I went into Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan knowing absolutely nothing about it. I do this a lot - going into books with as little information as possible - and while that approach has definitely burned me before, lately it's been paying off.

Max's voice hooked me almost immediately. Her interiority is sharp, funny, deeply observant, and often painfully self-aware. Reading her thoughts felt less like reading a novel and more like scrolling through texts from a best friend who's somehow both hilarious and devastatingly insightful.

Partway through, I realized why she felt so familiar: she reminded me of the show Fleabag. Not because the stories are the same, but because they share that same "laugh or you'll cry" way of moving through the world. I love characters who recognize how absurd being human can be without becoming cynical about it. Flawed people surrounded by other flawed people, all fumbling toward connection, making mistakes, hurting each other, loving each other, trying anyway. Those stories pull me in every time.

This isn't a plot-heavy novel, although the story itself is quite good in my opinion. It's deeply character-driven and literary-leaning, with the story unfolding largely through the characters' interior lives across two timelines. If you enjoy novels that ask questions instead of offering tidy answers, this one does that exceptionally well.

This book refuses easy moral conclusions. It explores difficult subjects not to shock, but to ask readers to sit with uncomfortable realities. As a cis reader, I found myself thinking about the privilege of being able to close the book, tell someone, "That was heartbreaking," and then move on with my day, while for many trans people those fears aren't just literary devices -- they're lived realities, ever-present possibilities.

I also appreciated that the book never lets any character become entirely easy to love or hate. I found myself sympathizing with Vincent one moment and feeling deeply frustrated by him the next. It even made me wonder whether some of what I disliked in him reflected parts of myself I don't particularly enjoy confronting. That's one of the things this novel does so well: it invites self-reflection without making the story about the reader.

At its heart, this book asks questions about forgiveness, acceptance, shame, resentment, and the tension between the lives we think we're supposed to want and the lives we actually want. It captures something that feels deeply human: how much energy we spend trying to protect ourselves from pain, avoid difficult emotions, or manage other people's expectations. There's no universal roadmap for any of it, and the novel doesn't pretend otherwise.

If science had been presented to me this way when I was growing up, I would have been completely captivated. Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake transformed my casual indifference into a full-blown obsession with fungi. He writes about these incredible organisms with such wonder that the more you learn about the actual science, the more it feels like genuine magic. I am also now fully convinced that lichen are actually just aliens. They can survive in the vacuum of space... Which blows my mind. Sheldrake highlights mysterious natural forces that humans barely understand, leaving the reader with a profound and lasting sense of awe.

Beyond being educational, this book has fundamentally changed how I move through my daily life. It manages to make me feel deeply grounded while also filling me with a sense of whimsy. In the past, I would have just kicked or mowed over the mushrooms that sprout overnight in my backyard without a second thought. Now, I find myself slowing down on walks just to examine them and research their species. Fungi are truly incredible, and I think absolutely everyone could benefit from learning more about the bizarre, beautiful world right under our feet.