teatimelit

Let’s Talk: 30 Books I Want to Read in My 30th Year

Hi friends! This past week was a pretty exciting one, I had my 30th birthday on the 12th (yay!) and honestly, I’m really looking forward to starting my 30s. I feel like in the last 5 years (yes, that was an intention theatre reference) I’ve really started to grow into the person I’m supposed to be — and even if some days are hard, I’m definitely growing into a person I love and respect, so I’m excited to see how that continues as I enter the third decade of my life.

With this new decade of my life starting, I thought it would be fun to do a post on 30 books that I want to read during my 30th year. I started it and thought “Wow, picking 30 books feels oddly daunting?” then I decided to split it into three categories — so, in this post I’ll be sharing 10 backlist books, 10 2023 releases, and 10 new to me authors that I want to read over the next year.

So, grab your favorite beverage and a snack, get cozy, and let’s talk about books!

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ARC Review: Enter the Body by Joy McCullough

In the room beneath a stage’s trapdoor, all of Shakespeare’s tragically dead teenage girls–Juliet, Ophelia, Cordelia, and others–compare their experiences and retell the stories of their lives in their own terms.

Enter the Body gives voice to a cast of the young women who die in Shakespeare’s most iconic plays. Focusing on the stories of Juliet, Ophelia, and Cordelia, bestselling author of Blood Water Paint Joy McCullough brilliantly weaves retellings of Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, and King Lear into a larger story about how young women can support each other in the aftermath of trauma.

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Annotate with Me: Daisy Jones and the Six

Hi friends! It’s been a little while since my last Annotate with Me post, and I’m really excited about this one because today we’ll be talking about Daisy Jones and the Six! 

I absolutely love this book —- it’s my favorite Taylor Jenkins Reid book. I did a reread at the end of last year and realized that I absolutely had to annotate it! With the Amazon series premiering TOMORROW (!!!) this seems like the perfect time to share my annotations with you all.

As I’m sure you all know, I am a huge music fan, and one of my favorite bands of all time is Fleetwood Mac, so obviously, this book really speaks to me. What I love most about it is that no matter how many times I have read it, I am fully captivated by this story and these characters. Each time I lose myself in the story, I’ll feel like I just started reading and then look at the clock and realize hours have passed. 

This was truly such a fun annotation process for me —- so many moments and lines stuck out to me. Honestly, many of my pages look like this

which is when you can tell that I’m having the most fun annotating. That being said, it’s time to get cozy, grab a cup of tea, maybe turn on Aurora and let’s get started!

As always with Annotate with Me posts, there are spoilers so, if you haven’t read Daisy Jones and the Six, proceed with caution!

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Arc Review and Blog Tour: Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury

The Haunting of Hill House meets Sadie in this evocative and mind-bending psychological thriller following two teen girls navigating the treacherous past of a mysterious mansion ten years apart.

Daisy sees dead people—something impossible to forget in bustling, ghost-packed Toronto. She usually manages to deal with her unwanted ability, but she’s completely unprepared to be dumped by her boyfriend. So when her mother inherits a secluded mansion in northern Ontario where she spent her childhood summers, Daisy jumps at the chance to escape. But the house is nothing like Daisy expects, and she begins to realize that her experience with the supernatural might be no match for her mother’s secrets, nor what lurks within these walls…

A decade later, Brittney is desperate to get out from under the thumb of her abusive mother, a bestselling author who claims her stay at “Miracle Mansion” allowed her to see the error of her ways. But Brittney knows that’s nothing but a sham. She decides the new season of her popular Haunted web series will uncover what happened to a young Black girl in the mansion ten years prior and finally expose her mother’s lies. But as she gets more wrapped up in the investigation, she’ll have to decide: if she can only bring one story to light, which one matters most—Daisy’s or her own?

As Brittney investigates the mansion in the present, Daisy’s story runs parallel in the past, both timelines propelling the girls to face the most dangerous monsters of all: those that hide in plain sight.

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Interview with Caseen Gaines, Author of When Broadway Was Black

Happy Thursday, friends! Today we have a special guest on the blog, Caseen Gaines, author of Footnotes and When Broadway Was Black. I read an ARC of Footnotes last year and was absolutely blown away by this rich history of musical theatre, and when I heard that Caseen was releasing another book expanding upon Shuffle Along and it’s Broadway journey, I just knew that I had to read it.

I’m thrilled to have Caseen on the blog today and learn a bit more about him and When Broadway Was Black. Grab a cup of tea, get cozy, and read our interview below!

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Mini Reviews: The Fraud Squad, The Family Game, The Six Deaths of the Saint and These Fleeting Shadows

Hi friends! I hope that February has been treating you well so far. I’ve hit a little bit of a reading slump — I am having a hard time focusing on well, much of anything, so my reading has been on the slower side. Because of this, I figured I’d share some mini reviews for a few books I read in January!

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Review: Lunar Love by Lauren Kung Jessen

Always a matchmaker, never a match…

Olivia Huang Christenson is excited-slash-terrified to be taking over her grandmother’s matchmaking business. But when she learns that a new dating app has made her Pó Po’s traditional Chinese zodiac approach all about “animal attraction,” her emotions skew more toward furious-slash-outraged. Especially when L.A.’s most-eligible bachelor Bennett O’Brien is behind the app that could destroy her family’s legacy . . .

Liv knows better than to fall for any guy, let alone an infuriatingly handsome one who believes that traditions are meant to be broken. As the two businesses go head to head, Bennett and Liv make a deal: they’ll find a match for each other—and whoever falls in love loses. But Liv is dealing with someone who’s already adept at stealing business ideas . . . so what’s stopping him from stealing her heart too?

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Review: All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham

One year ago, Isabelle Drake’s life changed forever: her toddler son, Mason, was taken out of his crib in the middle of the night while she and her husband were asleep in the next room. With little evidence and few leads for the police to chase, the case quickly went cold. However, Isabelle cannot rest until Mason is returned to her—literally.

Except for the occasional catnap or small blackout where she loses track of time, she hasn’t slept in a year.

Isabelle’s entire existence now revolves around finding him, but she knows she can’t go on this way forever. In hopes of jarring loose a new witness or buried clue, she agrees to be interviewed by a true-crime podcaster—but his interest in Isabelle’s past makes her nervous. His incessant questioning paired with her severe insomnia has brought up uncomfortable memories from her own childhood, making Isabelle start to doubt her recollection of the night of Mason’s disappearance, as well as second-guess who she can trust… including herself. But she is determined to figure out the truth no matter where it leads. 

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