Bury Me Already   
by Julia Wertz (2026)

read: 26 July 2026
rating: [+]

I haven’t read any other books by Wertz but I will track some down. This is a long pregnancy memoir which encompasses not just her pregnancy/birth/motherhood but also her own relationship stuff, family issues, concurrent crises of people near her. It’s warts-and-all in a way I found refreshingly frank without being complainy. I learned some things and really liked Wertz’s style and storytelling abilities. I say this a lot lately but “Usually not my jam but very good.”

The Unquiet Grave   
by Dervla McTiernan (2025)

read: 25 July 2026
rating: [+]

I just finished Tana French’s Cal Hooper series and remembered this read-alike, the Cormac Reilly series. Cormac is a local (unlike Cal) but he does sometimes feel out of step with what’s going on around him in Galway. He’s contemplating moving to a different job, his second in command may be moving to Australia, and his ex is back, pregnant with a missing husband. Also maybe someone hacked the lottery. Lots going on, a well-crafted mystery novel that lays it all out.

Charity and Sylvia   
by Tillie Walden (2026)

read: 14 July 2026
rating: [0]

Really not sure if I didn’t click with this book because of The Discourse around it or because it was just not my jam. You’d THINK I’d love this story of women living companionably together as partners in early Vermont but there was just a lot going on, no real through line narrative, and the author admitted she made some of the story up for dramatic reasons and I couldn’t stop wondering what was made up. Tillie is a treasure, this book was only okay.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders   
by Daniyal Mueenuddin (2009)

read: 13 July 2026
rating: [+]

A book about the changing way of life in Pakistan. This is a collection of “linked” chapters (they’re all about the same general area and share characters but only just; I couldn’t always figure out how they related) which were all about what I would consider class differences and longing. Some stories are about the upper classes, and some about the servant classes with stark divisions highlighted. A lot of misery but not always in the way you’d expect.

I Contain Multitudes   
by Ed Yong (2016)

read: 6 July 2026
rating: [+]

Ed Yong is, of course, a treasure. I had somehow not read this book when it came out in 2016 and even though some of it may be outdated (though I don’t know which parts) it was still a fascinating read about the various ways in which microbes define a lot of the things around us, and in fact define us in many ways. I really enjoyed the plain-talking way he was able to describe pretty heavy science-y stuff, always answering the “Why would I care?” parts first.

Missing Sam   
by Thrity Umrigar (2026)

read: 6 July 2026
rating: [+]

I’d read another book by this author that I had not remembered. Went back to check and it was a similar, sort of heavy but extremely well-written book. This one is about a woman who goes missing (white, history of family trauma) and her wife who looks for her (American, Muslim, family became distant when she came out to them). Really grim in parts, but there’s love at the center of all of it. If you avoid trauma stories, avoid this one, otherwise, a very good read.

The Keeper   
by Tana French (2026)

read: 30 June 2026
rating: [+]

Tana French’s Cal Hooper series does not miss. An American ex-cop moves to a small town in Ireland, learning the ways of a place where everyone’s known each other for generations. In this episode a young woman who is set to marry to local Big Man’s son turns up dead. Trying to figure out what happened is a whole thing where everyone’s a suspect and vigilante groups form and disband. Cal is folded more into the community as they unravel the story, this reveals some buried feelings of Lena’s and everything disrupts and then settles again.

Kampung Boy   
by Lat (2006)

read: 24 June 2026
rating: [+]

This graphic novel is a classic of the genre which somehow I had never come across until I found it in a local LFL. It’s an excellent story about growing up in a rural village in Malaysia as a Muslim kid at the same time as the rural ways are disappearing. The drawing is goofy and expressive and there is so much going on in each page it was fun to flip through it. It highlights just how isolated rural communities were and yet how much was still going on in each one.

Love, Misha   
by Askel Aden (2025)

read: 22 June 2026
rating: [+]

Misha doesn’t feel that their mom has been supportive of their gender transformation. They are going on a road trip together (one that Misha doesn’t want to go on) and get lost. They wind up in a spirit world, meet a lot of unusual creatures, some friendly, some not. Being lost is both true in the story, but also a metaphor for Misha’s relationship with their mom as they work together to find a way back to their own world and get to know each other. Really well done and illustrated.

The Last Word   
by Elly Griffiths (2024)

read: 20 June 2026
rating: [+]

Funny story, I’d read the beginning of this earlier because Griffiths' other series ends with a book with a very similar title. I went into this book, the last in the Harbinder Kaur series, with a bit of trepidation since the reviews in the little slip my library puts in the back for patron reviews PANNED it. I thought it was fine. Wraps up a few things nicely. The mystery is fine. I find the multiple-perspective writing a little tiresome since I want more Kaur and her family and relationships and and this was more about her group of friends and a mystery they encounter about a writers' book group with a very high mortality rate.

How To Die   
by Mike Monteiro (2026)

read: 16 June 2026
rating: [+]

This book is not about how to die. It’s a collection of essays by Mike Monteiro who is an Old Web guy and a designer answering questions that people pose to him about life stuff. Simple questions like how to make a grilled cheese, or a mixtape, and more complicated ones like how to get your joy back. He writes these up for his weekly newsletter and this is a collection of them. If you’ve read his other work, you’ll know if you’ll dig this or not. Pulls no punches. Very good.

Platform Decay   
by Martha Wells (2026)

read: 13 June 2026
rating: [+]

This was just on the shelf at my library! I like the Murderbot books. This one had a bunch of characters which I wasn’t totally familiar with and did not have the other characters I did know and like (for the most part). There’s a lot of Murderbot “emotional growth” if you can call it that, but a lot of the logistics of the mission they do are “And then I hacked into THIS thing and made it work for me.” Not enough ART. These feel more like serialized magazine stories at this point, a good time but just sort of one mission at a time and while there’s suspense, it’s not like it used to be.

Conversion Therapy Dropout   
by Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez (2026)

read: 8 June 2026
rating: [+]

I got this book as a giveaway in exchange for an honest review. This is an achingly poignant story about a guy who grows up in a religious household trying to “pray the gay away” for eight years with conversion therapy programs all the while enjoying a very successful career as a social media marketer for the same churches which don’t accept him. He eventually comes to a better place as a queer adult but it’s a long slog to get there and he remains very religious, but within an affirming community and supportive friends. If you’re someone who just can’t stomach people with strong religious beliefs, this one may not be for you, but it probably is for everyone else.

Love By the Book   
by Jessica George (2026)

read: 8 June 2026
rating: [+]

This is a story within a story of a platonic and yet also romantic (bot not sexual) friendship between two women. Remy is dealing with the inevitable aging-and-distancing of her best-friend group and she meets Simone who is pretty closed off but maybe open to being friends. Both women go through a lot in the short course of this novel. Remy is also trying to undo some writer’s block after her first successful novel and decides to write about their friendship.

Lovely Recipe   
by Myra Rose Nino (2026)

read: 7 June 2026
rating: [+]

A graphic novel about two teenagers in their last year of high school who are both interested in food. One works in her parents restaurant. One misses the way her grandmother would make big meals that brought the family together. They meet up during the whirlwind of senior year and the whole “Who is going away to college and who is staying nearby?” uncertainty and begin cooking together and healing some of their unrecognized underlying feelings. Sweet and well-drawn.