Facebook whistleblowers, Palestinian love stories, and missing daddies

3 books I loved this month

Amani Hope

May 21, 2025

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Well I’ll be damned, I’ve been reading wonderful books and wanna tell you about them. Below are three book reviews, which, despite my very official title above I’ve written in a casual manner. Welcome back to the book recommendation portion of this newsletter. I’m switching things up again by including a brand new rating system I’ve designed with top secret technology.

The more bold, moving, or fun a book was, the more cherry bombs it gets. 🍒 🍒 🍒 What’s the catch? There’s no limit to the amount of cherry bombs a book can get. I could rate one book 5 cherry bombs and another one 24. It’s based on a feeling I have, yes a feeling, because the five star rating system has always annoyed me, but I wanna add some stakes—all in the name of getting the right books to the right audience, especially now I’m reading more ARC’s and review copies of books, handpicked for me and the newsletter.

Rating systems are pretty arbitrary, my cherry bomb books could be your DNF, and vise versa. So my recommendations are all about suggesting which audience might like them; if you think you like similar books as I do, then the rating system might actually work for you.

But to help even more, at the end of each review I’ll leave a cheeky note about which ideal mood you should be in to read the book.

For example, for one of the book recommendations today, your ideal mood would be:

It’s the first day of your period, you’re sad, you’re horny, and you just ordered ice cream on UberEats.

That book was one of my favorites.

Let’s get into it!

Critique is the highest form of flattery…

Memoir, 400 pages, published on March 11th, 2025, review copy selected from Macmillan Audio

The internet is sick, it has contracted a disease called Mark Zuckerberg.

I listened to Careless People through earbuds, in bed with the lights off and my eyes closed, late into the night.

Like reading a spooky horror story, you can’t go to sleep until you’ve checked under your bed for monsters. After reading, I’d check underneath and see nothing there, but as I listened to more of the memoir, I realized the monster was in the bed with me, and it had been for years, within the phone in my hands, in the charming apps created and bought by Meta, formerly known as Facebook.

There’s a reason why you feel ill after you wake from your Facebook or Instagram scroll stupor. There’s a reason why you feel helpless to it, reaching for it like it’s a bag of gummy bears. There’s a reason why fascism, misinformation, and bigotry is being normalized in people’s minds right now. And it’s all for the same reason: it makes Mark Zuckerberg and the executives at Meta a shit ton of money.

Your attention is the most valuable thing to Meta’s leadership, because it’s worth an ungodly amount of money to advertisers. “Advertisers,” is anybody who wants to buy Ad placements on Facebook, including people who are running for president. Anybody who has the money can spend millions of dollars spreading lies and manipulating people with propaganda, and turn themselves into a king of a country. Facebook not only accepts it, but as Wynn-Williams describes, Facebook is impressed by it. After the top executive at Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, is briefed on how Donald Trump won the 2016 presidency using Facebook’s technology, her first thought was on wanting to hire the campaign manager who gamed the system.

Misinformation keeps people glued to their services, which makes Facebook more money. They could moderate it (they even built the tools than can do it) but they choose not to.

Wynn-Williams thoroughly explains how Meta is manipulating our culture for personal gain, in America, but also globally, and she makes pleas for the American government to regulate the social media platform. She enlightens the public with the very purposeful steps Meta takes to lie to the public, and to the government, despite being sworn under oath, which is perjury and is a crime. And she backs it up with endless documentation created by the executives at Facebook.

Meta has convinced us their services are about “Making the world more open and connected,” but what they really want is control of our minds, alongside as many billions of minds they can get, to keep our eyes on the screen and thumbs scrolling and tapping and buying. All they care about is growth at all costs. Doesn’t matter if the cost is democracy or children’s mental health.

Facebook is a mind control app.

At some point, Facebook stopped being a social media app. Facebook is a mind control app. Maybe this sounds overdramatic to some and you might think: But what about the cute photos of my cousins?

As a service, Facebook caters to advertisers first and foremost. In 2024, Meta generated 160 billion U.S. dollars in advertising revenue (Statista). The point of advertising is to disrupt a person’s daily life and manipulate them into taking an action—marketing can be as harmless or nefarious as a person wants it to be—and as Facebook was growing, its leadership hired the smartest people from around the world to build the technology that makes marketing easier and more profitable for them. So, it is literally, by definition, a mind control technology, convincing people to make behaviors that’ll give Meta the most money.

Wynn-Williams includes a harrowing example of one of these technologies Facebook has built, which is called emotional targeting. Software that can perceive when a teen girl is feeling depressed and insecure about her body and then serve her a weight-loss advertisement. Knowing when a new mother is feeling vulnerable, and therefore more easily manipulated into buying something.

These are technologies that are totally abstract to the general public, and have been built with no oversight. For many people Meta’s apps are like their cars, it’s bad for the environment but how else are they going to get to work when there’s limited options? How are they going to get to the grocery store or visit their friends and family? We need regulation and we need alternative platforms, true social media—not corporations with dollar signs in their eyes.

What’s sad is that social media didn’t start out as a mind control app, and the internet at large didn’t either, it really was about connection. But in a capitalist society, money and growth almost always takes over. Mark Zuckerberg and the leadership of Facebook, saw an opportunity to dominate our minds, and has since made significant efforts in colonizing the globe to do it.

Who’s this book for? It’s for everyone. After listening to the audiobook, I immediately picked up a hardcover copy for deeper investigation.

The ideal mood for reading Careless People:

You deleted Instagram yesterday but downloaded it again this morning.

It feels weird to rate a memoir, so I’ll specifically rate how captivating it was to hear Wynn-Williams’ story told on audio in her own voice, and how bold I think she is for risking her livelihood to enlighten us on Facebook’s wrongdoings. (Facebook has aggressively censored her from telling this story and has blocked her from promoting her own book).

My final rating is eighteen cherry bombs:

What Will People Think? by Sara Hamdan

New this week!

Humorous Fiction, 336 pages, Published on May 20th, 2025, review copy selected from Macmillan Audio

Prepare to be charmed.

What Will People Think? had me reeling while I was washing the dishes, doing yoga, showering, multitasking, just so I could live in this story about two Palestinian-American women from different generations, falling in love, discovering heartbreak, and pursuing their desires—despite the many obstacles in their way.

To hear the story on audio was a special kind of experience, because the novel is about Mia Almas, and is told from her perspective while living in New York City, working in media as a fact-checker but secretly performing stand-up comedy at night, and obsessing over her office crush.

But what makes the story special is her grandmother who gives Mia journals to read about their family's mysterious past. Journals from when her grandmother was young and living in Palestine amongst the lemon trees, seeking out love and independence where she could (yes, these tender scenes made me cry). As Mia reads the journals, you get to hear her grandmother’s old stories too, like sitting around a fireplace with your elders, finally recounting the exciting and difficult details of their past. Hearing the beautiful Arabic words pronounced how they’re meant to be was wonderful. I’d recommend the audiobook first for this reason.

Mia’s grandmother loves watching soap operas and so this novel is structured to homage the form. As Mia reads the journals, taboo love affairs and family dramas fill each page, delighting you with shocking twists and betrayals. Mia’s romance in alternating chapters isn’t necessarily deep, but it’s compelling and fun. Room is given for Mia to explore herself through her desire, rather than exploring the nuances of partnership.

Like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Mia is pursuing comedy in secret at first, then in a moment of rare honesty on stage, she exposes herself, her desires, and her struggles. Honesty makes for better comedy, and as a result she’s seen and praised by her peers. A video of her stand-up goes viral. An article is written and published about her and her family.

What does it mean to be seen virally as a Palestinian-American woman with undocumented grandparents in the United States? Risks triumph the rewards. It means choosing to live smaller, despite having a big voice that deserves to be heard. Mia’s journey through comedy, family, and romance is one I’ll remember. This is a heartfelt story, there’s humor amidst the pain, there’s persistence and support, and most importantly, there’s love.

What Will People Think? pursues a world where Arab women can love without shame, where families can live together without fear, and where a person can give themselves permission to follow what their heart desires. This book is for people who appreciate a mix of soap opera with their self-discovery.

The ideal mood for reading What Will People Think:

You asked your grandma about her love life but she changed the subject.

My final rating is sixteen cherry bombs:

Soft Core by Brittany Newell

Literary Fiction, 329 pages, published on February 4th, 2025

Reading Soft Core is like hoisting up your cargo pants and going on an archaeological dig. Turn the page, you’re excavating the soft belly, you’re pulling out the artifacts and remains of what’s been buried within. Who’s soft belly? Ruth’s, also known as Baby and Miss Sunday, depending on where she’s working that day. But also the soft belly’s of the men she meets, who lift their shirts in rare exposé, revealing themselves to her, feeling safe and understood in her presence.

Ruth dances at a strip club, and then follows her achievements to a BDSM “Dream House” where she learns how to be a Mistress. She’s gentle with her clients, even as she’s spanking them. For an hour, men can reveal their true hidden selves, to be adored and cherished, wearing cute and feminine clothes, or to play out their fantasies they’ve hidden from the world.

She lives with her older ex-boyfriend, Dino, who’s had a career in drug dealing. They understand each other, no judgments. Two years ago for Christmas she gave him an “I ❤️ Daddy” mug, and when he cooks for her life is alright, but then suddenly he disappears.

She starts looking for Dino everywhere. But it becomes clear, she’s also looking for proof of her father’s love, who’d died when she was young, who may have ended his life on purpose, leaving a simple note for her on the fridge.

After Dino disappears, she’s reminded of this loss and descends into a mad yearning, searching for Dino, revisiting their history to understand why she’d resisted his love when they were together. Why did she pull away from love in general?

“Damn, Ruth, [her friend Mazzy] said. I'm so glad I'm not in love with you.
I choked on my soda, surprised. Why?
She started to laugh. You know why!
No, I said, I don't.
You don't believe in happy endings.
I raised my eyebrows.
Come on, she said. You know what I mean. She swallowed, hesitating just a bit. What happened to your mom won't necessarily happen to you, you know.
Are you saying I have Daddy issues?
Her cheeks pinked. Well…
I don’t have Daddy issues, Maz. I slapped my thigh for emphasis. I just have issues with everyone else.

Ruth looks for Dino in the faces of people who pass by, a man on the bus, a man in the strip club, she thinks she sees him but we can’t know for sure.

Then, like the note her father left on the fridge, little notes start showing up everywhere, along with a mysterious new hire at the club, Emeline. Ruth finds a note in her locker at the club, in her purse, and on her car. And meanwhile, the boundaries between who Emeline and Ruth are begin to blur. Emeline is loved by her father, is still being cared for by him. And in the end, this is what Ruth wants too. She needs to feel her father’s love again.

All throughout, Ruth encounters a cast of unusual characters who inspire her to examine the nature of humanity, together excavating their soft cores, while she struggles to contend with her losses. Soft core is for people who understand sexuality as a human phenomenon that deserves further study; the writing is poetic, foul-mouthed in the best way, and wickedly tender. A favorite of the year.

The ideal mood for reading Soft Core:

It’s the first day of your period, you’re sad, you’re horny, and you just ordered ice cream on UberEats.

My final rating is sixteen cherry bombs:

Well, I hope you liked this collection of book reviews! Stay reading, ya’ll. I’ll see you soon with more exclusives about the books I’ve devoured this month. Have a great week!