I didn't even know there was a genre of hockey romances and I certainly did not know that it was going to end up being a book genre that I would end up liking, but here we are.  This is, I think, the third book in the last few months that I am recommending in which there is a romance and there are hockey players.  And truly, who knew there was an entire genre of hockey romance in which consent and health reciprocal relationships was front and center?  This one also weaves in themes of the pull between traditional families with modern kids struggling to find a balance between the two, sexism in sports, and figuring out how to manage competing career tracks in relationships.  It was just a really unexpectedly fun, light romance.  Perfect bedtime or beach reading.

Recommend.
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​This is a ridiculously cute college romance.  For all the stereotypical forbidden lovers plotline, this jock frat boy meets ambitious, determined budding sports journalist whose brother is on the jock's rival team is actually remarkably fun--and a model of consent based romance, which I just love to see becoming more popular.  

Light. Sweet. Predictable for the most part.  It is a great choice for escape reading. It is slightly more steamy than a regular read, but has more of that YA feel to it.

Recommend.

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​This is not what I was expecting.  Not only was it no what I as expecting, but even when I was well into the story, things would happen that I did not see coming.  Twice in a short period of time, I was out walking and audibly gasp at the unexpected turn of events. It wasn't that I didn't find the story plausible, because once it happened, it was obvious that it could have happened that way, but I was just so surprised and I cared so much about the story and he characters.

The "women" here are the women who joined the military as nurses and were deployed into combat hospitals during the Vietnam War. From deciding to enlist to deployment to coming home to the many twists and turns of life after that, I loved everything about this story.  The complicated relationships, the struggles, the trauma, the recovery, the heartaches, and the way she writes about the constant, crushing sexism of that era was all so tangible, so well conveyed.  

I didn't realize this was the same author who wrote The Nightingale, which is an absolute all time favorite of mine.  If you loved one of those, I think you would love the other, even though they are quite different in nature. The writing is impeccable.  I can't say that I am anything close to an expert on either WWII or the Vietnam War, but I know enough to have been impressed by the amount of research that had to have gone into the books.  I'm focused on my 50 bookish friends list, but I loved this book enough that I contemplated diverting from the list to read more of her books.

When the book was over, I left wishing there was more.  Not an epilogue -- I didn't think that was warranted, but more of the details of the story along the way because the storytelling was just so good. The depiction of the friendships that weave through the book were so vivid and impressive.  I loved the ending.  I love the middle parts.  I loved the twists and turns and the heartbreaks and most of all I loved the women in the story.
 
Highly recommend.  
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This is a post-apocalyptic story from the genre I like to call Depressing AF Futures.  Like Station Eleven, Blindness, How High We Go In The Dark, and The Earth Abides, this book is bleak.  It was definitely well written.  The characters had depth and I loved their complexity and growth, but the storyline just brought one heartbreak after another.  It was another reminder that I don't want to stick around to see everyone I love die and everything I care about disappear.  I found my outlook on life to be significantly impaired while reading the book, unable to completely shake it from my mind.  Unlike Station Eleven, with its sudden world demise, this is a gradual fall into a post-civilization world where only the most hardened survivalists exist. It felt like it could really happen.  Being on the west coast, where one of the characters flees to while the protagonist stays behind in Florida, which is the first to succumb to the irredeemable changes in climate, it felt like this could be happening right now or next week anyhow, that this next hurricane season happens in the opening of the book.  The loneliness of the book, from its very beginning, is haunting.  Well written, I had a hard time putting it aside and yet I cannot say that I enjoyed it or was glad I read it.

​Not recommended.

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It is sometimes hard not to romanticize groups of people I have little contact with.  Seeing Rastafarians while I travel or from a distance and reading some of the more popular writings, the combination of political and spiritual philosophy is alluring in what might helpful an inappropriate exoticism.  This book, though, is a reminder that dysfunctional fanaticism exists everywhere.  Here, amidst a philosophical framework that is essentially pacifist and equalitarian, the rigid sexist code of the author's father leads to abuse and control that mirrors what is found in so many other religious communities.  

This memoir of childhood abuse, multigenerational abuse and neglect, and isolation is a powerful reminder that there isn't a single path to healing.  Reminiscent of  Educated, I loved the arc here, at once critical of the abuse and showing compassion for the pain of the abuser's abuse as a child and young adult.  With such a different setting, though, this book had something new to offer and I appreciated the reminder that extremism in all its forms is problematic.

Moreover, this is a lyrical book, written by a true writer.  Every word seems carefully selected, every thought part of bouquet of thoughts, placed together is just the right way to convey the complexity of a life.  I am often turned off by this highly curated type of poetic writing, but not this one.  The wording was just joyfully crafted, even at the most heartbreaking moments of narration.  

​Recommend.

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I absolutely loved this quirky, unique, and entirely unexpected murder mystery with a twist--the twist being whether it was even a murder at all.  A classic whodunit, but with nothing classic about it.  The hero is simultaneously sympathetic and yet not, an unreliable narrator and yet earnest, unbelievable and yet not.  As she insists on investigating an unexplained death in her tea shop, her distrust of law enforcement and her deep desire for love, connection, and meaning drives to sometimes humorous, sometimes shocking, and always unexpected lengths.  Without giving anything away, I am just going to recommend it and tell you to go read it! 
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Highly recommend. 
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The title of this book was really misleading, although the photos on the cover might have given me a hint that it wasn't going to be a romance novel.  A memoir written by a well-known presidential historian, the center of the memoir is her husband, who was a speech writer for JFK, Lyndon B Johnson, and Bobby Kennedy.  The audio version includes audio clips from some of the speeches she talks about. Perhaps the title refers to the triumph of love over hate in the American political landscape or to the love that they had for the country, because romantic love was not at the center of the story, at least not until the very end when they are working together on this project.  I wish the book had told us more about their interpersonal dynamics, a 1960's power couple at a time when two careers and children was uncommon, probably especially so in the highly charged DC world.  I would have been really interested to have had that explored more.

As a history of the Democratic party, it was a detailed historians account--at times deeply interesting and at times fairly mundane and boring.  What I liked the most, though, was the reminder that this moment in time, when it feels like the country has reached the end of its capacity to endure the political divides that it is based on, is not unique.  It is not even the moment in time in which the demise of the country appears the most imminent.  Hearing the first hand account of the turmoil, of the violence, of the divisions in the country, especially during the five year span of time in which MLK and the Kennedy brothers were assassinated, provided some solace for me, knowing that the country has been here before and has returned from the brink of implosion many times, that it is still possible that it could right itself.  

I don't know that I have ever heard or read many of the speeches from that era, but they were not only actually inspiring, but still relevant.  It is hard to remember sometimes how far we have come and that this was accomplished not only with protests in the streets and with education in classrooms, but also with leaders in the system with a vision and willingness to show up to do the hard work of leadership.

The hesitation that I have in making a recommendation on this one is just that there really were sections that were dull, including a few that I fell asleep to multiple times before finally just skipping, something I rarely do.

Recommended, but a soft recommend.  

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Other than the writing of this book being above average, I basically have nothing nice to say about this story.  It is steeped in rape culture and sexual terrorism--the entire backdrop of the story is about missing young girls, abducted from their community, with the message being that the only way they can keep themselves safe is by staying home or being under the protection of the men in their lives.  As if that wasn't bad enough, [SPOILER ALERT: STOP READING HERE] it add in the wrongful conviction of a gay doctor who was actually trying to help young girls.  A young boy who saves one girls from kidnapping goes on a lifelong quest to find and save other missing girls that is self-destructive, obsessive, and downright weird. 

It is a complicated murder mystery, with so much many misogynistic themes and general themes that even the twist ending that plays with the idea that it wasn't what it seemed the whole time wasn't anywhere near enough to save it.  I guess if you like a book about a serial kidnapper who evades capture amidst an unrealistic plotline that is hard to stay engaged with and follow, while also being unnecessarily shocking, then you might enjoy this read.  It was not, however, for me.

Not recommended.
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