Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: November 7, 2023
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Mallory Greenleaf is done with chess. Every move counts nowadays; after the sport led to the destruction of her family four years earlier, Mallory’s focus is on her mom, her sisters, and the dead-end job that keeps the lights on. That is, until she begrudgingly agrees to play in one last charity tournament and inadvertently wipes the board with notorious “Kingkiller” Nolan Sawyer: current world champion and reigning Bad Boy of chess.
Nolan’s loss to an unknown rook-ie shocks everyone. What’s even more confusing? His desire to cross pawns again. What kind of gambit is Nolan playing? The smart move would be to walk away. Resign. Game over. But Mallory’s victory opens the door to sorely needed cash-prizes and despite everything, she can’t help feeling drawn to the enigmatic strategist….
As she rockets up the ranks, Mallory struggles to keep her family safely separated from the game that wrecked it in the first place. And as her love for the sport she so desperately wanted to hate begins to rekindle, Mallory quickly realizes that the games aren’t only on the board, the spotlight is brighter than she imagined, and the competition can be fierce (-ly attractive. And intelligent…and infuriating…)
Mallory was once a chess prodigy, but she’s given up the game for good to take care of her mom and her two younger sisters. She’s just graduated high school and she needs to get a real job. But her best friend talks her into playing a charity chess tournament as a favor to her. She ends up playing the reigning world champion Nolan Sawyer and kicking his butt! Well, after that, she gets sucked back into the world of chess and finds herself drawn to Nolan, against her better judgment.
This was such a cute YA romance. I loved Mallory’s sex positive attitude. Nolan is the one who is inexperienced, and I thought the role reversal was refreshing. Because they are teenagers, they have an innocence to them, and their relationship was adorable. How many different ways can I phrase just how cute I think this book is! Ali Hazelwood can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned. She has once again created a smart, strong female lead character. This is a YA book, but I would consider it “upper YA”. It doesn’t talk down to the reader. And the main characters are all over eighteen, not teeny boppers. The bedroom scenes fade to black but that’s really the only thing reminded me that it was YA while I was reading it. I highly recommend Check & Mate for Ali Hazelwood fans and romance fans of all ages!
***Check & Mate was one of my November 2023 Book of the Month Club selections. You can join Book of the Month with this link and get a hardcover book for only $5 with no obligation to continue your membership.***
December 14th, 2023 in
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Stars in Your Eyes by Kacen Callender
Publisher: Forever
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Logan Gray is Hollywood’s bad boy—a talented but troubled actor who the public loves to hate. Mattie Cole is an up‑and‑coming golden boy, adored by all but plagued by insecurities.
When Logan and Mattie are cast as leads in a new romantic film, Logan claims that Matt has “zero talent,” sending the film’s publicity into a nosedive. To create positive buzz, the two are persuaded into a fake‑dating scheme—but as the two actors get to know their new characters, real feelings start to develop.
As public scrutiny intensifies and old wounds resurface, the two must fight for their relationship and their love.
Logan Gray is a broody, troubled former child actor who is known to be a jerk. The only reason anyone puts up with him is because he’s also very talented. Mattie is an up-and-coming actor – the new It Boy in Hollywood. He is cast as Logan’s love interest in a new romantic movie. When asked about Mattie at an event before filming has begun, Logan says that Mattie has zero talent, which is horrible publicity for the film. The powers that be convince the two of them to start a fake relationship, hoping that the buzz around the two stars dating will create hype for the movie.
Logan and Mattie start hanging out per their obligation to look like they’re in a relationship and the line between what’s real and what’s not gets blurry. Logan is a clearly troubled person while Mattie exudes positivity. Can he help Logan without losing himself?
I really like the fake dating trope and I think it was done well in Stars in Our Eyes. It’s also got the grumpy/sunshine thing going on. However, Logan has some pretty serious issues – this is not a light romantic comedy. The author states the trigger warnings upfront so I wasn’t surprised at how serious the story actually was. Sometimes I think narration could sound a little clinical when explaining certain things and it would take me out of the moment. For instance, when the characters thought about consent, their thoughts kind of read like a magazine article about consent. That’s really my only criticism.
I liked the authenticity of Logan and Mattie’s relationship. The way their issues were handled seemed realistic and made sense. This book was fun but it had substance as well. Recommended.
***Stars in Our Eyes was one of my October 2023 Book of the Month Club selections. You can join Book of the Month with this link and get a hardcover book for only $5 with no obligation to continue your membership.***
November 9th, 2023 in
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Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Narrator: Michelle Zauner
Publisher: Random House Audio
Release Date: April 20, 2021
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.
As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band–and meeting the man who would become her husband–her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.
Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.
Crying in H Mart is Michelle Zauner, of the band Japanese Breakfast’s memoir of growing up Korean American in the very white town of Eugene, Oregon. After she struggled with being one of just a few Asian kids in her schools growing up, she moved to the East Coast for college, where she met her husband. When her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she moved back home to take care of her.
First a warning: Do not read this book while hungry. In Michelle’s family, food equals love so there are a lot of vivid descriptions of tasty food. When Michelle moves back home to take care of her dying mother, food becomes even more important. As her mother declines, it’s harder and harder for her to eat. Michelle cooks all sorts of things trying to find something her mother finds appetizing.
Crying in H Mart was heartbreaking, as one would expect. The writing flows like a novel even though it’s a memoir. It’s the story of family love and identity. Michelle reads it herself, which made me even more invested in her life. Highly recommended.
November 6th, 2023 in
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The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Jasmine Yang arrives in New York City from her rural Chinese village without money or family support, fleeing a controlling husband, on a desperate search for the daughter who was taken from her at birth—another female casualty of China’s controversial One Child Policy. But with her husband on her trail, the clock is ticking, and she’s forced to make increasingly risky decisions if she ever hopes to be reunited with her daughter.
Meanwhile, publishing executive Rebecca Whitney seems to have it all: a prestigious family name and the wealth that comes with it, a high-powered career, a beautiful home, a handsome husband, and an adopted Chinese daughter she adores. She’s even hired a nanny to help her balance the demands of being a working wife and mother. But when an industry scandal threatens to jeopardize not only Rebecca’s job but her marriage, this perfect world begins to crumble and her role in her own family is called into question.
The Leftover Woman finds these two unforgettable women on a shocking collision course. Twisting and suspenseful and surprisingly poignant, it’s a profound exploration of identity and belonging, motherhood and family. It is a story of two women in a divided city—separated by severe economic and cultural differences yet bound by a deep emotional connection to a child.
Jasmine Yang comes to New York City from China to try and find her daughter Fifi, who was adopted by an American couple because of China’s one-child policy. Once she finds her daughter, she plans to take her away. But first, she has to find a way to pay back the snakeheads that helped make her trip to America possible. She’s undocumented so it will be difficult for her to find a job.
Meanwhile, Rebecca Whitney, Fifi’s adoptive mother, is unaware of Jasmine and her plans. She’s preoccupied with her career and marriage, both of which are falling apart.
The Leftover Woman was beautifully written and intricately plotted. I had no idea how the author could possibly wrap things up until she actually did at the very end. I was very satisfied with the ending – I never could have guessed how it all came together. It’s one of those books that if you reread it, you’ll notice things you didn’t notice the first time that will make you say, “Ah ha – that was a clue!” Even though The Leftover Woman is not a thriller, there were a few plot twists that surprised me. Highly recommended.
***The Leftover Woman was one of my October 2023 Book of the Month Club selections. You can join Book of the Month with this link and get a hardcover book for only $5 with no obligation to continue your membership.***
November 2nd, 2023 in
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Happy Hour at Casa Dracula by Marta Acosta
Publisher: Pocket Star
Publication Date: 2006
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Funny, sexy, cheerful Milagro de Los Santos has a degree from a Fancy University (F.U.) but can’t seem to hold down a good job, sell her eccentric horror stories, or have the sort of relationship suitable for the sincere and serious young woman she’s trying to be. Then at a book party for her pretentious ex-boyfriend, she meets Oswald, a fabulous man who tells her he’s interested in her writing. A mad kissing session leads to a fall, cut lips, and an accidental exchange of blood.
For the first time in Milagro’s life, she becomes sick…really, weirdly sick and has cravings for raw meat and an aversion to sunlight. The ex-boyfriend kidnaps her, accusing her of being a vampire, and the fabulous stranger’s family comes to her rescue and takes her to recover at their wine-country estate.
Oswald’s family thinks she’s a trashy golddigger. She thinks they’re awfully snobby for people who claim not to be vampires, but merely to have a genetic “condition.” Oh, and fabulous Oswald is already engaged to an equally fabulous woman, Milagro’s ex-boyfriend is still hunting her down, a decadent aristovamp visitor has taken a special interest in Mil, and she’s lost her apartment.
Can she be sincere and serious long enough to defeat her powerful enemies, save her new friends, and get back in time for cocktails at Casa Dracula, the place she’s come to think of as her home?
Milagro meets Oswald at a book party for her jerk of an ex-boyfriend. They end up making out so heavily that they both fall down and cut their lips, exchanging blood. The next day, Milagro falls ill. Her symptoms include craving raw meat and sensitivity to sunlight. Her ex kidnaps her and tells her she’s a vampire now. However, Oswald’s family rescues her and takes her to their estate. The family insists that they are not vampires and neither is she. They say they suffer from a genetic condition and she has a virus.
The writing of Happy Hour at Casa Dracula was not the greatest – many cliché metaphors and whatnot. (Also, the word transvestite is used several times. I don’t think that word is okay to use now? This book was published in 2006 though, so it was probably okay then.) But I know the focus for these types of books is plot and I did think the story was amusing. I know nowadays, most romance readers want spice so fair warning: There is zero spice in this book. All love scenes fade to black. Lastly, I always like to document whenever Unitarians are referenced in popular culture since we so rarely are. When Milagro is trying to talk a girl out of being a Satanist, she says, “And you should find a decent religion. I’ve heard great things about the Unitarians.” Thanks, Milagro!
This book is the first in a series of four. I’m still deciding whether or not I liked it enough to read book two. This book doesn’t end with a cliffhanger so I feel pretty satisfied.
October 30th, 2023 in
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How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair
Publisher: 37 Ink
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman’s highest virtue was her obedience.
In an effort to keep Babylon outside the gate, he forbade almost everything. In place of pants, the women in her family were made to wear long skirts and dresses to cover their arms and legs, head wraps to cover their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Safiya’s mother, while loyal to her father, nonetheless gave Safiya and her siblings the gift of books, including poetry, to which Safiya latched on for dear life. And as Safiya watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under housework and the rigidity of her father’s beliefs, she increasingly used her education as a sharp tool with which to find her voice and break free. Inevitably, with her rebellion comes clashes with her father, whose rage and paranoia explodes in increasing violence. As Safiya’s voice grows, lyrically and poetically, a collision course is set between them.
How to Say Babylon is Sinclair’s reckoning with the culture that initially nourished but ultimately sought to silence her; it is her reckoning with patriarchy and tradition, and the legacy of colonialism in Jamaica. Rich in lyricism and language only a poet could evoke, How to Say Babylon is both a universal story of a woman finding her own power and a unique glimpse into a rarefied world we may know how to name, Rastafari, but one we know little about.
How to Say Babylon is Safiya Sinclair’s memoir of growing up in a strict Rastafarian household. I learned so much about that culture – all I knew up to this point was that Bob Marley was a Rastafarian and that smoking pot has a role in it. Safiya was not allowed to cut her dreadlocks or wear pants. Her father was intent on making sure she wasn’t corrupted by the outside world – what he called Babylon. She wasn’t allowed to have friends who weren’t Rasta. When she starts attending an elite private school on scholarship, she’s made of fun of by the other kids for being what they call a dirty Rasta.
Safiya’s father also beats her and her siblings when they disobey him, even for minor infractions. The belt he beats them with hangs up where it’s visible and can remind everyone of what’s coming for them if they act up. When Safiya gets older, her mother helps her submit her poetry to competitions and she becomes a fairly well-known poet in Jamaica at a young age. You can tell reading this book that she is a poet. Her prose is beautiful – so descriptive. The book reads like a novel. I had to keep reminding myself I was reading a memoir. Highly recommended.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
October 19th, 2023 in
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Evil Eye by Etaf Rum
Publisher: Harper
Publication Date: September 5, 2023
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description
Yara Murad has worked hard to outrun the demons of her tumulous childhood in Brooklyn. Now ensconced in suburban North Carolina, Yara has achieved everything she aspired to: She is highly educated and teaches art at a local college. She is also a wife and mother, raising two precocious daughters with her businessman husband, Fadi. But her marriage is nothing like the high-conflict relationship she witnessed between her parents as she was growing up, and she knows her life is world’s better than her mother’s, with the kind of freedom her mother had only dreamed of.
Yara is growing more and more unhappy with her life. Her goal before she got married was to have more autonomy in her marriage than her mother did. She agreed to marry Fadi only if she could go to college and then get a job after they married. That kind of freedom is rare in her culture. She slowly realizes she is not as free as she thought she was. She went directly from her father’s control to her husband’s control. Sure, her husband is more permissive than her father was with her mother and her, but permissive is the keyword. She still has to ask him before she can do certain things. The breaking point comes when she wants to go abroad as a chaperone on a student trip and Fadi says she can’t. There is also an incident at her workplace and she has to go to counseling because of it.
Evil Eye was an authentic portrayal of depression and how it can cause both sadness and anger. It’s also about the struggle that women have to balance family and work life. In Yara’s case, she actually wanted to work more but her husband would only let her work during the hours that their kids were in school. She feels adrift.
I liked Evil Eye but I thought it got a little repetitive. That may have been the point though. Yara feels like her life is on autopilot, doing the same thing day after day. I feel like I got the point though and it could have been trimmed up a bit. That’s a small quibble though. I do recommend Evil Eye. I liked it enough that I recently bought Etaf Rum’s first book, A Woman is No Man and I can’t wait to read it.
Evil Eye was my Book of the Month selection for September. You can use my referral link and get your first book for $5 and free shipping with no obligation to continue your membership.
October 16th, 2023 in
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The Mis-Arrangement of Sana Saeed by Noreen Mughees
Publisher: Alcove Press
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Thirty-three-year-old hijabi Sana Saeed has put away her childhood dream of ishq—an all-consuming, sweeping love. The arranged dates she’s agreed to have failed time after time, and she has responsibilities to consider—namely her sweet, autistic younger brother, Zia. Sana and Zia are a package deal, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. But their traditional mother won’t allow Sana to be named as his future guardian . . . unless she’s married.
When Daniel Malik walks into Sana’s office at the Department of Environmental Conservation, she’s astonished—their childhood friendship has been a cherished memory ever since a feud between their families put an end to it eighteen years ago. But there’s no chance of them becoming close again; Daniel may be as hot as a Bollywood heartthrob, but not only is he Sana’s new boss, her mother would disown her if she ever brought him home.
With the clock ticking, Sana agrees to a marriage arranged by her family. She’s seen plenty of arranged marriages grow into love; maybe that will happen for her too. But when a high-stakes case at work forces Sana and Daniel to team up, they find themselves less able—and willing—to play their parts of “good desi children.”
Now Sana must make a choice: family and security, or the one man who claimed her heart long ago.
Sana Saeed is in her 30s and still not married, which is stressing her mother out. In addition, she won’t appoint Sana her autistic brother’s legal guardian unless Sana is married. Sana loves Zia with all her heart and eventually agrees to an arranged marriage to Adam. Just as she does, her childhood friend Daniel enters her life. Sparks fly but their families are feuding and would never approve of the two of them having a relationship. What’s Sana to do – stay with the practical Adam or risk it all to be with Daniel?
This was a cute romance. A tad predictable but I think most romances are, aren’t they?
SPOILER ALERT: I was actually rooting for a different ending. I thought Daniel was a jerk and couldn’t see what Sana saw in him. Adam was so sweet and seemed perfect for her. Even so, I enjoyed this book.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
October 9th, 2023 in
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Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega
Narrator: Almarie Guerra
Publisher: Scholastic Audio
Release Date: April 7, 2020
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
For Lucely Luna, ghosts are more than just the family business.
Shortly before Halloween, Lucely and her best friend, Syd, cast a spell that accidentally awakens malicious spirits, wreaking havoc throughout St. Augustine. Together, they must join forces with Syd’s witch grandmother, Babette, and her tubby tabby, Chunk, to fight the haunting head-on and reverse the curse to save the town and Lucely’s firefly spirits before it’s too late.
Lucely is the only one who can see the ghosts of her ancestors. When they start to seem sick, she’s worried that they will disappear. She and her best friend Syd find and cast a spell, thinking it will help the ancestors. But instead, it unleashes a lot of evil spirits. They must enlist Syd’s grandmother Babette to try and banish the evil spirits before Halloween or they may destroy the town.
This is a great middle-grade book for Halloween. It’s spooky and suspenseful but not enough to give kids nightmares or anything. The audiobook was a quick listen. Recommended.
October 2nd, 2023 in
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The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton
Narrator: Kevin R. Free
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release Date: March 27, 2018
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only 29 years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free.
But with no money and a different system of justice for a poor Black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. He spent his first three years on Death Row at Holman State Prison in agonizing silence – full of despair and anger toward all those who had sent an innocent man to his death. But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row. For the next 27 years he was a beacon – transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates, 54 of whom were executed mere feet from his cell. With the help of civil rights attorney and best-selling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015.
With a foreword by Stevenson, The Sun Does Shine is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won, Hinton’s memoir tells his dramatic 30-year journey and shows how you can take away a man’s freedom, but you can’t take away his imagination, humor, or joy.
This program includes a foreword written and read by Bryan Stevenson.
I recently read Lara Love Hardin’s book The Many Lives of Mama Love, in which she wrote about co-writing The Sun Does Shine with Anthony Ray Hinton, who was falsely convicted of murder and spent 27 years on Death Row before he was exonerated.
When Hinton was 29 years old, he was arrested for murdering two people. Even though he had a rock-solid alibi, he was found guilty and sentenced to Death Row. This was due to an incompetent court-appointed attorney and corrupt law enforcement officers and Attorneys General, who cared more about a conviction than making sure they had the right person. Through it all, Hinton maintained a positive attitude and even helped keep his fellow inmates’ spirits up. Eventually, he was put in touch with Bryan Stevenson, the attorney who founded the Equal Justice Initiative and wrote the book Just Mercy. It was Stevenson who eventually won Hinton’s release.
I learned a lot about the legal system reading this book and what I came away with is most of it is complete BS. The simplest things take years to get done and half of it doesn’t even make sense. The disregard for human life – Black life to be specific – was horrifying. Sentencing a human being you know is innocent to death just to get the case closed? Disgusting. And if you don’t have money, you can forget about getting a fair trial. I know there are some good public defenders out there but I think most of them are just phoning it in to get the case over with. I know Hinton’s sure was. I think I could have done a more thorough job. Now that I’ve read this book, I want to read Just Mercy, which I actually have on my bookshelves. I wonder if Stevenson writes about Hinton’s case – it would be interesting to hear his perspective.
Hinton is an amazing man who deserves the very best in life. Highly recommended.
August 28th, 2023 in
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