March started out really strong for me with reading, but definitely slowed down a bit as the month wore on. I also leaned really heavily on audioboks last month – it just felt easier at the end of the day to hit play and let myself be immersed in whatever story the narrator was telling me. I’m hoping to get back to a better balance of audiobooks and reading on my iPad in April (just a personal preference, of course audiobooks still count as reading!). Here’s everything I read in March.
They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran
(Thanks to Libro.fm for my copy of this book!) I loved She is a Haunting by the same author, and this books was equally strange, but just in a different way. It takes place in the small town of Mercy, Louisiana, which has been devastated by the hurricane, where Noon and her mother spend their time sifting through the wreckage – partially because they can sell some of it to the corrupt harbormaster, and partially because Noon’s mother believes that Noon’s father and brother will be reincarnated as sea creatures. Their waters are infested by a mysterious red algae, and there are rumors of a sea creature haunting the people who stayed after the hurricane. When the harbormaster calls in Noon and her mom’s debt to him and asks them to work with his daughter to solve the mystery of what’s really going on, they have no choice but to agree. This is such a beautiful, unique story – it blends Vietnamese mythology with sea monsters as a metaphor for gender identity. It’s strange and haunting, but ultimately empowering, too. It’s YA and pretty short, but packs a punch.
Wordslut by Amanda Montell
This book was so much FUN, which I don’t say too often about a non-fiction book – especially one that’s not a memoir. Wordslut is a look at language from a feminist lens, in so many different ways – from the ways that gendered insults have evolved over time, to the way the women speak (the infamous vocal fry), and more. She deconstructs the evolution of language and investigates how these trends have been used to keep women (and other minorities) from power. I did the audiobook of this, and it felt like having a casual chat with my friends about the things (in language, but also beyond) that frustrate us.
All the Stars Align by Gretchen Schreiber
(Thank you to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for my ARC of this book!) Gretchen writes about disability so beautifully – about how it affects the way you think about yourself, the way others view you, and the ways it can leave you feeling different and left out, despite the best efforts of the people in your life who love and care about you. Piper is part of a family that has a secret – everyone is able to know who their true love is the moment they meet them. There’s just a feeling, and a knowing. Piper is in high school, and spends every day wishing and hoping for the moment to hit her. As a girl with a disability, Piper is so used to being different from everyone else she knows, and all she wants is to be able to share this with her aunts and her parents. Then it happens, but Piper is… unprepared. And nervous. And the only person she can go to is her best friend Leo… even though he hasn’t been talking to her for the past six months after he abruptly told her he needed a break from their friendship. I really loved how this story was about taking fate into your own hands, and about how no one knows what’s best for you more than you do. It also has the rare love triangle where you can’t decide who you want to root for, which is impressive!
Life Hacks for a Little Alien by Alice Franklin
(Thanks to Libro.fm for my copy of this book!) This is a (mostly) feel-good book, though parts of it are definitely hard to read about. It’s an inventive way of looking at what it’s like to grow up neurodivergent. The book is told as a how-to guide of sorts – messages from an unknown person to the “Little Alien” protagonist, so named because she feels so different from everyone else that she believes she must actually be an alien. Little Alien spends most of her time alone, and lonely – she only has one kind-of friend, Bobby. One day on TV she learns about the Voynich Manuscript, an ancient tome written in a still-unknown language, and Little Alien takes it as a sign that maybe there are others out there like her. She and Bobby embark on quite the adventure in a quest to find the manuscript, and, for Little Alien, the hope to find community. Some parts are sad, but it’s mostly hopeful – and such a unique way to write about neurodivergence!
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
I picked this book up after seeing so many people talking about it online, and wow, it did not disappoint. It’s under 200 pages, but left such an impact on me that I will be thinking about it for a long, long time. It’s dystopian, and set somewhere undetermined, where 39 women are living together underground in a cage. They’re watched constantly by guards, and none of them have any idea how they got there. The rest of the women remember life before the cage, but our narrator is the youngest of the group, and life in the cage is all she knows. I don’t want to share more, because it will be too spoil-y, but this book is a fascinating look at life and humanity. It can be extremely hard to read at times, though, so be warned – but it’s definitely worth it, if you think you’re up to it. It’s also a story that will leave you with more questions than answers!
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
I had really high hopes for this one, but it didn’t quite live up to the expectations for me. It’s incredibly moody and atmospheric, set on a super, super remote island near Antarctica, where Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of sorts. They were working with a small team of researchers, guarding the “seed bank” – a collection of the most essential seeds needed for survival in case of some global catastrophe. But when a mysterious woman, Rowan, washes up on shore after a shipwreck, only the Salts are left. As they nurse Rowan back to health, they start to learn maybe she didn’t just end up on the island by accident, and with every answer comes more and more questions. The premise is fascinating, but the first half is incredibly slow, and the ending has some pretty heavy-handed themes about parenting and children and sacrifice – it just didn’t all quite work for me.
Set Piece by Lana Schwartz
(Thanks to 831 Stories and Netgalley for my ARC – this will be out on May 6, 2025.) I really have been loving the short romance novellas from 831 Stories, and this is one of my new favorites from them! CJ is a set designer, but is working as a bartender after taking time off work for personal reasons, and that’s where she meets TV’s newest breakout star Jack Felgate, in LA for a friend’s bachelor party. CJ helps Jack escape some overzealous fans, and the two spend one steamy night together, and then Jack goes back home across the pond. Five years later, CJ and Jack bump into each other again – on set of the film adaptation of The Great Gatsby they’re both working on. I love a book about the “behind-the-scenes” of Hollywood, and this one was such a fun take on it. I loved their chemistry, and the juggling of careers in an industry that’s so built on who you are and who you know.
No Place to Bury the Dead by Karina Sainz Borgo
(Thanks to Libro.fm for my copy of this book!) I don’t exactly know how I feel about this book – it was so stark, and kind of unsettling – just in the way that it felt like a heavy blanket of grief was settling over the characters for the whole story. It was extremely character driven, which I usually don’t mind, but I found myself hoping for a bit more plot when I was finished. The story starts after some sort of plague, which leaves everyone it hits with no memory. As Angustias and her husband are traveling north to try to avoid the sickness, their twins die, and they have no place to bury them. When Angustias and her husband arrive in Mesquite, she hears about and seeks out Visitación Salazar, who buries people who have nowhere else to turn in a cemetery called “The Third Country.” There are clearly metaphors to migration and immigrants being made in this story, and I appreciated that – I just found myself wanting a bit more at the end.
The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica
(Thanks to Libro.fm for my copy of this book!) I read a lot of heavy books last month, and this might have been the heaviest and the strangest of all. The narrator is telling her story as a diary, writing with whatever materials she can, because while she’s safe inside of a convent (of sorts), the world outside is in chaos. After some sort of climate crisis, things are in complete disarray, with no water or electricity, and with lots of violence. A stranger finds her way to the convent, and the narrator begins to rethink everything she’s been taught, and everything she believes – what has brought her here, and what is really going on with the Superior Sisters at the convent. It’s all very open ended and dystopian, and the ending is so powerful!
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
When I heard a new Hunger Games book was coming out, of course I had to read it! This time, the story focuses on Haymitch’s time in the games – we learn more about what he went through, and can see how it affected him and made him the Haymitch we’re introduced to in the original trilogy. While it is a new story, we do get cameos from some of the other characters we’ve come to know from the other books in the universe. I mostly enjoyed it, though some of the cameos felt a little convenient to me? I did really love the epilogue, though, which felt like it brought everything full circle.
