Welcome to my March 2024 Favorite Books post! This monthly post is where I share the 5 star books I’ve read so far each month. I had a few 5 star reads this month that I am excited to share. There are a few more reading days left in the month so if I have any further 5 star reads, I will share them next week. You can see the first half of my March reading here and I will share the rest next week. The Amazon links to the books I’ve read are affiliate links and if you use them and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission.
Title: The League of Picky Eaters
Author: Stephanie VW Lucianovic
Genre: Middle Grade Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Clarion Books, 11/2/21
Source: Once Upon a Book Club Box
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
Perfect for Middle Grade March, The League of Picky Eaters takes place in a fictional town called Muffletta, where how well you eat determines your school placement and picky eaters are sent to remedial eating class. Minerva is separated from her best friend, who is an advanced eater, and is instead subjected to the so called “weird” kids, who turn out to be a lot more fun and interesting than she expected!
“In Muffuletta, being good at eating is the key to success. French fries and grilled cheese? Beginner food! Haggis and truffles? Delicacies! After failing a school eating test, picky eater Minerva is placed in the lowest eating track of all: Remedial Eating to Change Habits. RETCH class is full of kids with weird personalities and even weirder food preferences. And to make matters worse, Minerva’s best friends, in the Gifted and Gourmet class, no longer speak to her. But soon Minerva finds she is not alone in her pickiness, and forms friendships with her new classmates. And together, they find a way to stand up for themselves—picky and proud!”
I found this book sweet and funny. I enjoyed the teachers’ food names (Mr Kreplach!) and the way the kids found to get out of eating the foods they didn’t like. Although about being a picky eater, this book was also about true friends!
Title: Bye, Baby
Author: Carola Lovering
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, 3/5/24
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
Although this book is marketed as a thriller and it is actually more of a drama, I loved it and couldn’t put it down. This is about Billie and her life long friendship with Cassie. They don’t appear to be close anymore and the question as to why had me curious.
“On a brisk fall night in a New York apartment, 35-year-old Billie West hears terrified screams. It’s her lifelong best friend Cassie Barnwell, one floor above, and she’s just realized her infant daughter has gone missing. Billie is shaken as she looks down into her own arms to see the baby, remembering―with a jolt of fear―that she is responsible for the kidnapping that has instantly shattered Cassie’s world. Once fiercely bonded by their secrets, Cassie and Billie have drifted apart in adulthood, no longer the inseparable pair they used to be in their small Hudson Valley hometown. Cassie is married to a wealthy man, has recently become a mother, and is building a following as a lifestyle influencer. She is desperate to leave her past behind―including Billie, who is single and childless, and no longer fits into her world. But Billie knows the worst thing Cassie has ever done, and she will do whatever it takes to restore their friendship…”
The book opens with Billie taking Cassie’s baby, and I wanted to know why, as well as what would happen from there. Cassie is an influencer and Billie seems to worship her. Meanwhile, Cassie has other friends that she seems to worship herself! I could personally relate to having a friend that you just want to be around but might not seem to want you there. Finding out what led to Billie feeling this way about Cassie and what drove them apart definitely kept the pages turning for me. The book does contain some difficult content including sexual assault.
Title: These Bodies Between Us
Author: Sarah Van Name
Genre: YA Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Delacorte Press, 3/12/24
Source: Storygram Book Tours
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
On a beach in North Carolina, 3 girls spend their summers together. This year, locals Callie and Talia and their summer friend Cleo are joined by Cleo’s friend Polly. Each summer, the girls choose a project to focus on and this year, they are going to learn to disappear.
“For seventeen-year-old Callie and her best friends Talia and Cleo, every summer in their small North Carolina beach town is as steady as the tides. But this year, Cleo has invited enigmatic new girl Polly to join them, creating waves in their familiar friendship. And Cleo has an idea, gleaned from private YouTube videos and hidden message boards: they’re going to learn how to make themselves invisible. Callie thinks it’s a ridiculous, impossible plan. But the other girls are intoxicated by the thought of disappearing, even temporarily—from bad boyfriends, from overbearing families, from the confusing, uncomfortable reality of having a body altogether. And, miraculously, it works. Yet as the girls revel in their reckless new freedom, they realize it’s getting harder to come back to themselves… and do they even want to?”
While the invisibility itself is obviously magical realism, it felt very real. The girls spend their summer at the skating rink and on the beach, experimenting with how it feels to disappear. The way it was described, it felt like a drug. They used their invisibility to escape their bodies (disordered eating is a part of this) as well as difficult families and a controlling boyfriend. The writing was lyrical and moving. It also has LGBTQ representation.
Title: The Princess of Las Vegas
Author: Chris Bohjalian
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Doubleday, 3/19/24
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
Chris Bohjalian’s recent books have been hit and miss for me with the last one I loved being The Red Lotus. But I loved this one too! This is about Crissy, who is Princess Diana in a tribute show. Her sister Betsy moves to Vegas with her boyfriend and 12 year old daughter. The owner of the casino where Crissy performs is murdered and the sisters get brought into a plot where they don’t know who can be trusted.
“Crissy Dowling has created a world that suits her perfectly. She passes her days by the pool in a private cabana, she splurges on ice cream but never gains an ounce, and each evening she transforms into a Princess, performing her musical cabaret inspired by the life of the late Diana Spencer. Some might find her strange or even delusional, an American speaking with a British accent, hair feathered into a style thirty years old, living and working in a casino that has become a dated trash heap. On top of that, Crissy’s daily diet of Adderall and Valium leaves her more than a little tipsy, her Senator boyfriend has gone back to his wife, and her entire career rests on resembling a dead woman. And yet, fans see her for the gifted chameleon she is, showering her with gifts, letters, and standing ovations night after night. But when Crissy’s sister, Betsy, arrives in town with a new boyfriend and a teenage daughter, and when Richie Morley, the owner of the Buckingham Palace Casino, is savagely murdered, Crissy’s carefully constructed kingdom comes crashing down all around her.”
I enjoyed the mystery and intrigue here and my favorite character was the hero in Marisa! This book contains drugs, past abuse, disordered eating, and violence.
Title: Murder Road
Author: Simone St. James
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Berkley, 3/5/24
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
I was so excited that many were saying this book was as good as The Sun Down Motel, which I loved, and I loved this one too! Murder Road is about newlyweds April and Eddie. While driving to their honeymoon resort, they pick up a hitchhiker who had been stabbed. They discover that the road they were on has a history of murders which are unsolved and they begin to look into this mystery.
“July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them. When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.”
This book was creepy with the supernatural, but I liked how the author made it all seem normal. There were great side characters and April and Eddie had their own secrets that made them interesting as well.
Title: Happily Never After
Author: Lynn Painter
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Berkley, 3/12/24
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
An alternate title for this one could be The Objectors, as Max is hired to object to weddings when a couple shouldn’t marry but can’t call off their weddings themselves. When Max stands up and objects at Sophie’s wedding, thus saving her from marrying the cheating Stuart, a new friendship between Max and Sophie leads to many more objections and a lot of fun together.
“When Sophie Steinbeck finds out just before her nuptials that her fiancé has cheated yet again, she desperately wants to call it off. But because her future father-in-law is her dad’s cutthroat boss, she doesn’t want to be the one to do it. Her savior comes in the form of a professional objector, whose purpose is to show up at weddings and proclaim the words no couple (usually) wants to hear at their ceremony: ‘I object!’ During anti-wedding festivities that night, Sophie learns more about Max the Objector’s job. It makes perfect sense to her: he saves people from wasting their lives, from hurting each other. He’s a modern-day hero. And Sophie wants in. The two love cynics start working together, going from wedding to wedding, and Sophie’s having more fun than she’s had in ages. She looks forward to every nerve-racking ceremony saving the lovesick souls of the betrothed masses. As Sophie and Max spend more time together, however, they realize that their physical chemistry is off the charts, leading them to dabble in a little hookup session or two—but it’s totally fine, because they definitely do not have feelings for each other. Love doesn’t exist, after all. And then everything changes. A groom-to-be hires Sophie to object, but his fiancée is the woman who broke Max’s heart. As Max wrestles with whether he can be a party to his ex’s getting hurt, Sophie grapples with the sudden realization that she may have fallen hard for her partner in crime.”
Max and Sophie are both cynical about love, which means they think their friendship is nothing more. The relationship was slow burn but the two of them are so funny together and I loved reading about them from friendship to more!
Title: Ready Or Not
Author: Cara Bastone
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Dial Press, 2/13/24
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
Ready or Not by Cara Bastone was so good and I loved it so much. While many people hate the “surprise pregnancy” trope, I wouldn’t say that’s what this was, as the book begins with Eve finding out she is pregnant and it’s not a romance between her and the baby’s father. Instead, love shows up in her childhood friend / best friend’s brother, Shep.
“Eve Hatch lives for surprises! Just kidding. She expects every tomorrow to be pretty much the same as today. She loves her cozy apartment in Brooklyn that’s close to her childhood best friend Willa, and far from her midwestern, traditional family who has never really understood her. While her job is only dream-adjacent, it’s comfortable and steady. She always knows what to expect from her life . . . until she finds herself expecting after an uncharacteristic one-night stand. The unplanned pregnancy cracks open all the relationships in her life. Eve’s loyal friendship with Willa is feeling tense, right when she needs her the most. And it’s actually Willa’s steadfast older brother, Shep, who steps up to help Eve. He has always been friendly, but now he’s checking in, ordering her surprise lunches, listening to all her complaints, and is . . . suddenly kinda hot? Then, as if she needs one more complication, there’s the baby’s father, who is (technically) supportive but (majorly) conflicted. Up until this point, Eve’s been content to coast through life. Now, though—maybe it’s the hormones, maybe it’s the way Shep’s shoulders look in a T-shirt—Eve starts to wonder if she has been secretly desiring more from every aspect of her life. Over the course of nine months, as Eve struggles to figure out the next right step in her expanding reality, she begins to realize that family and love, in all forms, can sneak up on you when you least expect it.”
This is a story about being pregnant after having lost parents, feeling alone, and yet having friends who step in. This is probably the best friends to lovers story I’ve ever read. It reminded me of Katherine Center’s writing and I thought it was beautifully written.
Come back next week for the rest of my March reads!
Do you have a favorite book you’ve read this month?