thoughts on books

Category: contemporary fiction

  • the homemade god by rachel joyce

    Another book about a group of adult siblings that is slowly falling apart. While not as depressing as Long Island Compromise, it is just as funny, and has an atmospheric European island setting that is necessary for the artistic direction. Fans of Blue Sisters and Like Mother, Like Mother will love another world of complicated family relationships.

    Netta, Susan, Goose and Iris all have wonderful character development in this novel, their father announcing he is setting aside his lothario ways and getting married to Bella-Mae, a 27 year old who is CERTAINLY not marrying him for his fame and money. A famous artist, Vic suspiciously drowns in the lake shortly after marrying Bella Mae with no will. And what is more, Vic’s last piece of artwork is missing.

    This is an easily readable book and the blurb is perfect, it gives away just enough about the plot to engage the reader without giving away too much. The premise, to many, may overshadow the outcome. The reveals throughout the book don’t come as a big splash, but very human and subtle. It ends not with a bang, but with a music box tinkling. Each character is developed and tweaked, just when you think you know who they are, they surprise you and break your heart in the best way.

    Then comes the time to separate and take the items from the family home. They use stickers to indicate what items they want, with a number from 1-4 based on how important it is to them. And by then, you know each character so well that they act completely as you’d expect. It is such a good scene and proof of how well developed they are. The character we don’t actually know that well is Bella-Mae, but she is really more of a Maguffin to move the story forward rather than being important herself.

    Not everyone will like this one, but I found it to be like listening to an opera…. the goal of an opera is not the ending, but the journey of the music drawing you in. The pacing and characterization are brilliant and I also loved the setting and how it built towards the complete arc of each sibling.

    Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC and for Madison Dettlinger from Random House marketing for recommending this novel. Book to be published June 24, 2025

  • first time long time by amy silverstein

    Allison is a college professor and at the age of 28, her mother is being very annoying about her singleness. Allison is a relatable character, she has other side hustles like facilitating book clubs. She met Reid at a bar, he is close to her father’s age. He is a successful shock jock and inspired by Howard Stern. She teaches creating writing and is a writer herself. Allison’s divorced parents are interesting side characters.

    I struggled with how to rate this- some of the lines of dialogue are so purely and cleverly written. This is true witty banter and a “slice of life” story. Amy Silverberg is a talented writer and has keen observations of life. My favorite character is Reid’s daughter Emma (she is incorrectly called Maddie in the blurb).

    In the acknowledgements she mentions that this started as a 30 page short story and damn I bet that was amazing. I kept thinking “this would work better as a short story” as it was a strangely paced story. Also the blurb gives away a LOT of the story that doesn’t happen until 66% through the novel.

    Like many of my favorite short stories, it ends with just an image, rather than a conclusion of plot. If you are looking for a lot of plot, you will likely be disappointed; but if you love observational dialogue, this is some of the best I’ve read.

    Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the ARC. Book to be published July 22, 2025.

  • sweet fury by sash bischoff

    Here is a book that makes me long for the more nuanced rating systems of other book-reading-reviewing-tracking apps.

    This book is well crafted and written, very imaginative and cleverly aligned with the literature of F Scott Fitzgerald. Not only the stories of Tender Is the Night and The Great Gatsby, but also the lore of his life, his relationship with his wife Zelda, and thoughts that she was the author of his works.

    What happens when you take a story and re-center it in the female perspective? This is very meta- it is multi-universal and there are layers upon layers of re-centering a story in a different perspective.

    Here is the gist of it- this book is very well done. I hated the ending, the conclusion, I wanted to hurl the book against the wall. I hated the characters. They are really well characterized but I hated them so much. It is a brilliant book and I wish I never read it.

    HOW DO I RATE THAT.

    I guess 3 stars, but I am not happy about it.

  • where do we go from here by nick alexander

    “You can’t really punish someone’s lack of interest in you. Specifically, you can’t starve people into missing you.”

    A very readable book with a thought provoking premise. A woman escapes into a rural cottage in the south of France. While there she comes to terms with the trauma she has experienced as she lost her mother, dealt with a rapidly deteriorating marriage, her older children becoming more distant, and the wounds as she worked as an emergency nurse during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

    Working in healthcare during the pandemic was like living in two different worlds- at the hospital you were seeing people die in front of you, you were protecting yourself and feeling helpless. Like a war nurse, it was easy to become overwhelmed by the unending supply of care. But instead, you would leave a shift, and enter a world where people were blind to the dangers, some of them fighting precautions, and terrified to pass the virus along. 

    So Wendy started staying at her friend Jill’s AirBnb. It was empty anyway, she would rather not deal with worrying about the virus and her family’s exposure, and it didn’t seem like they wanted her around anyway. That’s when she saw a photo on Facebook of a lakeside home with the challenge “could you live here with no internet, no people for a year for $100,000”. I have seen that before, and when you are knee deep in the stress and pressure of the world, that really seems like a great idea. And Wendy had a small amount of inheritance from her mother, so she quit her job and went to France.

    Today I am celebrating, by the grace of God, 14 years of sobriety thanks to AA. This book reminded me how lucky I am to have connection in my life, and how isolation plus trauma plus alcohol is a recipe for a rapidly deteriorating addiction. 

    Friends, you are not always going to like Wendy as you read this book. And you shouldn’t. It is very easy to disconnect and think that numbing your pain is the best way to overcome it. But over time she journals, takes walks, and, apart from the real world, she learns who she is and how she needs to connect with her family and the broader world. I highlighted not only the touching lines but also those that made me laugh. Her relationship with her high school daughter and college son are very relatable. 

    Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC. Opinions are my own, I was not compensated for this review. Book to be published April 23, 2025.

  • disorientation by elaine hsieh chou

    I purchased this book as a “blind date with a book” from Nowhere Bookshop. Like most blind dates, it can be fun and sometimes even memorable. I like the challenge of reading something that I normally wouldn’t pick up.

    Disorientation is cross-genre; romcom and millennial malaise at times, while also walking the line of LitFic. I think it is probably a little too silly and satirical for the typical Litfic reader and too hard handed with the lessons learned for the typical romcom reader. Ingrid is a little unfocused, she is on her 8th year of her dissertation and agrees to write on a Chinese poet. Ingrid is American and her heritage is Taiwanese, so she is no stranger to micro aggressions and in how whiteness is seen as default. She has a white fiancé, Steven, whose presence felt superfluous.

    The book is readable but probably too long, I wanted more dialogue for character development and to get into the setting. I appreciated the turns that the book takes, the plot itself is good and well-paced with several reveals and changes in direction. Overall we are engrossed in a world that asks more questions of it than it answers.

    This would be a good book club selection as the motivations of the characters give us lots of question. You can examine the ideas and themes and relate them to how we all experience racism and the way whiteness is centered in our society.

  • the art of vanishing by morgan pager

    A lovely original story, reminiscent of a stand alone episode of Doctor Who or The Twilight Zone. Claire gets a great job cleaning an art museum and can’t stop staring at the artwork, painting in the early 20th century. The tour guides are able to give people the background of the artists, painting their families, and the symbolism of the objects within the paintings. Claire has a good trainer, Linda, and takes a bit longer cleaning at night, until she realizes that she can see the people in the paintings move, which will remind you of the Harry Potter paintings at Hogwarts. 

    Like the magical paintings, the subjects are pulled into a painting world, do not sleep, and freeze in place during the day. But at night they come alive and can even visit worlds in the other paintings on the walls. Claire is unique in that she can step into the painting, and will fall in love with 19 year old Jean. She has some family secrets she isn’t sure she wants to reveal about herself. But just as she is willing to open up, the covid pandemic happens and the painting subjects are completely confused as to why they have been abandoned, left in the dark. They surmise that the country is at war.

    This debut novel is such a creative romantic premise, written simply and accessibly, for those that enjoy the magical realism and romantic genre. This is lighter on the romance and heavier on contemporary fiction and characterization. There are 3 storylines, Claire finding out about Jean in his world, the pandemic and what happens with Claire and her family during the 4 months they are apart, and a bit of a suspense/crime storyline at the end. 

    While some reviewers may not like the change in plot direction, I found it to be whimsical and clever. Jean is a relatable character, and Claire bringing her iPhone into the paintings and conversations about how different their worlds are is very humorous, smoking, technology, art and the appreciation thereof. 

    It is a bit of a doomed relationship for obvious reasons, but the best relationships teach us more about ourselves, even when they don’t last forever. 

    Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Ballantine for the ARC. Book to be published July 1, 2025.

  • far and away by amy poeppel

    Lucy and Greta swap homes for a year; what could be a fish-out-of-water story becomes a dual POV fishes-out-of-water story. Greta’s husband Otto is taking a position in Dallas, temporarily, and they list their small Berlin apartment for a home swap saying “perfect for someone in need of an escape.” Lucy and her kids fit the bill. Her husband, Mason, is unreachable and out on assignment from NASA, is he on Mars? Jack has been expelled from high school the day before graduation and his dreams of going to MIT are crumbling. Lucy’s parents live in a small home on their property, and Greta meets them and takes care of the cats. Otto gets into living in the US more than Greta. 

    This was a fun read, easy to examine and fun mis-translations. Lucy has twin girls who are written almost perfectly, I only wish we had gotten more of the twins. Her son Jack was treated so unfairly it seemed almost impossible for his life to be ruined so thoroughly over a misunderstanding. Everything, naturally, works out for the best, and that really is the lesson. That sometimes we need to move an ocean away to see ourselves clearly. Although I found Lucy a bit boring, the interweaving storylines kept things interesting. 

    This is best read on kindle so that you can translate the German phrases and sentences. I shelved it as women’s book club fiction, it is contemporary and lighthearted. Easy to read this is very accessible to many readers.

    Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for the ARC. Book to be published June 10, 2025.