A quick review of The Ascent by Allison Buccola Continue reading
Tag Archives: teenage girls
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
Mad Mabel was a delight! I was hopeful because I loved the cover and I’ve enjoyed other books by Sally Hepworth. I was not disappointed. The side characters from her aunt and her neighbors were a lot of fun. They all felt fully fleshed out and just odd enough to be interesting but not too … Continue reading
A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan
This may be my favorite book of 2025 so far! I loved the New Zealand setting. I felt like I was eating sausages right along with them. It did a great job of having a child narrator without it feeling childish or too all knowing. It really hit all the parts of childhood—family dynamics and … Continue reading
We Don’t Talk about Carol by Kristen L. Berry
I enjoyed We Don’t Talk about Carol but at times it was a bit convoluted and sprawling. I’m not sure if the pregnancy storyline was needed or fit. It took away momentum from her family of origin story, the story of these missing Black girls and the investigation. I liked the main character and she … Continue reading
You Belong Here by Megan Miranda
You can always count on Miranda to have a busy plot with a lot of characters but to tie up loose ends. This book was no different. I enjoyed the townie vs college dynamics and how she touched on being a relatively young mother of a college student when some of her peers have elementary … Continue reading
Days of Wonder by Caroline Leavitt
I have been reading Caroline Leavitt’s books for a very long time, longer than I’d like to admit! I think I might have even been in college when I read my first one. So I was happy to be part of the influencer tour for the book. Days of Wonder had a lot of elements … Continue reading
All the Little-Bird Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
All the Little-Bird Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow Continue reading
history / nonfiction / review
Dolls of Our Lives: Why We Can’t Quit American Girl by Mary Mahoney and Allison Horrocks
I wanted to love Dolls of our Lives! I am a little older than the women who wrote this and didn’t know anyone who could afford these incredibly expensive dolls growing up but we all read the books so I was pretty familiar with the dolls. The catalogue was something I rushed to the mailbox … Continue reading
The Summer She Vanished by Jessica Irena Smith
I liked the idea of The Summer She Vanished but it could have done with some editing. There was a fair amount of repetition—for example the main character, Maggie, thought things like “why didn’t I think of that” about nearly every revelation. The American characters also used a lot of British terminology like “smallhold” that … Continue reading
essays / memoir / nonfiction / review
Owner of a Lonely Heart by Beth Nguyen
I always love her memoirs and writing in general and this one filled in some gaps in her life’s story. I love how she writes about her biological mother and how fraught that relationship is. She writes very honestly about her father and how he has changed into a very different man with her children … Continue reading
Rachel Reads Books 