The Best Guilty Pleasure Book I Read in 2022

It started this summer when I was looking for "light-hearted books about books — something easy, please" and a friend recommended Emily Henry's People We Meet on Vacation. It had me at page one. Followed quickly by Beach Read and Book Lovers. And then Book Lovers again. Then, when those were done and I had put her upcoming book on my Wish List, I realized how incredibly sad I was to be finished with them.

Guilty pleasure books. (Guilty because they have a little bit of smut, so don't listen with the kids in the car. Pleasure because the story is so very feel-good.)

And I started thinking about how so much of what I really liked about those books actually had a lot to do with the audiobook version's narrator Julia Whelan. (I listen to most of the novels I read—Audiobooks make mama chores so much more pleasurable for me and they bump my yearly total of books read WAY up.)

So, I got curious about other books she's narrated.

Imagine my sheer joy when I saw that not only has she narrated over 500 books but she's written a few of her own, too. And down the rabbit hole I went. . . Her first book My Oxford Year was outstanding. It could be triggering for anyone who has lost someone they love to a terminal disease, but I still loved it.

Her second book Thank You For Listening is 100% my favorite guilty pleasure book of the year ⤵

I listened to it so fast and cried when it was over.

Then, I went down to my local bookshop and bought a real copy to have on my shelf and to read by the fire this winter.

You probably have a million things on your mind and overloading your to-do list right now. (It's funny how the start to the holiday season does that every time, hey?)

In past years, we've talked about all kinds of ways to manage the overload, but this year, as you can tell, I'm a little too tired to think about making any big, sweeping changes. I'm just immensely grateful to be finding time to read more (and making time to write a little more, too).

If you do anything for yourself this season (and I hope you do), I hope it's giving yourself a little chunk of time to read something that makes your heart feel light — even if it's "just" an audiobook, which totally counts, by the way.

Consider this your official nudge, bump, reminder, permission slip to do so.

& one more thing about Julia Whelan. . .

While checking the links for this blog and sending it in my Friday morning email to the email group, I discovered that Julia Whelan actually was the narrator of the very first audiobook I fell in love with way back in the day - Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

Like 2012 back in the day — before I knew anything about audiobooks and was listening on a CD in my car!

🤯

Wow.

Just wow.

A little word about the book links I use. . .

You've probably noticed that all of the book links in my book posts go to Bookshop.org. That's because, 1— a portion of every sale they make goes to keep small, local, independent bookshops alive, and 2— they have incredible service. You also might notice that while I've talked a lot in the past about Audible (for feeding my audiobook habit), I'm now using a new audiobook service Libro.fm because they support small, local, independent bookshops, too. (They even let me pick my favorite local bookshop to support with my monthly subscription—Bellabooks in Belfast, ME.) If you haven't checked these out before, I hope you will. Especially if you love sweet little local bookshops as much as I do.


& a little feel-good story to think about this weekend. . .

I led a little writing workshop on Wednesday night at my local library this week, and it went so much better than I could have ever dreamed it would. (I'm still riding the high it gave me.) Why? Because the women who showed up were so excited to chat about writing they could hardly contain themselves. I had no idea that would happen —it was a sight to behold, I tell you. (I get chills just thinking about it now, especially how their excitement even made up for all of my blunders and missteps.) So yes, that scary thing you've been wondering whether or not you should do? Do it. Seriously, go for it. It really could turn out a million times better than you can even imagine.

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