reading lately: June roundup

My June reading roundup includes some treasures! First and foremost, my highly anticipated pre-order of Ann Patchett's new book came, and it did not let me down. Spoiler alert: it's my current #1 read for the year. And then there are several recommendations that came to me via podcasts that turned out to be great, especially my two audio book selections for the month. 

Contemporary/literary fiction

Whistler: I'm sure I've said it before, but Ann Patchett is a master at compelling character-driven fiction. I could not put down this beauty of a book, in which Daphne, a teacher in her 50s, and her husband notice an older man seeming to follow them around the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It turns out to be Eddie Triplett, who was Daphne's beloved stepfather for about 2 years when she was in elementary school. She hadn't had any contact with him in the 40-some years since her mother divorced Eddie, but this chance encounter rekindles their father-daughter relationship, and it also leads Daphne to reflect back on her childhood and reexamine it in a new light now that she knows Eddie in an adult capacity. This was one of those books that made me want to hug it when I finished, but to be honest I also wanted to hug it throughout. I was SO charmed by Eddie. All of the dialogue was perfection - the kind of back and forths that make you feel like these are real people talking except better because real people don't actually have such everyday conversations that manage to be so spot-on and entertaining - especially between Eddie and Daphne, and between Daphne and her sister, Leda. The characters, the ebbs and growths in their relationships, and the writing are moving and poignant and real. To me the book just glows. The themes encompass parent/child relationships and their many facets, love and how being known/seen by someone can be so consequential in a life, and how our lives are affected by the nature of memory and small moments/decisions and the stories we tell ourselves about our experiences. I found especially interesting the exploration of how our childhood experiences can shape our whole perspective, but how limited that perspective actually is due to the nature of childhood understanding of the world and the nuances of adults' relationships, etc. being so limited. In terms of Ann Patchett reads, I found this to encompass elements of Tom Lake (my fave!) and Commonwealth in combination. It's also a great pick for someone with a The Correspondent-sized hole in their reading life; the style/story isn't particularly similar, but the overall feel-good but not saccharine experience will give you a similar satisfaction when you finish. ★★★★★

This Is Not About Us: Opening with the final weeks of their sister's life, this book is about the myriad of everyday dramas in the lives of Helen and Sylvia Rubenstein, as well as their children and grandchildren (or notable lack thereof, to the chagrin of one of these Jewish mothers...) - and how their family is shaped by the overarching big drama, a feud between the sisters that starts at Jeanne's funeral over a family apple cake recipe and leads to them not speaking for years. The publisher tagline feels apt, in describing this as a "kaleidoscopic portrait of a modern American family". It's a family drama in terms of the everyday kinds of drama, of living through divorce and dating, planning bar mitzvahs and attending ballet recitals, navigating through college applications and family holiday traditions. And it's about the common foibles that come with family relationships - the ways we fall back on "our" roles even as adult children/siblings and how that can lead to friction, the evolution of a marriage from fresh in love to growing stale in all the distractions of careers and kids, the expectations parents have of their adult kids and how those can chafe or create distance, the sadness of aging in knowing that those who knew you as "you" (your younger years) are fewer and far between. Some of the characters really annoyed me at times, but they all felt real, like people I could identify in my life, and the way they are portrayed is both wry and poignant. The book reads as a collection of connected short stories (though there was one right in the middle that seemed unrelated and I was really distracted the whole time wondering why none of the familiar characters were in it - seemed like an odd choice to include just that one that turned out to be very tangentially related). I'm not much of a short story reader (too short! I want to be more immersed in a character's life), so I as I was reading I thought I was liking it a bit less than I would have liked a novel version; however, as a way to read short stories I did really like it - much better than reading a random collection of short stories - as I got to continue with the same characters and remain in their world throughout. In the end the reading experience really grew on me, seeing all of these snippets of the various family members, in multiple generations, from various angles and perspectives as they went about their lives and minor family dramas - and I had to admit that I think this format was the way to go for this book. A novel wouldn't have left me with the same feeling of satisfaction - might have ended up seeming like a same-old family drama, rather than something that stood out from the pack and immersed me in the fabric of the family. It reminded me a bit of shorter fiction from writers like Curtis Sittenfeld in terms of topics and tone, so that's a good comp author here. ★★★★.25

Alan Opts Out: Alan Anderson is the exec of an advertising firm who has won awards for his campaigns and fully expects to be back on the podium at the industry's awards when he nails his pitch to "big milk" (whose sales have been flagging no thanks to trendy oat milk). Meanwhile, his wife Vivian, whose chief concern in life is fitting herself and her family into the socialite mold of their exclusive Connecticut town has already pre-spent the bonus that winning the pitch will net Alan, putting down a deposit for the backyard swimming pool she is sure they *need* to improve their standing among the ladies of the town. But things completely start to fall apart for the Anderson family when Alan bombs the pitch, and he goes a bit off the deep end, going in a mental about-face about consumerism and materialism, things that he made his career off of; he takes up residence in the backyard playhouse and eschews worldly things... internet and phones, wearing shoes, taking showers. Meanwhile, their eldest daughter goes rogue and rebellious, their younger daughter starts talking to animals, and Vivan is frantic that her application to the Bellport ladies' social society is in jeopardy. You've got to be in the mood for a satire here because that's absolutely what this is. At first the characters don't seem to have any redeeming qualities as they are the most extreme versions of their respective roles in order to make a point about materialism, consumerism, ambition, social comparison, capitalism, our attempts to buy happiness. But as the characters actually start to grow and develop a bit (Vivian takes the longest, be warned, and certain ladies of the town remain caricatures) the points are illustrated with wit and heart and some hope for all of us in turning out okay despite the craziness of living in the modern world, even as the plot of the book gets a bit less real-life like and zany. The reading experience reminded me a bit of Lost Lambs - though more satire and a bit less madcap, and I was endeared a bit less to the characters in Alan Opts Out - so I'd recommend Alan if you enjoyed Lost Lambs, but maybe just give a bit of space in between them or you might get tired of the farce of it all and not fully appreciate both. The publisher blurb mentions that it's for fans of Rufi Thorpe; the only book I've read of hers is Margot's Got Money Troubles, and I didn't find Alan Opts Out to have as much heart and warmth in addition to the quirkiness. But I can see how it could get a comparison to her, and maybe also Kevin Wilson and Annie Hartnett (though again, those lean less pure farcical feeling), and I was quite engrossed the whole way through. A fun/comedic yet timely/thought-provoking read. ★★★★

Life, & Death, & Giants: Gabriel is a complete anomaly - born in small-town Wisconsin to a woman who has been banished by her Amish community for refusing to reveal the parentage of either of her sons, he's 18 pounds as an infant, starts walking at 8 months, crushing all of the upper Little League as about a 7 year old, and eventually growing to be the tallest living person on Earth. He's an orphan and has an uncanny ability to soothe and communicate with animals. His community is not one that is interested in a lot of attention, but with someone of such size and athletic prowess, the public eye and media frenzy is coming their way no matter what... Through the eyes of several of the people who know him best - his Amish grandmother, the high school football coach, the local bar owner, the veterinarian Gabriel assists with his work - this book tells the story of Gabriel's life, his (literal and figurative) larger-than-life presence, and how it changed others' lives and his community in indelible ways. It's a feel-good read in that it is clear that these characters see and feel redemption in spite of (or even because of) the sorrows and tragedies they endure. It's perhaps a bit unsubtle about the lessons learned in the end, which maybe borders on schmaltzy, so I didn't leave feeling like I had read the most elegant and moving of books, but it was an engaging and easy read that I did appreciate - and I can see how it would definitely be a crowd pleaser. There's found family, the strength of community and acceptance, and forgiveness at its heart. Part of what really got me into the book was that the reading experience felt like William Kent Kreuger or Leif Enger, both authors I love. It has the general tone, the coming of age story, the small Midwest town setting, the timeless feel (William Kent Kreuger's books are sometimes set in the 50s/60s; while this book is modern day it has the feel of an older time like those because of the Amish lifestyle), the slightly mystical/spiritual elements, and the exploration of themes like grace and faith and redemption. It was hard for me to track some of the characters at first (I needed a family tree for Gabriel's family to get acclimated, maybe), but still I found interesting author's choice to tell the story from the perspective of a few townspeople/relatives, so we are always learning about Gabriel from the perspective of others, rather than his own voice. That seems well-suited to the story because he's such a figure of renown and intrigue due to his size and skills, so he's always in a bit of a fishbowl - but I do wonder a bit if I would have felt a bit more emotionally connected to him if I'd had more insight into the real him instead of others' experiences of him. Overall, I liked a lot the elements that reminded me of William Kent Kreuger and Leif Enger, even if it was a little less subtle in how it wrapped things up. ★★★.75

Mystery/thriller

Heather: Callie Hauser has returned to her small, costal New Jersey town to serve as chief of police, with all of the complications that running the department as a young-ish woman entails, not least having to arrest her own mother for a DUI. This run-in with her estranged mother and some revelations that come along with it lead Callie to re-open a cold case in which a baby's body was found in the woods, and a local teenage girl who was presumably the mother was never seen again. In the dual-timeline narrative, with Callie's investigation in the present, and a pair of teenage twins navigating a changing/conflicted sister relationship, neglectful parents, and predatory men in the 1990s, it's a slow-burn procedural plus a look at mothers/daughters and re-understanding people through the lens of their trauma. This was the kind of cold case, atmospheric, small-town mystery I was looking for (after the disappointment of Murder Town described below), and it kept me turning the pages on a long flight. It didn't quite have the top-tier narrative tension/character development/payoff of my favorite books in this genre, but definitely a solid entry, and I'd read more from this author. I'd say it's for fans of Long Bright River and similar, with the grittiness, the sister relationship. ★★★★ 

A Double Life: Talk about psychological suspense... Claire lives with two identities, which creates a constant tension between wanting to exist in her quiet life as a hardworking doctor in London where nobody knows her past as the daughter of Colin Spenser, the accused killer in Britain's most notorious cold case, and between being unable to escape that past in her own mind, as she goes through periods of obsessive personal investigation, tracking her father's friends online and even following them around in person, as she tries to figure out where her father is now, decades later. Then comes the extreme version of the double life - the police and Claire have always assumed that Colin's rich and powerful friends helped him to escape abroad, though they have always maintained their (and his) innocence. But when Claire runs into the adult daughter of her father's closest friend, who is catering an event, Claire can't resist the chance to get closer to, maybe even in the home of, her father's friends and get any possible nugget of information about Colin's whereabouts. She pretends that she is in need of a caterer for an event and hires the daughter. This soon develops into an actual friendship, where the double life gets even more dicey... This sort of deception in a story often makes me really uncomfortable in that I'm waiting for the lie to be uncovered at any moment and for major fallout to happen, but Flynn Berry handled it quite masterfully even if it did make me squirmy at times. It's a literary, character-driven story, so it's not fast-paced or filled with bonkers twists; instead, it's about the psychology of it all, which is quite gripping, and the tension is low-grade but constant. As a reader I kept wondering whether Claire was simply traumatized, totally deranged in her need for some sort of revenge, completely mistaken about what happened to her father/the crime she believes he committed - or all of the above. Definitely kept me turning the pages even if it's not a page-turner of a book per se. Then actually what Berry does with the uncovering of Claire's deception was more interesting than I expected, even if I'm not sure I 100% liked how she ended the book. Overall a solid read especially if you like true crime stories, especially about their affects on victims/families, and a slow-burn/psychological approach to telling this type of story. And actually, the crime is indeed based on a true story of a British aristocrat who tried to murder his wife, but accidently murdered the nanny, while his young children slept upstairs, in the 1970s; Berry's extrapolation on what the fallout from this might have been like is quite evocative. ★★★★

Murder Town: Though admittedly I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about the plot 4 years later, when I happened upon a 2nd book written by Shelley Burr I remembered that I really liked her first book, Wake, as a Jane Harper-readalike. So what a fortuitous find, since I’m always in the mood for this kind of mystery, but there’s not always a new one available to me (write faster, Jane Harper?). I dove in pronto to this book about a small town that is infamous for a serial killer who struck there almost 20 years earlier, where a tour company is now trying to set up a “Ranier Ripper” walking tour to capitalize on society’s ghoulish true crime obsession. I liked the idea of this true crime angle: considering the effects of being someone who still lives in this community, the trauma and stigma and difficulty in moving on (down to how the notoriety and crimes could affect individual property values). Unfortunately, while it could have been an intriguing look if taken a more psychological/literary route, this book just felt completely basic. It had the small-town Australia atmosphere, but none of the atmospheric feel that led me to compare Wake to Jane Harper. It felt weak on writing, plot, (total lack of) character development; I’m usually willing to suspend disbelief for a mystery, but with the amateur sleuth nature of this one, the twists that sometimes were predictable and sometimes super convoluted, the unrealistic feeling relationships and interactions among family members and townspeople, and the characters acting in ways that didn’t seem at all consistent with how their characters had been written. I was quite disappointed here, but Wake was worth a read if you want a satisfying (if not entirely memorable) atmospheric mystery. ★★.5

Historical fiction

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 1: It's March 1883, and Emma Lion has returned to Lapus Lazuli House in the very quirky London neighborhood of St. Crispian's, but due to inheritance complications she's not actually able to take full possession of it until she turns 21. Meanwhile, she's at the whims of fussy Cousin Archibald, along with her formidable and bossy Aunt Eugenia, and she records all of her witty observations, social foibles, nagging frustrations, and lonely moments in life as a young lady who society won't really allow to be as educated or independent or outspoken as she'd like to be. It's extremely rare for me to consider reading fiction on audio, but I heard a recommendation on Sarah's Bookshelves Live that these are great in audio form, thanks in part to the short-form journal entry format, as well as the overall short form of the books. This one was only 3 hours on audio, and it was delightful. It was basically a Masterpiece miniseries in my ears, and I loved the narrator and her voices for the various characters. I really could have used a character sheet for reference as it's definitely hard to keep them straight at first, but beyond the occasional confusion it was so charming and cheeky, and I dove right into the next one when I finished (each one covers about 2 months at a time, so it's fun little snippets of Emma's life, not a lot of plot but still quite engaging even in the most mundane entries). ★★★★.5  

Non-fiction/memoir

This American Woman: Zarna Garg is an unlikely comedian - first generation immigrant from India who grew up more outspoken than her culture would prefer, mom-of-three who gave up personal aspirations to completely manage her family's needs. She never quite felt like she belonged anywhere, after running away from home and couch surfing for several years after her father tried to arrange a marriage for her at age 14, and when trying to navigate the world of New York private schools for her kids as an outsider - until she found her footing in midlife in comedy, where she could get paid to talk and make people laugh, things that went entirely unappreciated where/how she was raised. What a delightful memoir to listen to on audio, as you definitely need to hear her story in her voice, but in addition there are fun extras like some snippets from some of her actual early shows, and some brief essays written/read by her family members. Sometimes comedians' memoirs fall a little flat if they have a lot of stories that you've already heard in their acts or specials, but as I somehow hadn't encountered her before, it was all fresh and new to me. And I loved how it weaved in some really poignant and difficult things (you can even hear it in her breaking voice as she reads those sections) about Zarna's life and how she managed through them and became who she is despite them. It's a fascinating story about a childhood in India made wild (no) thanks to not good family members, and hilariously told. And then in addition it's a great behind-the-scenes peek at making it in comedy, especially as someone who is "different" and coming at it later in life - so clear how much hustle and grind is required to get there, and Zarna is clearly a formidable woman in addition to being a hoot. The middle portion about her stay-at-home tiger mom era was a little dip for me in enjoyment of listening because her actions and attitude felt so extreme, but in the telling I could see how cultural attitudes and being an immigrant etc. fed into that. She's a singular act thanks to the life and cultural experience she brings to being a comedian, but I'd also recommend for fans of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Leanne Morgan, especially for the aspect of being a (late) middle-aged mom and how that factors in to their comedy. ★★★★

loving lately: summer sun

Happy June! Kicking off the summer with one of my recent favorite colors, as I get to pull out the items I've acquired over the last year (with one new notable addition) and put them back into regular rotation. Here's what's bringing some extra sunshine to sartorial life lately, along with one of my very favorite warm-weather activities: reading outdoors!

1. Espadrilles: finally decided to try the mesh flat trend with these too cute espadrilles, because how could I resist this color, not to mention the comfort soles. Excited to take them for their first spin soon, and I know I'm going to be wearing them all summer with my sun dresses, and to dress up shorts.

2. Lightweight blouse: a casual, lightweight blouse is great for limiting over-exposure to the sun... mine from last year actually looks more like this, but I kind of still want this cropped button-down version. How many yellow shirts is too many yellow shirts?

3. Athletic dress: I could live in these for daytime, so easy to wear and look put together but stay cool and be ready for anything with kids - going for a scooter-walk, playing at the park, you name it. I have a variety of cuts (including high-neck, v-neck) and colors but am of course partial to the yellow.

4. Unseen sunscreen: goes without saying that sunscreen is the central component of any sunny day outfit! This is my fave - goes on super smooth and no weird color cast, plus on your face it serves as such a great primer that helps any foundation go on nicely for a barely-there look.

5. Bombas socks: admittedly I'm just coveting this particular summery pair and don't actually have them (it is my birthday month though!!), but I am wearing a lot of these quarter height socks so I can look hip and young to my college-aged babysitters.

6. Tank: love a simple tank tucked in to high waisted jeans or a cute little skirt/skort, and you can't beat the price of this one.

reading lately: May roundup

When I sat down to compile my May reads, I was surprised at how many books I got through this month - almost forgot about some of them! The numbers were upped by having done 3 audiobooks (a huge number for me in this span of time), and maybe a couple of books that I wasn't super loving, so I read them kinda fast. I had a mix of new books from top-favorite authors - though not my favorite from them for the most part, unfortunately - and some exciting new finds too.

Literary/contemporary fiction

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder: 1986 was a big year - the Challenger disaster, the return of Halley's Comet, the Chernobyl disaster, the televised wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. And as she experiences these things from her home in small-town Wyoming, Georgie also experiences major upheaval in her life: her uncle, aunt, and cousin come from India to move in with Georgie, her parents, and her older sister Agatha. They try to be welcoming, as family does, until Agatha decides that it is time for her uncle to go - and she and Georgie are going to take care of it. We soon learn that the reason for this is incredibly sad and difficult: they see no other way to escape his abuse. But Georgie's narration, making their "case" and telling about the months leading up to/following their uncle's death, is both cheeky and sardonic, sometimes directly addressing the (white) reader and confronting their assumptions about immigrants and Indians (vs the other "Indians" - Native Americans) and their experience, and also interspersed with teen magazine-like quizzes that bring up all of the conflicting emotions Georgie faces regarding her crumbling relationship with her sister and her guilt about her uncle. I feel like the end of the blurb captures really well the genre mash-up, the themes, the darkly comedic approach, and Georgie's general tone/voice: "At its heart, the tale she weaves is: a) a vivid portrait of an extended family; b) a moving story of sisterhood; c) a playful ode to the 80s; d) a murder mystery (of sorts); e) an unexpected and unwaveringly powerful meditation on history and language, trauma and healing, and the meaning of independence. Or maybe it’s really: f) all of the above." There were some parts where the timeline felt a tad confusing, but overall I found this such a refreshing read, dealing with something really sad and difficult but in a unique way, involving both dark humor and deep empathy. The way Georgie talks about sexual abuse by a family member is not graphic, but it is heart-wrenching in the emotional and physical pain, and in how terrible it must be to feel that silence is the only option - until Agatha comes up with a permanent solution, that is. It's a short read and worth it if you can read it in that spirit (I've seen other reviews on Goodreads that maybe tried to read it more "straight", and those readers didn't like it...). There are tons of themes to ponder beyond this too - racism, prejudice/bias, colonialism, privilege, family bonds, healing, and more... Made me think of some of the themes in Good People as well, though this is much more of a dark comedy approach. ★★★★.25

Evensong: In this character driven, quiet, and quotidian novel, Stewart O'Nan revisits some characters from earlier works (most notably Emily Maxwell and her sister-in-law Arlene from Emily, Alone and Wish You Were Here) in the post-covid years. This group of women-of-a-certain-age who attend the same Pittsburgh church are also part of a group they call the Humpty Dumpty Club, which is organized around helping other aging people with whatever care/tasks they might need, like rides to a doctor's office, picking up prescriptions, etc. Four of the most prominent members have to pick up some slack when their indominable leader, Joan, has a fall and requires rehab in a nursing home, and the book follows them through a year as they care for others in their community, as they become closer as friends, and as they also face their own challenges with aging The book has an intimate feel because of how it portrays the minutia of their lives as aging/widowed/divorced women, but also how well it evokes the real feelings that can come with that stage of life, from regrets about rifts with their children to fear/denial about the onset of dementia, to the indignities of how loss of abilities requires relying on others and the feeling of being at the margin of society and perhaps not having anything useful to offer. This gives it a bit of a melancholy feel, but the women and their foibles and idiosyncrasies still give it levity, and overall there is a feeling of hope and warmth thanks to community and care, both of which give meaning to life in spite of its difficulties (whether major or minor). If you are looking for a book/a fastidious character that feels like The Correspondent, I definitely suggest Emily, Alone (a 5-star read as well) - but also Evensong has similar themes and considerations and overall episodic and so very human feel to it. Also would suggest for fans of Elizabeth Strout, especially her Olive Kitteridge character. It was sometimes a bit confusing which character was being referenced as each chapter often jumped among them rather than focusing on one character, and having several protagonists doesn't allow you such a close feeling to any one character, so that maybe prevented me from loving it 100%, but overall it was still a book that I wanted to give a melancholy yet contented hug when I finished. The end is so poignant and overall it is just so human, and I loved the use of Evensong as the title/metaphor for this twilight time of life, in parallel to the evensong services of certain church traditions, which provide a reflective and meditative end-of-day worship time (and of course the church-going ladies in this book attend these services too). ★★★★.5

American Fantasy: With the bubble-gum cover and the tagline about "what happens when your teenage fantasy becomes reality as an adult", Emma Straub's newest book, about a 50-year-old woman who goes on a cruise featuring performances by and meet-and-greets with the 1990s boyband obsession of her youth, sure seems like it should be frothy fun... but I think the marketing of this one leads to disappointment in the reading experience. It's not a rom-com by any means, nor is it simply a romp about a woman finding herself via her past as I was led to believe in the blurb. Instead, it's more of a character study of 3 different people - Annie, the divorcee who reluctantly goes on this cruise full of rabid fans; Keith, one of the Boy Talk members, who loves the singing but is super drained by the whole being "on" part of fame, especially when it comes to a cruise where he can't escape the fawning fans; and Sarah, a 30-year-old cruise line employee tasked with wrangling the band members and making sure all of the planned performances and appearances go smoothly yet preoccupied with following the social media accounts of the girl she just got dumped for - and of how these people face a kind of "how did my life turn out to be this" situation. At different ages/stages all three of them are confronted on this cruise, sometimes in a bit comedic of ways (which is how the overall tone stays light), with how their regular lives are not working for them, and figuring out how to take back the reins in their lives and pursue their own happiness. I love Emma Straub's writing and the way she captures an ensemble cast and makes such wry and true observations about the foibles and flaws of modern life/humanity/relationships - but also infuses it all with big-heartedness - but this one just did not work as well for me as her previous books. I think it's partly because the ensemble cast in this case is a bit disparate - unlike in something like All Adults Here, where it's a group of grown siblings who all have their own lives and concerns but converge in the family home, this book's protagonists are 3 different characters who barely intersect in terms of plot/interactions, so it just feels like there's too much going on... yet at the same time, nothing's happening. (Seriously, especially the beginning - so slow!) A bit disappointing, but still worth a read if you are interested in tapping into some feelings of nostalgia, or exploring a bit what it would be like to be a 50-something whose heyday was as a teen idol, and what that does to the psyche. I did like the themes/reflections on youth and aging, fame and fandom, nostalgia and starting anew - but the delivery just fell a bit flat with how slow things moved and how many characters were involved. (Such as the advertised "befriending of a band member" from the blurb - there isn't even a hint of anything along these lines happening until more than halfway through the book.) ★★★.25

Porcupines: Sonia is a single mom who stays at a remove from other parents (while having plenty of internal sassy commentary about suburban PTA moms); she is always prickly and vague about her personal life/family history and instructs her tween daughter, Mila, to act the same - until Sonia is forced into proximity with parents and students alike when Mila surreptitiously signs her up to chaperone a school orchestra trip to San Francisco. The orchestra trip, the follies that happen along the way, and Sonia's snarky attitude about it all are interspersed with chapters about Sonia's upbringing in Cold War-era Budapest, to her immigration to the US as a teen, and her unexpected pregnancy. These chapters slowly reveal the reasons Sonia has for concealing her past, all while the walls she has built are coming crashing down thanks to some "who is my dad?" sleuthing by Mila. I like a snarky and singular narrative voice, but at times this one felt like it was trying a little *too* hard - sometimes I had to go back and re-read sentences because the actual meaning of it could get lost within the snarky observational comparison. And I think the way Sonia's character is developed is done in part to demonstrate the lack of connection that can come from being an immigrant (especially an undocumented one), but that doesn't really make for an enjoyable reading experience for me as I feel completely held at remove from the characters too. To add to that, while the sections set in Sonia's past felt like a character exploration that included delving into soviet-era upbringing and Jewish family history, the present-day ones felt more like a madcap comedy of errors slash PTA mom send-up. That type of zaniness can make me feel disconnected from characters sometimes, and also it just didn't mesh with the rest of the book in some ways. After finishing, I was reading through some Goodreads reviews to try to make sense of the ambivalence I was feeling - appreciating parts of the message but finding that the reading experience was meh. I saw these comments in a review from user Greg and thought they were very helpful/illustrative: "Rather than driving forward on an engaging plot, Fabriczki seems to build a kind of emotional anthropology. Viewed this way, one can be more generous. Its slowness can be viewed as a reflection of Sonia’s own dislocation: immigration, generational tension, and identity aren’t experienced as neat arcs but as long stretches of uncertainty punctuated by small, often ambiguous encounters. It may seem to cohere more if one approaches it as a study of friction—between cultures, and between mothers and daughters.... Her struggles with her daughter, mother, and sister aren’t framed as problems to be solved but as tensions she must endure. This has an unsatisfying feel, but it also resists the kind of tidy resolutions the novel seems to want to avoid." ★★★

Mystery/thriller

Last One Out: Five years ago, Ro's son Sam went out to interview some fellow townspeople for his oral history thesis project, preserving memories of their rural Australian town that had been slowly crumbling away as a mining company set up operations and took over land, but that evening he didn't show up at home for his 21st birthday dinner, and he was never seen again. In the years since, Ro and her husband, Griff, have separated, and the town has become essentially a ghost town, with very few but the most loyal/entrenched families left, and almost all businesses, even the health clinic where Ro worked, shut down. On this 5-year anniversary of when Sam went missing, Ro has returned to the town for a memorial with Griff and their daughter, Della, and as she is back in the place where it all happened and is going over Sam's notes and final movements for the millionth time, there are finally some hints to what might have happened, and as Della pulls at those threads, what's remaining of the old friends/families in town starts to unravel... I really like when a mystery involves real-feeling people who I can relate to, so Ro and Griff's grief as parents, along with the relationship struggles that come with grieving differently feel true to life and worth exploring, as does the psychology of this dying town and how the loyalty to it or readiness to move on from it affects both Ro and Griff's story and the rest of the people in the town - but that's pretty much all this book is until about 200 pages in. Clearly it's a mystery what happened to Sam, but the focus is more on the grieving process, with little flashbacks/memories of Sam and other friends/family members from before his disappearance that you assume will play a part in solving this mystery but feel much more reflective than anything else. I like Jane Harper's sense of place as a character unto itself + her slow build of suspense, but while this one has the sense of place, it has very little suspense overall. Really none of the feeling of tension that I'd usually expect to pull me along, with the overall mood being much more about grief and longing for the "before". Also, I really like a mystery that peels back layers of the story and slowly reveals what characters know or remember, but there's a fine line between that and feeling like the author is deliberately withholding information as kind of an easy out. This sometimes felt a bit borderline. Overall a solid read if you are in the mood for a family drama that has a bit of procedural mystery solving to it, but not my favorite Jane Harper book by any stretch - and she has some really excellent mysteries, if you haven't tried her yet! ★★★.75

Dissection of a Murder: Leila is a barrister who has received her first murder case - but there are a couple of twists: the victim is a well-known judge, the client is someone she worked with before and has always felt guilt about not getting him out of jail time, and, in the biggest twist of all ... the prosecutor? Her professional mentor. And her husband. The plotting was interesting and intriguing at first, though I found the plot generally slow moving. I did like the courtroom scenes, especially learning about the British system, but when a book ends up hinging on things like deliberately withheld information, unreliable narrator, and/or total personality about-face, I end up feeling so annoyed at the end. Feels like a cop out? Perhaps mea culpa for wishing it would be a legal drama a la Defending Jacob or Presumed Innocent. Instead it was a legal thriller, and I did not enjoy the thriller aspects at all. In fact hated the "Witness X" interludes; from the get-go it was clear to me that a big twist was going to hinge on them, and it was deliberately obfuscating who this person was in order to make the twist - meanwhile, they felt like they had nothing to do with the actual plot. This one is getting buzz and lots of 5-star ratings on Goodreads, but based on how it ended, I honestly felt annoyed that I had finished it. Might have liked as a Netflix series, not as a book unfortunately. ★★.75

Romance/rom-com

The MASH Up: If you're looking for something a bit unique and a lot nostalgic to read by the pool this summer, here's an idea for you: a rom-com in which a rule-following, routine-abiding accountant celebrating her 35th birthday is reminded by her best friend of a M.A.S.H. game from seventh grade in which her results predicted growing up to live in a mansion, driving a tie-dye jeep, running a roller-disco restaurant and living with 13 pet goldfish... plus her romantic match, Penn. Ruby is amused in the moment, aside from the whole Penn part. He's her twin brother's best friend from childhood, and Penn and Ruby have always had a bit of a frictional and sarcastic relationship, especially as she sees his adult lifestyle as a bit wild and irresponsible compared to her life of long-term goals and plans. But then it becomes far less amusing when she wakes up actually IN that MASH world. Experiencing a different adulthood than her real life teaches her a lot - especially as she examines how she became so much less carefree and willing to dream or try new things than she had been - and of course as her eyes are opened to these things, she also becomes more open to who Penn really is underneath their sparring. The nostalgia factor continues as Ruby reminisces with her best friend as well as Penn about their growing up years, a timeframe that aligns with my age, and the unique factor of course comes from the magical realism but also the "breakup" portion not revolving around some dumb miscommunication but instead this alternate universe situation. I appreciated that there was just as much personal growth as romantic growth in the story, but sometimes the about-face felt a little unrealistic. I found that it lagged a bit in the middle, especially the physically flirty scenes - for me, coulda skipped some of that and still gotten the same effect of the relationship build - and the writing/characters didn't capture and charm me quite as much as my very favorite rom-coms (I often struggle with a enemies to lovers trope as the animosity can feel a little tiresome), but it was overall a fun ride and will be a great beach read when it publishes in July (I read an advance copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review). ★★★.5

Nonfiction/memoir

The Anxious Generation: Though it won't by any means make you feel good about the mental health of our teens/twenty-somethings, or about the social media landscape in general, the information in this book is invaluable and compellingly presented. The bottom line in Jonathan Haidt's argument, after he presents all of the hard data and studies that prove it in various ways: we are overprotecting our children in the real world, and we are underprotecting them in the virtual world. And as a result, the kids are not okay - in terms of anxiety/depression, as well as capacity to take on relationships and risks and new things in the real world (basically, capacity to become a full-fledged adult, I'd say), today's teens are suffering as their hours are more and more filled with phone/internet use and social media. If I'm honest, I found the book a tad long, but that's partly because right before I read it I attended a presentation in which a local psychology professor (who has actually worked with Haidt and even more so with Jean Twenge, who is also working in this space related to teens/social media) succinctly presented the data-driven portions of the argument. And as I trusted that, I didn't need allll of the nitty gritty. But I really appreciated the concrete suggestions that Haidt brings from the data - especially no smartphones before high school and no social media before age 16 - and even more appreciated all of the insights into the importance of a play-based childhood (versus a phone/screen-based one) and the importance of giving kids more real-world freedom to roam, to have unstructured (no parent/teacher direction) time with other kids, and things like that. I also appreciated the concrete suggestions around making this happen, and especially around how we can act collectively as society and, what feels even more doable, by banding as parents of kids in a particular school/city. For starters, if we agree on some restrictions, fewer kids will have phones/social media, then our kids won't feel left out/FOMO when they're not allowed to... In our family we already had planned to wait on these things, so an even bigger take-home for me was the portions about play-based childhood and about extending freedoms and making sure to leave plenty of time/space for unstructured in-person hangouts with peers for our middle schooler, and about thinking of the age-appropriate equivalents we can give to our preschooler. It seems like our collective mentality has moved away from these things, but individual families and schools can start the process of correcting them! Along these lines, next we're picking up Free Range Kids (which somewhat inspired the play-based childhood portions of this book) as well as Jean Twenge's 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World, which has additional concrete suggestions. ★★★★★

London Falling: In late 2019, Rachelle and Matthew Brettler's 19-year-old son Zac went to stay with a friend, and when he didn't come back the next day they grew concerned and filed a police report. A few days later his body was pulled from the Thames river, and building surveillance footage was identified that showed him jumping from the balcony of the riverside luxury apartment building he had been staying in. It was an apparent suicide, but as they learned more about the life Zac had been hiding from them - that he was pretending to be the son of a Russian oligarch to these wealthy (and potentially dangerous) men was just the tip of the iceberg. This so wild it feels like it should be a movie story is then fully fleshed out with an economic history of London and how it has led to the current situation, where it is a haven to displaced oligarchs who seem to face no repercussions for any law breaking, along with a who's who in the underworld of gangsters, fraudsters, money launderers, etc. Though I have followed his work via The New Yorker and associated podcasts, this is the first of Patrick Radden Keefe's books that I have read, and as a typical non nonfiction reader, this is the kind of nonfiction that can get me interested! Super well researched and engaging in terms of a story arc, really well written too - but what I liked even more was the personal touch and empathy he adds. It's not just a stranger-than-fiction true crime story; it also honors the parents' confusion and grief about their son and their (rightful) frustration and anger with the police force for not thoroughly investigating, and makes them feel like the real people that they are, rather than characters to gawk at in a true crime story. And my very favorite part of the book, the final section, actually brought Patrick himself into it, as he described how he came to meet the Brettlers and how he researched for the book. It's fascinating but also has a really human and personal side that grounds this super detailed in the research yet also super big picture in the exploration of socioeconomic/crime history. Good on audio, though hard to keep track of some of the gangster people and their connections to the story - so many names and in-depth details! ★★★★

No One's Coming: This fascinating and at times jaw-dropping book tells the story of two American volunteer medical workers caught up in the incredibly deadly 2014 Ebola epidemic in Liberia, and the history and ingenuity of the aviation company that was contracted to evacuate them after they test positive for the virus and are at death's door within days. The account of the illness is harrowing, and the hurdles surmounted and red tape surmounted by the eccentric and maverick types working for Phoenix Air to plan and pull off this rescue within a matter of days is pretty amazing. I think the author of this book set out to write page-turning narrative nonfiction, and I think he absolutely achieved it with the way he writes in short chapters, alternates between the two storylines - the health declines of Kent and Nancy in Liberia, and the rush to get an evacuation plan in place with the Phoenix crew - and keeps to just the necessary details (in contrast to the Patrick Radden Keefe book I just read, which had soooo many names to keep track of!). And he makes the main players in the story feel like quite the characters (probably not that hard to do with some of the Phoenix Air people especially, with their unique individual backgrounds). What comes along with this though is that sometimes it feels a tad melodramatic and feels like it's bordering on hero worship. Having a spouse who is a doctor, I got the sense that he found some of the medical stuff, written in a way that keeps a lay audience feeling like it's a page turner, a tad overblown, and that he thought his former pilot colleague would find some of the aviation stuff to be the same way. But there's no denying it's an engaging read and a unique topic. And even more timely in a world where epidemics/pandemics are much more in our consciousness and experience versus when this story was happening in 2014, where there's currently an active Ebola outbreak again, and where (horrifyingly, for the people who are suffering and dying because of it, and for our own health and safety in light of possible pandemic) US-AID has been dismantled and the CDC/US public health approach is a joke. As for who I'd recommend this to - a pretty broad audience! Totally a dad book recommendation as father's day approaches, or for anyone who is into narrative nonfiction or even someone who is into medical dramas. Also probably of interest for fans of books like Everything Is Tuberculosis or Mountains Beyond Mountains that take an epidemiology or public health topic and give the history but also personalize it in terms of introducing us to some of the people dedicating their lives to making a difference in this area. Definitely held my attention on audio too. ★★★★.25

I've got more books from beloved authors on the docket this month - most notably Ann Patchett and David Sedaris, and I'm counting on them being more successful than this month's new releases by some of my go to authors... you know I'll report back!

loving lately: tulip time

The local annual tulip festival has just wrapped up, and notwithstanding the clogged roads and sidewalks with the influx of visitors to town, it is one of my favorite times of year - the city plants hundreds of thousands of bulbs every year and they are just gorgeous. Tulips have long been my favorite flower (my wedding bouquet was just a huge bunch of them and I still think it's the loveliest thing ever), and this year I've decided to really embrace my tulip era and become a collector of all things tulips.

1. Lego tulip bouquet: My role with building Lego sets is typically "piece finder" for my kids, but I really loved putting together a bouquet as an at-home date with Peter, so their botanicals collection stays on my radar, which is how I spotted this newly released set a couple of months ago I immediately told everyone in my household that if they don't get it for me for Mother's Day or my birthday, what are they even thinking?!

2. Tiny tulip baseball hat: Rey-to-Z is a hat go-to for personal use for me (and my kids!) and also for gifting. Typically I've purchased the initial hats, but how cute is their new embroidered tulip version?

3. Tulip basket: I really don't need another basket, but actually I think I might need this basket...

4. Painted candles: I love painted taper candles - in fact, I organized this as a very fun DIY at the Galentine's Party I hosted this year, using these wax pens on these tapers - but my local ladies and I found that our skills were just not quite there for recreating a tulip design, so I might just have to splurge on this Pottery Barn version.

5. Rollneck sweater: Like the Lego tulips, this one made me gasp aloud when I first spotted it. The J.Crew rollneck sweater in a tulip design, AND in my light spring color palette?! Much as I coveted it though I couldn't pull the trigger on full price, and it kept being excluded from promotions... until my patience was rewarded when it was put on clearance + extra 40% off. You better believe I sported it almost daily during Tulip Time last week (I guess that was one good thing about the weather being cooler than one would like for May). 

6. Jigsaw puzzle: How pretty is this painting-turned-puzzle?   

7. Washable doormat: I have a couple of Ruggable doormats and love being able to wash the covers, as well as change them out seasonally. They just came out with this tulip design and it's going to have to be the next one I add to my collection for sure.

reading lately: April roundup

April reading was bookended by the latest release from two authors whose work I have loved for years - Tana French and Lily King - and both absolutely lived up to my high expectations of them. And in between, all but one of the books I read were new-to-me authors, and some that I would definitely like to see more from soon. Here's the recap:

Literary/contemporary fiction

Heart the Lover: This novel opens in the narrator's senior year of college, when she gets noticed by star students and best friends Sam and Yash in a 17th century literature class, and she is pulled into their orbit of generous, gregarious friendship, ambitious scholarly discussions mixed with smart banter, and - eventually - a love triangle situation. Then 20 years later, when she is settled into life as a mother, a wife, and a writer, this short but extremely formative period of her life comes rushing back with some sad news and unexpected reunions, both of which force her to confront some of the decisions and (self)deceptions she made in that period. It's very much a character-driven novel but propulsive thanks to the voice of the narrator, the way that the friends, especially Yash, are so charming, and the way that the novel packs in so many emotions: infatuation, love, aspiration, angst, longing, nostalgia, grief. It made me feel a lot in a small number of pages, and that kept me turning them for sure, and left me feeling bereft when I finished, partly because of what happens in the story, and partly because when a book is such a well-done thing of beauty it's a certain kind of grief to be done with it. It's literary fiction but done in an accessible way (aside from a few of the especially philosophical/academic discussions - do real college students ever converse like that?) because the characters feel real, and the writing is infused with empathy and wisdom. The "look back" nature of it, with the narrator reflecting from later adulthood on her college years, adds to it, because it brings perspective to the angst or self-absorption of the characters in that section, things that are pretty normal for 21-year-olds but can feel tiresome to read if not handled with this kind of touch. Definitely recommend for readers who loved Lily King's Writers & Lovers, with some of the same themes and the overall general feel/emotions (not to mention a through-line on one of the characters), but also for readers who liked last year's Deep Cuts and also The Rachel Incident (similar nostalgia feeling, and the college friends/coming of adulthood), for readers who were total college English major nerds like me (or who like a literary campus novel with English-major types), and those who enjoy a novel about the writerly life; additionally, some of the grief themes/feelings made me think of the reading experience of books like When Breath Becomes Air and We All Want Impossible Things. ★★★★.5

Search: Though entirely fictional, this book is written in the format of one of those "my year of..." memoirs; in it, restaurant critic and food writer Dana recounts her time serving on the pastoral search committee for her progressive Unitarian Universalist church in southern California. The tone is lightly comedic - not satire exactly, but definitely pokes some fun at the foibles of churches and their congregants, and amusingly presents the range of typical people you'd find on a committee (the one who knows all of Robert's Rules, the one who doesn't come prepared and then asks a million questions that everyone who did read the packet already knows, etc.). While also showing some friendships as well as conflicting relationships that develop on the search committee, especially the opinions of the "youngs" versus the "olds" (with 50-something Dana being caught in the middle), it's mostly a recounting of the various stages of the process, from writing the mission statement to going on a group-bonding retreat to reading candidate bios/listening to sample sermons to inviting the shortlist for trial runs. It feels accurate to the way a process might go, and in showing it also makes you think about the purpose of church (especially the community that it creates), the different needs people have from their church and whether it's possible to suit everyone, the relative importance of different functions of a church (preaching, outreach, social justice, etc.), and more. I could maybe have gone for a bit more emphasis on these aspects as some of the nitty gritty got a little dull (as real meetings do - I could never be on this committee as I claim an allergy to meetings...) and I could hardly keep straight (nor did I *entirely* care) which prospective candidate we were learning more about. Or maybe I could have used the book being just a tad bit shorter (didn't really need the excerpts from the prospective candidates' sermons, for example). But overall I found it amusing, a bit thought-provoking in terms of church communities in general and the Unitarian Universalist perspective in general. You don't have to be a church-goer to enjoy it, as many of the interactions and ways that the committee works are representative of people in general, bit of a comedy of manners in this way. Also included in the "nitty gritty" is all of the food that they ate at their meetings, and that Dana reviewed for her newspaper job during the year, so it's kind of a foodie "memoir" too, if you like that kind of thing. ★★★.5

Yesteryear: Natalie is a influencer with thousands of followers, living on a lovely farm in Idaho with a passel of kids and an apparently perfect life in which she bakes her own bread in her gorgeous kitchen, etc. - I'm sure you can imagine the tradwife of it all. Behind the scenes though there's actually an army of helpers that actually make "having it all" possible, a persona that slips and reveals kind of a nasty, narcissistic woman underneath, and big PR/personal trouble brewing on the horizon - until one day she wakes up in "yesteryear", in the 1800s version of her farmhouse, which if far from perfect. Yesteryear actually comes with food that tastes bland, clothes that have to be handwashed in freezing cold water, aches and pains that can't be escaped, and more. This book is getting lots of buzz right now, and it definitely feels like one I need to discuss after finishing. Partly for the interesting issues it brings up about women's roles and whether they can be satisfied in any version of them, the "manosphere", the resurgence of patriarchal values in some communities, the craziness of the influencer/social media world and whether it's complete fakery (not to mention what it does to their children), the things that are done in the name of God/church, and more - but just as much for the whole WTF was that?! aspect of the plot in general. It starts out feeling like a satire/social commentary of the tradwife influencer concept, and it could be interesting to read for the melodrama of it all, along with the absolute cattiness of Natalie's voice, though I think the caustic nature of it would have been too wearing to read an entire book of. Then it veers into the past, and you're wondering what in the world this book even is - is it a time travel or horror book? A tale of some sort of crazy reality TV hidden camera situation? Or a wild fever dream? It's a wild ride, and though I was intrigued along the way, and I managed to stick with a dislikeable character more than I normally would (be prepared - I'm not sure I found any redeeming qualities in her,), I also left with kind of a depressed feeling, seeing the world through Natalie's eyes for so long, and through them seeing no way for a woman to be happy no matter what direction she chooses for her life. I think it's well written, but the whole thing is also just kind of bonkers, so I'm not quite sure what I think overall! It does feel like something totally different, and sometimes there's something to be said for moving away from "sameness" in one's reading life... ★★★.5

Mystery/thriller

The Keeper: Tana French does it again with writing the epitome of a literary/character driven and atmospheric mystery. By this conclusion of her trilogy about small Irish town Ardnakelty, I feel like I really know and have a lot of affection for Chicago transplant and former police officer Cal Hooper, teenaged Trey who ends up as kind of his surrogate daughter, and the cast of locals from gossipy shopkeeper Noreen to the somewhat grizzled old sheep farmers Cal meets up with at the pub (these guys are great - I actually laughed out loud at some of their ribbing/bantering at each other). So from page one of this book I was already right in, back to a familiar place with familiar people - and also a familiar feel of a dark undercurrent. Because while things seem to be going great as the townspeople have started to accept Cal as one of their own, his relationship with local woman Lena is going steady, and Trey seems to be headed for good things after her rocky childhood, there are long-held grudges and generational feuds in this small community, strongly held relationships to the farmland and distrust (and worse) toward people who might try to take it away... these things that usually simmer just below the surface boil over when a young woman is found dead in the river, and when related to this a scheme cooked up by local businessman Tommy, whose son was dating this young woman, is made public. Different factions take sides, and the town seems ready to come to blows as a whole, plus on the personal level this introduces many complications for Cal. To maintain his relationships in the town, he has to show that his loyalties lie with the farmers, but on the other hand Lena is not happy with some of his decisions in this regard. This reading experience felt totally immersive to me - this town feels like a real place, and the land/community are a character in themselves - but it is not fast-paced at all. Definitely character-driven and more focused on psychological tension than action, think of it more as noir than as thriller for sure. But the way that individual characters might fear for their standing or safety, or the way that the collective of the community could envelop or ostracize a person for any "offense" provided me with plenty of tension to keep me hooked (not to mention that with my affection for these characters I was biting my nails worrying about how things were going to turn out okay for them). Not a short book by any means, but I could have kept reading for even longer. ★★★★★

Brimstone Hollow: Last year I enjoyed the introduction of PI Annie Gore in The Witch's Orchard for her badassery and tenacious investigation style, and for the general slow-burn, atmospheric mystery aspects of the book. The Kentucky/Appalachian setting in particular, along with how it brought in (dark) local lore made it stand out as unique, so I was pleased to get an advanced copy of the next book in the series (via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review) and picked it up when I was hankering for a procedural. This installment furthered Annie's interesting/somewhat mysterious backstory with childhood flashbacks brought on by the father/daughter relationship (or lack thereof) in her client and her client's estranged snake-handling minister father whose death seems a bit suspicious - despite the snake handling of it all - and overall the book again was very evocative of the small Appalachian town atmosphere/characters as well as the particular natural world surrounding it, with the sulfur springs and hidden hollers. It was a bit slow moving at times (repetitive in Annie's musings about the case and her theories) and perhaps a bit overly descriptive (blow-by-blow of everything she does in the day, down to what she orders at the diner), but that part also seems to go with the genre at times. Overall though another solid and satisfying (slow-burn) mystery, and again I'd be happy to read more in the series especially if we peel back more of the layers of Annie's past along with it. ★★★.5

This Story Might Save Your Life: On the brink of a major money network deal for best friends Benny and Joy and the cult favorite podcast they have created, Benny shows up to their recording studio at Joy's house to find that windows have been smashed, and neither Joy nor her husband, their producer Xander, are anywhere to be found. As we follow Benny forward from "missing" day one, with his fears and confusion about what has happened and about his relationship with Joy, the police investigation, etc. we also get Joy's story from the beginning of their relationship and launch of their podcast, in chapters of an unpublished draft memoir. And for both characters, the disaster/near-death survival theme of their usually jokey and comedic podcast called This Story Might Save Your Life takes on a more literal and serious tone as they use it to try to survive or send messages to each other in real life... I like a thriller with a stand-out format (like 56 Days, which tells the story in reverse-ish), but while the present day alternating with journal entry/memoir entries can shake up format a bit, it feels kind of done to me - and also tends to feel rather convenient that we're getting just the info that the present-day character needs to know about what was going on with their missing friend/family member... At least in this book, the memoir sections, which I can often find a bit boring compared to the actual plotline, were quite engaging, as I liked Joy's voice from the start and was curious to find out where her story would go, as it started to peel back the veneer of what other people knew and give a real glimpse of her relationships. Of course, being a thriller, the story went to pretty unbelievable lengths. And even though I really connected with the character in the beginning (necessary for me to have any interest in a thriller type book), that began to distance a bit as the plot started to feel more unrealistic or convoluted, and I found the back half to be less strong than the front, especially as the characters' sometimes poor decisions got to me a bit. However a protagonist with narcolepsy did feel stand-out and different, interesting how that played into things. Overall though a twisty read that kept me guessing on a few aspects, didn't go too far into the ick factor of domestic relationships (though there still may be some trigger warnings to check, it typically tells about these things in a more detached way than a happening in the moment way, which I appreciate), had a friendship that I was rooting for, and kept me turning the pages even if it isn't going to go down as one of my favorites ever in the genre. This is a buzzy one right now, and I can see people loving it as a beach read this summer; it feels like a Netflix-ish miniseries waiting to happen, especially with the California setting. ★★★.25 

Romance/rom-com

Annie Knows Everything: At the start I was afraid that this wouldn't be for me as I don't love a super chaotic main character, as Annie seems to be when she shows up late and disheveled for work at a productivity app startup only to find out that her keycard doesn't work because her job has been eliminated. She connives with her best friend, an HR rep, to get moved to an open slot in the data strategy department, which she is not at all qualified for, but at least is a job! The head of this department seems a bit curmudgeonly and totally tech nerd but also happens to be rather attractive. Annie decides at once that she wants to win him over by being the best data strategist she can be - whatever a data strategist even is. She manages to weasel her way in and become essential to this little department, all the while developing a friendship with this group of guys, and undeniably finding chemistry with Connor... In the end Annie endeared herself to me, especially as she brought her strengths in problem-solving related to relational/personnel aspects of work (rather than the nerdy tech tunnel vision of her new workmates), and her personality and Connor's complemented each other well. But the conflict that brought about the big problem in their relationship was entirely caused by Annie's rash actions (which is a trend by her, plus her know-it-allness of the title), and gah that can be annoying in a character for rule-follower like me. This is for people who enjoy a workplace romance, a New York city rom-com, tech workplace foibles, great friendship/workplace banter with the charming side characters. I also really liked that it had an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers arc - I find that enemies to lovers often makes the story feel tiresome in the antagonism, and then doesn't feel realistic when all of a sudden the characters are all over each other... but this was character friction of the amusing variety, and then a fun friendship, and then I totally bought in to rooting for them to get together romantically. (Also, pretty low on steam overall - I just skipped about 1 chapter that was hot-n-heavy.) Cute and fun; I'd read more from this author in future! ★★★.75

Nonfiction/memoir

Strangers: This memoir starts out with a bang: in the early days of Covid lockdown, just after they have vacated their Manhattan apartment for the relative safety of their Cape Cod home with their preteen daughters, Belle Burden receives a message from an unknown number, telling her, "your husband is having an affair with my wife". It would be hard enough to figure out how to handle this marriage bombshell when you're with your kids 100% of the time (and hyped up on pandemic anxiety to boot) but what about when suddenly your spouse of 20 years wants out of both the marriage and parenting all of a sudden? In that moment he becomes a total stranger to Belle; in the following section she then goes through their relationship from its inception to tell their love story but also to comb through it with us as her readers for whether she should have seen any signs of this along the way. I thought this was a good audio selection, kept me quite engaged (and sometimes agog, at the behavior of her ex), though there were a few times that I wondered what the bigger picture was, why this story in particular should be out in the world for everyone to read. She definitely addresses this at the end, but it took a little while to get into that, and I might have liked to see it woven throughout a bit. I did appreciate that while we are getting Belle's side of the story, the telling of it gave the depth of her grief and emotion but also managed to give a bit of nuance to her husband, even when my brain wanted to just write him off as stereotypical midlife crisis man ick. Real life is rarely that simple. I don't know much about Truman Capote's "Swans", but part of why many people might pick up this book is that Belle Burden's grandmother was one of these New York socialites. She does go into her family history a bit with some tidbits that may intrigue, but it's really Belle's own story. I think a better literary connection would be Pete and Alice in Maine, a novel about a marriage falling apart at the beginning of the Covid lockdown, and about the challenges of parenting during that particular time + the ways that parenting can affect a marriage over the years. Like with this novel, Strangers is a story about a family with plenty of wealth and privilege, which on the one makes it kind of conflicting to consider because of the ways that even with these issues their lives are so much better off than others' - but also a reminder that everyone is human and can face heartbreak and betrayal and renewal, and a reminder that even if you could always say someone else has it worse, that doesn't mean that your difficulties aren't difficult. ★★★★

Excited to have new books from even more of my favorite authors on the shelf for May reading - here's hoping Emma Straub and Jane Harper come through as well as this month's ladies!