When I started this book and really for a quite a long ways into the book, I thought this was a memoir.  It reminded me of Furiously Happy & Let's Pretend This Never Happened with that manic, disjointed writing style and the incessant complaining about modern bourgeois motherhood. But it turns out this was a novel with more depth than that.  It threw in a bit of sex, sort of a middle aged with young kids version of romance where the pressure to fall back in love with your long-time spouse becomes too much.  I might have enjoyed the book more had I not read it at the beginning of the pandemic, voluntary self-quarantine period when her whining about everything instead of doing something about it didn't seem clever or quirky, but just annoying.  I can definitely see what people liked it, though, since there were moments where it came together really well and it did try hard to be poignant.  Not recommended.

Diego got me the paper version of this book when I had surgery in the fall, so I started it a while ago, but just finished it over the weekend. The timing was apropos, given how the current global pandemic has sparked a very real conversation about the instability of housing for so many people. I liked how this book really presented the human aspect of both tenants and landlords, many of whom are not wealthy at all, but small time entrepreneurs just trying to get ahead. It was an interesting enough read and I think for people who haven't really thought about low income housing, it would be a good read. I found it a little preachy in its presentation and wish it had been more nuanced in its analysis and that it had looked more at inter- generational poverty and other causes of housing instability. Overall, not s bad read, but not fabulous, either.

​

I love time travel. And maybe it is enough of a spoiler to have even said that, so sorry about that. Thinking back to when I started reading the book, I can't remember how far in it was that I realized that time travel was involved, but I don't think I can write a review about this book without talking about that and since I have already ruined that for you, I am just going to continue on now.  I have spent a lot of time thinking about time travel and I have read and watched a lot of stories where there is some component of time travel.  The problem with most time travel story lines is that they fall part if you push on them too much.  But this book really held together.  The plot is complicated and it takes a while to figure out all the pieces, but it unfolds in layers that I really appreciated.  It is a love story, but not in a sappy or even romantic way. But it is also sci fi that reads like a novel.  Definitely recommend this one.

Recommended by Amanda.

My family unit is starting self-quarantine today.  It is a privilege and a reflection of our privilege to be able to do this.  We get to do this because we have resources and are in charge of employment decisions.  Because we have these things, it is our obligation to self-quarantine early to help slow the spread because we know there are some people who cannot and others who will choose not to.

My partner will be home with our college freshman in a few hours. As soon as they get here, we are doing our collective part to slow the spread by starting our Quarantine Circle protocols. Only essential contact with others from now until further notice. Its going to be hard, but if we can reduce our virus footprint by 90%, then I feel like we are doing our part. None of us are high risk, but part of living in community is caring about the community.  Here’s an excerpt from the notice given to our family unit this morning. (It's true, we are a family of lawyer-types so we like clear expectations and proper notice to be given, even to the kids.)

What we aren’t doing:

No restaurants, shopping, or going to others’ homes. No campus. No one comes into our space.

Absolutely required court appearances and will signings only.

Everyone washes hands about every two hours & showers, including hair washing, every day. Wash your hands every time you come in the house & wipe the door knob after you come in.

Do not get injured or harmed. Be extra careful. The last thing we need is to worry about one of us in an accident and the last place any of us want to be is the emergency room.

Do not let your phone  run out of charge and take it with you at all times.

What we can do:

Drive to a park or forest & go for a walk or bike ride with other members of our Quarantine Circle. Do not go far. Bald Hill or out West Hills Rd. for trails, Avery or Sunset Parks. Do not touch or come within 6 feet of other people while there. Conserve gas by driving together, even if you walk alone when you are there. When you get to 3/4 tank, refill. Get out & swipe your own card.

Walk the labyrinth across the street.

Be in the yard, greenhouse, or hot tub.

Hugs within our quarantine group are ok. Four hugs a day is the minimum, not the maximum.

We are all really stressed. I expect this to get worse as we live in close quarters under these conditions. Online finals, work, friends & family who are more vulnerable, and not being able to see the friends we are closest to: this sucks, sucks, sucks. It sucks for everyone. It sucks a lot for us. It sucks a thousand times more for poor people, people experiencing abuse at home, and people who are chronically ill. Their stress level has to be substantially higher and they can do less to address it.

This could devastate us financially and emotionally or we can step up and make hard choices individually and collectively sooner rather than later. We can’t control what other people do, but we can control our own little family and we can lead by example. None of us like these choices, but we are strong and we are loved. This is a privilege and an obligation.

If you liked The Underground Railroad or Kindred, then you will really like this book.  I didn't love any of them, but I thought this was better than the former, though not as good as the latter.  It is similar to both of those in its use of fantasy in the context of slavery, with an compelling theme of having the power to escape bondage. It wasn't as graphic as either of those books to be, but it also wasn't as nuanced as Kindred.  In places it as hard to follow the narrative because the terms of the fantasy world aren't clearly delineated at first and I kept thinking I missed something. 

I am a Ta-Nehisi Coates fan. And of course, I love Oprah, who loved this book, too. I so was disappointed and actually surprised, too, that I didn't love the book because in theory I should have. Maybe it was just the wrong book at the wrong time.

Recommended by Kieran.

I definitely was not at all sure what to expect from a 1939 novel about a wounded soldier, so went into this book with some skepticism.  I was delighted by an early love scene that quite surprisingly involved affirmative consent (yes, written in 1939!) and a lovely interaction the night before the narrator is deployed.  The book pushed me away and then pulled me in, so I found it someone inconsistent in terms of quality, but it is short enough that this didn't matter all that much.  Even with two introductions, the book came in at under 8 hours with a very slow reader, so it was easy to listen at high speed.

It is stunning to think this work is almost 90 years old.  It is the story of a badly injured, drafted kid coming back to consciousness , coming to grips with his injuries, and trying to communicate with the world around him.  In parts, it is incredibly powerful, both in terms of its anti-war effort, but also in terms of its message of the human capacity to endure.

Recommend.

​ Robin recommended this one for me.

I've spent the last week an a half thinking about psychedelic drugs: ayahuasca, LSD, and mushrooms, mostly.  This is the author's narrative of his own experimentation with various forms and formats of hallucinogens.  One thing I liked about the book was that in the beginning, before he seriously starts on this journey, he writes from that perspective.  Spoiler alert (not really), he ends up joining the cult of people who think that these drugs are spiritual, insightful, and healing. I am not saying one way or the other what I think about all that, but I can say that I find his ultimate dedication to this narrative to be irritating.  Interesting read, but ultimately felt like a commercial for these drugs to be widely available and used as a cure-all for many ailments.

Not recommended.

​Recommended to me by Molly and then Tiffany.