What's Home?

How do we belong and what are belongings (and the best books Shelly read in February and March, so far)

I know, I know. I am not Shelly, but I am the foretold guest feature! You will get your regular dose of Shelly at the end of this newsletter.

What is home to you?

Is home an edifice that holds your belongings? Is home the space where your beloved lives? Is home just a place you feel most like you? I am in this experiment of what is the right formula to my daily life that makes DC home. Making new friends, eating new foods, and discovering new places - all with hopes that one day they will no longer be new. That I will feel like I belong, and this is home.

belonging
something to have
what can be lost
no longer is
belonging

Years ago, I listened to a talk by john a. powell, a renowned scholar and advocate who distilled the most complex philosophies into the simple notion that everything is either othering or belonging. It reframed my perspective that belonging is an intentional and active choice for ourselves and how we treat others.

belonging
something to yearn for
beyond the bend
backwards to
belonging

Life can be so gradual that you blink and a year passes by. I know I cannot grip so tightly to quickly carve my life into a suitable shape. With time, my life will be shaped by the grooves and rhythms of this city. Moving through my days with the intention to make it home makes it so. Manifestation, if you will. I went away recently, and I thought about what home looks like. I imagined the cherry blossoms, my little dogs running in the yard, and my wife patiently waiting for my return.

belonging
something to make
near the heart
that is always
belonging

Thank you for reading this far in my guest feature! I want to acknowledge it is not lost on me that in the backdrop of this city that I'm growing to love, it is being destroyed and stripped of everything that has built our country. Thinking of all the federal workers and agencies that are fighting back in the face of adversity.

It’s cherry blossom season in DC!!

Hello, it’s Shelly again.

I set a goal of finishing my second draft by the end of the first quarter of this year and I only missed my internal deadline by 2 weeks!

So yeah, that’s why I haven’t been writing here as much. But I’ve read so many great books in the last 6 weeks or so, and that’s all I wanted to talk about.

The Nonfiction one

We have so many copies of this book because I didn’t realize that each ticket to her event came with a free book. And I also already pre ordered the audiobook at that point.

I listened to Kelsey McKinney’s “You Didn’t Hear This From Me” on audiobook, and it was a delight. She narrates her own audiobook, so if you love her voice on Normal Gossip, I’d highly recommend the audiobook. She definitely has more of a “narrator” voice than her usual “podcast host” voice, but I loved hearing her read her own essays.

I particularly enjoyed the essay, “Leave Britney Alone,” about celebrity gossip and the rise of parasocial relationships that fans have with celebrities now. Coincidentally, on the same day I was listening to that chapter, I ended up having my own celebrity encounter, which was hilarious, because I did NOT recognize this celebrity at all.

There’s also a great bonus chapter on how to best tell gossip, which I definitely have to give a re-listen to! Kelsey is an amazing storyteller and I’ll take all the advice I can get.

The one that will defy your expectations about Historical Romance

I’ve become extremely fond of historical romance. I started out as someone who only liked contemporary romance, and I was really skeptical of whether I’d like books set in a different time and place that I didn’t understand people like me had so many fewer legal rights. But I’ve found a lot of historical romance books that are so creative in showing the ways that women have always fought back for both their own happiness and the greater good of society, and honestly, this book has been so inspiring in the current timeline we’re in.

I really enjoyed all of the books in Adriana Herrera’s Las Léonas series, but A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke is truly amazing. The female main character is truly a badass - a female doctor of color in 19th century Paris performing secret abortions - and I love the notes that Adriana put in the back about her research about the actual period.

The Young Adult adventure book

Ok is that pout not the most adorable facial expression to ever hit a book cover??

To be honest, I initially picked up Ex Marks the Spot by Gloria Chao because I’ve been looking for books that are similar to mine so that I can list them as comps in the query letters that I’ll be writing this year. I’m not sure if it’s close enough to mine that I actually will, but I absolutely adored this book and reading this book was so fun - I finished it in probably 24 hours. I loved all of the descriptions of food and scenery in Taiwan, the ongoing tension between the two main characters, and there were some amazing plot twists that I did not see coming!

The one for classic Rom Com lovers

I’m also completely obsessed with this color palette. Please convince Bean that we need to decorate our whole future home with it.

I’m going to start by saying I am not a fan of Sleepless in Seattle. I thought it was strange, and I didn’t believe that the two main characters would fall in love, and also I think that Tom Hanks was way too ugly for Meg Ryan.

But B.K.Borison’s First Time Caller takes every bit from the movie that’s actually charming and turns it into an amazing story with the most lovable side characters, and I’m already chomping at the bit for book two in this series!

And that’s all, folks!

See you all next time. Thanks for reading! And thank you for everyone who offered to beta read my manuscript. Can’t wait to get your thoughts!

xoxo

Shelly & Bean