Instagram story viewer> @olivviabooks> Tagged

olivia

@olivviabooks

1.6K

followers

548

following

🧸🎧☕️💌
reads anything
chronic 4-star rater

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

september wrap up! 🍐📔⭐️🍸🦢🌿

very few pictures to report this month cause i was busy busy and did not take many! i started classes which have been great so far :) unfortunately i’ve been in a three star purgatory of books though so i’m hoping i can finally get out of that in october lol

📖reading:
a month in the country 3/5
girls our age 3/5
emma m lion vol 8 3/5
heap earth upon it 3/5
loved one 3/5

🎧listening:
medium build album, tiny habits album, lizzy mcalpine album. over and over and over

🎞️watching:
i started only murders in the building (yes i know i’m five years late) and it’s been really fun! and HOCKEY STARTED AGAINNNNN!!!!!

okay that’s all, i’m about to have a really busy october but i’m excited! best year of the month let’s goooo

3

19

3

12

girl’s girl by sonia feldman: a perfect vignette of teenage girlhood in midwestern suburbia <3

girl’s girl follows our main character mina, along with her two best friends margaret and eleanor, through a mercurial and sticky summer before their sophomore year of high school. we see their relationships shift not only as they continue deeper into teenage-hood, but also as mina discovers her feelings towards eleanor are different than those towards margaret.

i’ve never read something that is so able to put words to this experience. being a teenage girl is so special and singular and fleeting and brutal and i miss it every single day and i’m SO thankful i never have to do it again. it lives inside of me forever and informs the choices i make and the relationships i build. being a QUEER teenage girl is a whole other added layer. this book is the absolute embodiment of the whole amalgamation of these feelings and i’ve never read anything quite like it. sonia feldman has made something truly so special.

this is not only an immediate favorite of my year but also of all time. for teenage girls everywhere—and the teenage girl that lives inside of you forever—PLEASE pick this up 🫶🏻

3

15

3

11

august recap 🍐📖🌳🌞🪻

what a wonderful month!!!!! so so many sweet moments to end the summer with, aaaand i read 10 books! here they are

betty by tiffany mcdaniel (4)
red at the bone by jacqueline woodson (4)
wide sargasso sea by jean rhys (2)
the seduction by sara torres (3.5) *
so people know it’s me by francesca maria benvenuto (5) *
the time of cherries by montserrat roig (2) *
minor detail by adania shibli (4) *
death valley by melissa broder (4)
blue light hours by bruna dantas lobato (4)
open, heaven by séan hewitt (4.5)

books marked with an asterisk were my picks for women in translation month this year!

this month like everyone else i watched and loved sterling point and i literally need seven more seasons right now it was so addictive!!! music wise i had a big album month… i’m typically more of a playlist person but there were some great new releases and i had a long road trip where i caught up on some earlier releases from this year. standouts were lost weekend by phoebe bridgers, keepers by tiny habits, chuck timely and the hourglass by role model, and sweet fortune by ryan beatty!!! just a greatttt month for reading and media and everything !!!!!

other highlights from this month:
- getting to see my best friend again!!!
- a very sweet farewell from my summer job
- many good iced lattes
- getting to spend some time in downtown ottawa
- seeing a childhood friend for the first time in a while

happy september :’)

3

17

Please tell me i’m not alone on this #booktok #romance #booklover #booksbooksbooks

5

2

some mini reviews of my summer reads!!!

i’ve been having a fantastic summer of reading & have been wanting to share my thoughts on what i’ve read without making 10 bajillion posts and also without having to write super long eloquent reviews so here are some brief reviews for some of what i’ve been reading !!! i may end up making a part two as well if i can gather my thoughts enough to write more reviews LOL

as always pls tell me what you thought of any of these you’ve read!!! or tell me what you’re reading now!!! mwah

so people know it’s me
francesca maria benvenuto
translated from the italian by elizabeth harris
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

zeno is an inmate in a juvenile detention centre on the isolated island of nisida, serving the first part of his sentence for a violent crime. in exchange for a two-day temporary release to visit his family for the holidays, zeno recounts the story of his life through letters to his teacher, conceding that she can correct some spelling and punctuation, but asking her to leave some errors in, “so people know it’s me”.

this was absolutely phenomenal—an incredibly strong narrative voice from a rich and complex protagonist, and a cast of side characters that feel remarkably vivid considering we only ever come to know them through the first person accounts of the narrator in under 150 pages. nothing short of an absolute gut punch, this left me feeling devastated and hopeful at the same time.

red at the bone
jacqueline woodson
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

red at the bone tenderly explores the histories of several generations of two families in different social classes, and the unexpected pregnancy that eventually joins them together.

i picked this up somewhat on a whim after having thrifted it several summers ago and it was such a pleasant surprise!!! jacqueline woodson is SUCH a beautiful writer and this was such a poignant and intimate look into family histories and coming of age. utterly lovely

wide sargasso sea
jean rhys
⭐️⭐️

a response to jane eyre, wide sargasso sea follows antoinette, the heiress to a colonialist while creole family, as her new marriage to a young englishman begins to unravel as he begins delving into her family’s history.

listen,

3

22

happy #womenintranslation month!! august is all about celebrating women writing in languages other than english so here are some of my recommendations if you’re still trying to select your WIT tbr, my picks for my own tbr this month, and some i’d love to get to eventually!

let me know what’s on your radar for women in translation month mwah !!!

these are the three translated books i read most recently, all in july!! convenience store women i found especially strange and delightful!!

some picks from earlier this year and one from a few summers ago. hour of the star was my first lispector and i really loved it, i’d definitely like to get to more of her work!

picked up these three from @tidewater.books who have the absolute best selection of translated fiction!! i am so so excited about all of these and can’t wait to report back 😁😁

like i said—more lispector! & i heard a lot about the witch for a while after it was shortlisted for the international booker!

francophone canadian fiction! literary thriller about pharmacology! dystopian/litfic bookstagram darling!

3

12

july recap 🌊🫍🍒🍸🌲🌞🍑

in july i read eight books!! here is what i read:

martyr! by kaveh akbar (5)
i who have never known men by jacqueline harpman (3.5)
is this a cry for help? by emily austin (4)
a sharp endless need by mac crane (5)
almond by sohn won-pyung (3)
trust by hernan diaz (3)
one golden summer by carley fortune (3.5)
convenience store woman by sayaka murata (3)

a very solid reading month for me!!!! a sharp endless need and martyr! were both absolute showstoppers, emily austin’s books are always a delight, i picked up some translated fiction & some books that had been on my tbr for yearssss, and i rounded out the month with a fluffy little nostalgic summery romance :’)

(psa that 3 stars is good rating btw!!!! i liked all of these!!!!!)

i also spent sooo much time watching tv this month LOL. after a pretty big tv drought for me i’ve been watching person of interest and i’m genuinely so hooked it’s sooo addictive. i just started season 5 which is the last season and i’m so sad it’s already almost over :’)

overall this was such a lovely month for me 🥹 lots of jam jar lattes and farmers’ market fruits and friendship bracelets and new music finds and sister smiles and sun freckles and 5k walks and all around good summer vibes!!!! genuinely feel like i’m getting my spark back and hoping for a soft and sweet august before i move back to ontario at the end of the month after 5+ years away :’) not sure yet of my reading plans for august but i have started betty by tiffany mcdaniel and i would like to get to some translated stuff at some point for women in translation month!!

tell me all about your july xo!!!

3

25

#earlgreyreviews a sharp endless need by marisa crane

a novel about first love, basketball, drugs, sex, growing up, grief, and the cataclysm of all those things colliding.

i suppose i could wait to review this until i feel that my thoughts are more in order, easier to articulate in a way that i feel is worthy of this book, but frankly i don’t anticipate i will ever be able to sit down and write a review of a sharp endless need that is nearly as beautiful and devastating and sharp and clever and poignant as the book itself, so this is what i will offer you instead (sorry). i went into this book intending to savour it, to read it across a week or so and really sit with it, but what happened instead was me walking around the office with my copy stuffed into my back pocket, a pen hooked on the cover, and me sitting down to pick it up whenever i had a spare second. i read it in the span of 24 hours.

i think it is so difficult and rare to be able to capture the singularity and intensity of your first love as a queer person when that comes in the form of your best friend, and i am nothing short of astounded at how fluidly and intently marisa crane put it to words. beyond that, while mack and liv’s relationship is the driving force of the book, every other aspect of the story was still written with so much attention and care, the result being a book that captivated me from beginning to end and transported me back to such a specific and intense period of my own life.

a sharp endless need is a novel that i needed, a novel that i am overwhelmed by, a novel that reminded me of the incredible power of writing and storytelling and being able to string letters and bits of sound together in a way that can convey such remarkably specific moments and feelings.

devastating life-changing homoerotic high school girlbestfriendship survivors rise (and read this book)

my incredible unprecedented summer reading streak continues 💪 another earlgreylibrary smash hit uh huhhh

5 perfect stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

3

26

#earlgreyreviews martyr! by kaveh akbar ⭐️

cyrus shams, an orphaned son of iranian immigrants, is newly sober and infatuated with martyrdom, and strikes up a profound connection with a dying artist who has stationed herself in the brooklyn museum in her final days, as he sifts through the secrets of his family’s history in search of meaning. martyr! is a poignant dive into the complexities and nuances of religion, addiction, family, culture, art, human connection, and so on, anchored by its striking prose and deeply resonant characters… and quite possibly one of my new favourite books ever. this is a novel i savoured from start to finish, struck breathless at every turn. cyrus is such a deeply human character whom i was so enamoured by, and all of his relationships and experiences feel incredibly realistic and meaningful. i was thinking about this book every moment it wasn’t in my hands and i’ve hardly stopped thinking about it since turning the last page, and it’s one i feel will stick with me for a long time. incredibly resonant, meaningful, and relevant to the current cultural/sociopolitical moment.

martyr! is one of the most masterful contemporary novels i’ve ever read and one i imagine will cement itself as a modern classic. kaveh akbar is phenomenally talented.

utterly stellar; the easiest five stars i’ve ever given.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

3

22

mid-year reading check-in ⭐️🌲🪩🌊

i’ve been having suchhhh a good reading year! last year lowkey #sucked for me reading-wise so it’s been so nice to be having so much reading joy in 2026. i’ve had a big focus on queer lit which has been so nice and i’ve found some new all-time favs <3

here are some stats!
books read: 53
average rating: 3.8
5-star reads: 7
rereads: 3
top authors: virginia woolf (2), mary oliver (2)
books bought: 15 (read: 10)

all in all i really am having an amazing reading year so far and i am excited to see it continue <3 pls tell me your favourite read of 2026 so far and/or one you’re excited for!!!

3

25