Bea's Stuff

This is a short book (less than 200 pages) which tells the story of "everywoman" Kim Jiyoung as she navigates growing up, entering the workforce, getting married and having a child in South Korea. Despite being a fictional character, almost everything that happens to Jiyoung is representative of what it's like to be a woman in Korea, and there are footnotes throughout the book citing scholarly sources.

This book evidently spurred a new wave of feminism in South Korea, and I understand why. Just having finished the book, I want to smash something or breathe fire. Jiyoung's entire life was a series of injustices compounding upon each other until she finally broke mentally. And while the situation in South Korea is far worse than the US, where I live (one source cited in the book states that Korea has won the title of the worst country for working women!), many of the systems that oppress Jiyoung are still standing strong here, and all around the world…

Little girls being sexualized from a horrifically young age, and often being blamed when they become victims of harassment or assault; boys being given less expectations and more privileges than girls in school; young women being called "ran through" for having relationship experience (by men who often have just as much experience); the gap in unpaid domestic labor; women performing better at work than their male colleagues but being passed over for promotions; pregnancy and parenthood being a life-altering and career-ruining change for women, while it affects men almost not at all; fathers being praised even when they do 0% of the parenting, while mothers who give up everything for their children are shat on at every turn.

All of this is too familiar. This is a book that everyone should read – especially those who tout the notion that we have already reached some semblance of gender equality. Because…you have NO CLUE

Laura Bates is quickly becoming one of my favorite feminist authors. This book did not blow me away quite as much as her 2020 book "Men Who Hate Women"; I think some of it was a bit repetitive and drawn out. But it is still an incredible deep dive into the ways that deepfakes, sex dolls, and AI girlfriends (all things that the public treats casually and as a non-threat) are furthering misogyny and harming women. If you're not already familiar with these issues, I highly recommend reading it.

Non-fiction books tend to be my favorites because I love reading about topics that change my perception of the world. But while this story is fiction, it impacted me just as much as the other 2 on this list. I read it months ago at this point and I'm still tearing up just thinking about it.

The best way to describe it is the most adult YA novel I have ever read. And while that genre might be a turn-off for some people (it often is for me), I really recommend this book, especially if you have a sister.

The characters are brilliantly written, the story will sucker-punch you in the gut, and the twist is one of the best I've seen in a long time. I don't want to say more than that because you should read it yourself!

Like many kids, I grew up intrigued and fascinated by the myths of ancient religions - in particular, Greek mythology. An abridged version of the Odyssey was one of the first "chapter books" I remember reading. But it never occurred to me (even as an adult) to question the way that these stories were told, or whether our interpretations of tales that date back further than Judaism showed a complete and unbiased picture. As Natalie Haynes brilliantly and thoroughly unpacks, they definitely do not.

While women played a big role in the original stories (albeit not a big enough one), they were gradually and meticulously erased from the simplified versions of the myths that have been passed down to modern day. Haynes is a captivating author who will keep you both angry and laughing, in the best way. I highly, highly recommend this book - to anyone who cares about history, about women, or just about good books in general.

I like to read a heap of spooky-scary books during October, and came across this one by chance. The cover was really cool, and it sounded unoriginal but potentially interesting, which is enough sometimes. But I ended up putting it down about ¼ of the way through.

The main character was annoying as HELL, and while the book wanted us to hate her family the way she did, I just hated her. Nothing creepy really happened and the writing was sour milk quality. Maybe it gets better if you keep reading, but I did not stick around to find out.

Unfortunately, I did read this one all the way through. This was a romance-thriller with an extremely high rating on Goodreads (even got a Goodreads Choice Award), and was another one of my October spooky reads. Since reading it, I have determined that the people who use Goodreads cannot be trusted to review books and probably all need to go to horny jail.

This was a badly written erotica disguised as a thriller (I ended up skimming through much of the book because that ain’t what I’m here for), both of the main characters were terrible people while also being impressively bland and boring, and the book revs you up for a plot twist that ends up being one of the dumbest excuses for an ending that I have ever experienced. This is also one of Colleen Hoover’s highest rated and most popular books, so I will not be reading any of her other works. Not going to spoil anything in case you want to read it (and honestly I’m writing these reviews in 2026, so my contempt for the book is most of what I remember about it), but I wouldn’t exactly advise it.

This book hoodwinked me. It was highly reviewed at the time I found it, and recommended by one of my favorite Youtube book reviewers. The premise is a woman entering into a paid contract with a man to act like his dog - sounded crazy and interesting enough to me!

I gave it the benefit of the doubt as much as humanly possible: attributed the odd, repetitive writing style to an intentional choice by the author to represent the fragmented & strange thoughts of a mentally ill and vulnerable person; forgave the slow pacing and boring repetition due to the handful of scenes that were shocking & intriguing; assumed the weird page breaks and syntax were due to the PDF copy I downloaded rather than the book itself.

I finished it thinking, “Hm. That was weird but I think I liked it!” …only to discover months later that not only did the author steal the cover art (which was part of the appeal) from another artist, the book was also WRITTEN BY AI. I feel like a vegetarian who has been tricked into eating meat. I feel like a dummy. I’m pretty sure this book is no longer being sold, and luckily Goodreads & other places have been flooded with reviews outing it, but I will still not be including a link to the book like I am for the others, because it really just not deserve any attention.

Don’t be a dummy like me. Pass on this one.