I thought January was a good reading month, but February blew it away - partly thanks to a whole week of non-kid vacationing by the pool, and partly thanks to some darn good books. That along with some selections that read very quickly added up to a whole ton of books this month.
Literary/contemporary fiction
Now Is Not the Time to Panic: In this story adult Frankie looks back at the summer in her teens that transformed her life - when she went from being the offbeat loner girl who likes to write, to a girl with a best friend who co-created something that impacts the world. When Zeke, who wants to be an artist, shows up in her small Tennessee town that summer, they decide to try to create something great together, eventually making an illustrated poster with an enigmatic phrase that they photocopy and post all over town in secret. And then it takes off - in a pre-internet age their anonymous work manages to go viral and take on a life of its own as it becomes part of the fabric of the culture, mixed into everything from Satanic panic to social uprisings to SNL skits. Now as an adult it seems Frankie’s secret might come out, and as she recounts that summer she considers how this might affect her current life/relationships and how having created this art has defined and developed her own sense of self and her career.
It’s coming of age mixed with an exploration of the power of art and friendship, written with wit and lots of heart - it’s also a bit of a weird book (but in a good way) as is the case with Kevin Wilson, feeling singular and creative yet still very relatable and accessible. As a former high schooler with “weird” obsessions like being an Anglophile and making decoupage collages on pretty much anything, I really felt he captured the essence of being a teen who feels like an odd one out and a bit sheepish about these nerdy loves, and also the feeling of just letting loose with them when you find a friend who gets you. Beyond that I just adored the mom character in this book and how she handles the foibles and growing pains of her kids (including Frankie’s wild older triplet brothers) - some chuckle-funny but also tender moments in that.
Highly recommend the
Nerdette Podcast interview with Kevin Wilson for some insights into the story and themes. While the tone is a bit different I also think it’s a great companion to Gabrielle Zevin’s
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow in terms of the themes of friendship and artistic collaboration, and look at how someone can make art that has a particular meaning to them/to their friendship, but it can take on a whole new meaning for others when it gets out into the world.
★★★★.5The Lonely Hearts Book Club: Always a sucker for a library/bookstore book, I was pleased to try out the advance e-copy (provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review; publishes March 28) of this book, about a librarian whose small and contained life is turned upside down when she takes it upon herself to care for an elderly library patron who is as curmudgeonly and difficult as they come. This leads to a bit of a rag-tag group who form a little book club as they develop friendships and help each other through the various individual life challenges they have.
I’m not always a fan of the curmudgeon book like
A Man Called Ove as sometimes they feel maybe a little flippant or even too cute - but the twist of focusing the different sections on different members of the book club really helped make for a rounder picture than “just” a curmudgeon story. There’s lots of good literary references with the book club, and I also liked how this unlikely group that gets together gives you perspectives from a variety of ages and life experiences, coming together on how they all need literature and friendships to heal their loneliness and sense of self worth.
Overall pretty gentle, somewhat comedic, and of course heartwarming, something easy to breeze through and enjoy even if not super memorable. I'd recommend for fans of curmudgeon books like Ove (very similar in themes and in the overall light tone but still hitting on deeper issues like loneliness and grief); it also reminded me of some books by British authors like Ruth Hogan (
The Keeper of Lost Things) or Phaedra Patrick (
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper), and it had definite
Bookish Life of Nina Hill vibes too.
★★★.5Someday, Maybe: whooo this contemporary fiction read packs an emotional punch. From page one, you learn from Eve, an early 30s young professional living in London, that there's 3 things to know about her husband: he's the great love of her life, he seemed to be perfectly happy, but on New Year's Eve, he committed suicide. Something about her: she's the one who found him - and no, she's not okay. From there she narrates about a year of her life and her process of grief, showing how the reaction to losing a spouse can be all-encompassing and debilitating, and particularly when it is suicide - the questions of why, the guilt of not seeing it coming at all. Her suffering is devastating, but the tone of the book, with her individual and still fresh + witty voice, and the care and relationships of her amazing, close-knit Nigerian family, makes it bearable (dare I say enjoyable? hard to say that about a book about a grieving widow). I just adored her family and the way the story wove in some anecdotes about her childhood (as well as of course her courtship/marriage with her husband). It felt a bit exhausting to read at times, with the depths of her grief, but I think that absolutely makes sense and illustrates what Eve comments on at one point, that people want her grief to be contained to make them comfortable, but that's not the reality (and if one is exhausted reading/hearing about grief, imagine how ). Eve's voice is so well written and well developed, and I also thought the way the author made me fall in love with Eve and Quentin's love story, even though we ever actually "meet" him, was masterfully done. I'd say read-alikes are definitely books like
Queenie (or some of the characters in that author's 2nd book,
People Person, though less in the overall plot feel) and from what I've heard, the recent release
Maame. They're all smart and witty and modern-feeling books that feature characters facing a quarter-life crisis of some sort + great friend/family side characters, and the books also address mental health difficulties, cultural navigations between their own life and the life of their immigrant families, interracial relationships, what it's like to be a young Black woman in the UK - not to mention they all have these really strong voices that just draw you in to the character instantly.
★★★★Thriller/mystery
Exiles: Jane Harper is one of my auto-buy authors for slow-burn mysteries, and so I was of course excited to see it when this 3rd book in her
Aaron Falk series was scheduled to come out… pre-ordered and then saved it for vacation, where I read it all in one day! As I love in this genre, there’s a small-town setting where something mysterious has happened recently (in this case a woman who disappeared a year ago, apparently abandoning her infant in a stroller at a community fair…perhaps suicide?) where it seems there’s something a bit off about the initial conclusions, and it also becomes clear that there are connections to some secrets/relationships from her high school days. Falk doesn’t have any previous connection to this town, but he’s there for the christening of his godson, child of his best friend (and police officer introduced in
The Dry) Raco. The missing woman is the ex of Raco’s brother, and eventually Falk is drawn in to sussing out what might have happened, and figuring out how the relationships of the high school friend group, most of whom still live in town now, have played out over time.
I really liked the further character and relationship development for Falk that were side parts to this story - that added to my feeling of satisfaction, on top of the mystery wrapping up, when I put the book down.
I’d say that you could read this without having read the others, but why, when all 3 in the series are great slow-burn mysteries? You’ll get more out of some of this one if you’ve at least read
The Dry (the 1st) as I occasionally wished I had less of a fuzzy recollection of its exact plot/character details so I could remember which characters I was already supposed to know and which were new to this book, but it didn’t take me long to get past that at all.
Overall, nothing mind-blowing in terms of thriller/mystery (which can be a good thing for people who prefer a gentler quality to mysteries, nothing super scary or gory or icky) but absolutely a satisfying atmospheric slow-burn read.
★★★★Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Again with the excellent “thriller-lite” category - a mystery that combines plot with some good character development and some real looks at motherhood and marriage. Not to mention the inventive structure - so good, so so satisfying.
At the beginning of the story, a mother sees her 18-year-old son stab and kill an apparent stranger right outside their house late at night on October 31. It’s of course completely shocking and jarring - but even more so when Jen wakes up the next day and her son is at home, not in a jail cell… and she figures out that somehow it’s October 30. Though she’s completely freaked out by it, she decides that the universe must be somehow sending her back in time to stop the crime from happening. And as each day Jen keeps waking up earlier and earlier in time she starts to unravel what led to this moment, with some great twists and turns and along the way that kept me so interested in the story.
So the construction of this story would be interesting enough to make me love it, but on top of it we see her examining the fundamentals of her relationship with her child, and of her marriage. Like some of my recent favorite thriller-lite books (
The Last Thing He Told Me,
Mother May I,
The Love of My Life) there’s so much to relate to in thinking about what I might do in similar situations to - like in their need to uncover or keep a secret to protect a kid, or in how they doubt their parenting and wonder where they went wrong, or in how they have to reevaluate their whole relationship with their spouse when something new comes to light.
Not to mention that the time travel element of the story really brings home the whole living in/appreciating the moment with your kids. When she goes back even just a year and sees how much her son changed, or realizes how much she didn’t appreciate/pay attention to certain things about him, or sees things that were her “last” of a certain activity together, that really drove it home. (Loved the use of time travel in general in this story, how it was kind of explored as a concept -not overly focused on though - but then just accepted and used as a tool to propel the story; lots of thinking also about the butterfly effect of changing one thing in history and how that has a knock-on effect. Made me think of how I enjoyed that aspect of Stephen King’s
11/22/63. Other time travel side note: obviously the plot/feel is quite different, but it reminded me a bit of Emma Straub's
This Time Tomorrow in some of the things that traveling back in time makes you think about - appreciating some of the little things about your body or about your kids'/parents' life stage before those change, not realizing how good it was at the time.) All in all a quick read that was super satisfying, got me to love the main characters and the mother/son relationship, made me think, and felt unique too!
★★★★.5With My Little Eye: I've read every book
Joshilyn Jackson has ever written and always pre-order her next, so I was super pleased to get my (virtual) hands on her new book even earlier thanks to an advance copy from Netgalley... and no surprise, I devoured it in one day on vacation. With her last 2 books, she has gone more into what I (lovingly) term "thriller-lite", this great combination of twists and some suspense along with excellent, sympathetic main characters who feel real and fleshed-out. I particularly love that the characters are mothers, so there is a lot to relate to and also to think about, how far a mother/parent might go to protect their secrets if it means protecting their child, and things like that.
This new one stars an actress, Meribel Mills, who is an adoptive mother to a pre-teen with autism, and this relationship felt so real and lovely and really centered the book - which I appreciated, because in general it went much more into thriller territory, which to me involves some ick things that I don't always like reading about the psychology of. Such as: Meribel has a very creepy stalker and relocates with her daughter from LA to Atlanta to try to escape him, but of course he tracks her down and the story ensues. It's interesting to me to read about it from her perspective, but then adding in his perspective? It's kind of ick.
In the end, there's some pretty standard thriller-feeling things with the stalker's words/actions along the way and the breathless final scenes related to him, but the character development and just this warmth that I felt toward them turned it from something I might feel meh, passed the day by the pool fine, to really enjoying (though admittedly not 5 stars like her last one for me, given that more standard thriller feel). I did appreciate some of the other twists related to the cast of side characters that felt a little more unique/unexpected, and it definitely was unputdownable with the twists and the action. This will be a great one to put on your summer reading list (publishes April 25).
★★★★Killers of a Certain Age: Okay, this is a fun and action-packed read, for something a little different from my usual. It’s like a Jason Bourne movie but starring a foursome of retired ladies who are now being head-hunted by the spy/assassin organization they worked for. On their retirement cruise they figure out that they are being tracked, and in this kill-or-be-killed situation they rely on all of their years of training, experience, and friendship to outsmart the men trying to take them out, even if they’re not moving as fast as they used to… You get some comedy with them being ladies of a certain age who are doing assassin work - creaky knees and hot flashes and such - along with some light commentary about misogyny, double standards, and how society overlooks/devalues older women. But above all you get so many smart, twisty, globe-trotting plans to escape the hit out on them that feel like Ocean’s Eleven style capers (can you tell this feels like it would be a fun movie?) that you’re biting your nails even while knowing that these bad-ass ladies certainly can hold their own. So much fun that the high body count by the end somehow doesn’t feel too violent or terrible... It has humor and heart and just the right amount of action for me. Though I don't do spy books (torture is an absolute no for me to watch/read), I'd love to find more like this one.
★★★★All Good People Here: This book has all of the elements I like in a this type of slow-burn crime novel, with a small town cold case that’s brought back to light by a current case + the main character (who is now a detective, a true crime podcaster, or in this example, a journalist) having an obsession with it since childhood returning to the town after years away delving back in… which means it did kinda keep feeling like I had read this book before (it felt so familiar at one point that I actually checked my Goodreads records) but also I didn’t really care because I like this sub-genre of thriller-lite so much, especially in a familiar Midwest setting. The character development and writing were on par with others I’ve read like it (decent development, but still very easy reading) and the pacing was good too - nothing bonkers or groundbreaking (though admittedly the end did have a little bonus unexpected bit) but moved right along. While I might eventually confuse it with yet a other similar entry into the sub genre it was certainly a satisfying read to plow through by the pool in one day on vacation. Readalikes might include
All the Missing Girls,
Everything We Didn't Say, or maybe
The Silent Sister - kind of a combo family drama + slow-burn crime story.
★★★.5The Bangalore Detective's Club: Peter saw this on a NYT best books list and got it for me for Christmas - and while I did like the interest (and education) of the 1920s India setting, and the general ahead-of-her-times amateur lady detective vibes, I was a bit puzzled by it being on a list like that as I found the writing to be rather awkward / repetitive / tangent-y, and the characters to be underdeveloped. If you like a cozy mystery series with some light social commentary (the place of women, colonialism, things like that) along the lines of the
No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series you might enjoy it - but for a colonial India setting would definitely recommend
The Widows of Malabar Hill over this one. It also features a young Indian woman who finds herself sleuthing and rubbing up against the boundaries and prejudices faced by women and by native Indians in that time/place - but much better written (in fact I read multiple books in that series… I'm afraid I won’t be returning to this one though).
★★Romance/rom-com
Same Time Next Summer: Annabel Monaghan's debut (
Nora Goes Off Script) was a swoony rom-com (with substance and lots of insights about motherhood to boot) that was in my top 10 reads of 2022, so I put in my Netgalley request for her new book, coming out June 6, as soon as I knew it was happening. And I'm thrilled I got an advance copy, because what an absolutely delightful one-day read it was on my beach vacation this month!
As the genre goes, there are some standard romance/rom-com arcs and tropes that we all know, so plenty of us have read (or watched) this basic plot before: out-of-town teen comes to a summer home where she's friends with the neighbor boy and over the course of one particular summer they realize they're each other's greatest love... but then it doesn't work out and now they find themselves back in the same place a bunch of years later (probably one of them is engaged to someone else), and despite their baggage, sparks still fly. In fact, the storyline is rather similar to last year's hit,
Every Summer After, and I know tons of people loved that one, but to me it read as a storyline of angsty/infatuated teens alternating with a storyline of moody adults - whereas here Annabel Monaghan somehow made it feel fresh. Perhaps with better character development and more of a feeling of snapping and sparkling to the dialogue and writing in general? I did feel like on top of the romance tropes/arcs that draw you in and make you want it to all work out for these characters, there was some good personal development: you see how Sam turned from a carefree kid to a perhaps overly buttoned-up version of herself as an adult, and how reconnecting with the person she was in the summer of her teens - not to mention the person she was when she was with Wyatt - could bring her back to full expression (definitely helps you feel okay about rooting for her to dump her current fiancé, ha!).
Didn't have some of the added components that made her debut a 5-star book for me, but definitely one for the beach reading list thanks to the summer nostalgia and beach setting, and the quick and easy (but not too fluffy!) reading that will draw you in and leave you satisfied in the end.
★★★★Young adult/middle grade
Other Words for Home: This middle grade novel in verse - beyond being just lovely to read even as a grownup - is a perfect example of how literature can open kids to the experiences of others, both in ways they are similar (the coming-of-age portion shows how 13-year-old Jude sees life/friends changing but still kind of wants to hold on to childhood; it also shows lots of common middle school emotions, relationship dynamics, etc.) and in the ways they are different. For my kid, that was seeing what it might be like to have your family split up by war, and what it’s like to be an immigrant both in terms of missing home and experiencing negative attitudes/actions about your culture.
I adored Jude and her voice, as she figures out how to use it - first at home in Syria, where she’s sometimes shushed for asking too many questions or being too bold, and then when she and her mother leave home for their safety and arrive in Cincinnati to stay with her uncle’s family. She literally has to find her voice in a new language and then also figure out how to be bold and brave with her voice in a time with lots of newness and uncertainty. (Side note: the scenes in her ESL classroom were some of the most lovely bits to read; also I would have loved the book either way, but having lived in Cincinnati for 5 years found that setting so fun - the real-world places made it really come alive for me.)
I like how the “different” part was on both a personal scale, seeing what it’s like to be in Jude’s shoes in things like moving to a new country and starting in a new school, but also in a more global/current events sense, understanding a bit about things in the news like war in Syria or terrorism or racism/prejudice, in a very age-appropriate way.
There are of course also some sad moments, but in the end such a hopeful and warm-hearted feeling - a gorgeous and moving book about finding your voice and your home, and the verse format communicates the feelings that go along with those things so beautifully. Adding to how much I loved it was that Hendrik actually requested this book (not his usual genre) when we were at a bookstore, since he (and I!) loved this author's
A Rover's Story. Couldn't say no to that request, and I'm so glad he picked it out so that I could experience the loveliness of this one.
★★★★★We Dream of Space: before our family trip, Hendrik asked if we could have a "real" book club (i.e., read and discuss the same book, as opposed to our usual "book club walks" in which we go for a stroll and share about what we're each currently reading). He did a book report on Erin Entrada Kelly's
Hello, Universe for school and wanted to try another of hers - and we all (including my mom and Peter!) were so pleased with his selection. Set during the lead-up to the Challenger space shuttle launch in 1986, it follows three middle school siblings who are very different from one another but are all struggling with insecurities and anxieties: Cash feels like a failure after getting benched on the basketball team and having to repeat 7th grade because of his low grades; Fitch wants to fit in but doesn't know how to deal with or understand his explosive temper; Bird is really interested in science and wants to become the first female NASA flight commander but is learning that the world divides girls into the "smart" and the "pretty" and doesn't know how to navigate that. Their parents are constantly bickering, and the feeling at home is often tense - so all of the members of the family feel to Bird like they're orbiting separate planets, even though the siblings, especially her and her twin Fitch, used to be on the same one. There's definitely a lot of middle school emotions and friend dynamics, so some of those concerns and feelings maybe went a tad over a 4th grader's head, but they were still certainly all valuable to discuss. Another interesting thing to discuss with a kid was how his experience of reading it differed in that he didn't know yet what was going to happen with the Challenger launch, whereas of course all of us as adults knew that history.... Beautifully written in how the siblings' perspectives build on each other and weave together, really encapsulates the conflicting emotions that are a reality of life (and especially of middle school), illustrates some lovely character growth for all of the siblings by the end, and shows how the tragedy brings them together without being trite or just glossing over the difficult things they're dealing with. Also interesting to discuss was how it shows how adults in kids' lives can be a mixed bag - their science teacher is so caring and engaging, while their parents are just completely emotionally unavailable to them. A great sibling story, and a great story for kids interested in the sciences. We all recommend!
★★★★.5
New From Here: and another one picked by Hendrik, after he enjoyed this author in a school book assignment. He snagged it at the library and requested that we have a book club at home with it. While I did enjoy the read, and definitely enjoyed discussing it with him and appreciated the views it gave him of how other kids might have experienced the same thing he did in different ways because of their ethnicity, family structure, learning styles, etc., it felt like one that maybe hit a bit more for the intended audience rather than for me... The story follows a Chinese-American family that moves from their home in Hong Kong to California in early 2020, thinking that the mom and kids will be able to stay a month or two and avoid any potential exposures to this new coronavirus popping up nearby - but of course we all know how the trajectory went. It really was interesting to read an as-it-happens unfolding of how a family handled the virus situation, remembering back to how we were all trying our best to protect our families but just didn't really know much - and remembering back to how our kids were navigating this whole new, unexpected situation of online school, masks, etc. - plus it provided for us a new perspective on the experiences, being about a family that is Chinese-American and how they also had to contend with bias and racism in the pandemic, and having a protagonist with ADHD who really struggled with some of the changes, like going to online school. It felt to me though like those would be enough in terms of issues, but it seemed like it was trying to cover so much in addition, with changing sibling dynamics as kids get older, making new friends, handling the idea of parents arguing or losing their jobs, learning about anti-racism, and then also a bit of almost comedy-of-errors in some of the antics like accidentally selling their mom's ruby earrings at a garage sale or setting up a LinkedIn profile for their dad and doing phone interviews as him. I think a great book for a late elementary audience in general, and also as a good vehicle for processing some of the emotions and experiences of the last few years, but a little too "tell, not show" to wow me in the same way some other middle grade ones have lately.
★★★.5
Will I be able to top this in March in quantity or - even better - quality? Hard to say! I started the month with a sunny vacation again, but with a lot less reading since there were kids along, and I abandoned a rom-com that was no good, so there's some catching up to do if I'm going to find as many great books in this coming month...
