Friday Mood Recs: Just trust me, round three

A multigenerational saga, classic short stories, and a breath-of-fresh-air YA novel

Jul 11, 2025

∙ Paid

It’s time for another round of just trust me recommendations. No theme. No preamble. Just great books.

If you want to check out previous editions of just trust me recs, you can find those here:

Friday Mood Recs: Just trust me, round one

I love grouping books together by mood, theme, or topic. I’ve kind of built a career around that with my themed Paperback Summer Reading Guides, the Novel Pairings podcast, and these Friday posts on Substack. But here’s the thing about recommending books in this fashion: some books just don’t fit in. There are books I love that I just can’t quite figure out how to squeeze into category. Or books that do pair well with others, but the mood descriptor is decidedly unmarketable. And then there are books that I just love so much I want my recommendation to be underscored, starred, and extra important…

4 months ago · 54 likes · 38 comments · Sara Hildreth

Friday Mood Recs: Just trust me, round two

I am thrilled that you all are enthused about these sporadic “just trust me” posts. It has been a delight to dig into my troves of backlist reading to find some gems I haven’t shared recently, or at all. I’m really, really trying not to theme these, which I’m finding is more difficult than I imagined! But today I went with the first three “oh my gosh, I loved that book” ideas that popped into my head. Funnily enough, two of my choices would make an excellent paring, while the third couldn’t be more different…

2 months ago · 54 likes · 5 comments · Sara Hildreth

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