This is an incredibly well-crafted story with layers of interwoven themes that left me inspired and in love with this book.  The mom-daughter dynamics, in particular, didn't shy away from the hard stuff--not just love and loss and longing, but the difficulty connecting and re-connecting with family members after conflict or who just don't understand you.

It wasn't trite or, even worse, a story about forgiveness. It was so much stronger than that. Set against the backdrop of a burgeoning love story between two competing journalists, there is a mystery at the core of the story, unexpected and creatively crafted, it pulled me in as it unfolded. I loved that I never felt like the narrator was holding back from me, it felt like I was right there as things were unfolding.

The pacing was impeccable and I was obsessed with every minute of it. It had a bit of a feel like Taylor Jenkins Reid's books (like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & The Six, Carrie Soto is Back, or Malibu Raising) where the complexity of celebrity and extreme wealth is explored.  Heartbreaking and heartwarming and just so lovely.
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Highly recommend.

Another great read this year, this is a fictionalized story that brings home the Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement in a nuanced story about "family" and the complex meaning of that word, especially in the context of harms that are too deep to be forgiven. Set in Nova Scotia and Maine, it centers in part on cross-border indigenous migrant workers who picked summer berries for white farmers.  It is really hard to talk about this book without spoiling the story because the core themes unfold slowly. By the time the themes reveal themselves, it wasn't a surprise they were coming, but it didn't end where it began.  Suffice it to say that this is worth reading and has timely and timeless themes of family separation because of both casual and systemic racism that transcends generation and causes ripples of pain, as well as ripples of love.

Recommend. 

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For the first half of this book, I was entirely unimpressed with the book. I did not like the characters. I was horrified by the whole premise where the addict kills his kid when he drives drunk on morning. I hated how the author played with emotion, making me simultaneously hate the guy, but also eel so sorry for him and his situation.  The relationship with his wife, his mother, his father, and his mother-in-law, all portrayed with raw pain and in the first act, this just felt like a poor attempt to manipulate the reader.

But, about half-way through the book, everything shifted for me. I had no idea what was coming, so I didn't know what I was getting into.  I think is is probably why I ended really liking this book a lot.  I want to preserve that for you if you are going to read it, so spoiler alerts ahead here...

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!


This is essentially a book about the need for prison reform.  It is absolutely heartbreaking to experience the incarceration of an addict whose trauma is killing him.  The brutality of prison, the lack of services, the sexual abuse, the psychological torture, all of it was raw and complicated.  This unlikeable guy, who killed his kid, who lied to his wife, who is passive aggressive and narcissistic, and who lacks significant insight into his psyche doesn't deserve what happens to him in prison--no one would.  There are moments of joy and connection, but those are outweighed by layers and layers of pain, bad luck that just compounds and is heartbreaking -- up to the end when COVID hits the prison.  

END SPOILER ALERT??

Sad from start to finish, this is worth reading for the thought-provoking analysis of the criminal responsibility in an era of retribution.

​Recommend.

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At its core, this is a ghost story, a violent, horrifying ghost story about the kids banished to a reformatory for committing petty mostly pretty crimes.  The main character, a young Black boy incarcerated in a reformatory school for defending himself in a fight. Everything about this book is dark, graphic, and depressing, except maybe the very end, but by then it was too late for me to appreciate that.  I don't like horror or graphic violence, so this was just not for me at all. 

I suppose I wish I were the kind of person who could tolerate this level of historically accurate misery better, but even with what could be considered an empowering ending, I just couldn't get a lot of the terrorizing scenes out of my mind and while that might have been justified by the context of the story or even the point of the book, the gore and horror of it was too much. 

Do not recommend.
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This is a really fun, light, engaging romance with likable characters. Bonus points for one of my newest favorite plotlines--pandemic lock down stories.  I thought the whole premise was clever.  Set in the writing room of late-night comedy show (a la SNL), it is funny and poignant. It is a fresh story. The foreshadowing is solid, but not obvious. It isn't a traditional romance, but it is a love story with some steamy moments. It is unusual to have this mix and it worked for me.  Double bonus points for a great character in recovery where that isn't the focus of the book, just a background feature.

Definitely recommend this one!

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Part of a growing genre of stories about people engaged in sex work as the internet expands access to and normalizes online careers.  This book explores some of the issues facing online sex industry workers without judgment. While explaining the circumstances of her life leading to starting an Only Fans page, this was an engaging story.  While it also explores family dysfunction, characters navigating their lives in complex ways, and mothering, there was more to this book than the premise suggests.  Yeah, Margo's got money troubles because her parents suck, she can't find reliable daycare, and her roommates are jerks, but there is something somewhat more nuanced in the way this is written and I have to give it big props for legal accuracy when that part of the book roles around. It is rare to have a book that does justice to family law, let alone to child welfare and this book does an exceptional job of both.  

While I was entirely hooked on this read, wanting to see what was going to happen, after it was over I didn't like it as much as I did while i was reading it.  I don't think this is because the ending wasn't good, I just think that it didn't weigh in on storytelling the way those books that keep you engaged for a significant time after they end. Still, a recommend, if leaning towards the softer side of recommend.

​Recommend.

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Just because there is a "surprise twist" ending that makes someone not creepy doesn't mean that their behavior isn't creepy.  The wealthy, benevolent old man troupe whom we are supposed to love and trust, while thinking he is sweet and quirky just didn't sit well for me. It is obvious throughout the book that there is more to this buy who shows up in a town and extracts everyone's life stories, always tainted with a trite, judgey, Christian message just didn't play for me the way it did for many other readers.  As the protagonist works his way through meeting everyone in town and getting them to share their life with him, we get a tour of the whose who of Christian failings--early on starting with the abortion regret story, but continuing with so many preachy, trite messages.  

As if that wasn't bad enough, the book is slow paced and boring.  I kept waiting for a plot to develop in which he was actually a serial rapist or con artist, anything to make it interesting.  I think we are supposed to be drawn in by this slow paced old guy who slows everyone down and "sees" who they truly are and empathizes with their pain, but really I was just irritated with such a obvious ploy to clock Christian propaganda as literature.

Absolutely do not recommend this.
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Written from the perspective of a young girl born to a Danish mother and deployed American serviceman, the story unfolds as the narrator lands in Portland, Oregon, in the 1980s to live with her father's mother and sister.  So much nuance here as she discovers what it means to be Black in the US, first living with her parents in Chicago and then living in Portland.  From the beginning, it is obvious that she has experienced a trauma. Her mother is dead, her father is absent, and she spent a long stint in the hospital. 

As the story unfolds, we learn snippets of her past, as she grows up an outsider living with her grandmother, not Black enough or white enough, her quest to find her place is a beautiful coming of age story and neatly demonstrates how little trauma was understood in the 80's.

​recommend.
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This YA coming of age book was a surprise hit with me. Set in Brooklyn, it is a raw coming of age story that demonstrates the complexity of urban violence in the lives of teens.  Sneaking out with friends to a party you aren't old enough to go to, spats and disagreements with friends, and intricate family dynamics transcend the time and place of the setting and the overlay of how the character with Tourette's Syndrome is treated by others add compelling depth.  That he takes up knitting to manage his ticks was a favorite plot point for this long-time knitting advocate.  The scene where his brother tries to steal yarn for him at the fancy yarn store was heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time--which is always one of my favorite book moments.

​Recommend. 

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The premise of the book was interesting enough, but the execution was kind of dark and broody.  A golem and a jinni find each other living parallel lives from Syria to New York, navigating a life of otherness, interspersed with kindness from strangers they befriend and lovers they become entangled with in various ways. I did appreciate the historical depiction at the end of the 1800's in those locations.  Overarching themes of loneliness and trying to connect when your very nature seems to disallow for connection make this a melancholic,  intellectual read. In some ways, the ways in which the golem, in particular, avoided abuse of lovely people who protected her and her secret was heartwarming, but the overall mood of the book left a sad haze over me that I couldn't shake and didn't love. But I for sure can see how folks who love this type of fantasy could love this tale.

Not recommended.

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