Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire – 4 stars I reread this for the second time for the Forgotten YA Gems book club. It is the first installment in the Wayward Children series and introduces Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children and many of the characters we see throughout the series.
We Play Ourselves by Jen Silverman – 3 stars I received the ARC of this LGBT+ literary fiction novel from NetGalley. While I liked some aspects, I found the main character horribly annoying. The summary also makes it sound like a thriller, which is most definitely is not. Full Review
The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell – 4 stars I enjoyed this classic biography of Charlotte Brontë quite a lot. There is some inaccurate information in it due to when it was written, but overall it’s an important piece of writing in Brontë scholarship. Full Review
Glass Town: The Imaginary World of the Brontës by Isabel Greenberg – 5 stars This gorgeous graphic novel is a fictionalized account of the Brontë siblings’ Glass Town stories. The art is beautiful, and Greenberg manages to capture the siblings’ personalities well. Full Review
Fangirl: The Manga Vol. 1 by Sam Maggs, Rainbow Rowell, and Gabi Nam – 4 stars Fangirl is my favorite Rowell novel, and I’ve wanted to read this manga since I heard it was coming out. The art is cute, and it’s a great adaptation. I’m just disappointed it’s going to be in multiple volumes because it easily could have been in one.
The (Other) You: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates – 3 stars I received this short story collection from NetGalley. The stories are all quite depressing, but the writing was lovely and there were several I really liked. Full Review
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton – 2 stars I first read this over ten years ago, and I disliked it just as much as I did the first time. Wharton is a talented writer, but Lily Bart is such an obnoxious main character. Full Review
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski – 5 stars My doctor recommended this to me, and I’m so glad she did. It taught me so many strategies for dealing with stress. Everyone could benefit from reading this. Full Review
Romola by George Eliot – 4 stars This was the first book for my independent study on Victorian women novelists, and I adored it. Romola is probably my favorite Eliot character, and the whole book was surprisingly readable considering it’s a Victorian novel set in late 15th-century Florence. Full Review
Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant – 4 stars This was another book for my independent study. I was pleasantly surprised by how funny this was. Lucilla Marjoribanks is a bit like Austen’s Emma Woodhouse turned up to eleven.
A Literary Princess 