What I’m Reading

September 2025

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1. Middlesex

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SUMMARY

The astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl.

In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls’ school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them–along with Callie’s failure to develop–leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.

The explanation for this shocking state of affairs takes us out of suburbia- back before the Detroit race riots of 1967, before the rise of the Motor City and Prohibition, to 1922, when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Callie’s grandparents fled for their lives. Back to a tiny village in Asia Minor where two lovers, and one rare genetic mutation, set in motion the metamorphosis that will turn Callie into a being both mythical and perfectly a hermaphrodite.

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MY REVIEW

I decided to read this book because my husband nagged me to read it recommended it to me. My error was choosing to read a 500+ page book in the end of August, when all of life gets busy and I have little to no reading time. I found myself reading this book in five and ten minute increments.

This novel is a stew in your LeCrueset dutch oven. It requires many ingredients that are carefully, painstakingly prepared, and then it is set on a low heat for hours, if not days. This story moves slowly, taking almost 400 pages to get to the primary story of the narrator. Eugenides, through the voice of the narrator, is unapologetic. Less than halfway through the novel the narrator speaks to you, the reader, directly. “Shall I get right to it? No, slowly, leisurely, that’s the way” (232).

But do not think the backstory is boring or unimportant. At times I felt the story had a little Forrest Gump feel to it, with the characters living out important aspects of history. Add in that much of the story is based in Detroit, and we Michiganders feel some fondness toward this Mitten State story.

At the heart of the story is a hermaphrodite, so the reader must hold comfort with gender fluidity and confusion. But it’s also about so much more, as it weaves a beautiful tale of three generations of one family, about immigration and living the American dream. It’s about relationships, both love and friendship. Ultimately it’s a book about understanding one’s own personal identity.

If you have the time to commit to this, I promise you a thought-provoking read.

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2. Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Assumptions About Small-Town America

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SUMMARY

Think you know what rural America is like? Discover a plurality of perspectives in this enlightening anthology of stories that turns preconceptions on their head.

Gracie sees a chance of fitting in at her South Carolina private school, until a “white trash”-themed Halloween party has her steering clear of the rich kids. Samuel’s Tejano family has both stood up to oppression and been a source of it, but now he’s ready to own his true sexual identity. A Puerto Rican teen in Utah discovers that being a rodeo queen means embracing her heritage, not shedding it. . . .

For most of America’s history, rural people and culture have been casually mocked, stereotyped, and, in general, deeply misunderstood. Now an array of short stories, poetry, graphic short stories, and personal essays, along with anecdotes from the authors’ real lives, dives deep into the complexity and diversity of rural America and the people who call it home. Fifteen extraordinary authors – diverse in ethnic background, sexual orientation, geographic location, and socioeconomic status – explore the challenges, beauty, and nuances of growing up in rural America. From a mountain town in New Mexico to the gorges of New York to the arctic tundra of Alaska, you’ll find yourself visiting parts of this country you might not know existed – and meet characters whose lives might be surprisingly similar to your own.

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MY REVIEW

I stumbled upon this book as I was researching a potential literary agent. After working my way through some longer, slower reads in August, I was ready for something I could quickly pick up and digest. In addition, the topic very much interested me. For years, I used a different short story series entitled “Voices from the Rust Belt” by Anne Trubek in my community college EN101 class. I loved the gritty stories with tough characters in communities like Flint, Buffalo, Cleveland.

To my (pleasant) surprise, all of the stories told were about teenagers trying to find their identity in relation to the small town in which they live. Some are trying to space themselves from their zip code; others struggle with being viewed as outsiders. All want to be true to themselves and find balance in their lives.

This is the kind of book I would love to teach in a high school (or my community college) classroom. I find the stories to be authentic to teenagers’ lives, and I would love to hold discussions and assign projects and hear their perspective on these stories.

If you are someone who loves short stories, or someone who appreciates the value in a collection of short stories (the ability to read one at a time instead of cover to cover), I recommend this book to you.

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3. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

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SUMMARY

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty—a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre—took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Caitlin soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.

Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?

Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Caitlin’s engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Caitlin argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).

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MY REVIEW

f you have come to know me in the past few months, you will know that I have an interest in death and dying. Caitlin Doughty’s book “From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find a Good Death” was a cornerstone source of information for my MFA Master’s thesis about why we must write about death and dying in fiction. In that book, Doughty explores different death rituals practiced around the world and explores how we deal with death impacts how we live life. It bordered on uncomfortable at times, but for me she always ended the chapter with a beautiful understanding.

I’ll confess that Smoke Gets in Your Eyes was a bit creepy and overly morbid, even for me. She approaches death and morbidity with a bluntness, a matter-of-fact approach, and she doesn’t shy away from details or soften explanations in this book. There are moments in this book when you are standing right next to her at the door of the crematorium, ready to open it and slide a body in. Doughty is real and raw and descriptive in a way that will make most readers squeamish. Which is too bad, because she has beautiful, important thoughts about death and dying that would make any reader think. Her chapter about embalming made me look at it from a completely different angle and I’m perhaps less horrified about the concept of cremation than I was before I read this.

If you are someone who can stomach her all-too-real descriptions of the funeral industry, or if you have a “morbid curiosity” as I do, than I recommend this enlightening book.

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4. The Thursday Murder Club

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SUMMARY

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.

But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it’s too late?

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MY REVIEW

This book came to me through a recommendation, although for the life of me I cannot remember exactly who or where (that’s what I get at my age for writing things down).

After finishing a nonfiction memoir about working at a crematorium, I was ready for something a little more lighthearted and fun. This definitely fit the bill. It reminded me of How to Age “(Dis)Gracefully which I read a few weeks ago; both use a group of older people who refuse to age and as a result are generally up to shenanigans.

As far as murder mysteries go, this one wasn’t my favorite. I didn’t find it to be a page turner as the mystery of multiple murders unraveled, and when the plot was finally revealed, I didn’t feel the same sense of satisfaction that I had with Two Nights in Lisbon.

But as far as a fiction novel, I did find that I appreciated the characters, their quirks and idiosyncrasies, and the friendship formed amongst them as they used their combined wit and wisdom to solve murders.

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5. The Hotel Avocado

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SUMMARY

Gary Thorn is struggling with a big decision. Should he stay in London, wallowing in the safety of his legal job in Peckham and eating pies with his next door neighbour, Grace and her dog Lassoo, or should he move to Brighton, where his girlfriend Emily is about to open The Hotel Avocado? Either way, he’d be letting someone down.

But sinister forces are gathering in a cloud of launderette scented-vape smoke, and the arrival of the mysterious Mr Sequence puts Gary in an even worse [situation]; soon he might be dead.

All Gary wants is a happy life. But he also wants to be alive to enjoy it…

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MY REVIEW

After reading The Clementine Complex earlier this year, I eagerly awaited the arrival of its sequel for the continued saga of Gary and Emily. Alas, I could not find it in any local library district, and so I was forced to purchase it.

It was well worth the money. Mortimer is British, which makes the writing and dialogue even more lovely. Some of the characters are a bit crass, so the reader needs to be willing to have a few cuss words and general fowl language thrown their way. But the plot of this sequel is simply enjoyable, possibly even more so than the first. In this story we are already friends with the main characters; we could sit down on the couch with them and enjoy a “cuppa” tea and perhaps a slice of Battenberg cake.

Gary and Emily find themselves individually neck deep in troubles and issues, and living apart has brought other people and relationship temptations in their lives. The talking squirrel, perhaps one of my favorite aspects of the original novel, returns in this story and even has an additional friend to provide conversation and insight for Gary.

If you read The Clementine Complex and enjoyed it, I highly recommend the sequel. If you have not read the original, I suggest you place it on hold at your local library right now. It is worth the read.

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