November 2021 books

The Boys in the Cave: Deep Inside the Impossible Rescue in Thailand by Matt Gutman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I remember thinking at the time that the rescue of the boys from that cave in Thailand was absolutely bonkers, and it turns out I didn't know the half of it! Fantastic story and it's told well in this book.

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Beyond the Mapped Stars by Rosalyn Eves
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book BROKE me into a million pieces. How, HOW is this frontier Utah girl's struggle to forge her own identity among the pressures of family, community, and religion so timeless? (I know, I know, the answer is basically "because the patriarchy is also timeless" but still.) I was not expecting such a journey through my own soul when I picked it up. Exquisitely written, with a beautifully nuanced view of religion - oh my heart.

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Well Matched by Jen DeLuca
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Definitely my favorite of this series - it's a little lighter on Ren Faire logistics than the others but the introvert/community angles really spoke to me.

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The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I should apologize to this book for reading Well Matched right before it - it was an accident of library holds coming in at the same time and it's not this book's fault that I had read something really good - and really similar - so recently! Unfortunately, I just kept thinking how Well Matched did all of this, but better, in my opinion. I was also distracted rather than entertained by the setting in academia. I know that things work differently in straight-up science academia but I could not turn off the part of my brain that kept whispering, "social sciences/humanities/any uni I've ever worked at could NEVER."

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People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rounding up to four stars. I really enjoyed this book and I wanted to like it even more than I did. But I didn't really like Poppy and couldn't see how Alex would, either. I'm not a huge fan of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope and I think that's essentially what Poppy was.

So whenever I was able to forget the more annoying aspects of Poppy's personality, I really enjoyed reading this book.

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The End of Bias: A Beginning by Jessica Nordell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book started out a bit slow and I thought I might get through it chapter by chapter over a week or two. But at some point it got really good and I almost couldn't put it down! It reminded me of Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know but with a narrower, deeper focus. The things Nordell has to say about policing, schooling, and gender in this book are especially interesting.

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