Tag: reading

african author, african stories, Black Authors, Fiction, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: The Sun Sets In Singapore by Kehinde Fadipe

twonightstands

“Sometimes the best person to listen to is the person who did exactly what you don’t want to do. Don’t let what your grandparents or your mother or anyone else wants or wanted influence you now”

Dara, Amaka and Lillian, all of Nigerian heritage, are currently expats living in Singapore. Dara is a lawyer, Amaka is a banker and Lillian was a pianist who moved from the U.S with her American husband. They are all living the lives they have created for themselves in Singapore, while each fighting their own battles until a new arrival, Lani steps in and affects their lives in different ways.

This was an okay read for me. It had an intriguing premise but I think I wavered on the execution. One minute, I found myself invested in the characters because Fadipe did a good job in fleshing them out and you get a good sense of who they are and how they are handling their various predicaments. We get a good grasp of their background and their families and the connection and friendships between each other, also made sense. Dara’s struggle as a black woman in a law firm, Amaka dating a non-Nigerian and not seeing it as long term and Lillian feeling lost and trying to find her place were all realistic.

But then the next minute, it just felt like the drama was never ending and it was being stretched out for no reason and because I was itching for a resolution, the characters started becoming annoying. I specifically found Dara to be bratty. The pace picked up the second half of the book and because so much was happening, I didn’t know how I felt. So much was going on and I didn’t have the bandwidth to care deeply for all of them. That’s the other thing, be prepared for a million and one stories going on at the same time.

I did this book on audio and I honestly wouldn’t recommend doing audio, if you are Nigerian. The narrator had a British accent and was fine for the general narration but when it came to pronouncing the Igbo names, the pronunciation was terrible and in the little Igbo spoken, it was butchered. Her American accent was such struggle bus and it had me cringing and the last straw for me was when she read out the famous 1004 apartments as 10-04 vs. one thousand and four. There were also a bunch of volume or tone fluctuations where you could tell the difference from when she picked it up at a different time.

Overall, as mentioned above, I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it either. I do think that it was a decent read that serves well as a filler read or reading palate cleanser. I think it is obvious that this is a debut book but I would still check out other books by her.

Taynement

Uncategorized

Book Review: My Friends by Fredrik Backman

twonightstands

“The world is full of miracles, but none greater than how far a young person can be carried by someone else’s belief in them.”

Four teenagers create a bond so powerful that it transcends years and manages to affect lives beyond their own. This book begins with a famous painting by a famous artist on sale. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea but Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, she sees three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner. After the painting unexpectedly falls into her care, her curiosity sends her on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and what to do with it.

“Adults often think that self-confidence is something a child learns, but little kids are by their nature always invincible, it’s self-doubt that needs to be taught.”

This book is a coming-of-age story of 4 teenagers. While there are some humorous moments between the friends, most of the book focuses on the difficulties each of them is facing at home. Joar, whose father beats him and his mother. Ted, whose father is dying and whose mother is struggling to stay above the water and Ali – whose father moves around all the time to escape gambling debts and The Artist – the one who paints his friends on the beach one random summer and goes on to become a famous artist.

“You can’t love someone out of addiction. All the oceans are the tears of those who have tried”

I thought this book was extremely overwritten and bordering on cringy. Every line had a simile or metaphor or a turn of phrase that just made the story sound unreal. It was verbose and meandering. I usually like Backman’s writing, but it seems like he didn’t have that much story here and decided to fill the pages with over-the-top flowery language that did not move the story forward.

It took me a long time to finish this book because I was always dreading picking it up. This book is 450 pages and for a book where nothing happens it did not need to be that long. I understand Backman’s style of writing, and I’ve enjoyed his life-affirming heartwarming style in the past, but they usually come with a dose of reality when he writes his dialogue and his descriptions, and that did not happen here.

“Death is public but dying is private, the very last private thing we have”

Backman is still an amazing writer, and I’ll definitely pick up his next book, but this one did not work for me at all. Have y’all read this? What did you think of it?

Leggy

Book Related Topics

Our 2026 Reading Goals

twonightstands

Leggy:

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season – I know I did. I was off from January 1st through the 4th, and I spent that time relaxing and reading, which couldn’t have been more perfect. When we were putting together our best and worst books of 2025, I realized I was still behind on my Goodreads goal of 70 books. It turns out Goodreads had double-counted two titles, and I noticed far too late. That meant I had to read three books in three days to make it and somehow, I pulled it off. I finished my 70th book at 10 p.m. on December 31st, which was such a satisfying way to close out the year. Honestly, it was the best possible way to spend New Year’s Eve.

Despite having a truly awful 2025, I’m surprised and proud that I still managed to hit my reading goal. I also noticed that I read a lot of romance last year, and through making monthly “best and worst” Instagram posts, I realized that most of my lowest-rated reads were romance novels. I also realized that without actually trying, I read a lot of women authors. A lot of the books I read skew female and besides the traditional fantasy books I read, I don’t really read a lot of male written books. I’m trying to study my reading patterns so that I can consciously make 2026 a better reading year for me. I found that in 2025, I read a lot of average books. I did not feel passionate about a lot of books I read and I want to pick better this year.

Per usual, I read a book from every category of the Goodreads Books of the Year. I really enjoy reading diversely and would like to keep that going in 2026. I have set my Goodreads challenge to 70 books like always, so we’ll see where this year takes us. Follow us on @nightstands2 to see all our thoughts and reviews of the books we read this year.

Taynement:

Reading has always been an outlet for me and I intend to continue that in 2026. I don’t think my goals will change much this year because I want it to continue being a source of joy to me and unfortunately that includes DNF’ing any book that feels like a chore. I tried to do that this year but sometimes FOMO wins and oh yes that’s another goal of mine – to give in to my FOMO. I hate being left out so I always try to read the buzzy titles so I can be part of the discourse.

I am a fiction girlie so I will be knee deep in those, I will always continue to support black and African authors so my reading will also be full of those. I will also try to read at least one book from different genres that aren’t my norm. I have a bunch of books that I saw repeatedly on “Best of 2025” lists that I hope to read in 2026 and if any of my must read authors – Tayari Jones, Chimamanda, Taylor Jenkins Reid etc. have a book out, it’s a must read as well for me.

As always, I have set a 30 book goal on Goodreads, I have also joined Storygraph and will be using it for the first time to log my books. I am looking forward to being lost in good storytelling and sharing that with you guys and like Leggy said follow us on Instagram!

Wishing everyone a good reading year!

Best & Worst

Our Best and Worst Books of 2025

twonightstands

Another year of reading is coming to a close and as always, we share with you what our best and worst books of the year were.

Taynement’s Best:

Most of the books I enjoyed this year were not flashy, out there books. They were books that just sat with me and moved me. Grown Women is a story about four generations of women who wanted to get it right as mothers but in their own ways fell short of doing that. Some may argue that the book was a little sad since it touched on trauma, abuse and some mental health issues but that was not the case for me as it was part of their story and in reality, the story of a lot of black women. It felt like one long therapy session reading about their lives, recognizing their failings and working on correcting it. Overall, even though I was reading about very flawed characters, I still found myself rooting for them and wanting to follow their journey.

Other favorites:

  • You Will Never Be Me by Jesse Q. Sutanto – This was not a subtle book and it had me delighted from start to finish. You can read my review here.
  • Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh.
  • Spectacular Things by Beck Dorey-Stein: I am a sucker for a family story so this was no different. The first chapter starts with an outrageous request and by th etime you are done with the book it doesn’t seem so outrageous. You can read my review on it here.
  • Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson: Another family story that spanned generations and delved into the history of an affluent African-American family.

Leggy’s Best:

“Respect, that’s all we demand. Recognition of our magnificence. Offerings. Love. Fear. Trembling awe. Worship. Shiny things. Blood sacrifice, some of us very much enjoy blood sacrifice. Truly, we ask for so little.”

I stumbled on this book while browsing Goodreads a couple weeks ago. I was shocked that I had never heard of it even though it had thousands of reviews. These days when I read a fantasy plot and it has no romance in it then I know it’s for me. Everyone knows how much I do not like romantasy. Give me revenge. Write me a story of a character burning everything down to achieve his/her means and you’ll have me immediately. Give me a smart character! Give me strength! Give me twists. I have enjoyed everyone I recommended this book to coming back to me at certain points to be like WTF?! and I’m like “I KNOW!”. Anyway, this is the best book I read this year.

Some other favorites:

  • “Being beautiful, was that for men?”Yes. Some women say that it is for ourselves. What on earth can we do with it? I could have loved myself whether I was hunchbacked or lame, but to be loved by others, you had to be beautiful.”
    I Who Have Never Known Man by Jacqueline Harpman. This is a work in translation that was originally written in 1995 and had quite the resurgence this year. I absolutely love this one. It was so well written but also gave no answers. It made me feel so claustrophobic and I could not imagine actually living that life.

  • “I often think of how much love is lost as gay kids grow up. We are robbed of the chance to experience the innocence of early teenage love. Because you spend all that time filled with fear, mastering your own pretense.”
    Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh. Tayne and I chitchatted about this one here.

  • “It’s a very particular time in your life, when someone you love is dying. The world doesn’t stop for you. We know this, but in our hearts we are shocked. We are like famous people who say: But don’t you know who I am? Except we want to say, But don’t you know what I’m going through? How can you speak to me like that when my mother is dying?”
    Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty. Tayne reviewed this here.

Taynement’s Worst:

Like Leggy, my worst book is an old read. It was a work book club choice and I just could not get into it. I couldn’t get invested in the characters. It was a chore to understand and it just didn’t evoke any emotion from me.

Special mention to The Favorites by Layne Fargo. It did evoke emotions from me but not good ones. I just kept thinking “this makes no sense”. It also just read like it was written strictly for a movie adaptation and didn’t work for me.

Leggy’s Worst:

Usually, I just look for the book I gave one star and give it the worst book of the year, but I didn’t give any 1 star this year. I gave this book 2 stars which I actually give to many books. 2 stars to me just means it was okay, wasn’t for me. So, this was the most not for me out of all the books I gave two stars to this year.

I finally read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I know I’m super later than the rest of the world, but I finally got there. I found this book to be incredibly self-indulgent, and I couldn’t understand why it swept the world by storm. I just do not get it. I think Gilbert is a good writer though. I’m just not sure she’s a self-aware human.

Thank you so much for sticking with us this year. Let us know your best and worst books of the year in the comments. Happy Holidays, everybody!

Taynement & Leggy

dystopian, Fantasy, literary fiction

Book Review: Tilt by Emma Pattee

twonightstands

“You and me, when we die, we’re going to evaporate back into the earth like we were never even here. Bodies made of air, bodies made of dirt.”

Annie is 9 months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, she decides to walk to his workplace and then go home with him. As she makes her way across Portland and witnesses human desperation, kindness and depravity, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career and her anxiety about having a baby.

“People will tell you that everything is clear in hindsight, but really it’s just rewritten.”

The events in this book all take place within a day. As Annie makes her way across Portland, she forms an unlikely friendship with a young woman who helped her at IKEA, and they walk some of the way together. Annie’s reflection about her marriage and her past was super compelling to listen to. Looking back at the stagnation of your life when it’s been upheaved is very fascinating. She performs an autopsy of her life and marriage and how she got there, as she walks to her husband. And I did not like her husband, at all. I understand how hard it is to let go of a dream, but I felt like he was selfish in not accepting that that dream was dead.

“I want something more than this. That thought is like a pebble tossed inside a lake, sinking down into darkness. It’s better to forget the things you want but don’t have. The happiest people are the ones who want what they already have. This ache, this ache inside of me, I don’t know how to get rid of it.”

This is not a thriller or a suspense. I suspect this expectation and its ending, are the reasons for the middling rating on Goodreads. The book ends at the end of the day with no resolution; nothing is wrapped up in a pretty bow. We are still in the middle of a natural disaster that has decimated hundreds of thousands, and Portland is still on fire. This book is primarily about the journey and not about the destination. I enjoyed the writing so much and I think it kept me pushing. Also, this book is less than 250 pages, so it goes by fast. I think this is a well-executed and thought-provoking novel and you should give it a try.

“While washing the dishes, only be washing the dishes—that’s what he always says. Some Buddhism shit he read on Instagram. Only a man could say something like that.”

If you like plot driven books, then this is not the book for you. Plenty happens since this is the middle of an earthquake, but nothing actually pushes the plot forward. This book is purely character driven and I completely understand why so many didn’t like this book, but I did. If you go into it after reading this review with a clear understanding of what this book is, I think you’d like it too.

Have you read this one? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Leggy

Black Authors, Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, race, romance, women's fiction

Book Review: Can’t Get Enough by Kennedy Ryan

twonightstands

“The world isn’t designed for women like me. Women who’d rather be single literally for years than settle for a partner not worthy of her”

The third of the Skyland series, this story focuses on Hendrix Barry. Hendrix is a great friend, a good daughter, thriving in her career in the entertainment industry and is also happily single with no interest in having kids. Everything is going well until her mom is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. As Hendrix is trying to adjust to this new reality she meets Maverick Bell.

Maverick Bell is a tech billionaire fresh off a public breakup from a relationship that ended because he doesn’t want any more kids. He is also still grieving the loss of his grandfather to Alzheimer’s as well. The two meet at a party hosted by his ex-girlfriend and it’s an instant connection and attraction. Seems easy but one catch is Maverick’s ex-girlfriend, Zeze have a budding friendship and is Hendrix’s business partner for an upcoming TV show. Does Hendrix stay loyal to a new friend or pursue this once in a lifetime connection? (spoiler alert: she chooses the man)

“Last night, was Maverick asking me to give up my dreams? Or asking to run with me while I chase them?”

I like Kennedy Ryan’s writing and this was no different. Ryan finds a way to infuse real life into romance with a sprinkling of steamy and a dash of fantasy living and this book is no different. As someone who doesn’t really read romance, she serves it in a way that I can digest. We get to read the book from both Maverick and Hendrix’s view point and it was good to know what the other was thinking. Ryan made sure to let us know that she had first hand experience with Alzheimer’s and I think she did a good job of showing how much this disease affects a family both from the person who has it and the caretakers involved. I appreciated how much care she took with the subject matter.

“You said being whole means acknowledging all our parts. And that there were parts of me that wanted to be held, want to be needed and loved.”

Ryan has always been consistent with her characters cherishing strong friendships where the women are always there for each other and encourage each other and I appreciate it. Another thing she did in this book was provide representation for curvy women who are confident in their body and a man who appreciated it. Hendrix is also a woman who was not opposed to being partnered and lived a full life and I liked how it was okay for her to pursue that when she met someone she considered a partner. Her choice to not have children was also good to remind people that it is possible to have that choice.

“I want you to believe that. Every love isn’t forever. We can love people along the way. Relationships can begin and then end.”

Now I liked this book and as a stand alone it is good but I think I’ll say this was the weakest of the trilogy as it was formulaic for me. I am not knocking Ryan for finding a formula that works – Protagonist meets man, there is mucho attraction, they overcome obstacles and decide to jump in, they have hot sex, there is usually an illness/death (which I know she draws from personal experience) and then they live happily ever after with lots of hot, steamy sex. But not without the love and support of good family and good friends – but by the third book the novelty has worn off for me and I know what to expect.

As with most romance novels, I think you have to suspend disbelief for certain things for the story to move along. Some may consider dating the ex of an associate a little messy but maybe the whole point was sometimes you have to be selfish and go for what you want. Overall, it’s a book with a lil’ something for everyone and it works. It’s just that I wanted to love it but only ended up liking it enough.

Taynement

celebrity memoir, Memoirs, Non-Fiction

Book Review: I’ll Have What She’s Having by Chelsea Handler

twonightstands

“The people who don’t get you are not your problem. Sitting around and thinking of all the people who don’t love you or don’t wanna hang out with you just diminishes your own light. Focus on where the light and love come from and park yourself in front of that. There are many moments in life when your own light is all you need.”

Through the most tender essays I’ve ever read from Chelsea, she shares what her dreams were as a child and how far she has come. She examines the woman fame let her become and wonders if that is the woman she wants to continue to be. She shares being at a low point in her life, the things that are important to her, her family, her work and skiing. She shares how her being child free is perceived and how much she actually loves children even though she does not ever want to have biological children.

“Learning the art of making an argument without yelling or screaming is something to behold. I’ve always dreamed of becoming the kind of person who can do that. Nothing feels like winning more than not losing your temper.”

I have read every Chelsea book. This is the first Chelsea book that I have listened to, and I loved the experience I had with it. I listened to this book during a road trip, and it caught me unawares. I think this is Chelsea’s most vulnerable book. She shares about being rejected by a governor, playing pickleball with the Bushes, sharing psychedelics with strangers in Spain, what her relationship with her family has become, and the love affair with Jo Koy.

“You are the love of your life.”

I think that Chelsea presents like such a strong woman which she absolutely is, but it was quite interesting to listen to her describe her relationships and all the things she endured. It was fascinating to hear her stay with a cheating partner and go back to him over and over again. When she describes her relationship with Jo and how much they tried to make it work and how she thought they would be married, I felt compassion for her. She also declines to mention why they broke up because she just feels that she has outgrown that period in her life where she would throw the men she has dated under the table for a story. I suspected that she broke up with him because he wanted a more traditional relationship on the conservative side – but that’s just my speculation from reading between the lines.

“It had taken me decades to learn how to not lay blame, to not be punitive or vindictive when someone hurts me. To be mindful and consistent while recognizing the difference between instinct and impulse. To recognize that instinct is a knowing feeling, and impulse is acting on an emotion.”

I gave this book 5 stars because I really enjoyed listening to Chelsea let us into her life. Please do this one on audio if you pick it up.

Leggy.

african author, african stories, Black Authors, literary fiction, Nigerian Author

We Chit Chat: Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

twonightstands

“I’m growing old and the world has changed and I have never been truly known.”

Leggy: I finally finished Dream Count. What were your overall thoughts?

Taynement: Definitely not the best we’ve got from Chimamanda.

Leggy: I found the book very disjointed. I have a feeling these are half written characters from her years of writer’s block, and she just made them fit together.

Taynement: For me, I believe the real story she wanted to write was Kadiatou’s story, but it was too close to reality (as it’s based on a true story) and she fit the other stories around it. Kadiatou’s story was distinctly different, and her entire authors note was about Kadiatou’s story.

Leggy: The funny thing is that I was really into the book till I got to Kadiatou’s story and it knocked me out of my rhythm. But I must admit, once I got my bearings, I appreciated it for what it was. Honestly this book felt like a collection of short stories.

Taynement: I think another thing was I recently read Purple Hibiscus, and I couldn’t help but compare the books. While I think Chimamanda is verbose, I give her a pass because this is how she actually speaks.

Leggy: Yeah, I didn’t mind the writing. There were some lines I actually really loved but I completely understand why you find her verbose. Sometimes it’s like do we really need that metaphor there? What did you think about the characters? I liked Zikora the most and I found Chiamaka very annoying and foolish.

Taynement: I was so excited to dive into the many characters, but I found them to be unlikeable. I liked Omelogor’s directness but after a while it just became obnoxious. Zikora had the most depth as a character given the relationship with her mother.

Leggy: I liked Omelogor at first too then I just found her annoying. I also find it very hard to believe that anyone born and raised in Nigeria is going to ever get a Masters in Pornography. Also, her “Dear Men” website never made sense to me. But I really liked her bank story.

Taynement: I think that’s another thing. This book was about women’s dream count and getting closer to their dreams of finding a partner. I wonder if it was intentional to have such shitty men and have these women not find their partners. I’ve seen criticisms that the book is male centered but I’m okay with that because I think it’s okay for women to have the desire to be partnered.

Leggy: I also think that there is no such thing as a Nigerian woman who has successfully decentered men. Because at the end of the day, the society still makes sure your life revolves around them. Even Omelogor who didn’t care about being partnered was still forced to contend with being single because everyone (both her family and friends) reminded her she was single and childless. Her aunty wanted her to consider adoption since she has passed the age of marriage and childbirth even though she never even wanted marriage or kids ever. The society doesn’t let you have a life that doesn’t center men and anyone who says otherwise is living in a fairytale. I’m so tired of people thinking fiction should depict a reality that is aspiration instead of a reality that is.

Taynement: Did you find Omelogor’s sexuality vague? Also, I feel like the ladies’ relationship traumas were had to get behind without an understanding of how we got here. I had no idea why Omelogor couldn’t be in a long-term relationship and had an end date for each man and don’t even get me started with Chiamaka going for low hanging fruit men and leaving the one good man.

Leggy: I didn’t question Omelogor’s sexuality because at that Abuja party if Omelogor wasn’t a 100% straight she would have indulged but she never did. I also think there are people who really can’t be in a long term relationship. I never thought that had anything to do with a trauma. As for Chiamaka, she had an idea in her head as to what love is, that most Nigerian men could never live up to. She admitted at the end that she should have tried harder with Chuka. I would have married him but I think I understand why she sabotaged herself. Someone like her that’s always travelling and thinks she’s so different would have detested the idea of settling down with the very type of person every conventional person was settling with.

Taynement: But she had less with the non Nigerian men so what was the idea?

Leggy: I think Chiamaka was chasing an idea of love that doesn’t exist.

Taynement: Something I asked myself while reading this book is why when a character has a belief, I think it’s a mouthpiece for what Chiamanda is thinking, but I don’t think this way for other authors.

Leggy: Lmaooo. Probably because we don’t personally “follow” other authors. Most authors I like I don’t even know what they look like. I’ve been hate-reading Sally Rooney for years and I’ve never even googled her.

Taynement: Like you said at the beginning of this, I think the biggest flaw of this book was it being disjointed and uneven. I feel like I don’t have a full understanding of the motivations for Chiamaka, Zikora and Omelogor but I completely understood Kadiatou. Chimamanda says it was a mother-daughter story, but I thought Kadiatou and Binta’s story felt secondary.

Leggy: I didn’t get the motivation for the three girls too and I thought there’d be more connections with their stories. But they stayed in their different pockets and barely interacted throughout the book. I wish I had Chiamaka’s life though. I want rich parents who let me travel. I’d date better men though.

Taynement: Yes, a clearer direction for the book would have been focusing on their dynamic. There was already meat there with Zikora and Omelogor. Zikora was so intimidated by her that when she had a breakdown about being single, her one ask to Chia was “don’t tell Omelogor”.

Leggy: Exactly. That’s why I think these are all independently developed characters that she put together, but I think now that she’s done with the cobwebs of her writer’s block, the next one is probably going to be great. I have faith in her.

Taynement: Do you think the America criticisms were heavy handed?

Leggy: Absolutely, very. Especially coming from someone who lives in Abuja and participated in money laundry. That’s the part of the book where I thought was Chiamanda talking. I think it was the after-effects of the backlash she received some years ago, from people who found some of her comments to be transphobic. She felt like it was her own people cannibalizing her and I think that whole section was her rage at that incident.

Taynement: Overall, we can’t take away from Chimamanda’s writing. I liked how the book stayed very Nigerian. I could see the vision, but the execution was rocky. I think we were left with a lot of whys and not in a Kainene type of way.

Leggy: I debated giving this book 4 stars because I actually liked the writing and the individual stories but ultimately, I settled for 3 stars because I just think the overall book was not well executed.

If you have read the book, what did you think?

Taynement and Leggy

Fiction, Historical, literary fiction, race

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

twonightstands

“Eight of the ten commandments are about what thou shalt not. But you can live a whole life not doing any of that stuff and still avoid doing any good. That’s the whole crisis. The rot at the root of everything. The belief that goodness is built on a constructed absence, not-doing. That belief corrupts everything, has everyone with any power sitting on their hands.”

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran by America in a senseless accident and his father moved them to the same country responsible for his mother’s death. His father’s life in America is that of survival and making sure that Cyrus also survived. But now, after his father dies, Cyrus is truly alone and is struggling with a lot of addiction issues while developing an obsession with martyrs. He decides that he also wants his death to mean something as he stumbles upon an art installation in New York City where a woman who is dying of cancer is lying there every day until her death, talking to anyone who wants to talk.

“There’s this story I read one time, some old-school Muslim fairy tale, maybe it was a discarded hadith I guess, but it was all about the first time Satan sees Adam. Satan circles around him, inspecting him like a used car or something, this new creation—God’s favorite, apparently. Satan’s unimpressed, doesn’t get it. And then Satan steps into Adam’s mouth, disappears completely inside him and passes through all his guts and intestines and finally emerges out his anus. And when he gets out, Satan’s laughing and laughing. Rolling around. He passes all the way through the first man and he’s rolling around laughing, in tears, and he says to God, ‘This is what you’ve made? He’s all empty! All hollow!’ He can’t believe his luck. How easy his job is going to be. Humans are just a long emptiness waiting to be filled.”

It took me a while to actually start this book because every time it would check out to me; I would send it right back. I saw it so much on Instagram and on so many lists. I read the blurb and felt bored but eventually I decided to just give it a go and I absolutely enjoyed it. One of the reasons I was avoiding this one is because I expected it to be depressing. Martyrs? Lord. But once you meet Cyrus and his self-righteous deep thinking, you can’t help but roll your eyes at all his navel gazing. For a book that explores death, depression and sobriety, it never feels depressing. I actually found it funny in so many ways and the wry humor kept me reading even though Cyrus is the embodiment of “youth is wasted on the young”.

“The performance of certainty seemed to be at the root of so much grief. Everyone in America seemed to be afraid and hurting and angry, starving for a fight they could win. And more than that even, they seemed certain their natural state was to be happy, contented, and rich. The genesis of everyone’s pain had to be external, such was their certainty. And so legislators legislated, building border walls, barring citizens of there from entering here. “The pain we feel comes from them, not ourselves,” said the banners, and people cheered, certain of all the certainty. But the next day they’d wake up and find that what had hurt in them still hurt.”

This book is Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel, and everyone knows I grade these on a curve. I’ve never read any of his poetry and I wonder if his writing would have felt familiar if I did. This is an ambitious work that sometimes misses the mark but through Cyrus, we investigate the concept of identity, especially living in a country that caused your mother’s death. And even though you want to lean into your identity as an Iranian, you find out that most of your thoughts and even your addictions are thoroughly American. As he dives into his family’s history – his father’s slow descent into despair and alcoholism, his uncle dressed as the Angel of Death during the Iranian war to convince dying soldiers to die with dignity and not try to desert the army – you begin to understand why Cyrus is so obsessed with death.

“An anthropologist who wrote about how the first artifact of civilization wasn’t a hammer or arrowhead, but a human femur—discovered in Madagascar—that showed signs of having healed from a bad fracture. In the animal world, a broken leg meant you starved, so a healed femur meant that some human had supported another’s long recovery, fed them, cleaned the wound. And thus, the author argued, began civilization. Augured not by an instrument of murder, but by a fracture bound, a bit of food brought back for another.”

Cyrus doesn’t want to be just another depressed boy who kills himself. He wants his death to mean something, and he is convinced that the woman who is dying in a New York art gallery will help him understand how to make his own death mean something. I really loved Cyrus’ discussions with Orkideh. When he tells her of his plans she says: ahh, another Iranian man obsessed with martyrdom.

“Why should the Prophet Muhammad get a whole visit from an archangel? Why should Saul get to see the literal light of heaven on the road to Damascus? Of course it would be easy to establish bedrock faith after such clear-cut revelation. How was it fair to celebrate those guys for faith that wasn’t faith at all, that was just obedience to what they plainly observed to be true? And what sense did it make to punish the rest of humanity who had never been privy to such explicit revelation?”

I didn’t know the author was a poet before starting this book but the amount of quotes I want to share with you shows you how incredibly well this book is written. Did it set out to do too much and at the end succumbed to cliche? Yes. But I liked the journey and even the cliche ending didn’t dim that for me. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

Uncategorized

Our 2025 Reading Goals

twonightstands

Leggy:

Happy New Year! I hope everybody enjoyed their holidays because I definitely did! I was off from the 23rd to the 2nd of January and I had such a good time relaxing and reading. When we wrote our best and worst books of 2024, I was still behind on my Goodreads challenge of reading 70 books, so I spent all my off times in coffee shops and bars just reading. It was honestly the best way to spend my time off.

I had an absolutely awful 2024 so I’m surprised that I still managed to hit my reading goals. I also read so much literary fiction in 2024 which is surprising because I usually read way more fantasy, but I guess I wanted to be grounded in reality in 2024. I also realized that the wave of Romantasy sweeping the world via social media is just not for me. I love traditional fantasy where the goal is the world building and the characters, not to figure out a way to fall in love during war time.

I read a book from every section of the categories of the Goodreads books of the year and that made me so proud. I really enjoy reading diversely and I want to keep that going this 2025. I have set my Goodreads challenge to 70 books like always, so we’ll see where this year takes us. We are going to be posting a lot on Instagram this year so please follow us on @nightstands2.

Wishing everyone a good reading year!

Taynement:

2024 was a good reading year until the last quarter where I had to DNF a lot of books (funny enough, I did not DNF what would have been my worst book of the year which was One of Our Kind by Nicola Yoon).

When the year started, my reading was dictated by the winners of the Goodreads awards. I went through the literary fiction and added the winners to my TBR and went through them and most deserved their wins and noms. I plan to do that again this year and find some gems I missed from last year. I go to bookstores and take pictures of the display and then I see what’s available in my library and hope for the best.

Like Leggy, I keep my numbers the same every year but I have a Kindle now and I think it helps with my reading (and my eyes!). I hope to do the same this year in that, since my genres aren’t diverse, I like to keep my authors diverse. I did keep to my goal of reading The Fourth Wing so we will see what the lucky book this year will be.

Ultimately, my goal is to enjoy my reading, find titles that bring me joy and expand my world and I hope you have a great reading year as well!

Taynement and Leggy