Susan Scribner
Not rated. Novella-length (but feels shorter), barely fictional account of “Eve Monroe,” a wildly successful author of the Hey Big Spender novels, and her experiences as a Stage 4 glioblastoma patient. I'm not a huge [b:Confessions of a Shopaholic 9416 Confessions of a Shopaholic (Shopaholic, #1) Sophie Kinsella https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546503932l/9416.SX50.jpg 3237433] fan, but you would have to be made of stone to not be moved by Kinsella's need to process the unthinkable by writing about it, complete with perfect husband, adorable children and HFN ending. The survival rates for her type of brain cancer are not good but I hope Kinsella beats the odds.
As an aging Baby Boomer, I'm impressed that Betsy Lerner, a well-regarded literary agent and editor, has written her first novel at age 64. I'm less impressed by the novel itself. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but there is little to distinguish Shred Sisters from the hundreds of other stories that explore the dynamics between two sisters (subset: one of them has a serious mental illness). And despite reviews that describe the book as both funny and poignant, I couldn't find the alleged humor. YMMV if you need to read all of the books to remind yourself that “nobody will love you or hurt you more than a sister.”
4.5 stars. Although this book includes lists of the 150 greatest albums made by women and the 200 greatest songs by 21st century women, it is definitely not one of those rigid Billboard-style countdowns that inevitably invites arguments about why your favorite song is #36 when it obviously should be in the top twenty. Instead, its chapters are arranged thematically, each one touching on issues of race, sexual orientation, and class. Dozens of women who contributed to NPR's Turning the Tables series offer a mix of brief essays about the songs and longer think pieces on the impact of the music on their lives. Excerpts from archival NPR interviews with the artists are scattered throughout. The women who are profiled include superstars (Whitney Houston, Taylor Smith) and lesser known performers (Germfree Adolescents, Suzanne Ciani, Gal Costa). While nearly all of the women were challenged by the white male-dominated music industry, the focus is not on barriers but on the remarkable, enduring music they produced.
The book may be a little overwhelming to digest in one sitting; its richness is best savored slowly. I have a list of new-to-me women performers to explore, so I'm not even going to complain that The Bangles' masterpiece album All Over the Place should have been ranked much higher than #139.
On the scale between hagiography and TMZ, this look at Disney Channel's peak years in the early aughts lands somewhere in the middle. While there are no bombshell revelations like the ones in [b:I'm Glad My Mom Died 59364173 I'm Glad My Mom Died Jennette McCurdy https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1649286799l/59364173.SY75.jpg 93537110] and recent TV documentaries about child stars, the author doesn't shy away from calling out the Mouse House for its notorious insistence on controlling everything while paying next to nothing. But overall Disney High is a respectful, nostalgic trip down memory lane for millennials and Gen Zers who carried Lizzie McGuire backpacks, screamed at Hannah Montana concerts, and knew all of the lyrics and dance steps for the High School Musical songs. (Confession: not only am I way too old to be Disney's target demographic, but my kids were over it before Miley Cyrus ever put on a wig. My nieces however, were half a generation younger and I kept watching the channel for them. Really.)
I'm not sure what Amanda Montell was trying to accomplish here. I liked-didn't-love [b:Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism 55338982 Cultish The Language of Fanaticism Amanda Montell https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1603741877l/55338982.SX50.jpg 86301080], but at least that had a concrete topic. This book is a haphazard combination of memoir, Cognitive Psychology 101, and advertisement for Montell's podcast. YMMV if you've never heard of the sunk cost fallacy or confirmation bias.
I appreciated the book's theme of moving from sorrow and self-loathing to acceptance about less than ideal family dynamics, but I wasn't thrilled about Maynard's decision to use a Sainted Disabled Person as the primary vehicle for the message. And while I agree with her politics, I found their inclusion in the book to be heavy-handed and off-putting. Maybe my distaste is a timing issue; it's less than three weeks before the end of the 2024 US presidential campaign, and I can't handle leisure reading that includes references to the 2016 election, Brett Kavanaugh, and January 6, 2021.
Chad Beguelin is a successful playwright and lyricist (Prom, Elf: the Musical) who grew up in the small town of Centralia, Illinois. Noah Adams, the MC of Beguelin's debut novel is a failed playwright and lyricist hailing from Plainview, Illinois. So it's not a surprise that Showmance is a mostly successful if predictable romance between the wisecracking Noah and local hunky farmer Luke Carter. As quickly as you can click your heels together three times and say “There's no place like home,” Noah's Big City boyfriend is dispensed with, along with Noah's lingering anger at the bullying he endured in high school, allegedly at Luke's hands (the retconning of Noah's experiences to make Luke an innocent bystander who was responsible for stopping the torment is an authorial decision that made me more than a tad uncomfortable).
Luke is a little too good to be true, while Noah's sassy black gal pal and laconic Midwestern father are both walking cliches. But even with its flaws, Showmance is lively and entertaining, and such a perfect match for my current need for fluff that I read it all in one afternoon. Extra points for Noah's mom pointing out that his welcome home reception is unmissable because they brought in toasted ravioli “all the way from St. Louis.”* If you've eaten toasted ravioli, you're either nodding your head in agreement or making violent retching noises, depending on how you view one of my hometown's greatest culinary achievements.
*Less than an hour away from Centralia, especially if you speed
Creepy setting, plucky heroine, overbearing hero...I had to check to make sure this book was released in the 21st century, because it had the same vibe as a 1970s era gothic novel by Victoria Holt or Mary Stewart. Although I wasn't a big fan of the cliched MCs, I appreciated the book's clever plotting, which kept me guessing about whether the Bad Guy was human or ghost. Bonus points for the stray cat with a suitably regal name. But St. James has done better, including [b:Silence for the Dead 62926981 Silence for the Dead Simone St. James https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1685351913l/62926981.SY75.jpg 25211135] (historical) and [b:Murder Road 196614815 Murder Road Simone St. James https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1691937111l/196614815.SY75.jpg 181587743] (contemporary BECAUSE I REFUSE TO ACCEPT THAT THE 1990S ARE “HISTORY”).
Swordcrossed's cover promises “High Heat. Low Stakes. Sharp Steel.” Are they fucking kidding me? The stakes were so high I almost had to take an emergency Xanax to get through the inevitable Dark Moment. Okay, the fate of the Victorian English magic didn't depend on these two young men (see [b:A Marvellous Light 53217284 A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding, #1) Freya Marske https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634067514l/53217284.SY75.jpg 80535939] and the rest of the Last Binding trilogy), but it would have been a tragedy of epic proportions in my mind if they never kissed again.I wasn't surprised to learn that Marske wrote the initial draft of this book before her breakout, Last Binding. The worldbuilding isn't as sophisticated, and the plot is 85% “when will they bone?” MC #1, Serious Young Man With Responsibilities and MC #2, Charming Con Man With a Secret engage in delightful banter, and their chemistry is palpable. Their character growth is predictable but engaging. The Third Act Breakup isn't dragged out for too long and the climactic scene is fiendishly clever. And no dead bodies (despite the "sharp steel")!If Marske goes on to have a long, distinguished writing career, Swordcrossed may well be considered one of her less substantial entries. But sometimes you just want a good time with an author who knows what she's doing. No Xanax required.
Parts of this review are deliberately vague to avoid spoilers for [b:The Darkness Outside Us 55200663 The Darkness Outside Us Eliot Schrefer https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1602485938l/55200663.SX50.jpg 83111737], which I highly recommend, and which you need to read first; The Brightness Between Us is not a stand-alone novel.It's kind of misleading to call this book a sequel, because significantly more than half of the story takes place before the events in [b:The Darkness Outside Us 55200663 The Darkness Outside Us Eliot Schrefer https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1602485938l/55200663.SX50.jpg 83111737]. Things happened to Ambrose and Kodiak before they came face-to-face on a Saturn-bound spaceship that have a very delayed impact on Owl and Yarrow, the children they are raising many years later. So the first 100 pages are set 17 years after the end of Darkness, but the next hundred are a flashback to those earlier exploits. That pattern repeats itself, with the Before chapters taking up so much of the book's air that there is very little left for the After ones. The Young Ambrose and Kodiak scenes are emotionally effective, but IMO they are not worth sacrificing the opportunity to fully develop Owl and Yarrow's characters. This is still a quality read; it's a lot of fun to see the sunshine/grumpy couple in new roles, there's enough dry humor to temper the life-or death- drama, and Schrefer still has a few clever plot twists up his sleeve (although nothing as mind-blowing as Darkness' Holy Shit! moment). Extra points for the adorable herbivore quadrupeds who add a touch of whimsy to both timelines.
If you take out the headline-ready revelations (Lisa Marie had an abortion! She and Michael Jackson actually had sex! Ex-husband Nicholas Cage was wild - wait, that's not much of a revelation), you're left with an extremely sad book about a woman who basically was screwed from the moment she was born to The King of Rock & Roll and his emotionally unavailable child bride. Lisa Marie's daughter, Riley Keough, seems pretty cool, though, and I hope she is able to have at least a semi-normal life.
Using the example of a small businessman trying to get his novelty toy manufactured and delivered in time for Christmas 2021, Goodman does an admirable job of presenting how the failure of every part of the supply chain during the pandemic was inevitable. Obscenely wealthy CEOs outsourced millions of jobs to China for its dirt-cheap labor, lobbied for deregulating pretty much every industry that was needed to move goods from one place to the other, and deliberately kept inventories low. Then that stupid COVID virus came along and ruined the party for them. (The rest of us are hardly blameless; we all loved the fact that our precious cell phones and fast fashion clothes were so inexpensive.)
Sure, there were a few years of union growth, wage increases, and attempts to move factories back to this continent after the immediate COVID crisis. But then we all screamed about inflation and most of that progress was reversed. With a journalistic combination of data and human interest, Goodman's analysis is interesting and easy for a layperson to follow. The book ends with a whimper, however; his suggested fix for the tenuousness of the supply chain is simply to re-regulate these industries. Might be nice, won't happen, and a pig in lipstick is still a pig.
I'm reviewing Remember Me Tomorrow because I want to counteract several one-star ratings from readers who claimed it is “racist” against white people. If I were giving my objective opinion, I would rate it 3 stars, but I'm upping it to 4 because some people are idiots.
Time loop plots are my catnip, even if their mechanism isn't explained well (as is the case with this book, frankly). Toronto college student Aleeza Kassum moves into a dorm room whose previous occupant, Jay Hoque, vanished without a trace several months ago. She realizes that she can communicate with Jay through their dorm messaging app, but she is reaching him five months earlier, when he was safe and sound. (The Lake House film starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock is referenced frequently for its similar plot.) Aleeza theorizes that if she can figure out what happened to Jay, she can warn him away from the actions that led to his disappearance. As Aleeza puts her Nancy Drew skills to work, she also finds herself falling for Jay, giving her even more motivation to save him.
The mystery/thriller plot is executed well. Aleeza and her dormmate Grace piece together clues from in-person interviews, social media, and online searches, evading various red herrings and racing against the clock. The climax is action-packed with a few surprises. Unfortunately, I never fully felt the connection between Aleeza and Jay. It's not that I don't believe that people can fall in love by writing to each other (I've done it myself), but their conversations don't generate sufficient chemistry. They still feel like virtual strangers when they finally meet in person..
So to address the white elephant in the room, is this book racist? First of all, racism is structural and power-driven, so it's impossible in the US to be racist towards white people. Are most of the Bad Guys white? Yes, although the allegiance of one key white secondary character is ambiguous. Are Aleeza, Grace, and Jay non-white? Yes; Aleeza is Indian, Grace is East Asian and Jay is biracial Bangladeshi. That doesn't mean author Farah Heron hates white people, although I suspect that she has experienced Aleeza's feelings of other-ness. She's entitled to tell a story that lifts up an Asian girl as the heroine, to compensate for many others that would reduce Aleeza to a sidekick role, or omit her entirely.
I don't think I am ready to add Heron to my auto-read list, but I support her right to not be review-bombed by trolls.
Good chemistry between the MCs and an interesting setting, but the plot was sorely lacking. The narrator, Finn, may be an engineer working on the design for the Eiffel Tower, but he doesn't have the common sense the good lord gave a goose. A handsome stranger appears out of nowhere and offers to solve all of your problems but refuses to answer any questions? Puh-leeze. And after an intriguing setup, Finn is literally in another country when the Big Moment happens, and only learns the truth when a female secondary character fills him in. Marshall has written several more explicit M/M historical romances as [a:Ella Stainton 20163690 Ella Stainton https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1588067098p2/20163690.jpg]. I didn't make it past the first few chapters of “Kilty Pleasures Book 1” ([b:Best Laid Plaids 52739473 Best Laid Plaids (Kilty Pleasures, #1) Ella Stainton https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1588087911l/52739473.SY75.jpg 78704072]), because it was just too silly for my taste. In fact, I never would have guessed the two women were the same person. I hope she will develop Maureen Marshall further; her voice feels much more authentic and natural than her alter ego's.
Okay, first of all, “The Author's Guide to Murder” is technically correct, but if the book has three MCs, shouldn't the title be “The Authors' Guide?” The fact that I was grammar nitpicking before I even started reading wasn't a good sign. And unfortunately, the book's content did nothing to change my first impression. The fifth “Team W authors” collaboration attempts to meld together slapstick comedy, romance, cozy mystery, women's fiction, and #MeToo. The result is cartoonish, uneven, occasionally offensive (jokes about whether or not a well-dressed man is gay in 2024?) and unnecessarily long. I'm giving it 2 stars instead of 1 because the “fake friendship evolves into #Girl Power” trope was actually rather touching, and because the last few chapters are brazenly bonkers. The three authors have published several historical fiction novels together, but apparently the idea for this one emerged from a drunken bar conversation in which they joked about co-writing a historical romance set in Scotland with the dubious title Fifty Shades of Plaid. Now that the trio has a loyal following, they decided it was time to revisit and fine tune the idea, although their publisher drew the line at keeping the original title. As a relative newbie (I've read a few [a:Beatriz Williams 4927506 Beatriz Williams https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1575561474p2/4927506.jpg] books, but nothing by the other two women), I can't recommend a story that would have been better suited to the authors' newsletters. YMMV if you are a Team W fan who can appreciate the in-jokes and Easter eggs. ARC received from Net Galley and publisher in exchange for review.
ETA: National Book Prize Finalist 10/1/24, if that kind of thing is important to you. Martyr! is not at all my usual read, and it's difficult to articulate why I liked it so much. I'll list a few random highlights and hope they will suffice. *Debut novelist Kaveh Akbar is a poet, and his writing sings (like poet-turned-novelist Ocean Vuong's [b:On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous 41880609 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Ocean Vuong https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1615580168l/41880609.SX50.jpg 61665003], but with less tragedy and more cynicism).MC Cyrus Shams is a young Iranian-American man. His familiar struggle to figure out the Meaning of Life is coupled with the desire to make his death meaningful as well, like the martyrs of his country of origin. Not coincidentally, Cyrus' own mother died in a 1988 airplane crash when a U.S. Navy warship shot down an Iranian commercial airplane, killing everyone on board (this actually happened). In addition to Cyrus' first person POV, there are close 3rd person POV chapters from Cyrus' dad, who worked on an Iowa chicken farm for decades to support himself and his son; Orkideh, an NYC artist who has transformed her own impending death into a piece of performance art; and Cyrus' uncle, whose Iran-Iraq wartime role was to serve as a literal Angel of Death for men who were dying on the battlefield. *The narrative includes bizarre dream conversations between Cyrus' family members and famous people (Lisa Simpson and his dead mother; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the little brother Cyrus always wanted). A WTF? ambiguous ending cost the novel a star (either Cyrus was transformed by love, or he died). Even though Martyr! took me outside my reading comfort zone, it was, surprisingly, just right for me at this particular moment in time.
Elizabeth Strout's latest brings together three of her most popular MCs (as well as numerous other recognizable secondary characters): Lucy Barton from [b:Lucy by the Sea 60657583 Lucy by the Sea Elizabeth Strout https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1650574627l/60657583.SY75.jpg 95604434], Bob Burgess from [b:The Burgess Boys 15823461 The Burgess Boys Elizabeth Strout https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1351213545l/15823461.SY75.jpg 21553934], and the unforgettable [b:Olive Kitteridge 1736739 Olive Kitteridge (Olive Kitteridge, #1) Elizabeth Strout https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320430655l/1736739.SY75.jpg 3263906]. Over the course of a year in their small Maine hometown, Lucy and Olive tell stories to each other about the “unrecorded lives” of their friends and family who experienced heartache, loss, scarcity and occasional joy. Bob and Lucy take regular walks together, sharing these stories and growing closer, despite the fact that both have long-term partners. Strout has an amazing talent of fostering reader empathy about even the most minor secondary characters, including the ones we only meet secondhand through Lucy and Olive's stories. There is very little action in the novel, just numerous small but important moments and meditations on loneliness, love, grief, and purpose. Bob, a criminal defense attorney, helps a reclusive oddball who is suspected of killing his own mother, but even that subplot lacks the urgency of a standard courtroom thriller. Strout's work is catnip to an aging retiree like me who is “immature” enough (Bob's criticism of Lucy) to still wonder about the Meaning of Life. I've read almost all of her novels, so Tell Me Everything felt like catching up with old friends. I'll be interested to see how it is received by Oprah Book Club devotees who are unfamiliar with the author's backlist.
DNF at 50%. I remember loving this as a teenager; free verse from dead people dissing each other and surrendering their secrets was perfect for a melodramatic outsider like me. I even wrote a handful of my own entries about my high school classmates as a harmless form of revenge (decades before the internet, thank god). I picked the book up again recently after seeing it referenced in [b:How to Read a Book 62365896 How to Read a Book Monica Wood https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1668464017l/62365896.SX50.jpg 95204458]. I had forgotten that there are more than 200 entries and that after a while they all blur together in a repetitive jumble of regret and anger. Even though I noped out at the halfway point, I don't regret revisiting this early 20th century example of small town, “family values” hypocrisy. Learning that the original poems were published in a St. Louis Missouri, literary journal (my hometown) was just a bonus.
A little less charming than [b:The House in the Cerulean Sea 45047384 The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1) T.J. Klune https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1569514209l/45047384.SY75.jpg 62945242], and a lot more heavy-handed. But in the four years since Cerulean Sea was published, homophobia and transphobia have only gotten worse, so perhaps subtlety is a luxury we can no longer afford. “Do you hear that?” [Bad Woman] said, raising her voice to the crowd. “That's what they think of you. Even though none of us would've been alive when this (persecution of magical beings) occurred, we're still supposed to pay the price of those who came before us? Balderdash! Were mistakes made? Yes, of course. But that doesn't mean we're not in the right now.” “It's like they can't hear themselves talk,” Linus murmured. ****************Lucy (short for Lucifer) nodded. “I'll open up a dimensional doorway in the fabric of reality and send [Bad Woman] to a place where even demons fear to tread. What is this evil place, you might be asking? Great Question!” He spread his hands wide in a practiced display of showmanship. “It's called...Florida.”Ladies and Gentlemen, T.J. Klune, or as he would like to remembered, “the Anti-J.K. Rowling.”
3.5 stars. Quick, delightful read. Bishop is a lot like Emily Gilmore (minus the snootiness and the D.A.R. stuff), and it's a hoot to hear from an outspoken broad who knew what she wanted (dancing) and what she didn't (children) from a young age. The fact that she had an abortion is getting a lot of media attention, but her struggle to keep performing after her beloved husband of 40 years died from cancer was the emotional heart of the book.
3.5 stars. This is not another one of those cutesy books set in a cozy bookshop in which a) the heroine, who inherited the store from her great aunt, tries to save it from financial ruin; or b) the grumpy owner is charmed by a beautiful, and mysterious customer; or c) the store is staffed by an assortment of lovable oddballs. In fact, while a bookstore brings the three MCs together for the first time, it is reading itself, wherever it takes place, that is explored -specifically how reading fosters empathy by requiring us to think of characters in our books as “fellow creatures.”
Our three MCs are Harriet, a retired teacher who runs a weekly book club at the nearby women's prison; Violet, convicted of vehicular manslaughter at age 19 but recently released from prison; and Frank, the bookstore handyman who is ashamed of having conflicting emotions about his wife's tragic death. Violet is the pivotal character, as she struggles to determine if the bad decisions she made as an immature teenager render her soul unredeemable and her future hopeless. Her mother died of cancer while Violet was incarcerated, and Violet's sister holds her responsible for that death as well. The sister does set Violet up in an apartment in Portland, but she makes it clear that Violet is no longer welcome in their small Maine hometown. Through the kindness of strangers and her own inner drive, Violet makes a new life for herself, although she continues to make some ill-advised choices. But she owns her mistakes (eventually) and I rooted for her in all of her messiness.
Monica Wood has a distinctive voice, unsentimental but not unkind. I wasn't pleased with several of her plotting decisions, but that just means the book wasn't always predictable. Perhaps because Wood is an older adult, she shows the most unfettered affection towards Harriet and Frank. The millennials (with the exception of Violet) are mostly self-absorbed, privileged, and insufferable. OK Boomer!
Updates the 1980s memoirs/ self help books about binge eating by Geneen Roth [b:Feeding the Hungry Heart: The Experience of Compulsive Eating 4951 Feeding the Hungry Heart The Experience of Compulsive Eating Geneen Roth https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388403262l/4951.SY75.jpg 8503] et al) to the 21st century, acknowledging how homophobia, racism, fatphobia, and the patriarchy exacerbate the issue. Roth's books changed my life; I hope More, Please will do the same for Millennial or Gen Z readers.