The Break-up Book Club

 

The Break-up Book Club by Wendy Wax (2021) 364 pages

Four main characters deal with relationship troubles: Judith feels that she has always been in the supporting role as wife and mother and wants to star in her own life. Jazmine is a former athlete who lost her sweetheart and her ability to go pro in tennis in an accident years ago. Sara finds out that her husband is living a double life as he works in another city while she lives with his mother while the mother—never close to Sara—has been recovering from surgery. Erin's fiancé broke up with her a week before their wedding, upending the life story she had imagined for them since they were children.

What do these women have in common? Their friendship through a monthly book club at the local bookstore, Between the Covers. A host of colorful secondary characters—some friends, some family—helped round out the story. This book was a joy, making me care about everyone (except the baddies, of course). I loved watching the women work through their pain and distrust. There were a few surprises which made me exclaim out loud!

Time Is a Mother

 Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong, 128 pages.

This poetry collection by Ocean Vuong delves into a lot of personal themes after the death of the poet's mother. Now that I've read it I can say that his style of poetry doesn't really work for me, but I'm sure it would for others.

In an Absent Dream

In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire, 204 pages.

Kara gave a great rundown of this book back in 2019, so feel free to look here for the plot. 

This was a reread for me, and honestly I liked it even better the second time. All of McGuire's Wayward Children books are phenomenal, but I think this one is probably my favorite after the first book in the series. Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for goblin markets and tragedies. But it's also a rare treat to get a book where the heroine is quiet, and rule-abiding, and ultimately not that adventurous, and to see her not have to change to fit into a story worth telling. Which I think is really the strength of this series, focusing on the idea that there is a story where anyone can fit. These books are novellas you can read in a couple of hours! Why not read them?

The Sentence

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (2021) 386 pages

This was my first time reading Louise Erdrich, and it was riveting! It took me about 20 pages to start loving Tookie, a Native American who gets out of prison for a very weird crime and then begins working in a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis. So much happens in the year that encompasses the majority of the story, most notably the arrival of a ghost to the bookstore, but also the changes in Tookie's family. I loved learning about the various Native American characters and how they incorporated older traditions into their lives. We also see the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic and the shocking murder of George Floyd from these characters' viewpoints. I think there is much more in this deep story, but I'll have to read it again to pull out those details. I highly recommend this book.

A Mirror Mended

 A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow, 144 pages.

In this sequel to A Spindle Splintered (which I loved) Zinnia Gray has been saving sleeping beauties for five years, and it's honestly getting old. So when a distressed woman reached out to her from a mirror, pleading for help, she reaches out to her and is pulled into another story. But for all the Sleeping Beauty was getting old, it doesn't make getting kidnapped by the Evil Queen fun. This Evil Queen has found out what happens to her at the end of Snow White, and is desperately trying to find an escape, which she thinks Zinnia can help her with. Zinnia, for her part, has to decide if she's going to help the woman who snatched her, who is, after all, just as trapped in her story as the princesses she usually saves.

This was a very good novella, although it didn't impress me quite as much as the first one. It feels a little less focused, and the adventure elements that dominate this one weren't the elements that made an impression in the first one. However, this one reminded me even more strongly of Seanan McGuire's Indexing series, so I'm definitely doubling down on this as a recommendation for fans of that series.

The Heartbreak Bakery

 The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta, 352 pages.

Syd works at the Proud Muffin, a bakery and queer meeting space in Austen. Baking brownies at work to get all of the emotions out after a bad break-up feels like a good idea, until everyone who eats the brownies has their own break-ups. Now Syd and genderfluid bike delivery person Harvey need to make and deliver specially crafted magical baked goods to fix the couples' problems before they shut down the separation of the owners shuts down the bakery.

This book was super fun and extremely joyful. Also, several of the recipes provided at the end of every chapter sound delicious and I'm definitely planning on trying a few. I love the idea of magical baking, especially magical baking that's centered on putting your emotions into what your making, because I feel like it's only half a step off from reality. Also, I love the colorful community that Capetta builds in this book, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that I enjoyed the large supporting cast almost as much as I enjoyed the protagonists. This is definitely a book I would recommend.

Folklorn

 Folklorn by Angela Mi Young Hur, 416 pages.

Elsa Park has gone all the way to Antarctica to get as far as possible from her family and their stories (and also to pursue her doctoral physics research). Her mother used to tell her that all of the women in their family were reincarnations of the girls from her Korean folk tales, but her mother has been in a coma for decades, so now it's just her brother and father she's avoiding. But once her mother dies she is once again haunted in Sweden by her childhood imaginary friend, who drives her to look for her long lost sister and get to the heart of the stories her mother left her.

I thought all of that sounded very exciting, but that isn't a word I'd use to describe this book. I think it's probably very good, but it wasn't quite what I had expected, and I think I would have enjoyed it more if I was forty. It's complex, but also sort of slow and ambiguous. I didn't really enjoy reading it very much, but I'm sure some others would.

The Throwback List

The Throwback List by Lily Anderson (2021) 391 pages

Jo handles social media for her Silicon Valley employer until she's laid off when the company is acquired by another company. The 26-year-old reluctantly returns home to Sandy Point, a tiny town in Oregon, where she'd hoped to never have to return when she left for college. In Sandy Point, her old best friend, Autumn, has long ago cooled to her because Jo didn't work at maintaining the friendship. Jo's parents' next door neighbor Bianca (another high school classmate of Jo's) is newly married, managing her family's tattoo parlor, and looking out for her aging grandmother. Bianca has never been happy with Jo, but has been best friends with Autumn for a while now, ever since they found each other at the same college.

Jo finds an old list in her childhood bedroom that she and Autumn had composed back in high school, which contains a range of activities that Jo wanted to achieve before going away to college. The list was mostly unfulfilled. Jo makes it her mission to work on the list now while she applies for jobs. The first item she completes upon her return to Sandy Point is to TP the tree at Bianca's house, much to over-worked Bianca's dismay.

As the characters awkwardly reconnect, I found myself starting to root for all the main characters, maybe even more so for Bianca than Jo. It was a fun read.

Fun Home

 

Fun Home, a Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (2006) 232 pages

The "Fun Home" in Alison Bechdel's memoir is what her family calls the funeral home that her father, Bruce, runs, in addition to teaching high school English. His children spend a lot of time in the funeral home, unpacking new caskets, cleaning, and setting up for services. Sometimes they're even called into the part of the morgue where their father prepares bodies for funerals.

We learn early on that Alison's father dies at age 44, soon after it becomes clear that he was gay, which was soon after Alison came out to her parents as gay. Bechdel adeptly runs and reruns through times in her life, and in her parents' lives prior to their marriage, as she examines her family, and in particular, her father. Bruce was a perfectionist who painstakingly restored an old mansion he and his wife purchased. Alison, who hated flowers and the color pink, had no say in the pink floral wallpaper that was placed in her bedroom. Sometimes when she reruns through the past, her father is shown to be more involved with his children; most times he was more distant or disapproving.

English literature references are plentiful in this memoir, especially regarding James Joyce's Ulysses, but the fact that I hadn't read all the works referenced did not keep me from appreciating this book. The drawings are well done and the story is riveting. 

Elder Race

 Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 201 pages.

Lynette Fourth Daughter is a princess who isn't respected by her family, or pretty much anyone. But when a demon starts terrorizing neighboring kingdoms and she's the only one who believes the refugees she decides she has to take matters into her own hands and invoke the pact her family made generations ago with a wizard, the last of the elder race. Nyr is an anthropologist second class, and he is NOT supposed to interact with the local population. But he's been abandoned for centuries, and does it really count as interference if the problem didn't arise from within the population he's studying?

This book is so cool. It is told in alternating chapters, one half being firmly in traditional swords and sorcery fantasy and the other being the type of sci-fi that involves colony ships and computers that interface psychically. It manages to pull this off while both characters are on the exact same trip. I'm astounded at how well done this is, and the little novella honestly reads like a much longer book. I think I'm going to have to look into other works by the author, because I'm thoroughly impressed, and very curious what he can do with a full length book.

Portrait of Thief

 Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li, 384 pages.

Will Chen is a senior at Harvard, a Chinese American, an art history major, and (after witnessing a break-in at the museum he works at and a subsequent job offer) a thief of stolen art. When he's offered a job by a Chinese billionaire to steal a series of statues that were looted from the old summer Palace in Beijing from five western museums he quickly gathers a team to plan some heists. The members of the team have skills that are almost relevant to pulling heists (software engineer is almost like hacker, and street racing is close enough to get away driving) and they quickly find themselves in over their heads. 

I was really excited when I first read about this book, because art heists for repatriation sounds super fun. And the book is super fun, although it might be a little generous to call the art theft in this book heists. What I wasn't expecting, but quite enjoyed, was how much of many of our thieves motivation comes from the existential terror of being in your early twenties and having no idea what to do with your life, a problem made even more complex by the variety of ways that all of our characters interact with their own Chinese identities. This book is very fun, and definitely worth the read, but I wouldn't read it if you're wanting a heist story, and I would try not to take the details of the action too seriously.

One Last Stop

 One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston, 418 pages.

August is a cynic who moved to New York hoping to finish college and finally figure out what she wants to do with her life. After a cute girl saves her from coffee-based embarrassment on the subway she finds herself falling hard. The only problem is, there's a real possibility the girl is a ghost. Luckily, Jane ISN'T a ghost, just displaced in time and magically trapped on the subway. But if August wants any sort of relationship not on the train she and her very eclectic new roommates are going to have to find a way to free her. 

This book is extremely sweet. Normally I'm not a big enjoyer of time-based nonsense, but the plot here was really well done and surprisingly chill. All of the characters are also really cool, and I love them both individually and the relationships between them. Also a highlight of this book, the intense sense of community in their little corner of New York. I'm definitely recommending this one. 

All Creatures Great and Small

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriott, 442 pages

I'm possibly the last person on earth to discover this charming memoir, but I'm still going to crow about it. Told in episodes centering on the odd characters (both human and animal) in rural Yorkshire, Herriott's book covers his first couple of years as a country vet, treating everything from spoiled dogs to neglected cattle. Throughout it all, there's a wry sense of humor, enhanced in the audiobook by wonderful narrator Christopher Timothy. I absolutely loved this, and I'll definitely be reading Herriott's other two memoirs.

The Agathas

The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson, 405 pages

In the picturesque coastal town of Crystal Cove, Alice Ogilvie and Iris Adams are from opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum: Alice lives in a seaside mansion with servants and receives horses and cars from her largely-absent parents, while Iris lives in a rundown apartment with her bartending mom, doing everything she can to save up money to skip town. Last summer, each girl experienced something MAJOR (Alice went missing for five days, while Iris only refers to her incident as The Thing) and now, they've been thrown together by a well-intentioned guidance counselor. But only days into their new tutoring arrangement, Alice's ex-best friend Brooke Donovan goes missing. While a lot of people in Crystal Cove are convinced that she's "pulling an Ogilvie," Alice and Iris think that something bad must have happened to her, and, spurred by Alice's love of Agatha Christie novels, they decide to investigate.

A blurb on the cover refers to this as a mix of Agatha Christie and Veronica Mars, and honestly, I can't describe it better than that. The sharp socioeconomic divide, the sleuthing, the nods to both throughout...it's a great mystery for fans of either the author or the TV show. My one nit-picky comment is that the voices of the two lead characters are really hard to distinguish, which is particularly interesting as I got the impression that Glasgow and Lawson each wrote one (I could be wrong though). However, don't let this stop you from a fun, fast mystery. I'm not sure if they plan to write more books about Iris and Alice, but if they do, I'll happily read them!

We Are Satellites

We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker, 381 pages

It was my second time reading through this in-depth fictional examination of the ways in which technology impacts our lives and our relationships, and I agree with what I already wrote in my previous blog post (go here to see it): it's fascinating, captivating, and highly accessible to the non-SF reader. Here's hoping tonight's Orcs & Aliens group agrees with me!

The Judgment and The Mercy

 The Judgment (2011) 324 pages and The Mercy (2011) 303 pages, books 2 and 3 in a trilogy by Beverly Lewis

When a colleague and I wondered what Amish fiction was like, I pulled a Beverly Lewis book from the shelf to read, not realizing it was book 2 in a trilogy. No matter. The Judgment has a prologue that seems to summarize book 1 (The Thorn) just fine. 

Rose grew up in an Amish household. Her best friend was Nick, a boy next door who was a foster child who was never fully accepted by the community, nor by his "brother," the natural born son of the family that fostered him. Nick was blamed for a tragedy that caused the death of Christian, that same brother, and Nick fled the Amish community. Rose was heartbroken by his departure, but tried to move on with her life, including going through the "Singing," a regular Sunday night event for Amish youth who are old enough to be courting. Meanwhile, Rose's older sister, Hen, who is married to a non-Amish man, Brandon, is having a crisis of her own. They were living away from the Amish community and had a small child, Mattie Sue, when Hen started feeling a strong pull back to Amish life. She left her husband to live in a small house on her parents' property with Mattie Sue. Her husband is threatening to divorce her if she doesn't return to their home. 

The Mercy continues the story. Rose and Hen's mother, who has been in great pain as a result of a buggy accident ten years ago, is finally convinced to seek a doctor's help, and after extensive tests, is scheduled for surgery. Just prior to that, a freak accident brings Hen's husband to the Amish community to live with Hen and Mattie Sue as he recovers. Rose tries to move on in her quest for a husband, even as she spends so much time helping her parents with the farm. When Nick returns to the community, everything is shaken up.

If you like soap operas, you'll love these books; the storylines merge surprises with the obvious. There is much more in these stories, arcs that involve the Amish religious hierarchy, for example. The book is a little preachy, being from the Amish point of view, but I learned a few things about Amish lifestyles, and the characters were generally likeable.

Disorientation

 

Disorientation / Elaine Hsieh Chou, read by Jennifer Kim, 403 pgs.

Ingrid Yang is taking her time writing her dissertation on a distinguished Chinese American poet.  She has never been that "into" her topic but her advisor pushed hard for it.  One day, she thinks she sees the poet...odd, since he passed away.  Now she needs to figure out the mystery.  Is Ingrid a meek Asian woman?  Or can she get out there and figure out why she is sure the poet is still alive.  This is a very funny romp through the world of academia where shedding a little light can shred a bunch of people's life work.   

Ghosts

Ghosts by Dolly Alderton (2020) 303 pages

Nina Dean is thirty-two. She has written a cookbook which "has a thread of memoir spun between the recipes," and is editing proofs of her second book, while working on a third. She has also bought a flat‒which is need of upgrading‒but it's hers. She's also ready to date again after a few years between the breakup she had with her longtime boyfriend, Joe (who is still a good friend). Other friends include Katherine, who's married with a second child on the way, and Lola, a stylish single who has found only short-term dates, rather than a long-term relationship, to her chagrin.

Nina's parents, who are 17 years apart in age, have their own issues: Nancy, her mom, now says her name is Mandy. Nina can't accept that at all, one more thing they seem to be butting heads about. Nina's dad is suffering from Alzheimer's, with bad days starting to become more frequent.

What happens here is a large slice of Nina's life: Nina gets onto a dating app, navigates friendships that sometimes seem to be more work than joy, helps manage her dad's declining health, and tries to handle the neighbor in the flat below her, who turns out to be loud and intimidating. And the main attraction is Max, whom she meets on the dating app, who seems so promising, before he ghosts her after several months of dating.

Well Matched

 Well Matched by Jen DeLuca, 336 pages.

April is a forty-year-old single mom who is getting ready to send her daughter off to college and sell her house in small town Willow Creek to get an apartment in the city. When her friend Mitch Malone asks her to pretend to be his girlfriend for a family dinner (so his family will take him seriously and stop asking him about his relationships) in exchange for home repairs she's hesitant, because she's been single for a long time and also this is an insane request, but they're friends and it doesn't seem like a big deal so she agrees. But somehow situations keep happening where they have to pretend again and soon enough there are real feelings in their fake dating. 

A lot of this book is ultimately about April dealing with her own anxieties; about dating a younger man (who may want kids she can't have one day), about dating one of her daughter's teachers, about Mitch's promiscuous nature, about what her neighbors will say. Most of these anxieties are based on nothing but conjecture, but that's clinical anxiety for you (I think part of this book's happy ending probably should have been April getting a therapist). This book is very sweet and fun, and I'm probably going to end up reading all the books in the series (I wrote about the proceeding book, Well Played, last October, and that couple makes a cameo in this book). Much less Renaissance Faire in this book, which I found a little disappointing personally, but that wasn't the book's fault.

The Wild Ones

 The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad, 352 pages.

When Paheli escapes the man her mother sold her to she runs straight into a battered boy with stars for eyes who tosses her a box of stars and disappears. With these stars she can travel the magical area known as the between, and use it to travel between the world's cities. She uses these (and a few other powers) to form an immortal gang made up of other betrayed and abused girls. But when the boy that gave them the stars is being chased by powerful magical forces that want to imprison him, and the girls choose to help him, because none of them will stand for having their freedom taken again.

Unfortunately this book is a really cool concept with very poor execution, which is my least favorite thing. A lot of this book read more like a manifesto then a novel, which took me out of the action pretty quickly. The cast of characters is also fairly large, and almost none of them get any real characterization at all (I can only make the vaguest guesses about who most of the women on the books cover are), and a weird amount of the book is taken up by describing all the food they eat, even in tense situations and on the run. Overall I just found that this book didn't really work for me, which was pretty disappointing.

May totals

Welp, we've had better months. Please come join us!

Jan  4/1509

Kara  7/2498

Regan  7/2898

TOTAL  18/6905