Luster by Raven Leilani
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication Date: August 4, 2020
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
No one wants what no one wants.
And how do we even know what we want? How do we know we’re ready to take it?
Edie is stumbling her way through her twenties―sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. And then she meets Eric, a digital archivist with a family in New Jersey, including an autopsist wife who has agreed to an open marriage―with rules.
As if navigating the constantly shifting landscapes of contemporary sexual manners and racial politics weren’t hard enough, Edie finds herself unemployed and invited into Eric’s home―though not by Eric. She becomes a hesitant ally to his wife and a de facto role model to his adopted daughter. Edie may be the only Black woman young Akila knows.
Irresistibly unruly and strikingly beautiful, razor-sharp and slyly comic, sexually charged and utterly absorbing, Raven Leilani’s Luster is a portrait of a young woman trying to make sense of her life―her hunger, her anger―in a tumultuous era. It is also a haunting, aching description of how hard it is to believe in your own talent, and the unexpected influences that bring us into ourselves along the way.
I picked this book up because I heard that transracial adoption played a part in the plot and as a transracial adoptive parent, this intrigued me. Well, it does play a part but that is the only thing in it even remotely similar to my life!
Edie is a twenty-something Black woman living a bleak life full of meaningless, unfulfilling sexual encounters. Most of them have been with men at the publishing company where she works for the children’s imprint. Now she is dating Eric, a forty-something married white guy she met online. He and his wife have recently agreed to open their marriage and Edie is the first woman he’s dated since that decision. Due to unfortunate and slightly bizarre circumstances, Eric’s wife Rebecca ends up inviting Edie to move in, even though she doesn’t exactly like Edie. Eric and his wife (who is also white) have an adopted tween Black daughter named Akila. Edie somewhat unwillingly becomes a mentor to her because Akila has no other Black people in her life.
Edie, Eric and Rebecca are all deeply flawed to say the least. Their lives are mostly joyless. However, Edie narrates her life with the darkest humor that keeps this book from being hopelessly depressing. For instance:
“There are times I interact with kids and recall my abortion fondly, moments like this when I cross paths with a child who is clearly a drag.”
Or:
“The waitress tells us the specials in such a way that we know our sole responsibility as patrons in her section is to just go right ahead and f*ck ourselves.”
I loved this book’s humor and brutal honesty. It’s hard to believe that it’s Raven Leilani’s first novel. Highly recommended.
November 9th, 2020 in
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Nutshell by Ian McEwan
Publisher: Anchor
Paperback Release Date: May 30, 2017
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Trudy has been unfaithful to her husband, John. What’s more, she has kicked him out of their marital home, a valuable old London town house, and in his place is his own brother, the profoundly banal Claude. The illicit couple have hatched a scheme to rid themselves of her inconvenient husband forever. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month-old resident of Trudy’s womb.
As Trudy’s unborn son listens, bound within her body, to his mother and his uncle’s murderous plans, he gives us a truly new perspective on our world, seen from the confines of his. McEwan’s brilliant recasting of Shakespeare lends new weight to the age-old question of Hamlet’s hesitation, and is a tour de force of storytelling.
When I heard that the narrator of Nutshell was an unborn fetus, I had to read it. The fetus is quite an erudite little fellow, having absorbed much knowledge from the podcasts his mother listens to. Accordingly, his first person voice is mature, it’s not like reading someone talking in baby talk.
The fetus is almost full-term when he figures out that his mother and uncle are having an affair and are planning to kill his father. He loves his mother but his loves father as well. He must try and find a way to put a stop to his mother and uncle’s plot. But how can he do that from inside his mother’s belly?
This is a very short book so it’s hard to say more about it without giving anything away. It’s definitely worth the read to see how the author accomplishes the unusual concept of a book told from a fetus’s point of view. Recommended.
November 2nd, 2020 in
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All Adults Here by Emma Straub
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Publication Date: May 4, 2020
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days decades earlier. Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she’d been to her three, now-grown children. But to what consequence?
Astrid’s youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Her daughter is pregnant yet struggling to give up her own adolescence. And her eldest seems to measure his adult life according to standards no one else shares. But who gets to decide, so many years later, which long-ago lapses were the ones that mattered? Who decides which apologies really count? It might be that only Astrid’s thirteen-year-old granddaughter and her new friend really understand the courage it takes to tell the truth to the people you love the most.
In All Adults Here, Emma Straub’s unique alchemy of wisdom, humor, and insight come together in a deeply satisfying story about adult siblings, aging parents, high school boyfriends, middle school mean girls, the lifelong effects of birth order, and all the other things that follow us into adulthood, whether we like them to or not.
All Adults Here is a character driven novel about Astrid and her three grown children. When Astrid witnesses her frenemy Barbara get hit and killed by a school bus, she starts to reevaluate her own life choices. She wonders if it’s too late to right some of the parenting mistakes she makes when her kids were young. At the same time, her teenage granddaughter comes to live with her, giving her a chance to do things right on the first try.
Her oldest son is a tightly wound, somewhat bitter man. Her daughter is single and pregnant by choice and her youngest son is bohemian who is also a bit of a stoner. It’s his daughter that comes to live with Astrid.
Emma Straub writes fantastic characters. She’s able to make their inner monologues both introspective and full of wry humor. Astrid was my favorite. She had the greatest lines. Here’s one I really liked:
“She herself [Astrid] was an only child, and she found old people with siblings somewhat ridiculous, as if they were eighty-year-olds who still wore water wings in swimming pools. Siblings were for the very young and needy. She had given her children siblings to occupy each other in childhood.”
This book addresses so many facets of life, it would make a great book club selection. It’s got LGBT issues, single motherhood, adultery, bullying, death and divorce. It sounds like a lot but I didn’t think it was overloaded. Straub did a wonderful job weaving everything together in an organic way. Although the characters in All Adults Here deal with some serious problems, it never gets too heavy. You won’t feel depressed after reading it and that’s important in these times.
I’ve loved the books I’ve previously read by Emma Sraub and All Adults Here did not disappoint. Highly recommended.
Other books by Emma Straub I’ve reviewed:
Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures
The Vacationers
October 29th, 2020 in
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When Life Gives You Lululemons by Lauren Weisberger
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Release Date: June 5, 2018
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Welcome to Greenwich, Connecticut, where the lawns and the women are perfectly manicured, the Tito’s and sodas are extra strong, and everyone has something to say about the infamous new neighbor.
Let’s be clear: Emily Charlton does not do the suburbs. After leaving Miranda Priestly, she’s been working in Hollywood as an image consultant to the stars, but recently, Emily’s lost a few clients. She’s hopeless with social media. The new guard is nipping at her heels. She needs a big opportunity, and she needs it now.
When Karolina Hartwell, a gorgeous former supermodel, is arrested, her fall from grace is merciless. Her senator-husband leaves her, her Beltway friends disappear, and the tabloids pounce.
In Karolina, Emily finds her comeback opportunity. But she quickly learns Greenwich is a world apart and that this comeback needs a team approach.
So it is that Emily, the scorned Karolina, and their mutual friend Miriam, a powerful attorney turned stay-at-home mom, band together to navigate the social land mines of suburban Greenwich and win back the hearts of the American public. Along the way, an unexpected ally emerges in one Miranda Priestly.
When Life Gives You Lululemons isn’t really a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, it’s more of a spin-off. I didn’t even realize it was written by the same author until about halfway through the audiobook! I’ve never read The Devil Wears Prada and it didn’t affect my enjoyment or understanding of this book at all.
Emily is an image consultant who’s having trouble adapting to the modern age of social media and her business is suffering as a result. When her friend Karolina, a former supermodel, is arrested for a crime that she may or may not have committed, Emily takes the case.
While When Life Gives You Lululemons supposed to be chick-lit, I thought it was more than that. Karolina’s predicament had my stomach in knots. And I was also really angry at her ex-husband. There were a lot of funny parts too, it was a good balance. It was a nice book to listen to because it was entertaining but didn’t’ require so much concentration that I missed my turn while driving. That has actually happened to me more times than I care to mention with other audiobooks!
Fans of The Devil Wears Prada will be glad to know that Miranda Priestly does make an appearance. However, I think anyone looking for a lighter read will appreciate this book.
October 20th, 2020 in
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Minding Miss Manners: In an Era of Fake Etiquette by Judith Martin
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Release Date: June 9, 2020
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
From the most trusted name in advice comes a fresh, contemporary guide to modern manners dilemmas.
Minding Miss Manners: In an Era of Fake Etiquette is a modern guide to modern manners. Facing down the miscreants purveying false etiquette rules (no, you may not wait a year to send a thank-you note for a gift and yes, in an age of social-media-encouraged over-familiarity you can politely refuse to answer nosy questions), Miss Manners guides you through these turbulent times with her timeless wisdom and archly acid wit.
This book was so fun. I love the art of etiquette (I have a huge Emily Post book) and I love dry wit. Miss Manners is the master of both! She addresses modern situations like crowd funding, bridezillas and social media.
Her answer to a person who didn’t like being touched had me laughing so hard I was crying. It’s especially funny because the narrator (Miss Manner’s real-life daughter) sounds just like I imagine Miss Manners does. The person who didn’t like being touched said that an acquaintance comes up behind them and scratches their back, and says she does it because she knows the person doesn’t like to be touched. The reader wants to know how they should handle this woman. Miss Manners responds:
“As your acquaintance considers that annoying people is amusing, Miss Manners hopes that she will enjoy you giving a piercing scream the minute she touches you and shouting, ‘What are you doing?’”
Miss Manners gives practical advice too but even that is rendered with perfect wit. And she cuts both ways – several of the letters are from rude people seeking advice on how to be acceptably rude. Miss Manners has no problem putting them in their place.
This book is a fun listen. The format makes it a good book to listen to even if you only have little chunks of time – you can listen to several letters in just a few minutes. The print edition would make a great Christmas gift for the etiquette lover on your shopping list. Highly recommended.
(I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook for review.)
October 15th, 2020 in
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The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Publisher: Harper
Publication Date: March 3, 2020
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.
Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipation” bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn’t about freedom; Congress is fed up with Indians. The bill is a “termination” that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans “for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run”?
Since graduating high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that barely pays her enough to support her mother and brother. Patrice’s shameful alcoholic father returns home sporadically to terrorize his wife and children and bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to follow her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis. Vera may have disappeared; she hasn’t been in touch in months, and is rumored to have had a baby. Determined to find Vera and her child, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minnesota that introduces her to unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, and endangers her life.
Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice’s best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice.
In The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich creates a fictional world populated with memorable characters who are forced to grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature. Illuminating the loves and lives, the desires and ambitions of these characters with compassion, wit, and intelligence, The Night Watchman is a majestic work of fiction from this revered cultural treasure.
Louise Erdrich’s grandfather Patrick Gourneau served as the tribal chairman for the federally recognized tribe of Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians for many years. The character Thomas is based on him. And just like Patrick, Thomas is leading the fight against House Concurrent Resolution 108, which sought to terminate five tribes, including the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. All of the other characters except for Thomas and Senator Arthur V. Watkins are fictional.
Thomas works as the night watchman of the jewel bearings plant near the Turtle Mountain Reservation. Patrice is Thomas’s niece. She also works at the plant and is the first member of her immediate family to have a “real” job. However, working at the jewel bearings plant is barely enough to support her family. Her sister Vera is missing after moving to Minneapolis and Patrice must brave the big city to try and find her. Unfortunately, she can only afford to take a few days off for her journey. Then there is Wood Mountain, an amateur boxer. His coach is Lloyd Barnes, the math teacher. Valentine is Patrice’s best friend and works at the plant with her. There are many other supporting characters too. Unlike some books with a large cast, it was easy to keep track of everyone because they were all so different from one another.
One thing I loved about this book is the many intertwining threads running through it. Some were suspenseful, some were horrifying, some were melancholy and some, like the one with the two Mormon missionaries, were humorous. It was like reading several books all at once in the best possible way. I also loved how Erdrich portrays the sense of community between the characters on the reservation. There is a mystical element that I enjoyed as well.
As a work of historical fiction, The Night Watchman serves to remind us that our country’s attempts to erase Native Americans is not a thing of the distant past. It also highlights the extreme poverty found on reservations, with homes that don’t even have running water or electricity. It’s clear from the author’s note that a lot of research went into The Night Watchman to ensure that is it historically accurate. I think that this book would make an excellent book club selection. Highly recommended.
October 12th, 2020 in
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My daughter loves the National Geographic Kids Weird But True Series so I was delighted to find out that there is a new addition just for Halloween. Weird But True Halloween has bright, colorful pictures that are sure to grab you child’s attention. These books are great for reluctant readers because they are fun and silly. The facts really are weird but true – I didn’t know most of them myself!
Did you know that…..
* There is an underwater pumpkin carving contest?
* The U.S. Defense Department has a zombie apocalypse plan?
* There are more Halloween emojis than there are U.S. states?
* Halloween is also National Knock-Knock Joke Day?
* There is no pumpkin in pumpkin spice?
* Snail zombies are snails whose tentacles have been taken over by parasitic worms?
This book would make a great Halloween gift for the kiddos – especially if you don’t plan to go trick-or-treating this year.
I’m excited to be able to giveaway one copy of Weird But True Halloween to a lucky reader with a US mailing address. Just fill out the form below. I will take entries until 11:59pm CST on October 13, 2020. Good luck!
October 8th, 2020 in
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Sunny Days: The Children’s Television Revolution That Changed America by David Kamp
Publisher:Simon & Schuster
Release Date: May 12, 2020
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
In 1970, on a soundstage on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a group of men, women, and Muppets of various ages and colors worked doggedly to finish the first season of a children’s TV program that was not yet assured a second season: Sesame Street. They were conducting an experiment to see if television could be used to better prepare disadvantaged preschoolers for kindergarten. What they didn’t know then was that they were starting a cultural revolution that would affect all American kids. In Sunny Days, bestselling author David Kamp captures the unique political and social moment that gave us not only Sesame Street, but also Fred Rogers’s gentle yet brave Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood; Marlo Thomas’s unabashed gender-politics primer Free to Be…You and Me; Schoolhouse Rock!, an infectious series of educational shorts dreamed up by Madison Avenue admen; and more, including The Electric Company, ZOOM, and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. It was a unique time when an uncommon number of media professionals and thought leaders leveraged their influence to help children learn—and, just as notably, a time of unprecedented buy-in from American parents.
Kamp conducted rigorous research and interviewed such Sesame Street figures as Joan Ganz Cooney, Lloyd Morrisett, Sonia Manzano, Emilio Delgado, Loretta Long, Bob McGrath, and Frank Oz, along with Free to Be’s Marlo Thomas and The Electric Company’s Rita Moreno—and in Sunny Days, he explains how these and other like-minded individuals found their way into children’s television not for fame or money, but to make a difference.
Fun, fascinating, and a masterful work of cultural history, Sunny Days captures a wondrous period in the US when a determined few proved that, with persistence and effort, they could change the lives of millions. It’s both a rollicking ride through a turbulent time and a joyful testament to what Americans are capable of at their best.
As the subtitle suggests, Sunny Days chronicles the children’s television revolution that took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Television was still a fairly new medium and up to that point, kids’ shows had been shouty, slapstick shows like Howdy Doody or Soupy Sales. It had not occurred to anyone that television could be used to educate children. Educational programming began with the inception of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and Sesame Street. Mr. Rogers Neighborhood was a gentle program, focused on children’s feelings and their inner selves, while Sesame Street was a fast paced program focused on preschoolers, specifically disadvantaged preschoolers, learning their letters, shapes and numbers. From there, children’s television took off with other shows such as Schoolhouse Rock! and Free to Be You and Me.
A good portion of Sunny Days is focused on Sesame Street, which makes sense because they started it all. I didn’t realize how much painstaking research went into developing the show before it started filming. It’s no accident that it’s so successful and that it actually does teach children. It’s amazing how progressive it was in the beginning years. I don’t think a children’s show could get away with showing a mother actually breastfeeding her child in today’s world, like Sesame Street did when Buffy nursed her son Cody and explained what she was doing to Big Bird. They also broke ground in terms of how diverse the cast was.
Even though most of the shows in this book other than Sesame Street were just a few years before my time, I still thoroughly enjoyed this history of children’s television. I bookmarked several things that I’m going to search for on YouTube so that hopefully I can see them for myself. The only problem I had with Sunny Days is that there are so many people – producers, writers, creators, etc. who are mentioned throughout that it was hard to keep track of who was who. I would have loved a list of people and their job descriptions for reference.
Even if you’re a young whippersnapper and you didn’t grow up watching these shows, I think you’ll still enjoy this book – especially if you have an interest in pop culture. Recommended.
August 11th, 2020 in
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Severance by Ling Ma
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: August 14, 2018
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend.
So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.
Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?
A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.
I discover many great reads from listening to the New York Times Book Review podcast. I picked up Severance after hearing the host and NYT Book Review editor Pamela Paul, talk about it during the segment where she and other reviewers talk about what they are currently reading. I put it on hold (pre-pandemic) at the library but by the time it came in a couple of weeks ago, I had forgotten what it was about. It turns out, it’s about a global pandemic! I read it anyway, dubious that I could enjoy it given the state the world is in currently, and I’m glad I did. On the surface, Severance could be classified as a zombie apocalypse book but in actuality, it’s much more. It’s also about the immigrant experience and late-stage capitalism.
This book was published in 2018, making the similarities to today quite eerie. It’s a good thing I’m not a conspiracy theorist. A fungal infection out of China called the Shen Fever is sweeping the world. As the fever spreads in the US, the government becomes less forthcoming with the information about the death toll. People are urged to wear masks but not everyone does. Tourists continue to come to New York as the fever spreads. The New York Times prints the names of the dead on its homepage. I could go on.
A person infected with Shen Fever performs the same mundane task over and over until they die. For instance, Candace observes a fevered woman working at an abandoned Juicy Couture store folding sweatpants over and over. She has been there doing that for so long that half her jaw has rotted off.
Candace Chen is one of the last people to leave New York. Before the fever takes over, she works at a publishing company in the Bible division, with basically the same routine every day. She keeps coming into work long after her coworkers have left both their jobs and the city. When she does finally quit, she joins a group of survivors on their way to a place their leader calls The Facility, where they can start a new society.
Candace’s journey with them is only part of her story. She immigrated to the US from China as a child. Growing up the daughter of immigrants has always set her somewhat apart from her friends and coworkers in New York. The book alternates between three timelines – Candace’s present day journey with the group, her recent past in New York before the fever hit and her childhood. There is a lot going on in a fairly slim novel. Fair warning -the ending is not going to be for everyone. I didn’t care for it at first but the more I thought about it, the more I felt it was appropriate. Recommended.
August 5th, 2020 in
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