Category: What I’m Reading

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1. Turtles All the Way Down

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Summary

Aza Holmes never intended to pursue the disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis.

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

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My Review

After struggling through my last two books, I was ready for a book which I wanted to dive into and never return.  Reading had been hard, and I wanted to make it easy, effortless again.  For me, the middle grade/young adult genre almost always does that for me. 

I have been a long-time fan of John Green. While he is most likely known for A Fault in Our Stars, I personally preferred Looking for Alaska.  I had seen this book advertised on in the young adult section at Strand Bookstore on my recent trip to NYC; when I saw that it was available for immediate pickup at my local library, I went over that very day and claimed it. 

In short, I began and finished this book on the same day.  It captivated me the way I hoped.  The characters were real and believable; Aza is clearly struggling with her own personal issues, but that does not discredit her friends Davis and Daisy from their  equally real problems and daily struggles.  Through this Green paints an important picture that no one’s life is perfect. 

In the same way that Shu beautifully captured the difficulty of understanding an eating disorder in Louder than Hunger, Green walks the reader through the world of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. 

I would highly and readily recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of young adult.  And I just learned that it is also a movie, and I love to watch movies based on books because I love to remind myself how the book is always better than the movie.  Every time. 

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2. The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club

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Summary:

It is the summer of 1919 and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. Despite having only weeks to find a permanent home, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet’s daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas.

Poppy wears trousers, operates a taxi and delivery service to employ local women, and runs a ladies’ motorcycle club (to which she plans to add flying lessons). She and her friends enthusiastically welcome Constance into their circle. And then there is Harris, Poppy’s recalcitrant but handsome brother—a fighter pilot recently wounded in battle—who warms in Constance’s presence. But things are more complicated than they seem in this sunny pocket of English high society. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked.

Whip-smart and utterly transportive, The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club is historical fiction of the highest order: an unforgettable coming-of-age story, a tender romance, and a portrait of a nation on the brink of change.

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My Review:

I chose this book because I had seen it on a stand in a local bookstore in Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia while on vacation. It turns out that I had read another of Siminson’s books years ago, The Last Stand of Major Pettigrew. I don’t remember any of the details of that book, but I do remember enjoying it.

What I enjoyed most about the Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club was the time period in which it was set. Post World War I was a fascinating time globally, but especially England where the warfront was a much closer geographical reality than here in the States. Add in the complicating factor of gender, where the post-war story is told from the perspective of women, and you have a delicious plot. Similar to World War II and Rosie the Riveter, women in the 1920s were asked to fill in roles while the men went away to fight. They offered their employable skills and appreciated being part of the workforce. However, after the war, the men returned and all was expected to fall back to normal. But how can you go back when you’ve tasted freedom and experienced independence?

I found the historical gender rules of the day to be fascinating, especially in high society. Chaperones and propriety were the main concern of the day. But thrown in a few women wearing chaps, goggles and helmets, and you have the recipe for a perfect storm.

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This book was truly delightful from start to finish, and even if the story closed up a little more neatly than I personally prefer, sometimes in this life we all need a happy ending.

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3.  Our Last Days in Barcelona

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Summary

Barcelona, 1964. Exiled from Cuba after the revolution, Isabel Perez has learned to guard her heart and protect her family at all costs. After Isabel’s sister Beatriz disappears in Barcelona, Isabel goes to Spain in search of her. Joining forces with an unlikely ally thrusts Isabel into her sister’s dangerous world of espionage, but it’s an unearthed piece of family history that transforms Isabel’s life.

Barcelona, 1936. Alicia Perez arrives in Barcelona after a difficult voyage from Cuba, her marriage in jeopardy and her young daughter Isabel in tow. Violence brews in Spain, the country on the brink of civil war, the rise of fascism threatening the world. When Cubans journey to Spain to join the International Brigades, Alicia’s past comes back to haunt her as she is unexpectedly reunited with the man who once held her heart.

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My Review:

Our Last Days in Barcelona is the fifth book in a series of fiction books set in Cuba. My husband and I were fortunate enough to visit Cuba in the fall of 2016 before tensions once again arose between our two countries, all but shutting down the border for American tourists. Cuba is a beautiful and complicated country, and even in my short visit there of only a few days, I left part of my heart there. I read the first book, Next Year in Havana, and was immediately hooked on the plot which was largely historical fiction about Castro’s rise to power, the violence that tore the country, and the heartbreak between those who fled and those who stayed. The next books in the series have followed the same family, although they have greatly differed in topic and therefore my interest.

This novel was not my favorite in the series. I have owned it for some time but finally decided to read it as my family is traveling to Barcelona this summer. While there is a base of historical fiction in this novel–Cleeton always does her research–this one was a little too “beach read-y” for me. Lots of complicated romantic relationships, “longing” and whispers and glances and soft touches. And unfortunately the feminist in me cringes when a woman who is escaping a bad relationship and finally tastes her own freedom and independence simply lands in the arms of a new man.

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​If you enjoy a good romance and want to learn more about the Cuban-Spanish historical relationship, I would highly recommend this book.

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4.  It’s All or Nothing, Vale

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Summary

No one knows hard work and dedication like Valentina Camacho. And Vale’s thing is fencing. She’s the top athlete at her fencing gym. Or she was . . . until the accident.

After months away, Vale is finally cleared to fence again, but it’s much harder than before. Her body doesn’t move the way it used to, and worst of all is the new number one: Myrka. When she sweeps Vale aside with her perfect form and easy smile, Vale just can’t accept that.

But the harder Vale fights to catch up, the more she realizes her injury isn’t the only thing holding her back. If she can’t leave her accident in the past, then what does she have to look forward to?

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My Review:

As I have mentioned previously, my favorite genre is middle grade fiction. Recently, I had been introduced to novels in verse and have come to appreciate how other titles I recently read offer a full, worthwhile narrative tale in a concentrated amount of words.
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Unfortunately, It’s All or Nothing, Vale didn’t live up to the level of my previous middle grade verse novels. It just felt that Arango was working too hard to sell a heartbreaking tale, and I just never deeply connected with the main character. The plot felt to me too stereotypical with a character wanting to overcome an obstacle. Overall, I found I didn’t care much about the plot, the main character or what happened to her. It just all felt flat.​
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The novel did offer a fascinating look into the world of fencing, and it did provide the reader with a strong cultural angle. It is also a quick read, as many novels in verse can be.
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Overall, I simply cannot recommend this book, as I just believe there are too many other books and not enough time to read them all. If you’re interested in a novel written in verse, I would instead recommend Enemies in the Orchard by Dana VanderLugt or Louder than Hunger by John Schu.

I was traveling oversees with my family for two weeks during the month of June, which did not leave me much reading time. I’ll add what I read to my list next month, but for this newsletter, I’m giving you a highlight list of some of my favorite reads from a genre I created (I have yet to see it in a bookstore, although I would read every book in this section).

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FAVORITE READS WITH QUIRKY NARRATORS

I love a good quirky narrator, and I find I’m drawn to one who is probably on the Autism spectrum. I love how they see the world in black-and-white and how they dissect everyday social behaviors as if it were a science experiment. My first book I remember reading in this genre was Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. The plot was quite serious, but I was enamored with Christopher John Francis Boone and how we only read the story through his perspective.

Below are my top 4 favorite fiction novels and 1 nonfiction memoir with Quirky Narrators. As I mentioned in my introduction, this is not an official genre as far as I know, but I would love to see a turnstile or a small bookshelf with more of these stories. The world needs more quirky narrators.

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1. The Rosie Project

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Summary

Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.
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Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don’s Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

2. The Cactus

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Summary

Susan Green is like a cactus: you can’t get too close. She likes things perfectly ordered and predictable. No surprises. But suddenly confronted with the loss of her mother and the unexpected news that she is about to become a mother herself, Susan’s greatest fear is realized. She is losing control.
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Enter Rob, the dubious but well-meaning friend of her indolent brother. As Susan’s due date draws near and her dismantled world falls further into a tailspin, Susan finds an unlikely ally in Rob. She might have a chance at finding real love and learning to love herself, if only she can figure out how to let go.

3. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

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Summary

Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive – but not how to live

Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend.

Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything.

One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted – while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she’s avoided all her life.

Change can be good. Change can be bad. But surely any change is better than…. fine?

4. The Clementine Complex

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Summary

Unremarkable legal assistant Gary Thorn goes for a pint with his coworker Brendan, unaware his life is about to change. There, Gary meets a beautiful woman, but she leaves before he catches her name. All he has to remember her by is the title of the book she was reading: The Clementine Complex. And when Brendan goes missing, too, Gary needs to track down the girl he now calls Clementine to get some answers.
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And so begins Gary’s quest, through the estates and pie shops of South London, to find some answers and hopefully, some love and excitement in this page-turning, witty, and oddly sweet story with a cast of unforgettable characters.

5. Look Me in the Eye

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Summary

Ever since he was small, John Robison had longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits—an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother in them)—had earned him the label “social deviant.” No guidance came from his mother, who conversed with light fixtures, or his father, who spent evenings pickling himself in sherry. It was no wonder he gravitated to machines, which could, at least, be counted on.
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After fleeing his parents and dropping out of high school, his savant-like ability to visualize electronic circuits landed him a gig with KISS, for whom he created their legendary fire-breathing guitars. Later, he drifted into a “real” job, as an engineer for a major toy company. But the higher Robison rose in the company, the more he had to pretend to be “normal” and do what he simply couldn’t communicate. It wasn’t worth the paycheck.

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It was not until he was forty that an insightful therapist told him he had the form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome. That understanding transformed the way Robison saw himself—and the world.

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1. The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist

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Summary

The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist recounts the story of how Mississippi propelled two Mississippi doctors—Dr. Steven Hayne, a medical examiner, and Dr. Michael West, a dentist—to the top of the state’s criminal justice apparatus. Then, through institutional failures and structural racism, these two built successful careers as the go-to experts for prosecutors; their actions, based on bad evidence and bogus science, resulted in countless flawed convictions and led many innocent defendants to land in prison. Some of the convictions then began to fall apart, including those of two innocent men who spent a combined 30 years in prison before being exonerated in 2008.

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My Review

This had been on my bookshelf on my library app, and I just decided to pull the trigger. Who chooses to read a title with the words “Cadaver King” in the title? Why, the daughter of a funeral director.

While I don’t often read nonfiction nearly as often as fiction, I do enjoy ones that find a piece of history that I might not have known about and tell its story. It was a difficult read for a number of reasons: 1) the writing was very data-driven. It often read less like a story and more like an academic report. 2) the topic is stomach-churning. There were stories of toddlers being murdered and black men being lynched and shot. All under the large umbrella of racial injustice in the South, primarily Mississippi. And we’re not talking about the 1800s or even the turn of the century. These stories took place all the way through the 1990s. It brought me back to reading “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson.

But the history of the profession of the coroner/medical examiner is a fascinating one. As to whether or not you should read this book, I’ll let Temple Law department suggest it best: “If your interest is in forensic evidence, read this book; if it is in criminal justice, and in particular the interfaces of race and justice and expertise and justice, read this book; and if you simply want to read an oft-ignored but compelling aspect of American history, read this book.”

2. Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

Summary

Aven Green loves to tell people that she lost her arms in an alligator wrestling match, or a wildfire in Tanzania, but the truth is she was born without them. And when her parents take a job running Stagecoach Pass, a rundown western theme park in Arizona, Aven moves with them across the country knowing that she’ll have to answer the question over and over again.

Her new life takes an unexpected turn when she bonds with Connor, a classmate who also feels isolated because of his own disability, and they discover a room at Stagecoach Pass that holds bigger secrets than Aven ever could have imagined. It’s hard to solve a mystery, help a friend, and face your worst fears. But Aven’s about to discover she can do it all . . . even without arms.

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My Review

This one also came from my bookshelf on the KDL app. I happened to click on a few too many books I had wanted to read…and they all were on hold at the same time! I knew I had my work cut out for me, so I committed to reading at every free moment I got.

Aven is a loveable character from the minute you first meet her. The fact that she has no arms makes you want to pity her, until she lets you know early on she does not need anyone’s pity. Thanks to her parents and their determination to raise her as a normal child, she is quite independent and self-sufficient. Bowling must have done her research, because no moment in my reader’s mind goes unexplained as to how a girl with no arms might handle a particular task or situation. And our heart goes out to her when she feels no other choice than to eat in the bathroom, lest she be the staring topic of everyone at her new school.

I did think the bringing in of two friends who were also outcasts to be sweet, and again, we got to learn more about Tourette’s Syndrome through her friend Connor. It just read a little too simplistic, too easy for me at times, like it was a PBS after-school special. There’s problems, but they’re not too big. There’s a mystery, but it’s quite easily solvable. And Aven makes friends, but they are also outcasts.

Overall, it does make for a super-quick read with a pleasant ending; I would easily recommend it to any middle schooler or even a late elementary student who is a high reader.

3. Louder than Hunger

Summary

It’s 1996.

13-year-old Jake Stacey lives in the Chicago suburbs with his mum and dad. He loves musicals, rollerblading and his grandmother (who takes him for drives in her big red car). But he hates school where he is bullied and ostracised by the other kids and worse, he is keeping a secret: inside him is a Voice, which tells him to exercise more and eat less. The Voice tells him not to trust anyone, tells him that the Voice is all he needs.

When Jake’s worried parents take him to Whispering Pines, the Voice tells Jake not to co-operate with the staff who want to help him to get better. But the staff are keen to show him that he doesn’t have to listen to the Voice, that he can build a different life for himself if he can just find it in himself to silence it …

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My Review

I wasn’t planning on reading this book, but when John Schu literally handed me a signed copy at a luncheon during the Michigan Reading Association conference, I decided to make it my next read. I knew from hearing John speak that this novel was only semi-fiction; it was based upon his life and some of his struggles in adolescence. The paperback version had just come out that week, so that is why we were all given a copy.

I brought it home, prepared to tackle a 500 page novel, only to be pleasantly surprised that it was written in verse. I have now read a few middle grade novels written in verse, and I think they are simply lovely. If you haven’t read anything in verse, consider it “accessible poetry.” It tells a story in prose form, but with fewer words it slows the reading pace down and asks the reader to take in every word. The novel still reads quickly, especially due to the heartbreaking story of Jake (a.k.a. John Schu) and his eating disorder due to the voice that tells him he is worth nothing and doesn’t deserve to take up space.

It’s a heavy topic, but I’m a firm believer in wanting to bring these important topics to the middle grade level. They are living it and experiencing it, so they should be given fictional material to read about it. This could be a fascinating book to read with your adolescent as I guarantee it will provoke worthwhile conversations.

4. The Lager Queen of Minnesota

Summary

The Lager Queen of Minnesota is about two generations in a Midwestern family—starting on a farm, with two sisters who have no desire to be farmers. Helen, the younger, go-getter sister, wants more than anything else in the world to make beer. She finagles her way into taking over her husband’s family’s failing soda business and builds it into a thriving beer company by single-handedly inventing light beer. Her older sister, Edith, shares none of this grand ambition, even as her pies are named third-best in the state of Minnesota. Unfortunately, being a champion pie baker does not earn her a fortune, or even a good living. Enter Diana, Edith’s beloved granddaughter, who grows up trying to help Edith make ends meet—and in the most roundabout way possible, becomes obsessed with making a series of the best IPAs the Midwest has ever seen. But just as she is about to open her own brewpub, the fates converge and she is forced to turn to the unlikeliest cadre of amateur brewmasters imaginable—Edith’s cohort of grandmother friends—to save her brewery before it’s DOA.

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My review

I chose this book in order to lessen my stack of unread books on my nightstand. My stack is tall, and some days it taunts me that I will never read all of them. But I’m a sucker for free, or very cheap, used books, so I find that I take them into ownership more frequently than I read them, hence the large stack.

Interestingly enough, this is my second “food based” fictional novel I have read this year (Funeral Ladies of Ellery County was the first). I’m not sure I can exactly remember how this book came into my possession; I do enjoy a good beer, especially a dark porter or stout, although I muss confess my body tolerates alcohol less and less these days. I did enjoy it as a lighter topic read; I learned quite a bit about the brewing industry and what goes into different beers.

While the characters and my interest in them kept my motivation early on, I was between ⅓ and halfway through the book before I actually began to understand what the plot might be. I do love a good “braid” or “strand” novels where the author tells seemingly different stories, only for the reader to trust there is a common connector. Stradal forces his reader to the very last chapters for the ultimate resolution.

5. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Summary

It is the summer of 1950–and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath.

For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

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My review

My eye caught this book on a teacher’s desk where I was a guest speaker for the day; the title just sounded like something I wanted to read. Just as you should not judge a book by its cover (although we all do), I will now add that you should not choose a book simply based on its title.

In my own haste to put this book on hold and begin to read it, I failed to see any of the obvious markings on the cover and spine clearly marking it as a mystery. So perhaps I was the only reader in the history of this book to be surprised when a man was found dead in the main character’s garden. I also did not realize the book would be about collectable and valuable postage stamps despite the clear-as-day-picture on the cover.

Needless to say, I had some unpacking and repacking to do in terms of my expectations as I read this book. I have also stated that mysteries are not my favorite genre, and even within mysteries, this one read so much slower than some of my other recent mystery reads (Good Girl’s Guide to Murder or Vera Wong). This read more like an old-school, Sherlock Holmes type of murder, so the pacing didn’t match my hopes or expectations.

Flavia is an absolutely wonderful character, and you can’t help but fall in love with her wit and charm, although as a parent, I would strongly argue against the case that she is only 11 years old; her language and mannerisms place her at least a few years older, even if she was uniquely mature for her age.

If you love a Sherlock Holmes type mystery, then I believe you would love this book. If you were hoping for an enjoyable fiction read that did not involve a mystery, then you should have looked much more closely at the cover.

6. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Summary

In a vase in a closet, a couple of years after his father died in 9/11, nine-year-old Oskar discovers a key…

The key belonged to his father, he’s sure of that. But which of New York’s 162 million locks does it open?

So begins a quest that takes Oskar – inventor, letter-writer and amateur detective – across New York’s five boroughs and into the jumbled lives of friends, relatives, and complete strangers. He gets heavy boots, he gives himself little bruises and he inches ever nearer to the heart of a family mystery that stretches back fifty years. But will it take him any closer to, or further from, his lost father?

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My Review

When I am traveling, I often enjoy reading a book that takes place in the same location. I find it brings me feel more deeply connected to the book, and at times, if the book offers specifics about the location, I appreciate knowing exactly where the story is taking place.

I brought this book with me on my trip to New York City over spring break. My mistake was in thinking I’d have time to read in NYC. While we were not as adventurous as some can be, we did average over 10 miles everyday, exploring the city during the day and attending Broadway shows at night. I was thankful our hotel had comfortable beds, because I found myself crashing hard for both a midday nap and for a full-night’s sleep in the evening.

When I returned home, I began to tackle this book by Jonathan Foer; I knew it was related to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and while I had watched it unfold in my living room as I watched the Today Show starting well before the attacks at 8am, I was still curious to know stories about those who lived in NYC or who lost someone in the towers.

I was impressed Jonathan Foer was able to write this novel less than 5 years after the terror attacks. I find I need time to process significant, traumatic events in my life, especially something such as an entire fictional novel surrounding that unforgettable day and its aftermath.

Unfortunately, I struggled through much of the novel. While I would normally tell people that I love a good, quirky narrator, perhaps even one on the Autistic Spectrum, I did not sync with Oskar or his narrative voice. I could not place how old he was, although he mentioned to a therapist that he was pre-puberty, but his language and knowledge make him more of Savant Syndrome with his cognitive level.

The actual use of text and pictures make this a unique novel. Foer does not always break up dialogue onto different lines; sometimes he writes them one after another and so it is the reader’s job to decode the conversation and to distinguish who is speaking when. Intermixed with Oliver’s story are a series of letters his grandfather wrote to his dad before his dad was born, but those are only differentiated by the date at the beginning of the chapter. Interlaced are random pages of pictures and even pages with only one line on them. It requires the concentrated reader, and as I identify more as a skim reader, I had difficulty following.

I wanted to like this book more. I told my husband when I was at page 167 that I might have abandoned this book had I not wanted to offer a full review. Selfishly, I wanted it to tell more about the story of 9/11, when really it was just the story of a child who was struggling mentally and emotionally with the death of his father. The story of the mystery key and the people he met along the way didn’t captivate me. I read somewhere that it had the label “trauma fiction,” which I believe is a good fit.

This isn’t for all readers. I felt that it was a combination of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (which I should re-read) meets Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye.

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1. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

Summary

In this cozy mystery novel, Vera Wong is a widowed sixty-year-old woman living alone and running a teahouse in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Unfortunately, her teahouse doesn’t see many customers—until one day, she walks in to discover a dead body! Even though the police think there’s nothing suspicious about the scene, Vera knows it in her gut that they have a murder on their hands, and if the police won’t see it her way, she’ll just have to find the killer on her own. When Vera’s teahouse starts seeing new faces popping up after the murder, her suspect list starts to grow, but so does her heart.

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My Review

I had the luxury of reading this book over the course of less than 3 days while I was at a writing retreat. I was staying in a hotel, writing 10,000 words per day, ordering takeout, and living my best “single-woman-with-no-children” life. (Let me pause here to tell you all that I am deeply in love with my husband and adore my children, but let’s be honest–every once in a while the selfish life feels good.)

This book was recommended to me by a friend who is rarely wrong about her suggestions (thanks, Shelly!). Overall, I really loved and appreciated the character of Vera Wong; she’s like no one I had ever met before, and I felt her character was solid from beginning to the end. As I had mentioned earlier, I am picky about my murder plots, especially when it comes to solving them, and while this one wasn’t a character out of nowhere, I wasn’t convinced enough clues had been dropped throughout the novel to make me believe they could have committed the murder. As a mother, I also struggled with the character of Emma, a supposed two-year-old who breastfed and rarely spoke, but when she did at times she enunciated full adultish sentences.

I will continue to pass on the recommendation as a worthwhile read. Amazon announced that book 2 entitled Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) will be released April 1 of this year; I am not going to rush to pick it up, since I have enough other recommended reads on my immediate list. But perhaps in six months or before the end of the year I will find myself in Vera Wong’s life once again.

2. James

Summary

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

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My Review

My actual anticipation of this novel was high, since I had put it on hold back in November of 2024 and needed to wait until March of 2025 to finally receive my library copy.  It felt like the “who’s who” of elite readers had read it and offered their reviews, and they were all glowing with recommendations.  So I began with a bit of apprehension; what if it wasn’t all up to the hype? What if I didn’t like the book everyone was calling the “must read” of 2024 & 2025?  Let me put you at ease and say it was worth the wait and every page read.  Percival Everett does a spin on Huck Finn similar to how Wicked made the reader rethink  the story of the Wizard of Oz.  James, or “Jim” as we knew him in Huck Finn, is given a voice and the chance to tell his own story, and what a story it is.  Not only is it a story of hardship, of death and brutality and beatings and loss that all comes with slavery and human ownership, but James also weaves in his own beautiful story of hope and pride and the beauty of education and literacy.  He also includes one-liners throughout the novel which prove how well he understands white people of the day; it’s as if he got ahold of a secret copy of the unspoken rules of how to white people want to be treated.  I inhaled the book in less than 3 days and immediately returned it to the library to allow the next person in line their chance to read it.  The only gut punch that still remains is wondering how truly different life is today, and what race rules still exist.  Have we really come as far as we say we have?

3. Louder than Hunger

Summary

It’s 1996.

13-year-old Jake Stacey lives in the Chicago suburbs with his mum and dad.  He loves musicals, rollerblading and his grandmother (who takes him for drives in her big red car).  But he hates school where he is bullied and ostracised by the other kids and worse, he is keeping a secret: inside him is a Voice, which tells him to exercise more and eat less.  The Voice tells him not to trust anyone, tells him that the Voice is all he needs.  

When Jake’s worried parents take him to Whispering Pines, the Voice tells Jake not to co-operate with the staff who want to help him to get better.  But the staff are keen to show him that he doesn’t have to listen to the Voice, that he can build a different life for himself if he can just find it in himself to silence it …

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My Review

I wasn’t planning on reading this book, but when John Schu literally handed me a signed copy at a luncheon during the Michigan Reading Association conference, I decided to make it my next read. I knew from hearing John speak that this novel was only semi-fiction; it was based upon his life and some of his struggles in adolescence. The paperback version had just come out that week, so that is why we were all given a copy.

I brought it home, prepared to tackle a 500 page novel, only to be pleasantly surprised that it was written in verse. I have now read a few middle grade novels written in verse, and I think they are simply lovely. If you haven’t read anything in verse, consider it “accessible poetry.” It tells a story in prose form, but with fewer words it slows the reading pace down and asks the reader to take in every word. The novel still reads quickly, especially due to the heartbreaking story of Jake (a.k.a. John Schu) and his eating disorder due to the voice that tells him he is worth nothing and doesn’t deserve to take up space.

It’s a heavy topic, but I’m a firm believer in wanting to bring these important topics to the middle grade level. They are living it and experiencing it, so they should be given fictional material to read about it. This could be a fascinating book to read with your adolescent as I guarantee it will provoke worthwhile conversations.

4. The Lager Queen of Minnesota

Summary

The Lager Queen of Minnesota is about two generations in a Midwestern family—starting on a farm, with two sisters who have no desire to be farmers. Helen, the younger, go-getter sister, wants more than anything else in the world to make beer. She finagles her way into taking over her husband’s family’s failing soda business and builds it into a thriving beer company by single-handedly inventing light beer. Her older sister, Edith, shares none of this grand ambition, even as her pies are named third-best in the state of Minnesota. Unfortunately, being a champion pie baker does not earn her a fortune, or even a good living. Enter Diana, Edith’s beloved granddaughter, who grows up trying to help Edith make ends meet—and in the most roundabout way possible, becomes obsessed with making a series of the best IPAs the Midwest has ever seen. But just as she is about to open her own brewpub, the fates converge and she is forced to turn to the unlikeliest cadre of amateur brewmasters imaginable—Edith’s cohort of grandmother friends—to save her brewery before it’s DOA.

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My Review

I chose this book in order to lessen my stack of unread books on my nightstand. My stack is tall, and some days it taunts me that I will never read all of them. But I’m a sucker for free, or very cheap, used books, so I find that I take them into ownership more frequently than I read them, hence the large stack.

Interestingly enough, this is my second “food based” fictional novel I have read this year (Funeral Ladies of Ellery County was the first). I’m not sure I can exactly remember how this book came into my possession; I do enjoy a good beer, especially a dark porter or stout, although I muss confess my body tolerates alcohol less and less these days. I did enjoy it as a lighter topic read; I learned quite a bit about the brewing industry and what goes into different beers.

While the characters and my interest in them kept my motivation early on, I was between ⅓ and halfway through the book before I actually began to understand what the plot might be. I do love a good “braid” or “strand” novels where the author tells seemingly different stories, only for the reader to trust there is a common connector. Stradal forces his reader to the very last chapters for the ultimate resolution.