I swore I read more than three books in May, but when I went through my logs, I guess it was a slower month of reading. I think it's because one book that got rave reviews from like everyone else in the world, took me a long time to get through. I gave these five stars, four stars and three stars, respectively. 

Five Stars

Little One by Olivia Muenter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh man I couldn't put this book down. It was thriller-esque with dual timeline as we learn about Catharine's time growing up on a cult-like commune run by her father. We go back and forth from present day -- 10 years after she left the farm -- and when she was actively living there. There were times Catharine made me so mad and other times when I just felt bad for how brainwashed she was.

Four Stars

The Summer We Ran by Audrey Ingram
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was introduced to this book when I saw the author speak at the Gaithersburg BookFest. It tells the story of Tess and Grant, who met as teenagers when Tess's family was working for Grant's next door neighbor. Their romance was short but intense, and they're thrown back together 25 years later when they are both running for the governor of Virginia. The race drags up old secrets that were long buried, and the book is told in dual timelines -- present day and their early relationship.

Three Stars

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For all the hype this book got, I felt so let down by the ending. What seemed like a fun/interesting/timely idea fell so flat for me. I got pulled into the book fairly early on and was so curious to what was going to happen to Natalie who was play acting as a trad-wife on Instagram. Despite being a horribly unlikeable character, I wanted to know what happened to her and the hint of mystery kept me going. But I definitely got lost in some of the timeline jumps and yea, the ending, felt not as creative as the rest of the book.

View all my reviews

 Oh boy, a bit delayed in getting April's books posted, but better late than never I suppose. It was a good month of reading. 

Five stars

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Five stars because this book is still making me think about it after I've finished reading. The central question the book poses is who is culpable when AI is involved? Is it the algorithm? The humans? The book opens with a family of five in an autonomous car on the way to a lacrosse tournament. They get in a car crash and two people in the other car die. Who is at fault? This book was so good, even though I found a few of the main characters kind of insufferable and wanted to throw them right into the Chesapeake Bay where most of the story takes place.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book! A book told entirely through letters and wow by the end did I feel like I was best friends with Sybil, the main character. She was fun and a little feisty and a little peculiar, and seeing life through her letters was just a really great way to read her story. Highly recommend!

Four stars

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked so much about this book -- the setting, the dual timelines the characters -- and in true Emily Henry fashion, it was a fun and fast read. What I didn't totally love was the budding relationship between the two writers competing to get a book deal. I loved the parts of their story focused on their interview and research for the book, but the two of them together as quickly as it seemed to happen, didn't feel quite as natural as some of the relationships in other Emily Henry books. Still a good, enjoyable read that I'd recommend.

Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved her first book so was really excited to read this one. I liked the premise of this one, but there were a few places where I thought things were a tiny bit predictable or a bit unrealistic. Still, it was good and enjoyable and I liked it!

Three stars

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked this book and I wanted to know how it ended, but I don't think it needed to be almost 600 pages. I thought the first bit was fast paced and really good, and the I felt the same about the end chunk, but the middle just sort of plodded along, and I only stuck with it because I was really invested in finding out what happened at the end.

View all my reviews

After a slow reading month in February, I feel like I rebounded nicely in March -- falling back to one of my favorite genres -- thrillers and mystery -- with some really great books. 

Five Stars

Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a fun thriller with a completely deranged main character that I just could not put down. At the height of the covid housing crunch the main character is desperate to get out of her rental and find a real home so she and her husband can start a family. She's obsessed with one specific neighborhood and after losing out on countless houses has become a bit desperate. I love a book set in DC, so this one checked all the boxes for me.

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh man this book sucked me in so quickly and kept me engaged the whole time. What a winding twisty saga, while at the same time a little bit thriller-y. I liked the back and forth timelines jumping between the trial scenes and the lead up to the crime, and I was just so invested in what finding out what would happen.

Four Stars

The Wedding People by Alison Espach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book wasn't the light and fluffy read that I expected, and I mean that in the best possible way. It's dark at the start, which I wouldn't have guessed from the cover, but quickly becomes a book about human connection and what makes a strong friendship or relationship. I enjoyed spending time with this cast of strange and quirky characters and by the end of the book I was rooting for all of them.

Heart the Lover by Lily King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked this much better than Writers and Lovers and the ending really ripped my heart out. But I just want to know why the main character has such terrible taste in men? Like why did we spend two books with her terrible relationship choices? Needless to say, this felt less pretentious and I tore through it, and truly the ending, ugh it was heartbreaking.

The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book, but I did struggle to remember a lot of the stuff from the first book that would have been helpful to remember here. So just a warning that before you pick up this book, you might want to refresh yourself on what happened in the first book. Despite all that, I still enjoyed this book and the wrinkles Hannah and Owen and Bailey face.

Three Stars

My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was good, but it felt a little similar to one of the other books of Alice Feeney's that I had read. When I started it I was like wait, have I read this already? The opening felt very similar. But the plot of the book was different, and I did enjoy the twisty turns even though parts did feel a little bit far fetched.

View all my reviews

February was a short month and for whatever reason, it's the month I decided to pick very long books to read. As such, I only finished two. 

They were very different and interesting in their own ways. I gave them both 3.5s. No more preamble needed. Here are the books. 

1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in History – and How It Shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I grew up hearing my grandparents' generational habit of keeping everything was a product of the Great Depression and I had the faintest sense of what happened, so I was curious about this book and a chance to understand more. It was interesting to hear about some of the people who were making things happen on Wall Street, it was wild what used to be allowed in the banking industry and it was kind of fascinating to learn how Glass-Steagall came together. So I learned a lot. But I thought part of the first portion of the book moved a little slow. I found the second part way more interesting and faster moving.

Workhorse by Caroline Palmer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wish I could give a book 3.5 stars because I think that's where this book falls for me. It started like Devil Wears Prada -- a normal person trying to fit in at a high-end fashion magazine. Except the main character isn't normal, she's actually a terrible human being who continually makes awful choices as she tries to fit in. This book was like 500 pages, but I stuck it out because despite hating the main character (and maybe every other character), there was a slight mystery-ish plot line, I was curious about and I wanted to know if by the end of the book the main character would redeem herself.

View all my reviews

I started the year off strong with some fast-paced thrillers and some solid book club reads. I even got one blissful day where I finished an entire book in a day. I so rarely have the time for that these days, but my in-laws were in town and hung out with my kiddo while I mainly curled up with a book on the sofa. It was heavenly!

Here's what made up a mostly very good month of reading. 

Five Stars

The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O'Neill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thought this was a really beautiful story about three sisters (and really a whole family) who are trying to pick up the pieces of a family tragedy decades later. They're all back home under one roof to celebrate Thanksgiving, and the way they've each tried to compartmentalize and move on creates some complex dynamics that erupt.

Four Stars

We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After a deep reading rut, I was so excited to pick up a book that I really couldn't put down. I loved meeting the new protagonist and getting to know her and her family, and the case to be solved was gritty and dark and spanned decades. I raced through this book, despite the length, and I had hunches about whodunit that kept changing as a new bit of evidence turned up. Highly recommend!

Parents Weekend by Alex Finlay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finished this in a day! The first time I've read a book in a day in so long (courtesy of a snow day and my in-laws being in town to hang with my kiddo). It was so fun to get lost in a twisty, suspenseful story that kept me turning the pages. There were places were I suspected I knew it was going to happen next and sometimes I was right and sometimes I wasn't. Really enjoyed this book and look forward to picking up more things by this author.

107 Days by Kamala Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a book club selection and honestly I hesitated to pick it up because the thought of reliving last year was too hard. But I plowed through, and my takeaway is if you like her, you'll probably find the book interesting. If you don't like her, you probably won't, which says more about the reader than the book itself.

Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I knew what this book was about and had generally felt meh about the concept. But one of my book clubs picked it so I sat down and read it, and weirdly I enjoyed it more than expected. There were definitely some parts the annoyed me, and times when I thought Margo was being too oblivious to be realistic, but overall it was a fun book. If you're not familiar, the premise is that after an unplanned pregnancy, Margo turns to OnlyFans to make money and her former professional wrestler father, kind of cheers her on and helps her out.

Three Stars

Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right by Jamie Glowacki
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I mean how to write a review of a potty training book. It had helpful info. I hope it works when the time comes. I do wish it was a bit shorter, it felt like there was a lot in here that wasn't a lot about potty training, so I skimmed over those parts. I just wanted to get to the meat and potatoes of the method.

View all my reviews

2025 was a rough year, and my reading took a major hit as a result.

With all the anxiety, stress and uncertainty this year brought, it was hard to sit down and focus on a book -- let alone have one hold my attention.

I didn't finish many books that I started, and it was hard to truly tell if I didn't like a book or I just wasn't in a mental space for it at the time.

I also got really far behind on tracking what I read, so I'm not sure my Goodreads even fully captures everything I read this year.

All that to say, this favorite books list is a strange assortment of things that managed to hold my attention during this dumpster fire of a year.

I'm hoping 2026 will be better, maybe a tiny bit more stable. One of my goals for the new year is to get back on track with my reading. We'll see how it goes.

But for now, here are the books I'll remember and recommend from 2025.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. Cried big tears at the end. The space story, the relationships, it was all so good. My favorite relationship was between the main character and her niece, but man I love a story about space, and this one about women going to space, it was just so good.

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A whodunit where the house is a main character and each chapter makes you think the victim or the killer could be them. The Briar House is a woman's boarding house in DC and the grouchy landlady has strict rules all her guests must follow. But a new and mysterious arrival rocks the boat a little bit, introducing weekly dinners in her tiny room and building relationships with each person.

I loved this book. Each chapter introduces you to one of the women, and the other people in there lives. And each time you meet and understand someone new, you learn a bit more about who could be the victim and the killer. So good, a true Kate Quinn classic.

Yours for the Season by Uzma Jalaluddin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was delightful. I love a fake romance to real romance trope, and this delivered. It was cute and fun, and the perfect book to read in the lead up to the holidays -- meaning it didn't make me think too much. I was really sad to put this down when I finished because I so enjoyed the characters!

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've spent the last few months in the world of the Inheritance Games, and they were the most fun books I've read in a long time. Compelling characters, fun puzzles and lots of good twists and turns. Can't recommend these books enough, but be forewarned, they end in cliff-hangers, so have the next book in the series ready to go if you're impatient to know what happens next like me.

This has been a year so far, and honestly with everything going on reading, running and blogging clearly all took a back seat. 

I've really struggled to focus on reading this year.  There were some months in the late winter and early spring, where I think I may have only read a book or two the entire month. I'd pick things up and just not be able to get into them, even if it was a genre I normally liked. I had so many DNFs, so many holds lapse at the library. My concentration and focus just wasn't there. 

There was one series that really grabbed my attention though and held it, and that was the Inheritance Games. I tore through those books (and highly recommend if you read them you have them all at once because each book stops in the middle of the story, and I know from experience waiting on the hold list at the library for the next one is super annoying). 

Of the books I did finish, I had a lot of three stars. And some if it I can't tell if it was me and the mood I was in or if it was actually the book itself. So take the three star ratings here with a grain of salt. 

Ok, enough preamble, here are the actual books I've read through June. 

Five stars

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've spent the last few months in the world of the Inheritance Games, and they were the most fun books I've read in a long time. Compelling characters, fun puzzles and lots of good twists and turns. Can't recommend these books enough, but be forewarned, they end in cliff-hangers, so have the next book in the series ready to go if you're impatient to know what happens next like me.

The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've spent the last few months in the world of the Inheritance Games, and they were the most fun books I've read in a long time. Compelling characters, fun puzzles and lots of good twists and turns. Can't recommend these books enough, but be forewarned, they end in cliff-hangers, so have the next book in the series ready to go if you're impatient to know what happens next like me.

The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've spent the last few months in the world of the Inheritance Games, and they were the most fun books I've read in a long time. Compelling characters, fun puzzles and lots of good twists and turns. Can't recommend these books enough, but be forewarned, they end in cliff-hangers, so have the next book in the series ready to go if you're impatient to know what happens next like me.

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A whodunit where the house is a main character and each chapter makes you think the victim or the killer could be them. The Briar House is a woman's boarding house in DC and the grouchy landlady has strict rules all her guests must follow. But a new and mysterious arrival rocks the boat a little bit, introducing weekly dinners in her tiny room and building relationships with each person.

I loved this book. Each chapter introduces you to one of the women, and the other people in there lives. And each time you meet and understand someone new, you learn a bit more about who could be the victim and the killer. So good, a true Kate Quinn classic.

Four stars

Such Charming Liars by Karen M. McManus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love Karen McManus and her YA thrillers! This one was about a mother-daughter jewelry heist. It had a lot of twists and turns, and though I guessed the ultimate ending I still found I couldn’t put this down, despite a few plot points I didn’t love.

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m not quite sure how I liked this book so much even though I despised most (all?) of the characters. I loved the way this book took a singular event and looked how it seriously and truly messed up every member of a single family.

The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was a lovely mix of nostalgia and getting to know the early parts of Kelly Bishop’s career. I loved the parts about Gilmore Girls and Bunheads, and I found the parts about her early dancing career fascinating. What a great book to spend a cold winter weekend curled up with.

Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this book because it felt like everyone was talking about it. I've never really watched any of the Barefoot Contessa shows, but I found it really interesting to learn about Ina Garten's life and how she found her way into the food world.

The Brothers Hawthorne by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the bridge book in the Inheritance Games series. It's told from two of the brothers' perspectives and introduces a cast of new characters that will appear in the Grandest Game series. I enjoyed this book, but it definitely wasn't quite as compelling as the books in the original series. It took me a little bit longer to get going with it, but eventually it picked up, and I enjoyed it.

The Grandest Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked the premise of this book, and I liked new characters being a focus of the Hawthorne world, but I'd read it back to back to back with the original Inheritance Games books, and this one just didn't live up to those. Don't get me wrong, it's still good, and because it ended in a cliff-hanger I'm still planning to read the next book when it comes out this summer. But I had a bit of harder time with the many POVs in this book, and the number of POVs didn't match the number of players in the game so I felt like I kept getting people confused -- especially Lyra. I couldn't remember who she was or why exactly she was important. I think I needed a little more development of some of these characters in this book, but because I'm a sucker for mysteries, I'm going to stick with it until the next book.

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily R. Austin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was dark, but also at times really funny. The main character is an atheist and a lesbian and when she heads to a Catholic church that advertises therapy, she somehow ends up employed there as a receptionist. She learns a bit more about her predecessor and discovers she might have been murdered. She's curious and suspicious of several people at the church. A very different book, but I actually really liked it.

Games Untold: An Inheritance Games Collection by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fun and cute look behind some of the moments that are mentioned in many of the Inheritance Games books. These have been some of the only books landing for me lately, so it was nice to get a deeper look at some of the characters in these short stories.

Among the Wicked by Linda Castillo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'd fallen off the wagon with the Kate Burkholder books, and reading this one reminding me why I love them so much. The plot here is fast-moving and I never wanted to set this book down. I started it on a Sunday and finished it the next day. In this case, Kate is asked to go undercover to in a different Amish community to help investigate a series of strange events. While I picked up on a few of the plot points, I appreciated the change of location and cast of characters in this book. It was nice to mix it up. My only real complaint now that I've read 8 of these is that I think there's a bit of a tell toward the end of the books. Kate always puts herself in some dangerous situation because she's convinced herself there's no other way and then without fail comes incredibly close to death, but manages to just barely avoid it. Other than that trope becoming a bit repetitive, I still love these books.

Three stars

Main Character Energy by Jamie Varon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was cute, though slightly predictable, and I struggled with some of the plot points or gaps. When the main character's aunt dies, she inherits her sprawling mansion in France as well as the secretive writers retreat she runs there -- if she agrees to stay for a certain amount of time. The main character's self-loathing at times was a lot. I really wanted to like her, but sometimes she drove me nuts, and I just wanted to shake her and be like girl, get it together.

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I kept waiting for the payout in this book. Why did the main character's attic suddenly become magical and start sending her husbands? If she was annoyed with one, she could send him up to the attic and a new one would come down. I kept reading and reading hoping to find out why, but the author never tells you. It's just this weird thing that happened and that the main character has to navigate now. I found it a bit repetitive at parts, and really felt like we were lacking plot.

The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Three friends in college and thrown together by a tragedy, and they make a pact to never let each other down. So years later when one of them needs the others, they fly to her side. They plan a three city travel spree to help her recover. One of the characters was incredibly grating the entire book, but it was a nice escapist book for characters trying to find themselves.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another mystery that was slow to unfold. Set after World War I, Maisie is a private investigator. Her first case is to investigate a presumed affair, which leads her to a group of soldiers that came back from the war with serious injuries. Many who have gone to a retreat have died, and Maisie expects not from natural causes.

View all my reviews

2024 was actually one of the lowest volume reading years I've had in a while. Turns out having a small human to keep alive will really cut into those lazy Sundays doing nothing but reading a good book. But despite the lower number of books this past year, I still read some really fantastic books. 

Here's a round up of all my five-star reads.

Nonfiction

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Reading this book made me a little bit sad about how we destroyed an entire generation of children with screens and social media. But there was so much good food for thought about what we can do to change the tide and create healthier relationships for our kids with the Internet. I appreciated the practical tips especially at the end of the book. I'd say this is a must read for any parent trying to figure out how to manage devices for their kids.

The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement by Sharon McMahon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Like many others, I've been following Sharon's corner of the Internet since 2020. I've learned a lot from her, and she's introduced to many new authors and other great books. She's also an excellent storyteller on her podcast, so I was looking forward to her book release. Her strong storytelling continues here. In many sections, I could hear her voice in my head as if she was narrating this on her podcast. I enjoyed the stories she shared in this book, each one infused with hope.

The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Even though this memoir is more than 10 years old, it still feels like an important story given all the conversations today around immigration. This is the story of Reyna Grande, who as a child is separated from first her father and then her mother as they came to the United States looking for a better life than what they had in Mexico. Her mother eventually returns to Mexico, and Reyna makes the trip across the border with her father when she's 9 years old. Separated from one of her parents, she grows up in the U.S. with the other. The book is equally really heartbreaking and hopeful. It's not an easy read, but it's a good one.

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is so wild it’s hard to believe it’s nonfiction. It tells the story of the KKK’s resurgence in the 1920s, and the woman who brought them down. The way the author wrote some of the court scenes made it feel like a thriller and I just kept reading to find out what happened next. It’s hard to make a story that compelling when people already know the outcome. But this was so good. Highly recommend.

Fiction

James by Percival Everett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This will likely be one of my favorite books of the year This retelling of Huck Finn is so good. I loved to see Jim as a full person, with this whole big life that’s just not there in the original and building such kindness into him, even though he had no real reason to be kind to any of the white people in the book. I couldn’t put this book down and I was sad to leave Jim when it ended.

The Women by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Even though I definitely thought the first half of this book was stronger than the second half, this is a five star book. It was beautifully written. I keep telling everyone to read it and I keep wanting to talk about it. After her brother is killed in the Vietnam War, Frankie McGrath signs up to be an Army nurse. The first half of the book covers her time during the war, and the second half covers life when she gets home. Parts of this book made me so mad I wanted to chuck it across the room, but I loved it. I also felt a really personal connection to this story since my aunt served as an Army nurse in Vietnam -- in one of the hospitals mentioned in this book -- and it was something that I didn't know much about. This book touches a lot on how the women who served in Vietnam were often unseen and their service was unvalued when they came home. It's a must read.

Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Five stars largely in part because I thought this was a lovely send off for the characters from Nantucket that I've grown to love over the last many summers. All of my favorites were back to celebrate the police chief's retirement, but of course, one last case lands in his lap before his retirement date at the end of the summer. I will miss Elin's books every summer.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was just a lovely book to read. My favorite character was an aging octopus that had found ways to escape his enclosure. He was fun and charming, and I wish he had more chapters in the book. The humans in the book were just the right amount of flawed and broken for them to be endearing and lovable without tipping into completely annoying, though at least one of the characters had his moments.

The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I cannot stop thinking about this book, and I really want to talk about it with people (good thing it was my book club read for the month). It reminded me a bit of The Displacements in that Florida gets hit with devastating hurricanes. I liked how this book imagined what could happen if the storms became too much that it was impossible to repair critical infrastructure. I loved many of the characters in this book and despised others. All around a great thought provoking book.

Gone Missing by Linda Castillo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I tore through this book in like a day and a half. It’s another great mystery thriller featuring Detective Kate Burkholder trying to find three Amish girls that have gone missing. This book is five stars despite the fact that I hated the ending and that I felt one of the characters ended up with an unresolved storyline.

View all my reviews