The Bookish Drop 📚 Thursday 12 June 2025
Ways you can read the rainbow this Pride Month🌈BookTokers are refusing to read some books - but why?🤯Book and TV show review in one📚📺
📚 Hey, book lovers! It’s Pride Month and to mark it, we’ve been reading some amazing books featuring LGBTQ+ characters - both real and fictional. It’s important to keep your reading lists diverse at all times, but especially important right now. From Munroe Bergdorf’s new release ‘Talk To Me,’ to the incredibly unique ‘Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One’ by Kristen Arnett, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s latest ‘Atmosphere,’ and the super informative ‘We Are Your Children’ by David Roberts, there are so many books we’ve been loving. If you’re struggling for inspiration, Goodreads has shared how you can ‘read the rainbow,’ and it doesn’t just have to be for Pride Month. But, if you do read a book from the list between June 1 and 30, you’ll get the ‘Rainbow Reads’ achievement on your 2025 challenge!
❤️ What we’re reading this week…
Catherine: Art Monsters by Lauren Elkin - I’ve just started reading this book, which explores the ways in which feminist artists have ‘taken up the challenge of how to tell the truth about their experiences as bodies’. Although I’m only a few pages in, I’m already loving it!
Danielle: The Tenant by Freida McFadden - Sometimes, all you need is a quick and easy thriller to delight you, and these are the books that Freida McFadden never fails with! After seeing it all over social, I knew I needed to give it a go. I’m not even halfway through this, and I already know the twists and turns will have me shook.
Talya: The Martian by Andy Weir - I read (and loved) Project Hail Mary earlier this year, so I knew I had to try out the author’s other novels. Luckily, The Martian is absolutely living up to my very high expectations - who knew science could be so fun?
Zoe: The Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer - I’m normally a bit of a snob when it comes to celebrity authors, but Bob Mortimer is certainly an anomaly in the oversaturated star-studded market. I’ve downloaded the sequel to The Satsuma Complex as an audiobook, and I’m expecting great things. Please don’t let me down, Bob.
⏰ What’s trending…
📚Don’t forget, from 14 June to 21 June, it’s Independent Bookshop Week. Danielle’s local bookshop, Urmston Books in Greater Manchester, has got loads in store to celebrate, including free ‘blind date with a proof’ packages and even £5 off vouchers. Pop to your local bookstore to see what they’ve got going on and support them as often as you can! You can find your local indie here.
📽️ Rumours about who might be cast in Taylor Jenkins-Reid's ‘Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ adaptation have been circulating. Deux Moi claims sources have said Sofia Carson is set to play Evelyn, whilst Kaitlyn Dever is allegedly in talks to play Celia St James. Who do you want to see cast in the film?
😲BookTokers are sharing the books they refuse to read and the reasons why, and @xgingerandspicex's list includes some quite controversial picks.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
💰 BookTok is unhappy after it was announced that footballer and former Bachelor star Luke Bateman had a book deal. After sharing his love of books online, Bateman quickly built up 178,000 followers on TikTok, and now he’s set to release an ‘epic fantasy’ book in early 2027 with Simon & Schuster. However, some think Bateman’s book deal is unfair, saying his celebrity has given him an advantage in the publishing world.
😍So-called ‘Blind Date With A Book’ packages are doing the rounds again, and it’s clear to see why. What’s not to love about a surprise book and some extra goodies thrown in for good measure? We’re desperate to get our hands on one!
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
💡 A video of a woman clipping her booklight to her head to help her read at night has gone viral after her husband compared her to an angler fish. There are no lengths we won’t go to in order to keep reading, day or night!
📢 The weekly review: What It Feels Like For a Girl - the book and TV show. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Zoe: You’ll undoubtedly have heard What It Feels Like For a Girl, the BBC adaptation of Paris Lees’ bestselling memoir with the same name, dropped on iPlayer earlier this month. Thanks to a slew of transphobic commentary in the form of sadly predictable bigoted tweets and cruel ‘reviews’ from prominent columnists, the series hasn’t been short of publicity.
Those threatening to stop paying their licence fees because the BBC has dared to tell a trans person’s story are missing out. What It Feels Like For a Girl is fearless television - a unique, often disturbing, coming-of-age story sprinkled with working-class Y2K nostalgia. But before you rush to iPlayer to binge all eight episodes, you know what I’m going to say - read the book first! This isn’t a simple case of “the book is always better” - both the original text and the TV series are exceptional pieces of art - but reading Lees’ memoir allows you to delve deeper into her world further than the screen adaptation can take you.
The book offers grittier details of Lees’ childhood in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, that perhaps couldn’t work for a BBC production - age-gap being far bigger in problematic romances, for example - and Lees’ relationship with her parents is even more complicated and heartbreaking than the TV series can convey.
As a dyslexic, I struggled with 13-year-old Bryon sharing their story via regional dialect at first, but once it clicked, it just added to the incomparable reading experience. Learning Lee’s story through her own words is far more intimate and valuable than watching actors retell it.
Learn more about the plot of What It Feels Like For a Girl and my full review of the TV series here.
📖Bookish news
🌴Danielle was on holiday last week and managed to cram in 11 books while she was away. Find out which books she loved the most here.
🏅 Palestinian author Yasmin Zaher, who was recently awarded the prestigious Dylan Thomas prize for young writers, discusses the publication of her winning debut, The Coin, during “one of the hardest years of my life” in a moving new interview.
👻Looking for your next spooky horror read that’s going to keep you up late into the night? Reachplc’s Zahna Eklund has just the thing for you. They shared their top five horror novels from the past five years, and they’re guaranteed to please.
☠️ Librarians at the University of St Andrews have come up with a way to test old books for poisons, aptly titled The Poison Book Project, the BBC reports.
📺American self-help superstar Mel Robbins appeared on ITV’s This Morning, sharing her ‘let them’ theory - and it’s made us desperate to read her latest book.
✨ Book Nook of the Week
This edition’s Book Nook of the Week is slightly different - less nook, more underground reading bunker! Ground Fridge, a company specialising in pop-up root cellars, has shared one of their customers’ book-friendly spin on their outdoor fridges. Swapping veggies for stories, The Pink Library in Belgium is cool in more ways than one. While many may dream of squirrelling away underground with a good book in this dreamy hideaway, we can’t be the only ones wondering if it’s a little eerie once the door is shut? If you’ve got a Book Nook you want us to feature, email thebookishdrop@reachplc.com
💸 Deals of the week
🏆 Fancy winning a book bundle worth over £110? Of course you do. HarperCollins Pride Month Giveaway is running its special competition for UK residents until the end of the month.
🌈 Read the rainbow for less with bookshop.org. The online bookstore is offering American readers 20% off more than 100 new books by LGBTQIA+ authors with the code PRIDE25.
🏳️🌈 The Aesop Queer Library is back in select stores across the United States and Canada. The installation offers complimentary books by LGBTQIA2S+ authors and allies, no purchase required.
👨👩👧 Barnes & Nobles currently has a range of books on sale for Father’s Day. So if you haven’t got your gift yet, this curated list is perfect!
❓ Is there anything in particular you want to see from us? We’d love to hear from you - whether you want us to review the book you’ve got coming out, you’re organising a book swap IRL, or you have some juicy bookish gossip to share! We’re always all ears! Fill out this form to get in touch!