While driving a carful of kids away from Funville at the beach in Delaware at night last June, I was pulled over for failing to turn on the car’s lights.…
Contemporary U.S. Literature
Red, White, and Royal Blue
April 11, 2025Casey McQuiston queers the romance genre and U.S. politics in one swoop with this snarky-toned little novel. I don’t actually like romance at all, but I can tolerate this one…
Mad Honey
October 19, 2024The story behind this book, revealed in authors’ notes, is fascinating: Jennifer Boylan Finney dreamed she was writing a novel with Jodi Picoult and tweeted about her dream the next…
Milk Fed
September 1, 2024Melissa Broder’s hilarious novel came across my feed when I was looking for contemporary queer literature to update my intro course. It perfectly combines anxiety about (over)eating and anxiety about…
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane
July 24, 2024I listened to this book for my neighborhood book club–I confess I would never have picked this title out on my own–but I found it gripping. The audio book on…
The Couple Next Door
March 16, 2023Fun book club pick to read during a very busy semester. Poorly written and weakly plotted, but I loved the ending!
Re Jane
January 20, 2023A refreshing revision of Jane Eyre with an absolutely savage take on academic feminism. OUCH. I’m not going to lie: it took me two distinct tries to get through this…
Gone Girl
August 17, 2022Nefarious characters, noir plot. I, for one, loved the end. Weaponizing reproduction–what a concept. I did not like like Amy, but I respected her and I think it would be…
Guncle
June 14, 2022If you’ve never read Patrick Dennis’s Auntie Mame, you might miss out on some aspects of Guncle. So go read that, then listen to the Broadway musical (Angela Lansbury and…
The Paris Apartment
May 13, 2022After a semester so busy with literature courses that I had no time to read anything just for fun, I am finally back! For the record, The Paris Apartment is the title…