Cinematic Destinies by Patricia Leavy is sweet story about the Forrester family. Finn and Ella celebrate their 30th anniversary while their three adult children, Betty, Albert, and Georgia, each face their own personal challenges along the way.
The novel explores love and identity in a way that feels both real and uplifting. I loved the Iceland setting, which was especially unique.
This book is a warm, hopeful conclusion to the series, and it left me smiling.
Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of this book.
I read 9 books in August. I’m looking forward to another great reading month in September!
My favorite book read in August was All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert (out 9/9/25).
What did you read in August? Which was your favorite?
These are all the books I read in August:
📖 Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout 📖 The Woman in Suite 11 by Ruth Ware 📱All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert 📖 Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert 📖 Too Old For This by Samantha Downing 📖 Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson 📖 This Is Who I Am by Harper Bliss 📱 The Sublet by Greer Hendricks 📱 The Housemaid’s Wedding by Freida McFadden
I read 10 books in July. I’m looking forward to another great reading month in August.
My favorite books read in July were: Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko, When We Go Missing by April Henry and The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff.
These are all the books I read in July:
📖 Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko 📖 When We Go Missing by April Henry 📖 25 Alive by James Patterson 📖 With A Vengeance by Riley Sager 📖 The Murder Game by Carrie Doyle 📖 The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk 📖 Show Me Where the Hurt Is by Hayden Casey 📖 The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff 📖 Easy Crafts For the Insane: A Mostly Funny Memoir of Mental Illness & Making Things by Kelly Williams Brown 📖 Don’t Open Your Eyes by Liv Constantine
In This Could Be Forever by Ebony LaDelle, seventeen-year-old Deja is a rising freshman at University of Maryland whose dreams are to become a cosmetic chemist. Just before starting her classes, she has a chance meeting with eighteen-year-old Raja, a tattoo artist at a local tattoo parlor.
It’s insta-love for these two, but their backgrounds and families couldn’t be more different: Deja is a Black girl from North Carolina and Raja is Nepali American whose family expects him to find a nice Nepali girl to marry.
Told from each of the main characters’ viewpoints in alternating chapters, readers see inside each of their minds how they struggle with both wanting to be together and the pull to please their families.
I adored this sweet and empowering love story, and look forward to more from this author!
Thanks to Netgalley for a review copy of this book.
I read 8 books in June. I’m looking forward to another great reading month in July!
My favorite books read in June were: Act Cool by Tobly McSmith and What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo.
These are all the books I read in June:
📖 Beneath the Surface by Harper Bliss 📖 Everything Between Us by Harper Bliss 🎧 Act Cool by Tobly McSmith 📖 Infinity Net by Yayoi Kusama 📖/🎧 The Revenge List by Hannah Mary McKinnon 📖 Love Letter To A Garden by Debbie Millman 📖/🎧 Amelia, If Only by Becky Albertalli 📖/🎧 What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo
I went to NYC’s Lower East Side’s Pride Book Crawl! It was my first one and it was awesome! I bought stickers, bookmarks, zines, and of course, a few books! There were 7 bookstores in all but I got to 5 of them before my phone ran dangerously low on battery so I decided to call it a day. The thing is that my phone’s battery is bad to begin with, my portable charger died and also I was using Google Maps the whole time to navigate. But luckily the Uber I caught back to Grand Central had a charger so I went from 12% to 30% in the 15 minute ride.
Here are the stores on the route. The last two I didn’t get to.
Route Sweet Pickle Books – 47 Orchard St Bluestockings Books – 116 Suffolk St Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks – 28 E 2nd St Book Club Bar – 197 E 3rd St (at Ave B) Pillow-Cat Books – 328 E 9th St Village Works – 12 St Mark’s Place Yu & Me Books – 44 Mulberry St.
I think my two favorite were Cat Pillow Books (they had a cute cat, I mean, come on!!) and the Book Club Bar. I also really liked the queer owned-and-operated one, Blue Stockings Bookstore, except that they allowed multiple panhandlers in their store who approached me and I felt very uncomfortable. So after being hit up twice for money I hightailed it out of there. Honestly if it weren’t for that I would have stayed longer. They even had a public bathroom and a water station which was awesome.
The Sweet Pickle Bookstore was great too in that they sold jars of different flavored and types of pickles – totally unique! But it was pretty crowded and cramped in there.
I ate a scone and had a “Murder On the Orient Espresso Martini” for lunch – I had to make it back in time for art therapy otherwise I would have stopped for a proper lunch – but it was still a really cool place!
The books I bought were:
-Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens On Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown (purchased at Bluestockings Books)
-A Gentleman’s Gentleman by TJ Alexander (purchased at The Book Club Bar & signed by the author. Also, they moderated the adult queer panel at Barnes & Noble last weekend and I didn’t realize they’d be signing books so I’m glad I picked this signed one up!)
-Show Me Where the Hurt Is by Hayden Casey (also purchased at the Book Club Bar; a melancholy short story collection I bought off the “blind date with a book” shelf, having only read a description, not knowing the title or author of the book. I am SUPER intrigued & excited to read this one!)
-A Book Lover’s Guide to New York by Cleo Li-Tan (purchased at Cat Pillow Books).
It was a whirlwind kind of day but I had a lot of fun!
I recently went to the library for a preview of the books coming out in June, July and August. My friend Caroline and her colleague hosted it and we even got snacks from a local establishment to munch on during the program.
The books I starred to put on hold in order of publishing date are:
📖 Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid – June 3, 2025 📖 With A Vengeance by Riley Sager – June 10, 2025 📖 Kuleana by Sara Kehaulani Goo – June 10, 2025 📖 Don’t Open Your Eyes by Liv Constantine – June 17, 2025 📖 The C.I.A. Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature By Charlie English – July 1, 2025 📖 The Original by Nell Stevens – July 1, 2025 📖 How to Survive A Horror Story by Mallory Arnold – July 8, 2025 📖 Between Two Rivers by Moudhy Al-Rashid – August 12, 2025 📖 Mrs. Christie at the Mystery Guild Library by Amanda Chapman – August 26, 2025 📖 Katabasis by R.F. Kuang – August 26, 2025
Here is the group photo of everyone at the program: (I’m the one on the left in the aqua shirt and Caroline is in the stripes crouched in front of me).
The next night I went to a different library for a wonderful discussion and author signing with Amy Poeppel and Karen Dukess for their new books Far & Away and Welcome to Murder Week, respectively. I got the books signed as well. It was awesome! I even got a summer reading tote with a pack of new colored pencils, perfect for the artist in me.
Amy’s book is about two women – one from Dallas, TX and one from Berlin, Germany who switch houses for several months. Karen’s book is about three Americans who travel to England to solve a fake murder mystery. I am very excited to read them both!
The last library program I went to was an art program at yet a third county library. We made little collages on 4×4 wooden squares, painted them with quick dry paint sticks, and then glued paper things onto them and then mod-podged over it and put a magnet on the back. I had so much fun!
It was a collager’s paradise! Cut up books, old playing cards and lotería cards, magazine pages, you name it! And the woman sitting next to me at the table and I had a lovely discussion about books the whole time.
The left one has the rainbow bookshelf and the Ace card (a little nod to my queerness & my asexuality) and the right one is about my heart, the Spanish speaker in me and the infinity-ness of circles and what they mean for me.
I had an amazing time at all three of these programs, and I can’t wait to keep going to similar ones!
I went to two out of three days of Barnes & Noble Union Square’s Pride Festival this year!
On Sunday afternoon they had a panel of authors called “Let Me Be Perfectly Queer” moderated by author TJ Alexander and featuring authors Christina Li (The Manor of Dreams) Debbie Millman (Love Letter To A Garden) Jesse James Rose (Sorry I Keep Crying During Sex) and Prabal Gurung (Walk Like A Girl).
It was a lovely and powerful conversation! They gave out free swag like bookmarks, pins and body art and I even got a reserved seat! There was also a cute Heartstopper backdrop for lots of photo ops!
Of course I got to Barnes & Noble early to browse and scored some other books as well! Besides the books from the events, I’m most excited to read the art books I bought.
Here are the books I got signed on Sunday at the event:
Here is the swag I got on Sunday:
Here are the other books I scored while there Sunday:
Monday night was another panel called “GYA.” It consisted of queer YA books. The authors in attendance were Zikiya Jamal (If We Were A Movie) Alice Lin (Love Points to You), Page Powars (And They Were Roommates), Brian Selznick (Run Away With Me), K. Wroten (Everyone Sux But You). It was moderated by David Levithan.
The second night was just as magical as the first with all kinds of incredible questions answered and audience engagement. We even got to take photos with each author as we got their books signed! The staff at Barnes & Noble Union Square is amazing; kudos to them for keeping everything flowing so smoothly.
I had so much fun on both nights and came home exhausted! I am SO excited to read ALL the awesome books I bought 🌈📚💜
It is widely known that ghostwriter Olivia Dumont’s father killed his two siblings, Olivia’s aunt and uncle, when the three of them were kids. Her father became famous writer Vincent Taylor, and she’s been hiding that fact her entire professional life.
Now, Olivia’s career is stalled, and she has the chance to ghostwrite her father’s memoir, a tell-all to what really happened in 1975. But is it the real truth?
This book was propulsive and unputdownable!
Thanks to Netgalley for a review copy of this book.
I read 19 books in May. I’m looking forward to another great reading month in June, and especially focusing on LGBTQ+ books for Pride Month! 😍📚🏳️🌈
The best book I read in May, hands down, was Everything We Thought Was True by Lisa Montanaro. This book was incredible!! I urge you to read it! Honorable mentions for May were: The Perfect Divorce by Jeneva Rose and Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry.
These are all the books I read in May. As always, you can click on the linked ones to see my thoughts on the ones I reviewed.
📖 Gay Haiku by Joel Derfner 📖 Flower, Moon, Snow: A Book of Haiku by Kazue Mizumura 📖 Yayoi Kusama: All About My Love by Akira Shibutami &. Yayoi Kusama 📖 Everything We Thought Was True by Lisa Montanaro 📖 The Crying Book by Heather Christle 📖 Yayoi Kusama by Frances Morris 📖 Biographic Monet by Richard Wiles 📖 I Can’t Even Think Straight by Dean Atta 📖 Shopgirls by Jessica Anya Blau 📖 The Perfect Divorce by Jeneva Rose 📖 Haikus for New York City: Seventeen Syllables for Nine Million People? This’ll Never Work. by Peter C. Goldmark, Jr. 📖 The Missing Half by Ashley Flowers 📖 Parents Weekend by Alex Finlay 📖 Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry 📖 No Strings Attached by Harper Bliss 📱 This Could Be Forever by Ebony LaDelle 📖 Songs of Gaia: Devotional Poems to Nourish the Heart by Julie Tara 📖 Poems of Sappho by Sappho/John Maxwell Edmonds 📖 Earth & Spirit: Gaia by Irisanya Moon
