October 2025
Welcome to The Book List!
This is our first of (hopefully) many emails containing just books and reading, and I'm pumped that you're here. Settle in for reviews of all the books I read last month but now with a little more room to breathe. And when casting suggestions are available, I'll share names. Photos can't be included yet because we've been sued before by using a licensed photo of Kevin Hart, and it was a whole thing I don't care to repeat. The Internet is a wild place, you guys. But you can Google the names until we get a legal way to include celebrity photos.
So happy to be reading with you!
This Month’s Books
Book Reviews
Hazel Says No by Jessica Berger Gross
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Casting: The dad is Greg Kinnear, the mom is Kathryn Hahn (that'll be funny at one point in the book), Hazel is Maya Hawke, and the little brother is an amorphous brown-haired tween with a round face.
Content warnings: sexual harassment, antisemitism, mental health
Book words: compelling, funny, emotionally deft, poignant but not heavy-handed
You know when you read a book, expecting it to be solid but nothing more, and then it does something to your insides you didn't expect and you can't stop thinking about it? That happened to me with Hazel Says No.
Hazel is a high school senior who moves from New York City to a small town in Maine with her college professor dad, fashion designer (but make it midlife crisis) mom, and precocious little brother who's about to start middle school. They've got big Dan in Real Life family vibes. Big fan.
I hesitate to spoil the inciting incident that sends Hazel and her family spinning, but I also wish I had known? Plus it's literally the first chapter, so I'm going to risk it. On Hazel's first day of school, her principal propositions her to have sex with him, and you as the reader will feel appropriately appalled. You as the reader might not want to even keep reading because it's so horrible. You as the reader might be a parent who imagines how this might be for your own kid and have a hard time separating your own emotions from the story's. I get it all.
But you as the reader will also be deeply rewarded for reading to the end. This family is normal, annoying, selfish, and deeply committed to one another. The dialogue is on point, the Maine vibes are accurate, the writing is funny (yes, funny), and you want so much for the Blum family to be okay. By the time you get to the end, it'll be the most cathartic reading experience, and I absolutely loved it. Who knows how things will shake out, but at this point, it's for sure a top five book of the year for me. Took me totally by surprise.
After Taste by Daria Lavelle
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Casting: Kostya is Nicholas Hoult, his best friend is Taylor Zakhar Perez, and the fortune teller girl is Jennifer Lawrence.
Content warnings: suicide, death of a loved one
Book words: unique, mysterious, emotional, fairly heavy for being a ghost story about food
Dude, I wanted to love this. At first, I did. For the first half of the book, I was all the way in. I mean, listen to this premise.
Kostya has been tasting dead people since he was a kid. Not tasting them but tasting a food that has an emotional resonance. He can be walking down the streets of New York City and suddenly taste an empanada, knowing it's specific ingredients and flavor profiles even though he has no culinary experience. As an adult, he realizes that if he makes what he tastes in the presence of someone currently alive who loved that person, the ghost will appear and both parties will get whatever closure has kept the ghost from passing over.
Pretty rad, right? And it really was for the first part. The food writing in this book is top notch. If you like watching Top Chef, you'll dig how this book talks about food.
What changed things for me was how the genre of the book (to me) took a hard turn into both horror and also like a crime book? It left the weird speculative space and entered something else entirely. I found the tonal shift confusing. There was also a romance that I loved at first, but when food metaphors enter a relationship and one person says to the other "make salt to me" instead of "make love to me" because salt is love I am all the way out.
I'm not going to not recommend it. It was definitely entertaining from start to finish. I just felt like I didn't finish the same book I started. Plus "make salt to me" will forever haunt my nightmares.
The Once and Future Me by Melissa Pace
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Casting: The main lady is Rose Leslie, Paul is a clean-shaven Michiel Huisman, and Mary is Krysten Ritter.
Content warnings: abuse, forced institutionalization, sexual harassment
Any other month, this would have been the spotlight title. WHAT A BOOK.
The description of this says Dark Matter meets Girl, Interrupted, and I'd thrown a little Bourne in there, too.
A woman wakes up on a bus and has no idea who she is or how she got there. She quickly realizes she's in the 1950s and about to be checked into a mental hospital, and things get crazy. Honestly that's all you need to know.
I'm still thinking about this book. It didn't have the same emotional resonance as Hazel Says No which is why it's not as high for me, but I think this is the most entertained by a book I've been all year. Just a RIDE. I don't know why it's not getting more traction.
If you like a heist, time travel, and/or spy stuff, you will be so into this. One of the most fun, wild books I've read in forever. Also a debut! How this woman creates THIS as her first book blows my mind.
The House at Devil's Neck by Tom Mead
⭐️⭐️½
Casting: none
Content warnings: talking to dead family members, cozy mystery violence
Book words: atmospheric, dreary (both in setting and tone), melodramatic
I'm a sucker for a locked-room mystery. It's one of my favorite tropes, but this one fell super flat for me. I don't think that's on the author or even the story. I never got invested, it started out with too many characters I couldn't separate and didn't care about, and the writing told me more than what it showed me. Plus, I've never been a fan of seances and such as a primary plot point, and this one was big on talking to the dead.
A group of strangers travels to the house at Devil's Neck, an isolated mansion that was once a military hospital. When people start getting murdered, the ghost of a soldier is blamed, and all the people are following all the clues to figure out whodunnit.
It was fine. I was bored, but it was fine.
Tilt by Emma Pattee
⭐️⭐️⭐️½
Casting: none
Content warnings: talking to dead family members, cozy mystery violence
Book words: atmospheric, dreary (both in setting and tone), melodramatic
Annie, very pregnant and struggling with her life choices, is trying to buy a crib at IKEA when a catastrophic earthquake hits. The story follows her trying to make it home in a broken Portland, Oregon, and it's bleak.
The book is told as Annie talking to her unborn baby, which is sweet sometimes, but it impacts the experience of the story. It's a bit of a fever dream as it's supposed to be. If I was nine months pregnant and trying to walk through my shattered city wondering if my husband is even alive, I'd be a bit out of it, too.
It was definitely compelling and a quick read. The ending was a bit of a shock (same for my book twin, Katie), but it was a solid read. I think if you like first person narration and enjoy observing what humans do in deeply difficult circumstances, you'll really like it.
Awake by Jen Hatmaker
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Content warnings: cheating, spiritual abuse, mental health
Book words: compelling, honest, funny (she's still funny), raw, hopeful
This book has been everywhere and will continue to be. Jen Hatmaker solidifies herself as a superb storyteller as she tells the most heartbreaking story of all - how she discovered her husband voice-texting another woman in the middle of the night in their bed with her right there and how it turned her entire world upside-down.
If you read Beth Moore's memoir and were struck by the power of her storytelling and prose, you'll experience the same with Awake. I simply couldn't put it down... which is weird considering it's about her life and she's a real person who I've talked to before, but her ability to invite you into the hardest, darkest parts of her life and watch the light break through was really something.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë 🎧
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Narrated by Thandiwe Newton
Casting: none
Content warnings: child abuse, spiritual abuse, mental illness
Book words: lush, charming in a bleak way, intricate, beautiful
Jane Eyre is a classic and has been a favorite since I was in college. But at one point in August, I felt like I could hit a reading rut and knew the next choice needed to be a home run. I had the audio version narrated by Thandiwe Newton already on my phone, so I hit play and was undone.
This is one of the best narration performances by anyone ever. Her ability to capture the different characters with her voices, to capture the emotion and even bleakness of the setting... I was honestly dumbstruck. Listening to this is a wonder.
If you've never read Jane Eyre, try listening to this version, and you'll be positively riveted.
Middlemarch by George Eliot 🎧
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Narrated by Juliet Stevenson
Casting: none
Content warnings: it's pretty mild
Book words: quiet, thoughtful, light-handed, beautiful
At the start of 2025, I decided I wanted to tackle some new-to-me classics, but I knew that the writing style and scope would make it hard to do in print. Audiobooks are my Decide Once for classic literature.
My second book on the list (The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins was the first) was Middlemarch, and wow.
Now, this puppy was long. Thirty-four hours, I think? It's a doorstop. And honestly, it's quiet and a little boring, but it's supposed to be. It's chapter upon chapter just observing relationships and interactions and minute decisions by a group of townsfolk.
The last line of this book is possibly the greatest last line in literature. I literally put my hand on my heart as I listened to it. And Dorothea, one of the many characters, is in my top ten favorite characters I've read in the last ten years. (You can hear that list at the end of Episode 432.)
Absolutely listen to the Juliet Stevenson version. There is no other.
Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy 🎧
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½
Narrated by Christine Rendell
Casting: none
Content warnings: grief and loss, aging and isolation
Book words: charming, warm, empathetic
This is a cozy blanket of a book if there ever was one.
Helen has moved back to her childhood village after losing her husband and son and, simply put, is an old woman ready to die.
Then one night, she discovers a mouse in her home and takes a liking to it. She names it Sipsworth, and their story will charm your thick, wool socks off.
The Secret Place by Tana French 🎧
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½
Narrated by Stephen Hogan and Lara Hutchinson
Casting: Detective Moran is Jack Lowden. The others are up for interpretation.
Content warnings: death, bullying, sexual harassment, body shaming
Book words: haunting, gripping, atmospheric, linear
Tana French does no wrong in my book, and when you need a book to sink into that also has a bit of murder, she's where you turn.
This story takes place at a girls' boarding school, and the vibes are excellent.
A boy from the neighboring boarding school is found murdered, but it goes unsolved. A year later, a clue shows up at the girls boarding school, and the case gets reopened.
Tana French does the slow, plodding act of detective work better than anyone I've ever read. The fact that I listened to several hours of witness testimony and was positively riveted is a testament to her skill. She's one of the best.
The Likeness still remains my favorite of hers, but this might sneak at number two.