Some reflecitons on my reading stats this month:

• I read waaaay more non-fiction than fiction, but I had a great reading month with a super high average rating, so that's fine with me.

• I do want to try to read more from around the world next month. This month was abysmal when it came to that type of diversity.
  

Favorite non-fiction book: "A Year with the Seals" by Alix Morris

Synopsis: In a world where wildlife populations are disappearing at an alarming rate, A Year with the Seals is a rare look at what happens when conservation efforts actually work, and how human tampering with ecosystems continues to have unexpected consequences for a wide variety of species, humans included. 

Review: This was such an enjoyable read. Every time I wasn’t reading it, I wanted to be reading it. I learned so much, especially about the cycle of human-animal relationships and how we impact the world around us (even when we’re trying to help).

Favorite fiction book: "On Sundays She Picked Flowers" by Yah-Yah Scholfield

Synopsis: When Judith Rice killed her mother, she thought she put an end to the woman's hold on her. Seventeen years later, secluded deep in the woods of northern Georgia, Jude knows that the past isn't all that easy to discard.


Alone with her strange house and even stranger woods, Jude must grapple with ghosts, haints, beasts, and an enigmatic woman who threatens to undo the tentative peace Jude's built for herself by fanning the violence that lives just underneath her skin.


Review: I couldn’t put this book down. The tension that started to build from page one was so marvelously done. My favorite part of this book was how it explored complex family relationships, generational trauma, and forgiveness. It was brutal, haunting, and hopeful.

At times the book felt like it was two separate books and stories put into one and I wish that the two stories ended up being a little more interconnected.

I can’t recommend this book enough though and thought it was a true stand-out in the horror genre. I can’t believe this is a debut.

Please check trigger warnings before reading this book. It had very dark and heavy themes.

What I’ve added to my TBR (to-be-read)

• "The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue" by Zoulfa Katouh: Look at this cover😍 A poignant novel about a Syrian American girl who uses a magical sketchbook to turn her grief into art, painting miraculous murals of her mother’s life in Syria.

• "Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence": The organizers, journalists, and scholars in these pages are charting a new path forward, employing creative tools to subvert the status quo, organize globally against high-tech border imperialism, and help us imagine a world without borders.

• "False Calm" by María Sonia Cristoff: Part reportage, part personal essay, part travelogue, False Calm is the breakout work by Argentinian author María Sonia Cristoff. Writing against romantic portrayals of Patagonia, Cristoff returns home to chronicle the ghost towns left behind by the oil boom.

• "Black Bear" by Trina Moyles: A dazzling memoir about one woman's coexistence with bears in the boreal forest and a singular meditation on sibling loss.