Saturday, November 15, 2025

Maggie: Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar by Katie Yee


This was a delightful book, dealing with serious life events, but told through a voice that is similar to an author like Nora Ephron. I thoroughly enjoyed this book! 

Condensed from Amazon:


"A man and a woman walk into a restaurant. The woman expects a lovely night filled with endless plates of samosas. Instead, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a woman named Maggie.

A short while after, her chest starts to ache. She walks into an examination room, where she finds out the pain in her breast isn’t just heartbreak—it’s cancer. She decides to call the tumor Maggie.

This book follows the narrator as she embarks on a journey of grief, healing, and reclamation. She starts talking to Maggie (the tumor), getting acquainted with her body’s new inhabitant. She turns her children’s bedtime stories into retellings of Chinese folklore passed down by her own mother, in an attempt to make them fall in love with their shared culture—and to maybe save herself in the process.

...Maggie is a master class in transforming personal tragedy into a form of defiant comedy."

Friday, November 7, 2025

Heart the Lover by Lily King


I was so happy to hear that Lily King had a new book out and now I am so happy that I got to read it. She is now a "favorite" of mine. I love how she writes about writing and writers in such a personal manner. 

Her characters are drawn beautifully and honestly.

The ending was a tear-jerker, but beautiful.


Saturday, November 1, 2025

What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown

“A mesmerizing blend of coming-of-age and psychological suspense, set against the birth of the internet age.”—People


This book kept my attention, and I enjoyed reading it, but I recognized some flaws, and some characteristics that could make it a future Netflix series.

There are stimulating ideas here that sometimes get lost in plot turns that are too obvious I thought. After one such turn, I nearly put the book down but kept at it and glad I did. 

From the New York Times: 

a father-daughter duo live off the grid in remotest Montana. Only something isn’t quite right in their tightly controlled world: Jane, a perspicacious teenager, begins to realize that her father isn’t who he says he is. When she makes a courageous — and dangerous — break for freedom, we find ourselves embedded in the early dot-com boom in San Francisco. If the Unabomber had a daughter, this could be her story. It might prompt a pop-up book club, and it will definitely make you think about our reliance on technology