I Will Do Better

 Book 14 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 26 - 31

I Will Do Better: A Father's Memoir of Heartbreak, Parenting, and Love 

by Charles Bock

published 2024

Summary (via the book jacket)

The novelist Charlie Bock was a reluctant parent, tagging along for the ride of fatherhood, obsessed primarily with his dream of a writing career. But when his daughter Lily was six months old, his wife, Diana, was diagnosed with a complex form of leukemia. Two and a half years later, when all treatments and therapies had been exhausted, Bock found himself a widower - devastated, drowning in medical bills, and saddled with a daunting responsibility. He had to nurture Lily and, somehow, maybe even heal himself.

I Will Do Better is his pull-no-punches account of what happens next. Playdates, music classes, temper tantrums, oh-so-cool babysitters, first days at school, family reunions, single-parent dating, and a crippling city-wide natural disaster were minefields especially treacherous for Charles and Lily because of their preexisting vulnerability: their grief. Charles sought help from friends, family, and therapists, but this overgrown middle-aged boy-man and this plucky child became, foremost, a duo - they found their way together.

My Opinion

2 stars

For marketing purposes, I added this book to my 'to-read' list after seeing it in People Magazine.

Reviews of memoirs make me uncomfortable, especially if I'm skewing negative.  But I start with the caveat that I'm not judging the experiences themselves, I'm judging the way they were written about which is something the author can expect after publishing a book.

Sooo...this was a tough read.  I expected it to be tough based on the subject matter but it was tough for other reasons instead.  Although he was incredibly incredibly honest on his negative feelings there wasn't a balance of positive feelings/redemption.  I'm not expecting him to magically change fundamental personality traits but the title of the book is I Will Do Better...does he feel he did (and still is as Lily was 13 at the time of publishing)?  Also he did a current update/epilogue but didn't mention having another child?  His author bio mentioned that he has two daughters...I would've loved a little insight into his thoughts after reading so much about how he didn't want to have kids at all but reluctantly had Lily because his wife wanted to be a mother.

Grieving doesn't take away from the unpleasantness of him talking about the women around him.  Besides seeing two women, 'A' and 'Z', at the same time and not telling them, he dismissed them as "Whichever Letter" when recapping the month spent without his daughter as though they were interchangeable.  

An interesting note: his story isn't the first time I've read about widows/widowers tasting their spouses' ashes.  I'm guessing it's more common but untalked about than people may think.

Basically, if he'd never wanted to share anything that is completely his right.  But if he's taking the time to write a memoir about this time and around this subject, a fuller picture and more introspection would've been appreciated.

Quote From the Book

"I wished I would have gotten to see the powerhouse mom my wife would have become."

An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good

 Book 13 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read on January 26

An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten

published 2018

Summary (excerpt from Goodreads)

Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and…no qualms about a little murder. This funny, irreverent story collection by Helene Tursten, author of the Irene Huss investigations, features two-never-before translated stories that will keep you laughing all the way to the retirement home.

My Opinion

5 stars

This little book about an elderly vigilante was entertaining.  It took me less than an hour to read, and having short stories instead of one full mystery kept the pace.

There's a second book that I will definitely read and if they aren't too difficult to find, I would read other series by this author as well (she's Swedish so they might not be easily available).

The Day I Wore My Panties Inside Out

Book 12 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 19 - 24

The Day I Wore My Panties Inside Out by Jen Tucker

published 2011

Summary (via Goodreads)

Some days are better than others. Have you ever had one of those days where you felt like you just could not catch a break? Author Jen Tucker had one of those and shares every bit of it in her new memoir, The Day I Wore my Panties Inside Out with humor and a bit of sass.

My Opinion

2 stars

This is a low 2 stars but I wasn't comfortable rating it 1 star because I'm finally reading this after it's been on my 'to-read' list since early 2013.  My interests have changed a lot in 12 years and I know I wouldn't have picked this book up if I'd seen it for the first time today so I'm not going to completely ding the author for writing something I didn't enjoy.  But I also don't think my opinion should be dismissed because I do enjoy "mommy blogger" content sometimes even if I don't seek it out so there was potential for me to like this.  Unfortunately, I just didn't.

This was also unexpectedly religious which isn't my jam.  Talking about God doesn't bother me, especially in a memoir because that's her path, but when it intersects with medical diagnoses and treatments it makes me uncomfortable.  Again, just my personal feelings so I'm not going to 1 star it but there were no indications faith was a strong factor in her life so I'm going to point it out as a reader that was surprised.

And as long as I'm being nitpicky, the wrong "too/to" was used more than once along with other grammatical errors.  I think you can tell that I was skimming most of the time so if I noticed it as a casual reader, an editor should've too.

How to Buy a Love of Reading

 Book 11 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 16 - 21

How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson

published 2009

Summary (via the book jacket)

To Carley Wells, words are the enemy. Her tutor's innumerable SAT flashcards. Her personal trainer's "fifty-seven pounds overweight" assessment. And the endless assignments from her English teacher, Mr. Nagel. When Nagel reports to her parents that she has answered the question "What is your favorite book?" with "Never met one I liked," they decide to fix what he calls her "intellectual impoverishment." They will commission a book to be written just for her - one she'll have to love - that will impress her teacher and the whole town of Fox Glen with their family's devotion to the arts. They will be patrons - the Medicis of Long Island. They will buy their daughter the love of reading.

Impossible though it is for Carley to imagine loving books, she is in love with a young bibliophile who cares about them more than anything. Anything, that is, but a good bottle of scotch. Hunter Cay, Carley's best friend and Fox Glen's resident golden boy, is becoming a stranger to her lately as he drowns himself in F. Scott Fitzgerald, booze, and Vicodin.

When the Wellses move writer Bree McEnroy - author of a failed meta-novel about Odysseus's journey home through the Internet - into their mansion to write Carley's book, Carley's sole interest in the project is to distract Hunter from drinking and give them something to share. But as Hunter's behavior becomes erratic and dangerous, she finds herself increasingly drawn into the fictional world Bree has created, and begins to understand for the first time the power of stories - those we read, those we want to believe in, and most of all, those we tell ourselves about ourselves. Stories powerful enough to destroy a person. Or save her.

My Opinion

5 stars

The title caught my eye while browsing at the library and even though the summary gave me a moment's pause that too many things were being tried in one plot, I decided to give it a try.  The emotions snuck up on me and I didn't realize until after it was over that I considered it a 5 star read, even though I still can't succinctly describe all the plots going on.

  

It was a "just one more chapter" kind of book and the ending made me sigh in a perfect way even though it was sad.  As I read I was so frustrated and angry at the self-destruction but it made it easier that it felt like a controlled environment; characters really didn't seem to be destroying anyone but themselves until everything fell apart.  I was fully invested and never bored.

Quote from the Book

"There are people that understand life the first time through. They grasp what someone's saying when it's said. Read stories into gestures and expressions. Draw out moments, slow down time. Shape what happens as it happens, sculptors of their lives.

Carley Wells was no sculptor. Only after a moment had already set - past changing, past tense - could she ever get her hands around it."

The Best American Essays 2015

Book 10 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 11 - 18

The Best American Essays 2015

My Opinion

4 stars

When reading books with multiple authors I usually write a line or two about each story but since essays are short I marked down a rating for each one as I read so I could get a feel for how I felt about the book overall.  There were 12 in the 2-3 area and 16 in the 4-5 so I went with 4 stars.

In the essay A Man and His Cat, he described his kitten as being so small his "friend Kevin could fit her whole head in his mouth."  Why is that a unit of measurement?  It made me laugh.

My favorite essay was It Will Look Like a Sunset by Kelly Sundberg.

Witchcraft

 Book 9 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 10 - 17

Witchcraft: A History in 13 Trials by Marion Gibson

published 2023

Summary (via the book jacket)

Once a tool invented by demonologists to hurt and silence their enemies, witch trials have been twisted and transformed over the course of history and the lines between witch and witch-hunter blurred.

In Witchcraft, Professor Marion Gibson uses thirteen significant trials to tell the fascinating global history of witchcraft and withs-hunts from the Middle Ages to the present day. Placing the 'witches' front and centre, Gibson pays tribute to history's marginalized and demonized and offers fresh perspectives on trials familiar to us, challenging our perception of what a witch-hunt looks like. For the fortunate, it is just a metaphor, but, as this book makes clear, witches are truly still on trial.

My Opinion

3 stars

I received this book for Christmas (one of many with a witchcraft theme) after picking it out on vacation last fall; this was from a little bookstore in Bath.  

Whenever I think of witches I think of the line, "they didn't burn witches, they burned women" which helps me keep perspective.  The dichotomy of viewing women as powerless and lesser-than while at the same time viewing them powerful enough to affect weather, health, etc. when blaming them for misfortune was maddening to read about.

Although it was hard to read about, there was a barrier of comfort thinking that I was revisiting historical events and witch trials were so far in the past.  Then we kept moving forward in time and I was shocked at how current these experiences still are.  To throw out a few stats, 132 "magical murders" were reported in Uganda between 2019 and 2021, in four months of 2021 a single province in the Democratic Republic of Congo saw 324 accusations of witchcraft (with 8 women murdered), and Guatemala saw traditional healers being targeted and killed as recently as 2021.  The information about children being sent to "witch camps" was especially heartbreaking. 

Night of the Living Trekkies

 Book 8 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 13 - 15

Night of the Living Trekkies

by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall

published 2010

Summary (via the book jacket)

Jim Pike was the world's biggest Star Trek fan - until two tours of duty in Afghanistan destroyed his faith in the human race. Now he sleepwalks through life as the assistant manager of a small hotel in downtown Houston.

But when hundreds of Trekkies arrive in his lobby for a science-fiction convention, Jim finds himself surrounded by costumed Klingons, Vulcans, and Ferengi - plus a strange virus that transforms its carriers into save, flesh-eating zombies!

As bloody corpses stumble to life and the planet teeters on the brink of total apocalypse, Jim must deliver a ragtag crew of fanboys and fangirls to safety. Dressed in homemade uniforms and armed with prop phasers, their prime directive is to survive. But how long can they last in the ultimate no-win scenario?

My Opinion

4 stars

What a quick, fun read!  It caught my eye while browsing at the library.  My husband is a big sci-fi guy and while I'm not seeking it out for myself, I've picked up enough to get the main characters and jokes.  I'm sure there were things I missed but there was enough to keep me entertained and more importantly, it didn't veer too far into the other direction of "jokes upon jokes upon jokes".

I liked the short chapters and how the action started right away.  I didn't realize until I'd already written "I'm immediately a Willy fan" in my notes that I made my own unintentional pun.  But I did like all the characters and am sad by how many we lost along the way.

This seems like a nerd thing to point out but that goes with the theme of the book...at the beginning of Chapter 28 it said it was nearly five o'clock with no time to waste but a few pages later after passing out weapons and assembling, it said they were well-prepared at "five minutes to four", appearing to go back in time.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters

 Book 7 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 10 - 11

My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris

published 2016

My Opinion

5 stars

Typically I would include a brief summary of the book but this book is difficult to concisely describe.  I will say if this book calls to you, give it a try and you won't be disappointed.

I love the oversized book because it adds so much detail and speaking of details, having the pages appear like lined notebook paper really made it feel like I picked up someone's doodle journal (although just saying these are "doodles" underestimates the drawing).  The downside is there was so much going on that I had to purposefully slow down and take breaks to avoid overstimulation.  There weren't natural stopping places so it literally was 416 pages of content (according to Goodreads, there weren't page numbers in the book).

The storyline kept things moving but the design is really the star of the show.  I wish I understood more about the ending but I think it's a combination of things I missed and having a cliffhanger to go into the next volume.

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead

 Book 6 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 10 - 11

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead by Jenny Hollander

published 2024

Summary (via the book jacket)

Nine years ago, with the world's eyes on her, Charlie Colbert fled. The press and the police called her a "witness" to the terrible events that took place at her elite graduate school. But Charlie knew there was more to her story - if only she could make sense of how it all unfolded.

Now Charlie has meticulously rebuilt her life. She's the editor of chief of a major magazine, the fiancee of the heir to a publishing dynasty, and hell-bent on never letting her guard down again. But when a film adaptation of what became known as "Scarlet Christmas" - the bloody scene that transpired on that fateful Christmas Eve - threatens to shatter Charlie's world, her haunting memories surge back with unprecedented clarity. No truth has ever been more dangerous that the one that hides in her own mind.

With everything at stake, Charlie must decide how far she will go to prevent her past from colliding with her seemingly perfect present.

My Opinion

3 stars

I chose this based on title alone.  It's tough to rate because I didn't necessarily enjoy it but I also kept picking it up and reading it quickly because I wanted to find out what happened.  I decided on 3 stars to balance it out.

The setting of journalism school and the access of money made situations less coincidental that they may have been otherwise but there were still contrived moments.  The mix of Charlie not remembering yet also knowing she had something to hide was difficult to reconcile.

There were also one character's death that I'm still unclear on and it's unsatisfying.

Love Is My Favorite Flavor

 Book 5 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 6 - 10

Love Is My Favorite Flavor: A Midwestern Dining Critic Tell All 

by Wini Moranville

published 2024

Summary (via the book jacket)

In a remarkable career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Wini Moranville has witnessed the American restaurant landscape transform from the inside out. At just shy of fourteen, she began a ten-year stretch working in a kaleidoscope of quintessential midwestern eateries of the time. Moranvilles hands-on experiences weave a vivid tapestry of the American restaurant landscape in the 1970s and 1980s. In the mid-1990s, the tables turned as Moranville became a prolific food and wine writer for national publications, as well as the dining critic for the Des Moines Register and dsm Magazine. 

Love Is My Favorite Flavor underscores the timelessness of what it is we seek when we entrust restaurateurs with our hard-earned money and our hard-won leisure time.

My Opinion

3 stars

I picked this up from a display at the library.  I was a Register subscriber (reading an actual paper newspaper daily that was delivered to my doorstep!) during the time Moranville was their food critic so I have that familiarity besides the nostalgia of also visiting a few of these eateries during my childhood.

Taking notes as I read shows my decline of enjoyment as I read this book.  In the beginning I noted how thoughtful she is about negative reviews and how I appreciated her recognition of Iowa diners (as in the people eating, not the style of restaurant) and what they are typically looking for in an experience.  Then about midway through the note became yikes as she wrote about portion sizes, obesity, and how people visiting would comment on how unpleasant (she even used the word "noxious") the meal sizes were.  Then the note was oh no it really went downhill as she talked about returning from France each summer struggling to get back into the Iowa cuisine of "a bucket of lettuce followed by the usual plates of undistinguished overabundance" and how she had to write seemingly positive reviews because of what people wanted here "even if [she] thought they deserved better".

So why 3 stars?  Because the writing is fine and my personal reaction to her opinions doesn't negate the enjoyment I had at the beginning of the book.  I'm not talking about negative reviews she's written, I'm talking about the seemingly negative feelings she had about her community.

Talk about biting the hand that literally fed her.  It left a bad taste in my mouth.  All puns intended. 

How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England

 Book 4 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 2 - 8

How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England: A Guide for Knaves, Fools, Harlots, Cuckolds, Drunkards, Liars, Thieves, and Braggarts by Ruth Goodman

published 2018

Summary (excerpt from book jacket)

Drawing from advice manuals, court cases, and sermons, [Ruth Goodman] offers a veritable how-to guide for both the cheeky and the downright cunning. Social mores of the era are revealed in fascinating detail, including why it was bad form to quote Shakespeare; why nose-blowing was disgusting, but spitting was acceptable; [and] why curses hurled at women were almost always about sex (and why we shouldn't be surprised).

My Opinion

2 stars

I added this book to my list after seeing it on TikTok.  Bonus that my used copy was withdrawn from the Longwood Public Library in NY (I'm in Iowa).  Unfortunately it was mostly a miss for me.  There were interesting snippets but it wasn't 'pages and pages per topic' interesting for me.

The shortest "fun fact" I took away was that buttons and the color pink started out as things only for men's garments so according to Elizabethan England, we all could be accused of cross-dressing pretty much every day.

This had no affect on my rating but as a reader who skims, the number of times the author used "niggling" or "niggles" made me stop and double check every time to make sure I hadn't wandered into something racist.  I know they're words unrelated to race but they're not ones I see often so it jolted me.

Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments

 Book 3 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 4 - 6

Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments by T.L. Huchu

published 2022

Summary (via the book jacket)

Ropa Moya's ghostalking practice has tanked. Desperate for money to pay bills and look after her family, she reluctantly accepts a job to look into the history of a coma patient receiving treatment at the magical private hospital Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments. The patient is a teenage schoolboy called Max Wu, and healers at the hospital are baffled by his illness, which has confounded medicine and magic.

Roma's investigation leads her to the Edinburgh Ordinary School for Boys, one of only four registered schools for magic in the whole of Scotland (the oldest and the only one that remains closed to female students).

But the headmaster there is hiding something, and as more students succumb, Ropa learns that a long-dormant and malevolent entity has once again taken hold in this world.

She sets off to track the current host for this spirit and try to stop it before other lives are endangered.

My Opinion

2 stars

I was hesitant starting this because I didn't absolutely love the first one but I finished it and had this second one immediately available so I decided to give it a try.  If I was reading it on its own I'd probably give it 3 stars but I liked it less than The Library of the Dead so I dropped it to a 2 to reflect that.

There wasn't much character building in this book and the dynamics of the characters was why I was interested in continuing.  As far as the mysteries themselves, there were some surprises but it also felt like a lot of buildup for anticlimactic resolutions.

There are definitely readers out there for this series but unfortunately, I'm not one of them and won't be continuing.

The Library of the Dead

 Book 2 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 1 - 4

The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu

published 2021

Summary (via the book jacket)

Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker - and she now speaks to Ediburgh's dead, carrying messages to those they left behind. A girl's gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead begin to whisper that someone's bewitching children - leaving them husks, empty of joy and life. It's in Ropa's city, so she feels honor bound to investigate. But what she learns will change her world.

She'll dice with death (not part of her life plan), discovering an occult library and a taste for hidden magic. She'll also experience dark times. For Edinburgh hides a wealth of secrets, and Ropa's gonna hunt them all down.

My Opinion

3 stars

Nothing to do with the book but the word "shit" was blocked out with green marker by a previous reader.  Either the book didn't have a lot of swearing or this one particular time was an issue because there weren't any other marks in the rest of the book.

I checked this book out based on the title and cover while browsing at the library.  It was in the Sci-Fi section and I really like sci-fi books that feel accessible; I'm not committing to 800 pages of world building by giving this a try.

It had a great start but the last half felt like it had too many "oops I don't know what happened but I'm ok" moments.  I did like the characters though.  I'm going to read the second book because I already have it checked out and I know it will be a quick read but if that hadn't been the case I don't think I would've sought it out to continue the series.

Southern Fried Sass

 Book 1 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from December 31 - January 2

Southern Fried Sass: a Queen's Guide to Cooking, Decorating, and Living Just a Little Extra by Ginger Minj

published 2023

My Opinion

5 stars

I'm rating this book 5 stars because it is exactly as advertised.  This book was at the top of my request list for Christmas.  Ginger Minj is an accomplished drag queen I mostly knew from Drag Race but after reading this book, I feel I know her much better.  I'm choosing "she/her" pronouns based on how she said she identifies while in drag.

I was pleasantly surprised by how in-depth this book was.  Although it was entertaining with glamorous photos, there was a lot of substance as well.  It just had a vibe of comfort and I felt calm while reading it.

The family photos were a great addition!  The recipes weren't my usual style of food but there were a few I copied down for later.  All of the recipes seemed accessible and well thought-out.  I'd also never heard of using two different kinds of potatoes while making mashed potatoes and it might change my life.