Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Publisher: Lee Boudreaux Books
Publication Date: July 18, 2017
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Who says you can’t run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can’t say yes–it would be too awkward–and you can’t say no–it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.
QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?
ANSWER: You accept them all.
What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.
Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story.
When Arthur Less is invited to his former boyfriend’s wedding, he doesn’t want to go. In order to have an excuse not to go, he accepts a variety of invitations to other events around the world. He’s an author and all of the events have something to do with writing or literature. While traveling, he reflects back on his life because he is about to turn fifty. He remembers his first love, who was an older poet, and his time with the boyfriend who is getting married.
Less won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and I have to say, I’m a bit baffled as to why. It’s touted as being a really funny book but I only found it to be mildly amusing in parts. It does satirize the publishing industry and literary world so I imagine that people in those worlds might find it funnier than most. It brought to mind when LaLa Land won all sorts of awards even though it wasn’t that great of a movie because Hollywood types love movies about Hollywood and will vote for them to win awards.
My book club read Less for our May meeting and most of us were “meh” about it. Have you read it – what did you think?
June 25th, 2021 in
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I attempted to attend a Barnes & Noble virtual author event last night to celebrate the release of Taylor Jenkin Reid’s new book Malibu Rising. There were technical difficulties on Eventbrite’s end and most everyone wasn’t able to join until about halfway through the event. Luckily, B&N recorded it and posted it to YouTube this morning. I’m glad I got to watch it all – it was a fantastic conversation.
I haven’t read any of Taylor’s previous books or Malibu Rising. One of my book clubs is reading Malibu Rising for our July meeting so I’ll be reading it soon. After listening to Taylor and V.E. talk about it, I’m looking forward to reading it. I’ll most likely have to buy it since I’m still 174 on my library’s hold list but I think it’ll be worth it. I have so many books that lately I’m trying to be selective about what I actually purchase. I’m running out of room!
Some highlights from the convo:
- V.E. asked Taylor what the ingredients were that she wanted to make sure and use when she was thinking about writing Malibu Rising. She said Malibu, a non-traditional family of surfers, and a party where a bunch of made-up famous people wreaks havoc. Taylor worked in casting in Hollywood before becoming an author so she knows how Hollywood really works. We know I love Hollywood so right off the bat, I’m thinking this is my kind of book.
- There are a few Easter Eggs in Malibu Rising from her previous books. Those should be really fun for superfans to discover!
- Daisy Jones and the Six is being made into a TV series that will be released on Amazon. Taylor said watching the process of her book come to life is like having a 3D printer in her brain, which I thought was a great analogy. She also said that she thinks it will be as good as the book. Sounds promising!
- Taylor revealed that Daisy Jones and the Six (set in the 1970s) and Malibu Rising (set in the 1980s) are the first two books of a quartet, each being set in a different decade. The final two will be set in the 1990s and the 2000s. It sounds like the next one is well underway.
- V.E. and Taylor talked quite a bit about how famous, straight, white men get a pass for almost anything they do but famous women and people of color are held to almost impossible standards. They are expected to be grateful for whatever success they’ve achieved and to not make any waves. It sounds like this is a major theme of Malibu Rising.
That about sums it up. I will report back after I have actually read Malibu Rising and let you know what I thought. If you’ve read it, let me know your thoughts!
June 22nd, 2021 in
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I got back from a family vacation to Colorado a few days ago. It was a great trip! I was dreading the eleven-hour car ride with four kids – especially since my two-year-old had never been in the car for more than 30 minutes up until this point. But they all did great on the way out and on the way home. While there, we went horseback riding, hiking, pontooning, to the Children’s Museum in Denver and more.
One of the highlights for me was checking out a used book store in Breckenridge called Ole Man Berkins Books. While there, I told the very friendly bookseller that I read everything and asked him if he had a recommendation for a book that he loved that I probably hadn’t heard of before. He recommended A Monk Swimming by Malachy McCourt, Frank McCourt’s brother. He said it’s an unexpectedly funny memoir that made him laugh out loud. So not like Angela’s Ashes at all, I’m guessing. The other book he recommended was Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan. He liked it because it’s not just about Bob Dylan, it’s about the overall music scene at the time. We all know I love a good celebrity memoir so it was an easy sell. Also, my mom loved Bob Dylan and would be happy that I’m reading his book.
I came very close to buying the Welcome Back Kotter book that I spotted in the young adult section but decided that I would save my $2.50 and just take a picture for posterity. Up your nose with a rubber hose! Just kidding – I love you guys!
June 18th, 2021 in
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There’s Something About Sweetie by Sandhya Menon
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: May 14, 2019
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Ashish Patel didn’t know love could be so…sucky. After being dumped by his ex-girlfriend, his mojo goes AWOL. Even worse, his parents are annoyingly, smugly confident they could find him a better match. So, in a moment of weakness, Ash challenges them to set him up.
The Patels insist Ashish date an Indian-American girl – under contract. Per subclause 1(a), he’ll be taking his date on “fun” excursions like visiting the Hindu temple and his eccentric Gita Auntie. Kill him now. How is this ever going to work?
Sweetie Nair is many things: a formidable track athlete who can outrun most people in California, a loyal friend, a shower-singing champion. Oh, and she’s also fat. To Sweetie’s traditional parents, this last detail is the kiss of death.
Sweetie loves her parents, but she’s so tired of being told she’s lacking because she’s fat. She decides it’s time to kick off the Sassy Sweetie Project, where she’ll show the world (and herself) what she’s really made of.
Ashish and Sweetie both have something to prove. But with each date they realize there’s an unexpected magic growing between them. Can they find their true selves without losing each other?
There’s Something About Sweetie is a companion novel to When Dimple Met Rishi. It totally stands alone – Dimple and Rishi only make a very brief appearance. There’s Something About Sweetie is about Rishi’s little brother Ashish and a girl named Sweetie Nair. Sweetie is a great student and star of her school’s track team. That’s not good enough for her Indian mother because she also happens to be fat. Sweetie’s mother worries that she’ll never find a suitable boy if she doesn’t lose weight.
Ashish is recovering from a break-up and decides to do something he never thought he’d do…Ask his parents to set him up with an Indian girl. They choose Sweetie but Sweetie’s mother won’t allow it. She thinks that because Sweetie is fat, she’s not good enough for Ashish or his family. His parents are filthy rich after all. Sweetie and Ashish decide that they want to date anyway. Ashish’s parents make them sign a dating contract outlining the specific dates he and Sweetie are allowed to go on. Hopefully, Sweetie’s mother won’t find out.
I appreciated that this book showed that just because someone is overweight, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t worthy of love or can’t be happy. And that it’s possible to be overweight and an athlete. I think Sweetie is a great role model – she’s very body positive, which is quite a feat considering how horrible her mother is to her about her weight. However, There’s Something About Sweetie crosses the line into After-School Special territory. I found it to be preachy at times. The dialogue between Sweetie, Ashish and their friends was not how typical teenagers talk. The author definitely had an objective – she wrote that she herself was fat as a child – but I think she was heavy-handed in trying to achieve it. I’d be interested to find out if teen readers feel the same way.
May 26th, 2021 in
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Where the Grass Is Green and the Girls Are Pretty by Lauren Weisberger
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: May 18, 2021
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
A seat at the anchor desk of the most-watched morning show. Recognized by millions across the country, thanks in part to her flawless blond highlights and Botox-smoothed skin. An adoring husband and a Princeton-bound daughter. Peyton is that woman. She has it all.
Until . . .
Skye, her sister, is a stay-at-home mom living in a glitzy suburb of New York. She has degrees from all the right schools and can helicopter-parent with the best of them. But Skye is different from the rest. She’s looking for something real and dreams of a life beyond the PTA and pickup.
Until . . .
Max, Peyton’s bright and quirky seventeen-year-old daughter, is poised to kiss her fancy private school goodbye and head off to pursue her dreams in film. She’s waited her entire life for this opportunity.
Until . . .
One little lie. That’s all it takes. For the illusions to crack. For resentments to surface. Suddenly the grass doesn’t look so green. And they’re left wondering: will they have what it takes to survive the truth?
Where the Grass is Green and the Girls are Pretty is a ripped from the headlines story about a college admissions scandal very similar to the Varsity Blues scandal from a couple of years ago. Peyton and her husband Isaac really want their daughter Max to go to Princeton, even though she’d rather go to film school. They might have gone a little too far in doing whatever they could to ensure Max’s acceptance. Peyton’s sister, Skye, is a stay-at-home mom in the suburbs. She’s also starting a residence home for underprivileged girls but still feels unsatisfied with her life.
I didn’t like Where the Grass is Green as much as I liked When Life Gives You Lululemons (read my review here). Where the Grass is Green seems a little too much like a Lifetime movie for my taste. I know it’s a beach read so I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece but even still, I was left wanting a little more substance. There are too many clichés and also some continuity errors and a wonky timeline that I had trouble following.
I also had a really hard time feeling any sort of empathy for Peyton even though I was supposed to. Just like I feel zero empathy for Lori Laughlin and her husband. Yes, what she did was partly out of love but we all love our kids and we don’t all do illegal things to help them out. None of the characters seemed very well developed except for Max. I felt a lot of empathy for her. I thought the ending was a little too convenient for some of the characters and left some of the characters hanging. We never find out if Skye told her husband about her secret.
Judging from the other reviews, I’m in the minority of not loving this book so make sure you read other reviews too before you make up your mind about reading it yourself.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
May 18th, 2021 in
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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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