A Story Of Sorts

01/03/2022

🎙S3 Episode 3 of A Story Of Sorts is out!

On this episode I chat with Ari Honarvar about her debut novel A Girl Called Rumi, about Ari's work dancing with refugees to heal trauma, and her experience migrating from Iran to the USA as a child refugee.

Listen on your favourite podcast platform or in the link in bio!

[ID: photo of a card with a light green background, the podcast’s logo on the top left corner, slightly covering an illustration resembling a Polaroid print with a photo of Ari. Second photo shows an iPad on top of a white typewriter on a light green cabinet. The iPad is showing the cover of A Girl Called Rumi.]

04/01/2022

🎙S3 Episode 1 of A Story Of Sorts is out!

We’re back for a third season, and we start it off by chatting with Reyna Marder Gentin about her most recent novel, Both Are True!
In this episode Reyna also talks about her experience changing career paths at 50, and about writing what you know.

You can listen and subscribe on your favourite podcast platform or in the link in bio!
Reyna Marder Gentin - writer

24/12/2021

And these are our favorite books read in 2021. We have 18 lists all with bangers of books so take your time to check them all out and build up that TBR again!

03/03/2021

A small audio clip of my interview with Senja, from Het Finse Meisje.

03/03/2021

🎙Episode 5 of A Story Of Sorts is out!
I talk with Senja from about living abroad, her love for interior design and renovation, with a few tips from Senja on how to grow a social media presence and creating a community online.

You can listen on your favourite podcast platform or by clicking the link in bio!

22/02/2021

Martinique Mims about her debut middle grade book, Through The Colors Of A Butterfly!
(Part II)

22/02/2021

Martinique Mims about her debut middle grade book, Through The Colors Of A Butterfly!
(Part I)

22/02/2021

On this fourth episode I talk with author Martinique Mims about her debut middle-grade book, Through The Colours Of A Butterfly, and about her role as a recruitment manager for an education non-profit organisation. The book is out on the 23rd of February.

Available on your favourite podcast platform or by clicking in the link in bio!

18/02/2021

Honey Girl, by Morgan Rogers, is a lovely story about finding your place in the world in your late twenties, and how the pressure to be your best self isn’t always the best you can do for yourself.
It’s a quirky narrative, where friendship takes centre stage, a physical and emotional trip, nodding here and there to the inequalities of being a black q***r woman in academia.
I really liked this book and its characters, and not all endings in this book are happy ever after, but they are real.

Blurb
With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas to celebrate. She’s a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know…until she does exactly that.
This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her parent’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.
In New York, she’s able to ignore all the constant questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along—the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.

[photo of an iPad showing the cover of the book mentioned above on top of a light brown sheepskin. The cover has a wine-coloured background with a black girl wearing black lipstick, with flowers on her golden hair and a gold hoop earring, a white shirt with purple buttons.]

*
Thank you Edelweiss+ and for the gifted eARC!

10/02/2021

I really enjoyed An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones. The book is a great reflection on family relationships, especially marriage.
The story is told by three people. At different stages of the book I sided with different characters, who find themselves in unexpected and deeply unfair circumstances and try to live with them.
The ending was perfect, because I couldn’t have conceived a different one for this book, one that isn’t perfect in usual terms, but perfect for the conditions these people found themselves in.

What is your favourite book about a marriage?

Blurb
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.

[photo of an iPod placed on top of a light brown sheepskin showing the cover of the book mentioned above. The cover is turquoise blue with a yellow tree in the middle, no leaves, and the title in black on top of it.]

06/02/2021

Everything Under was my second book by Daisy Johnson, and although I didn’t love it as much as Sisters, I do get why it was shortlisted for the Booker prize.
Johnson’s writing is compelling, and she keeps you guessing. The book is narrated in different perspectives, and like Sisters, sometimes you can’t really pinpoint what is real and what is not. This story is once again coated in melancholy, and it pulls you in.
There is one scene in this book that I could live without, in all honesty, but I really liked everything else.

Blurb
The dictionary doesn’t contain every word. Gretel, a lexicographer by trade, knows this better than most. She grew up on a houseboat with her mother, wandering the canals of Oxford and speaking a private language of their own invention. Her mother disappeared when Gretel was a teen, abandoning her to foster care, and Gretel has tried to move on, spending her days updating dictionary entries.
One phone call from her mother is all it takes for the past to come rushing back. To find her, Gretel will have to recover buried memories of her final, fateful winter on the canals. A runaway boy had found community and shelter with them, and all three were haunted by their past and stalked by an ominous creature lurking in the canal: the bonak. Everything and nothing at once, the bonak was Gretel’s name for the thing she feared most. And now that she’s searching for her mother, she’ll have to face it.

[photo of my hand holding the book mentioned above with a bookcase filled with books on the background. The cover is mostly dark blue, title in light green and the author’s name in white, with corals and sea creatures drawn in different colours, light blue, magenta, light blue, and green.]

06/02/2021

I started watching The Queen’s Gambit and after one episode realised I wanted to read the book first, so I put the series on hold and immersed myself in this.
I liked it. I don’t know anything about chess, I have only an idea of how the pieces move, and there are a lot of chess playing descriptions in the book but, somehow, they didn’t put me off. I like the main character, and the writing kept me wanting to read further.
I talk about this book (and others) in more detail on a new bonus episode of the podcast, which is scheduled to come out on the 9th of February, next Tuesday!

Do you prefer to read the book first, or watch the movie/series first?

[photo of the book mentioned above placed on a light brown sheepskin. The cover is of the nextflix series, with the actress playing it facing the reader; her hair is red, her skin pale and she has her elbows placed on a table, hands under her chin. In front of her there is a chess set, some of the pieces are chess pieces, but some of those were replaced by a bottle of pills and a drink. The background behind her is wine coloured]

05/02/2021

Disability Visibility, by is not only an interesting book, it is a necessary one.
I was impressed by all the diverse voices in this essay collection; there are disabilities I had never heard of, but there’s also people of all identities. It made me, once again, realise how little disabled representation there is in books, and how it’s something that it is seriously lacking from my shelves.
It also made me start looking at the world with much more attention; a lot of places are not disabled-friendly and everything abled bodied people think it’s tough (like renting a house, for example) becomes infinitely more challenging.
I really encourage you to read this book.

[photo of an iPod resting on top of a light brown sheepskin. The iPod shows the cover of the book mentioned above, which has the title in black letters and a bunch of colourful triangles placed on top of each other.]

05/02/2021

In February ’s book club - Educate Yourself - will be discussing Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde.
I’m currently listening to the audiobook, and there are many interesting reflections on race, sexuality, and sexism. I felt that having the book in print to allow me to easily go back to certain passages would help me comprehend and retain a few things better, because this is such an intricate read, which touches so many subjects.

If you’d like to join in the book club has copies available in store, which we can deliver or send your way - both in English and in Dutch.
The meetings are currently online, each second Wednesday of the month. This particular meeting will take place on the 10th of February, at 20:00.

To receive updates/links to the meetings, you can subscribe to our newsletter at tinyletter.com/bedjeducateyourself, or send an email to [email protected].

With this book club we aim to talk about all matters related to social justice, to read as diverse as possible, learning from books and from/with each other.

[photo of the book mentioned above placed standing on a bookshelf, with various colourful books behind it. The cover is mostly blue and grey, a black woman with white hair on the right corner, her hair flowing to the left, skyscrapers drawn behind her, the image of a city at night. Framing this is what looks like hand-drawn photo negatives with small more abstract images]

04/02/2021

A small audio clip of the episode with Esmée de Heer from Bored to Death book club!

04/02/2021

04/02/2021

I knew halfway through this book that it was going to become one of my favourite books of all time. As it came to an end, I was certain of it.
I got this book because so many people reviewed it in a positive light, and said it was hilarious. I love funny books, especially when they also have an emotional layer, and this book is all that. I liked the writing, the story, and especially the three main characters, Lillian and the two kids.
It made me laugh, it made me cry, one of those books that feel like a tight hug when you’re feeling down.
The audiobook was amazing!

I’ll have a bonus podcast episode exclusively about this book up for patrons on my Patreon in the next month or so!

Blurb
Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help.
Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth.
Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other—and stay cool—while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her—urgently and fiercely. Couldn’t this be the start of the amazing life she’d always hoped for?

Caption/description in the comments.

04/02/2021

Shaun Tan writes the sweetest - and, other times, wittiest - stories, and I loved Eric!

Blurb
“Years ago we had a foreign exchange student come to live with us. We found it very difficult to pronounce his name correctly, but he didn’t mind. He told us to just call him ‘Eric’.”
As charming as he is curious, by the end of his stay this intriguing house guest will capture your heart. This story is from Shaun Tan’s award-winning collection Tales from Outer Suburbia.

It’s a small book, which you’ll read in ten minutes, filled with cute black and white illustrations. If you haven’t read Shaun Tan yet, this is a good place to begin.
(Just note that, unlike Eric, everyone should ask others to pronounce their names properly.)

[photo of my hand holding the book mentioned above, with a bookshelf filled with books on the background. The book cover is green, the author’s name in black at the top, the title in white in the middle and a black figure with white eyes and a head shaped almost like a badly drawn crown at the bottom]

03/02/2021

🎙Episode 3 of A Story Of Sorts is out!
I talk with Esmée de Heer from Bored to Death book club about her experience hosting a book club, both in-person, and online!

You can listen on your favourite podcast platform or by going to linktr.ee/astoryofsorts
📸 by Esmée de Heer

[first image is of a photo with The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern, and Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke placed on a grey flat stone with a bookmark of bored to death book club in the middle, all against a dark wooden background. Second photo is of Esmée.]

01/02/2021

Unfortunately, this book was not the great reading I had anticipated.
I’ve had it on my TBR for a while and I had heard very good reviews, but it just didn’t click for me.
The story talks about Ana, a 15 year old girl from the Dominican Republic who marries a man twice her age, with the promise of emigrating to New York.
What I did not expect was for the book to start by saying that he already wanted to marry her when she was 11. The whole thing disgusted me, and I know the book is loosely based on the true story of the writer’s mother, but it still put me off and it was difficult to carry on reading.
The biggest issue, and why I mostly didn’t like it, had to do with the narrative - which is in the first person - because it sounds so detached. Ana talks about what is happening to her as someone seeing it from the outside, and I don’t imagine that a 15 year old would place so little emotion on the events taking place in her life. It was almost as if she was stripped of deep feelings, so I had very little to grasp at here.
I still think it is an important story, it just didn’t work for me.

Blurb
Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn’t matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year’s Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan’s free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay.

[photo of Dominican by Angie Cruz placed on a light brown sheepskin. The cover is white at the top with the title white outlined in blue and the author’s name in red. Below that the cover is red, there are windows painted in blue the window in the centre shows a woman leaning over the windowsill, an electric fan on the outside]

31/01/2021

Now available on Patreon, for patrons of all tiers: episode 3 with Esmée de Heer, from Bored to Death book club!
The episode will be on all podcasts platforms on the 2nd of February!

30/01/2021

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: there isn’t a sliver of joy in this book. I absolutely loved it.
The story takes place in one day, but it seems to last so long. How many wrong things can happen in one day, you ask? A lot, and they aren’t big things, they’re small inconveniences, and accidents, small bothers in a family’s life, most of which except one, will probably be forgotten in a few months. And yet. And yet.
Jones’ prose is coated in sadness, each sentence a new layer of melancholy which grows thicker and thicker. How simple things, put together, become immense.

How can you say you have enjoyed a book that has made you so sad?

Blurb: On a long, hot day, Gareth searches for a missing pregnant cow. A dog must be put down, there are ducks to go in the pond, there are children, and there is Kate, his wife, who may be an uncrossable distance from him. Jones's rural Wales is alive with the necessities of our own animal instincts and most human longing.

[photo of my hand holding The Long Dry, by Cynan Jones with a bookshelf in the background. There’s a doll and an embroidery of Anne Frank on the shelf and colourful books. The book cover is white, with a house and the ground drawn in black ink, a lone man at the front, almost extracted from the rest of the picture, the title and author’s name also in black at the very top]

28/01/2021

This book is as good as everyone claims it to be.
It made cry, it gave me hope, and it terrified me. The depictions of a dictatorial state scared me more than any horror book I’ve read. The forced silence, the lack of freedom to be oneself, how the world is hateful towards people because they don’t fit their version of “normalcy”. Which was true then and is still true now. It made me angry.
The writing is dense, but easy to follow, and I think that what surprised me the most in this book was how I never found one character from the main five that I liked more than the others. They all felt so real, and they all had flaws and they were all compassionate, each a different personality. I loved them all.

Blurb: In defiance of the brutal military government that took power in Uruguay in the 1970s, and under which homosexuality is a dangerous transgression, five women miraculously find one another—and, together, an isolated cape that they claim as their own. Over the next thirty-five years, they travel back and forth from this secret sanctuary, sometimes together, sometimes in pairs, with lovers in tow
or alone. Throughout it all, they will be tested repeatedly—by their families, lovers, society, and one another—as they fight to live authentic lives. A groundbreaking, genre-defining work, Cantoras is a breathtaking portrait of q***r love, community, forgotten history, and the strength of the human spirit.

[photo of the book Cantoras, by Carolina de Robertis placed on top of a light brown sheepskin. The cover shows a picture of a beach, with blue skies, turbulent sea, and some rocks at the front. The name of the author in red letters on the top, the title in white in the middle.]

27/01/2021

I missed having a book breaking me into pieces, but that was fixed with Sisters, by .
Her writing is haunting, sadness at the surface of each word, and I absolutely loved it. I’m currently reading another of her books, Everything Under.

Blurb: Born just ten months apart, July and September are thick as thieves, never needing anyone but each other. Now, following a case of school bullying, the teens have moved away with their single mother to a long-abandoned family home near the shore. In their new, isolated life, July finds that the deep bond she has always shared with September is shifting in ways she cannot entirely understand. A creeping sense of dread and unease descends inside the house. Meanwhile, outside, the sisters push boundaries of behavior—until a series of shocking encounters tests the limits of their shared experience, and forces shocking revelations about the girls’ past and future.

[photo of the book mentioned above placed on top of a light brown sheepskin. The cover is white with the author’s name in black. There’s a photo of a woman, but her face is placed as if made by two photos. The title Sisters is in black on the middle, the last S falling off the word.]

26/01/2021

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a galley of Hani and Ishu’s Guide To Fake Dating, gifted to me by , after I invited her to come to the podcast to talk about her amazing books.
I really loved The Henna Wars, and I went into this book expecting more of Adiba’s magic. I know this is a mistake (and unfair) sometimes but, in this case, my expectations were more than fulfilled.
I don’t want to say I loved this book more than The Henna Wars, but the fake lovers troupe is one of my favourites and Adiba worked it in a lovely way. The writing is wonderful, the dialogues believable, and the story is sweet, and cute, and so engaging! Maybe it was because I’ve read it last, but one side of me tells me I loved this one even more than I loved The Henna Wars (and you should read both).

The book comes out in May and, if everything goes according to plan, I’ll have Adiba on the podcast around that time too, so keep an eye out for that! And don’t forget to preorder this gem (the black and white kindle edition doesn’t do justice to this pretty and colourful cover).
(Swipe or see captions in comment for the Goodreads description.)

[picture of a kindle on top of a light brown sheepskin showing a cover of the book mentioned above. The cover is black and white and has the title across the middle and two girls on each side, the girl on the left has long black hair and is wearing jeans, a tshirt and a jacket that ends at her knees, and flat shoes. The girl on the right is shorter and is wearing sneakers, a sweater and some jeans]

25/01/2021

Pride & Premeditation, by .price, is a Jane Austen retelling (I think you can figure out of which book), and I absolutely loved it!
I’ve never read Pride & Prejudice, so there were a few characters I wasn’t familiar with, but I consumed this book in two days, and I even considered reading all night to finish it (sleep won in the end).
It’s fun, the crime mystery well executed, and the romance is subtle but super cute!
The book comes out in April, so put that in your pre-orders. The final cover is a delight!

I’m planning a podcast interview with Tirzah as well, which I’m very excited about!

Here’s the book blurb:
“When a scandalous murder shocks London high society, seventeen-year-old aspiring lawyer Lizzie Bennet seizes the opportunity to prove herself, despite the interference of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the stern young heir to the prestigious firm Pemberley Associates.
Convinced the authorities have imprisoned the wrong person, Lizzie vows to solve the murder on her own. But as the case—and her feelings for Darcy—become more complicated, Lizzie discovers that her dream job could make her happy, but it might also get her killed.”

[photo of a kindle placed on top of a light brown sheepskin. The cover of the book all in black and white has the title mentioned above, the author’s name and A Jane Austen Mystery Murder and cover not final in the middle, with flowers framing all this. On the top right corner, inside a black box in white letter it says Advanced Reader’s Edition, Not For Sale]

*
Thanks to and Edelweiss+ for the gifted eARC.

24/01/2021

24/01/2021

I wanted to spare myself the stress of finishing a book right before the end of the year, so a week before that I picked up a long book I knew I’d have to carry to the new year.

My Heart Is A Chainsaw was batsh*t crazy. For those who, like me, have read and loved The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones, this shouldn’t have been a surprise: I loved how out-of-hand the story in The Only Good Indians got, and that’s not something you replicate easily.
In this story, however, the main character is very peculiar, and although you know you should believe her, my attitude towards her ended up being the same atitude everyone around her shows: she’s gone mad.
I did like this book, though, and I gave it 4 stars because I appreciate Jones’ storytelling and boldness, but don’t go into it expecting the same you got in The Only Good Indians. Or do, I did and I wasn’t exactly disappointed.

I would like to read another book by Jones, something that I can compare to TOGI and MHIaC and figure out to which side Jones’ stories tend to go, so hit me up if you have any recommendations from his books!

My Heart Is A Chainsaw comes out in August.
*
Thank you Edelweiss+ and for the gifted eARC.

[photo of a kindle placed standing against the books on a bookshelf. The cover has the title of the book mentioned above and the author and it looks like a paper which has been torn down the middle]

23/01/2021

The podcast will now be complemented by a (digital) zine!

Here are a few things it will contain:
* An editorial;
* A list of the books I've read the previous month (including books not yet published), with reviews and ratings;
* A look back at the podcast guests and interviews;
* Books recommended by each guest;
* A book of the month, in which I recommend a favourite backlist book (that means, a book published before 2021);
* Cute photos!
* Articles and other bookish/personal ramblings;
* ...and more!

This is a free monthly zine, which will be uploaded into a zine website for easy access, and available to download in PDF.

For regular updates subscribe to my newsletter via linktr.ee/carinapereira

Here is a cover reveal!

21/01/2021

A small audio clip from my interview with author Ece Gurler, about her debut book, Frank.
For the full episode check out linktr.ee/astoryofsorts
Follow Ece Gurler - Artist & Author