A Song for My Mother

 Book 65 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read on September 2

A Song for My Mother by Kat Martin

published 2011

Summary (via the book jacket)

Years after running away with her boyfriend in high school, Marly Hanson returns to Dreyerville at the request of her daughter, Katie, who has recently been treated for brain cancer. Katie has never met her grandmother Winnie. The homecoming is bittersweet, but reuniting is crucial if Marly and her mother are ever to rediscover the bond they once shared.

To complicate matters, living next door to Winnie is handsome sheriff and widower Reed Bennett, and his son, Ham. Ham and Katie become fast friends, while their parents find themselves attracted to one another. But Marly's time in Dreyerville is limited and risking her heart isn't something she's willing to do.

Can she risk loving the handsome sheriff and give up the future she worked so hard to forge for herself and her daughter? Can she make a life in Dreyerville after what happened all those years ago?

Will Marly finally realize that her true destiny and ultimate happiness lie in coming to terms with her past?

My Opinion

3 stars

You already know before reading the book what the answers to the questions in the summary are and that's ok.  I enjoy a palate cleansing "safe" book now and then and this small paperback novella fit the bill.  I appreciate that it's 150ish pages because the shorter timeline leads to less of the miscommunication tropes that have to happen to move the story along.

I picked it out from the library because of its small size and innocuous vibe as something to take on vacation...you know the jokes about packing extra underwear "just in case" you shit yourself every day?  That's me with books...I always pack way too many "just in case" and picking smaller, lighter books as extras is a way to compromise with myself.  Then when I didn't read it on vacation I took it with me to the doctor's office this morning; again, it's small and benign enough to not draw attention like I might have with the other book I'm currently reading that says "My Ex, The AntiChrist" in large red letters.  Between the time at the appointment and the time eating breakfast after, I was finished.

Even though it's pretty much as advertised and expected, I went with 3 stars because I think some pretty heavy topics were glossed over.  It's tricky to find a reason strong enough that the main character would stay away for twelve years but also something that could be resolved fairly quickly once she returns, and I don't think the final straw in this case that made her leave was that reason - either take it seriously and continue to stay away or at least address it before moving on, or brush it off twelve years ago like she did when she returned.

Girlhood

 Book 64 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read on September 1

Girlhood by Melissa Febos

published 2021

Summary (via Goodreads)

In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them.

When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she’d been told about herself and the habits and defenses she’d developed over years of trying to meet others’ expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs.

Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny.

Written with Febos’ characteristic precision, lyricism, and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, toward a chosen self.

My Opinion

4 stars

I checked this book out from the library after seeing it in Bookpage.  I read it in chunks over the span of an entire day but it's Labor Day so I had the whole day to sit and read.

It's a very high 4 stars for me.  Her writing was weighty and meaningful but still accessible.  I understand and can relate to the matter-of-fact ways some situations are described that could use more reflection and therapy in hindsight but it sounds like the author is working through things and I hope she has found happiness and comfort.

60 Songs That Explain the '90s

 Book 63 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from August 24 - 31

60 Songs That Explain the '90s by Rob Harvilla

published 2023

My Opinion

2 stars

I'm also a '90s high schooler/college kid which makes me the prime demographic for this book.  As the author rightly points out, the music of your teenage years is probably going to be what you consider the "best" decade of music.

There are way more than 60 songs mentioned in this book, as the author notes immediately.  This book spawned from the author's podcast of the same name (which has also covered more than 60 songs so far) which I haven't heard.  Maybe that format works better than the book but I'm also not intrigued enough to check it out.

Credit where credit is due: it was a great start with the laugh-out-loud descriptions of Celine Dion (my personal favorite: "[Dion] came here to kick ass and sing songs, and she's about out of ass") and the letter from his mother.  But it all went downhill from there, unfortunately.

I found the book difficult to read with all the footnotes cramming extra information in instead of finding a way to work it into the text.  And with so many songs it became a line or two (and maybe a footnote) about each one, making it difficult to stay grounded.  Either I'd heard the song and would've wanted more reflection or I'd never heard the song and would've wanted to learn about it.  Or more likely, I'd heard the song but didn't know I'd heard the song because I didn't know that was the title of the song and there was nothing else shared that would've jogged my memory.

Overall, this was a miss for me.  I'd hoped for shared experiences but I'll just go back to my own '90s playlist and feel my own nostalgia instead.

Eight Very Bad Nights

 Book 62 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from August 22 - 24

Eight Very Bad Nights: a Collection of Hanukkah Noir

published 2024

My Opinion

3 stars

This is a collection of 11 mysteries relating to Hanukkah.  Overall, it was fine...mostly entertaining while I was reading but not super memorable.  My favorite was "Twenty Centuries".

Like I do with books by multiple authors, I have a few individual thoughts about each story included below.

Johnny Christmas

I was absorbed in the story and it was a somewhat unpredictable ending.

Shamash

Depressing but poignant.

Twenty Centuries

This was my favorite story in the book.  It was fully fledged out with details that filled the story but it didn't feel too long.

If I Were a Rich Man

A story with many turns that kept my interest and it had a decent ending.

Come Let Us Kiss and Part

It felt more like an excerpt of a longer book than a standalone short story because of an abrupt, unresolved ending.

Mi Shebeirach

For such a dark story it was surprisingly hopeful.

Dead Weight

I found this story to be confusing and unclear.

Lighting the Remora

I didn't connect with this because it felt anticlimactic and I didn't see the point of the story.

Not a Dinner Party Person

There was lots about the FDA trials with zero resolutions or follow-up.  I hope Nina messed up his computer.

The Demo

It was fine.  There were lots of layers/double-crosses so I was unsure who to root for.

Eight Very Bad Nights

This is a full story.  I know people like Jack who are able to bumble along making poor, impulsive choices yet somehow having things work out for them.  Hopefully the people I know are less extreme than Jack though.

All Boys Aren't Blue

 Book 61 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from August 18 - 20

All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

published 2020

Summary (via Goodreads)

In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.

Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.

My Opinion

5 stars

This was an absorbing, moving read. 

Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing

 Book 60 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from August 9 - 17

Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing by Lauren Hough

published 2021

Summary (via the book jacket)

As an adult, Lauren Hough has had many identities: an airman in the U.S. Air Force, a cable guy, a bouncer at a gay club. As a child, however, she had none. Growing up as a member of the infamous Children of God cult, Hough had her own self robbed from her. The cult took her all over the globe, but it wasn't until she finally left for good that Hough understood she could have a life beyond "the Family".

At once razor-sharp, profoundly brave, and often very, very funny, the essays in Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing interrogate our notions of ecstasy, queerness, and what it means to live freely. Each piece is a reckoning: of survival, identity, and reclaiming one's past and future alike.

My Opinion

3 stars

I'm rating this neutrally but it's a low 3/high 2 stars for me.  I would never discourage someone from sharing their stories and I hope the author finds peace in her life but for me personally, it was difficult to read because it felt so freshly angry.  Understandably angry (not that she needs my permission) but still difficult.

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls

 Book 59 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from July 27 - August 13

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

published 2025

Summary (via the book jacket)

Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, frightened, and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There's Rose, a hippie who insists she's going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician, who plans to marry her baby's father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute, and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.

Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they're allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by the adults who claim they know what's best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it's never given freely. There's always a price to be paid...and it's usually paid in blood. 

My Opinion

2 stars

When I was reading the acknowledgments at the end of the book (yes I read cover to cover), the author mentioned the first two drafts of this book didn't have witches at all.  When I read that, something clicked for me because part of the reason I didn't enjoy this book was because it felt like different books mushed together.  Based on the title, description, and what I've read from the author in the past, I kept waiting for the witchcraft from the beginning but it was over 100 pages before anything happened.  Then it seemed like the middle raced by and a million things happened and it felt like everything but the kitchen sink was thrown at the plot.  Then the ending happened which was nice and wrapped things up but also felt disjointed and out of place.

Overall, I would've read a book about homes for unwed mothers and I would've read a book about witches and I think there was potential to marry the two together by the author but it wasn't fully achieved in this book.