The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Release Date: October 14, 2014
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles?
Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again. Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo’s clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list).
With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house “spark joy” (and which don’t), this international bestseller featuring Tokyo’s newest lifestyle phenomenon will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home—and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.
This book created quite a buzz when it first came out in 2014 and Marie Kondo recently came out with a popular Netflix series based on the book. I actually read this book last year (I’m so behind on reviews!) before I knew there was going to be a Netflix series. I haven’t watched it so I can’t say how much of the book is in it.
I think most people can use some help tidying up. I know I can! As with any self-help book, I found there were pieces of advice and information I could use and some I either couldn’t or didn’t want to use. I like the method she uses of grouping items before going through them and deciding what to keep. That was actually a large part of the book.
I did not like the part where she said to get rid of all your books. According to her, you’ll never re-read the books you’ve already read and you’ll never get around to reading the books in your TBR pile. Lies! Lies, I tell you! She also talks to inanimate objects, thanking her purse for its service, etc. That’s a little weird for me.
The author lives and works in Japan (the book is actually translated from Japanese) so most of her techniques are geared toward people who live in Japan. Most dwellings in her examples are very small. Some of them are even just an adult child’s room in their parents’ house. She doesn’t use any examples of people who have small children or teenagers – the untidiest people of them all!
Even though I’m not going to follow her method to the tee, I found The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up inspiring and helpful.
The Other Woman by Sandie Jones
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Release Date: August 21, 2018
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
HE LOVES YOU: Adam adores Emily. Emily thinks Adam’s perfect, the man she thought she’d never meet.
BUT SHE LOVES YOU NOT: Lurking in the shadows is a rival, a woman who shares a deep bond with the man she loves.
AND SHE’LL STOP AT NOTHING: Emily chose Adam, but she didn’t choose his mother Pammie. There’s nothing a mother wouldn’t do for her son, and now Emily is about to find out just how far Pammie will go to get what she wants: Emily gone forever.
I read this book about a year ago but never got around to review it because I wasn’t that excited about it. Since I can’t remember all the little details, this review will be short and sweet.
Emily is dating Adam, who seems perfect in every way. The only thing that’s not perfect is his mother Pammie. For some reason, Pammie has it out for Emily and is going to extreme lengths to keep Adam and Emily apart. The Other Woman bills itself as a psychological thriller with a BIG TWIST at the end, as most of them do. However, I found the twist to be one that is a common trope in these types of thrillers. Emily is the kind of character that has the reader yelling, “Hey dummy, can’t you see what’s really going on here??” That got a little frustrating. I kept reading until the end because even though I thought it was just meh, becauseI had to find out for sure what the twist was. When I did find out, it seemed like the author didn’t do a very good job building up to it. If I reread it, it wouldn’t be one of those books where you see the little things leading to the twist now that you know what it is, which makes it feel inauthentic.
Considering the abundance of psychological thrillers out there these days, this is one you can skip.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
October 29th, 2019 in
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This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Release Date: January 24, 2017
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
This is how a family keeps a secret…and how that secret ends up keeping them.
This is how a family lives happily ever after…until happily ever after becomes complicated.
This is how children change…and then change the world.
This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess.
When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl.
Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes.
Laurie Frankel’s This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. And it’s about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan. And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever.
I remember a lot of buzz around the blogosphere when this book was first published but I never got around to reading it. I also remember loving Frankel’s book Goodbye for Now. I just joined a new-to-me book club and I was excited that they were reading this book for my first month as a member.
This is How It Always Is is the story of Claude, a boy who dreams of being a girl when he grows up. Rosie and her husband Penn allow Claude to live as Poppy but choose to keep the fact that she was born a boy a secret from the outside world. Poppy has four older brothers who each deal with the stress of having to keep their sister’s secret differently.
Even though Rosie and Penn are accepting of Poppy, they make their fair share of mistakes parenting her. And they don’t agree on everything, like what will happen as Poppy nears puberty – will she start puberty blockers or not? Frankel tempers what is a very serious situation for a child with plenty of humor. The social worker who councils Rosie and Penn is so funny that I didn’t mind that he’s probably not a realistic character.
This book is a good book club selection, especially for a book club comprised of parents. In the Author’s Note, Frankel writes that she herself is the parent of a transgender child but that the book is not her daughter’s story. However, knowing that she has a transgender daughter makes me think that most of what Poppy and her family think and feel is authentic.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Highly recommended.
October 24th, 2019 in
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Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice by Maureen McCormick
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: October 14, 2008
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
For countless adolescents across America who came of age in the early 1970s, Marcia Brady, eldest daughter on television’s The Brady Bunch, was the ideal American teenager. But what viewers didn’t know about the always sunny, always perfect Marcia was that Maureen McCormick, the young actress who portrayed her, was living a very different and not-so-wonderful life.
In Here’s the Story, Maureen takes us behind the scenes of America’s favorite television family;and reveals with poignancy and candor how she landed on the dark side, caught up in a fast-paced, drug-fueled, star-studded Hollywood nightmare that led to the biggest, most important battle of her life. This brave, hard-hitting memoir exposes a side of a beloved pop-culture icon the paparazzi missed. Yet ultimately it is also a story of success and survival; an empowering, engaging, shocking, and emotional true tale of a young woman’s lifelong battle to come to terms with the idea of perfection . . . and with herself.
Did you know that September 26, 2019 was the 50th anniversary of the airing of the first episode of The Brady Bunch? In honor of that, I plumbed Maureen McCormick’s Here’s the Story from the depths of my TBR shelf to read.
As you probably know, Maureen played Marcia Brady on The Brady Bunch. She will be forever associated with that iconic role. The book starts before she was born, with the marriage of her mother and father. It goes up through to her time on Celebrity Fit Club in 2007, which was right before this book was published.
The main thing I learned about Maureen is that she did a lot of cocaine. Like A LOT. It actually gets kind of repetitive, reading about this one time she was super high on coke and this other time she was super high on coke, etc. However, I admire her candidness. She is not afraid to share the mistakes that she’s made and there were other major ones besides her drug abuse. I was also surprised at how screwed up her family is. Her brother basically kidnapped and brainwashed their elderly father. That was quite a saga that had me feeling angry and sad on her behalf.
Maureen doesn’t go into too much detail about her time on The Brady Bunch. There are a few anecdotes but it’s more of a recitation of the timeline. I imagine that was because she can’t remember much of it being that she was so young and it was such a long time ago.
I think this book will appeal to those of us who grew up watching The Brady Bunch (I watched reruns of it after school) and have a certain nostalgia for it. If you didn’t, I don’t think this book will interest you that much.
October 22nd, 2019 in
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Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
Publisher: Knopf
Release Date: September 18, 2018
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Eleven-year-old George Washington Black—or Wash—a field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is initially terrified when he is chosen as the manservant of his master’s brother. To his surprise, however, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning, and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human.
But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash’s head, they must abandon everything and flee together. Over the course of their travels, what brings Wash and Christopher together will tear them apart, propelling Wash ever farther across the globe in search of his true self. Spanning the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, London to Morocco, Washington Black is a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, and of a world destroyed and made whole again.
George Washington Black, or Wash for short, is an eleven year old slave in Barbados. His master is an unbelievably cruel man. His master’s brother, Titch, convinces his master to let him borrow Wash to be his assistant of sorts. He’s an explorer and inventor. Luckily for Wash, he’s also a nice person who treats him like a human being, not property. For the most part anyway.
Wash witnesses a white man’s death, leading people to assume he was at fault. A reward is offered for his capture – dead or alive. Wash and Titch flee the plantation and go on many adventures around the world.
Washington Black explores what freedom is. It requires some suspension of disbelief. For instance, Wash and Titch go to Antarctica at one point. The chances that the two of them could survive there for weeks back in the 1800s is doubtful. However, the fantastical elements are necessary to move the plot along and I wasn’t bothered by them.
This book was my book club’s October selection. There was a wide range of opinions. Some of us loved it, some thought it was meh and some did not care for it. I read a couple reviews of it that said it was one of the best books of 2018 so my expectations were pretty high going in and I was disappointed in that regard. However, I did like it – I just didn’t love it. If you’ve read it, let me know what you thought.
October 17th, 2019 in
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Superficial: More Adventures from The Andy Cohen Diaries by Andy Cohen
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release Date: November 15, 2016
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
The star-studded and sidesplitting follow up to The Andy Cohen Diaries.
The megapopular host of Watch What Happens: Live and executive producer of the Real Housewives franchise is back, better than ever, and telling stories that will keep his publicist up at night.
Since the publication of his last book, Andy has toured the country with his sidekick, Anderson Cooper; hit the radio waves with his own Sirius station, Radio Andy; appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher despite his mother’s conviction he was not intellectually prepared; hosted NBC’s primetime New Year’s Eve special; guest edited Entertainment Weekly; starred in Bravo’s Then & Now with Andy Cohen; offended celebrities with his ongoing case of foot-in-mouth disease; and welcomed home Teresa “Namaste” Giudice from a brief stint in jail.
Hopping from the Hamptons to the Manhattan dating world, the dog park to the red carpet, Cardinals superfan and mama’s boy Andy Cohen, with Wacha in tow, is the kind of star fans are dying to be friends with. This book gives them that chance.
If The Andy Cohen Diaries was deemed “the literary equivalent of a Fresca and tequila” by Jimmy Fallon, Superficial is a double: dishier, juicier, and friskier. In this account of his escapades – personal, professional, and behind-the-scenes – Andy tells us not only what goes down but exactly what he thinks of it.
Superficial picks up right where The Andy Cohen Diaries left off. It’s not much different. My review of it found here will tell you what that book was like.
There are two main differences. One, Superficial is much more about his relationship with his dog Wacha since Wacha is in it from the beginning. The second is that Andy is more introspective. He wants more from his life. Keeping a diary has shown Andy how repetitive his life has become. Yes, he spends most of his free time socializing with his friends and other celebrities but they are doing the same thing night after night. Readers will probably notice this even before Andy does.
The book ends before Andy started his journey to have his son Benjamin via surrogate. Although he doesn’t specifically talk about the process of deciding to have a child, the fact that he will is foreshadowed. I would love it if he wrote a third volume of his diaries that did go into his process of becoming a father. Maybe he’ll come out with another book in the future about his life with Benjamin.
If you enjoyed The Andy Cohen Diaries, you will enjoy Superficial for all the same reasons. You’ll probably like it more since it delves a bit deeper. I listened to this book right after I listened to The Andy Cohen Diaries and got quite used to having Andy in the car with me. I’m going to miss him!
Also by Andy Cohen: Most Talkative: Stories from the Front Lines of Pop Culture
October 15th, 2019 in
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The Andy Cohen Diaries: A Deep Look at a Shallow Year by Andy Cohen
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release Date: November 11, 2014
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
As a TV Producer and host of the smash late night show Watch What Happens Live, Andy Cohen has a front row seat to an exciting world not many get to see. In this dishy, detailed diary of one year in his life, Andy goes out on the town, drops names, hosts a ton of shows, becomes codependent with Real Housewives, makes trouble, calls his mom, drops some more names, and, while searching for love, finds it with a dog. We learn everything from which celebrity peed in her WWHL dressing room to which Housewives are causing trouble and how. Nothing is off limits – including dating. We see Andy at home and with close friends and family (including his beloved and unforgettable mom). Throughout, Andy tells us not only what goes down, but exactly what he thinks about it. Inspired by the diaries of another celebrity-obsessed Andy (Warhol), this honest, irreverent, and laugh-out-loud funny book is a one-of-a-kind account of the whos and whats of pop culture in the 21st century.
After Andy Cohen read The Andy Warhol Diaries, he decided to start keeping a diary of his own. He liked how Warhol’s diary was packed with celebrity encounters and shameless name dropping and decided that his diary would be written the same way.
He doesn’t appear to hold much back. He dishes dirt and not afraid to make himself look bad – like the time the paparazzi caught him full-on picking his nose! His life is glamorous and his social calendar is packed. At the same time, he manages to stay pretty down to earth. His mother definitely helps in that regard. She is full of criticism for him about which he luckily has a sense of humor. I listened to this book – his impression of his mother and other celebrities is pretty awful and he’s aware of that. Much of the diary is about his search for a dog and finally adopting his dog Wacha. At that point his diary becomes very Wacha-centric.
As a fan of both the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and The Real Housewives Orange County (don’t judge!), I was pleased that he includes inside information on his dealings with the housewives. He doesn’t always mention names but sometimes he does. He mentions tidbits about other Bravo series he produces as well.
He also writes about his late night talk show Watch What Happens Live and his guests. He’ll say if a guest had weird demands or if a particular show bombed or did really well – whether because of him or the guest. It would be fun to search for clips of some of the worst on YouTube and see if you can tell what he’s thinking.
Fans of Andy Cohen will enjoy this book as well as fans of his BFFs because they are mentioned so often – Sarah Jessica Parker, Kelly Ripa, Jon Mayer, Anderson Cooper and Diane von Furstenberg. Also, even if you aren’t a fan of any of those people, chances are you are a fan of one other dozens of celebrities mentioned. If you enjoy reading memoirs from people in the entertainment industry, this is one to check out.
October 10th, 2019 in
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America for Beginners by Leah Franqui
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Paperback Release Date: July 30, 2019
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Recalling contemporary classics such as Americanah, Behold the Dreamers, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a funny, poignant, and insightful debut novel that explores the complexities of family, immigration, prejudice, and the American Dream through meaningful and unlikely friendships forged in unusual circumstances.
Pival Sengupta has done something she never expected: she has booked a trip with the First Class India USA Destination Vacation Tour Company. But unlike other upper-class Indians on a foreign holiday, the recently widowed Pival is not interested in sightseeing. She is traveling thousands of miles from Kolkata to New York on a cross-country journey to California, where she hopes to uncover the truth about her beloved son, Rahi. A year ago Rahi devastated his very traditional parents when he told them he was gay. Then, Pival’s husband, Ram, told her that their son had died suddenly—heartbreaking news she still refuses to accept. Now, with Ram gone, she is going to America to find Rahi, alive and whole or dead and gone, and come to terms with her own life.
Arriving in New York, the tour proves to be more complicated than anticipated. Planned by the company’s indefatigable owner, Ronnie Munshi—a hard-working immigrant and entrepreneur hungry for his own taste of the American dream—it is a work of haphazard improvisation. Pival’s guide is the company’s new hire, the guileless and wonderfully resourceful Satya, who has been in America for one year—and has never actually left the five boroughs. For modesty’s sake Pival and Satya will be accompanied by Rebecca Elliot, an aspiring young actress. Eager for a paying gig, she’s along for the ride, because how hard can a two-week “working” vacation traveling across America be?
Slowly making her way from coast to coast with her unlikely companions, Pival finds that her understanding of her son—and her hopes of a reunion with him—are challenged by her growing knowledge of his adoptive country. As the bonds between this odd trio deepens, Pival, Satya, and Rebecca learn to see America—and themselves—in different and profound new ways.
A bittersweet and bighearted tale of forgiveness, hope, and acceptance, America for Beginners illuminates the unexpected enchantments life can hold, and reminds us that our most precious connections aren’t always the ones we seek.
After Pival’s husband passes away, she books a tour of America with a travel agency specializing in giving tours to people coming from India. She is searching for her son that she and her husband disowned for being gay. Her husband told her their son was dead but she never quite believed him.
Her tour guide is the inexperienced Satya. Because she is a single Indian woman traveling alone with a man, decorum dictates that she be accompanied by a chaperone. Enter Rebecca, an aspiring actress, also inexperienced in touring America.
The set-up of this book has all the makings of a madcap road trip novel but this book is far from that. While there is some humor, it’s really a character study of not only the three people on the road trip but of Pival’s son and his boyfriend. Each person is on their own emotional inner journey. They are all richly drawn and I was rooting for everyone. America for Beginners is Leah Franqui’s first novel. I’m looking forward to whatever she comes up with next.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
October 8th, 2019 in
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A Forever Family: Fostering Change One Child at a Time by Rob Scheer
Publisher: Gallery/Jeter Publishing
Release Date: November 6, 2018
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Rob Scheer never thought that he would be living the life he is now. He’s happily married to his partner and love of his life, he’s the father of four beautiful children, and he’s the founder of an organization that makes life better for thousands of children in the foster care system.
But life wasn’t always like this.
Growing up in an abusive household before his placement in foster care, Rob had all the odds stacked against him. Kicked out of his foster family’s home within weeks after turning eighteen—with a year left of high school to go—he had to resort to sleeping in his car and in public bathrooms. He suffered from drug addiction and battled with depression, never knowing when his next meal would be or where he would sleep at night. But by true perseverance, he was able to find his own path and achieve his wildest dreams.
Poignant, gripping and inspiring, Rob’s story provides a glimpse into what it’s like to grow up in the foster care system, and sheds necessary light on the children who are often treated without dignity. Both a timely call to action and a courageous and candid account of life in the foster care system, A Forever Family ultimately leaves you with one message: one person can make a difference.
Before Rob Scheer met his wonderful husband, he endured abuse and abandonment as a child and teenager which segued into an abusive relationship as an adult. It’s amazing that he turned out to be not only a functioning adult but a loving parent with a generous spirit.
I chose this book because my family is also transracial and my daughter was adopted through the foster care system. I like reading stories of the journeys that other foster parents and transracial families have taken. This book is that and more. It alternates between flashbacks of Rob’s heartbreaking past to his relationship with his husband Reece – the most patient man in the world – and how they came to be foster and later adoptive parents. While I wish Rob discussed more about the challenges of raising children of a different race, I enjoyed reading this book.
I think one of the reasons that Rob wrote A Forever Family was to draw awareness to Comfort Cases, the charity he founded. They provide foster children with a duffel bag or backpack filled with essentials that a child needs their first night with a foster family – toiletries, pajamas a book and more. What a great idea! Our daughter came to us with her things in garbage bags which is not uncommon and can make a child feel like garbage, like they are being thrown away. A couple of the children we fostered before our daughter came with nothing at all. At the end of the book, there is information on how to donate items to or volunteer for Comfort Cases.
A Forever Family is both heartbreaking and uplifting. Recommended.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
October 3rd, 2019 in
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Every Time You Go Away by Beth Harbison
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: July 24, 2018
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Willa has never fully recovered from the sudden death of her husband, Ben. She became an absent mother to her young son, Jamie, unable to comfort him while reeling from her own grief.
Now, years after Ben’s death, Willa finally decides to return to the beach house where he passed. It’s time to move on and put the Ocean City, Maryland house on the market.
When Willa arrives, the house is in worse shape than she could have imagined, and the memories of her time with Ben are overwhelming. They met at this house and she sees him around every corner. Literally. Ben’s ghost keeps reappearing, trying to start conversations with Willa. And she can’t help talking back.
To protect her sanity, Willa enlists Jamie, her best friend Kristin, and Kristin’s daughter Kelsey to join her for one last summer at the beach. As they explore their old haunts, buried feelings come to the surface, Jamie and Kelsey rekindle their childhood friendship, and Willa searches for the chance to finally say goodbye to her husband and to reconnect with her son.
I chose this book because I liked Beth Harbison’s book When in Doubt, Add Butter. Interestingly, that book also has a character named Willa but I don’t think it’s the same Willa as in this book. If you’ve read both books, let me know what you think. I read When in Doubt, Add Butter several years ago so I don’t remember many details.
Anyhoo, on to the review. Willa’s husband Ben died unexpectedly of a heart attack at their beach house three years ago. Their son Jaimie was just fourteen years old. After avoiding the beach house since then, Willa decides it’s time to sell it and moves in for the summer to fix it up. Soon, Ben’s ghost appears to her. He’s not a white-sheet type of ghost – he’s just like Ben was when he was alive but Willa is the only one who can see him.
Willa and her son haven’t had the best relationship with each other since Ben died. Willa has been too obsessed with her own grief to recognize the extent to which Jaimie is hurting too. Jaimie has an annoying girlfriend who is a borderline stalker. After they break up, he decides to go help his mother with the beach house, much to her surprise. Once he’s there, they begin to reconnect, although it’s still a struggle.
Obviously, this isn’t a totally realistic book since one of the characters is a ghost. If you don’t think you can suspend your disbelief to accept that Willa’s dead husband visits her, then skip this book. I was able to do that and thought that it was a cute story. Even though the premise is sad, it never got heavy enough to be a depressing read. I would call it a “cozy” paranormal romance. Or something like that. It was definitely a cozy something. Since the setting is the beach and it’s a light read, it would be a good beach read. The temperature is still in the 80s where I am in the Midwest – it’s not too late to squeeze in another summer read!
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
October 1st, 2019 in
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