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Read With Pugs

@readwithpugs

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My pugs have retired from modeling and now read and review books !

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Luna, Phoenix, Queen — this one really got under my skin. It’s a layered story about love, marriage, Alzheimer’s, caregiving, ambition, betrayal, and the stories we tell about other people’s lives.

I didn’t particularly like Barr, although I had to admit the caregiving he did for Dava complicated my feelings about him. And I loved how the book kept shifting perspectives, especially when we got Evie’s view of Dava and Barr.

There were places where it dragged a little bit. I appreciated that the author didn’t neatly tie every thread into a perfect little bow. She gives you enough to understand what happened and then lets you sit with it and decide what it means.

There’s a strong feminist lens throughout, especially in the way women’s stories are interpreted, rewritten, hidden, and sometimes taken from them. And that whole Chekhov discussion about who gets to decide what a story means? That stayed with me.

And then Luna leading Svetlana down the river path to the burned-out cabin and finding QUEEN on the door… well, there it was.

A thoughtful, complicated, beautifully messy book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC taken in Phoenix, Arizona by @readwithpugs

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a day ago

🍂 October Reads 🍂

October has arrived, and I’ve got a stack of classics, dark stories, complicated characters, and books I’ve been meaning to read forever. 📚

Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Mary Shelley, William Golding, Anthony Burgess and Mario Vargas Llosa are keeping me company this month.

A little literary, a little dark, and very much my kind of reading.

What’s on your October reading list?

#bookstagrammer #readersofinstagram #literaryfiction #octoberreads #booksofinstagram taken in Phoenix, Arizona by @readwithpugs

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2 days ago

My Dreadful Body is such a wonderful, intimate little book, and I loved it.

Each chapter focuses on a different part of the body, but somehow it becomes about so much more than the body. She writes about illness, family, women, marriage, motherhood, shame, and all the rules society puts on a woman’s body. There are also these fascinating cultural stories and beliefs woven throughout, and I loved watching her question them and realize that some of the things she’d been taught simply weren’t true.

The writing is beautiful without feeling overdone. She can start with something as ordinary as eyebrows, hair, legs, or a stomach and suddenly I’m thinking about much bigger things. And when she describes her illness and the pain, it feels incredibly personal and honest.

It’s only 144 pages, but there is a LOT packed into those pages. I finished it and immediately wanted to go back and think about all the little pieces I’d read earlier.

And the translator’s note at the end? I loved that too. It made me appreciate just how much thought went into bringing this book from one language and culture into another.

A short book that somehow feels much bigger than it is. I’m still thinking about it.

My Dreadful Body is longlisted for the 2026 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

#bookstagrammer #literaryfiction #bookreview #literature #mydreadfulbody taken in Phoenix, Arizona by @readwithpugs

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3 days ago

Think you to Penguin Random House for the Book Mail ! Please don’t mind my dog running in the audio background she wanted to be part of the video so bad !

#bookstagrammer #readersofinstagram #literaryfiction #memoir #literature taken in Phoenix, Arizona by @readwithpugs

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4 days ago

Centroeuropa — Vicente Luis Mora

QOTD - If you could add one extra hour to your day what would you do with it ?

I really didn’t expect to love this one as much as I did. At first, it seems like a strange story about Redo finding bodies on his land, and then more bodies, and more bodies. But it turned out to be so much deeper than that.

What I loved most was the way Redo tells the story. It isn’t linear, and it feels like he’s simply sitting down and making his notes—wandering off into memories and thoughts, talking to the reader, then coming back to the story. I liked being inside his head and slowly figuring out what was really going on.

The friendship between Redo and Jakob surprised me, too. I expected Hans to be his closest friend, but Jakob became someone Redo could actually talk to about ideas and history. And Jakob needed Redo just as much. He figured out Redo’s secret, helped him write, and in the process became a teacher of one.

And then there were the bodies. They aren’t just there to make the story strange. They become a way of talking about war, how we hide its consequences, and how easily people can look away when the truth is uncomfortable.

There was so much packed into this little book—grief, love, identity, freedom, war, loneliness, and the question of whether we are actually living the life we want. Much deeper than I expected when I started it.

I can’t recommend this little book enough!

#bookstagrammer #literaryfiction #translatedfiction #bookreview #literature taken in Scottsdale, Arizona by @readwithpugs

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6 days ago

QOTD - Do you love a good coming of age story ?

I was pulled into this book right away. Edie is messy, impulsive, broke, having trouble keeping relationships and even keeping a job, and she never seems quite sure where she fits. She wants to be seen and listened to, and that is a big part of what draws her to Eric. She tries so hard to become whatever the people around her want her to be.

What started as an affair with a married man became something much more complicated. Edie ends up living with Eric, Rebecca, and their adopted daughter, and somehow the strange little family begins to matter to her. Her relationship with the girl becomes a real friendship, and her relationship with Rebecca changes too. Rebecca sees something in Edie, especially with her painting, that Edie may not have been able to see in herself.

For me, this became much more of a coming-of-age story than a story about an affair. Edie spends so much of the book trying to find somewhere she belongs, and by the end she is beginning to figure out who she is without having to fit herself into someone else’s life.

It is messy and uncomfortable and sometimes strange, but I think that is what made the characters feel so real. I especially liked watching Edie change. By the end, I found myself thinking, I really hope this sticks for her. 😂

A very good character study, and definitely one I kept thinking about after I finished it.

#bookstagrammer #bookreview #literaryfiction #literature #luster @raven_leilani taken in The South Side Of Phoenix by @readwithpugs

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7 days ago

National Book Critics Circle Award for Translated Literature Longlist.

QOTD - Have you read any translated books ?

This book completely surprised me. It’s a short novel—under 200 pages—but Sarr manages to pack an enormous amount into those pages without ever making it feel heavy.

Ndéné is a 37-year-old French literature professor in Dakar whose fairly ordinary life changes when a video circulates of a crowd digging up the body of a man from a Muslim cemetery. The dead man was believed to be a góor-jigéen, a Wolof term for a homosexual or feminine man, and the crowd believes his body should not remain in a Muslim cemetery.

Ndéné becomes obsessed with the video and with the dead man. The more he tries to understand what happened, the more he begins questioning everything around him—his father’s religious beliefs, Senegalese attitudes toward homosexuality, Western influence, colonialism, democracy, his university, his students, and eventually himself.

What I loved most was that Sarr never turns Ndéné into a simple hero who suddenly has all the answers. He is confused, angry, judgmental, curious and sometimes completely overwhelmed by his own thoughts. His girlfriend Rama challenges him, while his father represents a worldview Ndéné can no longer simply accept.

The discussion of Verlaine really stayed with me. Ndéné believes a writer’s sexuality shouldn’t erase the value of his work. Verlaine was homosexual, yes—but he was also a great poet. One fact shouldn’t cancel out the other. Eventually, that same refusal to judge people by the labels society gives them becomes deeply personal.

The writing is beautiful, and Lara Vergnaud’s translation is so smooth I never felt like I was reading a translation. Philosophical when it needs to be, funny at times, sharp and occasionally devastating.

By the end, Ndéné is forced to answer the question: What side are you on?

His answer isn’t a neat label.

It’s a choice.

This was one of those books I finished and immediately wanted to talk about. I have a feeling I’m going to be thinking about Ndéné for a long time.

#bookish #literature #bookstagrammer #bookreviews taken in The South Side Of Phoenix by @readwithpugs

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8 days ago

Watching Everyone, Imagining Their Stories

This one didn’t completely grab me, but I really enjoyed the way she observed people and turned them into these little stories. The novel follows a Russian writer traveling toward a literary festival, and after getting stranded along the way, the journey becomes increasingly unpredictable. She spends so much time watching the people around her, imagining who they are and creating stories about their lives, and that was probably my favorite part of the book. I especially understood her need to remain anonymous while being fascinated by everyone else.

There’s also the mysterious Beast hanging over the story, along with all the odd encounters, detours, and observations that make the journey feel increasingly surreal. The characters were well written and fascinating to watch, but I never felt the depth of connection to them that makes a book really stay with me. I enjoyed the writing, the ideas, the people-watching and the unusual journey much more than I connected emotionally with the story.

A clever, thoughtful book with fascinating characters and plenty to think about. I liked it more for the writing and ideas than for the emotional connection.

QOTD - Are you a people watcher ?

#bookstagrammer #readersofinstagram #bookreview #literature #thedisappearingact taken in Phoenix, Arizona by @readwithpugs

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9 days ago

Lorelai and Lucas have history, and Parker reveals it slowly through a dual timeline that moves between their college days and the present.

In the past, we see how they first got together. In the present, they’re thrown back into each other’s orbit for Brody’s wedding in Hawaii, and it’s pretty obvious there’s still a connection between them. What actually happened between Lorelai and Lucas, and why they broke up, comes out piece by piece rather than all at once.

Brody, their best friend, ties both timelines together and gives the whole reunion a reason to happen.

It’s a slow reveal, second-chance romance with plenty of old feelings still hanging around.

And yes, Lucas has hazel eyes. Parker makes sure we know.

A fun, easy romance with a satisfying HEA.

Teaser We will meet Brody again in the new
book The Irresistible Distraction — Grad or Die #2.5, and it’s coming October 8, 2026!

Review coming for that one soon !

Thank you Parker for the copy !

#bookstagrammer #romancebookstagram #bookish #bookreview by @readwithpugs

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10 days ago

Publication Day!

Today is publication day for The Sun in Winter by Caroline Wolf Mansour. ☀️❄️

A story set against the backdrop of Chicago, with family, love, loss, and the complicated ways people can shape one another’s lives.

There’s something about a book arriving into the world that I always love — after all those pages sitting quietly in someone’s imagination, today it officially belongs to readers.

Congratulations to Caroline Wolf Mansour and the whole team behind The Sun in Winter!

📚 The Sun in Winter
✍️ Caroline Wolf Mansour
🎉 Publication Day

#PublicationDay #Bookstagram #BookTok #bookstagrammer by @readwithpugs

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11 days ago

Caller: I have just killed my wife and children. Operator: I’m sorry, please say that again.

This was such a strange, layered read, and I loved it. It starts with what looks like a murder mystery, but quickly becomes much more about shame, secrecy, guilt, identity, and how a person becomes who they are.

The first part takes us deep into his past—his relationships, his hidden life, his writing, his marriage, his obsession with understanding himself—and I found myself constantly wondering how all of it was going to connect to Aunt Susan’s death.

I loved the unreliable narrator and the scrambled timeline. There were clues hiding in plain sight, and once I knew the truth, so much of the book clicked into place.

The Mens Rea courtroom sections were also fascinating, especially the whole argument about free will and responsibility.

The ending left me thinking about whether he finally understood himself better, or whether he was leaving that for us to decide.

I absolutely loved this book! Don’t miss this little gem !

Thank you to NetGalley and Books Go Social for the advanced copy.

#books #bookstagrammer #litfic #literature #bookstoread taken in Phoenix, Arizona by @readwithpugs

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12 days ago

Big Foot is dead.

And naturally, Janina and Odd Ball have to figure out what the hell to do with him. They’re trying to clean him up and deal with the whole situation, and it’s such a funny, crazy way to begin a book. I was laughing and thinking, What have I gotten myself into? 😂

And then there’s Janina. Eccentric, stubborn, obsessed with astrology, completely convinced the animals are taking revenge on the people who hunt them—and somehow she makes perfect sense even when she absolutely does not.

The audiobook made this book for me. The narrator was SO good. She gave Janina such a distinct personality and voice that I could hear her attitude in everything she said. I wanted to keep listening just to hear what Janina was going to say next.

And here’s how much I loved it: I got to chapter 13 and realized I didn’t want the book to end. So I started it over. 😂

Then people start dying, and Janina has her theories.

It’s a murder mystery, but it’s also about animals, hunting, astrology, revenge, and the way one very unusual woman sees the world.

Strange, funny, dark, philosophical—and completely unlike anything else I’ve read.

#bookstagrammer #readersofinstagram #literaryfiction #translatedfiction taken in Phoenix, Arizona by @readwithpugs

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13 days ago