Everything I read & where I read it: June 30-July 6
I was in Italy this past week with my family: Rome, Urbino, Pesaro. I ate pizza and pasta everyday for almost every meal, and my stomach felt completely fine. Everything is different over there! I love reading on vacation, although the way I read on vacation is really different from how I read at home: much more full brain-off, pleasure reading, much less introspective or difficult reading.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
I read this book by the pool at our really beautiful, really comfortable hotel in Pesaro over the course of two days. The pool was the perfect temperature for prolonged pickling, and the depth was perfect for perching with a book flat on the burning hot concrete pool deck.
I’ve read one other book by Rufi Thorpe, Dear Fang, With Love, which I liked. Then, I tried to read The Knockout Queen, which did not work for me. I liked Margo’s Got Money Troubles way more than Fang. I liked it way more than anything I’ve read recently.
One of my favorite things about this book was how deeply likable I found the main character, Margo, to be. She’s in a really shitty situation — pregnant via an affair with her married, asshole English professor — and she handles it with humor and resilience. I liked the parallels the book drew between WWE-wrestling — a world that I never, ever think about — and sex work, which is one of my favorite worlds to read about. Thorpe wasn’t overly heavy handed with the analogy, I don’t think, but I liked the way she worked through the parallels: putting on a show with your body; trying to play a character that isn’t you, exactly, but also isn’t something totally dissimilar from you.
Thorpe did this thing throughout with first and third-person narration that I thought was mildly interesting at best and irritating at worst, but that’s probably my only big qualm with this book. 5/5 wholeheartedly.
Daisy Haites (Magnolia Parks Universe) by Jesse Hastings — Books #2 and #4
I read these two books until about 4am on my Kindle because I was so jetlagged. My little sister and I shared a bed in all our hotels, and she was much more adjusted than I was, falling asleep around 1am after we’d watched America’s Sweethearts. This is the kind of situation where I love my Kindle: lights out, with another person in bed who you don’t want to bother. My only Kindle-reading-late-at-night complaint is that I almost never want to know what time it is if I’m reading past 1am, so I hate when I errantly click and see the time.
I just really love Magnolia Parks, to be honest. They’re not amazing books—they’re actually pretty annoying—but if you like a certain kind of romance-drama where the tension comes from the fact that the main female character is so deeply, unrealistically irresistible that men throw themselves into harm’s way to protect her, then you’ll vibe with this.
I skipped over the Daisy Haites part of this series initially, for no reason other than I was really enjoying Magnolia’s perspective and didn’t feel like shifting so fully. #2 was better than #4, in my opinion, although the dumbass twist at the end of #2 involving Daisy shooting herself (spoiler, sorry, but it doesn’t really matter) was so stupid I had to take a break.
The thing about these and the Magnolia books is you either love them or, I imagine, really, really hate them. If you like Jessa Hastings’ voice and the way she layers in details and the deep, absurd angst of these books, you’ll like these just as much as the Magnolia ones. Maybe more, honestly, because BJ and Magnolia are so obnoxious. 4/5 for what they are: true escapist romance
Harper’s magazine - July edition
I read Harper’s by the pool as well. This time, I was on a lounge chair in the shade around 4pm, drowsy from a full day of sun.
The best thing I read in this edition was the cover article about OCD. My mom gave me this when we were at our aforementioned amazing hotel with a pool because she wanted to discuss the author’s takes on OCD. I didn’t find his take to be totally groundbreaking — I mean, I agree with the idea that our world’s emphasis on sterility and comfort probably creates a mental breeding ground for OCD, but my instinctive agreement with him actually made me like the article less because it felt fairly obvious to me. It was entertaining to read about the OCD conference, though. I liked that.
If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
In Pesaro, we went to a beach club, which, I’ve gotta say, kind of converted me to the European mode of beachgoing. Nothing worse than carting a massive umbrella, towel, and chair back from the beach in the full sun. That being said, reading this book on the beach wasn’t a good fit, tone-wise—I think the flatness or the…greyness of the world in the book felt too discordant with the brain-cooking, stultifying heat of the beach.
This one confused me because it was a re-read, and I thought I remembered liking it more than I did this time around. Like with Margo, I tend to like books that touch on sex work, so this one worked for me in that sense. I also tend to dislike anything more than two perspectives in a book, and I’d forgotten that this one skips between, like, 20 different people. I should probably re-read again in a different setting…or not, honestly. 3/5: not really worth a reread.
Beautiful Secret by Christina Lauren
I have a habit — bad? good? Unclear — of reading 2-3 KindleUnlimited (read: not amazing, usually) romance books on every plane ride I take. This was my first one for the plane ride back from Rome to DC, which I read in the airport and actually really liked. I took a short break to wander around the luxury shopping hall of the Rome airport and look longingly at some Prada sandals.
Good, solid dialogue; great sex scenes; reasonable, likable characters. The third act break-up actually made sense, too, and wasn’t just a miscommunication. 5/5 romance stars—I feel like I need to differentiate because romance books are scratching a specific itch for me. Romance stars mean I ripped through it and wasn’t so annoyed with the writing or the characters that I had to DNF, not that it’s a memorable or even particularly good book.
The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren
Airplane book #2: a return to Christina Lauren. I flew Norse Airways. No food or water for 9 hours; no blankets or headphones. They are not fucking around. I read this when I was physically very uncomfortable in a seat with far too little legroom.
This one was only slightly worse than Beautiful Secret for me, mostly because it wasn’t as open door. I also don’t love a single mom/dad trope—like, it worked okay here and didn’t take me out of the action because I felt like it wasn’t overdone, but it’s just not my favorite. Third act breakup was fine—the resolution was a little too painless, but whatever, I still liked it. 4/5 romance stars.
Mile High (Windy City #1) by Liz Tomforde
Airplane book #3, and probably the worst out of the three. Ripped through it, desperate for a distraction from the hell that is hours 7-9 on an airplane. In jean shorts, because I’m stupid.
Not bad, actually, just not as good as the two Christina Lauren book. I really hate when the primary conflict in a romance centers around the main character’s insecurity, and that was a big part of why I wasn’t crazy about this one. Finished it because it had good sex scenes and decent character development, but it was just okay. I also didn’t love the B plot about their families. 3/5 romance stars.
In progress: Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo
I didn’t love The Most Fun We Ever Had — I liked it but didn’t love it — so I’m not sure that I’m going to be completely obsessed with this one, which feels pretty similar so far. I’m going to give myself until the 100-page mark before I decide if I want to stop or not.