5 reads & 3 recs from March!
The best book I've ever read, my "travel outfit" and the divorce memoir everyone is talking about.
Welcome back to my monthly wrap-up, a retrospective of book reviews and my favorite things I’ve tried and loved through the month. Looking for more book reviews and recommendations from past months? You can find ‘em all here.
I told you on Tuesday that I've just wrapped up my worst reading month ever, and why— let’s get that out of the way now!
I’m currently eleven books behind my Goodreads goal to read 150 books this year. I don’t think I’ve ever fallen that far behind before. Honestly, I am too stressed about other things to allow that number to stress me out more. It is what it is, I’ll make up the gap on the beach at some point this year, even if the very numbers motivated person within me is cringing internally at behind “behind.”
I did get totally immersed in a longer book this month, which while bad for quantitative reading goals, was delicious. It’s been a while since I got so wrapped up in a book I couldn’t stop devouring it. I had a hard time getting into anything this month, and I’m about to go into a beach vacation trip without a single beach read in my TBR. Anyone else struggling? This is me asking you to please recommend good beach reads!
In the meantime, some non bookish things I loved in March…
I hate Fool’s Spring! March is the biggest tease. I can’t say that April will be much better, but March had me wishing I could wear fun non-winter clothes again, without the ability to actually do so! I escaped to Lisbon for 3 days and it felt so good to get to actually dress again. My Gap jeans were my trusty workhorse, along with— randomly— this pair of crochet Tom’s that the brand sent me as part of the anniversary of their OG silhouette. I wasn’t sure if I could or would rock this shape of shoe as someone who never wore them the first time they were popular, but they were SO comfortable in Lisbon, which is a very hilly, wobbly, walking city. I can’t recommend them enough, especially for under $70.
Seeking an end to the sallow, hollow winter skin, I purchased a travel size mini of the Kosas plumping spray serum to use as a toner-esque first step in my otherwise very simple skincare routine. Wow! It delivers. I love it and now I never skip it in the mornings, I do feel like it helps with juiciness and makes my skin look more vivacious and alive. I follow it with my Super Saturated Serum (I have code AZORA10 for all Experiment Beauty!) and then a basic French pharmacy lotion. Boom, done! Better skin.
My go-to travel matching set— and the original impetus behind my investigation into comfy but not sloppy WFH pants (a reader favorite!)— is 20% off until midnight. This matching top and bottom have sort of a denim-y hue to them but are stretchy, sun-washed cotton. At the time it felt like a splurge to me, but I’ve gotten sooooo much wear out of both and will for years to come— so I recommend taking the discount if you’ve had your eye on ‘em!
Onto the reads! Honest, full-length book reviews below for books like Crescent City, Wolf Hall, Starving Saints, Strangers, and more. Despite all my hemming and hawing above about how I didn’t read enough this month, I also finished what was objectively the best book I’ve ever read in my life in March, so… potato potáto.