Everything I read in March 2024

'Twas a month full of wacky lit fic, lots of nonfiction, and books written by women.

Y’ALL. I’m finally getting this newsletter out on the first of the month, as promised! Please clap for me.

March was a good reading month. I’m still reading waaaay too many books per month (23 in March in case you were counting!), but that’s a personal issue to be unpacked later. I decided I wanted to devote a lot of my month to catching up on all of the lit fic I let pass me by while devouring an unprecedented number of romances in February. Women’s History Month was also the perfect time to dive into nonfiction about powerful women, from memoirs to traditional biographies. In fact, every single book I read in March was written by a woman, which I LOVE. At the beginning of the year, I decided that I wanted to have a 70/30 fiction/nonfiction split. I was pretty behind on this, so I’m glad I made sure to pack the nonfic in for March to help me catch up.

Enough of the rambling — let’s get into the books! As always, the links to each book are Bookshop affiliate links, which means I may make a small commission should you choose to purchase through them!

EVERYONE WHO CAN FORGIVE ME IS DEAD by Jenny Hollander: This debut thriller had strong LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE vibes, which made it skyrocket to the top of my TBR. A magazine editor hellbent on keeping her past quiet is thrust into the spotlight when her involvement in a gruesome murder at her grad program comes to light. While I liked a lot about this book, I took some issue with the structure. I normally love a dual timeline, but thought it got a little convoluted in here, as the timelines would sometimes alternate without much warning, leading to some confusion. Despite this, I thought this was super fast-paced and loved the media world details.

ELLIPSES by Vanessa Lawrence: Another NYC media book (and debut novel!) that I had high hopes for but thought was just okay. Lily, a magazine writer who got her start during print’s Golden Age finds herself struggling to adjust to the digital-first structure of her magazine. When she meets Billie, a cosmetics mogul, they strike up a mentor-mentee relationship that later turns toxic. Lily was incredibly unlikable and I found myself not caring about what happened to her. The relationship between Billie and Lily is primarily told through texts, which often got a little tedious, and I found the writing to feel very clunky at times.

PRIVATE EQUITY by Carrie Sun: This memoir felt like THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA set in the finance world, and I loved it! Carrie nabs a job working as an assistant at a hedge fund. While it seems like a dream job at first, we follow her journey as she goes from being an eager employee to someone who resents the nonstop nature of her career. This was really sharp and smart. It’s so well-written and I thought the balance between workplace detail and the backstory of her personal life was on-point. One of my favorite books of the month!

READY OR NOT by Cara Bastone: While I normally LOATHE the pregnancy trope, but I actually didn’t mind it here! After all, we know that Evie is pregnant from page 1, which eliminated the whole surprise factor. As her pregnancy progresses, she finds herself catching feelings for Shep, her best friend’s older brother who steps in to help her through her pregnancy, even though he’s not the baby’s father. The characters were sweet (although maybe a bit too quirky for my liking) and the chemistry between Evie and Shep was delightful to read. My biggest issue with this book was the absolute lack of introspection about the finances and logistics surrounding having an unplanned baby.

FAMILY FAMILY by Laurie Frankel: This might be another book that suffered a bit from being a little too quirky for me, but on the whole, I thought it was sweet. This novel, told in dual timelines and POVs, follows an actress and adoptive mother who comes under fire after making comments about a traumatic adoption movie she starred in. Her children decide to reach out the daughter she gave up years before to help her navigate the media firestorm. I loved the way Frankel talked about the various adoption narratives and emphasized that it doesn’t always have to be a sad story, but I thought the voices of the kids felt really forced and inaccurate.

AESTHETICA by Allie Rowbottom: It’s no secret that I love books set in the social media world, and AESTHETICA might just be the best influencer book I’ve read in a looong time. Rowbottom absolutely nailed the details (it always irks me when I read a social media book where the author doesn’t seem to understand how Instagram/TikTok/affiliate programs, etc. work). After uprooting her life as a teen to work as an influencer, Anna leaves it all behind and gets a surgery to reverse all of her previous cosmetic work. The voice is sharp and biting, and I loved the way Rowbottom infused the dual timeline structure. Really smart!

GREEN DOT by Madeleine Gray: We’ve all read this book before: a young woman falls in love with a much older man who (shocker!) is married. Where this one excels is in the voice. Our narrator is kind of awful, but she’s also so clever that it’s hard not to find her at least a little charming. The workplace detail (aforementioned young woman is a comment moderator for a popular news website who falls for her co-worker, an older journalist) was a highlight. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — I looooove books set in the media world!

DOLLS OF OUR LIVES by Mary Mahoney and Allison Horrocks: The fact that I didn’t like this feels like such a personal blow to young Maddie, who adored her American Girl dolls. Maybe it’s because I don’t listen to the “Dolls of Our Lives” podcast, but I found this to be slow, a little boring, and full of observations and analysis that felt so obvious, they didn’t warrant a book. I was expecting this to read as equal parts history of the American Girl brand and cultural analysis. While it technically was that, none of the observations felt particularly astute. and instead were very surface-level and rather dull.

ANITA DE MONTE LAUGHS LAST by Xochitl Gonzalez: While I enjoyed this author’s debut novel, OLGA DIES DREAMING, I thought her sophomore attempt, ANITA DE MONTE LAUGHS LAST, was leaps and bounds better, precisely because it was a simpler story. In this dual timeline, multi-POV novel (I didn’t realize I read so many of ‘em this month!), we follow Anita, a promising young artist who dies in New York in 1985, and Raquel, an art history student in the 1990s who attempts to uncover the truth about Anita after discovering parallels between their lives. This book felt more restrained, allowing the themes to feel a bit more impactful. Really liked the different POVs, although I thought the perspective of the villain, Anita’s husband, felt a little cartoonish and over the top.

OUTOFSHAPEWORTHLESSLOSER by Gracie Gold: While I don’t know a ton about professional ice skating, this book was one of my most-anticipated of the year because I loooove a sports story. Gold writes about her career as an Olympic hopeful, a period of her life that was riddled with injury, self-doubt, and low confidence. She doesn’t shy away from tough subject matter in here (I mean, the title alone should tip you off!) and writes about eating disorders, sexual assault, and depression. She’s incredibly vulnerable in here, and this book is very smart and voicey. Her candor did give me pause at some parts because she was SO open. This book made me wonder how soon is too soon to release a memoir because she really shared it allllll.

A COURT OF MIST AND FURY by Sarah J. Maas: Y’all were RIGHT. After book 1, I knew I was going to continue on with this series, but I wasn’t 100% sold yet. My initial wariness completely disappeared when I started book 2 because PHEW! We jump right into the action here, and it never lets up. I was impressed with the way Maas was able to dial up the action without sacrificing world-building and character development (two things that I’ve found get pushed to the wayside when the plot picks up in other books). I loved the development of Velaris and really enjoyed the way Maas still made space for our secondary characters. Excited to keep going with this series!

THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF NATHANIEL P. by Adelle Waldman: This was from my 24 in 24 and while I had already been planning to read it, I pushed it right to the top of my TBR after hearing Carola Lovering compare it to GOOD MATERIAL during her NYC BYE, BABY event. This novel is very character-driven, told from the POV of Nate, a Brooklyn-based writer who flits from woman to woman, until he finds himself in a relationship with a woman he’s not sure is the One. This book is 100% pretentious, but I liked it (I’m sure this was pretty divisive when it first came out). Nate is a massive d-bag, and so the fact that a lot of this novel came across as deeply hoity-toity didn’t bother me too much. Despite that, I found some of the vocab in here to be exhausting.

DOWN THE DRAIN by Julia Fox: LOVED this memoir. Yet another book this month where the author isn’t afraid to bare it all. Fox gets candid, writing about everything from being a sex worker to struggling with drugs, being trapped in toxic relationships, and losing friends as she advances in her career. This was not only entertaining (although incredibly sobering), but surprisingly well-written. There’s not much in the way of reflection or introspection in here, which bugged me. If you’re going to write about all of these crazy things that you were involved in, I think it’s a given that you’re going to discuss how those events have continued to affect your life. Maybe most of these events were too recent to look inward about?

HORSE by Geraldine Brooks: If you had told me I’d enjoy historical fiction about a horse, I would have laughed directly in your face. I mean, I love animals, but I do not enjoy books about them. This multi-timeline/POV novel follows people involved in the historic career of Lexington, a vaunted race horse. We not only get a POV into the life of the slave who trained him, but an art dealer who finds a painting of the horse, a PhD student working on an article about him, and a scientist who uncovers his skeleton. This is a very good book that was nearly ruined by an ending that came out of left-field and distracted from Lexington’s story. While I agree with a lot of the politics Brooks wrote about, they didn’t necessarily fit into this narrative.

THE FORTUNE SELLER by Rachel Kapelke-Dale: Ugh. I thought I would love this, but the more I think about it, the more frustrated I become. An Ivy League scholarship student finds her senior year rocked by the arrival of a mysterious tarot-obsessed newcomer who moves into the house she shares with her best friends, all wealthy members of the equestrian team. This book was bogged down by slow pacing and unlikable characters. While many of the characters were spoiled rich girls, they were more fun to read about than our lead, who was so naive and stupid that I wished ill upon her. The action ramped up a lot in the last third, which makes me think that this book started in the wrong place. There was too much build-up!

FIVE DAYS AT MEMORIAL by Sheri Fink: My monthly reread! This is actually the third time I’ve read this nonfiction pick about the events that happened at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and follows the aftermath as several doctors and nurses are investigated for expediting the deaths of patients they deemed too difficult to rescue. This book centers on a deeply distressing and difficult ethical dilemma, and every time I read this book, I feel a little differently. If you’re looking for something thought-provoking, this is a must. The reporting is very fair in here (although I think I know how Fink feels about the situation), and it’s deeply researched.

CLEOPATRA AND FRANKENSTEIN by Coco Mellors: I LOVED THIS BOOK SOOOOO MUCH! I devoured it in just two sittings, and know for a fact that it’ll be in my top 10 of 2024. It was my only five star read of the month (y’all know I’m stingy with those). We follow not only the titular Cleo and Frank, an unlikely couple who marry shortly after meeting, but a cast of secondary characters in their lives, who all have complicated stories of their own. Each chapter almost reads like a short story about these characters, and I loved this structure. These secondary characters have their own narratives and voices, and it’s a testament to Mellors’ talent that the reader comes to know each of these characters so well.

THE EDITOR by Sara Franklin: If you love books about the publishing world, then this is a MUST. Franklin has penned a biography of Judith Jones, a prolific editor who worked on some of the world’s most influential books (Julia Child’s cookbooks, Anne Frank’s diary). This is not only a deep dive into Jones’s life and career, but a primer on the golden era of the industry. This book is also a fantastic example of what a biography should be: concise, packed with clever anecdotes, and well-researched.

PIGLET by Lottie Hazell: This was one of my favorite books of the month — it’s so smart and is truly a masterclass in incredible food writing (Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe I read that this is what the author studied in college!). Piglet finally has it all: a great job working as a cookbook editor, a loving fiancé, and a brand new house. Just two weeks before her wedding, her fiancé reveals a shocking betrayal and Piglet begins crafting elaborate meals in order to cope with the devastating blow. I honestly would read 300 more pages of Hazell’s sumptuous food descriptions.

THE LIST by Yomi Adegoke: I wanted to love this, but I ultimately felt pretty sour on it. Ola and Michael, two powerful British media personalities, find their relationship rocked just a month before their wedding when Michael’s name appears on an anonymous list of well-known men accused of sexual harassment. While the premise sounded great, it was lacking in a lot of areas for me. We spent a lot of time focusing on the wedding (I read this right after PIGLET, which handled this theme exceptionally well) and I thought it was really boring. While some of the commentary was smart, other elements gave me pause, particularly some of the messaging around women lying about sexual abuse.

NIGHTCRAWLING by Lelia Mottley: Kiara and her brother are scraping by in a crumbling Oakland apartment. In an attempt to make ends meets, she turns to sex work, only to get caught up in a scandal involving the Oakland police department. Mottley is an incredibly talented writer, and a lot of the language in here was deeply poetic, although occasionally heavy-handed and distracting. The themes in this book are intense and most of the novel is incredibly bleak. I think the ending felt like an attempt to create a happy conclusion, but I thought it was a little cheesy and felt forced.

SEASONAL WORK by Laura Lippman: Another pick from my 24 in 24! I love short story collections and always lament that I don’t read enough of them. I decided to remedy that with this suspense collection by Laura Lippman, who is one of my FAVORITE authors. With any short story collection, there are some stories I enjoyed more than others (highlights included “The Book Thing,” “Seasonal Work,” and “Slow Burner”), but I thought this was a really solid collection. I also adore the way Lippman writes about Baltimore — she namedrops restaurants and bars and sports teams in a way that I love.

FATES AND FURIES by Lauren Groff: This book has been on my list for YEARS because I read half of it pre-Bookstagram (2017 maybe?) and had to return it to the library before I finished it. Although I’ve tried Groff’s work since to no success (I DNF’d MATRIX), I knew this was one I wanted to come back to. Turns out I really loved this portrait of a marriage marred by secrets. It took me a bit longer than usual to read because the language is complex, but I thought it was really thoughtful and beautiful.

THE BUCCANEERS by Edith Wharton (completed by Marion Mainwaring): And finally, I kind of begrudgingly picked this up because I told myself I’d read one classic novel a quarter and finished this one in the nick of time on March 31. THE BUCCANEERS was Edith Wharton’s final novel. In fact, she actually died before she finished it, so a Wharton scholar put the finishing touches on the book (I didn’t notice places where their writing differed, but I’m also no Wharton scholar myself). A group of wealthy young American women move to England to pursue marriage to some success — some of the girls turn to lovers after finding themselves trapped in loveless unions and others marry for money. I’ve read a few of Wharton’s novels and while this one wasn't my fave (that would be THE HOUSE OF MIRTH), it was a fun read packed with rich people problems and smart observational details.

That’s a wrap on March reading! I’ll see you on Sunday for another chatty newsletter.