natreadthat's reviews
389 reviews

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

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challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This story is framed around a mystery but really comes down to the love of a close-knit family. 

When Mia’s fourteen year-old, non-speaking brother, Eugene, races home after a day at the park with their dad, she’s just excited to see him running. Later that night, when realization sets in that their dad never returned home, the family goes into survival mode: find Dad at all costs. I was very quickly invested in the family, the missing person case, and the characters’ growth. 

There’s so much in this book. The slow burn mystery, told from future tense, keeps you on your toes. Eugene’s character, who has autism and Angelman syndrome, begs us to reevaluate how society—and you and I—equates intelligence. The missing person element questions if it’s better to be realistic or positive. The father’s pursuit of happiness asks what it means to be happy and if there’s different aspects to happiness. All of this (and more) were surprisingly deep. I love when a book makes me philosophical! 
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If Only I Had Told Her by Laura Nowlin

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dark emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I read “If He Had Been With Me” last year and loved it, so I knew I’d be reading the sequel eventually. The first book left me feeling nostalgic of the big feelings that come with falling in love in high school. Unfortunately, this story didn’t hit as hard as the first one. I was excited to read from Finn’s totally lovestruck POV, but instead found it a bit underwhelming. Most of the story could easily be deduced from the first book, which left me wishing there were new pieces to Finn and Autumn’s love story that we hadn’t seen before. But alas, no dice. Nowlin did portray all-consuming grief really well, which was sad of course, but necessary for the storyline. 
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Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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emotional lighthearted reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

What if? A tale as old as time. 

Hannah Martin is putting together the pieces of her life—she has no career, has just broken up with her (married) boyfriend, and is moving for the seventh time since graduating college. As she heads to her hometown of LA to live with her best friend, two parallel universes take shape. 

The concept itself was enjoyable; I liked seeing how Hannah’s decisions played out in two different ways. It was a fun little read, I just wish I were on a beach while reading it!
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The Year of the Buttered Cat: A Mostly True Story by Lexi Haas, Susan Haas

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challenging emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

A powerful memoir about Lexi, who is growing up without bodily-control or the ability to speak due to a brain injury she suffered as a baby. The timeline jumps between thirteen year-old Lexi as she prepares for her second brain surgery and five year-old Lexi in search of the gifts she believes will grant her the use of her body. The memoir was heartfelt, funny, sad, and inspiring. It packs a punch—sometimes literally via the superheroes Lexi vicariously lives through and is currently obsessed with. It’s a look into disability and the uncertainties many disabled folks face throughout their lives, along with the not-usually-recognized hard work their families endure to ensure their loved ones have the best lives possible. 

The Year of the Buttered Cat reminds readers, as Lexi writes, that "people with disabilities, even severe ones, have interesting internal lives and a lot to offer as friends.”
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Flock by Kate Stewart

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fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I did not like this book, but I persevered through the entirety of it because a friend recommended the series and live-texting her was fun. I did go into this thinking it was fantasy, perhaps that’s why I disliked it so much? No, it was the characters. I simply couldn’t get behind the Cecelia; she lacked common sense to the point where I found myself shaking the book and questioning her decisions out loud. The MMCs? Not much better. They’re the hottest, most secretive dudes on earth—and they share a mysterious raven tattoo. I wanted to rid Cecelia (and myself) of them almost immediately. 
 
Anyway, the plot. Cecelia has to work for her estranged multi-millionaire father in Middle of Nowhere, USA for a year to get her hefty inheritance that she’ll use to take care of her fragile mother. While there, she falls in love (in like five seconds) and the rest is “a twisted fairytale”. 
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Here After by Amy Lin

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challenging emotional reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

I typically don’t read sad stories on vacation. I usually save them for quiet moments at home, often when it’s gloomy outside and my mood is melancholy. But it has been on my TBR for quite some time and at the forefront of my mind as of late, so I started and finished it in a single sitting. 

Here After is, as you may have surmised, a love story that ends as all of them eventually do: death. Amy Lin is 31 when her 32 year-old husband collapses at a half-marathon and never wakes up again. It is the gut-wrenching story of drowning in grief mixed into the memories she holds so dearly to; a hard and soft reminder that we—you, me, our partners, our parents, our friends—are not guaranteed life. 

This book reminded me, as I too often forget, that we must love fiercely. Despite it all—the light and the dark in our world—we must strive to love hard. We’re only human after all.
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Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

 This is the first book I haven’t been able to put down in a while and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 
 
Sometimes you want a little bit of fun with your murder-mysteries and this was just that. Lucy, our snarky narrator, begrudgingly walks us through a true-crime podcaster digging through the past to figure out who killed her best friend Savvy. Apparently, it doesn’t look great when you’re found wandering down the street with a huge welt on your head and your best friend’s blood on your dress. 
 
Full of twists, turns, and a murderous little voice whispering in her head, this novel keeps you guessing right to the very end. 
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The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by E.M. Anderson

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adventurous emotional lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

If you’re looking for a cozy fantasy, this is it.  
Edna is 83 and living in an unbearable retirement home when the Council of Wizard names her as the Chose One. The Chosen One, typically reserved for spry, young magic wielders, is destined to stop the evil sorcerer waging war on the nation. 
 
It took me awhile to get into this book. I think the charm of an elderly woman poking fun at the Chosen One trope ™️ and taking on a warlord is a fun idea, but the writing felt too juvenile to me. It was based on characters and their relationships rather than action and plot, which is good if that’s what you’re expecting. I was expecting a bit more dragon action. Alas, it was a light-ish read with occasional action and depth. 
 
Chosen family, doing your best, figuring life out, and trying to save the world while you’re at it—that’s the gist of this read. 
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Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino

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emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

 This might be one of the strangest books I’ve ever read. 
 
Adina is born tiny, jaundiced, and presumably human. As she grows up, Adina realizes her differences from other humans and recognizes the inner callings of a distant planet. A trash-picked fax machine allows her to communicate with her alien relatives, opening the floodgates on what it’s like to bop around planet Earth. 
 
Adina’s life is shared in faxes, noting everything and nothing at the same time—wonder, joy, destruction, sadness, heartache, comfort. How does one make sense of what it means to be human? 
 
The novel is a look at human complexity, coming of age, otherness. It’s a fictitious but very real study of belonging, loneliness, and being different. I’d say it falls closer to literary fiction than sci-fi, so if you’re looking for an alien-related story this may not be for you. 
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By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

 
Separated by centuries but tied by blood and a love of words, Melina Green and Emilia Bassano are both playwrights. In the 1500s, Emilia will do whatever is necessary to provide for her family and get her writing out there, including ghostwriting for William Shakespeare. In present day, Melina will do anything to get her play produced, including using her best friend. Will she take it too far? 
 
The very real Emilia Bassano is thought to be the true author of some Shakespeare’s work. The message that women and people of color are often overlooked in favor white men—shall I list of examples?—is still, unfortunately, relevant today. Picoult’s version of Emilia begs us to examine gender inequality, feminism, and societal expectations. It is timely, as all of her books tend to be. 
 
I’m not a huge fan of Shakespeare. I just can’t get into Elizabethan era poetry—it feels too much like English homework. That being said, I had the opportunity to see Jodi discuss this book and I wanted to read it with that fresh in mind. Hearing her talk about the works that inspired her, the research that went into writing it, and how dear this book is to her heart made it all the more enjoyable. While I found both character’s stories captivating, I wonder if I would have enjoyed it less if I had not audiobooked it. Parts dragged and I found myself zoning out. If this were ~100 pages less, I think I could have loved it. 
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