What you are looking for is in the library by Michiko Aoyama. This is one of the best books I have read in a long while. It is like a warm hug. It’s in the Pippa Passes tradition (h/t Connie Willis introducing me to this poem via Bellweather, another excellent novel). It’s five loosely connected short stories, each its own warm hug, where people just … get better after visiting a community center library and talking to the research librarian. I read a chapter a day and savored each one. DC2 devoured it. DH isn’t quite as enamored of it as the two of us, but is fine with reading it. If you’d like a book where not much happens, but there’s growth and love… this is the definition of cozy, and not a single murder. I’m buying a copy in hardcover, because it’s that kind of book. (DC1 found my hard cover copy to be a pleasant Spring Break read.)
The ad copy says if you would like the above book if you liked Before the Coffee Gets Cold…but that’s not actually true. I DNF Before the Coffee Gets Cold after checking it out in the hopes that it was also a sweet book. Nope. Really awful misogynist swill. Also… just kind of dumb? So if you hated Before the Coffee Gets Cold, you will probably like the feminist What you are looking for is in the library where the characters are understandable and believable instead of TSTL.
DNF The borrow a boyfriend club. About halfway through I decided it was dragging and I didn’t like the second hero very much. We much prefer Ouran High School Host Club (though Haruhi seems much more a-gender, and there’s some bad messages about consent and female fragility in part of it and I really think she should have ended up with one of the other guys) and Boys run the Riot (though so far there hasn’t been any romance).
Tried the Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron. I am convinced from it that I’m a highly sensitive person. But other than that I did not find it very helpful and also I think it’s pretty tone deaf for something supposedly for sensitive people given all the content warnings that were needed but not given. Like, I don’t need to know the beyond awful upbringings that some of her (fictionalized) clients had, particularly not with details.
DNF A Strange and Stubborn Endurance. DNF The Fake Mate and I don’t remember why but it was something very turnoffy. DNF The wisteria society of lady scoundrels by india holton, though I got through more of it than I did the other two in the series. I think she’s just not for me.
School Trip: A Graphic Novel by Jerry Craft was awesome!
A Matter of Secrets and Spies by Honor Raconteur (Henri Davenforth #10) was really disappointing. It was like half a book. A novella but without a satisfying conclusion.
The Worst Best Man by Lucy Score was a lot of fun. If you like romances and don’t mind the f-word (most of the Amazon one star reviews complain about the heroine’s language) this is a fun one. I do wish they did more talking than sex on screen, but they do have serious conversations … off screen. We’re told they do anyway. I very much liked the resolution of the brief third act breakup.
A Power Unbound by Freya Marske was better than the second book in the series. I did skim bits, but not huge bits.
Got bored with Never Met a Duke Like You by Amalie Howard. The heroine was kind of annoying.
Finally read the last Agatha Christie book I hadn’t reread during my last go-through of all her stuff. I’m not sure why The Sittaford Mystery had gone out of print. It’s fine. It’s not amazing, and I figured it out right away, but it also wasn’t deadly dull like the second to last one (which I can’t even remember the name of) that had also been out of print. I’m trying to figure out what to do with the paperback. Maybe just give it to the library for their booksales. It’s back in print again, though I’m glad my sister bought me a used copy as it’s really not worth $13 for the paperback, and certainly not $15 for the kindle version.
Emily Wilde’s Encylopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett was excellent. I had actually checked it out before but by the time it came off the holds list, I thought it was for DC2 instead of for me, so didn’t read it the first time. DC2 greatly enjoyed it. I look forward to the second book!
Have you read anything good lately?