Framed Florals Reads // Spring 2021
“I came for the flowers and stayed for the books” was the ultimate compliment received in my DM’s this season. I genuinely love reading, it’s been my #1 hobby since I was a kid so I’m always happy to share that with you all too! A new season, same concept of a book round up! At the end of 2020 I rounded up my favorite books I read through the year, and narrowing down 45 books was hard! So this year I’m doing a seasonal recap of everything I read! I hope it inspires you to pick up a new book, revisit a book you love, or just continue growing your “to be read” list! (Mine is currently out of control but I’m slowly chipping away at it!) This spring season I read 15 books, and I’m going to share them with you now!
TW: I want to mention each of these books comes with it’s own sensitive subjects, so if you have any triggering topics you’d like to avoid, please google reviews for specific trigger warnings!♡
Destination Wedding
by Diksha Basu
This book was such a fun vacation for my mind. The book follows the main characters as they travel to India for a family members wedding. I love how all the characters love lives and personal struggles intercept and evolve over the course of the wedding weekend. The author did an amazing job of sharing the beauty and lavishness of Indian weddings and the reality of the country outside of the elite events. Could definitely see myself being bff’s with the main character (she lived in Williamsburg in the book too!) I especially loved the romantic storylines between the parents and “older” characters!
Felix Ever Afterr
by Kacen Callender
Loved this one! Easily my favorite YA novel I’ve read in a long time. It’s about a transgender teen in nyc who wants to fall in love, so sweet. He starts getting super creepy IG messages from an anonymous account and then the same person prints photos of Felix before he transitioned along with his deadname. With the help of his friends and family he uses their support, art, & IG messages to make big life choices. (And maybe fall in love too.) I wish this would be made into a tv show or movie, it was such a good read.
Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalistt
by Eli Saslow
Okay wow this one. This should be required reading. If you’re not familiar with Derrick Black, he’s the son a KKK grandwizard who was poised to be the next David Duke, the face of white nationalism. He grew up in an insular white nationalist community and was homeschooled by his white nationalist parents. His dad started stormfront, the neo-nazi Internet forum. The book chronicles his upbringing, connection to David duke (he was essentially a dad to him), and like the book says, how he rose out hatred. He went to a liberal college and his friends slowly started chipping away at his preconceived notions about minorities, Jews, and anyone who wasn’t white. I think the most fascinating thing was how Derrick was well liked, a “nice” person, and wasn’t violent. Being nice does not equate to anti racist!! The last part of the book was hard to listen to as it started delving into tr*mp territory and hearing his name gives me stomach pain, but it was just such a sad look at how he was able to rally so many racist, white nationalist, and antiSemitic followers. That said, I haven’t been able to stop talking about this book and highly recommend it!!
The Last Mrs. Parrish
This was such a fun read. Based in an affluent seaside Connecticut town, Amber enters the community with a mission, to meet Mr. Parrish. She becomes friends with his wife, entwines herself in their community, and it all just goes from there. Like any good thriller there were a lot of twists and turns, and it was such a quick read!
Verity
by Colleen Hoover
Oh my god. I can’t believe it took me this long to read this book. Other than Pretty Girls (which I read last year) this might be my favorite thriller ever. In the shortest summary, Verity is an acclaimed writer who goes into a vegetative state after a car accident. Her husband picks a new author to ghost write the last books in Verity’s book series, and that author finds more than she could have ever imagined while sifting through Verity’s office. If you like thrillers and haven’t read this, don’t make my mistake - read it today! And then when you’re done please slide in my DM’s with your thoughts. I was so distraught after the book I joined a Verity Discussion facebook group. No shame, I literally did. This book will do that to you!
The Other Woman
by Sandie Jones
This was more of a slower paced thriller but definitely gave me an anxiety attack at times. Emily meets a seemingly perfect man, falls in love, all is perfect, until she meets his mom. From there it’s a web of controlling behavior and anxiety ridden moments. It would be the perfect beach read, if read quickly could definitely finish it in a day or two kind of book!
Maybe in Another Life
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I’m no author, so I try hard not to totally shit all over books and their authors, but this one I almost threw in the towel about 3 times because it was so bad. I hate even saying that, because I LOVE TJR’s other books. Truly, LOVE her other work. But this one made me question everything I like about her. 60% of the way through I debated just DNF’ing but I was so close to being done, I switched to audio book. I skipped about 15% and got to the end and it didn’t make me like it anymore. So bad. K I’m done, in short, I sadly really hated this book BUT you may like it!!
The Boys' Club
by Erica Katz
After finishing the worst book I’ve read in a long time, I really needed something to pull me out of what could have been a bad reading slump. I took a chance on this one because I had heard great things, and I’m SO glad I did. The Boys Club follows Alex, a recent law grad who lands her dream job at a big time nyc law firm. She’s swept up into the money, fancy dinners, all night drinking & drugs, and finds her life crumbling around her. As the only female usually attending any work related nights & events she is put in horrible situations with sleazy and power hungry executives. I was rooting for her all along and the book had such a satisfying & feminist ending. Highly recommend!
Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who's Been There
by Tara Schuster
I promise I’m not a book monster but I also hated this book! I think I was swayed by the title, the cover, and what must have been a ton of money poured into PR companies hyping this book up, because it was bad. White girl with zero self awareness bad. The amount of privilege that was overlooked in this book made me so angry. I should have known better, but if you’re looking for a self care book, this isn’t it. It’s more like a long diary entry about how day drinking sucks and post it notes will fix your life and you should go to therapy 3x a week (as if that is an option for ANYONE.) I don’t recommend this one.
The Baddest Girl on the Planet
by Heather Frese
Again, following a horrible read I needed something GOOD. So glad I took a chance on this one, it had barely any reviews on good reads and was the authors first book, but was rated highly so I went for it. I LOVED it. I loved the authors style of writing, super sharp, funny, and witty. The book follows Evie through the many chapters of her life, her ups & downs with men, female friendships, funny adventures. I loved her. Highly recommend!
The Wife Stalker
by Liv Constantine
Clearly I love everything Liz Constantine writes. This is definitely one of my favorites. I finished this one in 3 sittings. An amazing twisty creepy thriller. Marital problems, another woman, so much drama. I didn’t predict the ending which totally surprised me. This one would be an amazing beach read!!
The Last Thing He Told Me
by Laura Dave
I finished this one super quickly! It felt like less of a thriller and more like a mystery, but I loved it. It’s about a husband who goes missing and leaves a note for his wife, requesting that she protect her step daughter, his daughter. The relationship dynamic between the daughter and step mom was so rocky but the ending was so sweet. The dad felt very “we work” recent scandal to me!
Happy & You Know It
by Laura Hankin
This was such a cute read. It’s about a musician who starts performing for a childrens group, all rich Manhattan mommies. She gets super tangled up in their drama, relationships, and lives. I loved reading about how all the moms drama intercepted! It felt like it could be based on a real story. Would also make a great beach read!
When No One is Watching
by Alyssa Cole
Loved this one!! It’s like Get Out meets Brooklyn gentrification meets steamy romance. Alyssa Cole combined all things so well in her first thriller, I want to read 100 books more just like this. Especially thrillers by Black authors!! It was spooky, timely, and it read it in about 3 days.
Arsenic and Adobo
by Mia P. Manansala
I had been so excited to read this one! I preordered it at the end of last year so it was such a fun surprise to get it in the mail, I had totally forgotten about it! I loved the idea of a “cozy mystery” which is a genre I had only learned about recently. It combines a mystery (in this case an alleged murder), food (in this book it’s all about Filipino cuisine), and a bit of a romance. This book made me really hungry as the protagonist was a chef and baker, and the way she described the meals they prepared was amazing. If you’re not into thrillers or anything too scary, cozy mysteries might be your new thing!