Happy Wednesday, book friends! This week, the weather in Pittsburgh is a good mix of rain and sun. I love a good spring storm, so I have been enjoying the rain as long as the weather stays warmer. 

The most exciting update for this week is without a doubt that we finally put up our Little Free Library! We bought a build kit with money we got around the holidays in December, but with the wedding it ended up being put aside until we both had more time to devote to getting everything together. 

That time is now, and Your Book Friend has a little outpost in the real world! Looking forward to this new layer of building bookish community. I’ve put a lot of my gently loved books in there already and look forward to watching them find new homes. 

Speaking of loving books, let’s hop into the reading update for this week!

(Full disclosure: Book links are Bookshop.org affiliate links. Books marked with an asterisk were received as advanced review copies). 

---

Recent Reads

Per usual, I finished a few books all at once!

I finally wrapped up Ruby Warrington’s memoir slash spiritual textbook, Material Girl: Mystical World. When I started reading it, I thought it would go down as one of my all-time favorite witchy reads, but that feeling sort of waned as I went along and it ended up being just okay. I learned a few new things, but scratched my head at a few, too. My full review went up earlier this week if you’re curious: 

Also finished: Katherine Heiny’s Early Morning Riser. I very much enjoyed the quiet humor and plot of this one, with its small town slice of life vibes. Still not sure why several of the blurbs on the book jacket refer to it as “hopeful” since a lot of the book is kind of depressing, but in a relatable, real-life kind of way. I think I’d call it more… affirming than hopeful. As in, most of us will live relatively uneventful lives with a few Big Events and what makes it all worth it is the people we love. I don’t know if I have it in me to write a full review of this one, as I’m still digesting it and think it will sit quietly in my mind for some time. 

---

Current Reads

The time has come, my friends. I am reading The F*ck It Diet and holy heck is it phenomenal already. Before we go on, a content warning: this book is about moving away from diet culture which means I’ll be discussing food and dieting for a bit here. If that is triggering for you, skip ahead to the bold content warning over marker below. 

So, I’m about 30 pages in and already I have learned so much about why diets do not work and, in fact, can lead to weight gain and poor health outcomes over time. For instance, I learned that restricting your food convinces your body that there’s a famine because your biology doesn’t get the difference between choosing not to eat food and just not having access to enough food, so it does all kinds of things to try and help you survive said famine. Yikes. 

The tone is a great balance of knowledge and humor. The author feels like a funny friend who both gets why you used to diet and has the facts to help you make the decision to stop. It’s heavy stuff, but delivered gently, and I suspect I’ll get throguh it pretty quickly and highlight all the things. Okay, that’s enough for now, so content warning over! 

Fiction-wise, I’ve started Sonali Dev’s The Emma Project*, which came out yesterday on May 17th. It is part of the Rajes series, which are loosely inspired by the works of Jane Austen. To be honest, I didn’t love the first book in the seires, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors when I read it, but I like the idea of this series so much I decided to try again. So far, not so good, but I’m waiting a bit longer before I DNF since it’s a review copy. 

---

Up Next & On to You

I am feeling really energized by my nonfiction reads right now and I am super excited to pick up another self development text when I finish my current one. Not sure if I’ll go with Anti-Diet or be ready for a different topic for a moment to let myself digest, so we’ll see how it goes. 

Fiction wise I feel a bit slumpy. I did just received my copy of Book Lovers but I get kind of weird about hoarding new books by favorite authors and waiting for the perfect time to read them, whatever that is. I think I might do Lessons in Chemistry next or grab a title from my NetGalley shelves. We’ll see where the winds take me, I guess! 

What about you, book friends? What have you been reading or looking forward to lately? 

---

Stay in touch! You can follow us here, on Medium, Instagram, and/or Twitter.

You can also support us by joining Medium using this referral link or buying me a coffee!