What I Read in March: Dinah
My reading habits in March took an interesting turn. I read two thrillers, one great and very complex that tackles race, gentrification and conspiracy theories, and another less complex pick that looks at the world of British mommy bloggers. I also re-read a fantasy series in anticipation of reading the next book in the series - which will be in my April recap! I honestly feel a little bit bad that I don’t have more books to share with you all, but April is already off to a strong start with one book down and several waiting in queue.
What I Read in March: Dinah
When No One is Watching
I did not read a ton about this book by Alyssa Cole before I started reading it, but it was basically the book version of Get Out, but around gentrification in Brooklyn, real estate and several wild conspiracy theories. I loved how this book switched perspectives between Sydney, a black woman living in her mother’s house and trying to both stop the changes in her neighborhood and maintain several secrets of her own, and Theo, a white man who recently moved to the neighborhood with his now-estranged girlfriend.
They start out with the innocent intent of giving a neighborhood tour during an upcoming summer block party, but things start to get extremely strange and happen very fast. I don’t want to ruin the mystery of the book, but I loved this. It took me a little while to get into it, and moved very slowly, until all of a sudden things were happening at a breakneck speed. I felt very “in the moment” with the characters and couldn’t put it down for the last third of the story.
People Like Her
This book Ellery Lloyd had a few different things that sold me with the description - it’s a thriller, about an influencer, in England, so three of my favorite book qualities! This dives deep into the world of British mommy influencers, where “authenticity” is so important that people online are faking it to grow their audience, and making both fans and bitter enemies while they do it. Emmy is an online ultra-famous “instamum” with a novelist husband (who resents her fame and judges her fakery) and two children. She starts to feel the strain of her account and image both on herself and her marriage, as well as an increased responsibility to her audience and her family’s financial future. As she tries to maintain her audience and grow her career, she makes some major mistakes. Meanwhile, someone is plotting to harm her family because of parenting advice gone very wrong.
I thought this book was fun, although Emmy was wildly unlikeable. It definitely is a book that makes you think about how you relate to influencers and people online, and just how curated that content may be.
A Court of Thorns and Roses
I love a good series, but the problem with them is that when I new book comes out, you have to remind yourself where the last books left off, and with a fantasy series, there are so many words, and rules and characters and specific things that you have to relearn, that I end up having to re-read the previous books every time a new one comes out. So that’s what happened here, with this incredible series by Sarah J. Maas about Feyre, a human woman that kills a faerie and the price is that she has to give up her life and go live in a faerie kingdom with the Lord of Spring. All is not well in the kingdom though, and Feyre finds herself in the middle of a curse that needs to be broken, deadly political rivalries and series of surprising twists. Also, occasionally some very hot faerie sex!
I am really excited to read the next book in the series, but last month it did take up a ton of my time to read the first three books again. If you are interested in them, the titles are A Court of Thorns and Roses, A Court of Mist and Fury, and A Court of Wings and Ruin. The next book, that I’m so excited about, is A Court of Silver Flames.