One of my goals this year is to help you spend less time wondering what to read next and more time actually reading.

Every Tuesday on Instagram, I share a roundup of books hitting shelves that day. But over here, we get to answer the real question: Should you read it or skip it?

This week’s stack took me everywhere from influencer-fueled psychological thrillers and complicated family beach dramas to necromancers, unicorns, magical forests, and one absolutely gorgeous literary fiction novel that may end up being one of my favorite books of the year.

As always, these are just my personal reactions. A book that didn’t work for me might end up being your next five-star read, and a book I loved may not land the same way for everyone else. That’s the fun part of reading.

So let’s sort through this week’s new releases and figure out which books earned a spot on your TBR and which ones I’d leave on the shelf.

🎧 Man of My Dreams

Read or Skip: SKIP
Rating: 3 stars

I spent most of this book feeling like I had accidentally picked up the wrong story.

The synopsis promises one thing. The book delivers something completely different.

And look, I don’t mind a good twist. I don’t mind a mystery leading into another mystery. But I do mind when an entire storyline feels like it exists purely to distract the reader from what the book is actually about.

By about a third of the way through, it became painfully obvious that the mystery I thought I was reading wasn’t really the mystery at all. Once that clicked, I couldn’t stop wondering why I had spent so much time investing in a plotline that ultimately felt irrelevant.

The biggest issue for me was that it felt like two separate books smashed together. One story is introduced, another story takes over, and neither one felt fully satisfying by the end.

I know some readers will enjoy the layered mystery approach, but personally, it left me frustrated rather than impressed.

Final thought: If you love mysteries that constantly pull the rug out from under you, this may work better for you than it did for me. Unfortunately, I spent more time feeling irritated than intrigued.

🎧 Tell Your Friends

Read or Skip: SKIP (for me)
Rating: 3 stars

This is one of those books where I loved the premise far more than the execution.

The idea is fantastic. A woman who grew up on her family’s wildly successful vlog channel begins questioning the life that was built for public consumption. The conversations around influencer culture, internet fame, parasocial relationships, and identity were easily the most interesting parts of the story for me.

Maybe it’s because I work in content, but I found myself much more invested in the questions underneath the thriller than the actual mystery itself. Who are you when your entire life has been curated for an audience? How much of your identity belongs to you versus the version people expect you to perform?

That’s fascinating territory.

Unfortunately, the mystery never fully came together for me. I kept waiting for a twist that would genuinely surprise me or a reveal that would completely reframe everything I thought I knew, but it never quite arrived.

I also listened on audio and found the POV transitions surprisingly confusing. Despite having a single narrator, there were multiple moments where I had to stop and figure out whose perspective I was actually in.

Final thought: An interesting exploration of influencer culture and internet fame wrapped inside a psychological thriller, but I wanted more from the mystery than it ultimately delivered.

👨‍👩‍👧 Down with the Shipmans

Read or Skip: READ
Rating: 4 stars

Some books feel like summer. Not because they’re light or fluffy, but because they understand nostalgia.

Down with the Shipmans is one of those books.

After the death of their mother, three sisters return to their family beach house only to discover their father plans to sell it. On paper, that’s the plot.

In reality, this book is about everything that house represents.

Childhood memories. Family history. Old wounds. The versions of ourselves that seem to reappear the second we walk back through the front door of a place that once felt like home.

What worked best for me was how complicated the family dynamics felt. Nobody is entirely right. Nobody is entirely wrong. They’re simply people carrying years of shared history and trying to navigate grief, change, and each other.

The New Hampshire coastal setting adds so much warmth and atmosphere, but beneath that cozy summer exterior is a surprisingly honest story about loss and moving forward.

Final thought: A heartfelt beach-town family drama that perfectly balances nostalgia, grief, humor, and complicated sibling relationships.

🩵 Whistler

Read or Skip: READ IMMEDIATELY
Rating: 4.5 stars

Ann Patchett somehow managed to write a book that feels both quiet and enormous at the same time.

Whistler begins with a chance encounter at a museum when Daphne Fuller unexpectedly comes face-to-face with Eddie Triplett, the former stepfather she hasn’t seen in decades.

From there, the story unfolds into something beautiful, reflective, and deeply human.

This is a book about memory. About the choices that shape our lives and the people who leave permanent fingerprints on us, even when they’re only part of our story for a short time.

What struck me most was how effortlessly Patchett captures the feeling of looking backward. The realization that entire versions of ourselves still exist in other people’s memories. The understanding that seemingly small moments can quietly alter the course of a life.

It’s understated in the best possible way. There aren’t huge dramatic twists and there doesn’t need to be.

The emotional impact comes from the humanity of it all.

Final thought: One of the most beautiful books I’ve read this year and a reminder that sometimes the quietest stories leave the deepest marks.

🦄 The Unicorn Hunters

Read or Skip: READ
Rating: 5 stars

Anne of Brittany wanted to avoid marriage so badly that she invented an elaborate unicorn problem.

Honestly? Iconic behavior.

The Unicorn Hunters is exactly the kind of historical fantasy I love: rich with real history, layered with folklore, filled with clever women, political intrigue, magical forests, and just enough wonder to make everything feel possible.

Katherine Arden takes the story of Anne of Brittany and reimagines it through the lens of myth and magic, weaving unicorns, lost cities, prophecy, and the legendary forest of Brocéliande into a story that feels both fantastical and deeply rooted in history.

I was completely swept away. The magic is wonderful, but what really stood out was Anne herself. Arden allows her to be clever, strategic, stubborn, ambitious, and deeply human in a way that feels incredibly refreshing.

Also, Louis throwing himself into danger at every opportunity in the name of love? More of that, please.

Final thought: Magical forests, court intrigue, clever women, unicorns, and history reimagined through fantasy. Katherine Arden remains incapable of disappointing me.

💀 Hopelessly Necromantic

Read or Skip: READ
Rating: 4 stars

Bone jokes? Check.

A burned-out thirty-something necromancer who really wishes someone else would save the kingdom? Also check.

Hopelessly Necromantic follows Sikras, a disgraced royal necromancer grieving the loss of his wife while reluctantly getting dragged into another world-saving adventure alongside a demon recruit and an extremely charming skeleton brother-in-law.

The humor here worked really well for me. It’s packed with puns, self-awareness, and that specific kind of fantasy comedy where everyone seems slightly exhausted by the fact that they’re in a fantasy novel.

At its core though, this is a story about grief, healing, friendship, and finding reasons to move forward. The romance is very light and develops quickly, but I found the friendships and found-family dynamics far more compelling anyway.

My only real criticism is that everything feels a little surface level. The heavier emotional themes are there, but the book rarely digs as deeply into them as I wanted it to.

Still, it’s incredibly charming.

Final thought: A funny, cozy fantasy full of skeletons, necromancy, found family, healing, and enough bone puns to make me question all my life choices.

And that's this week's release-day stack.

As for the standouts, Whistler and The Unicorn Hunters were easily the stars of the week for me, while Down with the Shipmans delivered exactly the kind of nostalgic summer family story I tend to love.

Now I want to hear from you: Which of these new releases are you most excited about? And if you've already picked one up, let me know whether you agree with my verdict or think I completely missed the mark.

Until next Tuesday, happy reading. 📚

Happy June Everyone! We have some verrrryyy exciting picks for this month!

So for our fantasy book you guys voted for She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan.

The thriller winner is You Did Nothing Wrong by CG Drews

Make sure you join the discord to discuss!!

Our ​June 2026 Book Club Pick is The 7 Moons Hotel by Laura Espinal Corpeno!

From the back cover blurb, this book has everything I'm looking for for a cozy mystery summer read, and I can't wait to dive in!

P.S. It's available on Kindle Unlimited, in case you need even more of a reason to join 😉 Weekly reading updates and discussion questions to come soon!

Happy New Release Tuesday!

Here are some new releases we are excited for today!

• Phoning Faust by Sophia Mutiara Nova (***)

• Hunger & Thirst by Claire Fuller

• Marion by Leah Rowan

• Muñeca by Cynthia Gómez

• Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim

Phoning Faust was HEARTBREAKING and I recommend it! Not to mention Sophia is a super sweet person. All the others are TBR for me, but I'm excited for them nonetheless!

Have you read any of them? Please consider buying from our Bookshop.org shop!

Till next time!

-Ryn

Big thank you to everyone who participated in our reading challenge for May! The winner of the may challenge and a $25 bookshop.org (or equivalent) gift certificate is jossansten (this was the name from the StoryGrapgh challenge). I could not find that name on the Discord server, and you cannot message through StoryGrapgh, so if this is you reach out to me by Discord DM or email and we will figure out your gift card.

And of course, it is now time for our June reading challenge. As always, participants are eligible for a $25 bookshop.org gift card (or equivalent if outside of the US). To be eligible, you have to either complete the challenge on StoryGraph (link below), or share what you read on our Discord chat channel for the challenge or as a comment on this post. Please choose only one method of participation, as I know some names are different between StoryGraph and Discord, and no double entries are allowed.

The theme for June is to "Read with Pride," which means reading something in the realm of the LGBTQ+ community. This can be a book written by an author who is LGBTQ+, a story about LGBTQ+ characters, etc. As usual, I'm not going to police this too much! Let us know what you're thinking about reading!

June Reading Challenge on StoryGraph

Something to call myself out on/explain: You may notice I did not originally have themed months for black history month, women's history month, and AAPI month. This was not to intentionally exclude those communities, and I figured there would be questions as we hit June. My original idea for the first few months of the year was to help people get back into reading and so those months had some specific themes. I left some months later on in the year as a bit more vague so I could have flexibility, so we will be revisiting those groups in later months!

I am looking at two books that I hope to get to:

• You Weren't Meant to be Human by Andrew Joseph White

• A Darker Shade of Magic by VE Schwab

Let me know what you're planning on reading this month, and thanks as always for being here!

"There's this life waiting for me, out there. I know it. I've got a book deal. I go home to a partner who love some and doesn't mind taking care of me when I'm sick. My social calendar is brimming, replete. My body feels like mine again; like it did before. That life is just sitting there, at the top of a hill, waiting to be claimed. And I just haven't found a path to the summit yet."

GENRE: Romance; OwnVoice story about Cancer
RATING: 5/5
FORMAT:eBook & physical ARC
Tropes: Slowburn, Breast Cancer Survivor in her 20s, Friends to lovers, Maid of Honour x Best Man, One Tent, Manic pixie dream boy

Review:

What a beautiful book. This is a book that talks about how it feels to get sick, written by an OwnVoice author who went through the same journey as the FMC (Ruby) and you can tell that it's something written based on experience.

Ruby has to grapple with the fact that her life changed overnight while she was sick and deals with the fact that her life, body and everything in between feels like it's no longer hers. I related to so many things in this book because getting an illness, whether it's chronic illness, cancer...etc. comes with a lot of similarities and differences.

It's the way people treat you differently and the way you feel your previous life no longer fits you anymore. Ruby goes through this journey of realising that her friends were never truly there for her and that she isn't the same person anymore.

Oh and Eitan? What a lovely relationship and the way it comes to be? He makes Ruby realise she is worth so much more than she thinks and they help each other in smaller ways. I'd have loved to read his POV but this was a story focused on Ruby's journey, her healing and her life after cancer.

We truly do need more OwnVoice stories in terms of Cancer, disabilities, mental health and everything under this umbrella because for those of us who have ever gone through anything similar, we can tell when its written based on experience and Rebecca truly wrote her heart and emotions in AtDBT. You can see it in the dark humour, in the trying not to give up but what's the point of it all, in the "I have hope but I can't have hope the way you expect me to", in the hospital visits and follow-ups you always have to do, in the way you want to be loved & accepted but always feeling like you're a burden and in so many more ways. It's in the fact that everyone deserves their happy stories, no matter the battles they've gone through in this life.

And finally, here's another quote from this book that I loved:

"It's life, isn't it? We're born and we die, and the time in between is what it is."

I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

"Life at the inn was so ... peaceful. There was no pressure for me to be anyone, to do anything. If anything, it made me ... I dont know. If I was before a roaring flame, burning for success, am now more akin to candelight."

GENRE: Cozy Fantasy
RATING: 4.75/5
FORMAT: eBook ARC

Overall Impression: What a wholesome cozy fantasy book that focuses on found family, building a community and slowing down to enjoy life🥹

Review:
I am always here for Cozy Fantasy that combine academics, found family and slowing down and that's exactly what The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance delivered. We go on an adventure with Ainsworth, who is a scholar that goes to an Inn in order to conduct his research and goes through a huge personal growth journey.

Through Ainsworth journey, we learn that it's okay to slow down and that sometimes, some of us our goals demand that we sacrifice who we are and that it isn't worth it for there can only be one of us in the world. Ainsworth starts to remember who he is throughout his journey and wonders how he has changed so much. He grew up with in a quieter, more rural place in the universe and came to the city. When he did, he gave up a lot of his morals and the things he believes in to impress other people.

He then starts to realise that anything that demands he changes who he is just isn't the right fit for him and the whole journey building up to this was so wholesome and emotional. AND along the way, he finds a new community and amazing friends, including Honey! This Cozy Fantasy definitely had a few twists and unexpected moments filled with humour🥹

OH and the mention of food? I always love that! There are a few Scottish foods mentioned in the book that took me through a research to find recipes for them

I can't wait to read more by Chiara Bullen and explore her books. I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

My friends! With Summer here, and after a few false starts, I'm finally in a position to relaunch our Book Club! (Is it even a relaunch if I never got the thing off the ground in the first place properly? Don't answer that.)

I've been crisscrossing the country for work and will be for the foreseeable future, so in the spirit of getting something done, we'll be reading just one book in June: I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan, which chronicles the grueling realities of working in China's gig economy.

Because we're going to keep it light and fun for Summer.

Weeks 1 and 2 are for getting the book and reading it! I'll post my review in Week 3. Happy June!

Hi friends — and welcome to the very first Wild Card Dispatch. This is my newsletter to share with you my thoughts and book rants and updates to how this Bindery works! First of all, thank you so much for being here, it really means the world to me. 🥹

So I literally just moved to new apartment this weekend after six years. Moving has been chaos in the best way, but the part I'm genuinely obsessed with is plotting out my little reading nook with bookshelf galore and my plants and a cosy sitting spot and ahhh!!!

Because May was AAPI Month, I made a real point of filling my stack with AAPI authors. And because I'm physically incapable of staying in one genre for more than five minutes, the haul ended up being a horror, a satire, two romances, a literary mystery, and a historical fantasy epic — which is the most "me" sentence I've ever typed and exactly what Wild Card Reads is supposed to feel like.

So let's get into it, in literally no particular order at all.

The Winged Game — Sophie Kim ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

You know that feeling when you need a book to just remind you that reading is fun? This was that book for me. It's a fantasy SPORTS romance — yes, both of those things, together, and I had no idea I needed it — with enemies-to-lovers banter so good that Taissa and Kion's internal monologues had me cackling out loud. There's real depth under all the humor too, with backstories and a found family I got genuinely attached to, plus I learned an alarming amount of Scottish slang along the way. I'm a Sophie Kim girl now, no notes, and I will be reading 800 more pages in this world if she'll let me. It really brought joy to my heart.

Out of Her League — Ava Rani ⭐⭐⭐

A cute, sparkly beach-day read, and I'm being honest with you the way I always am: it was a solid time, not a life-changer. What I loved was an FMC who refuses to sacrifice her career for anyone, real rep for women in medicine, a genuinely sweet and understanding MMC, and that supportive-best-friend energy I'm always a sucker for. It lost a little shine for me with some repeated lines and an ex-boyfriend storyline I expected more tension from. But if you want something low-stakes and warm to read with an iced coffee in the sun, this does the job nicely.

Yellowface — R.F. Kuang ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The moral of the story? White women are crazy. June steals the work of her Asian friend Athena (who's dead) and then somehow convinces herself she's the victim, and watching her gaslight everyone — including herself — was a hilarious ride. It's a razor-sharp look at how publishing decides which books are "bestsellers" and how Asian authors basically have to be brilliant just to get in the door. I listened on audio and cannot recommend it enough; the narrator's sarcasm is hysterical. This is literary satire for sure and I know a lot people didn't like it but I think I came in with such low expectations that I ended up being surprised.

The Girl with a Thousand Faces — Sunyi Dean ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This one starts as a ghostly detective tale set in 1940s Hong Kong, post-invasion, and slowly unfolds into something so much bigger — a story about war's scars, revenge, and how generational trauma lingers even thirty-plus years later. The layered structure absolutely hooked me, and the blend of real history with the supernatural felt both completely fresh and deeply moving. There were parts of the book told in second person as well and it was weird because I don't think I've read that much second person POV. If you're drawn to ghost stories that actually have a beating heart and historical weight behind them, this might be for you. It's not really scary or horror I would say, so if you were apprehensive let that change your mind and try it out!

Men Like Ours — Bindu Bansinath ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Let me be upfront: this book made me deeply uncomfortable, and I think that was entirely the point. It's set in a South Asian suburban enclave in New Jersey where a man is found dead in his BMW and the women of the neighborhood get pulled into figuring out what happened. The mystery kept me turning pages, but what it's really about is what happens to people when community becomes a pressure cooker of unfulfilled lives. It takes some of the most painful tendencies that can exist in South Asian culture and concentrates them all into one street, and it's stressful precisely because none of it is invented — but it's also not all of us. One of the main characters, Anita, lived in my head rent-free because you wanted to hate her but you also deeply sympathized with the cards she got. It was bleak, dark, strange, but oddly hard to put down.

Burn the Sea — Mona Tewari ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I genuinely did not expect a book about Portuguese colonizers reimagined as giant half-snake sea monsters to wreck me this much, but here we are. Watching Abbakka go from a reluctant queen shoved onto a throne she never asked for into an actual hero for her whole country was everything — you feel every ounce of her doubt and grief, so by the end she's earned every inch of that strength. What stuck with me most was how the book handles grief: the way sometimes you don't get to stop and fall apart, you just keep moving until you're somewhere safe enough to actually feel it. The South Asian culture on the page was so beautiful I felt genuinely seen, and knowing this is Mona's debut, written because she wanted to see herself in fiction, makes it land even harder. (Tiny proud-aunt moment: this one's a Bindery Books title, and championing debuts like this is exactly why I'm here.)I am THIRSTING for book two.

Suprise: the Wild Card Book Club is officially happening 📚!

Woooo! So, the whole reason I built Wild Card Reads was to have a place where we could actually talk about books beyond a 60-second video where I'm gesturing wildly at a cover. So I'm genuinely thrilled to tell you the Wild Card Book Club is here.

Here's how it works:

• Everyone — free members too — gets into the Discord, where we hang out, scream about plot twists, and post unhinged reactions in real time. Come say hi!

• $5 members get the heart of it: our monthly live virtual book club session (real faces, real conversation, actual humans!), potential guest appearances by authors, early reveals of what we're reading next so you can grab the book in time, and a say in what we pick together. You and me, building the TBR of our lives.

• $12 members get everything above, plus first dibs on the bigger stuff I'm dreaming up for down the road — including, fingers crossed, some in-person meetups one day. 🤞

Our first pick and the full details — how to join the live session, the date, and a guest I'm very excited about — are dropping in a dedicated post later this week. Keep your eyes peeled. 👀

okay, now help me out of my slump

I hope you pick up one of these books or if you have already read one message me in the Discord chat so we can yap!

Now I need you, what should I read next? I've started a few books while I wait for my copy of The Ballad of Fallen Dragons to arrive so I need some recs. What did you read for AAPI Month that I have to get my hands on? Come yell at me in the Discord — and not for nothing, a few of these picks could be on the book club shortlist. 👀

Thank you for being here for dispatch #1. I hope someone read this to the end because I YAPPED.

Talk soon, Samia 🌷

@pxw1

June 2nd is my 8th wedding anniversary. But that's old news...here are some NEW books to be excited about!

Bookstore Girls by Kei Aono 4/5 stars

Put this on your TBR if you love heart-warming stories of found family or stories set in a bookstore.

Meeting New People by Daniel M. Lavery 3.25/5 stars

Put this on your TBR if you enjoy stories with gossip and older protagonists...especially ones that may be the problem.

The Heart of the Nhaga by Lee Young-Do 3/5 stars

Put this on your TBR if you enjoy fantasy from a non-western lens. Fantasy and I are still in fight so it wasn't particularly for me, but I'm thankful we have this finally translated from Korean.

And ones that I'm excited to get my hands on:

Muneca by Cynthia Gomez

Why it interests me: gothic and queer, yes please.

Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim

Why it interests me: a speculative fiction take on an immigration story. I was happy to see that it was an Aardvark Book Club pick for this month.

They All Fall in Love at the End by Haili Blassingame

Why it interests me: messy young queer people.

Mad Eden by Morgan Thomas

Why it interests me: it's been praised for beautiful prose, and is said to "challenge us to confront and reinvent questions of language, sex, prejudice, identity, and the shifting scales of morality."

Jellyfish Problem by Tessa Yang

Why it interests me: it sounds strange (a jellyfish that changes people?). I'm in.

There's Only One Sin in Hollywood by Rasheed Newson

Why it interests me: another gay, Black historical fiction book from the author of My Government Means to Kill Me.

The Secret World of Briar Rose by Cindy Pham

Why it interests me: I've followed Cindy's process to get here on social media and am so excited to see it out in the world. This is queer sleeping beauty retelling.

Hello Froomies and Friends!

It is Pride Month and a new month! We are finally shifting into the summer, and I am loving it so far! So many fun plans as well as planning all of my outfits and such for July when my Ren Faire comes back!

And I am sooooooo glad to be back!

As touched on in one of my most recent posts, I am slowly getting back into routine posting, as well as sharing this focus on my Instagram as well. I want to challenge myself to not just focus on posting whenever I finish a book, but adding more of my creative side when it comes to my bookish content. This could be integrating fashion once more where I bring out the vibes of a book with my clothing, doing more short form content like DOBS, or just chronicling during my reads so I can snapshot the moments that really stick with me.

(Is it just me or do you also forget a book after reading it, but you know you loved it?)

So, adding more smaller quests when it comes to my bookish journey, I think will help me to not be overwhelmed and get stuck in that mentality where I need to "keep up with the Joneses".

Anywho, here is the schedule I am planning again!

Monday: Bi Weekly reading goals/plans. Planning to give myself more than just a week for any goals as well as time for the fun and short reads!

Wednesday: I am still planning to do the weekly check ins, using this for any book reviews/book unboxing. I will also pose a poll or question for my Fairy Circle friends as a writing challenge that will be posted on Saturdays, as well as any prep work

Friday: Fantasy Friday is back!

Saturday: As previously stated, I will be posting snippets and character analysis on my writing or working on the writing prompt that was voted for on Wednesday.

Okay, now that the technical things are out of the way, let us talk TBR for Pride Month!

The books that I am aiming to read within the first two weeks are:

Queerleaders by Olivia A. Cole and Ashley Woodfolk

You X Me by Ayla Vejdani

A Prince Among Pirates by Katie Abdou

Galaxy: The Prettiest Star by Jadzia Axelrod & Jess Taylor

Now this is not an exhaustive list of everything that I am planning/wanting to read during the month of June, these are some books that have stuck out to me the most and I want to include. Especially stories about Nonbinary and Trans characters as well as explorations of other identities within the LGBTQIA+ umbrella.

I cannot wait for all the fun to be had this summer as well as getting back into a routine that works best for me. I want to continue creating this cozy community with you as I continue growing in my whimsy and creativity.

I adore all of you. Stay safe, keep being you, and happy Pride!

I only care about books where women go insane. That's primarily what I read, and what I want to read, and what I write and want to write. This is because I have always wanted to go insane. 

Since becoming a mother in January, I've realized that all I needed to do to go insane was have a baby. 

A baby is a little unit of madness. There is no reasoning with a baby. They are thoroughly dysregulated — digestion, sleep, limb control. They rely on you to shepherd them into the realm of the living. This is how we eat. And this is how we sleep. And this is how we distinguish between day and night. And this is how we receive comfort when we are upset. And this is how we come to know and depend on one another. 

Onboarding someone to human existence would be a tough job if I were in peak condition. But I did it as most mothers do: my brain demented by lack of sleep, my taint in tatters.

Delivery was my first taste of the madness.

After pushing for a couple hours to no avail, the OBGYN on call informed me that my baby was “massive.” This news startled me. At the advice of my OBGYN (who wasn't on call and therefore not present), I hadn't done a third trimester ultrasound because my pregnancy was progressing normally without complications. Up until this moment everything indicated my baby was of average size. 

The doctor added that my baby’s shoulder was stuck on my pelvic bone (this is called “shoulder dystocia” if you want to look it up on TikTok and freak yourself out – no judgment here, it's one of my favorite pastimes). To get the baby out, I’d need either an episiotomy or a C-section, and my pushes in the next ten minutes would determine which. 

Suddenly, the room flooded with people in scrubs. In my memory, I blink and there they were, cluttering the previously empty room. I don't know what their jobs were and how they could help me. They just quietly watched me.

As I mustered all of my energy into each push, my doula, OB and nurse insisted over and over and over with unfailing enthusiasm: “You can do this!” 

Why are you saying that? I thought. What evidence do you have that I can do this? I didn't dare say this out loud.

Now I understand that this is the unhinged contradiction at the heart of motherhood: You are given an impossible task. You are told over and over that you can do it. When you express doubt or anxiety or despair, you risk being pathologized.

My plan was to enter the first weeks of motherhood on the lookout for anxiety and depression. I was determined to scan myself frequently for unrecognizable thoughts and behavior.

As soon as I was thrust into early motherhood, I found this understanding of postpartum anxiety and depression absurd. You know what was insane? The idea that anyone would not feel anxious or depressed in these circumstances. 

My vulva and butthole alternated between aching and burning. Even laughing sent a jolt of pain through my anus. When I told a lactation consultant that I found breastfeeding painful, she cocked her head and asked if I had especially sensitive nipples. I slept in mercilessly short bursts, awoken either by imaginary cries or real cries. My body seemed unable to refresh on this little sleep. To be awake meant brimming with sluggish confusion and dread.

I fantasized constantly about abandoning my life. How would I do it? I pictured jumping in my car and driving far, far away. But I wanted to bring my baby, whom I felt an opioid-level attachment to. I'd bring my baby with me, yes, but, somehow, when I was far, far away from my home, I wouldn't have to breastfeed or stay up all night, and I'd have an entirely new body. 

I can't even come up with a competent fucking fantasy, I seethed to myself.

I was absolutely certain I could not go on. I could not tolerate having milk sucked out of me every 2-3 hours – neither the physical discomfort nor the constricting schedule. I could not spend another hour rocking my baby with no guarantee of relief. I could not function on so little sleep. 

"I'm shocked more babies don't die," I told a friend when he called to check in.

"I mean, that does happen," he said with a nervous laugh.

"Not nearly as often as makes sense to me now," I replied.

Reading the book Matrescence by Lucy Jones was one of my sole comforts.

In it, she writes: "As a society, we just don't seem to be very interested in the actual flesh and bones of the maternal experience. Maternal subjectivity has, until very recently, been almost entirely absent from Western philosophy, literature and culture. I hadn't read about it in any of the core texts in my English literature degree."

I got a MFA in creative writing. None of our assigned short stories or novels addressed motherhood in depth. We were always talking about finding the universal in the specific. Mining life for magical moments that unexpectedly sparked empathy and revealed profound emotional truths. 

None of my life experience from before held a fucking candle to these raw months. I will never be done processing it. I could write about it forever. How has anyone kept silent about this?

I had a friend whose newborn was deemed underweight at one of her first pediatrician appointments. The pediatrician informed her that she'd need to "triple feed" her baby, which means breastfeed the infant every two hours, then bottle feed the baby formula and then pump to encourage her breasts to produce more milk. 

By my estimation, it would take two hours to do all of this – nurse, then give the baby a bottle and then pump – meaning this schedule effectively guaranteed no sleep. It demanded round-the-clock physical and mental labor.  

At the same appointment, my friend had to fill out the Edinburgh survey. I know because I had to at my baby's appointments too. We were asked to rank how much we identified with the following sentences:

I look forward with enjoyment to things. What should I look forward to? I alternated between changing my diaper and the baby's diaper. Nobody could give me a clear answer on when this would change.

I have been so unhappy that I've had trouble sleeping. I wasn't sleeping because my baby wouldn't sleep, and that made me unhappy. My sleep-deprived mind couldn't sort out the causal relationship here. Which came first? The chicken or the egg? The unhappiness or the lack of sleep?

I have blamed myself unnecessarily when things went wrong. This baby depended on me for food, sleep, hygiene, comfort. Was it irrational to have a pronounced sense of culpability? 

I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things. Sorry, what was funny about all of this? (I actually did find many moments hysterical, like watching my baby stare in amazement at an illustration of just a white circle on a black background, but I blame delirium.)

In Matrescence, Lucy Jones writes, "Why are we sending a high-risk group off the spend an unknown period of time at home alone, where they must look after vulnerable infants and recover from the trauma of giving birth, while burdened with loneliness, lack of sleep, and a shedload of impossible cultural expectations, including the imperative to enjoy every minute of it? Are these the actions of a responsible or functional society?"

When they tell you, “You can do this!”, what they actually mean is, “You have to do this." 

What they should say is, "You have no choice but to reconfigure yourself in such a way that you can do this.” 

I would have told myself, "You're right. You cannot do this. What's being asked of you is unfeasible. Your despair is normal. You have every right to question platitudes, doctors, reality itself. And also, little by little, your brain and body will transform and adapt. The process is unprecedentedly painful and gradual. It will render you unrecognizable. You will run yourself dry of your resilience. You will continue somehow. This is insanity."

It’s not insane that mothers think they can’t do it. What’s insane is that mothers do do it.

Hey hey Sickos, the Monday Update/Weekly Checkpoint is back after a brief hiatus due to day drinking all Memorial Day weekend. Tell me what you've been reading and plan to read and let's boogie!

READING

REVIEW

THE ROMAN EMNPIRE IN CRISIS, 248-260: WHEN THE GODS ABANDONED ROME by PAUL N. PEARSON (historical nonfiction)

Progress: Finished

This attempted to be a mix of academic and popular history and it pulled that off pretty well. I was concerned how interesting Pearson could make this as most historians just blitz through this run. The first half was super strong when working through Philip the Arab and Decius, and the rest wasn't too shabby either. Was not as bored as I thought I'd be and I become obsessed with that scamp Decius, so that's worth somethin'. Falls in the 3.5 - 3.75 range with a yes recommendation for Roman nuts.

PARABLE OF THE TALENTS [EARTHSEED #2] by OCTAVIA E. BUTLER (speculative fiction)

Progress: Finished

I was promised this was bleaker than Parable of the Sower and damn did it deliver on that. I did a full review of those two books on YouTube so I'll keep it brief. Loved it. 5 stars.

EMPIRES OF THE STEPPES: A HISTORY OF THE NOMADIC TRIBES WHO SHAPED CIVILIZATION by KENNETH W. HARL (historical nonfiction)

Progress: 117/410

For the early portions of this, I've been using The Horse, the Wheel, and Language as a supplementary reference because it goes into much greater detail on the archaeological evidence and the development of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) languages. Not that this one isn't packed with detail, it's just much more brisk and sweeping.

I've been irritated by the formatting (which is just massive paragraphs with no subheadings) and how Rick from Walking Dead voice HAAAARL will jump around the timelines within the same topic, but the information is excellent. I loved the section on the Scythians and Xiongnu and as I mentioned yesterday, will be doing some Scythian content regarding their conflicts with the Persians. So basically it's flawed in execution, but great with insight so far.

AUGUSTUS by JOHN WILLIAMS

Progress: 121/305

The only thing that could make this better is if it were a little sluttier, because the Romans, especially the men, were nothing if not enormous, messy sluts. By that I mean I'd love a bit more raunchiness and humanity in these communications between characters. That said, I understand why that's not a realistic ask. This is, after all, a novel assembled from letters, diary entries, and official decrees ("epistolary" is the fancy term), so there's only so much room for that sort of thing. A man can dream though.

Anyway I'm a meme of a man because the least predictable thing has happened; I'm loving it. I wouldn't jump into this without any previous knowledge of the period but if you fw ancient Rome you'll probably love it too.

PREVIEW

Once I finish these I'll likely go right to the Fiction/History Sickos Book Club picks, which will be a re-read of The Spear Cuts Through Water and And AND And the Band Played On.

EVERYTHING ELSE

I finished my Breaking Bad re-watch, and I'm gonna rank the seasons 5 > 4 > 2 > 3 > 1. There's a stretch in those last two seasons that's just f'n elite. I watched El Camino to cap it off and I've been using Better Call Saul as my background show while I rotate between games like Disco Elysium, Old World, and Tropico 6.

My build for Disco Elysium this time around is a communist, druggie, Disco superstar. Old World I'm only just learning as I'm hoping it takes away some of the pain of Civilization VII bombing. Tropico 6 is yet another run through the core missions and DLC as we await a Tropico 7 release date. If you've ever wanted to be a dictator of a small island (and whomst amongst us hasn't?), Tropico is your game.

It's officially Aggressive Cut Szn so if I'm miserable in the Discord just blame it on the 1500 calories a day during the week. K bai

Happy pride month, everyone! Last year I featured only queer authors on Rebel Ever After during June. This year... every author on the podcast so far has written a queer romance novel or several! Funny how that happens when your goal is to feature progressive voices in the genre who don't receive as much publishing support as their peers.

There is a flood of phenomenal queer romances coming to shelves in the next few months. Here are some upcoming books written by previous REA guests that you should support. Pre-orders make a huge difference, from helping an author reach best-seller lists to signaling to their publisher that it's worth investing more in marketing and promotion. If you can't pre-order at this time, consider adding the book on GoodReads, requesting that your local library stock the book, or simply sharing this post with a friend.

Cheers queers, and happy reading!