Eventually, I understood that motherhood, as the child imagines it, is unperformable. No woman is a star. No woman is a god or a tree or a magician
Eventually, I understood that motherhood, as the child imagines it, is unperformable. No woman is a star. No woman is a god or a tree or a magician. But for a while, in your arms, the universe was the right size, and I knew where I was.
Heartwood is such a gorgeous book. It’s a literary, propulsive, and emotionally resonant story about a woman lost on the Maine leg of the Appalachian Trail and two other women invested in her fate. As the search for Valerie drags on, Maine warden Bev begins to lose hope of finding her alive, while down in Connecticut, a retirement community resident named Lena finds herself drawn into the search for Valerie in unexpected ways.
Weaving seamlessly between the voices of the three women � Valerie’s through letters to her mother, crafted in her trail journal � and utilizing transcripts from interviews and online exchanges, Heartwood is an unforgettable story about resilience, love, and motherhood that’s profoundly affecting. Amity Gaige’s prose is luminous and meaningful, full of deep insights into the relationships between mothers and daughters and the complex beauty of self-discovery. And it’s also suspenseful, an urgent missing person narrative in which it’s clear that time is running out. But most of all, it’s a powerful character study about three women, each strong in their own way, and their personal struggles and successes. The characters are richly-crafted, beautifully flawed, and so heartbreakingly vulnerable.
My suggestion is to take your time with Heartwood, no matter how desperately you want to know Valerie’s fate. Read it slowly, savor the stunning writing, pause to digest the poignant insights and tender character moments. Let the book wash over you and relish the fact that novels like this just don’t come around very often. Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the early reading opportunity. ...more
3.5 stars. I was impressed with The Thorns, even if I found the execution a bit messy and predictable.
Using a dual timeline structure, Dawn Kurtagich3.5 stars. I was impressed with The Thorns, even if I found the execution a bit messy and predictable.
Using a dual timeline structure, Dawn Kurtagich introduces readers to Bethany Sloan. In the “now� chapters, Bethany is a successful writer living with her loving husband Bruce in London. She’s struggling with writer’s block, agonizing over how to finish her award-winning series of novels, when her school friend Stacey re-enters her life. As teenagers, Stacey and Bethany met at a remote boarding school in South Africa, and in the “then� chapters it swiftly becomes clear that their friendship was far from healthy. In fact, it was toxic: marked by obsession, bullying, and abuse. With Stacey back in her life, Bethany is forced to confront the trauma of her adolescence once and for all.
The Thorns is an incredibly dark book, dealing overtly with themes like abuse of all kinds (physical, sexual, emotional, substance), self-harm, and mental health crises. Through the characters of Bethany and Stacey, Kurtagich reveals the dark heart of girlhood, in all its cruelty and vulnerability. The narrative, inspired by Kurtagich’s own experiences at boarding school, feels intensely personal. She completely captures the mindset of a teenage girl struggling with self-worth and how to relate to an expanding world of increasingly adult experiences. Bethany is one of those characters who you want to both hug and lecture about making better choices, but she is sympathetic all the way through. And The Thorns is an incredibly atmospheric book, with an arid, desolate setting that perfectly complements the book’s overarching themes.
I was intrigued by the “urban legend� feel of the description � the frightening “Glass Man� and his cruel games � but sadly, he barely makes an appearance in the book. In fact, the Glass Man references have no bearing on the plot at all, and I’m not sure why they were even included…maybe to add a horror element? But this isn’t a scary book, and while it’s deeply psychological and incredibly dark, it doesn’t really read like a thriller. It’s a coming-of-age novel more than anything else, about how every emotion is experienced in the extreme, how everything feels simultaneously confusing and upsetting and glorious, and how the mind copes and seeks to protect itself when dealing with trauma at such a pivotal point in a young woman’s development. The book feels a bit crowded with all of this going on, somewhat hectic and overwrought. I predicted the final twist very early on, and I think many readers will.
This won’t be a book for every reader, but if you are willing to travel with the author into some incredibly dark corners of the human psyche, it’s a worthwhile, meaningful read in the end, despite a few hiccups. Thank you to Thomas & Mercer for the early reading opportunity. ...more
We make so much fun of people when they carry on about falling in love, about getting swept away, because they sound so ridiculous. Love is ridicul
We make so much fun of people when they carry on about falling in love, about getting swept away, because they sound so ridiculous. Love is ridiculous, from the outside. But when you’re in it…oh God, when you’re in it�
Lucky Night is the kind of literary fiction I absolutely love to read. After six years engaged in an affair, Jenny and Nick are spending the night together for the first time in a brand new luxury hotel in Manhattan. But then the fire alarm goes off, and it becomes clear that their night of passion isn’t going to proceed the way they’d hoped.
The plot sounds straightforward on the surface, but the execution is anything but simple. Lucky Night is an emotionally resonant character study, set against a backdrop of mortal peril, and it’s astoundingly insightful. The narrative switches seamlessly between Nick’s and Jenny’s perspectives, so we get to read their thoughts about each other’s words and actions in real time. The dialogue is fantastic, and Nick and Jenny are so richly-realized � two imperfect people who are trying to connect and be present in their lives in whatever way they can, however self-destructive their choices may be. I grew to care so much for these two idiots, despite how aggravating they were, and I was so invested in their fate. Eliza Kennedy has so much love for these ridiculous, flawed humans, and she made me love them too.
All of this magnificent character work is happening within a tense, high-stakes narrative, as Nick and Jenny are forced to confront some hard truths about each other and themselves while their lives are quite literally in danger. Lucky Night reminded me of books like Nightwatching and Fierce Kingdom � both about mothers and children, so not exactly the same, but where deep musings about life and love are occurring at the same time the characters are facing unimaginable danger and their own mortality. This book actually made me feel physically stressed while I was reading it because the circumstances were so intense and claustrophobic.
I knew very early on that Lucky Night would be a five-star read for me, but then…that ending solidified it. It was perfection and actually brought me to tears. I just absolutely loved it. Thank you to Crown for the early reading opportunity. ...more
This is an impressive debut novel for Callie Kazumi; I found it completely riveting and read it in just a few sittings because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. Despite her many questionable choices, Claire is an extremely sympathetic character � largely due to a childhood spent suffering at the hands of her narcissistic, emotionally abusive mother. I do wish Claire’s mother had been portrayed with a bit more nuance; I would have liked to learn more about what motivated her behavior, not just how it affected Claire.
Seasoned thriller readers will likely guess the direction things are going, but something happened mid-book that I didn’t see coming � and there is a savage little epilogue that left me incredibly satisfied. Even if it’s a somewhat predictable take on a familiar story, Kazumi executes it perfectly, with just the right amount of unhinged fun. Thank you to Bantam for the complimentary reading opportunity....more
If you enjoy being inside the head of an unlikable character, you’re going to love Dr. Caroline Strange.
“Doctor Caroline� is a Brooklyn-based psychiaIf you enjoy being inside the head of an unlikable character, you’re going to love Dr. Caroline Strange.
“Doctor Caroline� is a Brooklyn-based psychiatrist, and she prides herself on excelling in her career; she is efficient, intelligent, and knows how to portray empathy for her clients, even if she doesn’t particularly feel it. But then two things happen that rock the solid foundation she’s built. First, a new patient shows up on her doorstep, claiming that he wants to kill someone and that he knows who Dr. Caroline really is. And while Dr. Caroline is dealing with these revelations, a woman � a Brooklyn journalist who wrote an article naming Dr. Caroline as one of the worst doctors in the borough � goes missing…and Dr. Caroline is the prime suspect in her abduction.
Tell Me Who You Are is a great thriller � gritty, full of twists, and psychologically complex. The narrative is split between three perspectives: Dr. Caroline’s, the abducted woman’s, and a family man who was recently fired from his job (be patient and have faith; his role in the plot will become clear). With compelling writing and shifting perspectives, Louisa Luna weaves a dark and tangled web of secrets and deceit throughout the plot that kept me guessing and engrossed. In an over-saturated genre, Tell Me Who You Are stands out as an example of just how good a psychological thriller can be with its unreliable and unlikable narrators, unpredictable twists, and sharp, dark humor. There are a few moments that require some suspension of disbelief, but I was having so much fun reading this one that I didn’t even care.
Love is the most powerful force in the world. If you couldn’t put your hope in that, what was the point of anything.
2.5 stars, rounded up. I was r
Love is the most powerful force in the world. If you couldn’t put your hope in that, what was the point of anything.
2.5 stars, rounded up. I was really looking forward to reading Black Woods, Blue Sky, not only because I loved The Snow Child, but also because I was 1000% sold on the idea of a Beauty and the Beast retelling set in the Alaskan wilderness. So my expectations were high going in � but unfortunately, they weren’t quite met.
Birdie is a young single mother raising her daughter, Emaleen, at the roadside Alaskan lodge where she works as a bartender. Her life is lonely and stagnant when she crosses paths with the mysterious Arthur Nielsen, a quiet recluse who rarely makes his way into town. After Arthur returns Emaleen to safety when she is lost in the woods, he and Birdie strike up a friendship that swiftly becomes something more � and soon, Birdie and Emaleen are moving into his isolated cabin, miles away from town, other people, and any communication with the outside world. At first, their new life seems idyllic, but it soon becomes clear that Arthur is harboring a secret that could upend their lives in unimaginable ways.
Black Woods, Blue Sky is intensely atmospheric, with vivid descriptions of the Alaskan wilderness, and Eowyn Ivey’s prose is evocative and truly does read like a fairy tale. The magical realism element is incorporated very naturally; Ivey made me believe in even the most peculiar, otherworldly parts of her tale. She also captures the magic of childhood with thoughtfulness and tenderness through the sweet, precocious character of Emaleen.
But Birdie and Arthur had no chemistry, and the dynamic between them felt strange and unnatural all the way through the book. Ivey seemed to keep the character of Birdie at arm’s length; she never quite revealed Birdie’s true heart, which made it difficult for me to sympathize with her, understand her, or even like her all that much. And because I didn’t connect with Birdie or fully buy into the romance at the center of the book, it made it difficult for me to have an emotional reaction to some of the book’s more charged moments. There were some pacing issues as well, and ultimately, I’m not sure what message Ivey wanted me to take away from this story; it just left me with an overwhelming sense of melancholy.
Eowyn Ivey is an incredibly gifted writer, and I really loved the idea of Black Woods, Blue Sky; the execution just didn’t work for me. Thank you to Random House for the complimentary reading opportunity. ...more
Love is this: when it is your greatest desire to slice open His chest and crawl inside Him to rest. A compulsion to drink His blood, great copper g
Love is this: when it is your greatest desire to slice open His chest and crawl inside Him to rest. A compulsion to drink His blood, great copper gulps of it, to press yourself to Him, limb to limb, palm to palm, so that you might be absorbed. Burrowing inside His bones, becoming His very marrow. It is disappearing entirely into Him. This is the way I love Him, and the way He must surely love me.
That quote should give you a pretty good idea of what you’re in for with Creep, but here’s a brief summary anyway: Alice is in love. Tom is an incredible man, everything she ever dreamed of in a partner, and she feels so lucky that he came into her life. The only problem is, Tom doesn’t know she exists � outside of the fact that he has a cleaner named Alice, who tidies his apartment every Wednesday. Alice does other things in his apartment, too, but Tom doesn’t need to know that. And anyway, soon they’ll be together, and it will be her home too.
Creep is one of those uncomfortable, cringe-y character studies featuring a deeply disturbed protagonist, so if you enjoy those, it will definitely be your vibes. It’s told in a stream of consciousness style that keeps the reader unrelentingly in Alice’s head, so we can only watch as her obsession with Tom grows and she becomes increasingly unhinged. It’s claustrophobic and icky, but it’s impossible to look away. The tension in the narrative comes from not knowing just when, and how, Alice will escalate things; she’s unpredictable and undeniably dangerous, but she’s also sympathetic � and all of these elements work together to make for a riveting reading experience.
I don’t know what it says about me that I just love a good obsessive stalker love story character study. But if your tastes run similar to mine, Creep is an excellent example of the genre. Thank you to Harper Perennial for the complimentary reading opportunity. ...more
How do you know what you’ll need out of a partner? Who you’ll be ten years, twenty years down the road? You just hitch your wagon to someone and ho
How do you know what you’ll need out of a partner? Who you’ll be ten years, twenty years down the road? You just hitch your wagon to someone and hope you both keep heading in the same direction, through all the bumps and detours and peaks and valleys.
3.5 stars rounded up. Jane and Dan at the End of the World is a chaotically good time. We meet the eponymous couple when they’re headed out the door for their nineteenth anniversary celebration at La Fin du Monde, an upscale restaurant high on a California cliff. But Jane doesn’t feel like celebrating, because she is planning to ask Dan for a divorce � and she figures why draw it out, so she drops the news during the first course of their meal. Before Dan can even formulate a response, however, a group of armed activists bursts into the dining room, taking the entire restaurant hostage. And as events unfold, Jane starts to realize that the group’s entire plan seems to be lifted straight from her failed first novel.
I’ve never read a book quite like this before. Jane and Dan reads like women’s fiction, satire, and an action-thriller, with a dash of climate-related social commentary, all at once. Although the stakes are high, the writing is light-hearted and fun, with whip-smart, witty dialogue. I enjoyed both Jane and Dan as characters; their interactions and struggles � individually, as parents, and as a couple � felt realistic. I wish the secondary characters had been fleshed out a bit more � I’ve would’ve liked to get to know some of the other diners a bit better.
While the book doesn’t get too deep or insightful, Colleen Oakley does offer up some relatable observations about marriage and parenthood. Things become a bit convoluted plot-wise in the second half of the book, but overall, this is a fun, light-hearted romp balanced with a few moments of danger and tenderness. This was my first book by Colleen Oakley, and I really like her style and will definitely dig into her backlist. Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group for the early reading opportunity. ...more
Humans aren’t made to carry the weight of our sins. But the blank page � pricking your finger and letting the dark seep out onto the page, well. So
Humans aren’t made to carry the weight of our sins. But the blank page � pricking your finger and letting the dark seep out onto the page, well. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the only way we can live with ourselves.
It pains me to give You Are Fatally Invited a low rating, because I loved the concept so much. In this take on a locked-room mystery, six thriller writers travel to an island off the coast of Maine for a writing retreat hosted by renowned anonymous author J.R. Alastor. But they get more than they bargained for when they discover that Alastor knows secrets about each of them, and has set up a series of elaborate, trope-inspired games and riddles to call them out. But then of course, one of the writers turns up dead, and a storm cuts off the island, and then more people die…and you know how this goes.
It’s a story with good (and familiar) bones, and the fact that it’s a book about thriller writers offers some fun meta moments. But unfortunately, overall, I think Ande Pliego was a bit too ambitious and couldn’t quite execute the plot effectively. There were too many characters and not enough differentiation in their narrative voices (since the chapters alternate points-of-view), and the character development was lacking. The characters� relationships with each other were so unnecessarily convoluted that I was just…lost. Pliego had all these big, fun ideas, but she didn’t tie the various threads of the plot together very cleanly, so it was all just…messy. By the end, I didn’t even really care if the big reveals made sense; I was just ready to be done with the mental gymnastics required to keep everything straight.
If you’re a fan of locked-room mysteries and metafiction, I’d still encourage you to give this one a try; not every book is for every reader, and this one wasn’t for me � but it may be for you. Thank you to Bantam for the complimentary reading opportunity. ...more
You're holding on to your humanity like it's the last bread crumbs left to eat before starvation sweeps through. You cling to these concepts of com
You're holding on to your humanity like it's the last bread crumbs left to eat before starvation sweeps through. You cling to these concepts of compassion and empathy and goodwill, but they're all slipping through your fingers, they are burning up before your very eyes.
Let me just say, it was wild to read Wake Up and Open Your Eyes in the midst of the current political situation here in the U.S. This is a social horror novel about media brainwashing in the extreme, and Clay McLeod Chapman does not hold back.
Noah Fairchild hasn’t been able to reach his parents in the days leading up to Christmas, and after his mom leaves him a concerning voicemail about a “Great Reawakening,� he makes an emergency trip from his home in New York to theirs in Virginia. When he arrives, he finds the home in shambles, with food rotting in the fridge and his parents in a trance-like state in front of the TV, which is broadcasting the 24-hour Fax News channel (“Just the facts!�). He tries to snap his parents out of it, but it does not go well. Meanwhile, across town, Noah’s brother Asher and his family are having their own breakdowns involving Fax News and other far-right and conspiracy programming, wellness influencers, and social media. And the problem seems to be even more far-reaching and widespread.
I mean, I’m just going to say it. If you are a MAGA Republican or a person whose only source of news is FOX, or if your social media is a conservative echo-chamber, don’t read this. It’s not for you � or maybe it’s especially for you � but either way it’ll just make you mad. And on the other side of things, if you are a sensitive person whose mental health has been seriously affected by current events, you probably shouldn’t read this either because everything about it is triggering. To me, Wake Up and Open Your Eyes is peak social horror because it shines an unflinching, terrifying light on what’s happening in society right now � but it does so through a satirical lens, where everything is more extreme to make a point. Chapman certainly makes his points definitively, and I get the sense that he had a lot of fun with it, too. He perfectly balances the gore and violence with moments of levity (hello, Anderson Cooper!). It’s quite brilliant, if you can get past how unsettling and prescient it all is. (Everything is fine!!!!!)
I’ve had Chapman’s books on my TBR for ages, but Wake Up and Open Your Eyes is the first of his novels I’ve read � and of course, I chose to read it at either the most perfect time or the worst time, given the state of things right now. This is one that’s definitely going to stick with me, and I can’t wait to dive into Chapman’s backlist. ...more
Compelling and strange, Idle Grounds is a story about a group of young cousins at a summertime family get-together in 1980s New England. When one of tCompelling and strange, Idle Grounds is a story about a group of young cousins at a summertime family get-together in 1980s New England. When one of the cousins, a three-year-old named Abi, disappears into the woods bordering the property, the rest venture off to find her � a journey that leads to some unsettling discoveries.
Written mostly in the first-person plural, as the cousins reminisce on the events as adults, Idle Grounds is a singular reading experience. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that captures the magic, peculiarity, and well, menace of childhood quite like this one does. Krystelle Bamford’s writing is incredible; she evokes a strong sense of time and place, and her prose manages to be both lyrical and full of foreboding. This is an unsettling, atmospheric read that left me feeling wrong-footed throughout. Everything feels kind of…slippery, if that makes sense. Like you’re reading the story through some kind of veil � which is actually so fitting, since that’s precisely how it feels to look back on childhood sometimes.
Bamford explores family secrets from the perspective of the children in the family, and it’s incredibly effective. The complicated relationships among the adults are juxtaposed with the more innocent interactions of the young cousins, although you still get the sense that some of the children are harboring secrets of their own. There’s a lot happening beneath the surface of the “missing cousin� story, is what I’m saying.
Idle Grounds is a short novel, but it’s just about the right length. Any longer and it would have felt like too much; any shorter, and a lot of the subtext would be missing. Even so, I’m not sure I caught or understood everything that was happening. Finishing the book felt like waking from a fever dream; it completely immersed me in its strange, ethereal world while I was reading it, and I can still kind of feel it lingering on my skin. Thank you to Scribner for the complimentary reading opportunity. ...more
3.5 stars. It’s 1983, and three college students set off on a road trip crisscrossing the back roads of Appalachia, searching for roadside memorials a3.5 stars. It’s 1983, and three college students set off on a road trip crisscrossing the back roads of Appalachia, searching for roadside memorials and researching the ones they find for a class project. But they get more than they bargained for when they notice the same strange symbol on many of the memorials and dig too deeply into its meaning, setting off a series of increasingly threatening events.
I expected to love Memorials, but ultimately I thought it was just okay. Richard Chizmar is obviously heavily influenced by Stephen King (which I love � lots of nods to King in this book!) but he also has King’s tendency to be verbose. Memorials is slow moving and repetitive for large portions, making all the action and violence that occur in the conclusion feel somewhat unearned. I always enjoy a horror novel that incorporates coming-of-age elements, and this one does; it’s just that the components feel a bit unbalanced. I also would’ve liked it if the plot went in a less expected direction, because given the time period and the symbolic element, you can probably guess where things are headed � just like I did.
But there was plenty that I did like about Memorials. The �80s nostalgia is strong with this one, the setting is perfect, and the characters are well-developed, diverse, and sympathetic. Chizmar takes something as innocuous as a roadside memorial � a symbol of sadness and remembrance � and makes it an object of dread and terror instead. That shows some great horror chops right there, and I will never look at a roadside memorial again without thinking of this book....more
3.5 stars. The publisher nailed it by calling Listen to Your Sister a book that will appeal to fans of Jordan Peele’s films. The book explores issues 3.5 stars. The publisher nailed it by calling Listen to Your Sister a book that will appeal to fans of Jordan Peele’s films. The book explores issues of race and family through a speculative/social horror lens in an unforgettable reading experience full of humor and heart.
Calla Williams is in her mid-twenties when she becomes her 16-year-old brother Jamie’s guardian, and she’s struggling. She’s not getting much help from her other brother, middle child Dre, and she’s tired of being the responsible one who has to hold everything together. She is overwhelmed and anxious, which manifests in recurring dreams about her brothers dying in horrific ways. When Jamie attends a protest that gets out of hand, the siblings must go on the run, fleeing to a remote cabin Calla found on AirBNB. Deep in the woods, the siblings will be forced to confront their conflicts, and must fight to save their family against unexpected forces.
Listen to Your Sister had me sitting up and paying attention in the first chapter, when Calla has a tense confrontation with administrators at Jamie’s school. It’s immediately engaging, with spot-on dialogue and sly humor, introducing us to the characters in a way that made me want to learn more about them. Neena Viel’s character work is outstanding; the Williams siblings are conveyed with rawness and authenticity, and they’re relatable and sympathetic. The first several chapters are a family drama focused on being Black in the present-day U.S., written from the alternating points-of-view of all three siblings, and they’re intimate, powerful, and thoughtful. I felt like I really got to know all three siblings deeply before Viel placed them in mortal peril, which made me all the more invested in their fates.
When the siblings head to the woods, the horror aspects of the plot start to ramp up, and this was where I felt myself coming disengaged. The book becomes a fever dream of violence and terror, unfolding in surreal and complicated ways as the Williams siblings fight against the forces threatening their family. Viel’s writing is descriptive and lush, with a tone that strikes a perfect balance between somberness and levity throughout the narrative, and in the moments I wasn’t confused, I was reveling in the creativity and execution of her ideas � a supernatural manifestation of sisterly love and the bonds of family. I listened to the book on audio, and while I did love all three of the narrators, I wonder if I would have “gotten it� more if I’d read the physical words on the page.
Or maybe I just wasn’t supposed to “get it,� and that’s fine too. Listen to Your Sister is an impressive debut either way, and Neena Viel is an author to watch. Thank you to Macmillan Audio and St. Martin’s Press for the complimentary reading opportunity....more
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