reading lately: September roundup

My September reading included a number of pleasant surprises: Lady Tremaine was a successful foray into fairy tale-ish stories, not something I usually love; Into the Blue was quite an enjoyable read from an author whose first book I didn't love; The Dentist is the start of a British detective series that I think I'm going to really grow to love; The Land and Its People wasn't at all a surprise in being 5 stars (it's David Sedaris after all), but the audiobook format was a fun format that enhanced the reading experience even more. Reviews of everything below!

Contemporary/literary fiction

Into the Blue: AJ Graves dreams of getting out of her small Massachusetts town to someday be a writer on SNL, but her college prospects are unsure and she's pending the summer working at a video rental shop, whiling away her downtime watching a cult favorite sci-fi improv TV show from the 1970s. One day she's introduced to her new co-worker - Noah Drew, youngest of an acting dynasty, come to stay with his aunt Eudora Drew, a reclusive local and one of the stars of this show AJ is so obsessed with. They connect over their appreciation of it, and then their connection goes even deeper as they start taking acting/improv lessons together; as this electric bond between them starts to develop as well into a romantic one, Noah disappears from her life suddenly. We meet them next just after AJ's college graduation, and after Noah has returned to Hollywood and become a major heartthrob, when they are both involved in a reboot of the sci-fi improv show. AJ is still angry over the abandonment, but their undeniable connection is still there. The reason for their separation finally comes out, and while Noah still believes he is protecting AJ by not committing to a romantic relationship, their lives part again, but keep coming back together... The subtitle "A love story" is the correct indicator - this is not a romance with its traditional arc and tropes; it's the story of a friendship that turns quickly to an artistic bond and from there to an electric and unshakeable connection, love that both is passionate and feels like belonging or home, one that remains strong even when the characters try to sever it for various reasons. I'd call it a mash-up of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow + Deep Cuts + Me Before You, as it has this longtime creative partnership (improv/acting rather than video games, but just as in-depth and nerdy) with one of the pair hitting it big and becoming famous their while the other remains a bit in the shadows, along with an emotional illness/caretaker/end-of-life considerations aspect. I would definitely recommend this read even if I had a number of quibbles that keep it from being 5 stars: While I liked the behind-the-scenes of improv/acting/comedy writing, I sometimes struggled to care about the nitty-gritty of the characters and the lore in this cult favorite (fictional) series - especially the sci-fi of it all - so it made the book feel overly long at times. And the back and forth on AJ and Noah's relationship felt self-indulgent at times, as their inability/unwillingness to commit to each other for various reasons makes them miserable and also hurts the other people in their lives (such as the various other people they end up dating). Plus Noah's insistence that they can't be together because he wants AJ to have a "normal" life, which manifests in having no contact unless they run into each other and then he is soooo nice and swoony, and then goes back to radio silence - that got a tad old! And made the middle section drag a bit. But overall I cannot deny how wrapped up I got in this story and its characters, and I couldn't put it down for the last third. I don't always love a "sweeping" book in terms of covering multiple decades, but this worked well to get depth to the characters and their story and their chemistry, plus they were approximately my age, so the decade-specific references landed well for me. The reading experience felt immersive and emotional in a way that other love stories haven't quite hit for me recently, aside from things like Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (though this one a bit less literary) and also the smart and touching under-the-radar book Love Is an Algorithm, published earlier this year. ★★★★.25

Royal Spin: I love a British royals drama/rom-com, so the premise of this one - following a White House press officer who is reeling from an awful breakup and escapes DC by taking a job with the communications team at Buckingham Palace - caught my attention, and I was even more intrigued when I saw that it is dual authored, by an author whose YA work I have enjoyed, along with a royal biographer/journalist. Lauren is thrown right into the deep end in her new job, with various lesser royal family members making faux pas that need handling via press releases and hiring a diversity officer; fusty, set-in-their-ways royal aides who resist Lauren's ideas; the rabid British journalism scene (and maybe a bit of fraternizing with one cute and charming journalist...); and a very handsome, newly single nephew of the queen who has returned to the fold after living in New Zealand for years. Overall I found it a very fun read with the (fictional) behind-the-scenes look at a group of behind-the-scenes palace employees, down to how unglamorous and mundane their office spaces are, for being in a royal household. Would recommend for fans of the recent book The Heir Apparent, especially for the angle on the royal family member who has opted out and has to consider whether to come back to royal duties. But I would say that while fun, this one was not pulled off nearly as successfully as a whole. It might be partly because it doesn't quite work as a rom-com in terms of tropes/story arc; it's a lot more focused on Lauren's journey to building up her life and career and female friendships after leaving DC, but it's also too much of a "brain candy" kind of book to really be a character-driven book. And for all of the love triangle and royal drama and such, there's really not all that much plot to speak of - while I was enjoying the reading experience, I kept feeling like the plot wasn't going anywhere and some things were kind of repetitive. Maybe a result of having 2 authors? In any case, if you need some royal-adjacent drama in your life and you've already read The Royal We, The Heir Apparent, and American Royals - this is a good cozy up with option. ★★★.5

Mystery/thriller

The Dentist: In this first installment in a British detective procedural series, George Cross, a detective sergeant who is on the autism spectrum, turns his attention to detail and his persistence to the case of a homeless man who was killed in what the other officers think of as a random act of violence - but George can see there is more to this mystery than meets the eye, and he eventually connects it to a cold case despite his colleagues' skepticism and/or exasperation at his methods and mannerisms. It's a fairly standard procedural in terms of plotting, (not super fast) pacing, and (sometimes a bit spotty) writing, but in terms of character development it felt just as much about this as it did about the mystery. His Asberger's (not what it is called any longer, but it is in the book) is in many ways his super power in having an extremely high solve rate - amazing memory capacities, strong ability to spot patterns in data, absolute belief that things must be done correctly, so he will pursue correctness until he finds the answer. But it doesn't make him into some kind of rainman character. It also shows the difficulties he has in working in the department, whether it's from sensory overwhelm that makes him need to leave the room, or whether it's difficulty in working with others because he doesn't well understand social/emotional cues. He's had to teach himself to adapt to all of this, having gone through mean treatment by others in the department in his younger years; we also see how his partner Josie has learned to adapt to George as well, despite some legitimate frustrations in being "stuck" working with him. I liked that while this detective has some of the hallmarks of a stereotypical detective - like loner qualities and/or difficulty getting along with others, and a single-minded obsession with his work - these qualities are not anti-social or self-destructive behaviors, but instead are a result of his being on the autism spectrum. It gives a detective story a different angle, which makes it more interesting, and also a bit more empathy-inducing. Despite mentions that George himself doesn't particularly feel empathy... While less comedic and caper-ish, I would say this could be for fans of the Thursday Murder Club series for it being a puzzle type mystery without much suspense or gore, and a character with some idiosyncrasies. Plus the development of side characters like detective partner Josie and department assistant Alice that make it clear that they will become more major players in subsequent books, in ways that play nicely off the protagonist. I will definitely look to read more in this series when I'm looking for an easy yet satisfying detective read. ★★★.5

Historical fiction

Lady Tremaine: I'm not much of a fairy tale/fantasy reader, but a retelling of a classic tale that reframes the woman at the center of it and gives her agency (if not power - it's a man's world after all) is usually intriguing - Circe being my favorite entry in this subgenre. So I was willing to try this retelling of the Cinderella story that is narrated by the stepmother commonly thought of as "evil" - but when we see the story from her perspective, we can see her actions in a whole new light. The publisher tagline calls it Bridgerton meets Circe (which I actually didn't see until after I read it), and this feels like a decent comparison, capturing how it feels more like historical fiction than a fairy tale in the telling of the manors and ball, and capturing how this seemingly vengeful woman was actually just doing what needed to be done for her family's wellbeing and safety out of female fierceness/resourcefulness and strong maternal instinct - but not by any means doing it perfectly, as a flawed character who sometimes lets this fierceness get in the way of relationships in the here and now. This is not the Disney version of Cinderella with fairy godmothers and pastel colors; it's more of the dark forests and sinister undertones vibe. Ethel can feel a cutthroat or conniving at times, but seeing things from her perspective, we can see her as a victim of circumstances - having lost two husbands and left pretty much penniless to raise 3 girls in a crumbling house, she has had to toughen up and take matters into her own hands, from hunting for food to doing whatever she can to secure husbands (i.e. financial security) for her daughters. We can see why her relationship with the stepdaughter might not be nearly as good as the one with her daughters, as in this telling they all need to pitch in to survive (and keep up appearances of being a genteel family in the meantime), but Elin refuses, thinking that chores are beneath a lady. Cleverly, the author brings the "cinder" part of it when the invitation to the royal ball arrives, as they have to figure out some way to pay for dresses and Ethel insists that if Elin is going to be allowed to attend the ball she must finally do her part to earn some money by collecting the ashes from their fireplaces and selling them. It starts out a bit slow, but it lays the stage in an interesting way, pulling threads from the Cinderella story we all have in mind and placing them in this new context, but then about 60% in the story takes a darker turn when it goes beyond where we usually think of Cinderella ending, and it actually becomes pretty action-packed. When Elin and the prince become engaged, Ethel discovers a sordid secret about the royal family, and ends up at a crossroads - let Elin be married off into this problematic situation but reap the benefits of proximity to the palace and thus a future for her other daughters, or try to protect Elin but incur the wrath of the prince and the queen... Drama ensues. I was pretty hooked by Ethel's voice from the beginning but wasn't sure how a whole book could be made out of her until the plot part took up any slack created by Ethel starting to feel too dislikeable - and I was riveted. Some of the characters felt a bit caricature in villainy, but Ethel's character had depth and growth, and I appreciated the growth and changes in her relationship with Elin too. ★★★★.25

City of Girls: Starting in the 1940s when she is kicked out of Vassar for never going to class, Vivian tells the story of her formative coming-of-adulthood experience being exiled with her parents to live with her "spinster" aunt and a cast of bohemians and actors and showgirls in a ramshackle but boisterous New York City theatre (of course unbeknownst to her proper and wealthy parents what she was getting up to with drinking and carousing in these circles). It's narrated as a letter to a younger woman, Angela, who has asked about Vivan's relationship with Angela's father. So there's a tad bit of narrative mystery that has us wondering through the many years that Vivian discusses, the early wild and partying times, the bleak but professionally hardworking WWII years, the post-war experience of building her own career and found family, what man in this story is Angela's father, and why she would be asking about Vivian's relationship with him. But the story is really about Vivian's life and how all of her experiences and what she took from them convinced her that she could be a good person without being what society would consider a "good girl" - and how she came to own this about herself rather than capitulate to the expectations of a respectable woman of her age/class. In her unacknowledged privilege and her teenaged selfishness/cluelessness, not to mention her general debaucherous lifestyle when she first moves to New York, Vivian was not my favorite character for quite a while there... but that's a benefit of this type of "look back" narration, a fictional version of a memoir where the person has had time to process all of the events and their actions/reactions in the situations, to acknowledge and learn from their mistakes, and to show maturity and growth over the story arc. While a woman's sexual expression and freedom were one of the themes in the book, I really could have done without a couple of particular scenes - and honestly, I almost quit the book quite early on, in the section where Vivian describes how she went about deciding to lose her virginity, her experience gave me so much ick - so that took it down a notch in my estimation, but overall I'd say it's more raucous than explicit. Generally would recommend this book for any readers who like historical fiction that showcases a woman ahead of her time in terms of forging her own way in the world. I liked Vivian's strong narrative voice, and while I thought it was overall a tad on the long side, the book read quite quickly. ★★★.75

Nonfiction/memoir

The Land and Its People: What an absolute pleasure this listening experience was! I pre-ordered the hard copy in time for its summer release, but then when it came to it I really just had to wait in line for a library copy of the audio version. If you're a David Sedaris fan, you know how great it is to hear him in his own voice, and this audiobook was even better because it was made up of live recordings of him doing readings for audiences. Made me feel like I was at an event in person - so fun. This book of essays, like many Sedaris books in the past, lets you see the world through his observational and endlessly curious eyes (the way he collects stories is something else!), and the humor about the absurdity of the world, the playful approach to relating to others and to the world, always makes me laugh out loud but also manages to get at some profound things. These essays in particular seem to be Sedaris at his most (hilariously) curmudgeonly and inflexible about interactions with others, as he nears 70 (yet seems willing to acknowledge his own faults as much as he points out the flaws and foibles of others), but at the same time maybe his most poignant as he reflects in some about things like people he has lost (the one about the names he just can't make himself delete from his contacts made me tear up) and about family relationships. I might not be remembering well enough his previous collections to compare accurately, but it also felt like it was him at his most acknowledging of his current position of rich and famous. It's clear he still works incredibly hard at his writing, not to mention touring, but there's quite a bit about the people he has been able to meet, the multiple homes he has and the obvious means to do whatever he'd like with them, the many countries he visits to add to the "Countries I Have Visited" list he keeps on his computer, and the invite he got along with a bunch of comedians such as Stephen Colbert, Jim Gaffigan, Jimmy Fallon, and Julia Louis Dreyfuss to meet the Pope at the Vatican. I didn't see this as bragging in any way, but instead a really interesting behind-the-scenes, and a compelling story arc from the mentions of moving to New York in his early 30s with no prospects to what he has accomplished along the way with his hard work and talent (plus, all of his super not rich person seeming habits that he still maintains, like obsessively logging his step count and Duo Lingo streak, and picking up roadside trash near his home in England). If you've never read Sedaris I might start with earlier work to get to know him and then work your way through chronologically, but if you already know and enjoy his writing, you should know that this one is great. ★★★★★

American Men: Journalist Jordan Ritter Conn details the lives of four American men in portraits that feel very complete and intimate and vulnerable, written in a narrative style that really reads like a story, one that is meant to examine what it is to be a man in America, and to look at the relationship that different men have with the concept of "masculinity", how it shapes them or how they shape their perception of it, at different points in their youth, teens, and adulthood. I thought it was really well written in terms of being engaging and compelling; I listened on audio and thought it was great in this format because the narrative alternated among characters, so the sections were fairly short for listening, and the way the author paused the story created some narrative drive/tension (though admittedly on audio I did have trouble keeping track of their various backstories and family members' names at first). At the general human experience level, I appreciated this book as an in-depth look at the lives of ordinary people, the kind that don't have some big achievement or whatever that would make them the subject of a published biography, especially in how it brought so many experiences different from my own by covering men who are trans, gay, straight, white, Black, Native, military veterans, and who had different levels of education and socioeconomic status and childhood struggles/traumas. Their life stories left me thinking a bit about what it means for an ordinary person's life to be a good and worthy one - as in, what do we do with what we've been dealt in life, if we're lucky enough to be able to make some choices about how we're going to respond to our childhood experiences and adulthood bumps in the road, to make a life that matters to us and others. And then on the male-specific level, I appreciated this sort of behind-the-scenes in how these men approached their lives, and the assumptions they made or insecurities they had. As a woman my concept of "masculinity" is shaped by my own vulnerabilities or experiences, and I haven't often gotten quite this clear of a picture of what it's like to live with societal expectations/assumptions about masculinity. I did wish that the author delved into this a bit more in specific, or added some social commentary, but he really doesn't editorialize on the experiences of or attitudes of the men in the story (his introduction to the book actually examines these things a bit more, and I really found the introduction compelling) - so to be more informative in a generalizable way, I think this book is a good jumping off point for discussions. I am hoping my husband will read it, and then find openings for conversations about whether he faced some of these issues as a kid, or how he feels about them now. As far as being a mother of boys, I think that it is a bit less compelling in terms of relating their experiences of being a boy/man in America; as best I can tell, the men portrayed in this book were born in the late 70s/early 80s, and I think (hope?) there's a big generational difference for childhood in terms of social media and smart phones, attitudes about LGBTQ issues, and so on - but it would still be a useful jumping off point for some conversations with my teen about how he perceives expectations of masculinity among his peers and whether he feels pressure to conform to any particular ones. ★★★★

 

reading lately: August roundup

Right off the bat, I have to state my apologies: the best book I read this month isn't publishing until... December. But for myself, I am definitely glad I read it this early, because my month needed it amidst the several disappointments in this roundup 😑 Put Rabbit Rabbit on your TBR in any case - it will actually be perfect reading for beginning a new year, as you'll see.

Literary/contemporary fiction

Rabbit Rabbit: As she rings in the New Year on a girls' trip to Florence with her two best friends, 39-year-old and very single film editor Billie makes a big decision for her next year: she is going to become a mother. But then minutes later she hits it off with a Scottish guy at the bar. The magical connection they have and their personalities/interests make them seem absolutely perfect for each other, aside from the deal-breaker: he doesn't ever want to have kids. We revisit Billie on the first of the month throughout this life-changing year as she pursues the path she has decided on but as she also continues to connect with Arthur across continents and time zones - and faces the decision about which way to go when her heart is pulled in two equally strong and important directions. I really loved Jennifer E. Smith's The Unsinkable Greta James - less so the book that followed it because I thought the cast of main characters was a bit big - but she is back to form in this one, focusing on a central character with a believable and easy to love romantic interest and an enjoyable set of supporting characters. I loved that it has some rom-com feels in the banter, the cuteness of the developing relationship, and the dreamy qualities that just wrap you up in their story - but that it is no standard rom-com with the standard tropes and the (usually eye-rollingly avoidable) miscommunication/break-up before the 3rd act and without the alternating perspectives between the two leads - I much prefer having just the heroine's perspective, honestly. It's more about a woman at a crossroads, deciding what she wants the rest of her life to be. First and foremost that's whether she wants to have kids, and then next it's whether that's also going to involve pursuing a romantic partner. Her 39-going-on-40 status makes her feel relatable to me of course, and I love a character who is confident and competent in life and work (plus love an interesting job behind-the-scenes!) but just has this life consideration/decision that she's working through, especially as relates to having reached mid-life. It's a book that's easy to sink into and an absolute pleasure to read, but it isn't flippant or fluffy, written with wit and warmth and some depth of character. In this vein would recommend for fans of Linda Holmes as well. ★★★★.25

Everything That Is Beautiful: Niamh Ryan is like the honorary extra child in the expansive and exuberant Foley household, running around the farm with their kids, playing on hurley teams coached by their father Liam, a national legend in this amateur sport, and being doted on by their mother Helen - a far cry from Niamh's own household where she's an only child, her mom is a bit cold and critical, and her dad is an alcoholic. But though she continues to live in the area as a 20-something school teacher, Niamh hasn't set foot in the Foley house for the last 3 years, ever since an inciting incident broke down the relationships. A wedding for one of the Foley siblings is now forcing them back into proximity, and to finally addressing and hashing out the event and ensuing disagreement that pulled them apart. It took me a little while to get all of the characters and their relationships straight, and also to get accustomed to the format - it almost reads as interconnected short stories, since the focus changes among characters each chapter and the author drops us in at different intervals, rather than presenting a linear narrative. It means you have to fill in a bit between the lines, or that you get different angles on what happened in the past. But like with Donal Ryan's Heart, Be at Peace (another Irish novel I read earlier this year, a more literary/gritty one though), by the end it felt like the best way to tell this story. I'd say it's mostly character driven; the "inciting incident" is a plot point, sure, but it's not this huge unfolding of story in terms of plot, more of an instance that is used to examine family/friendship relationships and how they fray and mend, and how they inform who we are (or think ourselves to be). The writing had me completely immersed in this Irish community's life, and though the actions of the central women in this story were sometimes hard to understand, they felt like three-dimensional people with flaws and complications and with hearts. I felt empathy and care for all of them in the end - thanks in part to the character development and to how they were all drawn in by and affected by the men in their orbit, finally coming back together as women in strength and friendship. ★★★★

Villa Coco: The narrator of this tale looks back at how he ended up in Tuscany, a bit aimless after graduating from college with an archivist degree, for a job that purports to be creating a catalogue of the contents of a 92-year-old baronessa's mansion. But when he arrives, he finds that the eccentric baronessa and her equally as eccentric friends and employees (who have all been bestowed with wacky nicknames) don't actually seem willing or interested in having the variety of treasures - art, artifacts, you name it - in this chock-full and crumbling villa catalogued, and he has no idea what he is doing there. He finds himself thrown into the midst of their lives, whether serving as an odd-jobs guy or a tv-watching companion for the baronessa, an Italian/English learning partner of the cook, an entertainer of the rotating cast of guests from bohemians to minor royalty, and romantic interest of the baronessa's handsome nephew. I can see the point of this book is to be a bit of a diversion showcasing eccentric characters and the magic of the Tuscan countryside, but at the same time a tale of the power of friendship and love. But the execution felt like it was maybe trying to be a bit too clever? The circuitous conversation left the protagonist himself confused, and me the reader just as much so. I felt like I was *supposed* to be charmed by all of the singular characters and their foibles and antics, but it was so hard to get a foothold into anything with such a disjointed and meandering narration (same for the plot and the dialogue). It was well over 100 pages in before I realized that the plot was actually going somewhere in terms of uncovering a secret about the baronessa's past, and everything felt so opaque that I was surprised I actually even figured out what it was in the end... Granted, I was indeed charmed by some of the descriptions of Tuscany and the food, and I chuckled a few times at conversations, but unfortunately I was not as captivated by the inside pages as I was by the outside cover of this book. ★★★.25

Mystery/thriller

The Whispers: At first I found this to be kind of a standard suburban mom drama slash "nobody knows what's happening behind closed doors" neighborhood page turner that felt similar to books I've read in the past (Big Little Lies, Not That I Could Tell, All the Other Mothers Hate Me, Friends with Secrets, Her One Regret [listed in order of liked best to least]). There were zero positive/healthy relationships, and only about two characters I felt sympathy for, but still it was fairly juicy and interesting, and as I went along I found that it actually had a bit more edge and darkness to it than I had expected (though not overly disturbing - and the tragic injury to a child at the center of the story is sad, but it's not overly hard to read about in terms of scariness as the focus is much more on the guilt feelings - whether warranted or not - and self-preservation attitudes of people surrounding the situation). I was also gratified to see it didn't necessarily wrap up as neatly as some other books I've read in this subgenre. There's always plenty to discuss when it comes to books on what constitutes a "good mother" - and in this one the (surprising) last line alone is a whole discussion to itself - and within the drama I found some compelling thoughts about motherhood, where we get to see the honest inner dialogue of things that many might think but feel they're not allowed to say aloud, like: "[Daughter] Chloe does make Blair happy. Immeasurably. It is everything else that has happened along with Chloe, the changes in herself and her worth and her marriage that happened so slowly they were imperceptible. Where she’d once felt motherhood had given her so much more than she’d had before, now she could only see it as having taken everything away. Now she cannot reconcile the love she has for her daughter with how confined she feels by the privilege of being her mother." Overall I thought it was a good beach read in being easy to get into and having soapy relationship drama, but maybe didn't stand out from the crowd enough in terms of writing/character development to overly wow me. ★★★.25

Scrublands: I'm on record many times over as being interested in picking up anything described as "for fans of Jane Harper" (and of course, "for fans of Tana French", which is what led me to Jane Harper in the first place), but naturally some publisher comps are more successfully applied than others. In this case I had pretty high hopes because beyond the publisher blurb, it was recommended for fans of Jane Harper in the recent NYT 50 best thrillers of the 21st century list (not on the list itself, but mentioned underneath a Jane Harper book that was on the list). This book about an Australian journalist who visits a rural community that had been slowly dying away because of drought, but now even more so because of infamy - it was the site of a shocking mass murder perpetrated by a priest, in broad daylight - started out feeling like a great comp title. One year on from the shootings, Martin's editor gives him the assignment to write a feature on how the town is doing, in part to mark the anniversary, and in part to ease Martin back into things after a job-related trauma suffered while reporting in the Middle East. So he's dealing with baggage, and entering a place where there is this tense atmosphere because of the never-ending hot weather and of course the collective grief - and then in his interviews with townspeople Martin starts to realize that the accepted version of events may not have been how it all went down. When a new development shakes the town - the discovery of two bodies in a ditch - Martin has a lot more investigating to do than he thought when he was first assigned this story. Promising mix of plot and atmospheric setting and a lot of psychology mixed in - for the victims, the survivors, and the investigator alike - but sorry to say that in my opinion it lost the Jane Harper comparison for character development and plot/writing quality maybe 50 pages in. I probably should have stopped, but instead it ended up being one of those books I finished and was kind of mad about it. What is so great about Jane Harper books is that there is a constant underlying tension that is so artfully done that you want to keep turning the pages like crazy even though it is a super slow burn of a plot. Plus while the leads have obvious flaws, there is still a care for them. In this book though, I lost the tension quickly and the slow burn thus turned to boredom with occasional blips of bonkers drama. Also, while I initially found Martin to be super competent in his work and sympathetic in what he was dealing with mentally, he turned to self-serving and smug and smarmy (whyyyyyy do we have to have the lead immediately start sleeping with a key witness or source in books like this???). I did find the theme of the harms of sensationalist journalism interesting, but they felt really out-of-date - not sure if that's a difference of Australian/American media or just being in such a post-newspaper age now. Overall, I thought the mystery plot had way too many elements and convenient introduction of facts after-the-fact, the narrative style didn't feel very artful, and the characters' motivations often made no sense to me. Sorry to say I don't agree with the NYT that you should pick this up if you like Jane Harper books. And sorry for the author of the book, the hopes that NYT gave me for this read being dashed probably made me knock at least .5 stars off my rating... ★★.25

Romance/rom-com

One & Only: Cassia believes in soul mates, and that's because her family's LA multigenerational matchmaking business is based on their ability to read facial features and (this part is a secret to all but Cassia and her family) see into the client's past and get the name of the client's true love through a vision of them in a previous life. When Cassia and her team track down this person in the present and match them up with the client, sparks fly. The only person they haven't been able to track down though? Cassia's match. And as she approaches 40, this search for the elusive Daniel Nam feels even more fraught. If she doesn't have a daughter, her family's magical gift will die off with her; but even more so, she is ready to have a partner in love and life. As her decade-long search for her match continues though she has a meet-cute with a younger guy and starts to develop true feelings for him despite her reservations about the age difference and his more carefree lifestyle. Until he introduces her to his boss and friend... Daniel Nam. Admittedly I don't love a love triangle trope, but this one is unique. She's got the person she *knows* she's supposed to be with because of her grandmother's powers of prophesy, but she's also got such strong feelings for this other person that she met first and clicked with in an organic way. Interestingly, with the title being One & Only it actually made me think about how there's actually not just one soulmate out there - I think she could have fully been happy with both of these men; the issues really arose because of comparing them. And in the thing I really don't like about love triangles, much of the contrast is in the "safe" option who is type A and driven and schedule-oriented like her, versus the "free spirit" option that breaks her out of her routine. (As someone happily married for 20 years to someone who might be considered the "safe" option in a rom-com, I kind of resent the implication that the best love stories are the ones that make the protagonist stop being "boring" and into her schedule and spreadsheets... some of us really are just book-loving, organized homebodies, okay??) While I had some quibbles based on the tropes, it was overall a fun beach read that stands out from other rom-coms thanks to the magical realism element, the Korean cultural (and food!) aspects, the fabulous LA and environs setting, and the strong matriarchal relationships that are just as much the story as the romance. Would recommend for fans of Ashley Poston (especially her earlier books - I haven't loved the more recent ones) for the magical realism/rom-com combo, and Korean-American rom-coms like those by David Yoon, Mary HK Choi, Susanne Park. ★★★.5

Historical fiction

Wait for Me: I really enjoyed Amy Jo Burns' Mercury for the perfect mix of plot and character, and the strong sense of place with the 1990s small town rust-belt setting - so I was very interested in trying out her newest release, which looked like it would have some similarities in terms of era and small town feel. And with the purported plot about a folk singer who went missing at the height of her fame in the 1970s - and how this connects to a young budding musician, whose gas station owner father claims to be the last to have seen singer Elle Harlow alive, in the 1990s - I thought it would have that elusive but enjoyable just-right mix of plot-driven and character-driven too. Alas, this one did not live up to expectations, and partly because I just kept feeling like I've read this story before. Not this exact story of course, but the untrained young musician with lots of personal baggage who is just so talented that the world has to take notice is most definitely a story that I've read enough of - Daisy Jones & the Six was super fun as the first one (and excellent thanks to the stand-out oral history format), but then I've encountered this also in Songs in Ursa Major and The Future Saints more recently. On top of that, it's sometimes hard to read a book about a fictional writer or musician who is supposed to be soooo amazing and then the author tries to give us snippets of their work - and it never blows me away. I think it would be much better to show me in other ways that they are super talented, rather than give me made-up song lyrics. Reading song lyrics is so boring! It might be reasonable to call this Daisy Jones & The Six meets Where the Crawdads Sing, but there was just nothing in it that grabbed me and drew me in like with those books, and the characters fell a bit flat. ★★★

reading lately: July roundup

My July reads are a bit lopsided in genre, with so much mystery/thriller (could even put one of my literary/contemporary fiction books partly in that category) - partly as these can be good beach reading, and partly as library holds came in all in a row. Might have affected my opinion of a couple to have read them so close together, as they were a bit hit-or-miss, but a couple of them are worth adding to your beach bag... Best books of the month though are all about England - a novella about the Queen getting into reading, and a Pride & Prejudice retelling centered on the overlooked sister, Mary.

Literary/contemporary fiction

The Uncommon Reader: Chasing down her misbehaving corgis on a walk around the Buckingham Palace grounds one day, the Queen encounters a mobile library parked nearby, and when she steps aboard to apologize for the dogs' barking, she feels obliged to check out a book, despite not being much of a reader. This starts a whole new relationship with literature as she discovers the joys of reading, both for pleasure and for educating herself in new ways. But much as she loves her new hobby, the way it takes her attention (not to mention the way it changes her outlook on her role as monarch and develops a new sort of empathy she hadn't known before given her rarified role) starts to be rather a nuisance for the palace staff, the Prime Minister, and her husband... This is a book (novella, actually) for bookish people - people who would delight in coming across a mobile library, people who enjoy the various real-world figure literary references and nods (both classic and contemporary) sprinkled throughout a narrative, people who buy into the power of reading. These are people who will also be amused by the premise of the Queen starting to shirk her duties because all she wants to do is get back to her book - and these are people who will be completely charmed by this version of the queen and will close the book with a little chuckle after that most *excellent* final line. In terms of wit and charm and observations about the power of literature and the impetus to share it, this reading experience reminded me a lot of Parnassus on Wheels, the little volume that inspired the name of Ann Patchett's Nashville bookstore. It is also a delight, and also short enough to read in one sitting like this one, so pick that up too if you haven't yet! Alan Bennett is a well-known literary figure in England, I'm sure, but I was not really familiar with him until reading the delightful memoir-in-letters Love, Nina, in which the author recounts her time working as a nanny for the deputy editor of the London Review of Books - which puts her into such interesting literary circles (my review here). One of their neighbors is Alan Bennett, and she often mentions his coming over for dinner or other occasions, and he comes off as such an interesting figure. I pictured a bit of David Sedaris in my head (whether that is anywhere remotely true) with his droll comments and diverting observations and various quirks. So when I came across this little novella with his name on it while browsing Blackwell's during a work trip to England earlier this summer, I had to bring it home - and what a perfect little souvenir it turned out to be! Will be passing along to all of my bookish life loving friends and family now. ★★★★★

Night Objects: I went into this book pretty blind – I had put it on my to-read list as a mystery, but I didn’t know much beyond that. In some ways a book like this is best without knowing too much, so you can see how it will unfold, but I will pass along two crucial things that would have set my expectations appropriately: (1) Lenny, the main character, who narrates the story looking back as an adult on this time during her teens, is a girl. This somehow took me a good 10% of the book to realize (I must have missed something), and that threw me off. (2) There is a mystery element, but this is not the driver of the plot. I’d characterize this as dark academia, as the main setting is a boarding school where Lenny starts in her junior year of high school, and though she is a “nobody” with none of the wealth and family connections of most of her classmates, and one of the few brown students at that, she is tapped to join the school’s chapter of a secret society. We know through the occasional chapters labeled as “after” that are interspersed throughout the book that something tragic has occurred, and in the “before” we gradually build up to this throughout the first semester and a half of the school year. The dark academia part and secret society definitely gave me If We Were Villains and Secret History vibes, but there’s also a strong coming-of-age thread as well as a fish-out-of-water element with how Lenny doesn’t fit in well at the school, which made me think of Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep. Overall well written and definitely engaging, though maybe a better moody fall read than a beach read when you go on vibes. The decisions of these teenagers made me crazy at times; I think that’s kind of the point, seeing how lack of experience, wanting to fit in, social pressures, grief, adults turning blind eyes, etc. can wreak havoc. But still it made me a bit squirmy at times that stuff they were getting into, and the initiation type stuff, so even though well written I just couldn’t quite connect with the characters and fully immerse – that’s a me thing, and I think people who like the above mentioned books should definitely check this one out. ★★★.75

Mystery/thriller

Three Reasons for Revenge: Sydney detective Judith Lee usually works on murder cases, but a young woman who comes into the station to report an assault requests to speak with Judith specifically, and Judith is brought back to years earlier when she interviewed a young woman with an extremely similar accusation. Judith feels compelled to bring the perpetrator to justice, but when she goes to follow up, the young woman has disappeared without a trace. Meanwhile, 3 different people, apparently unconnected, receive identical unmarked packages to their homes - a psychologist married to a prominent television presenter, a wealthy socialite designer, and a struggling single father - each with a cryptic note and contents that will blow up their lives and relationships. Judith has to use all of her smarts, and convince the powers-that-be of her seemingly wild theories, to connect all the dots among all of these things and make sure that the right person is brought to justice. I first came to Dervla McTiernan through her Cormac Reilly detective series, which I would say are good comps for fans of Jane Harper and Tana French; her more recent books have read as more psychological mysteries/thrillers, still with that depth of character, not a run-of-the-mill thriller, so this new release feels like a bit of a departure, going more toward that standard thriller category. Not a category that often works great for me - but this one did, because it combines detective procedural with psychological thriller. I really like the structure and investigative aspect that a detective book brings, and drawing me in even more, this one had a sympathetic main female detective, who is dealing with the prejudices of her workplace along with some baggage from her past - not to mention a secret she's keeping from her boss about her past experience with someone involved in the current case. Classic self-destructive streak for a fictional detective... and though the characterization in this way, along with the descriptive writing style, can feel pretty "genre", McTiernan mixes it up with chapters that look at the various regular people who are drawn into this case and the psychological effects on them. They are seemingly unconnected at first, but the threads start to come together for Judith and the reader at the same time. The twist comes a bit early as Judith figures out the culprit, but then it gets a bit more page turner-y as she has to figure out how to actually track that person down. Going into it with the right genre expectations, I came out quite satisfied with my reading experience - good summer selection! ★★★★

The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives: I'd call this a (fictional) true-crime + historical fiction mashup: In 1960s California, Beverley, Elsie, and Margot are not women who likely would have crossed paths and become friends, but they are united by their particular life experiences - all were married to now-convicted serial killers. They all have their own ways of dealing with the public + personal life fallout and the feelings of betrayal/self-doubt that come with finding out such horrible things about their husbands, but they figure out a way to channel it: when they hear news of multiple young women ending up as murder victims, in ways that seem to indicate different MOs, their lived experience and understanding of the mind of a serial killer leads them to connect the dots before the police do. The police of course won't listen to a trio of housewives, so they decide that it's time to do some amateur sleuthing... Reading this reminded me a bit of Meet the Newmans - albeit not my favorite read, and doesn't have the crime element, but it has the setting similarity, and the plot/theme similarities of a woman finding her way in a man's world when her husband is no longer there as the one "in charge", along with the theme of the power of female friendship and/or cooperation to empower and make stuff happen. And though I wouldn't compare it in terms of overall quality, I made similar mental comparisons to Lessons in Chemistry for those reasons, and also for how it dealt with a serious issue in a tone that overall made the reading feel light. I'd say if you liked those reads, this could be a good fit. I definitely had some quibbles - some of the attitudes/comments seemed a bit anachronistic, and I'm not sure there was a single male character who was portrayed as a normal human (if not murderers, the rest are sleazes or misogynists, etc.) But if you want to lean into a bit of feminine rage in women taking matters into their own hands to keep themselves safe from both predators and society's restrictions on their abilities and autonomy - and if you're willing to go along with the idea of soooo many serial killers operating at ones, and the idea of 3 housewives coming up with criminal profiling several years before this was a real FBI thing, I found overall it was an enjoyable, easy reading experience for something a bit different in terms of the era and the framing of a crime novel, centering on the families of the killers. ★★★.25

Someone Else's Husband: I've enjoyed Kimberly McCreight's previous work for the legal procedural aspects (she's a former lawyer); she has scratched that itch I sometimes have for a smart mystery/thriller, so I'm always interested to see what she has out next. This latest one was a great read to breeze through on a long flight and pass the time quite satisfactorily, but admittedly not super memorable in that when I arrived home and went to write this review I had to look back at what the book is actually about... so if you're in the market for vacation reading, this could be it, but if you're in the mood for legal thriller that feels like it has a bit more depth/makes you really think about issues like marriages/relationships, I'd go back to earlier work by McCreight, especially A Good Marriage. In this book, we have Gretchen, a wealthy New Yorker in her 50s who devoted her life to raising her family and supporting her husband's investment banker career; in contrast, we have Frankie, an artist in her 30s who is about to launch a career-making exhibition. The "someone else's husband" is Gretchen's husband of decades, Richard, who by all accounts seemed devoted and loyal, until shockingly the police show up at his door with questions and accusations related to Frankie's murder. Richard and Frankie met on a recent climbing expedition to Mt. Kilimanjaro, where the group bonded over a tragedy that occurred - but did something more than bonding happen between the two of them? And in the midst of all of this, can Gretchen maintain her belief that she's the only woman Richard has ever loved, and that he would never hurt anyone? I appreciated that the wealthy "good wife" scenario, the "good old boys" scenario and the "other, younger woman" scenario weren't entirely same-old, but were used to look a bit at these types of situations and assumptions that come with them. It's not super fast-paced, though it has some domestic thriller elements, but relies a bit more on the character development, as well as the mystery of what exactly was the tragedy that occurred on the Kilimanjaro climb and how that relates to what might have happened to Frankie after arriving home. It has some nuance, but it's still pretty commercial type fiction, more about the suspense and possible love triangle tension than real depth in characters and themes. Still, a good thriller-lite type of beach read that has some twists but nothing bonkers that will give you the ick or the eye-rolls. ★★★.5

Summer's Never Over: A dual-timeline thriller set at a summer camp where secrets are being peeled back sounded promising for beach reading - like a more fast-paced God of the Woods, one would hope. But unfortunately it turned out to be one of those books that I was kind of mad I finished... If you see this new release around, you should know going in: the pacing is a bit spotty, none of the characters feel very real or sympathetic, and one of the twists relies on a total personality about-face in one of the peripheral characters, which feels a bit of a cheat to me. But what was even more of a struggle is that the main character is around 21 years old when tragedy strikes at the well-regarded Georgia summer camp that her family runs, leading to the death of a fellow counselor and close friend - so she is unsurprisingly kind of immature and selfish in her actions and decisions in this timeline. But then the "now" timeline is only 5 years later, when the camp is about to re-open and she comes back to her old home for the first time for the kickoff weekend. - and she comes off as just as immature and selfish. I found it hard to care about the twists and turns as I had no investment in the protagonist. ★★

Historical fiction

The Other Bennet Sister: I have read quite a variety of Pride & Prejudice retellings/adaptations - with a  modern rom-com setting, with a mystery element, an Afro-Latino YA twist, and more. The only one I've read before with a new framework for the same Austen-ian setting was Longbourn by Jo Baker, which retells the story with a focus on the household staff; while I liked it, I admit that I've been a bit partial to the "fun" versions, until my mom handed me this selection. The first section of The Other Bennet Sister reframes Mary's story within the well-known P&P plot, showing how being the "ugly duckling" compared to her sisters might have affected her confidence and self-regard, and how the lonely life of being constantly verbally torn down by her mother and virtually ignored by her father, of being in the middle of two peas-in-a-pod sets of sisters, could have led her to trying to find her place in music practice or in books, leading to our perceptions of her as pedantic and a total social-misfit. Mary knows her prospects for marriage are slim to none, while her sisters are all in the process of achieving their mother's and society's definition of life success in this regard, and she has an understandably low estimation of her own worth in this world. With a new, more empathetic perspective on Mary in place for the reader, the next sections of the book occur in the years after P&P, when the oft-discussed but never quite expected death of Mr. Bennet arrives and the estate is indeed entailed away to Mr. Collins. Mary has to contend with her status in a world where a woman can only make her own way via marriage; without a parental home to live in, her situation feels precarious and dependent on others. As she spends time in the households of various sisters and relations, she sees varying examples of married relationships and for the first time as an adult disconnects from the rational side she has forced herself into and examines her feeling side, imagining a life and a relationship that she yearns for. It's so very human - this desire to be seen and known and valued - and portrayed compellingly through this usually overlooked character. Another thing this reframing made me think about was how in stories written both past and present, we expect our heroines to be beautiful, or if not, have charm and wit to make them shine; I appreciated putting Mary at the center without trying to "improve" her in either of these ways, but instead to help the reader consider how we make our own happiness, and how we can use the "story" we tell ourselves about our worth to build a life (even in the constraints of society). Mary feels like such a real and nuanced character, with the conflicting feelings and behaviors we all have, and I rooted hard for her. Naturally this book best suited for fans of P&P given the setting and the pace of the narrative, and of course the references to the original; the characters we know well feel like the Austen ones, even when they're given new lines/scenarios, and since we don't know Mary as well from the original, her character development in this book doesn't feel incongruous. Could be quite enjoyable for people who like historical fiction though even if they don't know P&P well - the setting feels really rich. It's fairly slow-paced and quite character driven, and I sometimes felt the length of the almost 500 pages, but overall what an enjoyable read. ★★★★.5

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, vol. 2: Vol. 2 of this historical fiction/diary/period rom-com/quirky magical realism mashup series was even more delightful than Vol. 1, now that I am fully immersed in this world - the returning characters are like old friends now (even if some of them are Emma's nemeses, like ridiculous cousin Archibald and drill sergeant Aunt Eugenia), and I loved the new characters too. For someone who is trying to figure out how to make it in life as an independent woman in 1883, Emma sure has some potential love interests, from the slightly enigmatic local vicar to the broody lodger who moves into Lapus Lazuli Minor to the young duke who has an unexpectedly interesting personality (and some friction with Emma that sure could turn out to be flirtation) to the gentleman who was a childhood tormenter but who in adulthood has turned out to be devastatingly handsome and a real friend. Can't wait to see how things develop with all of them, not to mention Emma's finances after cousin Archibald frittered away her inheritance, and Emma now has to scheme how to keep the household afloat if she doesn't want to get stuck living with dreadful relations for the rest of her life. This series is for fans of Bridgerton and/or Masterpiece period dramedies, but think the *cozy* version of these (cozy as in being complete comfort reading/listening and quite PG; however, they've still got enough cheek and charm and even emotional depth to keep from being too light or pedestrian). Admittedly, the covers put me off when I first saw the books showing up in my Goodreads feed - even if they do fit the Victorian era setting, they don't scream "quality writing" to me, so I'm so glad I heard a couple of specific recommendations for these and decided to try. Dove right into Vol. 3 after finishing, and still going with audio as the most delightful method. The narrator is great. ★★★★★

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, vol. 3: Again, these (fictional) journals of a young lady living in a quirky neighborhood in 1880s London prove to be delightful. In this two months of her life, Emma writes about some comedically frustrating things in her neighborhood (a hunt, in which she has to pair up with her horrible old cousin Archibald, for clues to win exclusive tickets to the neighborhood’s annual Julius Caesar production), she shows her bookish side even more (the whole caper to rescue a bootleg copy of Jane Eyre from the locked desk of the headmistress at Emma’s alma mater, so that the girls at the school can continue to have clandestine access to it, plus discussions of Emerson with the “tenant”), she continues to attract the attention of several young men, to the chagrin of crochety Aunt Eugenia, who see her for who she is in all of her clever and cheeky and charming personality. And we even get more depth of character, as she reveals more about her love who was lost to war, and learns more about the realities of war from the war photography of her tenant, leading to some truly poignant moments. I found a couple of the plots a little mad-cap, but overall am still so charmed that I didn’t mind, especially because the author did a good job of mixing up the emotions from the capers and witticisms to the developing emotional depth of Emma’s friendships. ★★★★.5

Young Adult

The Hazel Wood: Somewhere along the way this book ended up on my to-read list, I think because I had heard it suggested as a good fantasy selection for someone who doesn't typically read fantasy (?) - and I was intrigued because of the bookish angle, being about a young woman, Alice, whose mother is the estranged daughter of reclusive author who published a cult-classic book of dark fairytales that's so difficult to find a copy of now that Alice hasn't even read it. And I liked that it was grounded in a real-world setting, with a fantasy element hidden in the real world that the protagonist discovers and learns about right along with the reader - that's the way for me to read fantasy. However, this book is really more for people who like fairy tales or fairy tale retellings. As someone who doesn't really care about fairy tales, I had trouble being interested in this story, and honestly I felt kind of lost with the "hinterland" supernatural world where the stories are set (but turns out to be a real thing). The style felt pretty YA, which is fine, but the teenage angst combined with the convoluted fairy tale world made this one not for me. Also, afterward I realized that it's kind of an Alice in Wonderland retelling; I don't know that much about the original, but it might have set a better expectation for me in knowing that. (Or maybe I wouldn't have picked it up at all... not exactly a devotee of Alice in Wonderland type settings or stories.) ★★.75

DNFs

The Adults: I picked up the debut novel from Alison Espach after loving her more recent two books. This looked to have elements that made me love her 2nd book - Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance - the coming of age of a teenage girl amidst family upheaval, written with wry, observational humor, with a nostalgic 90s setting. But after getting about 20% of the way into this one, all I could think is that I was glad I hadn't started my relationship with this author with this book, because then I might not have wanted to pick up her others... I just didn't find the warmth here that goes along with the sarcasm/depression/coping of the characters in Espach's other books. Teenager Emily's narrative voice is snarky and bored and does not match the whimsicality of the cover at all. Was liking, not loving it, and waiting for some improvement as Emily got older, but when when an inappropriate relationship started between her and her teacher, I was out. This was disappointing, but I definitely still stand by my recommendations of Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance and The Wedding People.

So Old, So Young: At first I thought it was kind of like the excellent Netflix series The Four Seasons in being a window into the life of a group of college friends at a few different points throughout their relationships (in the series, different trips they take together, in this book, different parties they are at throughout the years - a college party, a wedding, etc.). I guess it was kind of like it in format, but not at all in charm or humor. It was hard to keep track of the characters, for one thing - I think side characters got too much attention, so it was hard to keep track of who was actually the core group whose story I was supposed to be invested in - and there seemed to be so much animosity at times, or just veneer of friendship rather than actual relationship. Then the drinking and casual drug use. I could see it in their college and early 20s years, but when they didn't put it away as they aged it made characters I already didn't really like feel like they weren't maturing, and I couldn't bring myself to really care about them enough to continue beyond about 30% of the book.

The Lowe Job: this sounded like it would be a fun and fresh family dramedy satirizing the way people use social media and/or scandal to manufacture personal celebrity, and providing snappy social commentary on expectations of women, double standards, etc. The characters were maybe written to be dislikeable - they are taking an inappropriate sexual relationship and purposefully exploiting it to their own gain, so manipulation is built in to the premise, after all - but I did not like the voice at all. Cannot understand why it had a comparison to Margot's Got Money Troubles in the publisher's blurb (something that admittedly drew me in) because the characters here are all spikes and hard edges where the characters in Margo have quirk and warmth. That lack of heart to offset the snark meant I didn't make it far in. Another Book-of-the-Month selection that was a total miss, in my opinion - really glad I tried it from the library rather than making it my June choice!