Winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, Invisible Child is an utterly heartbreaking, maddening, and necessary read.
Journalist Andrea Elliott embeds for eight years with a family, two parents and their 8 children, enduring poverty in NYC. Elliott focuses her spotlight on eldest child Dasani, 11-years-old in 2012 when Invisible Child begins, to share what it’s like to grow up housing insecure, hungry, disadvantaged, victimized, displaced, and trying to survive within a terribly broken system. Dasani and her family’s story underscores just how willing we are to invest in poverty and policing and broken cycles, setting people up for failure, rather than investing in success and improved outcomes or even just how unwilling we are to see the humanity of those caught up.
An incredible feat of reporting and a must read.
I listened to this on audio and it was excellent in that format!
Set in an all too familiar mundane suburb where the scariest thing one usually has to contend with is an overzealous HOA comes real evil.
When Amy’s friend Liz is possessed by a demon unearthed after breaking ground on her backyard She Shed Amy bands together with other neighborhood women to banish this evil entity back where it belongs all while coordinating volunteers for the upcoming school carnival.
Suburban Hell is a FUN read! There’s obviously some overlap with Grady Hendrix here, but while his books lean more towards horror Suburban Hell is more like Liane Moriarty decided to dip her toe into horror. Suburban Hell is women’s fiction domestic drama meets demonic forces and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s campy and absurd and at times horrifically funny – one scene involving a rogue robot vacuum had me chuckling out loud – and there is an admirable undercurrent of themes like the pressures of modern motherhood, the pitfalls of isolation, the importance of community, and the power of female friendships.
Suburban Hell is a fantastic addition for your Spooky Season reading!
Thanks to Netgalley and Putnam Books for the advanced reading opportunity.
Told with a non-linear timeline The Island of Missing Trees takes us from 1970s Cypress amidst rising tensions between the island’s citizens to modern day London following a family: Greek Christian, Kosta, Turkish Muslim, Defne, and their daughter, Ada, as told through the narration of a fig tree central to their story.
The Island of Missing Trees has love, division, war, joy, tragedy, and interconnectedness. It’s a story of secrets, generational and lasting trauma, the dual sided impact of separation and violence, the displacement of immigration, and the places love can lead us. I would have maybe loved some deeper characterization, but I really appreciated this story.
Four highschool friends, now in their mid-thirties, come together for one last beach hurrah after one of them is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Each is struggling in their own way and has hidden those struggles from the others through the slight of hand of distance and time.
Much like the reunion in the book, despite the sad circumstances All Together Now is ultimately sweet, nostalgic, and life-affirming, plus (Imaginary) Taylor Swift makes an appearance.
The plot is entertaining enough and I really enjoy Matthew Norman’s playful yet insightful writing style.
All Together Now would make for an excellent beach/travel read!
Three years ago friends Katrina and Nathan together wrote a breakout bestselling novel. Shortly after publication their writing partnership was kaput amidst much speculation and silence from the duo. Now, they’re forced together again, back to the Florida bungalow where the magic happened to fulfill their contract and produce one last book together. But more than flowery prose is blooming by the last page.
I recall quite a bit of hype surrounding The Roughest Draft at one time followed by some lackluster reviews.
TL;DR: it was a bit of an uneven read for me but I didn’t hate it!
First, this book gives off major beach read/rom-com vibes, yeah? I mean, GREAT cover, but it doesn’t fit this book at all. It’s a romance, but a pretty melancholy one, not what I’d expect to be sporting a happy pink cover.
Second, it’s blurbed by Lyssa Kay Adams of Bromance Book Club fame. The style is not at all congruent with Adams’. Not a good tone to set.
I think The Roughest Draft is suffering from marketing related issues.
The Roughest Draft has rom, but no com. It’s more of a rom-dram(a).
Nathan and Katrina are struggling with both professional doubt and their romantic feelings for one another. The chemistry abounds between these two and the story is very character driven. I think the problem (other than the incongruent marketing) is this character driven story lags in the middle due to lack of development. We never really get to know Nathan and Katrina outside of their couple dynamic and without a strong plot to propel the narrative it just kind of spins its wheels for a bit. Maybe the story could have benefitted from more editing?
That said, I quite liked the beginning and end and I really dug the way the MCs communicated through their fictional writing. With proper expectations The Roughest Draft isn’t bad, I found it refreshingly different within the romance genre.
Also, the book is written by a husband and wife duo and it was really interesting reading about dynamics of co-authoring. While reading I was wondering how much of themselves they wrote into this story.
Two families of childhood best friends vacation on an exclusive island off the coast of South Carolina. One family is wealthy, the other working poor; before the trip is over tragedy befalls them.
I loved both The Gunners and Chorus. When I saw Rebecca Kauffman had released a book between the two and it was a vacation type read I knew I had to prioritize it this summer.
Unfortunately The House on Fripp Island didn’t quite live up to expectations. I found this a serviceable beach read, but lacking the depth of characterization I appreciate in Kauffman’s other novels and very much wanted from this story.
Last Summer on State Street is a coming-of-age story, a story of childhood ending through time, displacement, and loss of innocence. Set in Chicago’s Robert Taylor housing projects in the summer of 1999 as 12-year-old Fe Fe and her 3 friends navigate growing violence and the impending demolition of their home.
Last Summer on State Street is an impressive and impactful debut from author Toya Wolfe. Wolfe grew up in the Robert Taylor housing projects and obviously knows the world intimately. I think the overall takeaway of the story is meant to be something along the lines of how some can rise above their experience, true and inspiring, but reading left me feeling heartbroken for how pervasive the systemic impact of things like poverty and racism despite individual resistance.
This little book packs a punch for being just over 200 pages (and a debut novel at that!) These characters and their stories are sure to stay with me. Definitely one to sneak in before summer ends!
Carrie Soto, “the Battle Axe”, infamous, merciless, an unbeatable champion. Just shy of 30 she’s the greatest tennis player of all time, achieving everything she’s ever worked for, lived for. Soon her career is cut short due to injuries and ego. Now, five years and one surgery later, she can’t stand to watch her records taken from her by up-and-comer Nikki Chan so at age 37 she’s donning her tennis whites and heading to the court, ready to compete again and defend her legacy – Carrie Soto is back!
Some reviewers have found Carrie hard to like and, well, that’s the point! Carrie doesn’t exist to be liked, she’s here to win. She excels at her sport and knows it and wants to be judged on her skill, how she plays, not who she is. Self-assured, no nonsense women are rarely adored by the world at large. And that kind of single minded determination can be isolating – it’s lonely at the top. Carrie has worked hard for her achievements, but she’s also sacrificed a lot to get where she is, her comeback is about more than just tennis.
Carrie Soto is certainly in the running for my favorite TJR character. I love unapologetic women. In a world which has very distinct ideas and expectations for how women should look, think, and act I love a woman who goes her own way.
I was somewhat skeptical when I knew the story was going to be tennis focused – I’m not much for the sportsball – but I appreciate a story which can make me care about topics I have no interest in and before the end of Carrie’s journey I was googling plenty about 80s/90s tennis, including a deep dive into the history of clay tennis courts.
The sport aspect actually created an exciting element and I loved the relationship between Carrie and her dad/trainer Javier (though I am curious of the choice to write Latinx characters), Bowe is a total hunk, and I, of course, loved seeing the way Carrie’s story intersects with others in the TJR world and I’m dying to know whether anyone from Carrie will be the next TJR star!
Thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine for the advanced review opportunity.
Nora is a literary agent, a Big Apple ice queen who is repeatedly dumped by boyfriends who go off to some small town only to discover their Hallmark-esque HEA. Nora’s little sister, with whom she has a bit of a codependent relationship because: trauma, insists on a girls getaway to the cutest little small town straight from the pages of Nora’s bestselling author’s hit novel in hopes of creating a happily ever after for her sister.
Though Nora is a good sport the only small town hunk she keeps bumping into is Charlie, her editor nemesis from back in the city. He’s in town to help at his family’s struggling bookstore while his dad recovers from a stroke. Nora and Charlie just might find their version of Hallmark romance despite themselves.
You guys, this book is called Book Lovers. It’s written by Emily Henry. There’s no way this wasn’t going to be a hit with me.
I loved the bookishness. I loved slightly nerdy, antihero Charlie. I loved tightly wound Nora; Type As are worthy of love too, ok? I loved the small town setting and the ironic Hallmark vibes. I’m always here for the signature Emily Henry banter, which I understand is too much for some people, but it’s just the right amount of too much for me.
I disliked the overuse of the name “sissy”, I’ll admit. It is grating and I happily could have done without it completely, but pobody’s nerfect as they say.
I’m already greedily anticipating EH’s next book slated to release in spring 🤗 <~ this is me with arms outstretched towards Happy Place.
Did I know what I needed in my life right now was a sapphic Sasquatch horror comedy?
No.
But I absolutely did!
A group travels to the Pacific Northwest to film the finale of a Bachelor-esque (un)reality show and the contestants, there for all the right reasons , find love in all the wrong places, or at least one of them does, after their party encounters the island’s inhabitants – both human and otherwise.
I never tire of reality dating or social media satire and Patricia has this in spades. Patricia Wants to Cuddle is a quick, campy read. At just over 250 pages it could bear further development, but I did find this both a unique and fun read, absurd and entertaining in the best of ways!
That Bookish Life 