End of April Reading

 We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker

Simply. The. Best. So many people have raved about this book that I was almost scared to begin. Could it live up to the hype?? Hell, it surpasses the hype!!!! Here’s why, for me... One, masterful storytelling wrapped within gorgeous writing. Whitaker made me care deeply about the people, feel a part of each town, and turn pages obsessively to find out the answers to all the mysteries. Two, this book made me both laugh out loud, and weep. It wrapped my heart in a blanket, shredded it a few times, and put it all back together in the end. Three, the thirteen year old girl, Duchess, is one of the best characters I’ve ever read in modern day literature. She is MY kind of girl - swears like a sailor, is loyal and protective, loves deep and wide, takes shit from no one, damn I love this girl. If you haven’t run to your closest indie bookstore and purchased this one...DO IT. It’s my new favorite of 2021.

When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McClain

As a mystery aficionado, this book hit every whodunnit-lovin’ bone in my body. It was truly impossible to put this one down. In this story, I found a hero, Anna Hart, destined to be one of my all-time favorite characters. From the very beginning, we know there is trauma in her own past, yet the author takes us on a journey through her life in order to make sense of the mystery before us. The brutal  honesty in McClain’s voice and the manner in how she confronts the trauma left from sexual abuse, neglect, and abandonment - it left me raw. But it also left me hopeful and inspired, that humans exist in this world who reach a hand out to those who need it.  That there are survivors who crawl through the flames and make a better world for other survivors. That a writer like McClain has used her own childhood and past, and given us not only this incredible tale, but also a roadmap to a way to heal. Of all the Paula McClain books I’ve read, and I’ve read them all, this one will live inside my brain for all time. My only request from her is a sequel...please. I need more Anna Hart in my life. 

The Guncle by Steven Rowley

“Bacon is pig and pigs are our friends. Do you want to eat your friends?” Without hesitation. “If they taste like bacon.”   Yeah, I was laughing my ass off from the get go. Patrick, a forty-three year old gay man, a former TV sitcom star, lives alone in Palm Springs, surrounded only by his ghosts and his memories. But when his young niece and nephew need a home for the summer, Patrick becomes the Guncle, or GUP, or sometimes even Auntie Mame!

This is a family that deals with addiction, parenting, friendship, and loss, all with a sense of humor as well as touches of wisdom. If you need a book that makes you laugh out loud or touches your heart, you’re gonna love this book. I sure did. 

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

“Now...Theseus lolled with impunity on royal couches, admired by all for his bravery, his noble and heroic exploits - and like a thousand women before me, I would pay the price of what we had done together.” If you love Greek mythology, this book is for you. It uses everything we hate about the gods (their capriciousness and arrogance, their worship of so-called heroes, their utter lack of morals) and spins these character traits into an eye opening tale of not only Ariadne, but so many others of Greek fame. If you know your myths, you know that it was Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos of Crete, who aided Theseus in defeating the Minotaur. But author Jennifer Saint takes this little tale and spins it into so much more as we see the entire life of Ariadne, not just her one moment of infamy. Ariadne is a novel that makes us things about heroes...what makes one heroic, how deep do we look into our hero’s motivations, can heroes be authentic humans, and are they truly worthy of our worship? It spins history on its head, placing the men who have always been the headliners back at the end of the line, allowing the women to take their lead.  “I would not let a man who knew the value of nothing make me doubt the value of myself.” 

Members Only by Sameer Pandya

Premise: an Indian-American professor has a shitty week, and I mean shitty with a capital S, much of the trouble of his own making. Maybe. And that’s all I am going to say about the plot - you need to just sit back and experience the train wreck. I felt uncomfortable, tense, angry, appalled, enraged, sad, entertained, you name it. I cringed a LOT as I read about each day of the week in the life of Raj, and his supporting cast. This book made my brain come alive, to think about race in America through a different pair of spectacles. It made me see the unfettered power of the media, the push and pull of the sectarianism that is destroying us, the manner in which we segregate ourselves and the consequences of that separation, the nuanced sides of so many issues. Don’t give up when you become uncomfortable as you begin this book - it’s that feeling that makes the book so powerful. This book is a Must Read, eye-opening, hot-for-book-club discussion, master work on racial issues of today. And besides that, it’s just a damn good read.

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

Did it make me turn pages quickly? Yes. Was it entertaining? Mildly. Did I love it? Nope. And it’s not just because I’m comparing it to 𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥, which I loved. It just had some holes for me. However...rom com is not my favorite genre, so there’s that! I found the two main characters kinda annoying instead of lovable. I didn’t cheer for them, or against them - I just kinda wanted to slap them occasionally. The friends-turn-to-lovers trope is just that, a trope, but it can work. The problem here is that there was sooooo little tension - the ending was inevitable and a bit of a bore for me. And an incident that was referred to incessantly throughout the book was a big YAWN, and quite honestly, the sex scene was as well. And his chosen method of birth control was...odd, weird, unrealistic?! 

Last Call by Elon Green

A true tale of murder amidst the gay community of the 1990’s, this book was extremely well researched, written in a tense, page-turning manner, without a lot of extraneous little details that in the past, have turned me off true crime. It also opened my eyes in so many ways. I have not been as aware as I should be of the extreme prejudice, hatred, and violence pointed at the LGBTQIA community. Shame on me. Knowing our past helps create empathy and shines a light on bias so as to not repeat it. This book is a good place to start learning.

April Reading 2.0

The Windsor Knot (Her Majesty the Queen Investigates) by S.J. Bennett

Utterly deeeeeee-lightful! Who knew, that beneath her cashmere cardigan and pearls, behind her stout lil Corgi dogs, and under the perfectly coiffed white hair lives the mind of Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple?! Okay, yes, you do have to suspend a little bit of belief going into this mystery series, but whatever. It is just pure FUN! A young Russian emigre is murdered at Windsor Castle, in a rather, ahem, sexual manner and it is up to QEII to solve the crime. Thanks to some fantastic casting, the old white guys are the bumbling knuckleheads and the Black assistant female secretary is the badass, along with the Queen, of course. When you need a lighthearted whodunnit, this is the book for you!

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

I am still not sure what I read, but I do know that my brain continues to reel, and my inner being is quite unsettled, once again, by this master of literature. Just as in Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro takes us to a futuristic world, where parents make morally questionable decisions, children live lives of deep loneliness and fears, and a family can purchase an AF (Artificial Friend). Klara is that AF, and in her relationship with the outside world, the Sun, her family, we see a world gone wrong - where technology, climate change, and the lack of human connection has corrupted the soul of humanity. Did I love this book? I'm not sure. I do know I won't forget this book easily and would highly recommend it for a book club as the discussions would be epic.

Shiner by Amy Jo Burns

What if you grew up without school, without neighbors, without television, telephone, or internet, never leaving the mountains of West Virgnia?What would your life be like? In this debut novel, Burns shows us the life of Wren, a fifteen year old girl whose life is narrowed to her home with her snake-handling preacher of a father and her mother and her mother's best friend, who once had hopes of escape. And when tragedy comes, again and again, history throws us back in time to when her parents were young, to see how the mountains trapped them as well. While steeped in sadness, moments of hope and triumph also exist, making this a book I could not put down. Just stunning.

All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armande Gamache #16) by Louise Penny

The. End. Over the course of sixteen months, reading one book a month, I was able to knock back this entire series. Louise Penny is the Agatha Christie of our lives, with the ability to develop rich sustainable characters, a memorable setting that feels like home from the very first page, and meticulously plotted whodunnits. Don't let this series intimidate you, as it did me - start with Still Life #1, and work your way through the lives of the residents of Three Pines. You will find yourself enmeshed in their lives and thoroughly entertained, guaranteed.

The Orchard by David Hopen

Aryeh Eden moves from his Ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhood to begin his senior year in the Florida high school where his world is turned upside down by his friendship with four other boys, and first female crush. It sounds so ordinary, yet debut author David Hopen turns this story into a tale of discovery, of finding who one is in the world through religion, through friendship, through education, through deep introspection. The writing is beautiful, particularly the boys' discussions with their principal, Rabbi Bloom. The tension is subtle, yet intense, an ever-present entity that pulled me inexorably into these boys' lives. At times, I felt like it was a Jewish version of Dead's Poet Society, yet at other times it felt like I was spying through a window into a place I did not belong. And the final explosive ending?! Mind blown. This book will haunt me for awhile.

Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair that Shaped a First Lady by Susan Quinn 

As a feminist, I am ashamed that I have never read anything about Eleanor Roosevelt, as in NOTHING, No fiction, no non-fiction, zip, nada, no words. How is E.R. not written about everywhere, or perhaps she is? Eleanor herself was a prolific writer; now that I know, I intend to go back to the primary source and check out her own musings on life, politics, social order, etc. This book focuses on her incredibly close friendship with reporter Lorene Hickock, perhaps romantic, perhaps deep friendship, perhaps something entirely beyond our understanding? Yet it really doesn't matter, and the story is not written to titillate. It tells the story of two women and their place in the 20th century, smack in the middle of some big historic moments. It was utterly fascinating; I enjoyed this audio enormously. If you're a history buff, I suspect you will as well. 

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Cute, a little silly, this mystery might have entertained me more if I had not just read The Windsor Knot, which quite frankly, was a better-written, implausible mystery. This one takes place in a retirement village, where a group of four elderly people have formed a club to investigate cold-case murders. Then, lo and behold, a couple murders wind up on their doorstep! For me, the author tried a bit too hard to be funny, winding up annoying me at times, rather than amusing me. I liked the main characters, but wanted a bit more background on some of them. The mystery plotting was well done, yet too many characters deciding to kill themselves, which was rather off-putting to the humorous tenor of the story. It is entertaining, but I don't believe I will be picking up the second in the series when it comes out.

April Reading

Vicious and Vengeful by V.E. Schwab

Two collge boys meet, discover a way to have a near death experience, which then turns them into ExtraOrdinary people. Sounds like a comic book, right? And that's a bit how these two books read for me. Since reading Schwab's latest hit, The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, I have voraciously read her backlist books: Darker Shades of Magic series (5-star!) and now this duology. I liked these, but didn't love them. Why? Well, let's just say I often asked myself what dark creatures live permanently inside V.E.'s brain. I mean, Shades was pretty dark, but these two books give a whole new meaning to the word. Lots of killing, and I mean LOTS. Some cool characters, definitely page turners, and uniquely creative, but the main characters are soul-less (for a reason, which makes sense), but it makes them less likely to find a way to root for or against them. Worth my time? For sure. Unforgettable? Absolutely. But be prepared for some messed up shit.

The Arsonists' City by Hala Alyan

This book had all the potential to be a hit with me, yet sadly it just missed the open target. A family drama involving Syrian and Lebanese cultures, a secretive parental past, three diametrically different siblings, and a house in Beirut. Perfect mix, right?! But I finished the final page just feeling meh. It’s loooooong, as in almost 500 pages. Every time I got interested in one person’s story, it turned to someone else. I couldn’t muster enough interest to cheer for or against any of the characters. And I didn’t learn anything about the historical background that created the century-long issues, which was one of my goals. I loved her first novel 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘵 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘴, and I know others have loved this one - just not for me, or just rotten timing in my life.

A Million Reasons Why by Jessica Strawser

A gift of DNA testing for the entire family - sounds fun, right? Learn where your ancestors came from, who you might be connected to, etc. etc. etc. Unless, of course, there's a secret illegitimate child in one's past. That's the premise of this well-written, family drama, where parents, children, friends all carry their past decisions heavy in their hearts. Strawser does a masterful job of developing her main characters, the two sisters Sela and Caroline, one who is single with a chronic disease, and one who juggles job, kids, and marriage. With that said, it's just not my typical go-to type of story, people with all-white characters who have no money struggles, who have easy access to medical care, who have a support network of friends and family. I wondered, at times, if the story could have found more depth throwing some of these issues in? But if you are drawn into deep, rich family dramas, with some predictability,  this book satisfies.

The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth

I'm a sucker for a good accent with an audio book - this one delivers with a story set in Melbourne, Australia. It's a twisty thriller, a bit predictable, but honestly, I just didn't care as I wanted to listen obsessively. It involves two sisters, Rose and Fern - Rose is controlling, Fern has sensory deficit disorder. As the story spins out their past history, as well as their present life issues surrounding love life, babies, jobs, it all gets reeeeeeal interesting. Looking for a brainless page turner? This one will do it!

A Court of Silver Flames (ACOTAR #4) by Sarah J. Maas

I have laughingly called A Court of Thorns and Roses fantasy series "Fairy Porn" for the last few years, cause it is. As in, we had to move it OUT of the YA section in the bookstore - like, yikes, these fairies have very active sex lives! But what Maas does as far as world-building is pretty terrific; she is a master of the genre. I didn't love this book quite as much as the previous three books, as the main lead, Nesta, is not my favorite. Yet she did grow on me. What I did love is how Maas used the trauma of the female characters to show a way out of their past and their pain, through hard physical exercise, by building their bodies to be able to not only defend themselves, but to become the aggressors. That was cool. 

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World AND Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt

Haig

Screen Time...it can be a deep dark rabbit hole, can’t it?! 𝘋𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮 gave me new eyes with which to view my phone and 𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘢 𝘕𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘵 reminded me that life is messy - that I need to be ready for it to throw me around a little but to stay engaged with the people I love not the technology that can be so damn enticing. During 2020, it just became easier and easier to put my nose in my phone since life had come to a stand still, but these two books helped me to figure out where the value is and to stick with that. No, I didn’t do the 30 day cleanse, but here’s what I did do: 1) Got rid of all my news apps on my phone. Now that idiot man isn’t in the Oval anymore, I don’t need to constantly check to see what area of America he set on fire. Joe’s in charge and I’m good. 2) I set screen time limits. 3) I validated my reasons for not engaging with FB or Twitter - they’re so addictive in a very poisonous way for me 4) I acknowledge what I get from IG - great book recs and some meaningful friendships. And that’s not nothing! But I’ve halved my screen time per week, as I slowly step back into life as a fully vaccinated human.