july 2025,

In July, I got to visit one of my best friends and her wife at home while she told me the story of having her baby at 33 weeks and four days, which is quite a bit early. I wept quiet tears as she walked me through the trauma of feeling dramatic, like she couldn't handle pregnancy, and the realization that something was really wrong, and collapsing in the bathroom, and saying "I love you" over and over to her wife as they wheeled her away. I love them both so much, and am beyond words glad she's alive, and the baby is finally home, safe, alive, well. And now we embark on another iteration of our friendship. The joy of life, the ups and the downs, this is what it's all about, like it or not.

In July, I threw a soggy, slobbery chuck-it ball for a dog who can sit, kiss, speak, and twirl on command. He can also "find his sister," which means chase after a tiny fairy princess of a little girl whose mother I have known for over a decade. Her mother and I worked together at a job where I fell in love and fought and kissed someone else and got back togehter and fought and fought and got back together and had an abortion, all while she was in a long distance relationship with someone who didn't acknowledge her birthday becasue he didn't care about birthdays but boy did we acknowledge her birthday. Angry drinking while cursing boyfriends turned into ending up in Seattle again at the same time and majorly breaking our bones at the same time and falling back in love and getting married (her) and breaking up (me) and having kids (her). When I was between leases once, she let me stay at her place for a week and it was so not a big deal that I almost don't remember it. That's the kind of friendship I like. The kind that has so much history, and even if it's not present in your daily life, it's never far from being so.

Friendship is such a big beast of a joyous part of life. I struggle with my friendships, kind of a lot if I'm being honest, and it's a lot of what I discuss in therapy. I know how lucky I am, though. To have people to share their couch and their kid and their dog and their stories and their sadness and their grief and their love with. I hope I'm doing that too.

Here's what I read in July.

[books I read]

Save the Date by Allison Raskin (2025) | Quick summary: After Emma's fiancé leaves her six months before their wedding, she decides to keep her wedding date and find a new fiancé to replace him.
I have followed Allison Raskin online for (well over?) a decade and have seen her through many iterations and stages of her life. Raskin and Gabe Dunn have a podcast and YouTube channel, Just Between Us, that I have on-and-off listened to forever, and though I've followed Dunn's career a little closer (big Bad With Money fan here), I remember well when Raskin's fiancé left her in real life. She shared about it, humourously and honestly, online, which is exactly who she is. So funny and so honest. Save the Date was an absolute delight. She differentiated herself enough from the main character, Emma, but I felt her and her beloved parents through the characters. I loved this book a lot!
[fiction, romance, written by a white american writer, director, comedian, youtuber, and podcaster, medium-length read]

The Art of Catching Feelings by Alicia Thompson (2024) | Quick summary: A professional baseball player and his heckler fall in love!
Alicia is my good buddy and pal, but even if she weren't, I'd read every book she dreamt up. I'm not a huge baseball person, but I'm a mild baseball person. I don't mind it, but I do think it goes on too long. I genuinely care for the Seattle Mariners and the New York Mets but I don't want to be at every game and I don't own any shirts. You don't have to love baseball to love this book, but if you do love baseball, you'll love this book. I kept envisioning the characters played by Glen Powell and Zoey Deutc,h which made me realize I just need to watch Set it Up again, though I do think Deutch would be a good Daphne. Last thing: I read this book with my good friend Lindsey (@lindseybluherreads) using Storygraph's "buddy read" feature, and it worked really well and was very fun. You can buddy read with a group of 15!
[fiction, romance, written by a white american writer, reader, and lover of baseball, medium-length read]

Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan (2022) | Quick summary: Sewanee balances audiobook reading (her successful career), healing from an accident that lost her an eye, falling in love, and losing her grandmother.
Idk I didn't really like this book all that much. It was really long for no particular reason, and I personally felt like it was doing too much. The whole grandmother storyline was devastating but also rushed because it was balanced with Sewanee's mysterious accident and weird romance with her audiobook-reading bestie/Las Vegas lover. I'd pick one of those things instead of attempting all of them, and I'm unsure why Whelan wrote Sewanee's accident as such a mystery when she simply lost an eye in a freak accident on set. I'm also unsure why Whelan named a character Sewanee. I never got used to it.
[contemporary romance, written by a white american actress, narrator and author, longer read]

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff (2023) | Quick summary: Out in the wilderness, one lone girl tries to survive.
This has been on my literal shelf for a while, so I am happy to have read it and will pass it along. I remember being taken by Groff's Florida, a book of short stories, and being eager to read more of her work ever since. Halfway through, I was underwhelmed, but by the end, I was feeling it in my chest. It's a good book.
[historical and literary fiction, written by a white american novelist and short story writer, medium-length read]

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn (2001) | Quick summary: One person's fight for freedom of expression as her tiny town keeps banning letters of the alphabet from being used in any capacity.
I wanted to find a book about censorship that wasn't totally obvious like Fahrenheit 451 (even though I've never even read it) and for some reason this 24-year-old book had a hold at the library but then I found it in a little free library! How fun! This book was cute and funny and written for appreciators of the English language and semantics. I know exactly the friend I'm mailing it to now that I've finished!
[literary and epistolary fiction, written by a white american author and playwright, shorter read]

[books I heard]

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie (2017) | Quick summary: A memoir about family, love, loss, identity, culture, and forgiveness.
If you're not familiar with Sherman Alexie, great. Don't google him. For a long time, he was someone I felt very proud of, being from my home state and making a name for himself as a Native American writer. He's got a lot of talent, and this memoir was beautiful and tragic. It just also comes with the weight of, "should I be reading this? should I praise his writing?" Questions I've grown all too familiar with post-me too and in the midst of J.K. Rowling's tyranny.
[nonfiction, memoir, mom wound, written by a native american novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker, longer listen, read by the author]

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Story of Black Lives Matter and the Power to Change the World by asha bandele, Patrisse Khan-Cullors (2020) | Quick summary: A memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in america and what goes into founding a movement.
I accidentally listened to the young adult version of this memoir, but it was hard to even tell, honestly, and at the end, I was kind of glad I did. It's so easy (sorry!) to talk to kids about race and conflict and civil liberties. And if you're a non-Black person, the YA version of books like this can sometimes be more accessible for even adults. I know Cullors has experienced some controversy in recent years, but I wouldn't let that deter you from picking this up (any and all versions).
[nonfiction, civil rights and liberties, co-written by a Black journalist and author, and Black american activist, artist, and writer, medium-length listen, read by one of the authors]

Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys by Billy Crystal (2013): Quick summary: Stories from actor and comedian Billy Crystal's life.
Crystal performed this memoir like a stand-up show where every chapter was a stand-up set. I think that might have worked with a different production, but it didn't work for me. I give some grace because 2013 audiobooks were very different than 2025 audiobooks, but regardless, I hated this and will write more about it in a "you paid for this" post coming up in the next couple of days.
[nonfiction, comedy memoir, written by an american actor, comedian, and filmmaker, medium-length listen, read/performed by the author]

Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real about the End by Alua Arthur (2024) | Quick summary: A memoir that reframes how we think about death.
I've been enamored with the idea of death doulas for a couple of years now, likely because of my best friend's son's death at 7 years old in 2023. Grief and death have been of interest to me even before that, though. I think there's something about the pure humanity of death; there's something special and interesting and controversial and avoidant about death. I want to talk about it, and I want people to be comfortable talking about it, and I don't even know where that initially came from. Anyway, this book is fucking beautiful and I have a career-and-life-crush on Alua Arthur. Good thing I'm getting my masters in social work! Maybe I can do something like this with it!
[nonfiction, memoir, guide, written by a Black ghanian bestselling author, death doula, and "Perpetual Seeker of nothing to be found," long listen, read by the author]

[reading challenges]

• For Seattle Summer Book Bingo:
  • Briefly Perfectly Human by Alua Arthur: "Suggested by a Library Worker."
  • Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn: "Censorship."
  • Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan: "Intergenerational Friendship."
  • When They Call You a Terrorist by asha bandele, Patrisse Khan-Cullors: "Resistance."
  • The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff: "Great Escapes."
  • The Art of Catching Feelings by Alicia Thompson: "Buddy Read."

[what I recommend]

• If you actually like a fun little romcom and you used to spend time on Buzzfeed: Save the Date, The Art of Catching Feelings, and Thank You For Listening
• If you love baseball: The Art of Catching Feelings
• If you like books like I Who Have Never Known Men: The Vaster Wilds
• If you are a person, especially an American: Freedom Is a Constant Struggle
• If you need to learn how to talk to/with your kids about racial tensions in the US today: When They Call You a Terrorist
• If your mom hurt your feelings: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
• If you will one day die: Briefly Perfectly Human

"When I bake, I do not have to speak. When I bake, I do not have to make sense of anything except the ingredients summoned by memory that I have laid out in front of me. Sometimes the children offer to help, but I do not accept. This is something best done alone. Something I do well. One of the few things I can actually do. So eat them. Eat them all. I will bake more. It is what I do. All I can do." Ella Minnow Pea

"Go on, go on, go on, girl, she said aloud to herself, angry. Go on or die where you stand." The Vaster Wilds

"When someone dies who has hurt us, it's hard or confusing to know how to hold both grief and anger, or sorrow and relief. Or to give yourself permission to feel those feelings in different measures. Not everyone is sad when someone dies. Some are relieved. Not every loss is a loss and grief doesn't always look like sadness. We need to make room for other responses to death, not just sadness and despair, to honor the lushness of the human experience." Briefly Perfectly Human

See you at the end of August, babes.