September 2.0

 Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune

For everyone who wonders about the Great Unknown, who questions, who fears, who grieves, whose heart needs healing after a terrible year of loss for so many people around the world, this book is just the salve the doctor ordered. I’ve already preordered my hard copy for the Sept. 21 pub date. In Klune's latest book following up his huge hit 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘚𝘦𝘢, his main character Wallace 'wakes' to find himself...dead. And let's be real, Wallace was an ass - a hateful, selfish, greedy ass in his former living self. The characters we meet help Wallace onto his next journey, and I suspect you’ll fall as madly in love with Nelson, Hugo, and Mei as I did. (And the dog, Apollo, broke me in beautiful wonderful ways.) I haven't wept over the final pages of a book like this since Dumbledore died (HP) and the Thirteen crashed into the mountain (ToG). I mean, seriously. My heart grew three sizes in the 24 hours it took to read this book and I want to buy a copy to shove in everyone's hands. I loved this book a ridiculous amount. "𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦." "𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥?" "𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦."

The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons

Don’t compare this one to Ove - seriously. Eudora deserves her own credit, not to be shared with anyone, trust me. This book brought me SNAP out of my reading slump! It is the story of an 85 year old woman who is tired of life, who wants to go out on her own terms, so she contacts a Swiss company about assisted suicide. Thus begins the story of Eudora Honeysett, a woman who never married or had children, who lived through the Blitz, who had complicated relationships with family members, who is unfailingly polite, kind, intelligent, and thoughtful. I fell madly in love with Eudora and I think you will as well! Highly recommend the audio as the British accent is perfection and the voices for the delightful characters are just that…Dee-Lightful.

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

Honest review ahead, as always…I hoped this one would save my September but alas, it joined the other disappointing reads of the month. The one victory for me was that I did not DNF it, as much as I wanted to. Yes, the writing is beautiful but…there was too much of it for me. Long paragraphs of verbose description comprised the majority of the story. The characters were plentiful…as in, I needed a cast list to keep track of everyone. And with all the descriptive writing, I could never really find the depth of each man in order to care about them. And yes, they were all men. The few women in the story were mostly bystanders, never fully fleshed out. Admittedly, I love strong female leads (ie Toni Morrison, Brit Bennett, Alice Walker, etc) so this book with its male-centric focus was less enjoyable for me. The neighborhood of Harlem is truly the main character and Whitehead fully develops Harlem so that we hear the pulse, we see the heart, we sense the anger and frustration from the long arms of historic racism; that is the genius of his writing.

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny

“It’s about what happens when gullibility and fear meet greed and power…People will believe anything. Doesn’t make them stupid, just desperate.” I was so excited to pick up the latest LP book after reading all 16 books in the series since January 2020 - I was sure it would lift me out of my reading slump. It was…fine. Things I Loved: The characters - it was like being back with family. The themes of compassion, strength, love - LP is always powerful weaving those into a mystery and she uses those well in the trauma of the pandemic. Things I Did Not Love: use of pandemic being magically over due to vaccines (cause that didn’t  happen thanks to anti-vaxxers) - just seemed off to me (I also suspect she thought it WOULD be over when book went to print!) Also, mystery was intriguing but honestly, took too long for the big reveal - got a bit repetitious for the first time for me. Was it worth it? Hell yeah - I mean, I adore Armand and his gang. And maybe I’m being too picky? Or maybe much of it was too close to home? Ultimately, this one was good, but not great for me. 

No One Will Miss Her by Kat Rosenfield

A dead body, the town pariah, a nasty privileged woman, a nosy policeman…a good mix of characters to pull me into this thriller. Let’s be honest - most thrillers these days I find fairly unthrilling, but this one had me from page one. First - the victim is quite compelling. Raised in the town junkyard by a single, alcoholic father, bullied by other children, vilified by the townspeople as she grew up, Lizzie is a complicated woman. And the rich woman, Adrienne, who rents Lizzie’s lake house? Wow. Just wow. She is the poster child for White-Rich-Privileged-Entitled. After her husband bilks millions from innocent investors, the couple is cut off from society but heck, who cares as long as they still have their own money?! This book has some jaw dropping twists, some implausibilities that I could easily ignore in the name of entertainment, and some compelling characters. 

Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

Yikes…I can do dark but this book takes the concept of “dark” to a new galaxy, at least for me. I really liked the concept: missing sister from twenty years ago, while story follows the two other sisters and the fall out in their lives. It IS a page turner with crazy plot twists buuuuut the violence and sexual deviancy was just too much for me. Literally gave me nightmares. Yes, I finished it but felt like I needed a really long excruciatingly hot shower to cleanse my soul. 

All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban

You know those books that have a really cool sounding plot, but don’t have the most stellar reviews? And then you pick it up thinking “Nah, I’m sure some readers are just too picky!” Well… I’m hear to say you all were right about this one. Good grief, what a waste of time. And I love YA - mysteries, romance, fantasy. A good YA gives kids hope as well as solid entertainment. In the case of this book, it gives teens sexist stereotypes (“Boys, you save the girls - they’re too weak and stupid to do anything!”), implausible plot twists (everyone’s gonna believe the “pick someone to die or you all die” scholarship dinner?), and poorly handles online bullying and suicide (I found it lacking in authentic information and solutions). So yeah, in this case, the reviews were accurate. 

The Second Mrs. Astor by Shana Abe

This book had me at “Titanic;” Yes, I loved the movie years ago and I do love a good historical fiction book. If you like romance, a story people with Uber rich, Uber privileged Gilded Era characters, and some small bits of history thrown in, this book may satisfy you. For me, I wanted more…more details on the wild crush of press surrounding the second Mrs. Astor, more on who this woman was, more on the Astors themselves, and definitely more on the Titanic itself (that was just the final 40% of the book)Lots of description of parties, of clothing, of fancy food - I think my taste just ruins to more character depth and history. But it was a nice palate cleanser after a dark and gritty thriller:)

September

 Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney

I fell in love with Rooney when I read Normal People; she has a gift for making ordinary young lives compelling, frustrating, passionate, sorrowful, aggravating, and thoroughly authentic. She does the same for me in her latest book, which focuses on two college friends, stepping into a world not of their making, trying to muddle their way through it. As a young millennial in my life once told me, "Your generation pretty much F-ed up the world and left it for my generation to clean up - you broke the economy, you denied us healthcare, you overcharged us for college, and you destroyed the environment." It's tough to argue with that. And Rooney takes that all on in the lives of Eileen and Alice, in their work lives, their love lives, and their correspondence with one another. At times, I was annoyed with the stream of consciousness emails, yet as I finished the book, I realized it was their way to process out how to find their way to beauty in the world in which they lived, to clean up the muck they, and we,  had created. Sometimes these two women are whiny, needy, all together irritating; occasionally I wanted heroics from them. But is that real? Probably not. And in the end, this book is thoroughly genuine, down into its bones, at least it was for me. The audio is solid gold, with a lovely Irish lilt telling the story - highly recommend.

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

A new book from the author of Girl on a Train (yes, that's the only one of her's I have read and yes, I did love it), this one left me...meh. It starts with a murder, of course. A young man is found in a narrowboat in a town in England and three women connected to him tell the tale. First, there is Laura, the young woman who slept with him the night before his death; disabled from a childhood accident, Laura has so many issues and such a complex history that it was hard to keep straight. Next is Miriam, the neighbor who finds him, who has some secrets and history of her own to deal with. And then there's Carla, his aunt, with an author for an ex-husband and a dead child. While I loved the British accent and the narration by Rosamund Pike, the voices got confusing as it was just Pike's voice so if I wasn't paying close attention, I lost the plot line. Perhaps I would have enjoyed this more in physical form? Yet at times the plot line just felt very jumbled. So ultimately, I felt like this thriller was less than thrilling.

Rock, Paper, Scissors by Alice Feeney

The first two Feeney books I read were a Hit (Sometimes I Lie) and a Miss (His & Hers), so I skipped her third book. Yet her fourth book has pulled me back a bit into the Feeney fan club. Her latest is a twisty tale of a married couple, with each spouse getting to tell his/her side of the life of their marriage. Adam is a writer, dreaming of his own screen play Rock, Paper, Scissors getting produced while adapting other writer's books into huge hits. Amelia works at an animal shelter, has few friends, and comes across a bit whiny and needy. Both are completely unreliable. Or are they? Feeney has some great twists and turns in this one, leaving my jar hanging down a few times, and other times wondering about plausibility and coincidence? But I was thoroughly entertained thus making this thriller a "Win" for me.

56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard

Hype is REAL…Intriguing to read pandemic-setting stories lately - I wonder how many of those we will get???? But this one, involving two people who decide to spend lockdown together, definitely delivered. Throw in a a dead body and a ton of secrets in their pasts, some plausible twists, some well planned rabbit holes, and solid writing, and I suspect it will keep you up as late at night as it did me. For once, a thriller that thrilled me.

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

This is such a unique, intriguing, creative book, with a compelling main character named Martha. Martha is...different. Some people label her weird, or crazy, or quirky, or bitchy, or all the other negative terminology one can come up with when a person doesn't fit into the prescribed set of behaviors. And when we first meet her, she's laugh out loud funny, also cringe-worthy, also maybe a bit mean. But Martha's life has gone sidways ever since her teen years when she was struck with debilitating mental illness. The author never names it; instead, Mason gives us details of how her illness manifests, never allowing us to label Martha as everyone else in her life has. We see Martha's past and all her struggles, as well as her 'now', as her marriage falls apart. As much as I enjoyed this character study and unique plot line, it was a sad read for me, filled with small bits of humor and tiny victories.

For Your Own Good by Samantha Downing

This is the most despicable, detestable, abhorrent,  yet like able, cast of characters - I know, bit of a conundrum. Yet I could not put this book down. It combined all my favorites - a school setting, an English Lit teacher, murder, and mayhem. What more could one ask for?! At times, it all hit too close to home. I mean, what teacher hasn’t had issues with entitled parents who think Johnny is the best thing since sliced bread? Or the spoiled student who seems ‘above’ doing the homework in your class as it’s beneath them. Or the headmaster who doesn’t give two shits about his staff members but sure knows how to schmooze the important people with far wallets. Yet…we don’t murder them, right? Well, in this book, all bets are off. It’s fabulous - pick it up and I dare you to be able to put it down!

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

Another depressing, yet beautifully written, Oprah book choice. Does she ever pick a book that isn't riddled with pain, death, life-challenging struggles? Don't get me wrong - I enjoy juicy books of characters arm-wrestling life, but I was just not in the right head space for this one. Set in 1865, right as the Civil War is ending and slaves are finding their freedom, Harris writes a gorgeous tale of white couple who takes in two brothers and pays them to work. What a concept back then, thus serious backlash ensues. The writing is gorgeous, yet not my particularly favorite style (verbose, descriptive, long paragraphs), and the characters are fully fleshed out and incredibly compelling. I suspect I would have liked it more if I was able to give it more attention.