nicolle (she/her)📚♐️

•book review•
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•37 | 2025
•🎧 June 16 - June 25
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•💽 My Story
•✍🏼 Elizabeth Smart, Chris Stewart
•📦 published in 2013
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•📚Genre: Memoir
•⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ /5
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#bookreview #bookrecs #bookrecommendations #audiobook #memoirreview

Still thinking about this book 🐌 🖤

Image showing my review of Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. Read/listened to from June 12 to June 16. Five stars. Thoughts: Read/listen to this if you ever wish you went to college to have a “better” job. This will make you feel better with your position. Corporate America sucks, it’s a hell hole.

•book review•
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•36 | 2025
•🎧 June 12 - June 16
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•💽 Careless People
•✍🏼 Sarah Wynn-Williams
•📦 published in 2025
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•📚Genre: Memoir
•⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ /5
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#bookrec #bookreview #bookrecs #booksky #audiobookreview

35 | 2025
•🎧 June 4 - June 9
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•💽 Cher: The Memoir, Part One
•✍🏼 Cher
•📦 published in 2024
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•📚Genre: Memoir
•⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ /5
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#booksky #bookreview #bookrecommendations

Image showing an Advanced Reader Copy review for Backhanded Compliments by Katie Chandler. This book is available now! My ratings: 4.5 stars and 2.5 spice. The tropes in this book are: 🎾pro tennis romance 👟 rivals to lovers 🎾 soulmate AU (names as soulmarks) 👟 forced proximity 🎾 dual POV 👟 anxiety representation 🎾 sapphic and spicy 👟 lesbian x bisexual FF

Image showing the description of Backhanded Compliments by Katie Chandler: Juliette Ricci dreams of only one thing: being the best women’s tennis player in the world. She’s worked nonstop with her strict father/coach to prepare for her big chance in the Australian Open. Unfortunately, she’ll be playing Lucky Luca Kacic, an aloof player whose unorthodox style and reigning popularity deeply irritate Juliette. For months they’ve traded sly insults in their press conferences leading up to their showdown on the court, and their first ever match is the most anticipated of the season. But Juliette refuses to let her nerves —or Luca’s annoyingly perfect abs— get the best of her. Meanwhile, Luca seemingly has everything Juliette desires but there’s one thing missing from her life: love. When she shakes hands with Juliette after an agonizing match and sees her rival’s name appear on her wrist, it feels like a cruel joke. Juliette is a spoiled, arrogant brat who wants absolutely nothing to do with Luca or a soulmate. But despite their personal and professional clashes, the two grow closer after late-night massages and one too many shots of limoncello. Their chemistry is tangible, but Luca’s anxiety tells her that Juliette is just messing with her head to throw her off her game, and Juliette can’t understand why Luca is so hot and cold. With the pressure of the world scrutinizing their every move, they will have to decide what’s more important—being together or being number one.

34 | 2025
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This is an absolutely perfect summer romance! If you’ve been looking for a tense, sapphic, sports romance— look no further!! Longer review elsewhere!
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I received an eARC via NetGalley from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
#BackhandedCompliments #NetGalley #bookreview 💙📚

Image showing the cover of the novella White Ibis by Wendy Dalrymple

Image showing the description of White Ibis by Wendy Dalrymple including content warnings: Chelsea is vain, self-absorbed, and driven in life only by want and her obsession with being the best. Even though she is desperate to portray an outwardly perfect image, things are far from perfect at home. One day at yoga class, Chelsea meets a woman named Damaris who is exactly like her: beautiful, confident, and reaching high to be her best self. Damaris and Chelsea become instant best friends and bond over healthy eating, fitness, and their love of luxury items. As Chelsea's heart hardens toward her boyfriend, her obsession with the enigmatic Damaris only blossoms. As one bad decision turns into another, Chelsea begins to think she is being followed by a white bird. Her new best friend Damaris suggests a girls' weekend in New Orleans to get away from it all and Chelsea readily agrees. Unfortunately for Chelsea, it soon becomes clear that she can't run away from her problems and instead finds herself tumbling head-first into a downward spiral. Content Warnings: fatphobia, disordered eating, mild body horror, mention of suicide

33|2025📚Horror
3.5⭐️ This is a great short read. If you’re into creepy/weird books and want a quick palate cleanser- read this!! It’s not scary horror but it is a little suspense/a little psychological. It did leave me wanting a little more. #bookreview #booksky #bookrecommendation

Image showing the book Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Image showing the description of Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros: Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general— also known as her tough-as-talons mother— has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you're smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don't bond to "fragile" humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother's daughter— like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She'll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret. Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda— because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

32 | 2025⭐️⭐️⭐️+🌶️🌶️ The best part for me was the dragons. Unfortunately it was not just about dragons 😂 After about 40% I was rage reading because I didn’t want to DNF. The last 10% of the book was the best part for me. Overall I’m glad I’m done, and I will not be reading the other books. #booksky 💙📚

Picture of the memoir Sociopath by Patric Gagne PHD. The cover image is a childhood photo of Gagne above the title

Image showing the description of Sociopath by Patric Gagne: Patric Gagne realized she made others uncomfortable before she started kindergarten. She suspected it was because she didn't feel things the way other kids did. Emotions like fear, guilt, and empathy eluded her. Mostly, she felt nothing. And she didn't like the way that "nothing" felt. She tried to pretend she was like everyone else, but the constant pressure to conform to a society that spurned anyone like her was unbearable. So Patric stole. She lied. She was occasionally violent. She became an expert lockpick and home invader. All with the goal of replacing the nothingness with…something. In a college psychology course, Patric finally realized what set her apart: She was a sociopath. But even though the disorder was identified a century earlier, sociopathy had been neglected by mental health professionals for decades. She was told there was no treatment, no hope for a normal life. She found herself haunted by pop culture sociopaths: madmen, villains, and monsters. Her future looked grim. But when Patric reconnects with an old flame, she gets a glimpse of a future beyond her diagnosis. If she's capable of love, it must mean that she isn't a monster. With the help of her sweetheart (and some curious characters she meets along the way) she sets out to become a therapist herself and prove that the millions of Americans who share her diagnosis aren't all monsters, either.

31 | 2025 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I had no idea what this was going to be, but I am so glad I read it!! It was so interesting to hear Gagne’s perspective of realizing she was different than other people, discovering what the cause was, and now fighting for recognition and resources for people like herself. #booksky

Advanced Reader Copy review for Come As You Are by Dahlia Adler. 4.5 stars! Available everywhere May 27th! Tropes: YA romance, friends to lovers, grumpy/sunshine, fresh start, self discovery, true friends

Image showing the description of Come As You Are by Dahlia Adler: Hot on the heels of a broken heart, Everett "Evie" Riley arrives at Camden Academy ready for a new beginning— one far away from her cheating ex-boyfriend, the sister who stole him, and the best friend who let it happen. But her fresh start is stopped in its tracks when she's accidentally placed in an all-boys dorm, with no choice but to stay. When rumors and gossip about Evie's housing predicament spread like wildfire, she decides the only way to survive is to lean into her questionable new reputation...but she's definitely going to require help. Her grumpy emo dorm mate Salem Grayson isn't exactly her first choice, but he does need her help to repair his relationship with his parents every bit as much as she needs his to learn how to be cool. And so they make a pact— he'll teach her how to be bad, if she teaches him how to be good. It's a flawless plan, except while Salem thrives academically, even romantically, and— annoyingly enough— even physically, Evie's quest feels like one dead end after another, and the girl she's becoming certainly doesn't feel remotely cool. But when Evie realizes what she wants more than anything, she'll have to contend with her thrice-broken heart and figure out how to become someone capable of chasing happiness.

30 | 2025 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 /5
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Such a fun, sassy, sweet YA romance! Adler is amazing with banter! She’s also so good at writing relatable characters. Much longer review elsewhere!
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I received an eARC via NetGalley from the publisher, Wednesday Books, in exchange for an honest review #NetGalley #bookrec

Image showing the memoir “I’m Glad My Mom Died” by Jennette McCurdy next to a phone showing the audiobook of the same title

Image showing the Content Warnings for the memoir “I’m Glad My Mom Died” by Jennette McCurdy: Emotional abuse by a parent, covert sexual abuse by a parent, terminal illness (cancer), fat phobia, eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia), graphic accounts of emesis, alcoholism, sexually explicit scenes, sexual harassment

29|2025 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I can’t believe some of the things she went through, and by her own mother?! I hated her mom so much and I’m also glad she died. I’m so proud of how Jennette is recovering from everything and unlearning the horrible things her mom taught her. Please check the content warnings.

•book review•
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•28 | 2025
•🎧 May 5 - May 7
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•💽 Beyond the Wand
•✍🏼 Tom Felton
•📦 published in 2022
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•📚Genre: Memoir
•⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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#bookreview #audiobookreview #bookrec #booksky #bookreviewer #audiobook

Image showing the cover of Blood Moon by Jillian Graves

Image showing the description of Blood Moon by Jillian Graves including content warnings: Hazel knows exactly how to get over her bar’s troubles: getting under something big, hairy, and monstrous at her coven’s supernatural mixer. The hottest club in Los Angeles may be luring away her clientele, but for just one night she is ditching her responsibilities and indulging her fantasies. But the relief the witch seeks looks nothing like what she expects. Fur-free and bearing fangs, Vlad is more than an anonymous one-night stand. He’s the mind-reading vampire whose every success brings Hazel’s bar one step closer to ruin. After a century away from LA, Vlad has opened a club for humans and supernaturals alike. But a hot hookup brings him face-to-mind with the curvy witch who stands between him and his dreams. Understanding her dirtiest desires as well as her heartfelt ambitions means navigating a passion studded with pitfalls. Will mixing business and pleasure brew a delicious new future together, or leave them with one hell of a supernatural hangover? 🚨Content Warnings🚨: Mild violence, blood, sex under magical influence, consensual kink, light degradation kink, exhibitionism/voyeurism kink, FMC is hurt in a minor way, power exchange which doesn’t represent real world best practices

27 | 2025 📚Genre: Paranormal Romance ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ + 🌶️🌶️🌶️ Short and steamy 🚿👀 (iykyk). Very quick read (105 pages); I could’ve read it in a day, but I started in the middle of the night. I love Vlad, dream man for real. And Hazel was giving “do I want to be her or be with her”. #booksky #bookreview 💙📚

26 | 2025 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ + 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
All spice, no plot. Two stars but a bonus star for so much FF spice 😂 I would’ve liked a smidge of plot. A friends to lovers would’ve been so easy. Full review elsewhere! #booksky #bookreview #bookrecommendations

25|2025 💙📚 Genre: Historical Monster Romance ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ + 🌶️🌶️🌶️ A little bit slow for me, personally, but I really enjoyed the story overall. The multiple time periods was super fun and I enjoyed the magick, like the way that he can touch her with it even when they’re apart 👀 Full review elsewhere! #booksky

24 | 2025 🎧
•⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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“‘No Shari, you need to learn to sleep in the dark. There are no demons in my house.’ She was wrong of course, there was certainly one.”
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#bookreview #audiobookreview #bookrec #bookrecommendations #audiobook 💙📚

23|2024⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ WOW okay this was something! It had me completely locked in. It has the “descent into madness” element, but I still cried; it was so tragic and beautifully written! I will definitely be reading more from Murray! 💙📚
#bookreview #bookrec #bookrecs #horrorbooks @emmaemurray.bsky.social

22 | 2025
•🎧 April 16 - April 20
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•💽 The Trauma Cleaner
•✍🏼 Sarah Krasnostein
•📦 published in 2017
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•📚Genre: Nonfiction / Biography
•⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

21 | 2025
•🎧 April 9 - April 10
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•💽 Counting the Cost
•✍🏼 Jill Duggar
•📦 published in 2023
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•📚Genre: Memoir
•⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

20 | 2025
•🎧 April 7 - April 8
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•💽 Unbelievable
•✍🏼 T. Christian Miller & Ken Armstrong
•📦 published in 2018
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•📚Genre: Non-fiction true crime (is this redundant?)
•⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

19 | 2025
•🎧 March 25 - April 7
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•💽 Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered
•✍🏼 Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark
•📦 published in 2019
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•📚Genre: Memoir
•⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

•17 | 2025
•🎧 March 21 - March 25
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•💽 Pageboy
•✍🏼 Elliot Page
•📦 published in 2023
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•📚Genre: Memoir
•⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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#bookreview #audiobookreview #pageboy #elliotpage 💙📚

16 | 2025
•🎧 March 17 - March 20
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•💽 I’ll Be Gone in the Dark
•✍🏼 Michelle McNamara
•📦 published in 2018
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•📚Genre: True Crime
•⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

15|2025, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book was hot straight out of the gate, and while it isn’t the spiciest book I’ve ever read, the banter more than makes up for it! It’s not too slow of a burn, and it has amazing summer vibes. #booksky #bookrec #bookreview #romancebooks #books #bookrecommendation

14 | 2025 🎧 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I recently got a library card and downloaded Libby so I decided to listen to this audiobook. The physical has been on my TBR since he passed and I just hadn’t been able to read it. Hearing it in Matthew Perry’s voice was hard, it was emotional, and I cried several times. #booksky

Hi I forgot this platform existed and I don’t think anyone cares about my reviews but I think I’ll still post them (I’m 10 behind)

Image showing the novel The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett in front of a snow covered years

Image showing the description of the novel The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett including content warnings. The Vignes sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything, including their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. Across the country, the other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, although separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen when their own daughters' story lines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, The Vanishing Half is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of race, gender, and identity, and the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's desires and expectations. Content Warnings: Domestic violence, racial hate crimes, murder, mentions of sexual assault

13|2025⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️This book spreads across two generations and weaves back and forth between multiple times. This was super captivating to me once I made the connection. I couldn’t give the book five stars because I did want a little resolution but this feels more realistic. #booksky #bookreview #bookrecs

Image showing the cover of Love Like a Swiftie by Issac Tsang

Image showing the description of Love Like a Swiftie by Issac Tsang: Lucas Wong is a delusional Swiftie. Leaving Hong Kong to start university in England, he is determined to find his "Swiftie soulmate" who loves Taylor Swift as much as he does. But then he falls in love with Diana— a kind-hearted, wise, enchanting girl…who doesn't even listen to Taylor Swift songs! Diana Mason has one thing to do— to prove herself a girl boss uni student. As Lucas helps her run for Madam President of a climate society, Diana craves more than a Love Story with Lucas. Their clashing beliefs drag them into battles of love and politics, making Lucas doubt if Diana is the "Swiftie soulmate" he wants… Can he stay Fearless enough to love Diana outside his Swiftie fantasy?

12 | 2025⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 (ARC review) This was a veeeery slow burn. I wish I would’ve realized it was YA going into it, but that’s my fault. Full review 🔗 in bio!
📓 College romance
💜 He falls first, and HARD
📓 Slow-burn
💜 Never been kissed
📓 Friends to lovers
💜 Opposites attract
📓 Hopeless romantics
#booksky

Image showing the cover of “I’m in glove with Mothman” by Paige Lavoie

Image showing the description of “I’m in Love with Mothman” by Paige Lavoie: 22-year-old Heather is suffering from an epic case of burnout. So, just like any other young influencer, she abandons her social platforms. Check! gathers up her best flowy dresses. Check! and moves to a desolate cabin. Check! Heather imagines spending her #unplugged days traipsing through the woods and tending to her garden. However, her cottagecore fantasy is turned upside down when a wounded cryptid crashes into her roof— and her heart. With no help from her internet followers, and the local monster-hunter growing suspicious, Heather's quiet life in the wilderness has suddenly become a little more complicated. To make matters worse, she thinks she might be falling in love with the brooding winged man in her living room. Content Warnings: Mentions of body shaming, biting (consensual)

11|2025⭐️⭐️⭐️+🌶️🌶️ I love Moth; he’s tall, brooding, a little posh. It was a pretty slow burn (first kiss was at 49%). And I found the spice very mild. I’m not even sure what was going on anatomically. There was an unexpected plot twist towards the end but it didn’t grab me. #booksky #bookreview #bookrec

A stack of my novelette, The Other Lives of Altagracia Sanchez.

She’s here 🥹

And so beautiful!! 💜🌸

@querenciapress.bsky.social