Into the Blue by Emma Brodie

Sarah talked about Into the Blue by Emma Brodie on Sarah's Bookshelves. It has been weeks since I'd read a romance novel and I just needed something.

 AJ lives in a small Massachusetts town, writing fan fiction based off an improv comedy show that starred a reclusive actress who lives in her town where she's working at a video rental store. She dreams of leaving Massachusetts to be a writer. One day her peaceful work life is shattered when Noah Drew of the HOLLYWOOD DREWS walks in and starts working next to her. They have an immediate bond, but one day Noah disappears. When they meet up again as adults, what is going to happen with these two? 

Interesting characters: AJ is interesting. Noah is a dick who won't communicate. I cannot with Noah. Also, I cannot with "woe is me, being famous is so hard."  

But you know what's really not interesting to me? The whole idea that you will just immediately feel a connection. The whole instalove thing? The whole fated to be together thing? It's not interesting. Good relationships are built on way more than how good someone smells. (Although, to be scrupulously honest with you, my husband smells sooooo good. But it was not instalove for us.) I just don't want people out there who haven't fallen in love to think that if it doesn't happen the second you make eye contact, there's no chance. There is a chance! GIVE IT A CHANCE. 

Believable conflict: Yes, there would be conflict if one of the people in the relationship keeps running away whenever tough conversations have to happen. Sometimes you have to get through tough shit to get to the good shit, but HOW WOULD HE EVER KNOW THAT?

Emotional tension: Sure, sure. There's a lot (too much?) of will they or won't they in this book.

Happily ever after: Hm. That's an interesting question and I think it would definitely depend on your definition of happy. I'll say that I would probably categorize this under literary fiction rather than romance if I had to shelve it at the non-existent NGS bookstore. 

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There were a number of tropes here I didn't love, but I did read it all, so that's something, right? 3.5/5 stars

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(Note about page numbers. I accidentally ordered the large print edition of this book from the library. I used to feel terrible when I did that because I was taking it away from someone who really needs it, but let me tell you - the large print is AMAZING. I am officially old. Anyway, I'm going to give chapter numbers instead of page numbers.)

Line of note: 

Most people did not have hidden depths; they had hidden shallows. (Todd's Coverage, Episode 5)

This is so cynical, but I laughed anyway. 

Hat mention (why hats?):

...producing a crochet needle and a hat he was making for baby Claire. (New York, New York January 9, 2012)

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Do you feel guilty if you accidentally order the large print? What does happily ever after mean to you in a romance novel? 

American Fantasy by Emma Straub

Sarah's girlfriend broke up with her and took the cat, so she agrees to do a back-to-back on the American Fantasy, a cruise ship that's latest trip is centered around Boy Talk, a boy band whose peak popularity was decades ago. For four days, women will get a chance to do activities and make memories with the five members of the band and Sarah gets to direct the entire thing. Meanwhile, Annie's going on the cruise by herself since her sister broke her leg just before they were supposed to leave. 

I read this book in one day. It's absolutely readable. It's also sort of bad? 

Consider this passage:

Tonya smiled a familiar smile - lips closed, eyes wide - one that said I know you, even though she didn't, not really. The brothers were used to this look, as well as its cousin, Do I know you? It was what Dr. Robert, his therapist described as "the business of being Keith Fiore," and it was what they had spent a decent percentage of their time talking about over the years. Usually, the answer was meditation or breathing. (page 11)

I had to read this passage a couple of times. I do not care for the how hard it is to be famous trope, so I was already a bit thrown. But then the answer to what question? The only question in the passage is Do I know you? and meditation is not an answer to that. So, that's on page 11. And, friends, it continued to be just the tiniest bit confusing to read page by page. Not confusing enough that I couldn't read it, but confusing enough that the 3.22 on Goodreads makes sense. 

The most interesting parts of the book were Annie and Sarah and I really can't deal with the aging pop stars feeling sorry for themselves. It's just not relatable to me. You have enough money to have a landing pad. Figure your shit out and find something else you like to do and do it. Or don't do anything. But don't be miserable about it. 

(I have to admit that I find myself frustrated with my students sometimes in discussion about things like changing major or finding a minor. What do you like to do? I ask them. They stare. What do you do when you're not studying? There's always something, I promise. They play videogames, they volunteer walking dogs, they are vice-president of the Rock Painting Club, whatever. I had a whole unsatisfying conversation once with a woman who claimed she had nothing outside of school and work. Okay, maybe. Sometimes adult students are like that. We looked at history and sociology and all of a sudden she said that her foster daughter hated her World History class and SUDDENLY WE WERE THERE. Foster daughter? Yes, ha ha. Didn't I mention that? I do a lot of work with foster kids and I am a guardian ad litem....THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL KNOWLEDGE HALF AN HOUR AGO.)

Ahem. 

I've never been on a cruise and this doesn't make me want to go on a cruise. 

I don't know? I still thought it was fun. I feel like I've been on a cruise now, does that count?

3/5 stars

Line of note:

Cruises in particular had never appealed to her for all the usual reasons: bacterial diseases, an air of elderly American laziness, buffets in a pandemic world. (page 20)

This. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

Raybans and baseball hats (page 12)

baseball hat (page 38, 48, 73, 149, 195)

baseball hat's brim (page 43)

captain hats (page 94, 167, 258)

hats for the choreo (page 122)

captain's hat (page 128)

top hat (page 128)

straw hats (page 147)

sunscreen and a hat (page 148)

Panama hat (page 148)

a thousand sun hats (page 159)

brim of his hat (page 167)

pulled off his hat (page 189)

touched the hat (page 195)

bucket hat (page 215, 259)

hat and sunglasses (page 282)

(I love that the first one is Raybans and baseball hats and the last one is hat and sunglasses. The symmetry pleases me.)

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The Goodreads reviews on this are so great. Some of them say this is based on Backstreet Boys or NSYNC, some say New Kids on the Block, and some say Menudo (unlikely since most of the women on the cruise are white, but more power to people who see Menudo in the band) or Take That. My first reaction was definitely NKOTB, but that shows my age. What's the boy band of your youth? 

Good People by Patmeena Sabit

Good People by Patmeena Sabit came up on Sarah's Bookshelves as a book Sarah had liked. 

The Sharaf family looks like a real American success story. Rahmat and his wife Maryam fled Afghanistan and settled in Virginia. After a series of false starts, Rahmat has a lot of business success and the family becomes wealthy. They have two older children, a girl named Zorah and a boy named Omer, and two young children. But is the family really happy?

The book is told through interviews with friends, neighbors, and witnesses, along with excerpts from journalists and investigators, who tell the story of what happens to the Sharaf family. Public opinion sways back and forth and the book tackles issues of Islamophobia, assimilation, the immigrant experience, and, maybe most importantly, generational conflict in immigrant families. 

It's a propulsive read. Since the chapters are short, you feel like you're making a lot of progress fast and you just want to keep flipping pages to find out what happens next. It's an impressive debut novel. 4.5/5 stars

The author bio:

Patmeena Sabit was born in Kabul a few years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. When she was a month old, her family fled the conflict and became refugees in Pakistan, joining the millions of other Afghans that had sought refuge there. They later moved to the United States and she grew up in Virginia. She currently lives in Toronto.

Lines of note:

Early in the afternoon it started to snow, flakes as big as my hand...(location 356)

I'm immediately suspicious of this person. Flakes might be as big as a dime, but not as a whole hand. This narrator is obviously prone to exagerration.

...think they understood then that you can never know even your own children completely, that all the love and time and effort and wanting in the world doesn’t guarantee they’ll always do right and stay on the right path. (location 1262)

AND

When a child goes bad, the whole world holds a finger to the mother and father. But how can you know? Look how many children born into pure evil grow to walk as angels among men. And look how some of the best mothers and fathers come to raise the devil’s own seed. (location 1482)

We're having an issue in our family and there's a lot of questioning of the parenting and it's really hard. Maybe it is the parenting? Or maybe it would have happened no matter what? It's hard and it's hard to know how best to support everyone in the situation. 

You know, we actually care about each other around here. It’s not like New York or Chicago or any of those big places where some poor soul dies all alone in their apartment and no one knows until six months later when the landlord breaks down the door and finds a skeleton sitting on the sofa watching The Price Is Right. (location 2756)

Just another opportunity for me to plug The Lonely Life of George Bell. 

We put a little bottle of water next to his bed every night, but in the summer he won’t drink anything but cold water straight from the fridge. He calls it fresh water. (location 2933)

I do this same thing. I also call if fresh water. I do not like to be reflected in an eight-year-old child. 

...I’ve woken in the middle of the night a hundred times and gone downstairs and thought the coatrack near the door was a robber. (location 4018)

Who hasn't? 

Things I looked up:

cecropia moth (location 851) - North America's largest native moth; females have been documented with a wingspan of five to seven inches or more

lorikeets (location 853) - small-to-medium-sized parrots known for their bright, multicolored plumage and specialized brush-tipped tongues used to feed on nectar, pollen, and fruit. Native to Australia and surrounding regions, they are highly social, noisy birds that often form loud flocks and live for 10 - 20+ years

Hat mentions (why hats?):

I remember it was taking us a long time to get through a reading comprehension exercise because her little brother and sister had found some party hats and horns somewhere and they kept running in and screaming “Happy New Year!” and blowing them in our faces and running off again. (location 1079)

Our girls went shopping at the T.J. Maxx or Marshalls or JCPenney and threw their hats to the sky when they could do even that. (location 1516)

The rest of us would try on the old-lady hats and fur coats. (location 1748)

Well, he must have known that his hat had fallen into oil from the second she turned her hot eyes on him. (location 2036)

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I sort of wish I had listened to this on audio since I feel like hearing the different voices would have been helpful. Have you ever listened to an epistolary novel? Do you like it? 

The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz

I had never even heard of The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz until J wrote a review of it on her blog. I was dithering about my non-existent TBR and what list to put it on when I realized it was available as an audiobook narrated by Julia Whelan right away at my library, so I nabbed it!

There are two things about me that you should know before we go further in this review. Here's the quick and dirty background. Regular readers probably know both of these things, but this is a bit of necessary background for new readers.

1) I grew up in a household with parents who were hoarders. There was a path from the front door to the couch, the kitchen, and the bedrooms, but that was about it. There was so much crap jammed in the bathroom that I could not bathe on a regular basis. The kitchen was filled with food, but much of it was years old. I did the best I could in my own bedroom, but I would not infrequently come home to bags of things not intended for my use crammed into my room. 

2) I do not get along with my sister, my only sibling. 

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In The Latecomer, Johanna and Salo Oppenheimer have triplets, two boys and one girl. But it turns out that each of those triplets is horrible in his or her own way and they don't really get along. I felt so seen in the scenes of everyone living in a house, but not talking and just living separate lives. When the triplets leave for college, Johanna has another baby (the latecomer, natch). We follow the family in an inter-generational novel. 

There are themes of isolation, grief, privilege, race, and the ubiquitous plight of young people trying to find their place in this world.  

There is also a fair amount of talk about hoarding in this book. It's done sensitively (hoarders have a mental illness), but I still struggled through those scenes, flashing back to my childhood when I couldn't find clean clothing, to moving my mother out of the house she lived in when I was in college and grad school, and to cleaning out her cabin after she died. I still have two totes of unsorted through things in our guest room that I need to sort through. I listened to this book and immediately began cleaning my house and vacuuming and dusting and opening the windows. 

And the scenes with the siblings in a car who have nothing to say to one another? I felt it deep in my soul, but also? I wanted to not be hearing that scene. 

I have some beefs with this book. Of course I do. The book is called The Latecomer, but she's really not even in the book until the last 25% and she's not all that important. There's a character who is done dirty (#JusticeForEli). But, while I actively disliked every person in this novel, right down to the poor illegitimate child and dirtbag white supremacist, I also wanted to keep listening - to know what was going to happen to everyone in this family. It was well-paced and beautiful. 

It has not been since I read My Name is Lucy Barton that I have had such a visceral reminder of elements of my childhood that I would rather forget. 

4/5 stars

Lines of note:

...Harrison joined the swim team, mainly because he liked the fact that when he had his head underwater, people didn't talk to him. (Part 1 - Chapter 8)

Ha! Haven't we all been there? 

...being drawn deeper and deeper into the world of old houses and the mainly old people who lived in them. Houses stuffed with sadness, filled up room by room with sadness. Each enclosure silenced in sadness behind a closed door until the house itself was jammed and filthy. Some of the houses smelled terrible, some of them had owners who barely opened the door or spoke through a crack or slipped out and closed the door behind them...reeking of shame and fear. (Part 2 - Chapter 23) 

I have no words for this. 

There was no limit to what her brother Harrison could convert to pure assholery...(Part 2 - Chapter 25)

I actually audibly laughed at this line.

... so many families doing this together and the feeling of community was really overwhelming. (Part 3 - Chapter 31)

This is about a church-sponsored event. I feel this. I feel like it's so hard to create a community as an adult without church. I don't believe. I don't have faith. I am not envious of others for those things. But I am envious of a built-in fellowship of like-minded people at your fingertips. 

Things I looked up:

Stendhal syndrome (Part 1 - Chapter 2) - Stendhal syndrome is a psychosomatic condition involving rapid heartbeat, confusion, hallucinations, and even fainting, allegedly occurring when individuals become exposed to objects, artworks, or phenomena of great beauty.

Stendhal syndrome was named after Marie-Henri Beyle (1783–1842), better known by his pen name, Stendhal, who described his experience with the phenomenon during his 1817 visit to Florence, Italy, in his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio. When he visited the Basilica of Santa Croce, where Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo and Galileo Galilei are buried, he was overcome with profound emotion. Stendhal wrote:

I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty . . . I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations . . . Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call 'nerves'. Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.

Jennifer convertible sofa (Part 1 - Chapter 2) - Jennifer Furniture (formerly Jennifer Convertibles) is an American retail company, based in Great Neck, New York. I think it's related to Ashley Furniture HomeStores? The sofas just look like regular old couches? 

Diebenkorn ocean park paintings (Part 1 - Chapter 2) - Richard Diebenkorn is best known for the Ocean Park series of 145 landscape abstractions he began in 1967 after moving to Santa Monica, California, where he was inspired by his Ocean Park neighborhood. Numbered sequentially, the Ocean Park paintings are all tall, rectangular canvases, most of them divided by horizontal and vertical lines. Some seem to depict physical elements of landscape—the conjunction of ocean and sky or bands of colored clouds at sunset—while others imply more intangible elements such as space, atmosphere, or light. 

Ocean Park #24 (1969)

slab painting by Hans Hofmann (Part 1 - Chapter 2) - Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. In his later works, Hofmann created works such as The Gate (1959–60), Pompeii (1959) or To Miz - Pax Vobiscum (a 1964 memorial after her death), that were loosely devoted to architectonic volumes and sometimes referred to as his "slab paintings." In these works, he used rectangles of sensual color that reinforced the shape of his consistent easel-painting format and sometimes suggested a modular logic, yet escaped definitive readings through areas of modulated paint and irregular shapes.

By Tate Gallery website. Copyright held by the estate of Hans Hofmann., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57772187 - Hans Hofmann, Pompeii, oil on canvas, 84.25” x 52.25", 1959.

Franz Kline (Part 1 - Chapter 2) -  an American painter  associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s.

Kline, Painting #2 (1954)

Agnes Martin (Part 1 - Chapter 2) - a Canadian-American abstract painter known for her minimalist style and abstract expressionism.

Starlight by Agnes Martin (1963)

Andrew Crispo (Part 1 - Chapter 2) - an American art dealer and gallery owner based in New York. He later became involved in a number of widely reported legal cases. His legal history included a federal tax conviction, a sensational state criminal prosecution, association with one of New York’s most notorious homicide cases of the 1980s, later federal convictions involving threats against court personnel during bankruptcy proceedings, and dramatic civil litigation following the destruction of his Southampton home.

Ed Ruscha (Part 1 - Chapter 2) - is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, and film.

Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1963, by Ruscha

Whitman, Grinnell, Roarke, Reed, Hendrix (Part 1 - Chapter 8) - Whitman is a private liberal arts institution in Walla Walla, Washington with an enrollment of about 1500. Grinnell is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa with an enrollment of about 1700. Reed College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon with an enrollment of about 1300. Hendrix a private liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas with an enrollment of about 1000. Roarke is made up for this novel. 

Johnson Museum of Art (Part 2 - Chapter 14) - Museum at Cornell in Ithaca, New York. 

Hat mentions:

None

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Have you ever read a book that brings up things from your childhood you'd rather forget? Did you know all these artists? Have you ever been to the Johnson Museum of Art? 

The Book That Matters the Most by Ann Hood

The Book That Matters the Most by Ann Hood came across my radar because it fulfills the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge prompt to read a book about a book club. I  listened to the audiobook narrated by Nina Alvamar.

I'm going to go into a plot summary and then go into my emotional journey while reading this book and then try to figure out what star rating to give it because I am a confused person right now.

Ava's husband left her for a woman who yarn bombs public monuments. Her children are both in foreign countries - her daughter in Italy and her son in Uganda. She's feeling lost and adrift, so she joins a book group at the local library whose theme for this year's reading is "books that matter the most to you." Ava chooses a book that helped her deal with the unexpected deaths of her sister and mother in short succession when she was a child, but the book is hard to find and somewhat mysterious. 

Suddenly, we are whipped out of this story to follow Maggie, Ava's daughter, who, as it turns out, is not in Florence, but in Paris living as a married man's kept woman. She slides into drug abuse and becomes one of those insufferable addicts. I almost stopped listening at this point because I cannot stand books with a POV of junkies because they are incredibly uninteresting. Sure, I should have some empathy for them, but when you're a conventionally attractive, healthy young person from a good home, I REALLY STRUGGLE WITH THE EMPATHY. People are going through hard things without becoming addicted to heroin, you know? (I try to tell myself about the brain chemistry thing, but...). I also really get annoyed when everyone she meets offers her drugs. How is that possible? Maybe I'm odd or put off "don't offer me drugs" vibes, but random folks I run into on the beach aren't offering me hard drugs. 

THEN! The book derails to talk about the death of Ava's sister and there's an elderly detective. And then, coincidentally, an old lady at the book group dies and leaves Ava a copy of the book she couldn't find and a note saying she knew Ava's mother. The coincidences start piling up as Maggie somehow gets herself clean (*sigh* as if it would be that easy) and there's something very familiar about the woman at the bookstore in Paris. 

Look. 

I'm struggling with this novel. On one hand, I like Ava. I really like Ava's friends. Kate is so excited for Ava when Ava has sex with a younger man! Yay for supportive friends. I loved the scenes of the book at the book club because they honestly had interesting discussions. On the other hand, ugh with Maggie. And, ugh so hard at the coincidences.

And, here's the hardest part. I, generally, as you know, think this world has been run for and to the advantage of men for too long. But I honestly think Ann Hood hates men? Consider her treatment of Jim, Ava's ex-husband. Many adulterers in this book get POVs and even redemption arcs. Nada for Jim. Maybe that's okay because this is a book for women and about women and fuck Jim (maybe). But then there's Theodore, Ava's father, who raised her after her mother left and is now suffering from dementia in a nursing home and Ava literally believes nothing he says. Theodore is the HERO of this book as far as I'm concerned - a man who did everything to the best of his ability - and no POV for him? Not even when the book went to flashback? And his current state? Ugh. I just can't. When I'm defending male characters, something has gone really really wrong. 

So how do I rate this? I don't know? It's complicated. I'd love to chat about this book with someone else who has read it, but I find it hard to actually recommend it, you know? 

3/5 stars (maybe 2? maybe 2.5? I don't know)

Books they read in the book club:
Pride and Prejudice
The Great Gatsby
Anna Karenina
Catcher in the Rye
Slaughter House Five
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
One Hundred Years of Solitude
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
To Kill A Mockingbird

I've read four of these books. How many have you read? The author wrote a blog post about how she chose these books and I thought that was interesting. 

Why aren't people saying Moby-Dick is what mattered the most to them? Don't they care?!

Lines of note:

Ava took another breath. She talked to her students all the time standing in front of the classroom, confident and in charge. Why was she so nervous here? (chapter 1)

I have a colleague who is an excellent teacher. He also is paralyzed if asked to speak in front of a group of more than two people that is not his personal classroom. LOL. 

...every time she decided to go she got lost...Everyone knew the store and they directed her, pointing and showing with their hands the confusing parts of the route. Still, she'd get lost. (chapter 1)

Have Sarah tell you the story about how I thought they towed my car because I couldn't find it after we met for lunch. My inability to navigate is legendary.

Hank Bingham decided immediately that he did not like Paris. For one thing, everything looked different than it did at home - the people and the signs and the buildings. It even smelled different. He supposed that people who liked to travel did it for this ever reason, but Hank liked being home. He found comfort in knowing shortcuts and knowing where to get the best beer on tap. He found comfort in sameness. (chapter 36)

YES! I am Hank Bingham. I know people love to travel, but it's really and truly not my jam. 

Things I looked up:

Roger Williams (chapter 34) - an English-born New England minister, theologian, author, and founder of the Providence Plantations, which became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and later the State of Rhode Island. He was a staunch advocate for religious liberty, separation of church and state, and fair dealings with the Native Americans.

Hat mentions (why hats?):

matching hat and scarf and gloves the color of Christmas trees (chapter 1)

forgotten gloves and a hat (chapter 1)

porkpie hat(s) (chapter 1 x5, chapter 3 x2 chapter 5, chapter 8, chapter 24)

the guy in the hat (chapter 1)

matching hat and gloves (chapter 3)

Santa hats (chapter 3)

silly hat(s) (chapter 3, chapter 20)

winter hats and oversized sunglasses (chapter 3)

fake fur hat (chapter 3)

adjusted his hat (chapter 5)

dumb hat (chapter 5, chapter 16)

"Did he take off his hat?" (chapter 8)

pushing his hat back (chapter 20)

enormous straw hat (chapter 30)

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How many of those book club books have you read? Are you also shocked😮that Moby-Dick didn't make the cut for books that mattered the most? What book matters the most to you? 

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue

Business first: Don't forget that if you want to vote for our next Cool Bloggers Book Club (CBBC) book, head over to the Google poll and do it! I'll be tallying the votes sometime on Wednesday the 21st, so do it before then. 

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Our first IRL book club meeting of 2026 covered I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue. We had a run where everything we read was depressing and sad and this was supposed to be lighter fare.

Jolene hates her job and her colleagues even more. What does she do to combat this feeling of irritation? She writes mean postscripts in emails to her co-workers and then changes the text color to white. Until the day she forgets to change the color. She has to work with the new HR guy on sensitivity training or she might lose her job. Meanwhile, when IT was supposed to be putting monitoring software on her computer, they actually gave her the ability to read everyone's emails and DMs. What secrets about her co-workers does she learn? 

There is a genre of book I can't stand. It's women who don't have their shit together. Think the Shopaholic series, the Bridget Jones books, or, to talk about books from the last decade, Margo's Got Money Troubles or Finlay Donovan. I just can't deal with people incessantly complaining about unhappiness and not doing anything about it. I also can't deal when they make decisions that will obviously make the situation worse. It makes me anxious, it leads to stereotypes of ditzy, incompetent women, and I frequently opt out of them.

So when I started this book and there were gems like these:

I don't have a life, and I will likely celebrate by drinking alone and going down Reddit rabbit holes researching random and upsetting things like fecal-matter transplants, or the Golden State Killer, while making myself regret everything. (page 1)

I turn sharply to face a golden sedan that could be considered vintage if the world didn't want to forget this model ever existed. (page 57)

"But I think we need to normalize being comfortable roasting people. Everyone is way worse than they pretend to be. We should start discussing it openly - it might be a good way to connect people." (page 108)

I was up in arms, ready to DNF, but realizing I would never DNF a book club book. I finished The Luminaries. I finished The Joy Luck Club. So I kept on trucking.

And, dang it, Jolene starting doing things. Her motives were messed up, but she was actively trying things to make her life better. And I started to like her more and more. And by the last 100 pages, I was glad I had read this book. 

The book club discussion was SO GOOD, though. For real. One person really felt like Jolene's character nailed working in a capitalistic society. She liked how the trauma storyline was developed. One person was obsessed with the portrayal of an HR professional who wasn't incompetent (she is in HR, as you might have guessed). A couple of us really just wanted Jolene to stop complaining and do something. But, seriously, I was shocked at how interesting and wide-ranging the conversations went. At one point, we were talking about bullying in the workforce and it turned into all the moms in the room worrying SO MUCH about their children. Egads. 

Should you read it? I don't know. Do Sophie Kinsella books make you shiver in fear? Probably not. Are you interested in a fictional accounting of how big corporations in Canada operate? Maybe. Are you an HR professional? Hm. Hard to say. 3/5 stars

Lines of note:

Grace laughs, because it sounds like I'm joking. Not the rantings of a woman who still hasn't nailed existing in public as a skill set. (page 174)

"I'm going to be too old to work here soon. No one needs me anymore. I'm already useless." (page 231)

This might be the line that turned the book around for me. 

Hat mention (why hats?):

The electronic screens above them are playing an absurd animation of bowling pins wearing cowboy hats breaking each other out of a jail cell. (page 177)

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How do you feel about the women who need to get their shit together genre? Do you find them frustrating or funny? 

All Fours by Miranda July

My SIL occasionally exchange book recommendations - mostly fluffy romances. Hey, read the newest Linda Holmes book, I sent her in May. So imagine my keen interest when she sent me this text:

All Fours by Miranda July is a National Book Award Finalist form 2024. In this book, our main characters is a dissatisfied wife and mother who says she is going on a solo cross-country road trip and then checks into a motel thirty minutes from her house and proceeds to cheat on her husband in a horrific way. I don't want to spoil anything for you, but there is a scene with a tampon that shall live in infamy. 

The writing was good. The characters, the plot, the general disgusting and raunchy focus on sex, and how truly disturbed I was by the whole thing was not. 

More clips from my text convo with my SIL. I clipped out things that mentioned personal stuff, so it's a bit choppy, but you get it. (Her bubble is white, mine is blue.)

Anyway, I didn't like this book, but the writing was well done and if this sounds like something you'd enjoy, maybe you would. I do think it would inspire an amazing book club discussion, depending on how open you are at your book club (maybe don't recommend it for the church or public library sponsored book club). After I texted with my SIL, my husband and I also had an interesting convo about it, even though he didn't even read it! 

I considered DNFing it many times (it was really gross at parts), but I'm glad I persevered so I could have these discussions about it. 2.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

Other people's relationships never make any sense. (page 4)

Sometimes I think this and sometimes I think some pairings make perfect sense. 

Our eyes met and I flashed forward ten years to a time when artificial intelligence allowed dogs' thoughts to become words. (It was easy, the scientists would say. They were nearly verbal already, we hardly had to use any AI - just a smidge to get them going.) They dogs immediately start speaking about all the horrific things they've witnessed - crimes, violations. Turns out they are a garrulous species, won't shut up, and have incredible memories. Unlike humans, who could never remember what they'd been subjected to as babies, the dogs easily recall events from their puppyhood. Smokey recounts this particular day - mimicking me with a cruel, uncanny accuracy. (page 163-164)

Such a rich text! Today Hannah was barking out the window and I could see nothing for her to bark at. We joked that there was probably a fistfight across the street in a house and she could hear, but thought we were dumb for not knowing. ANYWAY. I'd love to be able to talk with my pets. LOVE IT. 

In old sweatpants and a T-shirt I heaved black metal balls and barbells around, dumbly lifting and lowering however many times I was told to, my face bright pink with heat and embarrassment. Wasn't this basically what Hell was? People forced to endlessly lift and lower heavy things for no reason? (page 179) 

Right? RIGHT? (I mean, there IS a reason, but sometimes it's hard to convince myself.)

Things I looked up:

Blinken Prize (page 182), Love Estes (page 228),  Elsa Penbrook-Gibbard (page 275) - I think these are all fictional people or things. It's hard to tell sometimes!

Hedgehoppers Anonymous (page 188) - Hedgehoppers Anonymous were a 1960s beat group from the United Kingdom. They formed in November 1963 as The Trendsetters, and became The Hedgehoppers the following year. Jonathan King took over their record production in 1965, and added Anonymous to their name. Their most successful single was "It's Good News Week." 

Title spotting:

"Everyone thinks doggy style is so vulnerable," Jordi said, "but it's actually the most stable position. Like a table. It's hard to be knocked down when you're on all fours." (page 301)

Hat mentions (why hats?):

I'd left countless things in this park - my sunglasses, Sam's hat - and nothing was ever still there when we came looking for it. (page 147)

**************

Would you read a book like this? Have you ever had an extended text conversation with someone about a book? 

How to Read a Book by Monica Wood

In How to Read a Book by Monica Wood, we follow the intersecting stories of three people: Harriet, a retired woman who runs a book club at a prison; Violet, a woman in that book club; and Frank, a retired machinist who has recently been widowed. As we read the book, we learn more about each one and so when their paths cross, we are not surprised by what happens next. 

There are cats, African gray parrots, and a woman obsessed with a dog in this book. I mean, what more could I ask for? The book is a bit sweet, so if a saccharine book turns you off, this isn't for you. It asks questions about forgiveness and second chances and what family looks like. I liked it a lot. 5/5 stars

Line of note:

"We'll have to get you something to read." Her own voice is a loveliness to me. A clarion whatever.
"Books won't solve my problems, Harriet."
"No, but they give your problems perspective. They allow your problems to breathe." (page 64)

Things I looked up:

Across from there, an art museum with an ugly sculpture out front. A squat, rusted seven. The number seven. It looks famous. (page 44)

Seven by Robert Indiana in front of the Charles Shipman Payson Building which is part of the Portland Museum of Arts in Portland, Maine.

flibbety (page 78) - I don't know. This is from "dressed in one of her crinkled, flibbety tops in a cloudburst of color." Flibbity (note that there are two of the letter i, not an e in the second vowel spot) is to produce from nothingness, but I can't find it with an i and an e. 

Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters (page 19 and then a lot more) - This book is central to the plot of How to Read a Book and now I sort of want to read it. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

...and a weird store that sells only hats. (page 104)

The weird store that sells only hats doesn't call. (page 106)

...the one in the hat. (page 185)

Wearing little Danish hats. (page 226)

Frank tipped an imaginary hat...(page 263)

****************

Have you read Spoon River Anthology? Seen the Seven sculpture? Do you know what flibbety means?

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Death of the Author is the newest from Nnedi Okorafor, who wrote Binti, which has an absolutely amazing first novella.  

Zelu is a disabled Nigerian-American who has hit rock bottom. She lost her job, her book has been rejected for the tenth time, and her family includes a bunch of ableist jerks. Into this, she moves back to her parents' house and starts writing a book called Rusted Robots, a science fiction story about robots after the destruction of humanity, which become an immediate hit with a blockbuster movie made of it. 

The book alternates with chapters from Zelu's story and from chapters of Rusted Robots. I was invested in Zelu's story. She's sort of the unlikeable lady who I really like. She's had a hard time with her disability and her shitty family and she's struggling to find her place in the world, career-wise and in terms of her American and Nigerian backgrounds. She's got a chip on her shoulder, but who wouldn't in her shoes? But Rusted Robots? Ugh. I did not care.  

Here's the thing. I will read science fiction if it's about space aliens or humans in space because those are really just stories about humans. But science fiction about robots? Who cares? They're not people. Or dogs. Or cats. Or horses. Or really alive. 

And I don't want to spoil the ending, but I still have questions about the ending. It felt like a mean trick where we didn't get the answers I really wanted. If I have done the code correctly, I have put spoilers behind the following button. If I have not done the code correctly, oh, well. You shouldn't have the spoilers anyway! (Edited to add: It works! I'm a professional coder. /s)

Basically, was Ngozi really the last human on earth? Did Ankara really meet her? As in, was Zelu based on a true story in the robot lore? And the whole thing about how Rusted Robots was real, but not Zelu's story really felt like a cheap trick. That's all.

 

Read Binti instead of this one. 3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

It was mid-July, and it was ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit and what felt like 100 percent humidity. As uncomfortable as she was, Zelu was used to it. She was a Chicagoan, which meant she was used to every weather extreme except hurricanes. (page 54)

I feel this is my very soul after we had a day near 80 followed by a day with snow last week. 

They later had a lawyer write the prenup that would keep their assets forever separate, went to the courthouse, had it done legally, and that was it. They both vowed to never call each other "husband" or "wife." They were partners. It felt good. (page 357)

Big discussion with my husband about this. I think it's romantic when he calls me "his wife." I think partners makes it seem like a business deal. But I can also see how some people might think the stereotypical roles of husband and wife come with a lot of baggage. Interesting thing to think about. 

Things I looked up:

ikenga (page 40) - carved wooden figures that have a human face with animal attributes - of note, Nnedi Okorafor has a novel called Ikenga

agama lizard (page 90) - a genus of small-to-moderate-sized, long-tailed, insectivorous Old World lizards. The genus Agama includes at least 37 species in Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, where most regions are home to at least one species.

iroke tree (page 90) - a large hardwood tree from the west coast of tropical Africa that can live up to 500 years

kabu kabu (page 178) - non-registered illegal cab that operates in some part of Nigeria - of note, Nnedia Okorafor has a short story collection called Kabu Kabu.

Hat mentions: 

None

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

My second big book of the year was The Big Sting by Paul Murray. I listened to an audiobook that J was kind enough to give to me via Audible. In this post, lots of people said that they liked this book, including Nance and Nicole, so I've spent the last month or so listening to it. 

T

The Barnes family is going through a rough patch. They used to have money - Dickie, the father, owns a VW dealership - but the economy is not doing him any favors. Instead of finding another job or figuring out what to do to get his business back in the black, Dickie spends his time in the woods preparing for the end of the world. His wife, Imelda, is selling her fancy clothes, jewelry, and even the dining room table on eBay. Cass, the daughter, is about to graduate from high school. She used to be an excellent student, but now she's drinking, sleeping with rando gross guys, and isn't focused on studying. PJ is a twelve-year-old boy who's really struggling with a family that's falling apart and he has a very suspicious online friend. 

So, here's the deal. The first third of this book was a real slog. It goes back and forth in time, switching among the four family members with some regularity, and I just did not care. But did you see the list of the people above who like/love this book? I kept going. 

And by the end of it I was so eager to know what was going to happen to the Barnes family. Were they ever going to be able to make this work? Why so many secrets? Was everyone going to find out? OH HEAVENS, IS PJ GOING TO BE OKAY?

Section II Part 3 has a decent sports scene. Soccer even. I was invested in the outcome of that soccer game and I am never invested in sports scenes in books.

But, and this is a big but. This book is unrelentingly grim. Someone is always bringing up how terrible the state of the world is. There are graphic scenes of rape and domestic violence. At one point, I grumbled out loud (to the dog, who is my normal audience for these types of things on our daily walks) wondering why J thought I wanted to read a book about a woman reminiscing fondly about her abusive family. So, yes, I did eventually get invested in the inner workings of the Barnes family, but I do not think this is a book for everybody. It's also over 600 pages long and the audiobook is over 26 hours long, so be forewarned that if you do read this book, you're going to be in the bleakness for quite some time. 

4/5 stars - Slow start, but then I was all in. 

Lines of note:

"There's a hundred and one things could bring it down," Victor says. "Aging infrastructure, storms, solar flares, nuclear attack, unforeseen black swan event. Why would it stay it up? That's the question you should be asking." (Wolf's Lair: Part 1)

I think about the electrical grid and the water supply ALL THE TIME. It would be SO EASY to destroy the way the world works. 

You could hardly even call it a village Ballyroe: two pubs and a combine repair shop. (The Widow Bride II: Part 3)

As someone who grew up in a rural area, this resonated with me. 

"A drought, a flood, whatever it is, harvests fail and the next year they fail again. Suddenly what you're looking at in Europe is a famine. It might not be what they're calling it on the news, but that's what it is. It's worse in Ireland because we're a little island that imports half its food. Now you've been wise. You've stocked up enough to feed your family for a year. Please God, that'll get you out the other end of it. There you are, sitting at home, patting yourself on the back and thinking that things could be worse when the neighbors come knocking on your door. You want to help them. Of course you do. You're a good man, Dickie Barnes, everyone knows it. But food to feed your family for a year is only enough to feed two families for six months. That's just the beginning. Then the doorbells goes again. More neighbors, more friends, three families, four. You bring them in, too. You can feed everybody for four months, for three months. What happens the next time the bell rings? How many families live within five miles of here would you say? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? You see what I'm driving at? And when you decide you can't feed any more, what happens then? When you stop answering your door, what do you think they do? Starvin' people on your doorstep. You think they're just going to turn around and go home? You think just because they're your friends and neighbors that'll it all stay peaceful and respectful? You think Myanmar and South Sudan weren't all how you do and tidy towns before they started hacking each other to pieces?" (The Clearing VI) 

And this is why I'm going to take myself out in the event of a long-lasting catastrophe. (Looks at the news. Realizes that maybe I shouldn't be broadcasting my suicide plans in 2025.)

"Who, listening to that story," he said, "could maintain that progress had failed? Isn't it truer to say that progress needs failure? That progress is what humans do with failure? Failure, bad news, dark times, these are as fuel...progress takes failure and turns it into the future." (The Clearing VII)

I truly hope this is true. 

There are days that simply don't happen even when you're in them. The buildings are paper mache. The people are extras. You feel like you're trapped in a filler episode. Throw coffee in someone's face. Wave your tits at the lecturer. Jump in front of a car. By tomorrow it will be all forgotten. But in the moment it is endless like crawling through the desert. (Age of Loneliness I, first Cass chapter)

Doesn't everyone feel this way all the time? Like you're just an extra in a movie that's being made about the more interesting people in your life? 

Maybe every era has an atrocity woven into its fabric. Maybe every society is complicit in terrible things and only afterwards gets around to pretending they didn't know. When the kids ask, tell them that no one meant any harm...He can still make out the tide marks from the flood, a once in a century event, that's what you are told. Then came the drought. And that was once in a century, too. Maybe that's how it will go. Instead of one definitive cataclysm, a series of anomalies, each time lasting longer with the stretches of what you call normal life becoming further and further apart until one day it dawns on you that this is normal life now - the flooding, the empty shelves, the candlelight, the networks down, the impassable streets, the sewage in your living room, schools closed, work closed, cuz what use is work now? (Age of Loneliness I, first Dickie chapter)

So grim. 

You go to class and discuss famous poems. The poems are full of swans, gorse, blackberries, leopards, elderflowers, mountains, orchards, moonlight, wolves, nightingales, cherry blossoms, bog oak, lily pads, honeybees. Even the brand new ones are jampacked with nature. It's like the poets are not living in the same world as you. You put your hand up and say "isn't it weird that poets just keep going around noticing nature and not ever noticing that nature is shrinking? To read these poems, you would think that the world was as full of nature as it ever was even though in the last forty years so many animals and habitats have been wiped out? How come they don't notice that? How come they don't notice everything that's been annihilated if they're so into noticing things? I look around and all I see is a world being ruined. If poems were true they'd just be about walking through a giant graveyard or a garbage dump." (Age of Loneliness I, second Cass chapter)

Ha ha ha. Maybe she should read the orange poem. 

The fact is that people do terrible things every day and the world goes on. They commit atrocities and then resume their ordinary humdrum lives. In real terms, a death is practically non-existent. (Age of Loneliness III)

Bleak. 

Things I looked up:
Baffin Island (Wolf's Lair: Part 2) - in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada, the second-largest island in the Americas (behind Greenland), and the fifth-largest island in the world

On the radio, Larry Gogan playing Boyzone on The Golden Hour like everything was normal. (The Widow Bride II: Part 1)

Lorcan "Larry" Gogan was an Irish broadcaster working for RTÉ.  His show was The Golden Hour, during which he played old favorites and classic songs from yesteryear. Boyzone was an Irish boy band created in 1993. 

The grey squirrel is not native to Ireland. The species was introduced to the country just over a century ago when a dozen arrived in a wicker hamper at Castle Forbes as a wedding present from the Duke of Buckingham. After the wedding breakfast, one of the daughters of the family opened the hamper on the lawn of the estate. the squirrels hopped out and scurried away into the woods. From there, like some fable of colonialism they have spread through almost the entire country. The native red squirrel...has almost vanished. The greys carry a virus, squirrel pox. They are immune to it, but the reds are not. It give them lesions around their mouths so they can't eat. After a week, it's killed them. (The Clearing IV)

This appears to be a true story. Genetic research has determined that all the grey squirrels in Ireland are related back the original 12 animals brought to the island in 1911.

Komorebi is the Japanese word for the kind of light you see in the forest. (The Clearing IV)

“Komorebi” is a Japanese word that means the play of sunlight through leaves. True facts in the book!

Hat mentions:

She spent her days excavating her walk in wardrobe laying out gloves, hats, scarves, blouses, dresses, jeans, skirts...(Sylvias II: Part 1)

He wore a woolly hat all year round. (The Widow Bride II: Part 2)

A baby? Well, that put the tin hat on it, didn't it? (The Widow Bride II: Part 5)

The old library is full of tourists wearing bucket hats carrying shopping bags that carry the college crest, the past for sale (The Clearing II)

brim of her hat (The Clearing V)

It is the weird tree with the witch's hat gouge in its side.  (The Clearing VIII)

"Ugh, that hat. Rapist. Klan. Serial killer. Another rapist." (Age of Loneliness I, first Cass chapter)

"That hat is insane. It's like a satellite dish." (Age of Loneliness I, first Cass chapter)

A group in wizard hats traipses noisily over the square.  (Age of Loneliness I, first Cass chapter)

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

 

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo follows the stories of twelve characters, mostly women who are British and black. One of the characters shares the same first name as me and it's an unusual enough name that I think it might be the only book I've ever read with a character with my name! This is a structure of a book I keep trying to read (see The Great House and Women and Children First), but I guess it's time for me to admit that it doesn't work for me.

You just don't get to spend enough time with the characters. Just as you're settling into a voice and a past and really learning about someone, you move on to a new character. It also sort of feels like each vignette is an afterschool special that's meant to teach us some grand lesson. The writing was interesting and I took down lots of lines of note, but if it's going to bother you that there's not capitalization at the beginning of each paragraph, I wouldn't recommend this. All the other punctuation was as required, so it didn't bother me too much, but I also don't know exactly what the point was. 

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

when they leave uni it’s gonna be with a huge debt and crazy competition for jobs and the outrageous rental prices out there mean her generation will have to move back home forever, which will lead to even more of them despairing at the future and what with the planet about to go to shit with the United Kingdom soon to be disunited from Europe which itself is hurtling down the reactionary road and making fascism fashionable again and it’s so crazy that the disgusting perma-tanned billionaire has set a new intellectual and moral low by being president of America  (location 634)

I mean, this was published in 2019...

her favourite poetry book is called I is a Long Memoried Woman by a Guyanese lady called Grace Nichols (location 3339)

I'm keeping track of books I see in books. It's very meta. 

she and the reading group had a big argument, no, it wasn’t no argument, it was a debate, the other day, about whether a poem was good because they related to it, or whether it was good in and of itself (location 3341)

This sounds like a fun reading group!

Things I looked up:

samizdat (location 300) - the clandestine copying and distribution of literature banned by the state, especially formerly in the communist countries of eastern Europe (a samizdat newsletter)

ackee (location 516) - lychee

Drambuie (location 521) -  golden-coloured, 40% ABV liqueur made from Scotch whisky, heather honey, herbs and spices

Alexander Technique (location 680) - named after its developer Frederick Matthias Alexander, is an alternative therapy based on the idea that poor posture causes a range of health problems

pedalos (location 1007) - pedal boat

protests against Clause 28 (location 1399) - Section 28 refers to a part of the Local Government Act 1988, which stated that local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship"

egotarians (location 4278) - Relating to a dish or cuisine created only to show off the chef's culinary skills or creativity

mardy (location 4360) - angry and complaining; refusing to be pleasant to other people

Siege of Mafeking (location 4933) - a 217-day siege battle for the town of Mafeking (now called Mahikeng) in South Africa during the Second Boer War from October 1899 to May 1900; the lifting of the siege, while of little military significance, was a morale boost for the struggling British.

chiffonier (location 5084) - this is a piece of furniture; it actually has different definitions if you're looking at the British versus North American definition

Hat mentions:

...the orange nylon suit and hat she wore meant customers saw her as a uniformed servant to do their bidding..(location 306)

Yazz reckons that by the time guys her age want to settle down, her ovaries will be busted and they’ll be on to women half their age who can still drop babies at the drop of a hat (location 786)

Winsome is distracted by the men who come back into view through the kitchen window and amble up the beach in the blazing heat, neither wearing sun cream nor a sun hat, in spite of her nagging (location 3498)

most people took favourably to Slim, he was confident and talkative, spoke to strangers, even hostile ones, diffusing their animosity, especially when they heard his accent, they praised his courteousness, his yes m’ams and no sirs, they liked the way he opened doors for women, tipped his hat at men, making them feel respected (location 4718)

she found a job making artificial flowers for a hat factory...(location 4843)

brown shawl wrapped against her shoulders, hair like a bird’s nest with a hat on it (location 4872)

she was taught to knit woollen stockings, a hat and a scarf to wear in winter, to polish her black booties with buttons up the side until they shone, which she wore with pride once she got used to them because at first they gave her sores, never having worn shoes before (location 4897)

Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski

I heard about Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski on Sarah's Bookshelves podcast. Susie had it in her top five of the year so far in episode 172. 

The book is ten chapters long and each chapter is told from a different point-of-view of a woman. A teenager dies at a party in the crumbling town of Nashquitten, Massachusetts, and what we have here is a collection of short stories about how the lives of each of these women is connected as they try to grapple with what happened. Susie compared it to Great House and I liked the structure of Great House, even if I didn't like the execution of it, so I was excited to give it a try. 

Alas, even though I want to like this structure - I love the idea of thinking about how one event, large or small, weaves through so many lives - I have to admit that the structure doesn't actually work for me. We don't get to spend enough time with the characters to really get to know them and understand why they are making the decisions that they are making. I like it in theory, but in reality I get frustrated with the very thing I say I want to read.

So. Basically. This is my problem, not the author's. It's an interesting look at a community and how interconnected everyone is and how many secrets there are. It makes me think I should have more secrets in my small town. 

3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

While I waited for her to respond, I watched videos of old women grooming small dogs on YouTube, which was what I did when I was sad. (page 133)

I watch so many dog grooming videos on YouTube. I felt so seen. I also watch some guy who trims cow hooves. Why is this so fascinating?

I used to think that everyone was on the same page, that we agreed being human meant taking care of one another. But now I understand that a lot of people - maybe most people - think that being human means just taking care of yourself and those you've already decided have value. (page 253)

When did you last think people were on the same page? I feel like I stopped thinking this way when I was six. 

I watch a documentary about cults until Jane arrives. I can't understand why you'd follow someone who calls you a whore and drops your phone in a swimming pool when you try to call your family, but there are a lot of things I don't understand. The appeal of sporting events, people's obsession with lobster, thermodynamics. (page 254)

Ha ha ha. I laughed at this and read it aloud to my husband. Seriously. Why are we all so excited about the Olympics? What even does "thermodynamics" mean? 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

I straighten my spine and tip an imaginary hat. (page 119)

Only now did I realize that a crowd had gathered around us, moms with stricken leathery faces and their oblivious kids in bucket hats. (page 217)

He takes off his jacket but not his hat, and then the hostess leads him to a table and he's gone. (page 305)

When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O'Neal

 

On the opening page of When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O'Neal, Kit sees her sister on the TV news at a deadly fire. This might have been startling for anyone, but it was particularly startling for Kit since her sister had died fifteen years earlier in a train accident. What follows is the journey of these two sisters, backwards and forwards in time, as we examine their family life growing up and its impact on them and the decisions they made as they grew up.

I thought this was a lovely book infused with trauma informed care. I feel like both sisters make choices in their adult lives that are understandable if not always completely responsible. It takes a close look at forgiveness and the complicating factors that do or do not lead to it. Apparently it was originally billed as a mystery or a suspense novel and it definitely is not that - it's a book about families, love, and childhoods lost. It's also a bit of a travel ad for southern California and Auckland, New Zealand. 

Half a star deducted for pretty pedestrian writing. The hat examples below will show you what I mean.

4.5/5 stars

Hat mentions (why hats?why hats?): 

...I wonder if I need to grab my hat. (page 35)

...I leave the white cotton hat on the front seat...(page 35)

...I bring a broad-brimmed hat. (page 89)

...directing her three kids to put their hats back on, to stop tossing a ball among them, to sit down and stop leaning over the rail. (page 118-119)

She's wearing a simple blue sundress and no hat even in this awful land of skin cancers, plus jandals like mine on her feet. (page 221)

She has a hat in her hand, and she uses it to wave to me. (page 246)

****************

Do you think someone could write a book about the place you live and make it sound romantic? I'm not sure someone could pull that off about my town!

The Ghost in the House by Sara O'Leary

The Ghost in the House by Sara O'Leary is a quiet little book about a woman, Faye, who wakes up on top of her piano dressed only in her husband's dress shirt and a string of black pearls. Turns out that she died five years ago and her husband has remarried, but she still haunts the house where they once lived together happily.

It's hard to describe this book. It's a meditation on grief, a hypothesis about the afterlife, and an evaluation of a marriage. But it's also a ghost story without being a horror story. I find myself writing this a week after finishing it and thinking about it every day, replaying certain scenes, feeling the weighty sadness of an old grief, and wondering what will happen to these characters after the ending. I don't think it will be a book for everyone, but it hit the spot for me.

A couple of notes here: One, this book is by a Canadian author and published by Doubleday Canada, which means it's sort of hard to find in the States. I heard about the book from Books Unbound, a podcast hosted by two Canadian women. I used my university library resources to get it and the copy I borrowed is from a public library in Kansas City, Missouri, which I think is amazing. Also, this book has deckled edges, which I hate more than the fire of a thousand burning suns. So just be aware if you also dislike how impossible it is to turn the pages of a book with deckled edges. 

4/5 stars

Lines of note:

Someone has been in here and changed things. My overflowing magazine rack has vanished. Our battered burgundy leather Morris chairs are gone. In their stead, a pair of slipcovered wing chairs the colour of the smudge you leave behind when you erase something written in pencil. My dark-red velvet sofa has been replaced with a non-colour one, somewhere between stone and sand. Everything in the room has been made neutral. Neutralized. I feel like I'm in one of those crappy home-redecorating shows where the woman comes in at the end and all she can do is say "Oh my god" and cry. (page 10)

Right? I would be horrified if everything in the room was neutral. HORRIFIED.

How did I go through my life and make all these decisions without realizing they were decisions? (page 34)

Do you ever wonder about this yourself? Like, how did I get here? Teenage Me vowed to get out of small town life and guess where I ended up? How did these decisions get made?

"Life is an irresistible force. Like all you want to do is stand still and you keep on getting pulled forward. So I had to get up every day and shave my face and put on clothes and talk to people and pretend to be one of the living. And I guess after a while I forgot I was pretending. And then eventually I started just living again." (page 181)

I like this as a way to think about the way out of grief. 

Hat mentions: None

The Road Home by Rose Tremain

The Road Home by Rose Tremain is the story of Lev, an immigrant who arrives in London ill-prepared for his journey to another country to try and find work and send money back to his mother and daughter in his home country. We see Lev's experience from the kitchens of London's best restaurants to the fields where the food that was cooked in those kitchens was picked.  

I started this one a while ago as an audiobook and it just didn't really resonate with me, so I requested a physical copy from the library and it still didn't really resonate with me. I hesitate to tell all of you how long it took me to read this book, but let's just say that it was longer than my usual couple of days. 

I appreciate what Tremain is doing here. She's showing the contemporary immigrant experience through the eyes of an immigrant. But, hmmmm, I just never connected with Lev as a character. A borderline alcoholic who rapes a woman mid-book is not exactly the person I want to root for, to be honest. I actually sort of wanted the story from the point of view of the only female chef in the kitchen or Lev's mother or the lady Lev sat next to on the bus in the way into London. I mean, basically any female character would probably have been more interesting than Lev for me.

I also struggle with this book because you'll note that I have exactly ZERO lines of note here. I didn't think the writing was interesting or exciting or that Tremain had any new observations about the world. Don't misunderstand me, the writing was fine, but it wasn't noteworthy.  

So, all in all, meh. 3/5 stars

Things I looked up:

bilberry (page 10) - a plant that produces berries similar to blueberries; the dried fruit and leaves are used as medicine

astrakhan hat (page 16) - this is a hat made from a type of black cloth made from the wool of a young sheep with a very curly coat - this is probably what you think of when you think of a hat from Russia

Hat mentions: Lots of hats! I counted 14, including the above astrakhan hat. There was even a hatmaker in the book!  Woot.  

...Sam Diaz-Morant was become a famous name in the world of hat-making. Her youngest clients were Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. (page 128)

This book was published in 2008. I love the idea that there is a milliner in the modern world. 

"But things are changing now, right? Women are smartening themselves up. Are hats coming back?"

Lev conjured up a street in Baryn or Glic. He saw women hurrying through the rain, clutching cheap, flimsy umbrellas or holding magazines over their hair. He couldn't see or imagine a single hat. (page 130)

I also really appreciated how Tremain used the hatmaker to allude to the differences between the immigrant and non-immigrant experience, as well as class. It was a clever little bit of importance for hats in the book and you know I love that.