My Month Is Booked: November 2025

Welcome to the My Month is Booked linkup! :] I was on vacation for about a week last month so I finished 4 books in that week alone, haha.

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The Wedding People, by Alison Espach – Phoebe arrives alone at the Cornwall Inn dressed in an elegant green dress + heels and is immediately mistaken for one of the wedding people. As it turns out, she is the only one there who hasn’t been invited to the wedding — coming here was a dream she’s had for years and she’s determined to have one last splurge on herself. The bride has been planning this wedding for ages and has accounted for every last detail and potential disaster…except for Phoebe, but the two become unlikely friends and start confiding in each other.

This was a heartwarming/touching read, with parts that made me laugh out loud and other parts that were definitely more poignant + made me think. I liked how the author handled the darker topics + despite a lot of the subject matter discussed, it definitely read more as hopeful.

Doll Parts, by Penny Zang – Nikki and Sadie are best friends who attend a small all-women’s school together. The school has a Sylvia Plath club that has a haunting backstory, with many of its members who’ve passed away, all written off as suicides. Nikki is an aspiring writer + becomes drawn to this and starts digging deeper. 20 years later, Sadie is following in the footsteps of her now-dead best friend + becomes more and more convinced that Nikki is sending her clues from beyond the grave.

This was the pick for the Bad Bitch Book Club — I actually managed to pop into one of the discussions and if you’re looking for sad-girl dark academia that’s told in a dual-timeline, this would be right up your alley! It was an interesting read overall but slow in the beginning and very rushed at the end. I would likely have enjoyed it more if the author had gone into more detail on the why of what happened. (It’s possible she left it as she did to have it open for speculation though?) Shoutout to the mention of Livejournal though — that was my jam back in the day!

The Lost Bookshop, by Evie Woods – A dual timeline story following Opaline, a women who escapes her older brother’s plant to marry her off, present-day Martha, who escapes an abusive marriage, and Henry, a scholar looking for a lost manuscript who finds a vanishing bookshop next-door to where Martha is living.

I got this book on Kindle in a GoodReads giveaway and really, really wanted to like this more, because I felt like it had everything I was looking for in a cozy read: historical fiction but with a magical bookstore, a little mystery…but unfortunately, I felt the characters were really flat and wildly immature. (I don’t know how old they were supposed to be, but they definitely didn’t act it.) There is supposed to be some element of magical realism but it isn’t ever explained.

Teller of Small Fortunes, by Julie Leong – A wandering fortune teller who travels alone between villages unexpectedly gets recruited by a semi-reformed thief and an ex-mercenary to search for a lost child. Along the way, they meet a baker who “kneads” adventure (hehe) + a slightly magical cat.

This was my bookclub’s pick for our last meeting of the year! I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of “found family” cozy reads lately — this was a super cute read, great to curl up with on a cold day with a blanket and hot tea. :]

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson – Set in the 1930’s, Cussy Mary is a packhorse librarian and the last living female of the “Blue People” ancestry. Despite her dangerous route and the prejudice she faces, she befriends others and is determined to bring books/knowledge to those living in rural hollers up in Appalachian Kentucky.

Ever since reading Giver of Stars, I’ve kinda been wanting to read more about the packhorse librarian project. We very vaguely touched upon methemoglobinemia in medical school, so this brought back those snippets of memories on that as well! I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator did a really great job in bringing Cussy Mary to life. This was beautifully written, with some parts that were very touching, and others that were infuriating (the consequences of some of the characters’ racism and prejudice).  There is apparently a sequel to this, so I’ll likely be reading that soon!

The Calico Cat at the Chibineko Kitchen, by Yuta Takahashi – This is a quick read with 4 different short stories (some intertwining) where people visit the Chibineko Kitchen, a magical place where they are served “kagezan” (remembrance meal) and are able to reunite with a loved one for as long as the food is steaming.

I was auto-approved for this one by NetGalley (my first auto-approval! :o! ), possibly because they saw that I’d read The Curious Kitten at the Chibineko Kitchen a couple months ago + also We’ll Prescribe You A Cat last month? This is the sequel to the former (as you might guess from the title, haha) and is another great example of healing fiction. I think there are 8 books total but only these two have been translated so far. The recipes at the end of each story made me want to start cooking again! This will be available next year at the end of February!

Daisy Jones & The Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid – A novel told in the form of an interview/documentary about the whirlwind rise to fame of a (fictional, much to my disappointment) 1970’s rock n’ roll group and their lead singer + their breakup right at the height of their popularity.

If you have a chance to listen to this as an audiobook, I’d highly recommend it! This is so well-written + I liked the author’s unique way of telling it + the way the characters were brought to life (especially from the full cast of characters on the audiobook). The music I listen to is mostly from high school/college, so I very briefly thought this was a real band (lol) and was super disappointed when I found out it was not (the way the songs were discussed made me want to listen to their whole album!). Luckily for me, this is apparently also a TV series, so I will be watching it soon! I think(?) the author was also heavily inspired by Fleetwood Mac, so I suppose I’ll be listening to that as well!

• Are you in the middle of any books right now? I’m reading A Marriage At Sea (a recommendation from Wendy’s book reviews from last month) and The Poinsettia Girl.
• What was your favorite read last month?