I’ve been eating up a book a day lately, which is exactly what I always want in the summer. Today I’ll be sharing my thoughts on six of my recent reads.
One in a Millennial by Kate Kennedy
As a fan of Kate Kennedy’s Be There in Five podcast, I was overjoyed when I was able to read an early copy of her upcoming book, One in a Millennial. This is memoir meets essay collection focuses on Kate’s experiences growing up in the 90s, her teen and college years in the aughts, and life as an adult in the 2010s, with each chapter focusing on parts of millennial pop culture. As an early Gen Z’er myself, it was fun reading the slight overlap between millennial and Gen Z culture (i.e. Limited Too, Hilary Duff, Full House). There is a ton to unpack in Kate’s book, but I especially enjoyed the analysis on how young girls and women’s pop culture interests, anywhere from boy bands to TSwift, should be valued more. I love Kate Kennedy’s writing and her voice shines through, as it’s very similar to her podcast style. Yet, the only struggle I had with the book is that much like her podcast, the chapters are quite lengthy and has a longer/near run-on sentence writing style that made me disengage at times. Overall, very worth the read if you’re interested in pop culture and/or a Be There in Five listener. Once in a Millennial comes out on January 23rd. My Rating: 4/5 Stars
The Five Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand
The Five-Star Weekend is another knockout, or should I say five-star read, from Elin Hilderbrand. The Five-Star Weekend follows a food blogger who has recently lost her husband in an accident and needs something to lift her up. When she discovers the concept of a five-star weekend, she invites four woman from each stage of her life to her Nantucket vacation home for the perfect weekend. Like nearly all of Elin’s books, I loved the multiple POVs from the protagonist, Hollis, her four friends, and her daughter, who Hollis hires to document the weekend despite their estrangement since her husband’s death. The book has everything you want in an Elin book, from the food (especially descriptive thanks to Hollis’s jobs) to the Nantucket restaurants & landmarks to the secrets & reveals. I am once again sad that I don’t have a new Elin to read, but I did pick up a copy of The Perfect Couple to reread in anticipation for the upcoming Netflix adaptation. My Rating: 5/5 Stars
Read More »
Due to the lack of travel IRL right now, I’ve recently been reaching for books set in other countries – and apparently books set in Italy! I loved Lori Nielsen Spiegelman’s The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany back in January, and I had been craving another light and fluffy read in that setting ever since. One of my favorite authors and Instagram-book-recommenders, Emily Henry, posted about Jennifer Probst’s Our Italian Summer this year and I was instantly hooked in its synopsis. Told from the perspective of three generations of women from the same family, Our Italian Summer follows grandmother Sophia’s request that her daughter, Francesca, and granddaughter, Allegra, spend a month in Italy together learning about their culture and more importantly, trying to fix Francesca and Allegra’s dynamic. 
The Midnight Library has been absolutely EVERYWHERE since its release last September. It’s a Good Morning America Book Club pick, Goodreads Choice Awards Winner for Best Fiction, and was recently the Bad on Paper Podcast book club pick for March. There is a trigger warning for suicide, as the book begins with Nora’s decision to end her life. After Nora ends her life, she soon finds herself in an alternate reality in the form of a library, in which she can choose any book that then transports her to lives she could’ve lived if she had made different decisions about her relationships, career, and so much more. 
After loving Beth O’Leary’s The Switch and highly anticipating The Road Trip, I had to dive into her first book, The Flatshare. This book has circulated throughout so many contemporary/contemporary romance recommendations over the past few years that I finally had to check it out. After a difficult break up (trigger warning for emotional abuse), book editor Tiffy is in need of a new and cheap living arrangement. She soon finds herself, sharing a flat with a nurse, Leon, with a unique living situation: since Leon works at night and Tiffy works during the day, they’ll never see each other…which makes it easier to share the flat’s 1 bed. However, Leon and Tiffy’s notes for another about cleaning the flat and food in the fridge soon turns into them learning much more about one other than they could have ever expected.
I forget exactly how I first found out about Float Plan, but I do remember a comparison to Bravo’s Below Deck (aka my current favorite reality TV show) made me add Float Plan to my TBR immediately. While I understand where the sailing comparison from Below Deck came from, Float Plan is definitely a much more heavy read than drunken mega yacht shenanigans. This contemporary follows Anna, a twenty-five year old woman who is understandably reeling from the death of her fiancé by suicide almost a year later. All Anna has left of Ben is his sailboat and the sailing trip from Fort Lauderdale to Puerto Rico he had planned for them. After a first rocky night at sea & on land, Anna hires Keane, an attractive Irish sailor who is also contending with a future he didn’t plan.
Fangirl Fury 