What I'm Reading
My recs and what's on my TBR list.
TGIF, my people, and welcome to your weekly installment of Fully Booked! Today, I’m going to give a little round-up of things I’ve read and enjoyed recently. The plan is to do this on a monthly basis, as well as highlight some books I’m looking forward to reading.
This marks the fourth week that this newsletter has been alive. That’s, like, basically the lifespan of a cicada. (Maybe? Idk, don’t fact check me on that. I got a B in Bio.) So we’re really doing the damn thing. Thank you for reading and allowing me to ramble at you. If you’ve enjoyed the Subby, please share it with the other bookish people in your life! It’s truly a labor of love, and every lil shoutout counts.
Time for me to shut up! Let’s talk bookies.
What I’ve Read
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
I’ve been a huge Sittenfeld fan since her early days, when I was a 14-year-old reading her first novel, Prep. Her writing is excellent—she has the ability to smack you upside the head with some real-ass life truths and insights while also being hilarious and irreverent. Sittenfeld’s novel analyzes the Bill Hader/Colin Jost/Pete Davidson phenomenon of very funny dudes landing what society considers to be way hotter and more famous women. This is something I’ve thought about at length, and I’m very jealous that Sittenfeld had the genius idea of examining it via a novel. Romantic Comedy takes a look at what happens when the script is flipped: A female writer at an SNL-like late night comedy show writes a sketch about how all her dorky, funny colleagues end up with these smokeshow female celebrities. And then, wouldya believe it, a hot male celeb begins to show interest in said woman. I didn’t get super invested into the book until about a third of the way through, but then I was fully in it—I finished it with a goofy grin on my face and a very earnest crush on the male celebrity character, Noah Brewster. My only qualm is that perhaps he’s too perfect? In any case, I’d literally read anything that Sittenfeld writes, even if it’s a Wikipedia entry on the history of hemorrhoid cream. Anything! She’s mega talented. Buy this.
Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
Jackson is a book editor at Knopf, and this is her first novel. It centers around the uber-wealthy Stockton family, who lives in Brooklyn, as each of the adult children (and one sister-in-law) grapples with the family’s wealth and privilege and all the rich-people stuff that comes along with the two. There’s no doubt Jackson is a great writer: Through her characters’ insights and relationships with one another, she makes what could be a super hateable family likable and complex, and she paints a really colorful and interesting portrait of the Stocktons’ old-money Brooklyn world. The book is more of a meditation and character study of this family than it is a plot-driven novel—it gave me Rich and Pretty vibes—but it's an interesting and fun examination of generational wealth and its place in a country that’s seeing increasingly insane income inequality.
The Villa by Rachel Hawkins
If you’re looking for a fun, easy mystery, this could scratch that itch. The Villa follows a writer as she spends a summer at an Italian villa infamous for a 1970s murder involving rock stars. The writer gets a little too invested in figuring out what really happened that summer, and starts to realize that…dun dun dun…perhaps the story the public thinks it knows isn’t what actually went down. This book is kinda like Daisy Jones and The Six and Under the Tuscan Sun had a baby, and then that baby was involved in a grisly murder. (A totally normal thing to imagine…right?) The Ruth Ware and Paula Hawkins girlies will love this one.
Seven Days in June by Tia Williams
I’m late to the party on this—it came out in 2021—but I just read it, and it’s too good not to mention. The novel follows Eva and Shane, who met as high-schoolers and had a torrid fling, as they reconnect in the present day. They’re each authors—Eva writes a vampire series, and Shane is a star of the Serious Literature™ variety—and they’re thrust together again via the ecosystem of the Black book world. Williams is such a great writer: She’s hilarious and quippy (I found myself loling whilst reading), and her characters are multifaceted and weird and relatable. It’s the best of both worlds: The fun and excitement of a second-chance love story with lots of *~*sexual tension*~* mixed with explorations of serious themes, like chronic illness and sexism and racism in the book industry. Plus, it’s a great window into the world of Black literature and publishing.
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
This is another book that came out in 2021, but again—too excellent not to plug. At first glance, the plot might come off as a bit kooky—I was at a wedding recently and was telling some friends about it and they were like “Yo, wut”—but stay with me here: A woman gives up her art career to raise her first baby, and finds herself feeling resentful and adrift in the world of mommy-dom. And then, one day, she realizes something a little strange: She’s turning into a dog. And all she really wants to do is run around and howl and fuck shit up. What unfolds is an extremely smart and darkly funny examination of art, motherhood, gender roles, and societal norms.
Yoder is just staggeringly talented. Everything from the plot and the pacing to the line-level writing is superb—I found myself rereading sentences just to digest the craft that went into them. And she’s super funny and not afraid to take us on some zany twists. One thing I’ve realized I really admire in writing and life in general are the people who don’t kill their ideas just because others might label them “strange.” Instead, they just really go for it and dive headfirst into the weird—commit to the bit, if you will. That takes vulnerability and courage! Like, there was probably someone who read the initial script for Everything Everywhere All at Once and was like “Hot dog fingers??? Idk, bro, this is pretty strange,” but the Daniels stayed true to themselves and now they have, like, a bajillion Oscars! Anyhoo, you get what I’m saying. Embrace the offbeat. Howl like a dog. Read this book.
What I’m Looking Forward to Reading
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
I feel like this book has been everywhere, and I finally got off the Libby waitlist! It’s one of Oprah’s book club picks and is loosely inspired by Little Women, so I’m automatically sold.
Maame by Jessica George
This book follows Maddie, a young woman in London and the child of Ghanaian immigrants, who is struggling to balance all the stuff that accompanies your mid-20s with being a caretaker for her father. It’s the author’s debut and has rave reviews, so I’m v excited to dig into it.
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor
This is over 500 pages, so it’s definitely going to be a commitment, but I’m eager to dive into this saga about a crime family in New Delhi. It got a meh review in The New York Times, but it seems like the kind of action-packed book that’s good for a little escapism.
Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I know, I know—I’m woefully behind on reading the newest TJR. But such are the burdens of being a Libby gal. This follows one of the characters from Malibu Rising, tennis star Carrie Soto, as she stages her comeback. I was so-so on Daisy Jones the book (loved the show!), but I enjoyed The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Malibu Rising, so I’m interested to see how I feel about this one.
And that’s it for this week. Stick around for next week’s newsletter, in which we’ll hit week five—aka probably the lifespan of some other insect I never really learned about (sorry, Ms. Byford). Keep it funky, book peeps!