When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: May 30, 2017
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right?
Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.
The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?
Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.
Dimple Shah has just graduated from high school and her mother is chomping at the bit to find her a suitable Indian boy to marry. However, Dimple has other plans – she’s been accepted to Stanford to study computer programing. But first, she is attending a six-week summer programming camp where she hopes to win the competition for developing the best app.
Rishi Patel is a traditional Indian boy. He would love to be a suitable boy for Dimple, even though he has never met her. His parents are friends with her parents though, and arrange for him to attend the same camp so that he and Dimple can meet and hopefully start the wheels towards marriage turning. Needless to say, this is not the greatest plan! Dimple and Rishi’s first meeting involves her throwing iced coffee in his face. (Such a waste!)
When Dimple Met Rishi is a sweet, young adult romantic comedy. It alternates quickly back and forth between Dimple and Rishi’s point of view so you always know what they are thinking. The audiobook uses both a male and female narrator, making it easy to keep track of whose perspective you are listening to.
I appreciated that Dimple and Rishi were open and honest with each other. When it comes time for their relationship to become intimate, they have a conversation about it well before taking action. It would have been very easy for the book to veer off into cheesy after-school special territory at this point but it didn’t. Sandhya Menon’s characters sound like real-life teenagers, not like they are trying to teach the reader a lesson.
When Dimple Met Rishi is now a Netflix series called Mismatched. I plan to check it out soon – I hope it’s as charming as the book.
May 14th, 2021 in
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Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Publication Date: February 25, 2020
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn nineteen, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she’s told is her own, Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. And so begins Oona Out of Order…
Hopping through decades, pop culture fads, and much-needed stock tips, Oona is still a young woman on the inside but ever changing on the outside. Who will she be next year? Philanthropist? Club Kid? World traveler? Wife to a man she’s never met? Surprising, magical, and heart-wrenching, Margarita Montimore has crafted an unforgettable story about the burdens of time, the endurance of love, and the power of family.
Oona Lockhart will turn nineteen at the stroke of midnight, New Year’s Eve 1982. Much to her surprise, she faints as the clock strikes twelve and wakes up in 2015 in her fifty-one-year-old body! Luckily, someone is there to tell her what’s going on. Every year on New Year’s Eve, Oona leaps in time, sometimes forward, sometimes backward. She’s living her life one year at a time, completely out of order.
Oona Out of Order is a creative spin on time travel. The way Oona is living her life, her chronological age never matches her physical age. It’s hard for a nineteen-year-old to act like a middle-aged woman! It does wrestle with one of the same themes that most time-travel stories do – is it possible to change your fate and if so, is it a good idea? Oona usually leaves herself a note to find on New Year’s Day after she’s leaped into a different year. Some notes are more specific than others. Oona’s mother knows about her leaping but since she’s living her life in the correct order, sometimes Oona knows things about her mother that her mother hasn’t actually lived through yet. This is where my head started to hurt a little bit – trying to keep straight who knows what for whatever year Oona is in! I don’t think that’s the book’s fault though. As my son would say, “That sounds like a you problem.”
Randomly leaping through time presents some issues for Oona. How can she sustain a romantic relationship with someone or have a family of her own? She can’t openly tell everyone about her condition. The book deals with these questions in creative ways. Oona was one of my book club’s recent picks and it made for a great discussion, especially about what we would do if we had Oona’s condition. Recommended.
May 11th, 2021 in
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The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Publisher: Doubleday
Publication Date: July 16, 2019
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.
Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers and “should further cement Whitehead as one of his generation’s best” (Entertainment Weekly).
Elwood Curtis is an intelligent, college-bound Black boy in 1960s Florida. He never gets into trouble. An idealistic young man, he loves to listen to his record of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches. Then one day, he finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and is sentenced to Nickel Academy, a juvenile reform school. He very quickly discovers the horrific abuse that the students are subjected to. Luckily, a boy named Turner takes Elwood under his wing and shows him how to stay mostly under the radar. Turner tries his best to convince Elwood to leave his idealism behind and accept that the rest of the world is as corrupt as Nickel.
This book was a hard read. The treatment of the boys at Nickel is unconscionable. The way Colson Whitehead writes about the abuse is spare but the little detail he does use was enough to make me feel like I had been punched in the gut at certain points. For instance, Elwood hears a big industrial fan his first night at Nickel. Later he finds out the fan is covering up the sound of something else. From then on, every time the fan is mentioned, you know what’s really going on without it having to be spelled out.
Even though The Nickel Boys takes place in the 1960s, it’s relevant today. Not much has changed – Black boys are still getting in trouble for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or just being *in* a place, like driving while black or shopping while black. Mass incarnation is a huge problem. And the Dozier School for Boys, the real-life school this book is based on, didn’t close until 2011! Almost 100 graves of students have been found on the grounds there.
Whitehead’s last book, The Underground Railroad, (read my review here) won all kinds of awards, including the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It can be hard to follow up a book that did that well, but The Nickel Boys is just as brilliant as The Underground Railroad. As a matter of fact, it won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Highly recommended.
May 7th, 2021 in
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Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian
Publisher: Doubleday
Publication Date: May 4, 2021 – that’s today!
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four-years-old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary’s hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life. But in a world where every neighbor is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary–a woman who harbors secret desires and finds it difficult to tolerate the brazen hypocrisy of so many men in the colony–soon becomes herself the object of suspicion and rumor. When tainted objects are discovered buried in Mary’s garden, when a boy she has treated with herbs and simples dies, and when their servant girl runs screaming in fright from her home, Mary must fight to not only escape her marriage, but also the gallows. A twisting, tightly plotted novel of historical suspense from one of our greatest storytellers, Hour of the Witch is a timely and terrifying story of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt.
This is the third book I’ve read by Chris Bohjalian and I have to say, I’m impressed with his range. Most of you are probably familiar with The Flight Attendant now that it’s been made into a TV series. I’ve also read The Sandcastle Girls which is a historical novel about the Armenian Genocide. Hour of the Witch is also historical fiction but this time set in Boston, all the way back in 1662.
Mary Deerfield’s husband Thomas drinks too much, which makes him very cruel towards her, both physically and emotionally. When he stabs her hand with a fork, she decides that she can’t take it anymore and petitions to divorce him. Unfortunately, she lives in a Puritan community in 1662, where divorce is virtually unheard of. At the same time, mysterious objects found buried in Mary’s yard and other supposedly suspicious happenings leave some people wondering if Mary could be a witch.
Hour of the Witch is well-researched historical fiction. Mary’s divorce trial and the town’s treatment of her in general highlights how women were treated as second-class citizens incapable of taking care of themselves or making decisions on their own. The Puritans also held each other to suffocatingly high standards. A lot of the drama is caused by the fork. Fork seem innocuous to us today but apparently, Puritans thought they were the “devil’s tines.” The fact that Mary’s father imported some from Europe is a strike against her.
The pacing of Hour of the Witch was a little uneven. The first half was kind of slow and then the last chapter or so went at breakneck speed to wrap things up. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading it. Recommended.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
May 4th, 2021 in
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The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person by Frederick Joseph
Publisher: Candlewick
Publication Date: December 1, 2020
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Writing from the perspective of a friend, Frederick Joseph offers candid reflections on his own experiences with racism and conversations with prominent artists and activists about theirs—creating an essential read for white people who are committed anti-racists and those newly come to the cause of racial justice.
“We don’t see color.” “I didn’t know Black people liked Star Wars!” “What hood are you from?” For Frederick Joseph, life as a transfer student in a largely white high school was full of wince-worthy moments that he often simply let go. As he grew older, however, he saw these as missed opportunities not only to stand up for himself, but to spread awareness to those white people who didn’t see the negative impact they were having.
Speaking directly to the reader, The Black Friend calls up race-related anecdotes from the author’s past, weaving in his thoughts on why they were hurtful and how he might handle things differently now. Each chapter features the voice of at least one artist or activist, including Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give; April Reign, creator of #OscarsSoWhite; Jemele Hill, sports journalist and podcast host; and eleven others. Touching on everything from cultural appropriation to power dynamics, “reverse racism” to white privilege, microaggressions to the tragic results of overt racism, this book serves as conversation starter, tool kit, and invaluable window into the life of a former “token Black kid” who now presents himself as the friend many readers need. Backmatter includes an encyclopedia of racism, providing details on relevant historical events, terminology, and more.
You know how some people say, “I can’t be racist – I have a Black friend.”? Frederick Joseph wants to be that Black friend. And he sees the Black friend’s job as, “the person who is willing to speak the truth to the white people in their lives, to call them out when they do or say something hurtful, ignorant or offensive.” His goal is to help readers go from people who are learning about race and racism to people who are actively working to solve the problems created by racism – in other words, anti-racists.
The Black Friend is written for young adults but it would be great for adults as well, especially for those who are just beginning the work of becoming an anti-racist. Each chapter covers a different general topic – affirmative action, cultural appropriation, colorblindness, etc. At the end of each chapter, he interviews a prominent person of color, like Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give and April Reign founder of the #OscarsSoWhite movement.
Joseph writes with a conversational tone and weaves in his personal story throughout the book. His journey to adulthood had some missteps and awkward moments so he doesn’t talk down to the reader. His sense of humor keeps the book entertaining as well as informative. He includes an Encyclopedia of Racism at the end with helpful information that everyone, especially teens, may not know, like what Brexit or the Tulsa Race Massacre is. Putting it at the end helps the body of the book flow more easily. There are a few other extras at the end, like a playlist and recommended reading.
I loved this book. I think it should be required reading for high school students. It’s a quick read but packed with information written in a way that is easily digestible for kids and adults as well. The only times I was reminded that I was reading a young adult book were when he would say things like he was so old he watched The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, as if the reader wouldn’t have heard of that show. Or that he’s so old he remembers when YouTube started. Um, I remember when the internet started!
Highly recommended.
April 30th, 2021 in
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Raceless: In Search of Family, Identity, and the Truth About Where I Belong by Georgina Lawton
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Publication Date: February 23, 2021
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
From The Guardian’s Georgina Lawton, a moving examination of how racial identity is constructed—through the author’s own journey grappling with secrets and stereotypes, having been raised by white parents with no explanation as to why she looked black.
Raised in sleepy English suburbia, Georgina Lawton was no stranger to homogeneity. Her parents were white; her friends were white; there was no reason for her to think she was any different. But over time her brown skin and dark, kinky hair frequently made her a target of prejudice. In Georgina’s insistently color-blind household, with no acknowledgement of her difference or access to black culture, she lacked the coordinates to make sense of who she was.
It was only after her father’s death that Georgina began to unravel the truth about her parentage—and the racial identity that she had been denied. She fled from England and the turmoil of her home-life to live in black communities around the globe—the US, the UK, Nicaragua, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and Morocco—and to explore her identity and what it meant to live in and navigate the world as a black woman. She spoke with psychologists, sociologists, experts in genetic testing, and other individuals whose experiences of racial identity have been fraught or questioned in the hopes of understanding how, exactly, we identify ourselves.
Raceless is an exploration of a fundamental question: what constitutes our sense of self? Drawing on her personal experiences and the stories of others, Lawton grapples with difficult questions about love, shame, grief, and prejudice, and reveals the nuanced and emotional journey of forming one’s identity.
Raceless is Georgina Lawton’s memoir of growing up in England with white parents and being raised as if she were also white, even though she’s clearly not. She’s the result of her mother’s one-night stand with a Black man. When Georgina was born, the midwife, looking at her brown skin, instantly provided a cover story – her dark hair and skin were the result of a “throwback gene” somewhere in her ancestry. Everyone seemed to buy into this story, including Georgina’s mother’s husband. He never even hinted at the fact that Georgina wasn’t his biological daughter while he was alive.
Georgina believed she was white growing up because that’s what her parents told her. However, most of the outside world treated her as if she were Black, leaving her confused. She loved her father too much to ask many questions while he was still alive. After he died, she took a DNA test and had to face the reality that he was not her biological father. In fact, she was almost half Nigerian. Raceless chronicles her journey traveling the world to find her true identity and learn to navigate the world as a Black woman.
I could not stop thinking about this book after I read it. My daughter is Black (my husband and I are white) and I cannot fathom raising her as anything other than a Black child. One of my constant worries is that I’m not doing enough to help her embrace her Blackness and live in the world as a Black woman when she grows up. Georgina’s situation is baffling to me. I feel for her so much. I wish she could have talked to her father before he died but I understand why she didn’t. She didn’t want to taint their relationship in any way. I’m curious if he really bought the throwback gene theory or if he knew he wasn’t her father and decided that keeping the family together and harmonious was more important than confronting his wife about her infidelity.
Georgina has great insight into racial identity. Her book is well-researched but she writes with a conversational tone that made it a pleasure to read. Hers is a real-life example of why colorblindness is detrimental to everyone. Highly recommended.
April 27th, 2021 in
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Calypso by David Sedaris
Narrated by: David Sedaris
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Release Date: May 29, 2018
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
If you’ve ever laughed your way through David Sedaris’s cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you’re getting with Calypso. You’d be wrong.
When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it’s impossible to take a vacation from yourself.
With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation toward middle age and mortality. Make no mistake: these stories are very, very funny–it’s a book that can make you laugh ’til you snort, the way only family can. Sedaris’s powers of observation have never been sharper, and his ability to shock readers into laughter unparalleled. But much of the comedy here is born out of that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.
This is beach reading for people who detest beaches, required reading for those who loathe small talk and love a good tumor joke. Calypso is simultaneously Sedaris’s darkest and warmest book yet–and it just might be his very best.
I listened to Calypso because David Sedaris reading his essays makes them a million times funnier than they already are. And they already are hilarious. I highly recommend that you do the same – for any of his books actually. Calypso is just as funny as all his other books but it’s also his most personal. He has an essay about his sister Tiffany’s suicide and another about his mother’s alcoholism. Both are bittersweet.
As with his other books, family is at the heart of most of his writing. He bought a beach house in North Carolina, which he named The Sea Section, and his family spends quite a bit of time together there, giving him much material for this book. It’s pretty amazing how close he and his siblings are. His dad is in his 90s now and his rough edges have softened a bit, changing David’s relationship with him. I liked that this book went deeper than his others. After reading most of his books and seeing him perform several times, I feel like we’re old friends and I enjoyed getting to know him even better and laughing a lot.
Other books David Sedaris books I’ve reviewed:
Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls
Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002
Open Book by Jessica Simpson
Publisher: Dey Street Books
Publication Date: February 4, 2020)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
This was supposed to be a very different book. Five years ago, Jessica Simpson was approached to write a motivational guide to living your best life. She walked away from the offer, and nobody understood why. The truth is that she didn’t want to lie.
Jessica couldn’t be authentic with her readers if she wasn’t fully honest with herself first.
Now America’s Sweetheart, preacher’s daughter, pop phenomenon, reality tv pioneer, and the billion-dollar fashion mogul invites readers on a remarkable journey, examining a life that blessed her with the compassion to help others, but also burdened her with an almost crippling need to please. Open Book is Jessica Simpson using her voice, heart, soul, and humor to share things she’s never shared before.
First celebrated for her voice, she became one of the most talked-about women in the world, whether for music and fashion, her relationship struggles, or as a walking blonde joke. But now, instead of being talked about, Jessica is doing the talking. Her book shares the wisdom and inspirations she’s learned and shows the real woman behind all the pop-culture cliché’s — “chicken or fish,” “Daisy Duke,” “football jinx,” “mom jeans,” “sexual napalm…” and more. Open Book is an opportunity to laugh and cry with a close friend, one that will inspire you to live your best, most authentic life, now that she is finally living hers.
Jessica Simpson and I have been BFFs ever since I spotted her shopping at my local mall and introduced myself. I mean, I haven’t spoken to her since but I’m sure meeting me affected her in a profound way. I had to read her memoir to see if she mentioned our fateful encounter. Alas, she does not. Anywho, while I’ve never been much of a fan of her music, I loved the show Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, her reality show with her then-husband Nick Lachey. Of course, the real reason I wanted to read her book was to get the inside scoop on that and other things, like her relationship with music’s biggest douche, John Mayer.
Open Book lives up to its name. Jessica spills it all: her childhood sexual abuse, her marriage to Lachey, her emotionally abusive relationship to Mayer (who is an even bigger jerk than I thought he was), the hot sex with her current husband Eric Johnson and more. She’s honest about her alcoholism, which I didn’t even know about. The only thing I didn’t like about this book is that she regularly breaks the fourth wall and addresses the reader in a way that sounds cheesy and a bit insincere. Overall, this is the kind of celebrity memoir I love – honest, dishy and detailed.
April 20th, 2021 in
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Kansas City: A Food Biography by Andrea L Broomfield
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Publication Date: February 25, 2016
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
While some cities owe their existence to lumber or oil, turpentine or steel, Kansas City owes its existence to food. From its earliest days, Kansas City was in the business of provisioning pioneers and traders headed west, and later with provisioning the nation with meat and wheat. Throughout its history, thousands of Kansas Citians have also made their living providing meals and hospitality to travelers passing through on their way elsewhere, be it by way of a steamboat, Conestoga wagon, train, automobile, or airplane. As Kansas City’s adopted son, Fred Harvey sagely noted, “Travel follows good food routes,” and Kansas City’s identity as a food city is largely based on that fact. Kansas City: A Food Biography explores in fascinating detail how a frontier town on the edge of wilderness grew into a major metropolis, one famous for not only great cuisine but for a crossroads hospitality that continues to define it. Kansas City: A Food Biography also explores how politics, race, culture, gender, immigration, and art have forged the city’s most iconic dishes, from chili and steak to fried chicken and barbecue. In lively detail, Andrea Broomfield brings the Kansas City food scene to life.
The theme of my public library’s Winter Reading Challenge was Missouri so my book club decided to read Kansas City: A Food Biography. I figured the book would be 80 percent BBQ and 20 percent everything else. It actually had a lot of non-BBQ related information. It started with prehistoric times, around 2500 BCE. That was a little more detail than I was looking for! I was more interested in the 20th and 21st centuries, which started about halfway through the book.
Once I made it into the chapters covering modern times, I became very interested. BBQ is, of course, covered but there were a lot of other noteworthy tidbits as well, like the history behind the famous fried chicken restaurant Stroud’s. It would be fun to reread this book after the pandemic is over and I could actually go to some of the restaurants mentioned. (Note: Do not read this book if you are hungry.)
If you’re from Kansas City, I think you’ll enjoy this book, especially if you just focus on reading the chapters that pique your interest and skim the rest.
April 16th, 2021 in
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Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: October 17, 2017
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
A small-town newspaper columnist with old-fashioned views of the modern world. A World War II veteran grappling with his emotional and physical scars. A second-rate actor plunged into sudden stardom and a whirlwind press junket. Four friends traveling to the moon in a rocketship built in the backyard. These are just some of the stories that Tom Hanks captures in his first work of fiction: a collection of shorts that explore—with great affection, humor, and insight—the human condition in all its foibles. The stories are linked by one thing: in each of them, a typewriter plays a part, sometimes minor, sometimes central.
To many, typewriters represent a level of craftsmanship, beauty, and individuality that is harder and harder to find in the modern world. In these stories, Hanks gracefully reaches that typewriter-worthy level. By turns whimsical, witty, and moving, Uncommon Type establishes him as a welcome and wonderful new voice in contemporary fiction.
I’m not the biggest fan of short stories so I don’t read many short story collections. And short story collections can be hard to review because they are so often all over the place. This is the case with Uncommon Type, written by Tom Hanks. Yes, that Tom Hanks. Some of his stories were intriguing, like The Past is Important to Us, about a man who keeps traveling in time back to the 1939 World’s Fair. Some were simplistic and a little dull. I especially enjoyed A Junket in the City of Light. It’s about an actor on a press junket for a movie and I felt like I was getting some inside scoop on how press junkets work. If anyone would know, it’s Tom Hanks!
Hanks writes what he knows. He’s known for being a WWII buff and also for loving space. There are war and space stories. He also collects vintage typewriters and he’s incorporated a typewriter into every story. In some stories, they are mentioned briefly and in some, they are center stage. It’s a cute gimmick but not necessary by any means. I think that fans of Tom Hank’s will enjoy Uncommon Type. It’s a solid offering for a first-time author.
April 13th, 2021 in
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