My first time reads over the last month have been from varied genres! Some from favorite authors, and others receommended by my husband. My first-time reads are:
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Title: Fight Club
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co
Date Published: 08/17/1996
Format: physical book
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his generation’s most visionary satirist in this, his first book. Fight Club’s estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret after-hours boxing matches in the basement of bars. There, two men fight "as long as they have to." This is a gloriously original work that exposes the darkness at the core of our modern world.
Author: Rachel Aviv
Title: Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Date Published: 09/13/2022
Format: physical book
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
In Strangers to Ourselves, a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we
understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished
journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for
who they are. She follows an Indian woman, celebrated as a saint, who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an
incarcerated mother vying for her children’s forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life
to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who, after a decade of defining herself
through her diagnosis, decides to go off her meds because she doesn’t know who she is without them. Animated by
a profound sense of empathy, Aviv’s exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at
the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel―until it no longer does.
Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives. Challenging the way we
understand and talk about illness, her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind.
Author: Ashley Herring Blake
Title: Irish Kelly Doesn't Date
Publisher: Berkley
Date Published: 10/24/2023
Format: physical book
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫
Everyone around Iris Kelly is in love. Her best friends are all coupled up, her siblings have partners that are perfect for them, her parents are still in marital bliss. And she’s happy for all of them, truly. So what if she usually cries in her Lyft on the way home. So what if she misses her friends, who are so busy with their own wonderful love lives, they don’t really notice Iris is spiraling. At least she has a brand-new career writing romance novels (yes, she realizes the irony of it). She is now working on her second book but has one problem: she is completely out of ideas after having spent all of her romantic energy on her debut.
Perfectly happy to ignore her problems as per usual, Iris goes to a bar in Portland and meets a sexy stranger, Stefania, and a night of dancing and making out turns into the worst one-night stand Iris has had in her life (vomit and crying are regretfully involved). To get her mind off everything and overcome her writer's block, Iris tries out for a local play, but comes face-to-face with Stefania—or, Stevie, her real name. When Stevie desperately asks Iris to play along as her girlfriend, Iris is shocked, but goes along with it because maybe this fake relationship will actually get her creative juices flowing and she can get her book written. As the two women play the part of a couple, they turn into a constant state of hot-and-bothered and soon it just comes down to who will make the real first move…
Author: Ivy Fairbanks
Title: Morbidly Yours
Publisher: Lassen Press
Date Published: 07/25/2023
Format: physical book
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Callum Flannelly would rather dive into an open grave than take a stranger to dinner and a movie. But he can only inherit the family undertaking business and carry on their legacy under one condition: He must marry before his 35th birthday. So it’s out of the mortuary and into the dating scene.
Lark Thompson would rather get crushed by a falling anvil than stay next to a funeral home during her stay in Galway, Ireland. The vivacious American cartoon creator and animator came here to embrace life, not be reminded of losing her husband.
When Lark learns of Callum’s dilemma and aversion to marrying out of necessity rather than love, she agrees to help the introverted mortician. Although sworn off love herself, she is optimistic that Callum can find The One and secure his inheritance.
But as the dating project progresses and their friendship grows, so does a mutual attraction. The more time she spends with serious, sarcastic Callum, the more she dreads finding him a match. And the more disastrous dates he endures, the more he dreads Lark’s imminent return to the states.
If they think it’s possible to ignore their connection, they’re dead wrong.
Author: Chloe Liese
Title: Once Smitten, Twice Shy
Publisher: Berkley
Date Published: 01/14/2025
Format: physical book
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Since heartbreak entered the scene, Juliet Wilmot, once a hopeless romantic, has sworn off love. But when she's presented with the chance to revisit romance-purely for practice-with the gorgeous, off-limits guy she keeps serendipitously running into, it feels like a sign from the universe.
Quiet, shy Will Orsino knows happily-ever-after isn't on his horizon. Problem is, for the sake of the family business, marriage is. Resigned to the inevitable, but with no confidence he can woo a wife, he can hardly say no when fate hands him the alluring, unattainable woman he keeps crossing paths with, offering to help him learn the ropes of romance.
Neither of them looking for love, Jules and Will agree they're the perfect pair to practice romance. Except that practicing to perfection leads to an irresistible attraction. Their once smitten hearts, though still twice shy, might have happily-ever-after written in the stars for them, after all.
Author: Lloyd Alexander
Title: The Castle of Llyr
Publisher: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston
Date Published: 03/03/1966
Format: ebook
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫
Princess Eilonwy hates to leave her friend Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper, and her beloved home, Caer Dallben. Why does she have to go to the Isle of Mona to train as a proper lady when she's already a princess? But Eilonwy soon faces much more than the ordeal of becoming a dignified young maiden, for she possesses magical powers sought by the evil enchantress Queen Achren. When Eilonwy is put under a deep spell, Taran and his companions set out on a dangerous quest to rescue her. Yet how can a lowly Assistant Pig-Keeper hope to stand against the most evil enchantress in all of Prydain?
Author: Brynne Weaver
Title: Love and Other Killers
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Date Published: 08/12/2025
Format: eBook
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
It’s the annual hunt for Sloane and her vigilante family of serial killers. Track the most cold-blooded psychos imaginable and take them down. This summer’s prey is Allan Munster, a churchgoing chicken farmer who slaughters more than fowl. The rules of the hunt: divide into teams, devise a strategy, and make a move—the more cutthroat the better. May the best team win. The players are closing in. All eyes are on Munster. But there’s a hitch in the family sport this year. Someone might be watching them.
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