ahhh, the sweet, sweet feeling of coming out of a reading slump! I AM BACK IN ACTION and crushing 15 books (with SIX of them racking up five stars) felt SO GOOD. march was great! yay books!

some fun facts about march’s reads:

•15 books read in total
•4,802 pages
•6 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ reads
•8 were by bipoc authors
•80% fiction (12 books), 20% nonfiction (3 books)
•i read 6 in print, 5 on my kindle, and 4 on audio

here are all of march’s reads and reviews:

ps— all links are amazon affiliate links, so any purchases made once clicked will put a few pennies in my pocket. thanks in advance for your support!

a love song for ricki wilde

tia williams

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

this! book! is! magical! ✨

truly, @tiawilliamswrites, your brain is a wonderland and this is a treasure that i was not at all prepared for. it blew me away and was an absolutely captivating story of music and flowers, family and love, desire and dreams, and the twists and tangles of time.

it was a slow burn but a beautiful one, and such a celebration of Black Harlem and epic love stories and making art no matter what.

for this GEM! amazing.

this telling

cheryl strayed

⭐️⭐️⭐️

funny story

emily henry

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

she did it again, folks!!! 🥰

emily henry, you are a queen. your banter is unmatched! the way you write romance IS the blueprint. the heart! the wit! the warmth! it truly is unmatched and in a league of its own, and i loved this story dearly. reader, i cried. (of course i did). i swooned. i laughed. i want to reread all of my other henry books now, just to live in the world of her words even longer. it was a TREASURE.

miles was engaged to petra. peter was engaged to daphne. petra and peter were best friends (UH HUH, SURE THEY WERE). bet you can guess what happened here...

and EVEN WITH a predictable couple swap, fake dating that led to real love, a third-act break up due to miscommunication, and other reliable tropes, nothing (and i repeat, NOTHING) about this felt tired or old. every page sparkled with emily henry magic. and the side characters?! amazing in their own right!

gah. a gem.

the house of hidden meanings: a memoir

rupaul

⭐️⭐️⭐️

i’m currently watching my first ever season of @rupaulsdragrace (!!) and it has truly opened up a whole new world to me. the art of drag was never something i was exposed to, or understood, or was taught to appreciate, and i am SO GLAD i have a community of friends around me now who love this world and have invited me into celebrating it alongside of them. what a gift. 🤍✨

i truly knew NOTHING about rupaul before watching the show (yikes, i know) and was so excited to see a new memoir from him as an ALC from @librofm! it explores ru’s early life as a queer Black kid growing up in san diego all the way through his exploration of art, identity, love, community, and place as an adult. it’s the backstory of rupaul andre charles before he really became the queen we all know today, and it gave me a lot of context i didn’t have before!

to sum up much of the content: it was a LOT of drugs (holy moly) before he finally got sober, a lot of cross country roadtrips, a lot of trial and error with performing, and then things all seeming to click into place beautifully (almost too easily?).

i listened on audio, read by rupaul, which was great!

black girl you are atlas

renee watson

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

such a beauuuuuutiful collection of poetry that packs such a punch and gives such a thoughtful glimpse into Black girlhood and sisterhood ✨ i listened on audio through @librofm and when i saw the physical copy at @bbgbbooks and realized how much stunning art was inside, i knew i needed a copy to keep. such a gift of a collection from @harlemportland!

happily never after

lynn painter

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

OKAY WAIT this was cuuuute! i’ve still never been to a wedding where there actually was a chance for anyone to object, so that’s funny, but using objecting as the context for this storyline was fun! i didn’t totally buy into the FMC’s original reasoning for why she was willing to go through with her marriage to her scum of a fiancee until The Objector came onto the scene to save her, but putting that aside, i thought it was a unique meet cute and the way their story played out was fun and flirty! it was a great audio listen, too, and i flew through it, totally picturing it as a katherine heigl/josh duhamel movie! (tell me i’m wrong!!!)

thanks to @berkleyromance for the #giftedcopy! (i had an ALC on @librofm, an ARC on @netgalley, and the finished copy too— ABUNDANCE ✨)

the catch

amy lea

⭐️⭐️⭐️

this one gave me tessa bailey “it happened one summer vibes” in a way, with an influencer going on a trip to canada and finding herself stranded due to the busyness of fishing season, ending up at an inn that is closed and OF COURSE is run by a very hot man and his cousin who let her stay. i mean, I’m sure you have NO CLUE how it all plays out...

i didn’t realize it was book #3 in the influencer series, but it was fine as a standalone (just nods to her bffs who were the first two books’ FMCs). i thought the grumpiness of the grumpy MMC was a bit overdone and took too long to have context for, and their “issues” seemed forced for the sake of a trope.

overall, though, once the family got involved and a fake engagement was in the mix, things got more tender, but still didn’t seem believable the way i’ve seen the trope done in other romances, so it wasn’t a fave for me overall.

it was good but not great!

the hike

lucy clarke

⭐️⭐️

read this library book the day i checked it out! and i hadn’t ever heard of it! look at me go!

i just wish i had liked it more…🙃 it’s about four friends on a reunion trip to hike a mountain in norway, but then weather threatens, shady characters cross their paths, back stories emerge to tangle the storylines, secrets get messy, and not everyone survives it. the bones were there, it just didn’t wow me or fully hook me ever, and felt a bit too disjointed and far fetched to totally immerse me.

manacled

senlinyu

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

holy moly. manacled. WHAT A JOURNEY. swipe to see snippets of the tiktoks i made along the way — suffice it to say, the first half is HARD. very triggering. much forced repopulation (a la handmaids tale). hermione is a dull shell of a human and it is SLOW. i didn’t know what anybody saw in this book and i almost called it quits, but y’all convinced me the flashbacks were coming and it would get better. i couldn’t see how, but i carried on, AND WOW WOW WOW you were right and the turn of events was masterful and i never could have seen it all coming and i truly was blown away by it all. i’m not even a potterhead?!? i can only imagine how much deeper this would hit true fans… because i was a PUDDLE by the end. dramione forever. and ever. the end. 🖤

(ps— this is a fanfic written by @senlinyuwrites on #archiveofourown and i have a reel showing how i got it on my kindle! a reimagined version of this book will be published as “alchemised” in 2025 and i will most definitely be buying it to support with my dollars!)

happy medium

sarah adler

⭐️⭐️⭐️

gretchen is a fake spirit medium who channels really good research and genuine empathy for her clients into her work, guided by a rule that she only will share what helps them. she gets hired to go to a farm and figure out what’s been haunting it, and she’s surprised to find that not only is the owner NOT an elderly man but a hottie farmer, and that there in fact IS a ghost and she CAN see him. maybe she’s not a fake after all?!

shenanigans ensue, of course, and gretchen has to convince hottie farmer charlie to stay or the curse that’s kept ghost everett haunting for the farm for nearly 100 years will befall him too.

DON’T WORRY— she has a few weeks and naturally, that’s enough time for her to become bff with the ghost and to fall in love with the farmer!!! oh, and also help birth some bebe goats and sell soap at the farmer’s market and totally become a new person at the same time. because of course.

but in all seriousness, this is a cutie read and it’s charming and fun and sarah adler writes delightfully earnest and tender stories that i will read every time!

thanks to @netgalley for my ARC and @randomhouse for my #gifted copy

the cartographers

peng shepherd

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

our march pick for #alltheradreadsbookclub was such a treat — i didn’t know much about this one and was so pleasantly surprised by it! it’s a well-done blend of mystery, fantasy, magical realism, a little love story, family drama and found family dynamics, cartography, adventure, and hijinks, and i enjoyed it so much. no one element was too heavy-handed, but it was all mixed together in a way that felt really unique— my only critique was i wanted more from the second half of the book once things got really juicy!

as one book clubber said last night — this one took something pretty dry and boring (cartography) and made it really fun and exciting, and i really liked it!

a just passion: a six-week lenten journey

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

an absolutely beautiful and compelling collection of readings from an impressively diverse group of writers — i was so thoroughly blown away by this one and highly recommend it. well done.

ready or not

cara bastone

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

WHAT A GEM. 💖🥹🍼 truly such a SWEET and delightful story— it won me over from the very jump, was incredible on audio, and did the unexpected pregnancy trope PERFECTLY. i laughed out loud so much, squealed and kicked my feet incessantly, and teared up more times than i can count. i’m in love with shep?! what a MAN. best of the best.

this book is an absolute treasure!!!

maktub

paulo coelho

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

listened to this gem on @librofm and had to buy a copy, i loved it so much! it’s bite-sized and beautiful and one of those books that found me at the right time and brought light when i needed it. ✨ i flew through it but think i’d enjoy it even more if i savored the stories and pondered them more deeply — they’re like the parables of jesus where they can seem so simple but upon reflection can have so much more meaning, and i want to keep unpacking them! 😍 if you loved the alchemist, i think you’ll enjoy this one.