Happy Tuesday and Happy October 1st! With the new month officially here, I am bringing you my September 2024 reading recap!
From here on out, September 2024 will be referred to as Sad Girl September because of the five books I read and liked, all but one falls into the ‘sad girl lit’ genre. I’ve sad it before and I will say it again — I love nothing more than reading about twenty and thirty something year old women who are going through it.
everything i read and liked in september
contemporary fiction
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
Not only was Blue Sisters my favorite book of September 2024, it has earned itself a spot on my favorite books of all-time. Blue Sisters follows Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky Blue, three sisters who are grieving the death of their fourth sister, Nicky, as they return home to NYC to try and stop the sale of their childhood home. It is an absolutely breathtaking portrayal of the complexities of grief, sisterhood, addiction, trauma, love, hope, and personal identity, with stunning prose to boot. This is the sort of book that will stick to your bones and stay with you for a very long time.
Quotes that have stuck with me:
“Avery had previously thought love was built on large, visible gestures, but a marriage turned out to be the accrual of ordinary, almost inconsequential, acts of daily devotion—washing the mugs left in the sink before bed, taking the time to run up or downstairs to kiss each other quickly before one left the house, cutting up an extra piece of fruit to share—acts easy to miss, but if ever gone, deeply missed.”
“She'd heard once that guilt was for something you'd done- you could feel guilty for a certain behavior or action but still fundamentally know you were a good person- but shame was deeper, shame was for who you were.”
“I believe that everything happens," she said. "Period. Or full stop, as you would say. That's it. Things happen and we have to learn to live with them, as long as suicide is off the table, that is. If we can find meaning in them, fine, but even if we can't, we still have to live with them. The meaning is an afterthought, an anesthesia. Happens is the only word in that statement that's empirical. The rest is whatever helps you sleep at night.”
It was easy to love someone in the beginnings and endings; it was all the time in between that was so hard.
Everyone I Know is Dying by Emily Slapper
Everyone I Know is Dying follows Iris, a twenty-something year old Londoner, suffering with severe depression and experiencing suicidal ideation. She self-sabotages to the point of being incredibly unlikeable throughout the entire book, beginning on the very first page, and yet, I was rooting for her to get help and get her shit together the entire time.
Unfortunately for my fellow US-based readers, this book is not available in the US. You have to order it from a UK retailer or reseller and have it shipped to the US or, if you have a Kindle, there is a workaround to buy the book from Amazon UK.
Side note - Why is it that the UK and Ireland have the best sad girl books and why do US publishers not acquire US publishing rights?! There are sad American girls too!! Lots of us!!
No Hard Feelings by Genevieve Novak
No Hard Feelings follows Penny, a twenty-something year old Australian woman, who is a bit of a hot mess. She has spent years stuck in a toxic situationship with her ex from university, is miserable at work, and feels very inferior to her two best friends. It follows as she navigates her romantic, work, and personal life, and tries to make changes for the better. While I do categorize it as ‘sad girl lit’, it’s much lighter than the Blue Sisters and Everyone I Know is Dying. It was downright funny at times and I would argue that most of us have been in Penny’s shoes over the years.
I usually like to buy books from Bookshop.org, but had trouble finding this one anywhere other than Amazon in the US. Though, it available in the US Amazon store, no workarounds required.
How to Hide in Plain Sight by Emma Noyes
Although I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as I loved the author’s adult debut, Guy’s Girl, I still really enjoyed it and would recommend it. It follows the protagonist, Eliot Beck, as she battles with OCD and reconnects with her estranged family and best friend over the course of her older brother’s wedding weekend. It is a really beautiful story about family, love, grief, and mental illness. Trigger warnings for OCD and anxiety.
romance
Big Fan by Alexandra Romanoff
After a month of heavy reads, I finished September off with this sexy little novella about what happens when a political strategist is asked to consult on her favorite singer’s comeback project. Think Scandal meets The Idea of You, without the infidelity of Scandal and the age gap of The Idea of You. It was the perfect light, fun, and surprisingly feminist read to cleanse my palette at the end of Sad Girl September.
If you want more reading recommendations before my October Reading Recap, check out my breakfast in bed series for weekly reading recommendations or follow along on Instagram to keep up with what I’m reading in realtime.
XOXO,
Maddie
Looove the Big Fan cover! I've heard such great things about Blue Sisters too!
Blue Sisters was my favorite read of September, too! Excited to read Big Fan. I feel like everyone is reading it right now??