This month, I needed books for escape and support. Here’s what I managed to read and listen to.
The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell • ★★★★☆
In January, I read Romantic Comedy which is set around an SNL-like show. This month, I read The Golden Spoon which riffs of The Great British Bake-Off. Sometimes these obvious parallels are tedious but not so with either. Instead, they provide a sort of shorthand for the set-up.
In this instance, a handful of bakers arrive at the Grafton estate for a reality competition. From the jump, the show is off: There’s a new host, one baker uses salt instead of sugar and another has a total meltdown over a secret ingredient. And then someone turns up dead. Oh, and all this is on top of maybe another mystery?
I read this in a flash. It was the equivalent of binging five eps of GBBO or inhaling a pretty good chocolate croissant.
People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd • ★★★★☆
I read The Club by Lloyd back in 2022. She proved in that book and in her newest outing that she’s a master at slowly revealing the rotten insides of fame and influence.
In People Like Her, Lloyd explores the world of “you do you, mama!” parenting influencer Emmy. Emmy shares her rise to fame from magazine editor to diaper-shilling Instamum. Meanwhile, her husband is disillusioned by her phony stories and perpetually sharing their lives. And a follow or two seem to have it out for her. I couldn’t put this one down.
This book is not for everyone. It deals with a lot of really sensitive and triggering issues like infertility, death and postpartum depression.
The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life’s Final Moments by Hadley Vlahos • 🎧 • ★★★★☆
I’ve had some trouble lately with books (or movies or TV) that hit a little too close to home. I gave up on a holiday rom-com a few months ago because a character was dealing with memory loss. I pressed pause on TJ Klune’s Under the Whispering Door because it was discussing the afterlife.
By that logic, The In-Between, a book written by a hospice nurse about her experience with end-of-life care, is the last possible book I should be listening to. But The In-Between didn’t repel me; instead, it made me meditate on lives well lived and what may come next.
Done and Dusted by Lyla Sage • 🎧 • ★★★☆☆
I have mixed feelings about this one. I picked up Done and Dusted because I needed something different than what I’d been reading lately. I’ve read a lot nonfiction (at least for me) this year and some heavier novels. The inverse of that to me was a cowboy romance.
In some ways, I really enjoyed Done and Dusted. I appreciated the fact that the MC, Emmy, had ADHD. That experience was woven into Emmy’s experience and how her loved ones cared for her. I found that to be very thoughtful.
But some of the specifics of the characters’ romantic relationship were a little iffy and uncomfortable to me.
Keep up with what I’ve read over on Goodreads! Also, if you’re an audiobook fan, I encourage you to try Libro.fm—you can support your favorite small bookstore while downloading your next listen.
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