I’ve always been an aspirational reader. As a creative person, I have a duty to consume the work of other creative people. The most lightweight version of this is watching a TikTok; the heaviest is reading a 400+ page book. Although I’ve leaned on the light side of the spectrum, reading and people who read have always had this strange allure. We all fell for Jess Marino scribbling notes in the margins of Rory Gilmore’s copy of Howl. Or his real life equivalents on the @hotguysreadingnyc Instagram. (Which Carley has now rightly shamed us for) So, in my attempt to be a “reading girl”, I’ve purchased dozens of books each year. I joined Book of the Month. I filled 3 IKEA shelves in my Brooklyn apartment. All so I could read around one book a year….maybe.

I don’t know what happened this month. I watched Emma Chamberlain read East of Eden and said “Fuck. What am I doing with my life?” I was in a new city, somehow waking up 2 hours before work. I picked up one of my Book of the Months and went to town. I started reading at least a half hour before each work day. When I liked what I was reading, I read at night and all weekend. I made sure to read something that was semi-trashy every other book to keep it going. And now, all of sudden, I’m Rory Gilmore. (Well, no because I’m not an entitled grown adult who can’t complete a single interview despite a Yale Journalism degree.) But, I read now. I can talk about what bookssssss I’ve read this month.

Disclaimer: I will not now, or ever, attempt to restrict a person’s right to create art. I will reserve the right to not like it. In rare cases, I might question why a company invested money in a book’s printing. But, I’ll aim to be specific in my reasoning, so people with different tastes than myself can safely give things a try.

Anna K by Jenny Lee

We started the reading journey with this beauty. To turn Tolstoy’s work into a Young Adult novel is an ambitious undertaking. It could have so easily been a Gossip Girl clone. The characters are similar to GG in that growing up in New York has propelled them towards adulthood faster than they can handle. The story is told from multiple perspectives which allows the reader to root for every character’s individual happiness. Lee’s choice to keep most of the tragic events from the original source material was very brave and wrecked my heart. I openly cried in a sports bar finishing this one. I will be forever grateful to this book for sparking my reading spirit. (5*)

Sometimes You Have To Lie by Leslie Brody

I do not like biographies. I will not read one for a very long time after reading this book. It felt like I was at a cocktail party where a bunch of old ladies vaguely tried to remember stories about someone they knew in college. In my will, I’m going to prohibit any use of my life rights besides adaptions of my memoirs or verified diaries. At least this book taught me that. More seriously, Louise Fitzhugh was a pretty badass lady; I wish the play she wrote about her life actually made it to the stage. (2*)

The Dating Plan by Sarah Desai

This was cute af. It was written by some personalization algorithm and delivered to my doorstep. A tall, strapping Irishman who is kinda douchey but is willing to work through his emotional trauma. A geeky girl exactly my age whose family is obsessed with her getting married. The “For You” page of books. What made this book especially great was its specificity. Our female lead is Indian and that was demonstrated in everything from her food choices to her family interactions. It made her feel like a real person. This book wasn’t deep, but I did finish it in 2 days. (4*)

Severance by Ling Ma

I picked this book for a book club that I’m trying to start in my apartment building. It meets June 17th, and I’m probably going to forget everything about this book before then. It’s a book written in 2018 that discusses an epidemic coming from China. It’s more zombie apocalypse than Covid, but an interesting enough premise to read in my post-vax state. Some of the behavioral predictions, such as the resistance to take a virus seriously until it affects someone close to you, were spot on. I found the overall plot execution of the book a little unsatisfying as it tried to tell two stories (the time before the virus and the time after) in less than 300 pages. Ling Ma’s writing style is pretty interesting though, so I didn’t find it a waste of time. (3*)

American Royals by Katherine McGee

Being in DC, this was a no-brainer to pick up. It has very similar vibes to E!’s The Royals. It’s told from the four main women’s perspectives. I only really liked half of the women at a time, so it was nice having the ability to escape to a different story chapter by chapter. The premise of the future queen having to marry was a bit bizarre. I feel like Princess Diaries 2 already went through that shit. That element aside, this book almost sold me on having an American royal family as the executive branch. Why not? All the voters are idiots anyway. I’m interested in what the sequel has in store. (4*)

Persuasion by Jane Austen

I’m about to give Jane Austen 3-stars; strap in. Obviously, Jane Austen was a genius. Her work is the definition of beautiful writing. I listened to the audiobook while reading this and I soared through. It was a very calming read. That being said, this is the worst of her stories. The central couple, who we are apparently rooting for throughout the entirety of this short book, have like maybe one conversation where we see why they might be cute. It’s not like Elizabeth and Darcy, where we see the enemies to lovers journey through multiple tiny interactions. Or if it was, it went entirely over my head. I will say though that Jane Austen knows how to write rich people being shady to slightly less rich people. There are a lot of good gossip sessions in this one. Netflix is making this a series. I expect there will be a lot of walks on dirt roads. (3*)

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

This was a podcast that was turned into a book. It probably should have stayed a podcast. I can definitely imagine it being a delightful listen on a road trip or something. Reading it, especially straight-through like I did, was fucking exhausting. I wasn’t having fun. John is a great writer. There are multiple passages from this book that I took pictures of with my phone, so I wouldn’t forget them. However, he clouds his own writing with quotes from other writers. He is fully self aware of this and mentions that he does this too much in the last essay. THEN STOP. Also, the book has these footnotes that add almost nothing to the essays, except pulling the reader out of the flow. I think as podcast merch this is a decent enough fan purchase to have in your bathroom. I don’t know - maybe I don’t like essay collections… (3*)

So I wrote all these reviews in one night at the end of the month. I don’t know if that was smart. Next month, I’ll probably write these as I go but still wait until the end of the month to publish versus just dumping in Goodreads. Goodreads doesn’t fully encapsulate the headspace I was in when reading an individual book. I probably didn’t like Persuasion as much because American Royals already exhausted me with rich people problems. John Green’s essays were likely too stark a pivot from romance. Although the monthly star average was pretty low, I would rank my overall reading 4*. My new found reading habit has given me writing topics, ice breakers, and city exploration activities. I can’t promise this breakneck pace next month, but there will be new books.