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.

Fahrenheit-182

 Book 58 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from July 27 - August 5

Fahrenheit-182 by Mark Hoppus

published 2025

My Opinion

5 stars

Fahrenheit-182 is a memoir by Mark Hoppus, best known for co-founding blink-182.  This was a surprising 5 star read for me; I knew I was enjoying it but the roller coaster of emotions and his writing sucked me in and I found myself tearing up by the end.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how well he writes based on his lyrics but this was well-written and interesting.

To ground someone reading this review, I was in college in the late '90's so I could probably sing along to most of blink's hits.  If they pop up on the radio I'll turn it up but I don't seek them out to listen to.  My husband is more of a fan and by coincidence was wearing a blink shirt when I finished this book on a drive to Chicago.  Then we checked into our hotel and the clerk saw his shirt and started talking about how much he liked blink and how they led him to discover other bands.

Anyway...lots of turmoil, stories that someone can look back and laugh at now knowing how it all turned out, stories that make good anecdotes but would've been annoying to witness (such as all the pranks), stories with heart, and just enough "tea" on the breaks the band took to maintain authenticity without fulling shitting on anyone.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

 Book 57 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from July 28 - August 1

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

published 2014

Summary (via the book jacket)

Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned a fascination with death into her life's work. She cared for bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, and became an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. In this best-selling memoir, brimming with gallows humor and vivid characters, she marvels at the gruesome history of undertaking and relates her unique coming-of-age story with bold curiosity and mordant wit. 

My Opinion

4 stars

This is a book I've owned for awhile and in my quest to read what I own and purge my shelves, I'm glad I finally read this and know it will find more readers when I move it out of the house. 

Sifting through an urn of cremated remains you cannot tell if a person had successes, failures, grandchildren, felonies.  "For you are dust, and to dust you shall return."  As an adult human, your dust is the same as my dust, four to seven pounds of grayish ash and bone.

I feel like I've heard of this author before, probably through her Internet stuff, but have never actually read her before.  I'm surprised it's called a memoir because it's pretty much about her job with a few personal asides thrown in here and there.  I enjoyed the book because the job is what I was interested in but I wouldn't consider it a memoir or her life story.

Something about the lines, "In many ways, women are death's natural companions.  Every time a woman gives birth, she is creating not only a life, but also a death." really struck me as beautiful and poignant.

Reading something written in 2014 warning about the potential shortage of physicians and caretakers in 2020 reminded me of a math problem with multiple paths to the same answer.  Yes, there were shortages in 2020 and beyond but no, the main reason wasn't what they were concerned about in 2014 (an increase in the aging population). 

The Trees Grew Because I Bled There

 Book 56 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read on July 25

The Trees Grew Because I Bled There

by Eric LaRocca

published 2023

Summary (via the book jacket)

Eight stories of dark fiction from a master storyteller. Exploring the shadow side of love, these are tales of grief, obsession, control, intricate examinations of trauma and tragedy in raw, poetic prose. 

A woman imagines horrific scenarios while caring for her infant niece; on-line posts chronicle a cancer diagnosis; a couple in the park with their small child encounter a stranger with horrific consequences; a toxic relationship reaches a terrifying resolution...

My Opinion

4 stars

I asked for and received this book for Christmas after seeing it in a Barnes & Noble display last Halloween.

The book was small but the visceral reactions the author generated were large.  This content isn't for everyone but I think a reader can tell fairly quickly if they'll like it or not.  

I winced many times but it also didn't feel like the author was trying to write something shocking just to do it.  Each story had a message, even if the message was that people are awful and sadistic sometimes.