The Bookish Life of Marching Hills

We’re still here, and we’re still chugging along! Though we’re drowning in homework and presentations and exams, we have not yet caught the Corona Virus (can you say “hello Hollow Kingdom“?), and we are still reading and writing and generally human-ing.

This month, we’re reading The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman, which sticks to our yearly structure. Remember, March is beach reads, because it’s Spring Break! Just kidding, grad students don’t get Spring Break (read: grad school was a trap).

Remember, we’re still doing minisodes, though we’re only doing one a month now. Make sure to head over to our Podbean, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts pages to listen to “Hollow Kingdom: Crows Before Hoes” and catch up on our poetry in the meantime!

Description: The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book. 

When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They’re all—or mostly all—excited to meet her! She’ll have to Speak. To. Strangers. It’s a disaster! And as if that wasn’t enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her. Doesn’t he realize what a terrible idea that is?

Nina considers her options.

1. Completely change her name and appearance. (Too drastic, plus she likes her hair.) 
2. Flee to a deserted island. (Hard pass, see: coffee). 
3. Hide in a corner of her apartment and rock back and forth. (Already doing it.)

It’s time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn’t convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It’s going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page.

Image and description courtesy of Goodreads.com