Reading In/Out 9/23/2025

Clench your butts. This is going to be a ride.

OUT

The Love Haters by Katherine Center - I did finish up this audiobook on Friday as anticipated. It was fun. It was not moving or profound, but it was more than your average romance. Katie is a video producer who makes documentaries and promo videos for companies. For fun she has a YouTube channel where she makes day-in-the-life videos of people she considers heroes. For work, she gets sent to the Florida Keys to shoot a promotion for the US Coast Guard. They want to feature a rescue swimmer who became famous for rescuing Jennifer Aniston's dog. It doesn't hurt that he is drop-dead gorgeous. Katie is absolutely unqualified for this job. She cannot swim, for one. The guy that is supposed to do it doesn't want to do it because the hero/rescue swimmer is his brother that he is estranged from. Also, their boss is on the warpath and is firing people left and right. So she goes to the keys, meets the hero, etc. The thing that makes this deeper than a basic romance is the commentary on women's relationships to their bodies. Katie had a bout of anorexia when she was dating a pop star. Now she doesn't starve herself, but she really can't find a single thing about her body that she likes and she is not interested in wearing bright colors or being seen in a swimsuit. Reminder, she is in the Florida Keys filming for the Coast Guard. The reader gets to see her journey to self-appreciation and it is pretty deep.

Navigating Difficult Situations in Public Libraries by Maragaret Ann Paauw - I did it. I plowed through the last 4 sections of this on Saturday. It maybe could have been more boring, but it would be difficult. It was useful and said important things.

Now I Rise by Kiersten White - This is the second book in a series. I read the first one several years ago, but I did ok remembering what was going on. The backstory: Two children who were the heirs to the Wallachian Prince were sent to the Ottoman Sultan as collateral on a peace treaty. He then abandoned them there and they were raised by the sultan in his family. The boy is sweet and a little anxious and good with people. The girl is ruthless and uninterested in making friends and is pissed that their father denied them their inherited place as rulers of Wallachia. In this one: Lada (the girl) leaves to go back and take over the throne of Wallachia. Radu (the boy) stays with the current sultan (with whom they were both raised) because he has a mad crush on him. The sultan sends him to Constantinople to be a spy for him while he attempts to conquer the city. Lada is running around Eastern Europe killing people to take back the throne and Radu is hating himself for liking the people in Constantinople that he is betraying by spying. The chapters go back and forth between the two siblings and it is fantastic. The ending sets up the scene for the final book really well. These storylines are wrapped up, but the whole situation isn't final. Lada had just had all the boyars murdered and Radu was still in Constantinople after he manipulated the end of the attack and the sultan is in the city with him.

The Mercy of the Sky: The Story of a Tornado by Holly Bailey - I sat down Sunday and powered through at least half of this. When I picked it up Monday afternoon, I had less than 100 pages left. The book is written in chronological order with short biographies of the principals voices in the beginning. The weathermen, the staff at the two elementary schools that were obliterated, the city manager, the guy that was about to become the superintendent of schools. It starts early in the morning of May 20, 2013. The day before had seen tornados that came through and hit a town East of Moore. The weathermen all knew this one was going to be worse. The book moves throughout the day back and forth through these voices to outline what they were thinking about. When the tornado hits, the book gets real heart-pounding. The principals at the schools were trying to figure out how to keep their students safe, knowing the tornado drills they'd been practicing were not going to be enough. The thing that made this tornado so deadly is that it hit during the day instead of the usual evening or night time. This is the first time a tornado hit during the school day. Many parents came to pick up their kids early, but there were a few that were unable to get there. Traffic was horrendous and several cars were picked up by the tornado from the gridlock on the interstate. The end is both tragic and a renewal of hope from the residents of Moore.

IN

The Celebrants by Steven Rowley - When I finished The Love Haters, I cued this one up to listen to next. I loved the Guncle books by this author. This is less hilarious, but very good also. This is about five people who were best friends in college at Berkeley. They used to be six, but two weeks before graduation, Alex died of a drug overdose in the dorm lounge. After his funeral, they made a pact to come together when any one of them was in a low place to do a funeral for them. It was a way to lift them up and let them know they are loved and worthwhile. The first living funeral was for a woman who had married right out of college. When her daughter was 17 her husband decided he had done his part and asked for a divorce. Then they did one three years later for the woman whose parents died in a plane crash. In the current day, they have all gathered, but they don't know it's for a funeral. One of the men is dying of cancer, which gives this funeral a different spin.

The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat - I am finally getting to my shelf of the month: Classics. This is a Classic of Iranian literature. It's very short at about 150 pages. It is very lyrical. So far I've read 16 pages of the author waxing poetic about a woman he saw who was too beautiful to share her name. We'll see where this goes.

I finished 4 books since my last post! That's insane!

Am I caught up to my Goodreads goal? No. I'm still 3 behind. That's how far behind I was. But I feel good about at least catching up to my shelf of reading for this month. And I only have 2 books left on my 10 Oldest Books shelf. Hooray!