What I Read in January: Dinah

Apparently all I did in January was stay at home reading zippy modern romances, books set in the tech world and stories about New York City! My brain this month wanted fast, fun reads that I could finish in a few days, and my waitlist at the library served up exactly that.

Tweet Cute

I read quite a bit of romance this month, starting with this adorable YA novel by Emma Lord. It’s set in Manhattan against the backdrop of an elite private school, but less Gossip Girl and more Dash & Lily. The plot focuses on two teenagers, one the daughter of the CEO of a Shake Shack-like burger chain, and the other the son of a couple that runs a New York City sandwich shop. When the big company steals a sandwich from the smaller shop, a Twitter war breaks out between the two teens who are actually running the accounts. As they navigate the ups and downs of going viral, manage family dynamics, flirt with secret crushes on an anonymous high school social platform, and apply to colleges, the stakes get higher, along with the pressure on their growing friendship.

Self Care

This book by Leigh Stein immediately drew me in, as it’s about two polar opposites that run a social media platform dedicated to self care for women immediately following the 2016 election. When one of the founders posts something about Ivanka Trump that goes a little bit too far, she faces a swift backlash and starts to question her workaholic, nightly drinking lifestyle, as her wellness guru partner tries to steady the ship while handling her own personal life and aggressive schedule of workout classes, meditation, facials and fasting. Then, a scandal that neither sees coming rocks the foundation of their company and their friendship.

I really liked this book at the start as I’m interested in the start up and wellness worlds, but as I read more it felt rushed and unfinished. It read more like a novella that someone intended to expand into a full book, rather than a full book on it’s own.

The Bride Test

Definitely one of the sweeter and more inclusive romances I have read in a while, the book is about a Thai girl named Esme, who meets a mysterious woman at the hotel she works at and agrees to go to California and meet her son, with the intention of marrying him. Esme has alternate motives, tracking down her father who she never knew, and making a better life for her family. However Khai, her intended groom proves to be hard to break through with, as he is on the autism spectrum and believes that he can’t feel love. With a few summer weddings as benchmarks along the way, Esme and Khai try to figure out their relationship and their futures, both together and separate.

When I started this I was a little bit concerned about the “mail order bride/90 Day Fiance” vibe of it all, but Esme was a fully realized person with a ton of agency, independence and good intention, which made it more palatable. I also loved that we got inside of Khai’s brain to see how he processed the romance and his feelings, a perspective we don’t see as often with autistic characters. Overall, it left me with a lot of warm fuzzies about there being someone for everyone, and I am definitely going to read the other books in the series.

Three Single Wives

The one true thriller that I read this month starts with a group of four women who were in a book club in Los Angeles and are all witnesses in a murder trial. The book flashes between depositions/court testimony and each of their perspectives in the months leading up to the murder, showing you how these women came to know each other and be at the book club that night. The mystery is who was killed and then who exactly killed him, with the entire book club having both motive and opportunity, as well as a number of secrets.

I read this in around two days and was definitely surprised by some of the plot twists, which for me is the mark of a good thriller. I also loved the relationships between the different women, and seeing how their very different lives all came together to take down very bad men.

The Boys’ Club

If you have ever worked in an extremely intense environment, or anything in finance, this book is going to hit very close to home. Set in the world of corporate law, the main character is a first year at one of the big Wall Street law firms, trying to break into the hard-partying, intense and long hours of the Mergers & Acquisitions group. As she tries to be “one of the guys” she has to reconcile who she was with the person she is becoming, and just how far she will go for money and success.

Having lived in NYC and worked in financial PR right out of college, I definitely related to the intensity of M&A industry, and the “work hard play hard” attitude, even though my firm didn’t play quite as hard as these characters! While the main character makes a number of terrible decisions, I enjoyed seeing her grow up a bit throughout the book, and reconcile what success truly meant to her, as well as seeing her learn to trust the colleagues she only viewed as competitors for most of the book.

The Right Swipe

I talked about this book a bit in the Monday Missive, and recommended the series in our Romance reading post last week, but it was really delightful! The main character Rhiannon is clearly based on the founder of Bumble, running a more feminist dating app, and fighting against racism and sexism in the tech world, while Samson is a former NFL player trying to figure out his post-football life and career, while dealing with the repercussions of CTE and the deaths of his uncle and father. One of the reasons the book is so enjoyable is that they both have outside concerns and plot lines in addition to their romance, so the things that drive their decisions feel refreshingly real!