Auntie’s Annex: November Books
shake it, shake, shake it like a snow globe at Christmas
Hellloooooo lovely readers!
Another month has passed flown by filled with book reading, the riotous and ridiculous task of raising children, and (a November special) lots of pie.
Here is a recap of what I was reading in the background while life, in all of its confounding loud, and messy glory, swirled around us.
NOVEMBER BOOKS
This month I am switching up the format of Auntie’s Annex. Sometimes when I am feeling disconnected or unmotivated, I find it helps to shake shit up. So, let’s pretend this newsletter is a snow globe and give it a good throttling. Hopefully, something pretty and magical and glittery will fall out. Metaphorically. Nobody wants a letter with actual glitter. It is called the herpes of crafting for a reason.
If your holiday season (this is that time of year spanning Halloween to New Year’s for me) seems hectic and harried, you are not alone. If you want to spread the holiday stress cheer, consider joining this community discussion thread created by three of my favorite mom-stackers,
On to the books! During this busy time may I suggest you reach for some good YA or genre fiction? Their fast-paced page-turner storylines are the perfect bait, tantalizing you back to your reading nook. My YA of choice was the last book in The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce. In Lioness Rampant, our heroine Alanna has succeeded in her quest to become a knight errant and is grappling with what the job title entails. She accepts a quest to unearth a powerful gem, and comes head to head with all her ex-enemies (including one evil raised from the dead all-powerful wizard) and ex-lovers, seeking to reconcile who she wanted to be and who she has become. I keep trying to find an unsuspecting teen so I can force this series into their hand. Perhaps you know an unsuspecting teen who needs a good series this holiday season? Perhaps you are that teen? (at heart?). This quartet has it all. There is adventure, love, betrayal, magic, and a strong female protagonist who is figuring out who she is in the world. Me too, girl.
For those curious to know more, see my reviews of book 1, book 2, and book 3.
Also, I never would have stumbled on this series if it weren’t for
and her 2024 reading challenge over at . I was looking to read a book that would fulfill the category “YA book that was published the year you were born.” As it turns out 1983 was a year where several great things were created, like the first Alanna book and, you know, me. **takes a bow**Another way I keep reading through the winter crazies is genre fiction. For example, you could reach for murder-humor-lite. Diving back into the Finlay Donovon series by Elle Cosimano after a long break was the perfect way to breeze through three books basically while trimming the tree. Just kidding y’all — trimming the tree was me in utter exasperation hollering at the kids to PLEASE only take the ornaments I had placed out and prepared for them and STOP for the love of god before you break it all touching the boxes! Also, is this why eggnog was invented?
In Finlay Donovan Knock’s em Dead, Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun, and Finlay Donovan Roll’s the Dice I got to sit cozy and chuckle at these charmingly hilarious books packed with one ridiculous action sequence after another. If Finlay and her sidekick nanny Vero aren’t hauling bodies, they are chasing down mobsters, avoiding (or NOT avoiding in a very sexy way) the hot cops and young attorneys, or bribing children with cheerios. These books are easy to fly through in a couple of days, but I have a feeling they will stick with me for their memorable characters and wildly entertaining plots. Now, usually, I am the kind of girl who loves it when the romance heats up but in this series I find myself annoyed by the men instead of rooting for sexy scenes. Elle Cosimano has created such a strong friendship connection between the two female protagonists, who can get their shit done thank you very much, that the men are more interruption than welcome addition. Get out, my dudes, let the ladies rule. In a very refreshing way, the women do get themselves in and out of their own trouble while the men are beautifully and blissfully unaware. Ain’t that life.
Apparently, this is a month for series. I’ve finally managed to finish listening to Glass Houses by Louise Penny, narrated by Robert Bathurst. If you get the hankering to start the series, may I suggest listening to it on Audiobook as both narrators have proven to be a delight, elevating the entire experience. This is the 13th book in the Armand Gamache series, and in it, we find Chief Inspector Gamache on trial for a complicated chain of events he set in motion. Here is what I will say: Thirteen books is a lot of books. Don’t get me wrong, the content and stories are still top-notch, but I might be ready to say goodbye to Three Pines and the rest of the crew. How many people can die? How many times can a career be ruined? And yet, I will prevail. There are 19 books total in the series so only six more to go. Will I finish before 2026? Fingers crossed. These books are consistently excellent so don’t let my tedium deter you. Who knows what mystery lies ahead in books 14 -19.
As you may recall from my last Auntie’s Annex, I was recently invited (aka, invited myself) to a neighborhood book club. For November we discussed The Last of the Moon Girls by Barbara Davis. When New York professional, Lizzy Moon, travels back to her family farm after her grandmother’s death, she is intent on tying up loose ends and selling the place. Of course, nothing goes quite as planned, and in fact, some crazy shit goes down. Plus there is a cold case that needs reopening. And there is the hot boy next door, all grown up. Oh, and an estranged mother hitchhiking her way back into town, a new witchy friend, and even someone out to get Lizzy for showing back up in this small NE town. There is a lot to unpack.
I have a friend who is a reiki practitioner and she is a self-proclaimed “woo-woo-lite” and that is how this book is best described. It is witches, but the most witchy thing they do is grow medicinal herbs and have superpowers to smell how people feel. Which, when I type it out, sounds sort of ridiculous. And maybe it sort of is. It was AMAZING for me to book club this book. I can be fairly generous when it comes to books, If I stick with it til the end, I figure it must not have been that terrible. It had a story, and some characters, conflict was resolved. There was some mystery, there was some action, there was some love, there were some witches. Clap once and move on.
The ladies in the book club attacked this book like a dog going after a new dog toy, viciously ripping it to shreds. It was a delight to behold. The general consensus was that it was trying to do too much and achieved too little. The characters were boring. The estranged mother was too easily forgiven. The lovers were too easy. The witchy powers were not witchy enough — super noses and the ability to make soap didn’t cut it. The discussion led me to a more skeptical interpretation of the book and I am not mad about it. In the end, I say go ahead and read this book if you feel like it. You may even enjoy it, but it might be more fun if you read it with a group of smart and snarky women and then get together with wine and snacks and discuss what did (and didn’t) work about it.
If The Last of the Moon Girls was a book I learned I didn’t love (thanks book club ladies), Keep Me Alfoat by Jennifer Gold was one I knew I didn’t like as I read it. Overly didactic with its environmentalism (listen, I also want to save the planet, I just don’t need it popping up every other page in a fictional love story) with a protagonist who is constantly making a mess of her life and then has the audacity to be bewildered by her own predicaments, I had little patience for her, or her path. Because I didn’t like the main character, I had a hard time caring whether or not she got her shit together (tbd on if she did) or fell in love. I am five degrees removed from both Kevin Bacon and this author, so this book landed on my shelf through nepotism. I am unconvinced I will read more, but then again, if another book lands in my hands, I can hardly help myself.
ON THE NIGHTSTAND
in hand: Bear by Julia Phillips
in ear: Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny
on kindle: A Wedding in December by Sarah Morgan (lean in to Christmas Cozy) and Veronica Ruiz Breaks the Bank by Elle Cosimano (3.5 in the Finlay Donovan series, featuring the nanny, who I know, from being a nanny for years, is also the hero)
for book club: I was supposed to read The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon and be at book club tonight. Didn’t happen (oops), but I still wanna read the book. Next up is Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, which has been on my TBR since December of 2022 (!!) so time to hop on that train! Read along if you wish.
ADULTING
This Christmas season I am trying to watch as many Christmas-themed movies as possible. A family tradition, we started the season with a family viewing of The Grinch (the 2018 Cumberbatch version) and I will never not laugh at the screaming goat or the loudest snow.
Then once the children were nestled all snug in their beds we broke out the weirder Christmas movies. We started with Nutcrackers (Hulu and Disney+), which was holiday trope with a twist and made us laugh and cry. It was refreshing to see kid actors with authentic real kid charm and to watch Ben Stiller come back as the curmudgeonly city slicker who has a lesson to learn. The final sequence was truly beautiful, and I’d watch the whole movie again just for that last bit.
If Nutcrackers was Christmas raunchy in the same vein as classics like National Lampoon’s (think: emptying the RV in the gutter and yes, we will watch that one too) then Why Him? is Christmas Gone Wild. But, sometimes, if you are going in that direction, you gotta do like the Texans do and go big or go home. This film went big, and it was ridiculous, and I didn’t totally hate it? Maybe? I also didn’t love it. Do not watch with the family, or maybe at all. But if you want to give yourself the gift of looking at a mostly topless James Franco practicing parkour moves then Merry Christmas to us all. I don’t know. It was weird.
What are your favorite weird Christmas movies to watch? Is it Die Hard? (again with the basically topless men….I’m sensing a pattern here).
Let me know what you think of this long-form letter format. Was it harder to read? Easier? Do you still want to check out the books I read? Then, tell me what you have been reading, watching, baking, or doing for fun holiday festivities.
See y’all next month for another Auntie’s Annex and hopefully later this week for some great kid-lit recommendations. If I can keep shaking the snow globes over here.
Happy reading!
You're fantastic!!
Thank you for the shoutout! And your awesome jet pack predicament 😂
The Lioness series was one of my first forays into fantasy as a young teen and I have been extremely fond of Tamora Pierce ever since. BUT, what do you think [SPOILER AHEAD] of Alanna and George?