The Books I'm Reading Now
I'm reading Broken Horses, Brandi Carlile's unflinching, fascinating memoir about her music, her influences, and her life; The Last Graduate, the second in Naomi Novik's dark, brooding, funny Scholomance series about a magical school filled with evil and darkness; and Very Sincerely Yours, lovely light fiction about a young woman who's undergone a breakup and a shake-up of her life who begins writing letters to the calm, kind host of a local children's show.
Which books are you reading and enjoying these days, bookworms?
01 Broken Horses: A Memoir by Brandi Carlile
I'm listening to Broken Horses: A Memoir by Brandi Carlile. The physical book contains photos from Carlile's life, but the audiobook has songs songs songs! I can't imagine having the experience of this book without all of the music Carlile offers here.
Carlile traces her life's beginnings, her creative influences, her struggles with feeling at peace with herself, and the specifics of her musical journey and her personal life.
She shares the pressures of the music business, the difficulties in taking care of her voice and her body while trying to create and push and perform, and her magical encounters with idols who have become friends--including Elton John, Dolly Parton, Joni Mitchell, and Tanya Tucker. This is captivating so far.
02 The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik
Last spring I posted a rave review of A Deadly Education: Lesson One of the Scholomance by Naomi Novik, and the sequel to that book, The Last Graduate, was published last week.
Novik's Scholomance series is set at a magical school with two routes out for its students: a grueling path to graduation and beyond or, just as likely, death. Danger and darkness lurk around every corner.
I looooooved the wonderful dark humor and unexpected details in A Deadly Education and the fantastic exchanges between El and Orion. El is a grumpy, powerful, smart, straightforward character I was obsessed with, and I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible.
In Novik's second book of the trilogy, El is determined to help her classmates escape their deadly school--but she's torn about whether to follow her destined path toward dark magic and destruction or to rewrite her future and envision something completely new.
I received a prepublication digital edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group.
03 Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey
Teddy Phillips isn't sure how she got to this point in her life. She's coasting in her not-dream job at a vintage toy store, all of her opinions and desires seem to have have been subsumed by her boyfriend Richard's plans and preferences, and she's not close with her best friends or even with her sister anymore.
When others' decisions set Teddy adrift even further, she's forced to consider her life and the person she's become--and determine whether she's capable of change. She finds comfort in watching episodes of her local children's show, and she impulsively writes a letter to the calm, kind, handsome host, starting a correspondence that will shift the course of her life.
Winfrey's Very Sincerely Yours is light fiction that delivers delightful, charming banter, the promise of a new romance for Teddy, and wonderfully loyal friendships.