March and April Reads: More Sweet and Happy Books
Whoops! The past month and a bit got away with me, and before I knew it, a few Saturdays had blown right by. However, I am back to get on the right track today, and wanted to share some of my March and April highlights with you all. True to form, when I get overwhelmed, I particularly love nice happy novels that make me feel good. I also have a memoir to share that, while not cozy, is certainly lovely and inspiring!
Fun Middle Grade Novels: I love listening to good middle grade and young adult novels, especially ones I have read as I go about my daily life and also as I go to sleep – they are enjoyable and yet if I miss something here or there, the plots are usually easy enough to follow I don’t get lost!
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
It was so fun to revisit this absurdly funny fantasy, in which Sophie, the oldest of three girls (and therefore the one destined to do nothing with her life) is cursed to look like and old woman and ends up cleaning house for a cantankerous but handsome wizard, his young apprentice and his fire demon.
Hijinks ensure, and while the ending is too rushed to feel totally satisfying, The tongue in cheek world building here is almost better as an adult, as I “get” more of the references now.
Diana Wynne Jones was a brilliant writer, and has written some other great classics as well, including the Chrestomanci novels which I especially loved!
The Daughter of the Pirate King and Daughter of the Siren Queen by Tricia Levenseller
I was introduced to these by a middle school teacher friend of mine, and they did not disappoint. These are less cozy than anything else on the list, but were very fun and engaging. I especially enjoyed the ways that these books played with tropes and stereotypes.
These were also great because they did a really interesting job of constantly shifting who the “bad guy” was in a way that really kept the tension high and made the story more interesting.
Cozy Magic Tea Novels: This is absolutely my favorite new genre, where instead of fantasy being all about the adventure, the stories in “cozy fantasy” revolve around people constructing a community and life together, with fantastical elements as a fun backdrop (another great example of this that I read earlier this year is Legends & Lattes). These feel like the kind of stories you would make up as bedtime stories, and that is a feeling that I find so soothing. I also love that a lot of the books being published in this world are being self published or published by smaller publishers, so there are a lot of good vibes all around!
The real core of the cozy magic tea books don’t appeal to everyone. There are no high stakes, conflict is always resolved with minimal loose ends, and everyone ends up happy at the end. However, these books also tend to be very LBGTQ+ inclusive, and do examine real themes, especially in terms of emotions and relationships.
Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne
The catchline of this book is “You like tea. I like books. Care to open a shop and forget the world exists?”. And it only gets better. A tiny mountain town that is on the edge of dragon county, a couple that just wants to start over, some fun magic, and lots of books, tea, yummy food and good neighbors make this a really sweet and lovely story.
Under The Whispering Door by TJ Klune
This is a little more hard hitting than the rest of the magic cozy tea books, but I love it all the same! This is a tearjerker, but also a really sweet and heartwarming story.
When Wallace Price dies, he ends up at a way house with a colorful cast of characters and discovers that although he was kind of a terrible person in life, he might just learn how to be someone else in death.
Autobiography/Memoir: Sports memoirs are not necessarily my thing, but if you know me well, you know that the Olympics are a passion of mine. Add a serving of feminism to the mix and I am 100% on board.
Brave Enough by Jessie Diggins and Todd Smith
I vividly remember Diggins and Kikkan Randall winning gold in Korea in 2018, especially as I had just started cross country skiing (although to compare what I do to the sport of cross country is a joke). In this book, Diggins shares her story, including her career as an elite cross country skier, and part of this includes the story of her eating disorder. The book itself is great, and her story is really powerful without feeling too saccharine, and I just really enjoyed it.
I’ll be back next week with some new book award winners as it has been a few months, and some big prizes have come out recently!
