Another murder mystery, of which I seem to have had a lot more this year than usual, there is a lot to like in this story.  Set in a remote location at the destination of a successful tv star and a magazine editor, the story is told from multiple pointsof view, which narrators being more and less reliable, revealing all the hidden motives and guarded secrets they have in small bits as the story unfolds.  These back stories set the stage for the conflicts that arise, but the biggest secrets are held back and keep you guessing as more and more people have reason to murder others at the party and you don't know until the end who is murdered, let alone who did it. I really liked the story and thought it was cleverly written and the unusual format which could have felt gimmicky actually flowed really well. I will say that there was one too many backstories and as the last one played out, my willingness suspension of disbelief was pushed a little too far. It just felt too unlikely that the person with the least connect to the main circle of people just happened to have had motive to kill one of the other guests because of a connection that neither was aware of and that unfolds with way too much coincidence.  It did add a layer of extra cleverness and it was woven into the story early on in a way that made it all make sense when it came together, but really it just seemed so unlikely to have been possible that it distracted from an otherwise really tightly plotted story. Even with that, I am giving it a soft recommendation.
Recommend
Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

I am so enthralled with the very concept of this book in which the author uses her obsession with sea creatures as the basis of these fabulous life stories that use the sea creatures as complex allegories for her life. Even the title, referring to the point in an ocean where the light can no longer penetrate, relates to moments in her life.  As a memoir, it is insightful and tells the story of a unique life of Queerness and mixed-race identity.

I particularly appreciated how the author's experience of trauma and sexual assault were presented in such an unusual and poignant way.  All of this was done in the midst of providing rich details about marine ecosystems and creatures, some of which (like the octopus), we often hear about in other contexts, but some  of which I knew nothing about and found fascinating.  This is just such an unusual set-up and read. 

I highly recommend it.

Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

This was an incredibly painful book to read about the author's struggle with is son's addiction. 
How many rock bottoms can one family survive?  The writing is elegant and the author's love for his child permeates every word as he begins his decent into addiction, struggling with recovery and relapse. The book is a heartache from beginning to end, told from the perspective of a parent desperate to help, but powerless over their child's choices, but also over his own drive to provide comfort and protection for an addict caught in the narcissism and criminality of active addiction. Prepare to have your heart broken, over and over, and make sure you have the pace to reflect on everyone you ever loved who has known addiction. 

I also want to point out that this book also alludes to the unpopular and often ignored topic of how bad parenting plans impact the children who have to live them out--a very real reminder for separated parents and the professionals so write those plans for them.

Recommend.
​
Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

This is a lovely short book that follows up on the author's wildly successful book, Braiding Sweetgrass.  I have heard the criticism that despite the
indigenousness of the author that the books are written for a white audience and this may be true, but as the white audience I have to say that I loved both of them.  This one in particular talks about an ecology economy and the meaningfulness of a gift economy and of investing in community.  Whether this is because you want the benefits that come from gifting, in terms of the emotional connections, the furthering of your values, or even indirect marketing of your business, an economy that incorporates gift giving and receiving should not be underestimated. 
There were a couple of themes that particularly resonated for me.  First, wealth is not what you have, but what you give away and, second, if there isn't enough of what you want, then want something else.  Aren’t those just lovely ideas that you want to file away and remember? 

Recommend.

Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

Another post-apocalyptic novel, which really seems to be disproportionately recommended in recent times, this one was extremely graphic in depicting gratuitous violence. This was oddly juxtaposed against explicit descriptions of sexual encounters.  I was disappointed that I did not like it more since the premise of the futuristic world felt well thought out and plausible, though incredibly depressing. 

Set in the dessert of the American southwest, the complicated backstory includes litigation over water rights, complicated interpersonal dynamics, lots of characters with compelling and believable backstories, and  a nuanced world created with attention to details that I really liked.  Ultimately, while there was a lot to like in the story, I really disliked the violence, which I did not think was needed to advance the story and which reflected a deterioration of human decency at a level that was just too dark for me.  I found that I couldn't listen to this unless I was in the right frame of mind and definitely not before bed.  

Not recommended.
​
Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

​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.  
​
Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

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.

Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

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.

Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

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! 
​ 
Highly recommend. 
​
Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.