Our amazing customer love teammate Kelly is a voracious reader. And she does a monthly rundown on her instagram, I thought we'd share her favorites from the past few months today.

Kelly Note: August was an amazing reading month for me!  So many excellent books, it’s hard to pick a favorite…fans of “lighter” reads may enjoy The Lies That Bind, or The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires (though that one is not for the faint of heart!!)...historical fiction junkies should look for The Nightingale...fiction with great book club discussion topics include Deacon King Kong, A Good Neighborhood, and The Vanishing Half...and Inland is perfect if you can handle some magical realism.  Shoe Dog, and Children of Blood & Bone did fall a little flat for me, but you can’t win ‘em all! 🙈

Kristina Note: I LOVED "The Vanishing Half" one of my favorite books of the year. I listened to "Shoe Dog" on audio tape a while ago and it is definitely a slow story but very interesting to hear how Nike started. Quite a different company than it is now.

Kelly Note: My favorites for July include The Knockout Queen, Saving Ruby King, Writers & Lovers, and With the Fire on High...four very different, but incredibly engaging novels.  Rodham was an interesting, speculative story, but I took some issue with how much the fictional Hillary still pined for Bill.  American Royals (a young adult novel based on the fictional descendants of George Washington, if America had become a monarchy) is just good fun all around.  And I might be the only person on the planet who did not love Kindred by Octavia Butler!

Kristina Note: Only one on this list that I read is Rodham which is a fictionalized look at Hillary Clinton's life if she had turned down Bill Clinton's marriage proposal. It was incredibly interesting for a political junkie like myself. If you don't follow politics closely, I'm guessing some of the names and scenarios might not make as much sense.

Kelly Note: My fave fiction of June was My Dark Vanessa (but trust me, it is very very dark--trigger warnings all around).  The one most outside my comfort zone (but still ended up being amazing) was Freshwater--Akwaeke Emezi has a new novel just coming out (The Death of Vivek Oji), and I’m scrambling to get my hands on it after how much I enjoyed this one.  The book that should be required reading for all my white friends (especially in the current social climate) is White Fragility.  And the novel I absolutely-throw-it-against-the-wall hated was Normal People!  I can’t even bring myself to watch the Hulu series, the book just bored me to tears.

Kristina Note: Definitely agree with White Fragility. I also have read So You Want to Talk About Race and Between the World and Me in the last few months, which both helped expand my knowledge and understanding of the institutional racism in our country.

PLEASE NOTE - WE PURPOSELY DID NOT LINK THE BOOKS MENTIONED ABOVE BECAUSE WE ARE TRYING TO SUPPORT SMALL INDEPENDENT BOOK STORES IN THIS TIME AND WE SUGGEST YOU CHECK WITH YOUR LOCAL STORE BEFORE BUYING THROUGH AMAZON.