In case you didn’t know, I absolutely love rereading books. There’s just something so comforting about revisiting your favorite stories and characters. While I love rereading a favorite book and knowing exactly how things will play out, there are some that I wish I could read again for the first time.
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Hi all! We hope that January is treating you well so far and that you’re enjoying this month’s read DAUGHTER OF THE MOON GODDESS. Our theme for February is Non-Fiction and we will be reading CRYING IN H MART by Michelle Zauner! We’re really excited to be highlighting a new genre for teatimereads and hope that you’ll join us!
Here is the full summary for Crying in H Mart:
An unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.
As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band–and meeting the man who would become her husband–her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.
Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.
Links for Crying in H Mart: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
Content Warnings for Crying in H Mart: Death of a parent, death of a family member, trauma, addiction, cancer
A stunning collection of short stories about the intersection of family, culture, and food in the lives in teens, from bestselling and critically acclaimed authors, including Sandhya Menon, Anna-Marie McLemore, and Rin Chupeco.
A shy teenager attempts to express how she really feels through the pastries she makes at her family’s pasteleria. A tourist from Montenegro desperately seeks a magic soup dumpling that can cure his fear of death. An aspiring chef realizes that butter and soul are the key ingredients to win a cooking competition that could win him the money to save his mother’s life.
Welcome to Hungry Hearts Row, where the answers to most of life’s hard questions are kneaded, rolled, baked. Where a typical greeting is, “Have you had anything to eat?” Where magic and food and love are sometimes one in the same.
Told in interconnected short stories, Hungry Hearts explores the many meanings food can take on beyond mere nourishment. It can symbolize love and despair, family and culture, belonging and home.
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Hello my sundrops! Happy New Year! I hope that you’re having a glorious start to 2022 so far! The year is off to a pretty good start on my end because I was able to take this week off of work, so there has been some lounging and reading!
If we’re being completely honest, I was not vibing with the idea of sitting down and writing a review during my week off. Resting and recharging is important and the end of 2021 really wiped me out! So, when I was thinking of what my first post of 2022 would be, it only made sense to start it off with some of my reading and content goals for the year! Plus, I’m hoping that by posting it here and sharing it with all of you, I’ll be more likely to accomplish these things. We love accountability!
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Hi, hello friends and welcome to our final wrap up of 2021! We’ve had such a wonderful year talking about books with you, and we cannot wait to see what 2022 brings us. Thank you to everyone who has followed us this year, we truly couldn’t have done it without you!
This month Caitlyn read 15 books, Cossette read 15 books, and Mary read 14 books.
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Hello everyone! As 2021 comes to a close and the new year begins, we want to say a big thank you to everyone who has joined us on our journey thus far! We’re so excited to be going into our second year of teatimereads and we’re thrilled to announce that our first book of 2022 will be DAUGHTER OF THE MOON GODDESS by Sue Lynn Tan!
Here is the full summary for Daughter of the Moon Goddess:
A captivating debut fantasy inspired by the legend of Chang’e, the Chinese moon goddess, in which a young woman’s quest to free her mother pits her against the most powerful immortal in the realm.
Growing up on the moon, Xingyin is accustomed to solitude, unaware that she is being hidden from the feared Celestial Emperor who exiled her mother for stealing his elixir of immortality. But when Xingyin’s magic flares and her existence is discovered, she is forced to flee her home, leaving her mother behind.
Alone, powerless, and afraid, she makes her way to the Celestial Kingdom, a land of wonder and secrets. Disguising her identity, she seizes an opportunity to learn alongside the emperor’s son, mastering archery and magic, even as passion flames between her and the prince.
To save her mother, Xingyin embarks on a perilous quest, confronting legendary creatures and vicious enemies across the earth and skies. But when treachery looms and forbidden magic threatens the kingdom, she must challenge the ruthless Celestial Emperor for her dream—striking a dangerous bargain in which she is torn between losing all she loves or plunging the realm into chaos.
Daughter of the Moon Goddess begins an enchanting, romantic duology which weaves ancient Chinese mythology into a sweeping adventure of immortals and magic—where love vies with honor, dreams are fraught with betrayal, and hope emerges triumphant.
Links for Daughter of the Moon Goddess: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
Content Warnings for Daughter of the Moon Goddess: Death, gore, violence, blood, fire, confinement, torture, kidnapping, grief, sexual harassment
We’re wishing all of you a wonderful holiday season and we’re looking forward to continuing to connect with you all in the new year!
I feel like just yesterday it was January, and then I blinked and we’re at the end of the year. This year has flown by SO quickly! While this year has been…quite challenging, I will say that in general it’s been my best reading year. So far this year I’ve read 206 books, which was 56 books over my original goal of 150.
In June I made a post highlighting my favorite books from the first half of the year, which you can read here. Now that the year is over, I thought it only made sense to follow up with my favorite books from the second half of the year. I discovered a lot of new books that I loved, revisited some old favorites, and read a few that I probably would not read again.
This post only lists books that I read for the first time this year – no rereads because if so, we all know what books would be listed…
As always, I have done my best to list trigger warnings based on my own personal notes, trigger warnings from other reviews and what is listed on websites like Book Trigger Warnings and Trigger Warning Database if needed. That being said, there may be things that I have forgotten and if so I apologize! If you’ve read any of these books and notice that I’m missing some triggers, please let me know so that I can update the trigger lists!
✩ indicates an ARC
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Can y’all believe it’s almost 2022? Absolutely wild! This is the time of year where I usually start making my preliminary list of reading goals for the next year, as well as a list of my most anticipated releases. As I started looking through my anticipated reads, I noticed a bunch of debuts on the list, and I thought it would be nice to give those authors and their books a little shoutout!
Narrowing it down is a bit difficult, but I decided to go with 6 books that I’m especially excited for. So, without further ado, here are 6 novels from debut authors that I’m looking forward to in 2022!
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Read moreYou should know, right now, that I’m a liar.
They’re usually little lies. Tiny lies. Baby lies. Not so much lies as lie adjacent.
But they’re still lies.
Twenty one-year-old Max Monroe has it all: beauty, friends, and a glittering life filled with adventure. With tons of followers on Instagram, her picture-perfect existence seems eminently enviable.
Except it’s all fake.
Max is actually 16-year-old Kat Sanchez, a quiet and sarcastic teenager living in drab Bakersfield, California. Nothing glamorous in her existence–just sprawl, bad house parties, a crap school year, and the awkwardness of dealing with her best friend Hari’s unrequited love. But while Kat’s life is far from perfect, she thrives as Max: doling out advice, sharing beautiful photos, networking with famous influencers, even making a real friend in a follower named Elena. The closer Elena and “Max” get–texting, Snapping, and even calling–the more Kat feels she has to keep up the facade.
But when one of Max’s posts goes ultra-viral and gets back to the very person she’s been stealing photos from, her entire world – real and fake — comes crashing down around her. She has to figure out a way to get herself out of the huge web of lies she’s created without hurting the people she loves.
But it might already be too late.
Hi friends and happy holidays to those who celebrate! Yet another month has passed and we are so excited to share with you what we read this month. Overall, it was a very successful reading month for the entire team of teatimelit, and we cannot wait to see where December takes us.
This month Caitlyn read 19 books, Cossette read 10 books, and Mary read 6 books.
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