This has been a great book for taking the moral judgements out of not having a clean house. It also contains some great cleaning hacks and makes you realize that clean enough is truly enough.

Love it especially the fact that you wouldn’t know before reading this book in the back

3.5 stars. This book kept popping up on my radar as an emotional romance that I ultimately listened to on audio via Libby. The strengths of this book are in FMC Nadia’s clear voice and the lupus representation. I struggled with the believability of Marco’s character. While I was interested in the time-limited romance of dating just for the month of May, the love story felt a bit too intense for the rather playful premise and came off as instalove at times.

This is such a good book, especially for people that like people having powers and the good people not winning all the time. Although they are technically in the lead, Sophie and her friends don't think so. Sophie is the main character, and she has SO MUCH friends who care for her. Then one of her friends - Keefe - leaves for the Forbidden Cities and his mom (a bad character) is trying to do an experiment on him called Stellarlune, so Sophie and her friends try searching for a power source called Elysian, and at the end of the book, they find out who/what Elysian is, and it is a humongous cliff hanger!

Fantastic like all the rest and a satisfying ending for Jack

4.5 stars. Jack and Annie travel to the prairie and visit a dugout schoolhouse, write with chalk on slate and befriend pioneers. They encounter a twister and have to hide in a storm cellar. This is one of their more exciting and endearing adventures.

Harry Potter is the best book series in the entire world. If you like adventure and Magic, this is the series for you. It’s amazing with twists and turns and how it the series all ties up at the end. It is the most incredible creative series ever written. J. K. Rowling is a genius! I AM THE NUMBER ONE HARRY POTTER FAN!!!!

Evil spy school is the best!

At the insistence of her ex, writer Lucy Barton leaves NYC at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and moves with him to a seaside house in Maine. There they spend weeks in lockdown, visiting their children only sporadically. We see pandemic restrictions through their eyes: empty store shelves, masking, washing hands - and clothes after a trip to the grocery store - and distrust of outsiders. As weeks turn to months, each ponders their shared future, their past in NYC, and the complications and unhappy surprises as 2020 becomes 2021. Readers need not have read other Strout novels to enjoy this book, but those who have already met Lucy will appreciate this deep dive into her life.

3.75 stars rounded up. I find this book very hard to rate as much of the merit comes from its status as a classic. Mark Twain’s novel is full of adventure, boyhood mischief and depictions of the racist antebellum Southern US. I’m very familiar with the story and probably have the strongest memory of the Elijah Wood portrayal on film. There’s nostalgia that comes with taking that trip down the river with Huck and Jim and revisiting their stops along the way. Yet, during this reading, I was shocked at the preponderance of vernacular and ear-piercing slurs (specifically the n-word) that made it rather hard to listen to on audio. If this book were written today as historical fiction, I’d probably be rounding down the rating, but I can’t ignore where this text stands in history. Tom Parker’s narration felt rather fast-paced, but his voice felt authentic though his occasional vocal clicks stuck out a bit.