Happy May Day! What a day to demand your labor rights and embrace the possibility of a better tomorrow. I have some latest reading in-brief because I’ve been tearing through genre fiction to escape from the realities of today.

Strange Houses

I love Japanese fiction, and when it’s translated into English, it often has a hazy quality that lends itself well to the uncanny and odd. (A colleague who reads and understands Japanese told me this has much to do with Japanese verb tenses being quite different from English ones, and literal translation is nearly impossible.) So I, of course, thoroughly enjoyed Uketsu’s trendy horror/mystery Strange Houses. It’s a fast read, in part because a third of it is floor plans. I finished it one day. It’s a clever mystery and rather chilling. It’s not saying anything earth-shattering, but I’m excited to read more of Uketsu’s series of Strange books.

You Should Be So Lucky

As soon as I turned in the library copy of Cat Sebastian’s We Could Be So Good, I put a hold on You Should Be So Lucky. The former is often cited as Sebastian’s best book. But when evaluating both based solely on the main romance plot, I liked You Should Be So Lucky better, mostly because I found both leads such great characters. In We Could Be So Good, I was more invested in the Italian American representation than the romance, and I found the non-Italian lead one-note and rather boring.

You Should Be So Lucky has a lot going for it. Set in 1960, it’s about a reporter for a big NYC paper covering a controversial baseball player new to town, and they fall in love. I have a soft spot for mid-century baseball lore. It’s probably because, all through my childhood, my dad regaled me with stories of watching Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and taking family trips to Cooperstown. So I loved this setting. I found the snobby, cranky reporter and hot-headed, impulsive baseball player both so endlessly charming. What a treat.

One-Star Romance

I describe One-Star Romance as a mash-up of Emily Henry’s Book Lovers with Kate Goldbeck’s You, Again. If those references mean nothing to you, think When Harry Met Sally for millennials. If that still means nothing to you, you probably shouldn’t bother with this book. I’m glad I did, though. One-Star Romance, along with the Cat Sebastian books, pulled me out of my romance slump.

The author, Laura Hankin, wrote a satirical thriller about rich, NYC wellness moms that I read several years ago. She’s mostly published thrillers with cheeky social commentary, and One-Star is her first romance novel. I think because her previous work is in other genres, she wasn’t burdened by romance tropes and conventions. This book has tropes, sure. (Literally, two-people-one-bed and enemies-to-lovers, if that’s your thing.) But while reading it, I didn’t feel like the tropes drove the narrative, and the writing was solid. While I found the female lead annoying and frustrating at times, I appreciated her personal growth, and the male lead was likeable and endearing. Another treat!