Last Day Pool Party

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by Emma Steinkellner
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher
Content: There are some moments of bullying. It’s in the Middle-Grade Graphic Novel section.

It’s the last day of eighth grade, and several different kids ended up at a pool party, hosted by Dustin. There are best friends who are going through a breakup, the popular girl who is being forced to go by her mother and her cousin who does not want to be there, and Rosie who just wants to stop being invisible. Their worlds collide at the party, and things shake out in unexpected ways.

This was quite good. I liked that it all took place over one day, that the friendships felt real – both the BFFs that were falling apart, and Rosie’s attempt to make new friends. The art does service the story well, and I appreciated the diversity in characters. There’s nothing super exceptional about this – but it is a good graphic novel, and one that I can see kids really liking.

Heartstopper Volume 6

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by Alice Osman
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5
Content: There is a handful of swearing, including a few f-bombs. There is also some fade-to-black sex. It’s in the Teen Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

The final volume of the Heartstopper series sees Nick finishing up high school, and applying to university, Charlie being head boy, and everyone worrying that the friend group will fall apart as they head their separate ways.

I’ll be honest here: I kept confusing the Netflix show with the graphic novel. I thought Nick had already graduated (that’s the TV show) and that they had these existential discussions already (also the TV show). Which means, I don’t really remember what happened in Volume 5. And that this volume felt redundant. Pretty much everything in here has already happened in my brain (what I get for watching TV?). It’s always good to hang out with Nick and Charlie, though, and I didn’t dislike this volume. I just thought the story was farther along than it actually was.

I needed to get the book to finish out my Heartstopper collection. I would say I’d miss these characters, but to be honest, I’m not sure I will. I am glad that their story has come to a satisfying stopping point, though.

This is a Door

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by Daniel Nayeri
First sentence: “A boy named Nothing woke up on the floor.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: October 27, 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: It has a fairy-tale-like feel, and there is a lot of white space. However, the words make pictures and while that’s cool, it might put off some readers.

Nothing has no parents, and isn’t regarded at all in the mountain town where he lives. (Hence, his name.) All he has is a woman he calls Nana, his mouse friend mOmO, and a dog named Pöppy. Nothing wants to find out his True Purpose, and asks Nana how. She sends the trio off on an adventure. Things Happen, and Nothing figures out that it’s not what he’s named or who is parents are, it’s who he is.

There’s not much substance to this book – mostly because it’s a fairy tale, a fable. What IS cool about this book, and the reason I kept reading, is the format. The words make pictures on the page. Like this:

It’s very visually engaging. Though, as I was raving about this to a coworker, they mentioned that maybe that would make it difficult for some kids to read. Because it’s a very involved book. Sometimes the text goes over a page turn and back again, which confused me until I figured it out. This will be amazing for some kids – they will enjoy the puzzle of it all, and the visual aspect of the book, but it will absolutely turn others off. I fall in the enjoyment camp: I found it engaging and entertaining, though it was entirely because of the visual aspect.

And truthfully, I can’t wait to see the final book.

Audiobook: Everyone in This Bank is a Thief

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by Benjamin Stevenson
Read by: Barton Welch
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Others in the series: Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, Everyone on This Train is Suspect, Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and some pretty graphic descriptions of burned bodies. It’s in the mystery section of the bookstore.

Our intrepid detective, Ernest Cunningham, is looking for a bank loan to start his own personal detective agency. He’s been turned down by every bank he’s tried, that is until he gets a personal invitation from a bank in Huxley. Once there, though, the bank gets held up, and Ernest, his fiancé Juliet, and eight other people are sucked into a hostage situation. Which turns into a murder mystery.

Much like the others in the series, this is a smartly written, amusing murder mystery. Stevenson has collected an interesting bunch of people, and wove their stories together in interesting ways. It was good enough that we got discracted while we were driving and missed a couple of exits. And I think Stevenson even stuck the landing – it was satisfying without being maudlin.

I really love this series, and this is a good addition to it.

Audiobook: All About Love

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by bell hooks
Read by January LaVoy
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: It’s challenging to read, and very honest about emotional abuse. It’s in the Creative Non-fiction section of the bookstore.

I’ve had this on my radar for a long time, one I knew I “should” read. It just turned out that I had a little bit of a window, and it’s a short read. That said, it’s not an easy one.

The basic premise is that hooks believes that people, Americans especially, don’t know how to love. And this book is all the things that are keeping people from fully experiencing love. It’s a hard book, mostly because hooks is so black and white. Capitalism, patriarchy, sure, but also our tendency to tell little white lies, to not be fully honest, to place too much emphasis on romantic love. The nuclear family divides us – we should be living in community – and prevents us from experiencing all forms of love.

It’s also one that I kind of regret listening to it. While LaVoy was an excellent narrator, I needed to see the words, and – this is unusual for me – I wanted to mark up the book and make notes in the margins. I know I will need to reread this, in print form, sometime. I just think I need to sit with it for a little bit first.

Monthly Round-Up: June 2026

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June came and went much too fast. I’m not entirely sure where it went, either. But go it did, and some books got read.

My favorite this month:

An Octopus Named Houdini

An absolutely wonderful little book. I’m still thinking about it.

As for the rest:

Adult Fiction:

A Girl with a Thousand Faces (audiobook)
Vengeful
Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It (audiobook)
Christmas in Austenland (DNF)
Rules for Aging and Larceny
The Starling House (audiobook)
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 7 and 8

Middle Grade:

Licorice

Non-Fiction:

Jesus for Everyone

And on to July!

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, volumes 7 and 8

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by Beth Brower
First sentence: “I’ve yet to come up with a suitable greeting for when I see Pierce this morning.” (volume 7) and “When I came down for breakfast this morning, I found Agnes happily fussing over the stove while Parian ate his breakfast at the table, a cup of steaming coffee at his side.” (volume 8)
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Volume 1, Volume 2 and 3, Volume 4 and 5, Volume 6 (which I didn’t review!)
Content: There’s not much, though it does touch on abuse and PTSD in volume 8. It’d be in the Fiction section if the bookstore carried it.

I was talking to my husband when I was reading volume 7, and he asked what was happening, and to be honest: I couldn’t sum up the plot. It’s about Emma and her daily adventures. And he said, “So, it’s a bit of a soap opera?” and I can’t get past that. Yes, it is a bit of a soap opera. Maybe in the way that Austen is a bit of a soap opera, but Austen was concise and didn’t draw things out. I found myself losing patience with volume 8 in particular – how many pages do we need to read about Emma and her adventures at Stonecrop? Yes, I did finish the series, but by the end – especially as we got Revelations about Pierce and Islington and Emma’s feelings – I wanted to know when it would end.

And maybe that’s the rub. I enjoy Emma and the variety of people she has collected around her, but there’s no end in sight. How long can I read about Aunt Eugenia Spencer’s desire to use Emma as a foil to marry off her daughter? How long can Hawkes be mysterious and enigmatic? How long is she going to draw out the Pierce-Emma-Islington triangle (I firmly believe that there is a triangle there). How long is she going to draw out Mary’s crush on her professor? What happened to Jack? It’s just. so. much.

So, yes, I finished it, and I didn’t hate it, but I think I’m a bit tired of Emma, and I’m glad there isn’t a volume 9 just yet.

Audiobook: The Starling House

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by Alix E. Harrow
Read by Natalie Naudus
Support your local independent bookstore: Buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is violence of the demon kind and abuse of the human kind. There is also swearing, including several f-bombs. It’s in the Science Fiction-Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Opal’s mom died when she was 15, and she was left to raise her younger brother. Twelve years later, she’s dropped out of high school, working, and barely scraping by with her brother. Who she wants to get out of this cursed town of Eden, Kentucky. To help her do that, she takes a job cleaning the Starling House, the creepy house in town that Opal is inexplicably drawn to. Once in there, her life gets complicated. She’s not supposed to like Arthur, the current Starling at the house, and some people are trying to get information about the house from her. Not to mention the weirdness of the house itself, and the dreams that aren’t going away. It’s a lot to deal with, especially since all she wants is to feel like she belongs.

I had no idea what this was about when I started it, and maybe that was the best way to do it. Every twist and turn of the story was a surprise, and in Harrow’s capable hands, it kept me wondering what would come next. Naudus’s narration added to that; she’s an exceptional narrator, one that I will gladly listen to more of. I had no idea how the book would resolve, and yet the ending was everything I wanted. It’s a creepy story, yes, but it’s also a story of finding home and forgiveness and being true to oneself.

Remarkable.

Rules for Aging and Larceny

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by Julia London
First sentence: “Frances Deluca was kicked out of the Pecan Springs Pickleball Club leage the week before the championships, which she considered a direct assault on her unbeaten record.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: June 30, 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and talk of sex, but none actual. It will be in the Mystery section of the bookstore.

What Fran wants, three years after the death of her husband, is to go back to her glory days in the 1970s when she and her three best friends – whom she hasn’t talked to in decades – were a girl gang doing heists. They always targeted men who thought they were All That, and they got away with it. That is, until Edie betrayed them. But now, especially when Fran learns she has inoperable brain cancer (I know, it’s a bit much), all she wants is to do one last heist. So she rounds up Irene and Joan and convinces Edie to come along. They have the perfect mark, too: Edie’s granddaughter just lost a LOT of money in a Ponzi scheme run by an old college friend who just inherited a casino in Vegas. Sounds like a dream.

This was the perfect fluff book. Sure, there are themes of agism (they get away with a lot because no one thinks about older women) and dying and reconciliation and trust, but mostly it’s just a fun romp while these women get back at a man who took advantage of one of their own. And I adored it.

It was just a lot of fun to read; the writing is solid, there are some laugh-out-loud moments, and the characters were all interesting (love the guys they find to help in Vegas). It was a perfect summer read, and I can’t ask for more than that.

An Octopus Named Houdini

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by Zana Fraillon
First sentence: “Our nine octopus brains have a lot we’d like to say to the Waves of people who come every day to stare, to gawk to squeak to squak to squeal and to bang on our glass — “
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: October 20, 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher
Content: There really isn’t anything. It will be in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section fo the bookstore.

Houdini is an octopus in an aquarium. They’ve been there since childhood, and while it’s been a safe life, it’s been a boring one. Houdini longs for the sea, even though her keepers don’t know that they remember the sea, as they were very young when they were caught by a fisherman and donated to the aquarium. The plot is simple: Houdini wants to find a way to escape to the sea, the humans don’t want that – well, the director doesn’t want that – and some humans Understand and want to help.

The real charm of this book is the words. Fraillon writes from the octopus’s perspective, which was absolutely wonderfu. There’s a lyricism to this book, one that pulled me in and kept me reading. It’s going to be a good book for kids who love animals, and for people who enjoy a good novel in verse, becuase this is definitely that.