Category: In The Club

I’ve been feeling more domestic lately (I made bread from scratch the other day!), so I may just get a mortar and pestle to make this fresh pesto. I also may not, because…time, but I bet this would still be delicious with store bought pesto. Between the burrata and roasted garlic, I know this will have me acting up.

All you need is burrata, pesto (or pesto ingredients, if you’re fancy), lots of fresh garlic, a little fresh parmesan, bread, olive oil, salt, cherry tomatoes, and lemon (I think).

There’s a Goodreads review that kind of sums up the book and gave me a ki:

“i too am 1 octopus best friend away from a full mental breakdown.”

If that sounds odd, I will say that it is basically what this book is about. Ro is newly in her 30s and mentally stuck. She’s estranged from her mother, her boyfriend just left on a mission to Mars, and the only thing left of her father is Dolores, the giant octopus he brought back from an expedition before he died. As her best friend starts becoming distant because of wedding planning, Ro starts drowning herself in sharktinis (Mountain Dew plus gin and a lil jalapeño), and seeking companionship in Dolores whenever she’s at her dead-end mall aquarium job. But Dolores gets sold to a wealthy investor, and is set to live a new life in a private aquarium, and now suddenly Ro is confronting childhood traumas and trying to regain some connection to the rest of herself and the people around her.

This one takes place in New York and follows Bobby Singh, an immigrant and single parent who is trying his best to achieve the American Dream. When his introverted daughter Angie finds one of her wealthy classmates stabbed in a football field, police think Chiara Thompkins, a Black runaway, is responsible. But we already know things aren’t always quite what they seem, and what gets revealed about the community, families, and even Angie’s own part in things is shocking.

Native Hawaiian poet Brandy Nālani McDougall’s latest collection will be out this June. In it, her words flow from mountains to sea, from mother to child, using Ōlelo Hawai‘i and English in a way that feels effortless. She shows the fight for her native land, which is strongly tied to her fight for native bodies, as both are at risk for destruction as a result of American imperialism. She speaks out against the environmental crisis caused by tourism as she does the harmful medical system that disregards Native Hawaiian treatments in favor of apathetic care.

Gothic horror, family dynamics, and the horrors of colonialism all merge in this YA novel. When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam, she realizes she’ll have to continue pretending to fit in. But as she tries to be the straight enough, Vietnamese enough daughter to her estranged father, she also starts noticing odd things about the French colonial house he’s restoring. And the five weeks she has to survive in the house may be too full of bug body parts, ghost brides, and paralysis for her to keep her sanity.

I am super intrigued by this cream cheese garlic bread, which has a whole sweet and savory thing going on. I’ve never tried it, but I love stepping outside of my usual, food-wise and tend to like the flavor combinations in Korean food, so I’m looking forward to trying this. Plus, it’s a perfect kind of hand food for book club meet ups. Let me know if you like it!

For it, you’ll need the usual bread ingredients, like flour, yeast, and salt, as well as powdered milk, egg, butter, garlic, honey, sugar, and cream cheese. For a full list of ingredients and instructions, check out Taste of Home.

Ah Boon is born in beautiful coastal Singapore just as British rule on the country starts to lessen. His main concerns are simply to impress Siok Mei, a neighbor girl his age. He gets his chance once he realizes his innate talent for locating islands with plentiful fish, but it’s this talent that becomes an obligation for him as his village — and his entire country — is brought into a new era of Japanese invasion, World War II, and the longstanding effects of colonialism. Through it all, Ah Boon and Siok Mei must contend with coming of age in a quickly changing and grief-filled world.

Follow a Black American family through the years and across states as they contend with a father that goes missing. In the ’70s, as his teenage daughter Trinity and wife Deborah prepare to celebrate his 37th birthday, Oz Armstead disappears. The family have a funeral with an empty casket, and the narrative bobs and weaves through the ’60s all the way to the ’90s, as Trinity and Deborah begin to understand that Oz was not exactly the husband or father they thought he was.

Gorgeous covers aside, I’m looking forward to this one because I always appreciate these reconsidered narratives where certain characters — especially female characters who were previously thought of as villains — are given their own stories. Here, Clytemnestra, Helen of Troy’s twin sister, takes center stage. We see how the Spartan princess contends with Agamemnon killing her husband, forces her to marry him, and then sacrifices their daughter to the gods. It’s the loss of their daughter that starts the gears of revenge, and I don’t know about y’all, but I love a good “they had it coming” tale.

It’s 1915, and a big steamer trunk full of dangerous secrets follows around young Adelaide Henry. She leaves her California home in flames after her secret kills her parents. The new life she tries to make for herself in Montana, courtesy of the government’s homesteader program in which she’ll become a “lone woman,” is promising, but the territory she must conquer is very cold, both personally and literally. Soon, she finds her new neighbors are harboring secrets of their own, and she may have to do some things she doesn’t want to to survive.

Yes, you read that correctly. The YouTuber got the Filipine dessert recipe from Mayumu by Abi Balingit, a book that just came out this February. I’m all for experiencing new flavor combinations in desserts and am looking forward to trying this one. The NYT also has the recipe from the author of the cookbook. A part from the usual ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, you just need soy sauce, bay leaves, and apple cider vinegar.

Award-winning poet Jones builds on the idea of his own identity, showing how to carve out one’s own space means to constantly adjust and kill the old selves. Starting in the south, we read vignettes of Jones’ life as a Black gay boy turned man, and his struggles with familial and romantic relationships. With a blend of poetry and prose, Jones shows how the dynamics of gender, race, sex, and power converge on a Black boy coming-of-age.

In poetic stories, Smith examines the dissolution of her marriage and its effects on her and her children. While at first focusing on the personal, she eventually expands to larger discussions of gender roles, which can be pervasive, even in seemingly progressive households.

Harjo was the previous United States Poet Laureate and has been a poet for 50 years. In Catching the Light, she distills her experiences as a poet living through the ’60s, as a mother, and as a Native American into poetic episodes that show the importance of the art form. She honors the brokenness that has led to the most beautiful poetry, and details how it has aided the fight against erasure.

Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who writes her coming-of-age story in Ordinary Light. When she was a girl, Smith spent a summer in Alabama that forever altered her view of the world. Up until that point, she’d grown up with California comforts, but hearing her family’s history with picking cotton and their involvement in the Civil Rights movement created another version of Blackness for her. It’s by considering these contradictions, as well as her new positions on faith and her mother’s illness, that Smith paints a picture of a girl becoming herself.

Since it’s warming up a bit in some places in North America, the Southerner in me thinks it’s iced tea time.This recipe is so simple, it’s more of a reminder or an introduction instead of a recipe. I’ve been enjoying hibiscus iced tea for a while, but never knew it was called Jamaica in Mexico or sorrel in Jamaica. You can add sugar, ginger, and other things, depending on which country’s tea combinations you prefer.

So this is about some mess of the highest caliber. Egan totally destroys the image of a glamorous, fun American 1920s and exposes it for the hate-filled time that it was. There was a grifter, D.C. Stephenson, who helped to usher in a kind of new age for the KKK. He became the grand dragon in Indiana, and helped to increase enrollment for his branch. Everyone from judges to ministers signed up to terrorize Black people, Jewish people, and whomever else they deemed as different enough form themselves. But when he sexually assaulted a woman, Madge Oberholtzer, she ended up exposing his crimes before her untimely death. Because of her, he was sentenced to life. When I say she deserves her flowers! This is one of those nonfiction books that has a bit of a quicker pace for those of us who are more accustomed to reading fiction. It’s also a good one to read to show how so many discriminatory practices have been able to thrive, even today.

Here, Chung reflects back on her life with her adoptive parents — when paychecks had to stretch and she constantly felt like an outsider as the only Korean person around. It’s when she starts to have her own family that she can really see how different things were from how she thought they were. Her parents start having health complications — her father dies of diabetes and kidney disease, and her mother has cancer — and she sees how frustratingly incompetent the health care industry is in this country.

Odell gets into the thing that runs our lives once we become adults: time. And, surprise, surprise, she finds that the clock was built for profit, not necessarily to help people (capitalism strikes again, in other words). Our very concept of time is worth exploring because, even when we are meant to be caring for ourselves, we are pressed by time. I always like to look at things that are taken as a given, and I suspect that the concept of time factors into cultural differences a lot, so this is an interesting read.

Seletzky had to have had one of the most interesting fathers. He was a member of the Black Power movement and an undercover agent for the Memphis Police Department. He would go on to work for the CIA, and he was in the room when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated (he’s in the picture of the assassination). Seletzky tells the story of her father’s life, and looks at his alliances with nuance. I really like learning more about people who are not quite “big” historical figures, but can speak to major times in history. I feel like it just gives things greater context.

So these peach and almond cookies may be a little adventurous for my barely-bakes self, but they are really cute and very “spring-y.” They’re the perfect little things to pull up to the book club meet up with.

This was thee hot mess girl book for a minute, and has even been called a Black Bridget Jones. in it, Queen Jenkins is 25, Jamaican and British, and having a horrible time fitting into either culture. She wants to make a change through her job at the national paper she works at, but keeps getting relegated to frivolous pieces. But the main thing that makes her messy is her love life. Since breaking up with her boyfriend, which comes at the beginning of the book, she has been on a tear of messy men, to the point that even her friendships are in jeopardy. She makes choices that make you want to scream, but you’ll be rooting for her to pull it all together.

Jane is 18, pregnant, and mentally lost in L.A. To get out of the house — and away from her mother’s and boyfriend’s smothering affection — she works as a pizza delivery girl, where she comes across some interesting customers. None are more interesting, though, than the woman who newly moved into the neighborhood and starts ordering pickles + pepperoni covered pizzas for her son. Jane becomes fascinated, obsessed really, with the middle-aged mom as she herself hurtles towards motherhood.

The first sentence of the official book blurb sounds like something I’d write: “Edie is just trying to survive.” Sis, aren’t we all? Though Edie’s case is a bit different. After struggling for a minute with a dead-end job, losing said job, running through f-bois, and failing within the art field, she meets a middle-aged married white man for a romantic entanglement. His wife has agreed to an open marriage, which eventually leads to Edie being invited into their home. But the reason isn’t because of her relationship with the husband. Not entirely. The couple has a Black child they’ve adopted and assume that because Edie is also Black, she can help guide her. How the adults relate to each other involves a changing amount of sex and power, and their actions aren’t always predictable.

I will never hesitate to recommend a Talia Hibbert book. She completely won me over with her Brown Sisters series, and this one — the third and last — may be my favorite. It’s about the youngest of the Brown sisters, Eve, who, although she is close to her family and feels loved, also feels their constant disappointment. She runs from failed project to failed project before her ruining an expensive wedding makes her parents be more forceful with making her commit to something. This leads to her wandering into a bed and breakfast owned by Jacob Wayne, someone who prefers control and order, and definitely not the purple-haired chaos that is Eve Brown. But when she comes in to apply for the chef position, he’s desperate, especially after she accidentally hits him with her car. With Jacob incapacitated, and Eve Eve-ing all over his B&B, Jacob isn’t sure how long the arrangement will last. But there’s something about her that he finds endearing, and the two may be more complementary that previously thought. When I tell y’all this is a spicy one! Phew. Also, the jokes and dialogue are top tier.

Y’all, if you roll up to the book club with fresh, warm chocolate-covered churros, I’m pretty sure you’ve made friends for life. This video shows how to get them, and I’m kind of surprised how easy they are. Although, I think I may want a caramel sauce instead of a chocolate covering, but you do you.

Witches are few and far between in the UK, which is why Mika Moon and her group of witches meet only so often — safety is priority, and too many witches in one place tends to draw attention. Even though Mika is used to the loneliness, a big part of her rejects it, and she posts videos on a YouTube-like site where she shares magic tips, pretending to be a witch. But someone sees her for what she really is, and invites her to a house out in the middle of nowhere to tutor three young witches into their magic. Somehow, she agrees, and finds with the inhabitants of the house — especially a grumpy librarian — a family like none she’s ever experienced. But the transition from being a loner orphan witch to a loved one isn’t easy, and she’ll have to make some changes to adjust.

Reyna and Kianthe have a vision I think probably many of us do: to open a cozy, quiet bookstore/café. But Reyna is one of the queen’s guards, and Kianthe’s magical ability means she has responsibility. But after Reyna gets taken hostage, she decides she’s done working for someone she can’t stand (I mean, that’ll do it), and Kianthe also peaces out on her duties, and honestly, I love that for them. Together, they open their dream store in a town full of dragons. But haters abound! The queen feels some type of way, and things aren’t quite as easy going as they’d hoped. Except, for the reader, they are. The little trouble that happens still keeps it cute and cozy.

Listen, when the book club just needs to take a load off, like maybe after having read a book with a heavy topic, this is a great palette cleanser. You follow Makoto Kowata, a young witch who moves to her cousin’s to finish her witch training. The cute black cat on the cover plus the description will have the real ones reminded of KiKi’s Delivery Service, which is very fair. There may be less magic in this first volume than in Kiki’s, though, as Makoto’s story is very slice-of-life, and follows her around as she does things like trying to start a garden. There’s also some light comedy thrown in.

Lucinda Caraway is living the charmed life in Freya Grove, a cozy seaside town full of magic and whimsy. But even though she enjoys the town— as well as her high school teaching job and reading tea leaves hobby — she wants to shake things up a bit. One night, these feelings of wanting more turn into a spell, and she is magically compelled to do things she doesn’t usually, like running a 10k and singing publicly. She’s also compelled to help her old crush Alex, a world-traveler who needs help taking a jinx off his house. With Lucinda having hexed herself, and all the time they’re spending together, Alex may have company for his next trip. *eyebrow wiggle*

If you haven’t had shakshuka before, you need to get on it ASAP. It’s a relatively simple North African/Middle Eastern dish that combines tomatoes, spices, and eggs, but somehow amounts to something greater than its parts. Especially if you make sure your eggs are still a little gooey. This goes perfectly with a crusty bread or toast (and a few avocado slices, if you’re feeling fancy). I’ve made this recipe by Suzy twice already.

I just started this one, and so far, I really like it (and also just came out yesterday!). It opens up with Vera Wong getting out of bed and setting out on her daily routine, which involves bemoaning the many ways young people need to do better, and how they could start by taking her advice. One day, as she heads down to her perpetually empty tea shop, she finds a dead body. She calls the cops, of course, but not before she does super helpful things like outlining the body in sharpie and taking a peek at the victim’s wallet and pockets. Oh, and she also invites all the people she thinks may be suspects together for a meal that she spent all morning cooking. This is a fun, messy mystery that shouts out all the real Aunties out there.

Dayna is struggling as an actress in L.A. when she stumbles upon an accident and realizes that helpful tips for it result in a $15,000 reward…that she desperately needs. Once she starts investigating, she wants to solve the case for more than just the money, of course, but like…the money would really come in clutch for an actress only known for a questionable commercial. As she hunts down any and every lead — emphasis on “every” — she gets into various shenanigans. This is an overall lighthearted mystery with some genuinely funny moments.

Never have I identified with a fictional character more than I have with Murderbot. The fact that its name is Murderbot is something to unpack, but in the meantime, just know that it’s an android that serves as a security unit, or a SecUnit, who has hacked its own module to become self-governing. And what does this expensive, literal killing machine do with its autonomy? For one, it names itself Murderbot. It also spends most of its time watching soap operas (the fave being Sanctuary Moon, which Martha Wells herself described as being “based on How to Get Away with Murder, but in space, on a colony, with all different characters and hundreds more episodes”). But Murderbot still performs its job of keeping the ill-informed and often illogical humans safe, which includes accompanying them in trying to figure out who’s trying to sabotage their mission of conducting surface tests on a distant planet. I’ve read all the Murderbot material (several novellas, a short story, and a novel), and can’t wait for the next installment. If you love Kevin R. Free’s audiobook narration like me, he really shines in the Murderbot audiobooks.

With her 4-year-old going to school with duct tape of their head (for reasons), her book still unwritten, and her ex husband being raggedy, Finlay’s life is the definition of hot mess. When she’s overheard talking about her new novel with her agent, the eavesdropper mistakes her for an assassin, and she gets offered a big ole check to take someone out. She (unknowingly) accepts, like you do, but after she realizes what’s going on and refuses, the mark ends up dead. In her garage. And all signs point to her. This shares some of Poker Face’s ridiculous scenarios and even more ridiculous characters.

Like in Poker Face, the crime is revealed first in this one. Sportcoat, a cranky church deacon, hobbles out into the common area of a project building in Brooklyn and shoots a drug dealer. The dealer in question is 19-year-old Deems, who was actually coached by Sportcoat when he was younger. Deems survives, and because of this, people think it’s the end for good ole Sporty, but, as in Poker Face, the universe keeps looking out. From a friend named Hot Sausage to others in the community — including literal ants from Columbia — the characters and mystery in here are extra and super entertaining.

I love mochi ice cream but have only ever tried green tea flavor. I’ve also never thought it’d be as easy to make as @feedmeimei shows it to be. You’ll need: rice flour, ice cream of choice, plastic wrap, and patience. That’s it! Can’t wait to try this with my fave green tea (and Thai!) ice cream.

Propelled by feminist movements around the world, Cristina Rivera Garza wrote a request to the attorney general concerning her sister Lilian, who was murdered 29 years ago in Mexico City. Garza’s family is certain her sister’s abusive boyfriend was the culprit, but he was never brought to justice. Here, Garza brings her sister’s last summer back to life while also confronting the culture that normalized violence against women, allowing for such a tragedy.

Kent has had a number of things that have made her the Other while growing up in the U.S. — she’s dark-skinned, queer, a second-generation American, and fat. In this memoir, she gets into how she’s contended with all those things, and what they stem from — like respectability politics and a culture hellbent on achieving heteronormativity, among other things. She also talks about family, and how the one you’re born with may not exactly be the one right for you. I’ve seen someone compare her to Samantha Irby, so Kent’s trauma comes with a side of LOL’s.

When she was a child, Felix was diagnosed with dyscalculia, a disorder that makes learning math and working with numbers difficult. She then uses this difficulty with calculations to frame the rest of her life — showing how she’s miscalculated in love and other arenas. I love the unique framing of this one, and how easily Felix can shift from speaking of trauma to making me laugh.

Lamya, like so many people who have marginalized identities, grew up feeling on the outside of everything. When, as a young teen, she develops a crush on a female teacher, she at first tries to hide it. But then, as she reads the Quran, she finds familiarity — the characters she reads about don’t seem to fit within the heteronormative boundaries that have been making her feel ill at ease. As she grows up, eventually moving to New York City in early adulthood, her faith, along with her sense of self as a queer Muslim woman, grows. I’ve never read the Quran, but I love reading about different interpretations of religious texts.

This was thee friendship book of last year. The two friends the story follows, Sam and Sadie, have already known each other for awhile before they come together to make a video game that makes them rich. Despite the money and notoriety that comes with their creation, they still experience all the ups and downs of friendship, love, and life in the 30 years this novel spans.

It’s such an interesting aspect how this book, told through two different perspectives, has two different authors. Riley and Jen have been besties since they were finger painting, but Jen married young while Riley went after her dream of becoming a TV journalist. Once Jen becomes pregnant, it all hits the fan: Jen’s husband, a policeman, gets involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teen. And Riley is covering the story, which could potentially make a name for her. The two women — one Black, one white — suddenly find their friendship in an odd stage, as Jen is months pregnant and Riley tries her best to contend with Jen’s husband’s involvement in violence against her community.

I love how this is another book, nonfiction this time, that is written by two people. Sow and Friedman are actually friends, and have been so for the past decade or so. They also run a podcast together called Call Your Girlfriend, which is oh so fitting. In this book, they detail some of their messiest friendship moments — and yes, they get super messy — and some of their best times. No matter how odd or alienated they happened to feel at times within their relationship, through interviews and conversations, they realized that they weren’t alone. This documents the vital relationship that has been their friendship, and it helps readers analyze and preserve their own, as well.

Smith puts it right in the name with this collection of poetry. In it, they shout out against the inherent violence of a country that is so against otherness, and stresses the importance of friendship to survive. This was inspired by a close friend they lost, so it is a tribute to them as well as an examination of all the good and bad that comes with friendship.

Beignets are one of the many foods you should try if you ever visit New Orleans. They’re also really good when you make them! Imma shows us to glory here.

Credited as the first Honkaku writer, Taro Hirai wrote under the pen name Edogawa Rampo. His character, detective Akechi Kogoro, starred in several of Hirai’s mysteries, and became a popular character in Japan. Here, the character isn’t the well-dressed finished product he would become known as. But, with a style that was inspired by Sherlock Holmes, his skills are on full display in these stories — women disappear at a bathhouse, abductions and robberies threaten a city, a human hand falls out of a person’s pocket.

The K apartments are being moved intact and the whole event is being publicized as a major accomplishment in engineering. But there are secrets the building holds — like a child’s body that lies buried in a communal bath under the building, the kidnapping of the son of an American officer, and more. As these secrets come to light, who is behind the scenes controlling things still remains a mystery.

This is one of the most popular books of the genre that introduced another of Japan’s well-known literary detectives, the bedraggled Kosuke Kindaichi. In 1937, the well-respected Ichiyanagi family will host a grand wedding for their son, but the positive hype surrounding the event are marred by talks of a masked man who’s been asking questions around town. When the wedding night comes, so does a scream and a murder, with the only clue being a bloody samurai sword in the snow.

This is more of a psychological thriller, but the author is part of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of America. Yuki, Akiko, Sae, and Maki were only girls when a stranger tricked them into leaving their friend Emily alone. Later Emily is found murdered and the girls were never able to give a useable description of the person to the police. Fifteen years after Emily’s death, readers see how the trauma of losing their friend has affected the now women.