thoughts on books

Category: magical realism

  • 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.

  • aftertaste by daria lavelle

    Aftertaste is a brilliant, heartwarming concept. A man can taste, in his mouth, the best meals a ghost ate while alive. It allows them to share a meal that he prepared with a loved one. He lost his dear father and discovered his superpower after tasting a meal his father had as a boy in Kyiv Ukraine. It takes you down the path of several departed people and their unfinished business. 

    Read if you like
    -stories about Ukrainian immigrants
    -culinary business, running a restaurant and chef language, like The Bear
    –Before the Coffee Gets Cold

    The writing style seemed pretty “stream of consciousness” and the character development was almost poetry-like. I did find much of it a bit hard to follow, I don’t know much about chef lingo although I liked the main character and how he chose to use his gift. My favorite was about a nun who had recently lost a fellow-nun and will give bonus points for reference to Ghostbusters “There is no Dana only Zuul.”

    Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the ARC. Book to be published May 20, 2025.

  • junie by erin crosby eckstein

    I can hardly believe this is a debut, this is a wonderful and enriching story set in the pre civil war South. The Good Morning America pick, I bet Jenna and Oprah and Reese wanted it as well. It checks all the boxes- strong female main character, tragedy, hope, a lesson for all of us and cross-genre. With beautiful sweeping descriptions, readable internal dialogue, this novel invests time into character development and a solid plot. It reads almost like a mystery, although there are elements of magical realism, romance, and literary fiction. I would shelve it under historical fiction, as the setting is necessary to the history of the time.

    This doesn’t whitewash the horrors of enslaved people in the American south, it covers the time in a respectful yet haunting way. The splitting up of families is heartbreaking and a warning siren for our dark days today.

    Junie is a 16 year old maid to Violet McQueen, the daughter of the plantation. They are living with debt and the way out is to marry Violet off to Mr. Taylor. It never occurred to me that when a girl was married her maid would leave the farm and go to the new home, away from her family. Junie’s sister Minnie died suddenly, leaving a hole in her heart and family. June blames herself for her death, and cannot come to terms with her present circumstances and future hope. There is also a heartwrenching theme of colorism, or the racism even within the community of enslaved people with a preference for

    lighter color skin rather than a darker complexion.

    I loved the complicated relationship between Violet and Junie, who taught Junie to read. Other characters; Minnie, Bess, Caleb, were all such strong voices and rounded out her community.

    If you enjoy historical fiction about female friendships, this is not one to miss.

  • the in-between bookstore by edward underhill

    4.5 stars rounded up
    Time travel queer romance- although Darby the main character is turning 30, this reads like more of a YA romance, which is sweet and follows along with the main theme. And all of us can relate to this concept– what would you say to your younger self if you could? Would your younger self recognize you? How would it change you now to be reunited with your younger self?

    Darby is a trans man living in NYC with a vibrant community of friends, although he worked for a start up that has gone belly up. Darby is originally from a small town in the midwest, and his mom called to let him know she is moving, so Darby is going to visit…. and maybe stay… in the same small town he grew up in. His one time friend and crush Michael still lives there and goes to all the football games, in fact, a lot of the people Darby grew up with are still there. And can you go home again? The age old question?

    I don’t want to give away any spoilers here, but Darby does experience a split in the space time continuum to be able to visit the bookstore where he worked as a teen, and is able to access the bookstore and his younger self in 2009, when he still thought he was a girl, albeit a broken one. Darby didn’t change his name when he transitioned, which eliminates any literary issues of how to address his younger self without deadnaming him.

    Has anyone given this book to Hollywood producers yet, and obviously Elliot Page can please play Darby?

    Darby is insecure and a realistic and likable lead. Michael is a compelling love interest. But Olivia and all of Darby’s friends (as his mom says, “your gay friends” and Darby says “all my friends are gay, mom.) (lol) are fantastic minor characters.

    I like time travel and time slip romances quite a bit, it was nice to have a trans character, nice to see a “back in my hometown” romance and I don’t want to give away the ending, but it ends differently than it usually does at Hallmark. The ending was not what I expected and I had to sit with it for a few days to realize that I loved it.

    Highly recommend for fans of Casey McQuiston and Ashley Poston. Thanks to NetGalley and Avon Harper Vorager for the ARC. Book to be released January 14, 2025.

  • love and other paradoxes by catriona silvey

    A time travel and love triangle romance for fans of Ashley Poston and Christina Lauren, with two 21 year old students in Cambridge, England — one from 2044 and the other from 2005. Joe Greene is not doing well in school, his real passion is with his terrible poetry. His roommate Rob is a physics major whose real passion is playing the game Assassins. This is a live action game where you are hunting other players to surprise them and get them eliminated from the game. Joe has a meet cute with Esi at the coffee shop, and they have some interesting chemistry. He just doesn’t know what it is about her.

    Then as she is walking away she drops a book of poetry. Written by him! It turns out she is on a “time travel trip” where people who are fans of someone famous can travel back in time to where they used to live to maybe meet them before they were famous. So everyone on this visit to 2005 is a huge fan of “Joseph Greene the famous poet” except, that is, for Esi. Eli has other plans in mind. Her mother, who tragically died in an accident, was killed returning to Cambridge in celebration of “an award she won in June of 2005.” So Esi has an ulterior motive, find her mother and make sure she doesn’t win this award.

    But will it work? After all, the time travel company says that the Butterfly Effect doesn’t apply, there is nothing you can do in the past to ruin the future. So will Esi save her mom, and will Joe and Esi even find her?

    This time travel romance is about 30% romance, no spice. Mostly this is heavily plot driven and character-building as Joe and Esi inhabit the world they are in and as Joe get his mind around his supposed future. This book asks the question, what would you do if you knew you were destined to succeed? And it changes all of his decisions. Joe’s roommate Rob is a great character, he gets all the best lines. There is plenty of humor. Most of the narrative is Joe’s inner dialogue and Esi becoming a sort of Cyrano to him with his “muse” Diana.

    If you enjoy time travel romances or romances that embrace magical realism, add this one to your TBR list~!

    Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC. Book to be published March 11, 2025.

  • all the perfect days by michael thompson

    Voracious and casual readers alike read the on-trend “The Measure” a few years ago and it was quite thought provoking, keeping lively conversations about how we shouldn’t know how long we have left. I can’t even imagine writing a review of “All the Perfect Days” without referring “The Measure,” and while this does have the same theme, it approaches the question in a much smaller way, more magical realism and less sci fi/ speculative fiction.

    Charlie is a family doctor that has an episode in the first scene. Everything in his office and with his patient turn into grayscale, as if the world went into Black and White. When after a few minutes the world returns to normal, he sees the number 4. He doesn’t yet put two and two together when that same patient dies 4 days later. Eventually he realizes that when he sees someone’s number, that is how many days they have left to be alive. All the plot elements you would expect; someone with a larger number than you’d expect, someone with a much smaller number than you’d expect, and most of them being appropriate for the person’s age.

    There is a side love story about Charlie connecting with Gen- who quits her job to sell essential oils- and who Charlie is hesitant to get close to as he is expecting to move into Emergency Medicine far away. I wish we got to know Genny a little more, the narrative didn’t tell us a lot about her and I would have liked that.

    A few twists and changes to the story as Charlie tries to figure out how this works – how it happened- and should he or should he not- interfere with someone based on their number.

    It is thought provoking for certain, and a classic twist on an old episode of The Twilight Zone- would you want to know how long you have left, and what would you do any differently? I think this book gives you all the alternatives, and enough space to decide for yourself what your answers are.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @sourcebooks landmark for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Book to be published May 21, 2025.

  • the spirit of love by lauren kate

    A very romantic, descriptive romance for fans of Nicholas Sparks. Fenny is a screenwriter on a fun CWesque show, she has been a screenwriter for 10 years and well respected at work. The book starts out when she meets a new director named Jude, who looks exactly like Sam, a guy she slept with as a vacation fling last weekend- but he seems to be 10 years older.

    The narrative then skips to the previous weekend when Fenny met Sam. It has a coworkers enemies to lovers vibe, love triangle, although she is trying to determine who Sam is and how he is connected to Jude. I like Lauren Kate’s writing style better here as a time slip romance rather than her previous work in the romantasy realm. We don’t realize the answers here until the last few pages. It takes awhile to get there, but I enjoyed the characters and their motivations. I also liked the backdrop of this being in the entertainment industry.

    Thanks to @netgalley and Penguin Putnam for the ARC. Book to be published July 1, 2025.

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