Thanksgiving Book Tag 2026

Thanksgiving is still a few weeks away in the U.S., but I don’t have a book review ready for today. Instead, I decided to do the Thanksgiving Book Tag 2026. This is now my fifth year doing it (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025). My responses for this year’s edition will pull from my 2026 reads. If you’re not familiar with the Thanksgiving Book Tag 2026, the short rules are below.

Originally created by Anna’s Book Nook, here are the rules:

Thank the person who nominated you
Give credit to the author (Anna’s Book Nook)
Answer the prompts
Tag others if you desire!

At the end of my answers I also listed all the prompts to the Thanksgiving Book Tag 2026 for easy copying and pasting into your own post.

Friends and Family: A Book with Characters that Feel Like Family

I think THE INFINITE SADNESS OF SMALL APPLIANCES (review here) fits the bill nicely for this prompt. Who doesn’t love to read about sentient appliances helping out an old man in a dystopian world?

Fallen Leaves: A Book that Fell Flat (didn’t meet your expectations)

I think this fell flat for me because I went in thinking it was nonfiction, but I think it’s actually fiction. The first half starts “during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba–the catastrophe that led to the displacement and exile of some 700,000 people–and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence.” So it begins as historical fiction that focuses on a girl captured by soldiers. The second half is more present day with a woman reflecting on finding out about this girl who shares her birthday. She kind of makes it her mission to find out more about the girl, but is unsuccessful. I was just confused the whole time reading it. I know the woman is Muslim, and thinking back on it now I believe the girl was as well.

Thanksgiving Dinner: A Book You Want to Read Every Year During This Season

I’m not a seasonal reader, but I think THIS BOOK MADE ME THINK OF YOU (review here) is a good choice for this prompt. It’s about a young woman who loses her husband to cancer. But he’s arranged for her to receive one book a month with a challenge to do something new in accordance with that book’s theme. It’s a wonderful story about overcoming and pushing through grief and leaning into friends and family.

Turkey: A Book With a Bird in It

THAT QUAIL, ROBERT (review here) was an absolute delight to read. If you love narrative nonfiction about nature that focuses on the animal rather than centering the story on the human, check it out.

Ham: A Book that Made Your Eyes Glaze Over (Boring)

I gave A CURSE CARVED IN BONE three stars because it wasn’t a terribly written. But I personally found this finale to the duology boring and the FMC a little insufferable even though I understood why she was mad at the MMC. It just wasn’t as exciting as the first book.

Dinner Rolls: A Book that Melted Your Heart and Made You Feel Warm

I adored THE SECRET LIFE OF ALBERT ENTWISTLE. It’s a contemporary fiction about a postman who’s about to retire who is basically an introvert because he’s afraid of what people will think if he tells them he’s gay. I didn’t formally review this because I read it via audiobook and I don’t usually review audiobooks. But Albert goes on a journey of sorts and finally makes friends and becomes unafraid to show the world who he really is and who he loves. There’s also some homophobia from his past that he has to unpack. Definitely give this one a go.

Mashed Potatoes: A Book With a White Cover

I read a few books with a lot of white on the cover: NOBODY’S GIRL by Virginia Giuffre, RAISING HARE by Chloe Dalton, THE GEOMAGICIAN by Jennifer Mandula, and PARABLE OF THE SOWER by Octavia Butler. I enjoyed (as much as one can “enjoy” a book about Virginia’s terrible experience with Epstein) all of these except PARABLE OF THE SOWER, which wasn’t what I expected it to be. It was certainly dystopian, but I didn’t realize how much it centers around religion, which is not my thing.

Gravy: A Book You’re not Totally Sure Why You Love, but You Do

I didn’t read anything that quite fits this prompt. The closest book that fits is MARGO’S GOT MONEY TROUBLES by Rufi Thorpe. I ended up really enjoying this one. It has some great commentary about single motherhood. “A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.“

Pumpkin Pie: A Dessert Book That You Love

This contemporary romance with a heavy portion of D&D was great. There is some angst, but it has a happy ending and is my favorite I’ve read so far in this romance niche. My review for LEVEL UP FOR LOVE is here.

Bonus: Black Friday: The Top 5 Books on Your “I want to buy them” List

I don’t usually fill out this last question because I don’t preorder as much as I used to owing to the huge stack of unread books I have at home. The only book that immediately comes to mind is the ACOTAR7 book, which comes out in January. I plan to preorder that one from my local indie bookstore.