May 2023 Reads!

May was a light reading/listening month. I think I was super into some podcasts and so spent more of the time I'd usually be listening to audiobooks doing that instead. On the other hand, not a single miss among them this month! Highly recommend all of these!

In case you missed it...

January 2023 Reads February 2023 Reads
March 2023 Reads
April 2023 Reads
Reads from previous years

(37) ✨🪄When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill. (352 pages, 2022). Audiobook. I adored this book. It takes place in the '50s, in a world that is basically like ours except that sometimes women, getting super fed up with sexism and the patriarchy and all the goddamn extra bullshit that comes with being a woman, spontaneously metamorphose into [checks notes] dragons, which yes, is just as extremely metal as it sounds. But while everybody knows this happens, it's considered sort of taboo or rude to acknowledge or talk about out in the open, especially in mixed company. Our protagonist is a young girl with an aunt who turned into a dragon (though no one in the family will admit it), a mother who died possibly of fighting not to turn into a dragon, and a shitty dad who basically abandoned her to raise her little sister alone. The story follows our protagonist as she tries to understand and navigate her way through all this while growing up, raising her sister, and becoming a kickass mathematician despite the best efforts of shitty men, and it is just fantastic. One of my best books of the year for sure!

(38) 🪄Assassin of Reality (Метаморфозы #2) by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko (241 pages, 2009). Audiobook. The sequel to Vita Nostra (Метаморфозы #1) which I read in April, and for which the best description I've run across is “A cross between Lev Grossman's The Magicians and Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian … The anti-Harry Potter you didn't know you wanted." These are definitely among the most unique books I've ever read! It's hard to get into the plot of this one without spoiling the Vita Nostra, so I'll just say read that first if you're curious. :)

(39) 🪐 Poster Girl by Veronica Roth (275 pages, 2022). Audiobook. Friends, I've come to adore the work of Veronica Roth, beginning with Chosen Ones. Twenty-something Sonya is your typical Roth protagonist--a former (literal) poster girl for The Delegation, who ruled the Pacific Northwest for decades through an ocular implant that tracked a person's every word and action and rewarded and punished according to a strict moral code. But sometime in Sonya's late teen years The Delegation fell, and Sonya was locked into The Aperture along with her family and other high-status Delegation members. Now Sonya has been offered a deal: find a missing girl taken from her parents years ago by The Delegation and earn her freedom. The offer soon finds Sonya digging into her family's past and uncovering disturbing secrets. I definitely smell a sequel here and am looking forward to it.

(40) 🎭🔍🗡️Things We Do In the Dark by Jennifer Hillier (345 pages, 2022). Audiobook. I started this book assuming it was a straightforward murder mystery thriller, but was pleasantly surprised at how nuanced and layered the story ended up being! We open on Paris Peralta covered in blood and holding a straight razor over the body of her rich celebrity husband, dead in their bathroom. A murder charge is bad enough but possibly worse is the prospect of having her secret past exposed--and future ruined--by the media. Because twenty-five years ago, another woman was convicted of a similar murder, and she knows who Paris really is. Before the Ice Queen is released from prison, Paris will finally have to reckon with the truth of her past.

(41) 🪐 Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts (336 pages, 2009). Paper book. You might remember Adam Roberts as the author of Jack Glass, one of my favorite books from 2022. In the wake of World War I, Josef Stalin gathers the USSR’s foremost science fiction writers and gives them a top secret mission: to concoct a story about aliens poised to invade earth, in order to provide the country with a massive common enemy once the US is inevitably defeated. But after months of work, they are told to abandon the project and never speak of it again upon penalty of death. Forty years later, though, things start happening that suggest perhaps the outlandish story they invented in 1946 group is somehow, improbably, coming true?? I don't have the right words to properly explain the vibe of this book--sci fi, yes, but also kind of hilarious? The downright horrific creepiness is somehow balanced by the main character's dry humor and also the occasional bit of slapstick. And then the ending is....well...you'll just have to read it. 🤯

(42) 🎭🔍🗡️Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (369 pages, 2003). Audiobook. Federal Marshal Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of one of the 66 dangerous patients at Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. But Teddy and his new partner Chuck soon begin wondering if there is more going on at Ashecliffe than meets the eye. Strange clues seem to point to a mysterious 67th prisoner, and a possible connection to a sinister character from Teddy’s past. I loved this book, it was so good! Now I want to watch the movie.

(43) 🎭🔍🗡️Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister. Audiobook. On the night of fall daylight savings time, Jen and her husband Kelly witnesses their sweet, nerdy eighteen-year-old son Todd stab and kill a stranger. After a nightmarish night at the police station, Jen wakes to find she is reliving the day of the stabbing–Day -1. And when she next wakes, it’s Day -2. In this way Jen finds herself a reluctant detective, collecting clues about her son and his life as she travels back in time day by day, desperately trying to determine the root cause of the murder so she can stop it happening. This book was excellent and refreshingly unique!