the midst of it, but I think it worked well as a framing device for a thriller.

My favorite book this month was Finley Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead by Elle Cosimano. This is the second book in a cozy mystery series. Finley Donovan is a recently divorced romance author. She is mistakenly hired as a hitman to kill a shitty husband in book one. She teams up with her nanny/BFF Vero to get to the bottom of the who and the why. The second book picks up right where the first one left off. It’s a face-paced, funny mystery with strong female characters and two potential love interests for Finley. I’m already looking forward to the third book!

Finally, I listened to the audiobook, The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley. Foley is the new locked room mystery queen. I loved her first two books, The Hunting Party and The Guest List. I liked this one too. However, the first half of the book was really slow. I considered shelving it at the halfway point because it just wasn’t doing it for me. I hung in there and the last half of the book is what saved it. Like her previous two books, this one has mostly unlikeable characters. All of the suspects and the victim are pretty terrible people. The protagonist, Jess, is the only likable character. She turns up on her brother’s doorstep in a glamourous Paris apartment only to find him missing. The building’s other tenants are the suspects in what she fears may be the murder of her brother. Like Foley’s other novels, the twists are twisty and the backstory of each of the suspects gives them all a compelling reason to get rid of Jess’ brother, Ben. The reveal is what bumped this up from a 3 star to a 4 star read for me.

I seem to be on a thriller/ mystery kick! I joked with my daughter that I like my characters either falling in love or killing each other! There is no in-between. What have you been reading lately?




October Book Chat|| Thrill Me

I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately. I’ve read lots of ok books but nothing that really wowed me. October is spooky season and there’s something about the fall that makes me want to light candles, make a giant cup of coffee, and settle in with a fantastic thriller!

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Last winter I discovered Samantha Downing by reading her first book, My Lovely Wife. That book shook me like Gone Girl and Sharp Objects. Gillian Flynn walked so that Samantha Downing could run! Her second book He Started It was just as twisty as the first. She has a thing for sinister family dynamics, unreliable narrators, and unlikeable characters that are very compelling. I just finished her latest novel, For Your Own Good. It’s a thriller set at a prestigious private school where people suddenly start dying. It’s very heavy on the unlikeable characters. You’ve been warned! As a graduate of a prestigious private school, I’m not saying that I wished death on a classmate but I wouldn’t have been upset if a wicked bout of Mono rendered a few of them unable to attend school for the rest of the year…I’m just sayin’


I have a few more thrillers on my TBR for the rest of the year. Have you read anything good lately?


When No One Is Watching||Well Read

“HISTORY IS FUCKING WILD.”

And with that, buckle up because Alyssa Cole takes us on a ride!

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This year I’ve read two of Alyssa Cole’s contemporary romance novels so when I heard she was publishing her first thriller, I was excited to read it!

When No One Is Watching follows Sydney, a New York native, as she becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the gentrification going in Gifford Place, the Brooklyn neighborhood where she grew up. After taking a walking tour of a place that she knows like the back of her hand, Sydney, unhappy with the whitewashing of it’s history, decides to put together her own tour. She wants to focus on the black and brown people who originally settled in the area and highlight all of the achievements of the community. Theo, one of her new neighbors who arrives with the first wave of Gifford Place gentrification, volunteers to help her do more background research. Over the course of a few weeks, strange things start to occur. Sydney is struggling to put her life back together after her divorce while caring for her terminally ill mother. The heat, stress, and sleepless nights have her on edge. Is she seeing things or is something diabolical happening in Brooklyn?

I really, really enjoyed this book! I waited until I was about half finished to read any reviews and I limited them to non-spoiler ones. I believe some of the negative opinions of the book had to do more with the marketing of it than the book itself. It’s being sold as a thriller. I don’t think it’s a thriller-at least not by traditional standards. This leans more toward horror. Let me say this, I’m not a fan of horror. I don’t want to watch it. I don’t want to read it. I definitely would have had reservations about reading it if it was marketed to me as horror. I don’t know the ins and outs of publishing and which kinds of books get more sales but if I had to guess, I’d say that the thriller audience is larger and perhaps publishers were looking to get a piece of that market.

I think if you approach the book as horror or a dystopian thriller(is that a thing?)you’ll have fewer issues with how the plot unfolds. The reader needs to be able to suspend belief in a way that you don’t when reading standard thrillers.

At times this book was difficult for me to read. I’m not often triggered by books but the microaggresions and flat out racism were often hard to process. Cole’s exploration of racism and the ways gentrification impact black and brown neighborhoods feels a timely despite it’s fantastical elements. These things are a part of history and still happening across the country.

The trauma of Sydney’s abusive marriage is also woven troughout the story. Sydney is a beautiful and smart woman. It is clear that her ex husband has robbed her of self confidence. The gaslighting she endured in that relationship is one of the reasons she has doubts about the things happening around her She no longer trusts her own instincts. That part of the character resonated deeply with me.

This was a (strong) 4 star read for me! I can’t wait to read more Alyssa Cole.

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Read more about racism and redlining here

Read more about how gentrification effects black communities here and here

Book Chat || Such A Fun Age( a rant and a review)

A lot of us have more free time right now. One of the ways I’m keeping my brain occupied is by diving deep into my TBR(to be read) list. I managed to read five books in March which I haven’t done for a very long time! I loved two of them. I liked two of them. This one I HATED!

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Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid is a novel that had a lot of buzz around it, especially after it was chosen as a selection for Reese Witherspoon’s book club. The story revolves around two female characters, Alix, a 30 something wealthy white woman, and Emira, her 25-year-old black babysitter. It’s a book that promises to deliver insights into the transactional relationship between wealthy white people and the women of color often hired to love and care for their children. Exploring that complicated relationship and getting the point of view of both of these characters seemed promising. There was no reason that I didn’t think I would love this book.

The book opens with a scene that has become all too familiar. A young black woman is in a Whole Foods-ish type grocery store with her young charge. The security guard questions why this black woman would be with a white child late at night and accuses her of kidnapping. The entire thing is filmed by a bystander on his cell phone. If you thought this incident would drive the plot of this book you would be mostly incorrect.

Emira is mortified by the interaction and even more disgusted at the thought of posting it on social media which was suggested to her by the good samaritan. It does, however, set off some internal conflict in Alix. She becomes terrified that Emira, the only one who seems to be able to connect with her 3-year-old Briar, will quit or even worse, think they’re racist! In order to keep Emira happy, Alix decides to learn more about her and immediately and awkwardly begins to ask Emira all manner of personal questions- about friends, nights out- and when she can’t get more info without seeming entirely too obvious, she takes to gleaning info by checking Emira’s lock screen on her phone. She’s able to learn more about the babysitter’s taste in music, the relationship she has with her sibling and the flirtation between Emira and a new guy.

This is my first issue with this book. Alix is awful. I don’t think that all protagonists need to be good people. In fact, I find women characters who are emotionally complex and even unlikeable often make for compelling reads. Alix is not complex. She has imposter syndrome. Who doesn’t? There is a bit of background story given to make us more empathetic to her internal struggle. However, Alix is in her mid30s and I don’t think that high school drama would impact someone’s behavior so completely. I never understood why she was doing the things she did.

And there was Emira. This character and the scenes where she interacts with her girlfriends are so stilted and seem so inauthentic, I double-checked to see if the author was black. I have a 25 year old daughter and those conversations sound nothing like the snippets I hear when my daughters are hanging out with their friends. Other than the dread Emira feels about her upcoming birthday because she’ll be kicked off of her parents’ insurance and her romance with the bystander of the grocery store incident, we don’t learn much about Emira. We never learn why she hasn’t let her parents know she babysits for extra money especially since it’s not only a job she loves but it’s actually one she excels at. We never learn why she doesn’t want that moment to go viral. And, other than the white lady white ladying notion, we never really learn what she thinks about her previously detached employers suddenly taking a keen interest in her life. I just wanted more from this character. I think that if we’d been given more it would have made the story much more interesting.

And now we come to the reason I ended up hating this book. Alix has a group of girlfriends. Tamra is the “black friend”. She is the point person on blackness for these women. Tamra is the new model for wokeness. She sports her hair in shoulder-length locs. She is well educated and the principal of a prestigious prep school in Manhattan. Her twins sport full, curly afros and speak fluent French. Despite her perceived “wokeness” she exhibits so much antiblackness towards Emira that I was legitimately pissed by the end of the book.

There is a scene toward the end of the book where Alix is unsure about her perception of a situation. She looks to her friends for their opinions and when one of the other women implies( in the nicest possible way!) that Alix’s whiteness may be contributing to how she’s perceiving the issue, Tamra steps in and co-signs Alix’s garbage choice! Really, girl! I have amazing friendships with white women and I think one of the reasons is because they know I will call them out on their privilege in a heartbeat. When you love people you want them to be better, to know better and to do better. Tamra became the black friend white women will use to excuse their behavior and I could not believe she was written by a black author.

The only thing I liked about the book was the relationship between Emira and the little girl she babysits, Briar. I loved the way Emira was able to see the person Briar was and give her what she needed. Riley was able to portray the conflict some of the women hired to care for children may feel. Perhaps the situation is not the best for them but a lot of them will ultimately stay on longer because they feel a responsibility to those kids.

I really wanted to love this book, perhaps that’s why I was so deeply disappointed by it. Have you read it? What did you think?

Everyday Ordinary

Over the last decade, I’ve tried memory keeping in a number of ways from scrapbooking to using a memory planner. At a certain point it all seems too overwhelming and I give it up. But, this year, I think I finally hit my sweet spot.

Last year I bought a Hobonichi Cousin for the first time. I loved it because it offers monthly, weekly, and daily pages. The weekly pages were my jam but I was at a loss on what to do with the daily pages so they mostly went unused which is sad because the tomoe river paper used in the Hobonichi is freaking magical!

This past year I’ve realized that I’m documenter. I love looking back in my planners and seeing small glimpses of my everyday life. I think some of that is lost when you do more traditional scrapbooking or memory keeping. When I realized the Hobonichi is perfect for this, I decided to order another one! I’m able to document all of the smaller moments of our days whether it’s something funny Rowan has said, a quick note about self-doubt, or a selfie because my hair and makeup were on point that day! I love it. I can look at my weekly pages and see all of the mundane everyday tasks of living-folding laundry, getting the car serviced and Rowan’s haircut. And, the daily pages offer little glimpses into why ordinary days are so special and worth remembering! I’m looking forward to having a bookcase full of these to pull out and flip through with my grandchildren! I encourage you to record some of the small things whether it’s scribbling a little note in your planner or printing out some of the thousands of photos on your phone and tucking them between the pages of a journal. These moments are worth recording!

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Nonfiction November

One of my favorite booktubers, ABOOKOLIVE, is the host of Nonfiction November. Let’s ignore the fact that we’re into the first week of the month already…mkay?! The goal is to simply get people to read more nonfiction. If you typically read none and you read one, you win! And, if you like nonfiction and read it regularly, add a few more to your TBR. It is one of my favorite reading challenges. Whenever I’m in a reading slump I gravitate towards nonfiction. Before Google and Reddit rabbit holes to follow, there was the library filled with books on everything to memoirs to essay collections to true crime and those are the books that comforted me!

There are no real rules but she does offer a few one-word prompts that may be interpreted in any way you want. I’ve added a bunch of amazing recs to my Goodreads list and since I’m also doing NaNoWriMo this month(!) I’m only going to attempt to one book for each prompt.

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Design: Slugfest: Inside the Epic, 50-year Battle between Marvel and DC by Reed Tucker This was a recommendation from Olive. I chose it for design not only because I love the comic book designed cover but also because the creators of both Marvel and DC have meticulously designed the worlds their characters inhabit. I’m a fairly new fan to the MCU and I’m excited to learn more about the history of these two giants of the industry.

Sport: Unnecessary Roughness: Inside the Trial and Final Days of Aaron Hernandez by Jose Baez I had only marginally been keeping track of the Aaron Hernandez saga. Hernandez was a star athlete and professional football player who was charged and convicted of murder. This book is written by the famed defense attorney, Jose Baez who not only defended him in a second double-murder trial but ultimately got him acquitted. It is an in-depth dive into the last year of the life of Hernandez and details only Baez had access to. I’m interested in reading more about what makes a man who seemingly had everything fall, how CTE may have played a part in his crimes and a closer look at the justice system.

True: A Deal with the Devil: The Dark and Twisted True Story of One of the Biggest Cons in History by Blake Ellis Because real life is always stranger and more interesting than fiction! My interest in true crime has changed a lot in the past few years. But, I find fraud and the people that perpetuate them endlessly interesting. This book is an investigation into a criminal enterprise that defrauded people to the tune of $200 million dollars through various mail-order schemes.

Voice: Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America by Nefertiti Austin When I started my journey of new motherhood over again I noticed immediately that finding resources and stories about what parenting is like for black mothers in the 21st century were virtually nonexistent. I am a black stay at home mom of a young child and while I don’t find my circumstance particularly extraordinary, seeing my journey reflected in fiction or nonfiction is relatively rare. I chose this story about a single black woman’s choice to become a mother through adoption because these voices and stories need to be told.