The heart wants what the heart wants, and our hearts want books.

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In the midst of this busy holiday season, consider adding one more thing to your schedule: Virtual Book Club!  We will gather on Friday, December 10 at 7:30 P.M. CST to discuss A Perilous Undertaking (Veronica Speedwell #2) by Deanna Raybourn.  This series, like book club, is a fun hang that will be a welcome respite from all the other chaotic things going on in your life (just me?  All good, but show up to keep me company maybe?!).  If you’re planning to join us, sign up here so we can email you the link Friday afternoon.  Can’t make it?  Slide into our DMs with what day / time would be better for you, title or genre suggestions for 2022, and / or ideas on what you’d like us to bring to the blog in 2022!

Last time, I wrote about books I’ve read in November that didn’t meet expectations.  While this week’s review is one of them, it’s not one that disappointed me, like the others.  I haven’t read Matt Haig before, but regularly look longingly at a copy of The Midnight Library, which I know is a fantastic novel, so I expected The Comfort Book would also be a fictional tale.  Nope.  It’s non-fiction, but while that is a failed expectation, it’s not necessarily a problem, especially when the introduction helps me to reset, as this book does.  The Comfort Book is a compilation of things Haig wrote down to help comfort himself, things he learned when times were rough, really rough.  It doesn’t have a clear structure, even though it is divided into parts, and you could easily read this book straight through, or open to a random page and read for a bit, then do it again the next time.  I read it straight through (mostly, I did need a fiction going at the same time), and intend on rereading it, but next time, I won’t be bingeing it like a novel.  I’ll pick it up when I need some comfort, read for a bit, then put it down until I want another dose.  

I find it ironic that The Comfort Book was published on my birthday this past summer.  I don’t recall the day or what I did (and now I do on my editing read, hush Ashley, it was boring and adultish, except for a fantastic lunch date), but that probably means I could have used some comfort then too (definitely, always).  But it’s not just comfort, it’s also reframing, solace, and reminders of our place in the world as people, of what we do and do not have control of, and of how often we have to reach the bottom before we can turn, and then return to the light.  While The Comfort Book is listed as self-help, that doesn’t feel wrong, and it also doesn’t feel right.  It feels more like an ode to the modern person who is struggling and just needs a little something to remind them to keep baby stepping along because if we can do that, we can make it through.  

I’m so delighted we chose The Comfort Book to start off our month of comfort reads.  It was a joy of a read I’m giving 4 emphatic stars.  I’ve already got this title on my wish list and my to-gift list because I want a dead tree copy to reread slowly, and a reader friend needs her own copy too!  With that, I’ll leave you with two of my favorite sentences:

“Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.”

“Get a routine baggy enough to live in.”

What’s a book that you read and then wanted to reread immediately, but perhaps differently?

~Nikki 

Darling Readers, like Nikki I was pleasantly surprised as I settled in with Matt Haig’s The Comfort Book. I knew it was a non-fiction title, but I didn’t know anything about the author and his journey, about anything else he had written (besides The Midnight Library which I have not read). Matt Haig is an English author of books for children and adults and he lives in Brighton, UK, with partner and fellow writer Andrea Semple and their two children. Besides this year’s The Comfort Book, Haig’s other non-fiction titles include his 2015 memoir Reasons to Stay Alive and the 2018 follow up about living in a modern, anxious world, Notes on a Nervous Planet. His fiction works for adults include 2013’s The Humans and 2017’s How To Stop Time. Let’s not skip over his children’s fiction titles, specifically 2015’s picture book A Boy Called Christmas, the film of which was released just in time for Christmas on Netflix! I might need to borrow some littles with whom to read and watch the movie, A.A. to the rescue!

But, besides all that work he has obviously done, this newest book, compiled and written during the first English lockdown in 2020, is the first book I have read by him, and it most certainly will not be the last. I, too, want a shelf copy to open at random on hard days, to be reminded that there’s always hope in the anxious, difficult, and dark times. This book comes with its own playlist at 18% in the Kindle version, which a kind soul has already compiled and made available on Spotify, so I give it to you here, and I highly recommend listening to it while you read. I’ve listened to the playlist after finishing the book, and there’s not one song on there that doesn’t instill a little bit of goodness and light to my heart. Much like every page of this book.

Haig admits to the darkness, both in him and in the world, but wants to focus on the things that see us through those dark times. He knows, after making it through suicidal moments and other bouts with depression, that it’s a season of feelings that occur (much like Wintering made us feel last month) and that looking for the good things in the present will get us through to the future. I will also put some of my favorite quotations from the book at the end of my review, but I wanted to also share this online article from The Guardian. In it, Haig is interviewed about The Comfort Book and he said one thing I want to share directly: “I’ve had people mock everything I write as ‘tea towel wisdom’, so for The Comfort Book my publishers are going to do a tea towel with one of the quotes. I embrace all that.” I just want the dang tea towel, guys. Where can I buy it?

The most hopeful quotation from this 4.5 rounded to 5 star book (because when I take two screenshots and share them with my real estate accountability group that’s a big freaking deal) is:

 “The hardest question I have ever been asked is: “How do I stay alive for other people if I have no one?” The answer is that you stay alive for other versions of you. For the people you will meet, yes, sure, but also the people you will be.”

I am looking forward  to meeting all the people you will be in the future.

~Ashley

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The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

I feel like this week’s review is the unofficial start of comfort reads (and you’ll see why it’s only unofficial when we reveal the official start next week), but it’s not nearly as cozy as returning to England with Veronica Speedwell will be.  If you’re looking for a good winter read, something engaging and fun to escape into, join us on Friday, December 10th, 2021 at 7:30pm CST to discuss book two of the Veronica Speedwell mysteries series, A Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourn.  If that sounds like a good choice for you, sign up here.  Even if you can’t make it, leave us a comment or DM about what you’d like to see for Virtual Book Club in 2022, whether that is a different day / time, more / less frequent chats, or genre / title desires, we want to know!

Gentle reminder, dear readers, that it’s GoodReads Choice Awards Time. The first round of voting ends on Sunday 28 November, so log into your account and get to voting! Nikki’s to do list is very happy there’s no write-in vote available this year and it seems to be only two rounds of voting, so go show your love for your favorite books and authors!

Speaking of favorite titles you can vote for, A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses #4) Kindle edition is on sale for $3.99 as of this writing.  If you loved the others, scoop this one up quickly!  (And do not @ us like those folks on social media. Yes, you should read it even if Nesta isn’t your favorite.  We’ve already read it, at least twice, and discussed it in Virtual Book Club, and now we want to reread it again!)

Oh readers, some books just have me from the start of the marketing copy, and this one certainly did.  I’d read a couple of Alexa Martin’s books and enjoyed them, but this one, I feel like this is the one that was really what I wanted it to be.  Here’s the pitch:  “Two best friends say “I do” to living together, for better or worse.”  (I’m going to ignore that the copy also calls this book “women’s fiction” because I find the label rude.)  And here’s what I loved about it:  Imagine two best friends moving in together as the lead in to the friendship version of a romance novel.  Yes, that’s right – it’s like a romance novel but a friendship novel!  Truly Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes by Alexa Martin is an ode to female friendship, found family, and fierce women making their way in the world.  

In Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes, Jude is an influencer, Lauren is a single mom, and they’ve been best friends since the third grade, so when they both want to live with not their parents and need to conserve funds, moving in together sounds like the perfect plan.  They balance each other at home, they cheer each other on, and they push when they need to do so.  Is there drama? Oh, OH yes.  Did it dissuade me from pseudo plotting a “sister wives” (sans husband, just like Jude and Lauren) situation with Ashley, should something happen to our Adams?  Not. At. All.  Did it convince me that the Golden Girls style set up some of my mom friends talk about for our later years is a bad idea?  Not. One. Bit.  As in any good book, the drama is of the unreal variety, but the work to heal from it is real and the ending is solid.

I won’t lie, there were points I wanted more of from Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes, but really, this story is everything it needs to be.  I do want an epilogue 30 years into the future, when our characters can laugh about all the drama, but perhaps Martin has more antics to come for our heroines (a girl can dream of the romance follow up for each of these leading ladies, even if she doubts it’ll ever happen).  I’m giving this novel a solid three stars.  While that may seem like a slight, it’s not meant to be.  This is a solid book, with a good story, well done.  It’s a simple, accessible hang, but it wasn’t impressive to me.  I’m definitely interested in our characters if Martin writes more about them, and I’m interested in what Martin does next.  

What’s a book you’ve read recently that was a solid hang?

~Nikki 

My relationship with Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes changed multiple times as I was reading, but one thing that remains is my love of the relationship between two women who love each other like sisters and their love of a  little girl that only one of them birthed. But, let’s back up a little bit and talk about the author. Alexa Martin’s bio and more details about The Playbook Series of sports romance novels she wrote can be found in this June Summer Reading post. I love how in Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes about two female role models to a spunky little girl there’s a very specific instance where Addy can’t find her shoes, a nod to Martin’s real life as she repeatedly bemoans in her bios that her children are always being told to put their shoes on. I’m not a mom, but this is a problem for the majority of littles in my life!  Why is being in the car for 20 minutes seem like an appropriate time to take shoes off for children? It is not. And when you can’t find the shoe in the dark it’s not my fault. Keep your shoes on! Put them in the closet where they belong. Listen to your elders, especially if they’re an Enneagram One, they know the best way to make your life easier. (oooh, yeah, I can see where I’d be a terrible parent, points for being the cool aunt!)  

In Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes, Martin brings to light so many of the struggles that modern, specifically millennial, women face. It’s great to see female friendships being placed more highly than that of a romantic partnership for once. Where it’s a partnership of equals, and each person appreciates and supports and steps up when needed. Lauren narrates at one point of the book that “But, and I will never say this out loud, it is nice to finally live with someone who actually believes in me.” She talks about how she’s not taking for granted all of the things that Jude does in their townhome because she would have been so thankful had her ex-fiancé taken one thing off her plate when she was an exhausted, new stay-at-home-mom with all the domestic duties on top of that. Even as a child-less person, household management is a full mental load. No one who is partnered should be responsible for handling all the things no matter their other duties. (If you were single you’d have to work AND manage a household, so be thankful that you’re getting to share the load of the burdens of life.) I’m getting on my soapbox again aren’t I…

My favorite soapboxes in this book are the ones five-year-old Addy gets on, like when she rolls her eyes and says “The patriarchy” when Jude is talking to her about how some dude mansplained to her. Or when her teacher had said a boy hit a girl in her class because he likes her she tells her teacher that we don’t show friends that we like them by hitting them. I didn’t appreciate that in the first chapter Jude is teaching her terrible things about food – specifically that carbs are bad – and that Lauren doesn’t call out a correction  in a strong enough manner to Jude or Addy for my liking. (STOP TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN DISORDERED EATING HABITS.) 

I’m giving Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes 3.5 stars, but I’m not going to round it up to four. It certainly met expectations. I like it enough to recommend it to friends and the internet. I’m still interested in anything new Martin releases. I’m unlikely to re-read it or say that I ‘really like it.’ I, like Nikki, despise the concept/genre of “women’s fiction” because men could learn a lot from reading books by and about women, but this is a fabulous title to buddy read with your girlfriends or women’s book club so that you can discuss all the issues Jude and Lauren have to navigate as women in the world without dealing with men at the same time. 😉

What’s the last book you read that you recommended to your best girlfriend so that you could discuss it together?

~Ashley

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