Here are the books I gave up on, in no particular order:

The Searcher by Tana French

I started listening to this one on Libby and I really enjoyed the narrator. Seriously, he should get a trophy — switching between tough Chicago police detective and Irish and Scottish and whatever dialect necessary like he was a native everywhere.

I don’t know why this story didn’t catch me, but it just didn’t. I got nearly halfway through and realized that the characters didn’t matter to me. I know lots of people love this series, so please tell me if I was too quick to throw it all in.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Here’s the thing, I adore the 2019 film adaptation of this book and saw it before I knew it was based on a book. Just figured out this movie was not popular with the people. Obviously, I either have a girl crush on Cate Blanchett, or the movie just hit me in the right place at the right time.

On to the book.

The book is a series of emails and documents — almost epistolary, but a little bit not. I already have a chip on my shoulder about epistolary novels.1 And it turned out that I was not thrilled to encounter this story through emails. So I turned the book back in, and decided I’ll rewatch the movie.

The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd

I just finished Writing Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd (super!) and was so intrigued by her description of writing The Book of Longings that I decided to try it out.

My main beef: it’s a story about the wife of Jesus (such an interesting premise) but Jesus is the flattest character ever — like Kidd was relying on readers knowing the bible and just filling in the bits. I don’t know — it felt like such a missed opportunity to really put more of a person onto the skeleton. So, like any way too hot person in the summer, I just gave up.

Current Bookstack

Library book on my bedside table: The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo. Sound familiar? That’s because it’s been on bedside table forever. It’s been giving me nightmares, so I keep reading Braiding Sweetgrass instead. I might be stalled on page 52 the rest of my life.

Audiobook on my Libby app: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. This book is gorgeous and devastating and hilarious and I will finish it.

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You’re right.

It would be better if they also brought back the way a personal pan pizza tasted in 1987 when you were 8 years old and you had spent the whole summer in one chair in the library reading books like that was the only thing you had to do.

Since I can’t actually do that, here’s the 12th best thing!

We can talk about books right here.

The Salt of the Universe

by Amy Leach

This is a collection of essays that fiddle with the idea of restraint and abandon, generosity and tight-fistedness, rigidity and improvisation. Also, pickles and prophets.

Amy’s essays have fantastic word play and wanderings. It makes me want to live inside her brain — which sounds weird, so forget I said it.

I absolutely fell in love with her writing after reading The Everybody Ensemble. It’s the kind of book I wish I had written, but I couldn’t have because it’s exactly the kind of book that only Amy Leach could write. As is The Salt of the Universe.

I got lucky earlier this year and introduced her at a reading when she came out to Utah and then got to spend lunch and the afternoon chatting with her. I have decided we’re friends. You can ask her if she feels the same way.

Amy is just a downright A+ human being. She is hilarious and insightful and well-read and earthy and nature-y and full of praise for all kinds of random things. This book is another treasure on my shelf.

This Land is Your Land

by Beverly Gage

This book feels tricky to write about. I wanted to read something festive for the US Semiquincentennial this July. I saw the subtitle, “A Road Trip Through U.S. History,” and I got super excited. A road trip through history? Yes, please!

This book handed me two major disappointments:

1. There is no road trip. At one point she does mention her car breaking down, but there is no folksy travelogue of going across country. (Even though she did!)

2. Gage said in so many interviews that this book was about accepting a country’s mixed history (the good and the bad) and moving forward with hope. But, I read the whole thing, and whatever thread of hope she felt like she left, I couldn’t find it. The whole book felt angry.

So, there you go.

Current Bookstack

Library book on my bedside table: The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo. Only a couple chapters in but so excited about this one.

Audiobook on my Libby app: The Searcher by Tana French. Only 7% in, but what a ride! Roger Clark, the narrator for this audiobook, should get about 8 and a half trophies. He’s off the charts!

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I’m still a bookworm. In case that wasn’t clear already. (So is Kate.)

And what, you ask, does being a bookworm have to do with Large Hope?

Reading is my way into the minds and hearts of people who are different than me. It’s the kind of escapism that allows me to experience something I would never experience any other way and then to return to my own world more compassionate and empathetic, more hopeful and circumspect. I’ve encountered thousands of lives between the pages of books and those lives have changed me.

Knowing that I can change (that others can change) is one of the fundamental sources of hope for me.

The Hand That First Held Mine

by Maggie O’Farrell

Maggie O’Farrell is my new author best friend who doesn’t know me.

I started with Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait, and the book I’m about to wax on about, The Hand That First Held Mine, is my third in this burgeoning Maggie obsession.

My favorite one-sentence review is from NPR.org:

“O’Farrell manages to take two rather ordinary women in ordinary circumstances and create something extraordinary.”

It is an extraordinary weaving of two ordinary lives. The story is centers around two unmarried mothers. I don’t know how O’Farrell manages to write about motherhood in a way that is so detail-oriented, but also so full of compassion.

Take, for instance, this snippet from one of the characters interior monologue. She’s a new mother and goes through possible responses to the following question in her head: “How are you feeling about the whole baby thing?”

And it’s got an opening paragraph that gives me shivers every time I read it:

I’ll stop quoting from it and just let you read it.

Remarkably Bright Creatures

by Shelby Van Pelt

Did Not Finish

I recently gave up listening to Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I made it a solid six hours in, but I was having trouble relating to any of the characters and it was so complicated I had a hard time following the audio. It’s a book I could see myself trying again at some point. Or not. I have a lot of other things I want to read.

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In case you didn’t catch the matching dresses I made for Mother’s Day, you can hop back and see those here.

On to the books!

Hum by Helen Phillips is kind of like living through your worst nightmare as a parent of young children. The story develops in a world taken over by technology — and if you’re wondering if technology can take over our children even more than it already is, Helen Phillips says yes!

Hum could have easily become a sci-fi trope, but instead it deals with the complexity of this imagined future head-on in a really humanistic way. While some sci-fi/fantasy spends hundreds of pages building a world, Phillips drops you in and lets the world just wash over you, while she focuses on the people and the relationships in a little slice of time. I was on the edge of my seat and kept doing projects so I could hear the end.

I listened to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman right after finishing Lessons in Chemistry. Kind of a masochistic reading combination.

And I’m about to break my own rules and spoil the book, so if you haven’t read it and want to, you’ve had your warning.

Despite the heavy subject matter, I was more or less enjoying the book — right up until Eleanor Oliphant turns from a delightfully quirky unreliable narrator to a socially aware human being. I believe this happens as soon as she begins therapy. Here’s the thing: I did not buy the transition from the unreliable narrator to the reliable one. It felt like two completely different characters. And while I could believe that unreliable Eleanor suppressed memories of her mother setting her on fire and her sister dying and intense and horrific physical and sexual abuse, I could not believe that reliable Eleanor just sort of brushed herself off after all that stuff and carried on.

At least Lessons in Chemistry acknowledged the abuse and sexism. Eleanor Oliphant leaves these gaping holes in the story and in Eleanor’s personal awakening that are still distressing me. The ending was such a cheap shot. I just don’t think you can dig up that level of awful-ness, spend a few chapters in therapy, and then move on like everything’s hunky-dory. This book is one I probably should have DNF’ed, as they say.

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Pre-order it! It’s so good! Comes to the US September 15, 2026!

Part of my job is reading a lot of books.1 (I guess I will need to gush about how delighted that makes me in another post.) And they are great books. I’m reading great books all the time. I actually try not to inundate this space with those book reviews. (Maybe I shouldn’t try not to?)

But, The Butterfly Season, was a standout for me this year, and it felt worth bringing here. Not only is it brilliantly written, with well-researched, well-thought ideas, but it is also a tender journey of moving from one way of being into a new way.

Talking with Lea this morning during her interview for , I just wanted to bottle the energy of that experience and sprinkle it on everyone I know. So engaging, sparkling, transcendent. That conversation, combined with the experience of reading her book, hit me in a really personal way.

Normally when I read nonfiction/memoir/essay, I feel like I am taking the author’s journey with them.

On the other hand, when I read poetry, I feel like I am taking my own journey, independent of the author’s.

Somehow Lea manages to fit this book into a middle space that I didn’t know existed. Reading The Butterfly Season is a poetry-like experience — true self-awakening on a very personal level — but with all the narrative and intelligence you expect from nonfiction.

I cannot wait until our Constant Wonder interview releases with Lea Korsgaard in September. She is delightful, hilarious, relatable and there’s nothing better than spending an hour talking about butterflies and the meaning of life — subscribe to Constant Wonder if you haven’t already so you can hear the interview as soon as it drops.

My Rating: Brilliant! Excellent! Love!

Genre: Nonfiction/memoir

Format: Advanced reader copy

Read it If: You love the wild world, or you want to be someone who loves the wild world. Or you’re a person feeling all kinds of feelings about who you are and what you’ve been and who you should be.

Steer Clear If: You’re looking for something plot-driven or something with actual answers to life’s biggest questions.

Would I Recommend this to My Parents: Absolutely.

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.

• “Lessons in Chemistry’s excellent experiment [is] quirky and heartwarming."

• “An irresistible buoyancy.”

• "Lessons in Chemistry is a breath of fresh air — a witty, propulsive, and refreshingly hopeful novel populated with singular characters.”

And I thought, “Cool. I’ll listen to that book while I sew a dress.”

I guess this is the moment in my life that I should reconsider my stance on not reading any sort of reviews or summaries of books before diving in because this book absolutely wrecked me. I listened like it was a highway car crash over two intense days. I was not laughing. I did not find an irresistible buoyancy. I was not heart-warmed.

(I did sew a dress.)

When the book ended, I sort of collapsed off my chair onto the floor and sobbed, loudly, for quite a while.

I don’t want to give you any spoilers, but I need to give something of a reason for my reaction. It probably isn’t everyone’s reaction — as evidenced by the quips above.

The first thing I didn’t see coming was the violence against women. It was so difficult for me to listen to that I phoned a friend to ask if I should even keep going. She told me that I should, and she is very smart. So I did keep going. But there is violence against women throughout the whole book. For anyone who has been the victim of sexual violence, it’s not a punchline.

And layered on top of that, the whole story is occurring in this remarkably sexist, misogynistic man’s world of chemistry in the 1960s. I do wonder if the sexism was supposed to be sort of over-the-top, in-your-face to make a point. Whether it was or not, I found it so deep inside my bones true to my own experience as a single mom trying to make a living for myself that it wasn’t humorous.

This book is heartbreakingly, absolutely true.

It stirred up for me the feelings that are always simmering under the surface. I try to pretend that the difficulty of being a single mom in the workforce (and in the world) isn’t the wound that it is, until something like this puts it all into sharp relief. It is truly difficult to stomach the difference between my life and a man’s life. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it — and it hurts even more to know that no one cares if I do.

So, the book wrecked me. It broke my heart. It wrung me inside-out. But it was necessary and perhaps even good for me.

I think my blurb would read more like this: “Lessons in Chemistry is a heartbreaking move through a world made to make women feel like quirky misfits, like the butt of all the jokes. Thankfully it ends with the woman wielding a large knife.”

Genre: Semi-literary fiction (?) masquerading as upmarket chic-lit

Format: Audible

Read it If: You can stomach the tough stuff long enough to get to the payoff.

Steer Clear If: You can’t take this level of misogyny or violence against women.

Would I Recommend this to My Parents: No. (But, maybe?)

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So, it’s probably no surprise to you that when I saw the acronym DNF everywhere, I thought someone intended to type DNR (do not resuscitate) and instead made a slight move south on the keyboard and got an “F.”

Turns out DNF means Did Not Finish.

I guess this book lingo has been around a while but I just hadn’t noticed. I was too busy reading.

I used to finish every book I started, but at this point of my life, I just don’t have time to keep reading things I really don’t like.

This is not the same thing as dropping a book that challenges me or makes me question myself — I like books that push me and my thinking.
These books were just bad.

And so, when it comes to lame reads, I side with Bartleby the Scrivener, and say, “I would prefer not to.”

Here are all the books this year that I’ve journeyed partway into and rather than continuing, thought to myself, I would prefer not to.

2026 DNFs to Date

My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan

I hated this book. I hated the characters. I hated the writing. But I was willing to hang in there (sort of), because I had it on Audible and that always feels like an obligation. The main character, and her love interest, are absolutely insufferable and nauseously self-serving. I got to Chapter 23 of 30 and just got so annoyed and angry that I did not even care to find out how it ends. For other DNFs, I might look up a summary — but for this one — No.

Do people like this book?

Please weigh in.

Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure by Rhys Bowen

I got about halfway through before I realized that the characters were going to remain cardboard cutouts, the plot was predictable to the point of utter boredom, and the writing was vapid. I have a feeling there is a giant audience for this type of comfy, formulaic stuff, but it isn’t me.

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

This book broke my heart. I was so excited that Barnhill was writing a novel for adults that included women turning into dragons. Dragons! Her earlier novel, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, is one of my all time favorites: a gorgeous collection of truth and magic and growing up. But this book was so disappointing. The dragon-stuff felt coerced and contorted to fit a political statement. It isn’t so much that Barnhill has a clear point of view she wants readers to understand, but it was so didactic and so forced that I couldn’t hang with it. Apologies, Kelly. I hope that you decide to rewrite this for children because I think that would be brilliant.

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

Normally Liane Moriarty and I get along pretty well. I know what she’s going to give me, and I generally enjoy it. But I couldn’t finish this one. Violence against women is really hard for me to muscle through, and if the characters aren’t likeable, it’s just a no.

Quicksilver by Callie Hart

This is the moment where you all find out that I’m not much of a romantasy fan. Couldn’t even get through the first chapter of this one.

The Theater of War by Brian Doerries

This entire book mansplains what humanities majors learned in our first semester of college. So condescending. Nothing revolutionary here.

After all that vitriol, are we still friends?

Your turn. Tell me what you’ve thrown off your book stack this year.

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I went to see Hamnet, the film adaptation, a few months ago.

I was absolutely floored. Emotionally wrung. Stunned. It was poetry in motion. I cannot stop thinking about it. It was the most visceral, moving portrait of motherhood I’ve ever seen.

So when I saw Hamnet on a table at the bookstore, I bought it: a.) because the cover is gorgeous and b.) because I was so curious what sort of writing had prompted the film. If the movie was poetry, did the book have that same feeling?

Happy to report that Maggie O’Farrell knows how to write a sentence. It’s the best possible combination of lyricism, compelling characters, and plot that I’ve read this year.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

Genre: Literary fiction that’s also a little bit historical fiction and sort of witchy, while also being a reader favorite.

Format: Read it book in hand every night before bed.

Read it If: You’re a sucker for a good sentence, interested in the ways history can be imagined, and have been looking for a little grace for Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife.

Steer Clear If: You get bogged down in lyrical prose or if a novel about a young child’s death would be too much.

Would I Recommend this to My Parents: Yes

Ephemera: Loved The Book Club’s take on Hamnet. If you’re not one for spoilers, watch the film and read the book before listening.

And if you’re the sort of person who wants another opinion on whether or not to read Hamnet, you’ll love Proofread’s quick take. (Such a great podcast for figuring out if a book is for you in 15 minutes or less.)

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

As soon as I finished Hamnet, I scrambled to get my hands on another Maggie O’Farrell novel.

I picked up The Marriage Portrait and was not disappointed.

Admission: I think I’m about to read everything Maggie has ever written. It just hits me so right.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 (because I feel like I should stop rating every book 5?)

Genre: Historical fiction with a very generous slice of imagination.

Format: Library hardback.

Read it If: You’ve been desperate to know how Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke in Florence, died in the 1550s.

Steer Clear If: You demand historical accuracy, and you need a tidy ending. Or you physically can’t touch a book that Reese’s Book Club has recommended.

Would I Recommend this to My Parents: Yes

Some Favorite Sentences from the Book:

She covers page after page with [illustrations of] children . . . Babies on the backs of their parents, babies in cradles, babies on horseback, babies taking flight on outstretched feathery wings, to mingle in the blue and skim over treetops.

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Have you read this? If you have, can we talk?

This book reads like Agatha Christie hired Edgar Allen Poe, Franz Kafka, and a few characters from The Great Gatsby to write one of her murder mysteries — all while Sophocles and Plato were in the corner of the room smoking and making snide remarks.

The writing is bonkers good. The characters are absolutely absorbing.

I kind of want to go back and read it all again.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Genre: Literary fiction that is also somehow mass market.

Format: Audible listen while I was folding laundry for 22 hours and 3 minutes.

Read It If: You miss feeling like you’re in college. This book will keep you on the edge of your seat and also make you feel like you’re forgetting to turn something in to your professor.

Steer Clear If: You don’t have the stomach for 1980s racism, bigotry, misogyny. Or you’re not very good at suspending disbelief.

Would I Recommend this to My Parents: No.

Bonus: I can’t get enough of — and their new podcast, , did a great episode on The Secret History. Definitely recommend you listen after reading. (Or before, if you’re into knowing a lot about a book before committing.)

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I loved it! A perfect listen: lots of tension in the plot that pulls you back over and over, but it doesn’t create existential panic. Excellent sound design in the audio version. Great characters. Burritos in space!

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Read it if: You need something distracting. You have a soft spot for sci-fi that’s character driven. You think aliens are cool.

Steer clear if: You hate sci-fi. You hate apocalyptic fiction, even if it’s funny. You are too cool to read things that are going to be made into major motion pictures.

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Why?

Not sure. Probably because I want to have my own experience with the book before being overloaded with someone else’s experience.

But, I still love book recommendations.

So, that’s what we have here: Book reviews without too much plot info or formal review, but just enough so you can decide whether you want to read it or steer clear.

It’s strange and clever and mysterious. Quirky, delightful, a little sad, a little hilarious.

It weaves between the story of one woman and the lives of a few other people, and you know their fates are all vaguely connected—although you’re never sure how. The pacing is perfect. They mystery tantalizing. I loved it.

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Read It If: You’re looking for something to binge in the hammock or to keep you going through your fall yard cleanup. And you like things that are delightfully quirky.

Steer Clear If: You’re not that into multiple narrators. I guess that could be annoying for some people. The audio version I listened to actually had two separate narrators to read the different voices and I loved it.

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How can I even describe this to you?

Her poetry is spare, but not terse.

Her images are so clear without being commonplace.

She writes strong narrative arcs that still manage to turn in unexpected ways.

Her style is incredibly accessible, even for those who don’t usually turn to poetry.

The opening poem, Prologue, ends with these lines, “I came to the edge / and I did not know the way.”

Exactly.

MY RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

READ IT IF: You want to read some deeply spiritual, real, raw, narrative poetry.

STEER CLEAR IF: Your brain is already spinning like a herd of wildebeests and visionary poetry would just complicate things.

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You can see why I was drawn to this one.

Here’s the thing I should say first: when I listen to book, I’m looking for something different than when I read the words. I usually listen while I’m washing dishes, vacuuming, weeding, or sewing, so it needs to be a relatively simple book so I can drop it and pick it back up a few hundred times. If it’s overly complicated, I’ll miss details and get frustrated.

This book is an easy, gentle listen. And has lovely characters.

But, I really wanted it to dig hard into magical realism, or just magic in general. And it didn’t.

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

READ IT IF: You want a cozy, yet weirdly complicated, love story with a moderate dash of witchery.

STEER CLEAR IF: You are desperate to know about the Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches—despite the title, it doesn’t figure prominently in the book. (Major bummer.)

Pro tip: this isn’t one you should listen to around your kids without headphones.

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“The magic of a novel like Tiger Castle lies in the cozy afterglow – this feel-good fairytale is packed with whimsy and humor that reads like the grown-up version of Holes or the Wayside School series.” — USA Today

I do agree that it is a novel with magic.

I’m not sure about the cozy afterglow. I finished and I thought, “Huh?” Is that the same as a cozy afterglow?

Did it make me feel good? Again, not sure. But, to be fair, it didn’t make me feel bad.

Is it a fairytale? Maybe? Kind of?

Whimsy? Yes. And I love whimsy.

Humor? Also yes.

Grown-up? Maybe? But only because it talks about sex.

Its similarity to Holes or Wayside School stops at the author. Sachar has such a unique sentence pattern which works wondrously for kids and middle-grade. I’m not sure how it panned out in this “adult” novel. It didn’t seem to have the delightful complexity of his work for kids.

Sachar’s earlier books are genius. Tiger Castle is a head-scratcher.

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

READ IT IF: You want to debate me and my lackluster response. Or if you like really weird stories.

STEER CLEAR IF: You haven’t read anything by Louis Sachar. Start with one of his other books instead. And then read all the rest of his books before you read this one.

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When I started The God of the Woods by Liz Moore, I had no idea that a good deal of people are raving about this book (including Oprah!) and a good deal of people really hate it.

I thought it was a really good read — Moore has beautiful control of her sentences and her characters were fascinating and multi-dimensional. Once I got to the last 200 pages or so, I could not put this down. I even went past my religiously kept bedtime to read to the end. It’s a thriller, but a character thriller. The tension comes because of the people and not necessarily the events, although there are plenty of events.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

READ IT IF: You’re looking for the Halloween equivalent of a beach read and you love beautiful sentences and people.

STEER CLEAR IF: You’re triggered by stories of summer camp or missing children.

PS: My friend has started this delightful podcast called Proofread. It is so much fun, especially if you like to get hot takes before you read a book. (I know I don’t, but you might. I just listen to their episodes after I’ve read the book.)

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This book is a stunner from Leif Enger—it rattled my bones, in a good way. Published in 2024, I’m not one of the first readers, but it came to me in a way that felt fresh to the world. It was in my Amazon cart, and, like many things in that cart, I no longer knew why it was there. I am known to buy a book on occasion, and I decided to buy it because I honestly thought it was the newest book by Frederik Backman, My Friends. This is also something I can’t explain since none of the words match, but let’s just let that go, shall we?

I cracked the book and the first page was so beguiling that it had me. I can see how this book would turn some readers off. It’s a little bit magic, a little bit apocalyptic, and a little bit literary fantasty. But, if you know me, you know that combination is going to grab me and not let go. The thing is that the book is not about the plot—it’s about the characters and their relationships. If you need the plot to be tidy, you will be disappointed. Nothing is resolved, exactly.

But against the horrors of a broken-down society, you see countless glimmers of hope, beautifully crafted. Enger’s sentences are like elixir. And his characters are timeless and endless and perfectly now all at the same time. I loved it.

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

READ IT IF: You’re in the mood for something fanciful and gorgeously written that moves at a strange pace and pushes you to confront your perceptions of reality.

STEER CLEAR IF: You have no patience right now for a story that meanders and leaves you to imagine the context. Or if you hate sailing. There’s a lot of sailing.

Photo by leah hetteberg on Unsplash