Like the Comet

Does anyone else’s brain immediately revert to playing Earth Wind and Fire any time you think of the word “September?”

This month flew by and I think that’s mainly because I was traveling through California for almost a week and a half. I joined my friend who is on an extensive road trip for the Golden State leg of it.

We managed to fit eight cities (Sacramento, Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Monterey, Carmel, Three Rivers, Santa Clarita, and Palm Springs) into nine days, driving about 939 miles in total. Sequoia National Park was definitely my favorite part of this trip. If you haven’t been out there to see nature’s giant beauties, they are a MUST. I have never felt smaller being surrounded by the mountains and trees 250-300 ft tall. It was truly a magical experience.

Joshua Tree was also cool, but Sequoia has my heart. <3 Shout out to Lindsey (and Apollo) for letting me join them on this adventure! Enjoy these snapshots from my trip:

From top left to right: Me next to a Joshua Tree (which is actually from the aloe family), Lindsey and I in front of Monterey Bay, us in front of a wine vineyard in Santa Rosa, me standing amongst the GIANT Sequoias.

One great thing about so much travel though is that I was able to fly through some books on the plane rides and we managed to listen to about 1.5 audiobooks throughout our longer drives. So, I did much better on the reading front this month than I expected to in September and definitely got through multiple genres.

With that, let’s get into everything I read in September!

**All summaries are taken or paraphrased from Goodreads.

WARRIOR GIRL UNEARTHED by Angeline Boulley

Rating: 4/5 stars

Summary: Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she’s stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep. Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program, Team Misfit Toys, and even her twin sister Pauline. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn’t feel so lost after all. But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl”, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes. Perry has to return Warrior Girl to her tribe. Determined to help, she learns all she can about NAGPRA, the federal law that allows tribes to request the return of ancestral remains and sacred items. The university has been using legal loopholes to hold onto Warrior Girl and twelve other Anishinaabe ancestors’ remains, and Perry and the Misfits won’t let it go on any longer. Using all of their skills and resources, the Misfits realize a heist is the only way to bring back the stolen artifacts and remains for good. But there is more to this repatriation than meets the eye as more women disappear and Pauline’s perfectionism takes a turn for the worse. As secrets and mysteries unfurl, Perry and the Misfits must fight to find a way to make things right – for the ancestors and for their community.

My Thoughts: Okay so I freaking LOVED this author’s first book, Firekeeper’s Daughter, and was extremely excited when I learned she was publishing a spinoff from that one. This book follows the niece of the main character from the other book. Perry wrecks her car, which changes the course of how she originally planned to spend her summer as she works to pay back her Aunt Daunis for the repairs. She’s forced to join a summer internship program where she’s placed under the recluse archivist at the local reservation museum in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. As she starts to get acclimated with her tribe’s ancestral remains and sacred items, she learns a local university has been using workarounds to avoid returning some of the tribe’s artifacts. This leads to Perry and some friends from her internship program planning a heist to return what rightfully belongs to the tribe. True to the writing style of the last book, this plot has plenty of twists and turns, and keeps you on your toes as some conspicuous figures start popping up. I can’t say I loved this book as much as I loved Firekeeper’s Daughter, and the end portion felt a little rushed, but I would recommend reading it if you liked FD.

BEFORE WE WERE YOURS by Lisa Wingate

Rating: 5/5 stars

Summary: Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty. Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption. Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.

My Thoughts: Oh my lord. I have not been this invested in a historical fiction novel in a MINUTE. I found the physical copy in a Little Free Library near me, but decided to listen to the audiobook, per usual lol. Let me just say, the narrators do such a phenomenal job that it feels like you’re watching a movie in your brain while listening to this story. The format alternates between current day from the perspective of the current Tennessee senator’s daughter, Avery, and the late 1930’s from the perspective of a 12-year-old girl named Rill who has been kidnapped by the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. While visiting her grandmother in assisted living, her grandma makes a comment that has Avery curious about her family’s history and leads to her digging deeper into uncovering some well-buried secrets. At the same time, we watch Rill try to keep her family together in this new personal hell that is the Tennessee Children’s Home Society where children are being kidnapped and basically sold for adoption to some of the wealthiest families in America. This book was so impactful and beautifully written. I cried multiple times and y’all know I’m not a crier. Hats off to the author on this one and definitely pick it up if you’re looking for a historical fiction that will simultaneously devastate you and bring your soul back to life lol.

UPGRADE by Blake Crouch

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Summary: At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep. But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways. The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy. Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost. Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human. And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if humanity’s only hope for a future really does lie in engineering our own evolution?

My Thoughts: This was another audiobook that read like you were watching a movie. Blake Crouch has become one of my favorite sci-fi authors. The way his writing sucks you into a story makes it impossible not to be engrossed in all of the technical and scientific nuances that come with the plot. Do I understand all of the equations and whatnot? Not a chance lol. However, he writes them in a way that is easy to understand they’re important even if you’re not savvy to the minutiae. This book hits the ground running fast from the start. Right away, Logan Ramsay is on a mission with his team when the entire science lab blows up and he’s left feeling a little different. He’s better at memorizing things, reading much faster than usual, and turning up the volume on his ability to multitask. His body is also seeing some enhancements he hadn’t noticed before. Cue an action-packed adventure as Logan figures out what’s happening to his body, who’s behind the changes, and why. The pace of this book was quick yet lingered where it needed to, and definitely threw in some plot twists I wasn’t expecting. The overall story and ending didn't necessarily blow my mind, but I did really like this book after finishing it.

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Summary: They are the Beautiful Ones, Loisail’s most notable socialites, and this spring is Nina’s chance to join their ranks, courtesy of her well-connected cousin and his calculating wife. But the Grand Season has just begun, and already Nina’s debut has gone disastrously awry. She has always struggled to control her telekinesis—neighbors call her the Witch of Oldhouse—and the haphazard manifestations of her powers make her the subject of malicious gossip. When entertainer Hector Auvray arrives to town, Nina is dazzled. A telekinetic like her, he has traveled the world performing his talents for admiring audiences. He sees Nina not as a witch, but ripe with potential to master her power under his tutelage. With Hector’s help, Nina’s talent blossoms, as does her love for him. But great romances are for fairytales, and Hector is hiding a truth from Nina—and himself—that threatens to end their courtship before it truly begins.

My Thoughts: Okay one of the main reasons I love Silvia Moreno-Garcia as an author is because she doesn’t box herself into one genre. This is the first romance novel I’ve read by her and though it carries her signature gothic theme, I loved exploring this different side of her writing. The book is split into two parts. In part one, almost every character was annoying af to me lol. Nina was a little too naive, Hector was pathetically lovesick over a horrible person, and Valerie was said horrible person lol. Personally, I favored Nina out of all of them in this first part. It basically laid the background for who these characters are to each other and how they’re connected in the present. Skipping to part two, I was much more invested in what was going on and the relationship growing between Nina and Hector. Their character arcs also gave me everything I wanted in contrast to who they were in Part 1. Valerie remains to be the fucking worst, but karma’s a bitch babe, and that’s all I’ve gotta say about that. I don’t know if I read many love-triangle trope romances, but I definitely enjoyed how this one played out.

EVICTED: POVERTY AND PROFIT IN THE AMERICAN CITY by Matthew Desmond

Rating: 5/5 stars

Summary: In Evicted, Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of 21st-century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.

My Thoughts: I’ve had this book on my radar for a while, and considering I hadn’t read a non-fiction book in a minute, I figured it was time to give this one a try. I think one of the strongest points of how this book is written is that it follows the stories of eight different families and their experiences with renting, landlords, and more. So instead of throwing a bunch of numbers and stats at you like most non-fiction books do, this was told much more narratively and made me much more invested in learning about the twisted world of housing in the United States. Some of the things I learned through this book had my jaw on the floor. The way rental properties are managed, with everything from duplexes and apartments to trailer parks, is so thoroughly corrupt. It’s actually unreal, and of course the people who are suffering the most from these unscrupulous practices are the people who need the most help. On top of that, those same people are then penalized for having an eviction on their record which makes it EVEN harder to find a safe place for their families to live. Not to mention, most of these cases affect young children. Needless to say, this book was one of those most eye-opening and impactful that I’ve encountered in a while and I truly think everyone should read it.

THE ROM-COMMERS by Katherine Center

Rating: 4/5 stars

Summary: Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies―good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates―The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!―it’s a break too big to pass up. Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone―much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script―it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme. But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter―even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules―and comes true?

My Thoughts: I feel like I was extremely late to the Katherine Center game, but her last few books have not disappointed. This book was so cute, funny, swoony, and everything I could’ve wanted for my 4-hour flight out to California. True to KC’s writing, these characters were uniquely quirky and so original. She has a way of creating people you feel like you’ve never encountered in a romance novel before and can truly connect with. They’re just imperfect enough to make it clear it’s going to take a very specific person to fall in love with them. And, let me tell you, it was effortless to fall in love with Emma and Charlie. As they work on rejuvenating Charlie’s latest book, they start peeling back each other’s layers and falling into a routine that makes it so obvious there’s more here than just a working relationship. There were multiple laugh-out-loud moments and even one or two that made my eyes a little misty lol. All in all, this book definitely lives up to its title and is a “finish in one sitting” type of rom com.

PROJECT HAIL MARY by Andy Weir

Rating: 4/5 stars

Summary: Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he?

My Thoughts: With long hours between cities, we decided to listen to this audiobook during the road trip around California. Let me just say, it was nothing I expected it to be. Not that that’s a bad thing by any means. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the direction this book ended up going. The book follows two timelines, the present where Ryland is the sole survivor on the spaceship that’s currently drifting somewhere outside of the solar system, and the past where he’s a junior high school science teacher getting recruited for the space mission. Clearly Andy Weir tries to stay as scientifically accurate in his books as possible because the scientific minutiae involved was complex, but it was done in a very strategic way. The depth of detail in Ryland’s experiments made it impossible for me to question whether what he was saying was correct. It truly made this storyline that much more believable. I think I was a bit more invested in this book character-wise, but I appreciated the experience of this plot nonetheless. I totally get why people RAVE about this book, and I highly recommend doing the audiobook because it gives voices to some select characters that I don’t think would have had the same impact if I had eyeball-read it.

THE HOUSEMAID by Freida McFadden

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Summary: “Welcome to the family,” Nina Winchester says as I shake her elegant, manicured hand. I smile politely, gazing around the marble hallway. Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like. But I’ll soon learn that the Winchesters’ secrets are far more dangerous than my own… Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor. I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband. I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out… and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late. But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am. They don’t know what I’m capable of…

My Thoughts: When I tell you this book has been HYPED… It’s not that I’ve intentionally put this book off even though it’s been extremely popularized as of late. It’s just that I’m not a big thriller girly, so I wasn’t dying to pick it up even though I’ve only heard great things. Surprisingly, I scored this book from a Little Free Library right before my trip and decided to dive in. For the most part, I was into it during Part 1. It was a little slower and built the scene for this psychological thriller. We get to know the main character and the complexities of her background that have created some circumstances that make it almost impossible to turn down this maid job with a family who seems a little dysfunctional. Then it hit a point where, without giving spoilers, something very predictable happened and it was mildly eye-rolly. At which point I put the book down for a few days and didn’t pick it back up until I was on the plane ride back. However, as soon as I turned the page and started Part 2 of the book, I was pleasantly surprised by where this plot went. It was much quicker paced than Part 1 and involved some characters I didn’t think would play such a prominent part in this plot’s outcome. By the end, I was like “ohh okay. I get why this book is popular.” That said though, I think it was a little bit of a victim to its own hype. I haven’t decided whether I’ll continue onto the next book, but I do think this is a pretty strong psychological thriller.

THE HAPPY EVER AFTER PLAYLIST by Abby Jimenez (The Friend Zone #2)

Rating: 3/5 stars

Summary: Two years after losing her fiancé, Sloan Monroe still can't seem to get her life back on track. But one trouble-making pup with a "take me home" look in his eyes is about to change everything. With her new pet by her side, Sloan finally starts to feel more like herself. Then, after weeks of unanswered texts, Tucker's owner reaches out. He's a musician on tour in Australia. And bottom line: He wants Tucker back. Well, Sloan's not about to give up her dog without a fight. As their flirty texts turn into long calls, Sloan can't deny a connection. There's no telling what could happen when they meet in person. The question is: With his music career on the rise, how long will Jason really stick around? And is it possible for Sloan to survive another heartbreak?

My Thoughts: Abby Jimenez has become an auto-read author for me over the last year or so, and although I’ve read most of her latest books, I had been procrastinating on dabbling in her back log of novels. Mainly because I did read The Friend Zone (the first book in this series) a few years ago and found it extremely mid. Like I just did not love it at all. So obviously I wasn’t itching to dive into this one. However, I saw it on Kindle Unlimited and was looking for something a little lighter to read on my plane ride out to California, so I decided to give it a go. Let me just say, I never have been and never will be a fan of the “instant love” trope in a romance novel. However, this book somehow made it work in a way that didn’t take me out of the story. I loved that Sloan and Jason connected via Jason’s loose dog, Tucker. It also helped that Sloan was much more reserved in their initial conversations which kind of off-balanced the love-bombing vibe I was getting from Jason. But alas, as a romance novel does, Sloan ends up diving head first into this relationship as things start to heat up. There was a decent amount of drama mixed into this storyline from outside forces that test their connection (lol Love Island), and although some of it felt a little ~much~ for me, I still wanted to see this book through. By the time I ended it, I was satisfied with my experience, but this series still doesn’t hold a candle to Abby Jimenez’s Part of Your World series.

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN by Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray

Rating: 3.75/5 stars

Summary: In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps build a world-class collection. But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white—her complexion is dark because she is African American.

My Thoughts: Okay, I gotta say, I was a big dummy and didn’t fully realize that this book is based on a real person. So I was skeptical for basically the first half of the book as to whether I was going to like it. The pace was a little slow for me to start and then Belle ends up having a couple of romantic stints with two men who are 20 and 40 years older than her. Of course my therapy-attending ass was like “Oh she’s trying to fill a void her father left when he dipped out on their family when she was younger.” Which, I mean, might mildly be true lol, but after I Googled Belle da Costa Greene, I realized these romances weren’t just to make the story more interesting, they actually (allegedly) happened. From there, I was much more invested in this incredible woman’s story about living her life as white-passing during the Jim Crow era and becoming one of the most prominent figures in the art collection world. Her life was balancing on a knife’s edge at any given moment because if her secret got out that she has Black heritage, the successful career and life she’s worked so hard to build would’ve come crumbling down. I’m honestly so glad I encountered this story and was introduced to Belle - even if through a semi-fictional lens - because more people need to know about women like her.

Okie that’s it for September!

I cannot express how excited I am for some cooler temps to come with the fall, so that I don’t feel guilty cozying up on the weekend with a book instead of being outside in some beautiful weather. Either way, I’ll be hitting that 100-book goal next month. :)

2024 Book Count: 95

Add me on Goodreads if you haven’t already.

YOUR TURN! How close are you to reaching your 2024 reading goal?