Review: "A Physical Education" by Casey Johnston

A Physical Education by Casey Johnston
Published May 2025 via Grand Central Publishing
★★★★

Before she took up weight lifting, Johnston was a runner. Not because she loved running, not because she even liked running, but because she thought she had to be to fit the mold of Thin Delicate Woman that she'd spent most of her life striving to be. She was sick of running, and she was sick of dieting.

For a long time, "weight loss" formed my entire conception of my body. Either I was small enough (and always getting smaller), or I was a disappointment. [...] But it's hard to recognize how narrow your worldview is until you become receptive to having it challenged. (loc. 110*)

This is one of those books that is so far up my alley it's knocking on my door. I'd read a couple of chapters and then go to work and talk to one of my coworkers about the books (plural!) I was reading about weightlifting and similar exercise, and then later in the week I'd meet the same coworker for a weightlifting class and spend half the class thinking about my form and half the class spacing out a little and half the class thinking about how much of those books did and didn't apply in the moment. (You do the math.)

I come at weightlifting from a different place than Johnston, and I doubt I'll ever end up in the same place as her, but there are definite intersections. I genuinely love running and spin classes and just cardio generally (give me spin classes or give me death). If I go to the gym on my own I will look at the weights and tell myself I should, but then I don't, because...I could lift something heavy, or I could get on the elliptical and read, and I'd rather read. But I go to weightlifting partly because it's good for my bones and partly because it's very social (you haven't lived until you've heard one of the middle-aged women in the class lecturing an overconfident barrel-chested man in too-tight shorts for lifting too much weight with bad form and not protecting his back) and partly because I'd like my arms to someday not be noodles (wishful thinking) and partly because, yes, strength training requires actually thinking about things like consuming enough protein and eating all the meals (two things that I have not, historically, been great at). I'm not committed enough to build up my weights much, or to abandon my cardio-happy routine.

But Johnston went all in. Not right away: She tested the waters first, did her research, and gave her body a chance to tell her if it was going to rebel from the change in routine (or regime). And gradually, as she gained strength and improved her form and got comfortable being the only woman lifting weights in the gym, she started to find that her relationship with her body changed—she didn't want to be thin. She wanted to be strong. And because she was a writer already, she knew how to dig into the research and science to figure out why things worked the way they did, and why they didn't work the way she'd always been told they were supposed to.

This leaves me with a lot to unpack. I already devote more thought that I probably should to ambivalence about what lifting weight does to the body, but I'm so terribly curious about the shift in mindset that Johnston describes. This doesn't inspire me to throw out my cardio classes (I made my knuckles bleed at boxing! Probably a sign that I'm doing something wrong, but also I'm proud of myself), but it does make me think that it's maybe time to actually check out the weight rack at the gym outside of class hours. Maybe. And chocolate protein powder in porridge sounds oddly edible...

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "A Vampire in the Bathhouse" by Niko Izuki

A Vampire in the Bathhouse by Niko Izuki
Published April 2025 via Kodansha Comics
★★★

Sakura has enough to handle between working at his family's bathhouse and taking care of his brother—he doesn't need a powerful and entitled (if good-natured) vampire added to the mix. But nobody asked what he needed...

I'm not one much for manga, but I can't resist something that promises this kind of silliness. The cover also brought to mind Rubber Duckie Shifter Next Door, so in a way I guess I'm just doubling down on the weird.

The story is a bit madcap—Luka turns up and wreaks some unintentional havoc, and then when that havoc is pretty much played out a new villain is introduced. There were some things that I couldn't quite follow (e.g., Pequeño getting sick), and I'm not sure that the plot always made all that much sense, but considering that this started as a one-shot comic that seems to have grown somewhat of its own volition, that makes sense.

The art is super pretty—I did have to remind myself repeatedly that both Luka and Sakura are written as male characters, because Sakura is quite delicate and they're both, well, pretty, but I think the only problem there is my lack of experience with manga. I can't draw anything beyond a stick figure, but I wish I could draw Sakura...or Luka's hair.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Church Camp" by Cara Meredith

 

Church Camp by Cara Meredith
Published April 2025 via Broadleaf Books
★★★

For years, church camp defined huge parts of Meredith's life. First she was a camper, then a counselor, and then, as an adult, a speaker—she'd be hired to spend a week giving nightly talks to the latest crop of (mostly white, mostly evangelical) campers, spinning a progressive story that reminded them how pathetic and how loved they were, and with any luck by the end of the week there would be a new list of converts to report back to the higher-ups. But eventually, Meredith moved away from evangelical Christianity—and eventually, she started to question the things she'd always believed. Eventually, she started to question church camp.

Church camp was such a win to me: I thrived in the camp environment, and camp, in turn, saw to my flourishing. But I was also exactly who white evangelicalism sought to promote: white and straight, I fit the mold. Outgoing and extroverted, I fought for my place as a woman, which camp rewarded me for when I proved I could do as the men had always done. But this was not the case for everyone. (loc. 874*)

Now: I should note that I never went to church camp. I am fascinated by religion, and particularly by certain iterations of it, but I was raised merrily heathen. My sister went to a YMCA sleepaway camp once, when she was about eight; she came away saying "JOY! Jesus first, others second, yourself last!" and so that was the end of my parents sending any of us to camp.** My point here is that I am not really the intended audience here: I read because I'm curious, but this book is really written for adults who were once church camp kids—maybe one summer, or maybe year after year after year, but readers who can hear Meredith's stories and conjure up visceral memories.

This book is structured around a week at camp and around the talks Meredith once gave. It's not about a specific camp—there are hundreds, and that's before you even get to the Vacation Bible School day camps—but about the messaging taught in these camps, or at least many of them. Jesus as superhero and God as benevolent father who happens to think you're pretty worthless. Cry night and purity standards. I struggled some with the structure—it took me a while to figure out why, but it's that Meredith doesn't tell her stories directly; she tells the reader how she might have told a story on any given night at any given camp. She might have told this story, she probably added that detail, campers probably reacted this way. It adds a level of distance to the writing; as a lover of memoir, I thrive on details and specifics, and I'd have found a walk through a specific summer at camp, specific campers, specific memories a bit more engaging.

I did value the research that Meredith weaves throughout, though, including the interviews with other once-upon-a-church-camp-kid folks. I'd have liked to know a bit more about Meredith's disillusionment with evangelical Christianity (before or after she had her kids and had to think about how the world, and how church camp, would treat them?) and a little more about how her views changed through the writing of the book, because at times my impression was that a lot of her understanding came about only through the interviews she conducted with people who were not straight and white. (Underscored by the last line, which I think undermines some of her stronger points.)

But again: this isn't really a book written for me. If, like me, you're just too curious for your own good, this is one for your "maybe" pile or your "rainy day" pile. If church camp was once your jam, in any of its iterations, you'll probably see some of your experience reflected here, and it's much more likely to be a book for you.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

**I asked my sister about this, and she doesn't remember JOY, but she did say that she was scandalized by saying grace before meals...and also that camp was a good experience, 10/10. So I guess the YMCA did its job, and my parents did theirs.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "The Story of a Single Woman" by Uno Chiyo

The Story of a Single Woman by Uno Chiyo, translated by Rebecca Copeland
English translation published April 2025 via Pushkin Press Classics
★★★

Most of Uno Chiyo's works, writes Rebecca Copeland, who translated this one, [...] fall under the category of watakushi-shōsetsu or 'I-novel', a distinctly Japanese form that is not fiction but not strictly autobiography either. (loc. 30*) And this is just that: a fictionalized version of Uno's life through the age of 30 or so, taking her from country to city and job to job and lover to lover. It's told from a looking-back perspective (Uno's self-insert, Kazue, reflecting on her youth from the perspective of her seventies) and thus carries some distance.

It's so clear that Uno just wasn't all that interested in conventionality. Here, Kazue is married off to a cousin at the age of thirteen (it was the early 1900s); the marriage goes nowhere, so Kazue quietly goes home and never returns to her once-upon-a-husband, and nobody really presses her on it. Later, she takes jobs as they come to her and works hard at them without any real passion; she drifts from lover to lover with no intent of marrying again and a cheerful disregard for the knowledge that such informal affairs are (again, it was the early 1900s) societally taboo.

This was something of an oddity of a book. I don't think I've read anything else in the watakushi-shōsetsu category, though of course I've read plenty of Western autobiographical fiction. It's hard for me to know how much of the things where I wanted more (more connection between Kazue and the reader, more details about her daily life, less floating through months or years in just a few sentences) are a function of me reacting to this particular book and how much they're a function of me not understanding the specific genre very well. The second half in particular focuses quite heavily on...not romance, not really, but various men in whose beds Kazue finds herself, sometimes with passion and sometimes because they were there and sometimes because they've taken advantage of her. On the one hand I really love the neutrality with which Uno presents Kazue (she's treated neither as hypersexual nor someone to be shamed, simply as someone who is comfortable with her desires), but on the other hand I wished for a bit less "and then she slept with this guy and then she slept with that guy".

The book ends rather abruptly (in a way that, oddly, reminds me of The Four Corners of the Heart), and I'll have to have a look to see whether there is (or was intended to be) a follow-up covering later parts of Kazue's life.

Even if you don't read the book (which I definitely recommend to lovers of literary oddities), it's worth having a read through Copeland's blog series about meeting Uno in the 80s.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "My Best Friend's Honeymoon" by Meryl Wilsner

My Best Friend's Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner
Published April 2025 via St. Martin's Griffin
★★★

Elsie is good with going along with it: she goes along with what her family wants her to do at their family-owned small business, she doesn't make waves, and she's stayed comfortably in a good-enough relationship because it's...well, because it's good enough. And it's not until her long-time fiancé decides to spring a wedding on her that she realizes that it's time to form some of her own opinions. And what better way to do that than take her best friend Ginny along with her on the all-inclusive honeymoon that Elsie's now ex-fiancé insists that she take anyway? Meanwhile, Ginny is determined that Elsie will spend the not-a-honeymoon asking for what she really wants...and if that happens to be Ginny, well. Ginny's been in love with Elsie for years.

There's plenty to like here: it's a fun setup, first of all, with bisexual and enby rep (plus an MC who is not a size two and is comfortable with that), and I love that the ex-fiancé isn't evil—he's a little clueless, yes, but he genuinely cares for Elsie and isn't about to intentionally make her life difficult. I'm a broken record on the subject, but this is so rare for ex-partners in romance novels, and I'm always happy to see not-evil exes who just aren't the One. (Bonus: the ex gets some character growth throughout the book.) Both MCs have solid family support (even if that support is also sometimes a bit clueless), which isn't a given and is always nice to see. And although I'm generally not interested in resort vacations (give me a tent in the woods and some bug spray), the honeymoon location sounds pretty fab. I did have a bit of trouble telling Elsie and Ginny's voices apart, I think partly because they have...well, their names aren't actually similar, but they're each two syllables with an "ee" sound at the end, and I guess that tripped me up.

The thing that tripped me up in a bigger way: I really would have liked a discussion of consent and just of interest before things heat up. Because...Elsie knows that Ginny was interested when they were teenagers, but she doesn't actually know if Ginny is interested now. The reader knows that Ginny is still in love with and happy to jump into bed with Elsie, but Elsie more or less takes it for granted that "whatever you want" includes a whole lot of banging. It's chapter 14 (39%) when things heat up, and then it's not until two chapters later (51%) that Elsie thinks to ask "Not just because I want to ... Do you want me to?" (loc. 1601*) Twelve percent of a book might not sound like much, but it feels like quite a lot when that twelve percent is, you know, mostly banging.

Between the sometimes shaky communication and the similar sense I got from their voices, I'm left thinking that Ginny has just as much trouble articulating what they want as Elsie has. I would have loved to see that be more of a realization throughout the book. Later in the book, Elsie throws some pretty hefty accusations at Ginny, ones that I'm honestly surprised their relationship can recover from so quickly; they take a look at some of the patterns in that relationship and what is and isn't working, but...I suppose I would have liked that look to be even deeper. To be fair, they're young—young and passionate and I think still trying to figure out what healthy relationships (platonic and/or romantic and/or sexual) look like.

I don't think this was quite the right book for me, but I'll still happily read more of Wilsner's books, and I do think it'll go over like gangbusters for readers looking for a lot of heat and perhaps a queer escape to the Caribbean.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "The Shadow Girls" by Nina Laurin

The Shadow Girls by Nina Laurin
Published April 2025 via Grand Central Publishing
★★★

Anna and Naomi are the top two students at their prestigious dance academy. Anna, with natural talent plus all the privileges that come with money and a mother who is a former ballerina herself, is expected to have her pick of company jobs when she graduates; Naomi has fire, but without the same advantages (either innate or based in privilege) she has always been second on the casting list, and she knows her pickings will be slimmer. But it's their last year, and neither girl—to say nothing of their mothers, or the teachers at the academy—is quite satisfied with the status quo.

I'm a sucker for a ballet book and no stranger to those fully of jealousy and intrigue, but this is a pretty grim read. The book switches between POVs, with a focus on Georgina (Anna's mother) and Naomi; Anna herself does not take center stage until very late in the book. And it's clear from the beginning that neither Georgina nor Naomi is a particularly pleasant person to spend time with: Georgina is a consummate stage mother, micromanaging her daughter's food (have to maintain that underweight ballet bod) and training (Georgina has ingratiated herself enough with the school to pull some significant strings) and friendships (Anna has very few of them, which is just the way Georgina likes it). She has a laser focus, and if it ever mattered what Anna wanted or what made Anna happy, well, it's been a long time since those things mattered. Naomi, meanwhile, is no better: though she's officially Anna's best friend, Naomi is definitely in it to keep her enemies closer. She's jealous and bitter and calculating from the get-go, convinced that Anna is the thing between herself and success and resenting her mother for having to work to keep Naomi in school fees and pointe shoes.

Other characters float in and out: Naomi's mother, who is briefly the only palatable character in the book but rapidly descends into the same unpleasantness that afflicts everyone else; the women running the academy, who really give no shits; the new artistic director, who in all of his considerable dialogue I don't think says a single thing that is polite, let alone kind; and on it goes. Anna is almost universally painted as a bit of a saint, but because we aren't in her POV until the end (and even then she's, you know, not really a saint), it's really just...bitterness and sex and drugs and lies and sleaziness and sabotage and venom. A lot of it involving fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds. Oh, and some improbable scenes involving the police. (I won't go into details, but the most realistic thing about it is that only a white girl with money and visibility would get an all-available-resources treatment when she's been missing for ten minutes and all signs point to her having left the house voluntarily.)

I didn't love the structure—the chapters flip back and forth through time, but (partly because just about everyone starts out at Bitch Level 10 and then stays there) I had trouble figuring out what was taking place when; it didn't matter all that much to my understanding of the book, but I'd probably have found a more linear plot easier to follow. And there's a lot of a character calling "a number" or finding something shocking or similar and then withholding that information from the reader until it's revealed later down the line. I tend to prefer books where the reader knows what the POV character knows; hiding that info from the reader always registers as a bit contrived.

So...a low three stars. Despite all of the above, this made for a very quick read, but...I was glad not to be in the characters' heads any longer. It'll be a good fit who like their characters messy and unlikable and their ballet drama with a side of broken glass in the pointe shoes, but I needed someone—anyone—to root for, and I never really could.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "My Favourite" by Sarah Jollien-Fardel

My Favourite by Sarah Jollien-Farden
Translated from the French by Holly James
Published April 2025 via the Indigo Press
★★★

I was a child. I understood things without knowing. (loc. 50*)

Growing up in a Swiss village, much of what Jeanne knows is violence. She learns early to gauge her father's moods and the likelihood that violence will follow; she learns early that the other adults in her life will be complicit by their silence and inaction. And it is the shadow of her father's violence that follows her through the years that follow, as she weighs—consciously and unconsciously—her love for her mother and sister against the deep-rooted lessons of her childhood that she can't quite seem to shake.

My body is a fortress: it doesn't know peace. (loc. 420)

This reminds me a little of Sara Gallardo's January, though even as I say that I don't think the comparison is quite right. I think it's in the sense of time and place—era is not so explicitly defined in My Favourite, but there is still a sense of a time in the past when much more was left unsaid, and a further sense of rural isolation. The story largely takes a 'looking back' kind of tone, which works for me because this is relatively short; I think in a longer work I might have preferred something a bit more dynamic.

In many ways I think this is something of a character study of Jeanne in the wave of her trauma. Where she is fleshed out, the other characters are not; they're left as sketches. I found that this didn't really bother me, because the point of those other characters seemed more about how Jeanne did and didn't and could and couldn't act with and react to them. Her sister, who is fundamentally good but a bit scatty, and whose trauma takes a different shape; her father, who has brief moments of grief but otherwise only rage; her first partner, who has no hope of doing anything other than following in parental footsteps; her partner later in the book, who is nothing but unfailingly thoughtful. As themselves, they're not terribly interesting; if you read them more for how Jeanne acts around them, they're more interesting. (Jeanne's last scene with her father, and her insights into what her reactions mean for the way Marine will see her going forward—that's what I'm here for.) I'm not so interested in the affair Jeanne has, but again, what I think is most valuable about that is that it can only ever give her some of what she is looking for. 3.5 stars, in a way that kept me interested enough to round up.

I'm curious about the choice to translate the French title, Sa préférée, as My Favourite—my French is rather rusty, so what do I know, but I think a more expected translation would be His Favourite. The question of a 'favourite' does come up a couple of times, in a couple of different contexts, and I suppose I wonder how much those contexts played into the choice of translation for the title.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "If We Were a Movie" by Zakiya N. Jamal

If We Were a Movie by Zakiya N. Jamal
Published April 2025 via HarperTeen
★★★

Movies aren't really Rochelle's thing, but anything that will bulk up her Wharton application—such as work experience—is absolutely her thing. When a position opens up at the local Black-owned cinema, she'll take it...even if it means working with her once-upon-a-friend, now her low-key nemesis.

Overall, this feels like a really solid debut. These are by and large likeable characters, both the main cast and the secondary characters (I enjoyed the twins' roles in particular), and it's nice to see Rochelle gradually loosen her death grip on All Academics, All the Time. There's also this nice moment: Mentally, I reprimand myself for assuming their pronouns and make the switch in my brain (loc. 604*). It's such a small thing, but it feels wonderfully realistic; I've read way too many books where the author tries to signal inclusivity by having the main character get all pronouns correct immediately, and it's much more realistic to see someone stumble and course-correct.

There's a small mystery baked into the plot, and I would have liked to see a bit more from it. I don't want to go into too much detail in a review, but the stakes felt lower than they should have been—I think I was expecting something to happen to the memorabilia, and there was sort of a dearth of suspects, limiting any whodunnit sense. I also would have liked to see some more specifics about the movies (and history) relevant to the cinema; I'm not any kind of film buff (at the time of writing it has been—if I remember correctly—almost a year and a half since I sat through a full movie; cannot ask my partner for a more exact date or he will suggest that we watch a movie) and know very little about any realms of film, including Black cinema, so it might have been nice to learn a bit more.

But: The romance is cute, the setting is interesting, and props to parents (fictional and real) who fundamentally just want their kids to be happy. A win in my book!

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Open, Heaven" by Seán Hewitt

Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt
Published April 2025 via Knopf
★★★★

It's the early 2000s, and life is trudging on in a small village in the north of England. Between the isolation of the town and James's family's difficulties and his own sexuality—which is by and large tolerated, but not really accepted—James is feeling pretty isolated himself. He dreams of connection, of meeting another boy like him. And then a new boy, one who doesn't know James or how he doesn't quite fit into town, arrives, and things start to change.

Our summer should have seemed open-ended. Almost every day was hot, with endless blue skies and the deep green of woods and meadows, but I knew that, before the autumn came around again, Luke would be gone. (loc. 2201*)

File this one under slow-moving, character-driven, beautiful language. James spends so much of his life daydreaming—about boys, mostly, or about men; I've never particularly wanted to be in a teenaged boy's head, but this does rather take us there. But there's quite a bit else going on in his life, including a younger brother whose health is uncertain and a more general desire for connection. As much as James is a ball of unfortunate teenage hormones, a lot of what he dreams of is much less about sex than it is about wanting someone to be close with, someone to touch, in a way that he can't fully articulate. Everything is constantly on the cusp, about to change but not always in ways that James can predict.

I was a bit nervous about the direction the book was taking, but the ending sold this for me—3.5 stars, I think, rounded up. No spoilers, but the plot very much builds toward that end of summer, and there are a number of ways the plot could go. The level of restraint bumped this up for me. One to read when you're in the mood for something introspective and dreamy.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: "The Wildelings" by Lisa Harding

The Wildelings by Lisa Harding
Published April 2025 via HarperVia
★★★

It's been Jessica and Linda against the world since the first day of school—Jessica leading the way, and Linda pulled in her wake. Jessica is a big fish in a small pond, and that's just the way she likes it. At university, though, things change: Jessica's big-fish status is challenged. She has the upper hand sometimes—but not always. Linda is pulling away from Jessica, becoming less reliant on her and less willing to put up with her. But it's Linda's boyfriend Mark, and the play he has cast Jessica in, that will turn them all upside-down.

I read this largely based on the strength of Harding's Cloud Girls, which I read a couple of years ago. Harding doesn't shy away from difficult topics—Cloud Girls explores sex trafficking and child abuse, and The Wildelings gets into manipulation and toxic relationships.

What works really well for me: Jessica is not a particularly sympathetic character. One of the things she struggles so much with throughout the book is that the people around her do not react to her low-key bullying in the way that she expects them to; Wilde is a bigger pond than she's used to, and although she does fine, she doesn't soar in the way she would have expected.

He looked [...] way cooler than when we had first met. It stung that I was not the reason for this transformation. (loc. 3472*)

This does not make Jessica likeable, but it does make her interesting, and that's a huge plus point for me. There are all these human flaws in Jessica that she can see but not quite stop herself from charging forward with anyway—her jealousy, her selfishness, her unkindness. She's gotten away with it because she's attractive and confident, I suppose, and because nobody has called her out on it...until now. And gosh, she does not understand how poorly equipped she is to be called on it.

This takes place mostly in the 90s, a time Jessica describes as back then, it was thrilling to be a number on a list, ranked by your body parts (loc. 473). There's a lot in her story that she doesn't understand until later (i.e., not until the parts of the story that take place much later), and parts of the book make for a masterful take on self-blame and shame. Because: Jessica does have some things coming—again, she's a complex character—but not the things that happen to her.

What doesn't work for me as well: although the majority of the book takes place in the 90s, it's structured around flashbacks (or the things Jessica is writing) when she is much older and in therapy. The processing-it-all-through-conversations-with-a-therapist trope (can I call this a trope?) has never worked well for me. There's an extent to which it does make a lot of sense here—the therapist is able to offer Jessica compassion when she has none for herself, and to reassign some guilt and blame after scenes in which Jessica does not come off well. But as engaging (and sometimes hard to read) as I found the Wilde sections to be, I was thrown out of that every time we came back to the present (or present-ish) day.

So something of a mixed bag for me, but more good than bad. Save this one when you're in the mood for something pretty intense. I'm looking forward to whatever Harding comes up with next.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "The Balance" by Aimee Boorman

The Balance by Aimee Boorman (with Steve Cooper)
Published April 2025 via Abrams
★★★

You might not know Boorman's name, but you know her highest-profile client: Boorman coached Simone Biles from childhood to Olympic success. Many a gymnast has written a memoir (which I'm a sucker for), but I've seen fewer books by coaches, and I was curious to see how her take might be different.

I approached The Balance with a certain degree of caution; elite gymnastics in the US has taken an extremely well-deserved beating to its reputation in recent years (just to be crystal clear: I'm speaking of coaches and administrators, not of athletes), and I'm not here to read the story of someone who perpetuated or was complicit in abuses. Before picking this up, I checked two things: one, that Simone Biles wrote the foreword (suggesting that she is still on good terms with Boorman—which in this context makes a difference), and two, that I could not, on a quick search, dig up any controversy about Boorman. I'm not particularly plugged into gymnastics, but not being able to find anything concerning felt like a good sign.

As a book, it's okay. It felt longer than it was—Kindle says it was under 300 pages, but I remember it as closer to 400, and my ARC includes a note that the final, published version will be revised and expanded to include (to paraphrase) thoughts on Biles' most recent successes. I suspect that some of that sense has to do with the disconnect of reading someone's story when it is so heavily dependent on someone else's story (Boorman cannot speak for Biles or her experience and by and large does not try to), and some of it has to do with so much of the book being about the broader picture rather than specific moments and scenes. There's also a definite element of damage control here. Regardless of her own actions, Boorman was deeply entrenched in US gymnastics (and, more to the point, USA Gymnastics), and it's clear that she's eager to distance herself from people who have emerged as villains of the USA Gymnastics story:

This was the first time I had stood up to Martha [Karolyi], and it wouldn't be the last. (loc. 1248*)

This went against Martha's instructions, but I felt it was important for Simone's physical and mental well-being. In fact, I often told Simone to ignore Martha when we were at camp or traveling because I knew what Simone needed and I felt I cared about her health much more than Martha did. (loc. 1861)

It felt to me like [Steve] Penny was ready to exploit them any way he could, and I wasn't having it. (loc. 2976)

And on it goes. I absolutely understand why Boorman felt a need for some damage control, though I find it a bit sad that she can't just focus on telling the story—I think at this point I'm more interested in hearing new insights than in reading, yet again, about the Karolyis being gymnastics tyrants. (Also, I think some of Boorman's frustrations with the gym Biles' parents started might need some workshopping?) All that said, there are some really interesting things to be found in here. I'm interested in the way Boorman talks about the way in which her own gymnastics training informed her work as a coach:

I never forgot how to do gymnastics when I'd take a couple months off to go visit [family], which gave me perspective when I was a coach that if a kid needed time off for important things in their personal life, it would be all right. (loc. 247)

Lakeshore was a time of struggle and growth. I don't have a ton of memories of how each practice would unfold, but I distinctly remember how I felt. During one practice I remember being left on a beam rotation for the entire practice because I was afraid to do my back walkover. I was left standing on the beam with my arms up; I wasn't allowed to get off the beam, nor was I allowed to put my arms down. All I kept thinking was My arms are numb and I'm going to reach back and my head is going to crash on the beam. Today, when I'm coaching beam, I tell my students not to lift their arms until they are ready to go for the skill. (loc. 326)

I made a vow to myself right then and there never to forget how sad, small, and insignificant his coaching had made me feel; that included an unspoken promise to my future students that I would do my best not to repeat the errors in coaching Coach Jeremy had imposed on me. He was the meanest coach I ever had and he influenced me the most in how I would not do my job in the future. (loc. 495)

Honestly, I think we don't see enough of that—so often I hear about coaches or teachers (e.g., in ballet) doing something because it is the way they were taught, whether it was beneficial or harmful or traumatic, and it's nice to have, instead, an "I am going to consciously do better."

There's also, kind of apropos of nothing (as far as the review goes, I mean; it's relevant in the book), this story about inquiries:

During the Olympic qualification round, I submitted three inquiries. This is not that uncommon, but it can get costly. Every time you submit an inquiry—which basically means you believe a judge has underscored the difficulty of a routine—it costs money. Yes, actual money. At the Olympics, an initial inquiry set the federation back by $500 and each subsequent challenge increased the fee by an additional $500 ($500, $1,000, and so on). Prior to 2016, the money had to be paid in cash and had to be delivered in an envelope. (The envelope was a new addition to this ritual after Japan challenged a routine during the 2012 Olympics and started waving a couple of hundred dollars in the air on live TV. it wasn't a good look.) Obviously, a coach handing cash in a discreet envelope to an official doesn't look much better, so today when an inquiry is submitted, the federation is billed for the fee instead of having to post it up front. (loc. 2726)

Now there's some insider info that fascinates me! I'm not a gymnastics superfan or maybe I'd know about this sort of thing already—it makes a certain amount of sense (I imagine the fees were instituted to keep coaches/countries from submitting inquiries on every other routine), but at the same time, it must highlight financial disparities between programs. I'm curious to know whether there are similar fees/rules in other sports; I know she's talking about an Olympics-specific rule, but imagine if football coaches had to pay a fee every time they objected to a call!)

Overall, Boorman has the benefit of a unique perspective here, and though the writing doesn't set my world on fire, I imagine this will be compelling for a lot of gymnastics fans.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: Short Story: "The Sublet" by Greer Hendricks

The Sublet by Greer Hendricks
Published April 2025 via Amazon Original Stories

At first, Anne's latest ghostwriting job seems like a godsend—good money, even if the deadlines are punishing, and connections that make it possible for her family to move into a more spacious apartment. It's not long, though, before the cracks start to show...and Anne knows she has to learn more.

This was a very quick short story—I read it on my lunch break. The basics of Anne's story will probably be widely relatable (too much work, not enough money, not enough space, not too much "second shift" work), and if I'm honest, I enjoy reading things about the darker side of influencers and the like (why, you ask? Excellent question; if you figure it out, let me know). Anne's client isn't an influencer, but she's in that general scammy "wellness" sphere.

Some short stories give the impression that they were originally tried out as novels—this is one of them. I have mixed feelings about the way the plot plays out and wonder whether this would be better suited to a longer format, a novella if not a novel. I would have loved a bit more build-up of the things going wrong, and the ending was rather puzzling. (Without giving anything away—does Anne think that nobody will notice the similarities?) The story hints at some supernatural elements, but a longer format would have been a chance to up the ante and have something...well, happen.

One to pick up if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription but probably wouldn't be one I'd actively seek out.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Out of the Woods" by Hannah Bonam-Young

Out of the Woods by Hannah Bonam-Young
Published January 2025 via Dell
★★

Sarah and Caleb are happily married—but Sarah's not happy in general. And so they find themselves at a wilderness retreat therapy program, trying to save their marriage...

Well. Sort of.

I read this because I'd just read Into the Woods and I thought it would be funny to read Into the Woods and Out of the Woods back to back (and yes, I am that shallow). Other than the "hiking trip" part of things, the description didn't sound particularly up my alley (though the cover is cute), but "hiking trip" goes a long way for me and books.

I suspect this falls into the very general "second chance romance" trope, though that's not particularly accurate—one of the things Sarah and Caleb are clear about is that they are happily married. They like each other, they have no major differences of opinion, they communicate pretty well already, and they still want to bang each other's brains out on the regular. And I suppose I'm left wondering what they're doing on this hiking trip. Sarah clearly needs therapy (not a dig, obviously; many of us could use some therapy) and some direction, and couples therapy is never a bad suggestion either—but it doesn't take a group hiking trip to do that. Sarah talks a big game about needing to stand on her own two feet, and succeed or fail without being propped up by Caleb, and that's great! It's a great goal for her to work on in long-term therapy. In theory it could be something for her to practice in the woods.

But in the woods, what Sarah standing on her own two feet looks like is: Sarah whines about having to hike on the hiking trip she's chosen, and insists that Caleb drag her across the ground to their tent.* Neither of them knows how to put up a tent, so Caleb learns. Sarah gets blisters, and Caleb tends to them. Sarah skins her knees, and Caleb bandages them and carries her back to camp. Sarah gets deep into discussing their relationship with other campers, and then gets huffy and petty at the thought that Caleb might have done the same. And when (vaguesauce to avoid spoilers) Caleb can't step up to the plate near the end of the book, Sarah immediately crumbles, and other people step in to hug her and remind her how to adult. All of that is fine in and of itself, of course; realistically, not everyone is happy in the relative wilderness, very few people handle things entirely alone, and it's perfectly reasonable to be not okay with blood or to need support when shit hits the fan. But for all that Sarah calls the trip life-changing, as far as I can tell, between beginning and end nothing has changed except that she recognizes a need for therapy and a purpose, which she kind of knew already. A week in the woods isn't enough for Sarah to suddenly go from leaning on Caleb for everything to being completely independent, but it would be enough time for her to be assigned some do-it-yourself tasks (put up the tent, build a fire, learn to treat an injury, be given any responsibility at all when Caleb can't step up)...none of which is ever suggested.

It's actually quite nice that Caleb and Sarah still like each other—I'm not much a fan of "they hate each other until they realize that they actually love each other" plots (I'm still bad at suspending disbelief), and it's always nice to come out of a romance feeling that the hero doesn't have a number of unresolved red flags. (The bar, folks, it is low!) It does limit the tension quite a bit, though. Instead we get some limited tension from some of the other campers, plus of course Sarah wrestling with some things from her past. It's all valid (and actually very short on wilderness therapy, though that's probably just as well because it turns out that I enjoy irritating-camper characters more when the POV is somebody who is not one of those irritating-camper characters), but it doesn't really feel like enough to round out the book, which might be why we get so many scenes of Sarah and Caleb telling each other how much they love and respect each other and how much they want to bang.

This was going to be a low three stars for me, but then I got to the wish-fulfillment end end and Sarah had her second "standing up for herself" moment (great!) that is also the second instance of her publicly regressing to her pettiest twelve-year-old self (less great) and everyone cheering her on (even less great), and I couldn't anymore.

*This sounds—as someone who has done a lot of hiking, and also worked out on rusty muscles and felt the aches and pains later—way worse than just limping over to the tent, incidentally.

Review: "Into the Woods" by Jenny Holiday

Into the Woods by Jenny Holiday
Published January 2025 via Forever
★★★★

A dance teacher with a lot of drive and a burned-out rock star find themselves at summer camp—with way more hormones than the campers.

Picked this up because I needed something light and this takes place in the woods, which seems about right to me. Into the Woods is tangentially related to Canadian Boyfriend, which I read a year or so ago, but for whatever reason this one worked a bit better for me. I think it may just be that Teddy and Gretchen are better at communicating. There is something of a secret that lasts through much of the book that had me worried that we were going to have the same conflict as in Canadian Boyfriend, but again...these characters are better at communicating (and perhaps more independent), so it ended up going rather more smoothly. Neither character is perfect (which is good because perfect is boring), but they're both generally on top of their shit and aware of their occasional failings.

There's some space built into this one for follow-ups with future books (e.g., I could see Auden being a main character in the future), and while I'm more of a context reader than a series reader (that is: I read this book not because it was related to the first one but because it takes place largely in the woods), I'd happily pick up future related books if the context appeals.

Review: "Slayers, Every One of Us" by Kristin Russo and Jenny Owen Youngs

Slayers, Every One of Us by Kristin Russo and Jenny Owen Youngs
Published April 2025 via St. Martin's Press
★★★★

It was a classic love story: two women met and fell in love. They married and started a podcast about Buffy the Vampire Slayer (because of course). And then the classic love story went the way so many do, and they got divorced...but they kept joint custody of their podcast and learned to navigate a whole new relationship in a way that most divorced couples don't.

From the moment our separation began (and no matter how hard we tried to make it otherwise), we were in constant contact. (loc. 1191*)

It's been years since I've watched Buffy, and until I picked up this book it had never occurred to me that someone might have made a podcast (let alone a queer podcast!) about the show; I listen to podcasts only while running or playing the Sims (we all have our oddities, okay?), and I'm particular and idiosyncratic about which ones interest me. But my gosh. I'm going to have to listen to the podcast now, and I'm, well, praying to Buffy that it holds its own against this book, because this was a pretty fantastic ride.

We'd sat together for hours (and hours and hours) doing this thing we loved doing: creating work together that we found beautiful, that we found joy in, that brought us a deep sense of satisfaction. We had returned to a space that we'd only ever occupied as two people in love and had flipped the light switch back on, terrified of finding that the other person we had loved so fiercely would no longer be there. Instead we had found that the best parts of us were even more powerful after the dark had gone. (loc. 2094)

Part of the strength of the book is of course the basic hook: forging a new relationship in the wake of divorce. I've read books by people who have maintained positive relationships with exes, or built better and stronger relationships after divorce than they had before divorce, but never something with quite this intensity or quite this context. And then part of the strength is the other basic hook: Buffy. It would be really hard not to love something that pulls together Buffy and queerness and the application of Buffy to real life in both its trivial and serious moments. I'm left thinking that I need to check out the podcast and that I need to do an intensive Buffy rewatch.

It's worth noting that although this will be best for readers who have seen (and loved) substantial amounts of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Russo and Youngs do an excellent job of providing enough context to carry the reader forward (without recapping so much that readers who have seen the show more recently than I have will find reading tedious). Well worth the read.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the authors and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.