Celeste's Reviews

Available in paperback

Despite never before having met the relatives she’s staying with in Key West, Turtle wastes no time taking charge. She shows tenacity and fearlessness as she joins her cousin’s babysitting business, and even secures a job on a fishing boat. The artwork is decidedly tropical, and my favorite part is the legend of the pirate’s treasure. This graphic novel reminded me that sometimes all you need is a change of scenery to come out of your shell. — Celeste

Veteran cookbook author Heidi Swanson has done it again, with an accessible book of fresh, vegetable-forward recipes. Super Natural Simple is a boon for folks who have some experience in the kitchen but need inspiration to make the best of their farmer’s market haul and for those who need a helping hand to start creating dishes with whole foods. Every fuss-free recipe features a rainbow of veggies and is excellent for those wanting to cook with the best of what each season has to offer. — Celeste 

Yes, this book includes all the basic information about choosing a plant, watering, and picking the medium to grow the plant. Yes, it has a detailed directory of plants and lush photographs. But the book’s real draw is its inspired projects. You can learn to grow a whole herb garden from cuttings of herbs bought at the grocery store! If you haven’t jumped on the quarantine houseplant bandwagon yet, this is the book to get you started. — Celeste 

This stylish manual is a must-have for any student of fashion or sustainable design. Replete with case studies of industry leaders and sleek infographics on recycled materials and best practices, Circular Fashion empowers the consumer to pick materials and brands that fit with a worldview of modest consumption and to find items that don’t take more than they give. — Celeste 

Whether she is riding her motorcycle at 130 miles an hour down Highway 1 in Baja, Mexico, name-dropping her favorite authors, or writing with joy about her hometown, San Francisco, Rachel Kushner is irresistibly cool. You don’t need to get all the references she makes (I certainly don’t) in order to enjoy her effusive and daring criticisms. By the end she will feel like a bosom buddy, one whose opinion you definitely want on whatever has captured the collective imagination this week. — Celeste

This irreverent graphic novel, translated from the Spanish, follows a down-and-out illustrator who teams up with a quirky, free-spirited woman. Together the two start a food truck and then end up on the run from a rival food trucker who wishes them off their turf. The art has a gestural style and a cinematic feeling, the muted palette of reds, greys, and greens gives the graphics a dusty quality and sets the tone for an adventure across the desert. — Celeste

Poppy should be immensely unlikeable. She has a dream job writing about traveling for a fancy magazine in New York City, but she’s also incredibly sarcastic, charming, and spontaneous. Alex…well, he wears khakis and teaches high school English. Poppy and he have been friends for 12 years, and as they jet-set on their yearly summer trips, the possibilities start to rise. Come for the vicarious vacation, stay for the chemistry that burns off the page. — Celeste

This book is so indicative of our current age of white fragility and racism veiled under white liberalism. Dialogue floats off the page; the characters are people we’ve all met. Reid draws and expands on the history of Black women as caretakers of white women’s children and on the emotion that lies within such a power structure. She has skillfully woven the intersections of race, class, and gender into an immensely readable book. — Celeste

Having just gotten divorced from her husband of fifteen years, Thea temporarily moves into the cottage her great-uncle has left her in rural Scotland and starts a job at the local bookstore. Charmed by village life, she makes friends quickly except with her standoffish boss, Edward, the estranged brother o the duke whose land her cottage sits on. But as her playful bickering with Edward gets more comfortable, staying in this cozy Scottish town starts to sound like a pretty good plan. — Celeste

Have you ever been friends with a ghost? Majorie is friends with several, a nd Eliza is set on photographing one, even if everyone thinks it's weird. The setting reminds me of a pastel Stranger Things and captures a feeling I remember from eighth grade, of growing up where there are new friends but being a kid is not that far behind. Delicates is a reminder that you don’t have to feel like a middle school ghost; there are always people who see you. —Celeste