Here are 5 (or 6) things worth sharing this week:
1. Reading (YA): “Couples that stim together stay together.” I loved loved loved Tilly in Technicolor, by Mazey Eddings. It’s about a young woman, Tilly, who has ADHD, and a young man, Oliver, who has autism. Though they are wildly different, they fall in love. So much of it reminded me of my husband and me (except with the neurodivergence reversed) that I made my husband read it. It’ll make you laugh, swoon, and probably get a little teary-eyed now and then. Highly recommended. This is the first of Eddings’s books I’ve read, though she has other romances, including Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake and A Brush with Love.
2. Reading (MG): I just finished Jenn Reese’s latest book, Every Bird a Prince, and wow, was it spectacular. I love Reese’s speculative fiction (she’s the author of A Game of Fox & Squirrels, which I talked about a few newsletters back). This one features Eren Evers, who is confronting her greatest fears and also helping a collection of bird royalty save the forest kingdom. I loved all the references to fear and how to have courage. It was so beautifully told. I can’t wait for her next book, Puzzleheart, which releases May 14.
3. Reading (Adult NF): “History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.” When I first picked up Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, by David Grann, I didn’t even realize it was a true story. Probably because I’d only seen the title on the Apple TV movie (which I have not yet watched), and I only picked it up because I have a deal with myself that I have to read books before I watch movies based on books. But it was so worth it. This story is fascinating and tragic and will make you burn with fury. I’m looking forward to watching the movie. Probably I’ll be watching it alone, since I’m the only person in my family who’s a sucker for movies based on true stories!
4. Watching: I just finished watching the docu-series The Super Models on Apple TV. This series follows Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, and Christy Turlington in their rise to become supermodels in the 1980s. I found it fascinating to watch about their challenges and also the ways they stomped through stereotypes of beautiful women. They are inspirational women; one of my favorite lines in the series was something Linda Evangelista says: “Youth is not sustainable. Beauty is.” I LOVED that! And now I’m gonna work on an adult story framed around that quote. 🙂
5. Reading (YA): If you’re looking for a fun, funny, heartwarming graphic novel, look no farther than Huda F Cares? by Huda Fahmy. (I mean, with a title like that, how could you not pick it up?) It was a National Book Award finalist this year, and it’s a story of Huda and her sisters and her family’s trip to Disney World. I’d pick it up just for the Disney World in it, but it was funny, heartwarming, and delightfully fun. Fahmy is also the author of Huda F Are You? As well as some graphic memoirs for adults. Check her out; you’ll be glad you did.
6. Reading (chapter books): I’m currently reading back through the Ramona series of chapter books, by Beverly Cleary, and I had forgotten how much I love Ramona (I just finished Ramona the Pest, and I’m pretty sure I was smiling through the whole thing). What a spunky little girl! Reading back through these, I can see why first-grade Rachel LOVED the Ramona books. Ramona is a girl who pushes all the limits. It’s been great fun to revisit her story and imagine what I might have been thinking as I read it all those years ago.
