Mattia Goddard

I stayed up into the wee hours to find out how the Padavano Sisters would turn out. I had already spent several earlier chapters in tears with them, so not finishing was not an option. This one is still on the NYTIMES Bestseller List as of this writing and definitely worthy of that honor. Often marketed as a modern retelling of Little Women, it is only that way in that the sisters compare themselves to the March sisters off and on throughout the story. Because to be perfectly frank, a modern retelling of Little Women is not my usual literary fare. If my bookish friends whose opinions I value- Kelly T and Narci - I'm looking at you- hadn't recommended this one so highly- I would've passed on it. I think this book touched me so deeply because I have 3 sisters of my own and I was raised in a tight knit Catholic family. I will be shipping my copy to one of my sisters immediately and then insisting she pass it along until we all have read it, wept a bit, and finally stopped to reflect on the power of familial love. Highly recommend.

I picked this book for our October book club and oh boy did it not disappoint. It was a delight. Can I call it delicious? Can a book be delicious? His language, his wording is something to behold. I loved reading this book and I savored it. This paragraph is an example of Bradbury's beautiful writing. “She is immortal. She has a son. Your son, too! But what father ever really believes it? He carries no burden, he feels no pain. What man, like woman, lies down in darkness, and gets up with child? Oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. They nest in Time. They make the flesh that holds fast and binds eternity. They live inside the gift, know power, accept, and need not mention it. Why speak of time when you are Time, and shape the universal moments, as they pass, into warmth and action? How men envy and often hate these warm clocks, these wives, who know they will live forever.“
It's a short book, if you've never read it, treat yourself to this classic this spooky season.

I picked this one up from it's place of distinction on the library kiosk during Pride Month. Part of my allyship is making an effort to read LGBTQIA authors. Rom Coms are not my usual genre of choice but this one did a solid job of giving the characters depth and the storyline plenty to work with. There were a good number of characters whose motivations were dodgey or at least seemingly sketchy. The protagonists both had compelling internal narratives. I liked them both and I wanted them to find their happily ever after. This was a well written story- not just a romance but a rom com with some nice depth to it.

felt like Gone Girl and Sleeping with the Enemy then veered into something new and different. Very satisfying ending.

I gave this one 4 stars because it was compulsively readable. I read it in 2 days, could keep the characters apart, really liked the detective character, sort of saw the ending coming but not entirely and all around enjoyed all the subplots in this story. My only criticism is I saw the editor didn't catch that she referred to the fish as halibut in one spot then salmon 4 pages later. Yes, it's a piece of easy reading fluff but trust me, it's some fun, escapist, entertaining fluff- set in the Hamptons- so that's an added bonus.

Review: The Drowning Woman

Whoa, what a ride this one is. Quite possibly a Perfect Thriller. This novel starts out with our protagonist down on her luck, and I mean DOWN on her luck. It's bad. It's also a scenario that is altogether plausible in the world we live in today. Robin Harding draws a pitch perfect examination of homelessness, but before long, we are swept up into new and fresh chaos.

We know this is going to be messy for our protagonist. It just takes a while to see how. One of the bits I really appreciated is that this protagonist is not an idiot and she doesn't make stupid mistakes.

We get two POVs which I love. What was brilliant here is that neither POV... wait, I can't finish that sentence. No spoilers.

Harding peels back the layers not slowly, but masterfully. It's not until the very end that we the reader realize how this will play out. And it is brilliant.

I couldn't put this book down.
Plus I have it in hardback and it is a GORGEOUS cover.

For lovers of domestic suspense, this is a great read. Lots of good twists. Satisfying ending.

Now this was a fun book. I read it in a day and a half. All the characters were interesting and easy to keep apart. Original idea, well executed. Highly recommend for an easy read.

I enjoyed it, especially how the mystery was solved. complex in typical Harlan Coben style. I thought it started a bit too slowly, but otherwise, great story, great characters, great mystery.

Prepare for heartbreak but also for compassion and self reflection. Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi's story is tragic in that not only did he die young, but there's a sad irony in realizing that the esteemed doctor had become the patient shortly after a decade of medical school.

Paul takes this opportunity to examine life's meaning. When faced with his own mortality, after years of balancing and caring for the mortality of his patients, he turns all that lived experience inward. And there is profundity here. He died before he finished and his wife, also a doctor, wrote the epilogue. That is also a heartbreak, but thankfully it gives the reader some much needed catharsis.

I can definitely say that while this was a great book that had me thinking deeply about my purpose and how we look at death here in this country- I'd be lying if I didn't say I am READY for the two Christmas themed reads I have cued up next!

This was my first novel written in verse and I was captivated.

I see why The Poet X won The National Book Award.

It is nothing short of brilliant.

And beautiful.

And heartbreaking.

I know only peripherally about the warring cultures she writes about but I felt her struggle. Daily battles with her mother, her classmates, her faith, her body.

Parents, have your teens read this book.

There is no cursing, no sex. Just real teen angst that on some level every person can relate to.

I chose Elizabeth Acevedo for the 52 week reading challenge- the prompt was A Book by a Caribbean author.

I found this on my daughter's bookshelf.

I am so glad I picked it up.

This is why I love reading challenges.

I am in love with SA Cosby's worlds and My Darkest Prayer is another brilliant, albeit less polished installment. It's an early work and shorter than his more famous later books, but it crackles just the same. First and foremost, what I love about his stories is his setting. Having spent so much time in Virginia, I love to read about ole Newport News in just about all of them. I went to high school in the Blues so I know exactly the areas he's referencing and it's a thrill that never gets old. Then his relationships. He has such a poetic, and at the same time, real way of describing his characters- their appearances, their back stories, their choices, their actions. All of it.

This protagonist is so powerful- a biracial undertaker- plus a whole lot more- but that's not for me to say. That's for the reader to discover. I loved this undertaker story- my first and I learned a lot about the business. I pass SA's books to any & all folks I meet who love the crime genre. If you haven't read him yet, you must.

I found this book because I'm participating in the 52 Book Challenge. I was looking for a book to satisfy the prompt: Takes Place During the Roaring Twenties. This one afforded me the added opportunity to discover a new to me author of color. This book was riveting. Written in the late 1920s, published in 1929- It feels positively timeless. I have never read a book about women passing- fair skinned “colored” women as they're called here- passing as white in society.
It was short but thoroughly fleshed out. Toward the end I was physically stressed out, reading quickly to figure out who was going to end up happy and who was going to end up exposed. This was a great, original story. Loved it. And loved discovering Nella Larsen- a trailblazer of the Harlem Renaissance.

This book was our February Book Club read. I didn't get to finish it until March, and after my dad died. That made this book hit quite a bit differently from when I started reading it, to when I finished it. I adored Maddie, as did the women in my book club. Although I missed the gathering, my dear friend Kelly gave me the group's thoughts on the story. We loved her journey and all that she encountered, her devastating lows and her well earned triumphs. Great debut novel. Highly recommend.

This is a weird one- which is of course, the point. This is absurdist realism- messy female protagonists behaving in strange ways and existing in bizarre situations. I did not love this book as so many else have. I liked certain parts of it. Big segments are therapy notes and I found that writing to be crisp and funny and excellent. I did not care about the main character even though I could tell she was living out a flawed existence due to deeply repressed trauma. Part of the dark comedy of this book is that she works in the wellness culture field and yet is emotionally unwell. Her internal monologues were bizarre and even gross at some times, also often insensitive. She was rather a sad, even pathetic character. Overall, none of the characters here act in normal, expected ways and several don't seem particularly sane. If you like absurdist realities, give this one a go. The writing is strong, I just didn't love the story.

This book had boring characters and a boring storyline. I've loved Kubica's previous books but this one did not hold my interest. The two women in this story are high school teachers at the same school. They could've been interesting but alas they were not. It also felt like a lot of telling and not enough showing -which gets tedious to read.

I even figured out who the baddie was well before I was supposed to. I felt like I had seen a very similar storyline on The Closer years ago. Even the ending was missing some explanations- it kind of just jumped from that main important revelation to the resolution. Normally, I thoroughly enjoy Kubica's writing and especially her deep character building, but this one felt really slow. It was a miss for me.

This is a 3.5 really, because I thought the main character was mostly fantastic- my only issue was that his internal narrative needed an editor's red pen. Those passages were too wordy- I even found myself skimming a few which is very unlike me. I loved his humor and his love of The Devil Wears Prada but again- an edit was needed. I adored his love interest but any of you not comfortable with LGBTQ relationships -this one is not for you. This was my first LGBTQ rom-com book and I enjoyed it.

This book was so much fun. Perfect summer beach read in every way. I did however read it during and after Hurricane Idalia so I did not get the joys of being beach side with this one. I would definitely recommend You read it that way. It is fluff, but the delicious, scandalous, rich-people-behaving-badly type of fluff. It's not Real Housewives idiocy level - these women play far too much tennis and do loads of beachy outdoorsy activities. Plus they have lots of sex, lots of fancy drinks, and dress up in fabulous beachy-chic fashions. PLEASE HBO make this into a movie! So go in with these expectations and you will enjoy it. Expect anything more and you will not have fun with this one.

More character study than mystery, I chose this book to fulfill the Reading Prompt “Shares my Name” - The Next Time You See Me, written by Holly Goddard Jones.

I am so glad I did. Such excellent storytelling with a cast of outsiders and outcasts in a small southern town whose stories thread together into a complex but intimate tale. Loss, heartbreak, squandered dreams - all culminating into violence and betrayal.

It opens with a missing woman and spirals from there. The author writes well- whether in the voice of a middle schooler, a tired old factory worker, a sad schoolteacher. So many good threads in here.

This book is 10 years old and it's a gem. Highly recommended.

a bit slow for my liking. took me a while to get into this book.

This book is an absolute gem- heartbreaking one minute, darkly funny the next. How this author managed such well formed characters in 200 pages is a mystery to me. I loved Ash, the main character, a flawed woman struggling with the impending loss of her oldest and dearest friend. Their lives are intertwined in all the best ways. I loved everything about this story -except- and this is just me being picky- there were 3 characters whose names were, get this, Jules, Jonah and Jude. Insert head exploding emoji here. It took me way too long and some flipping back and forth to figure out who was the brother/husband/daughter. But this quibble aside -a five star read. If you love a story about friendship, this one hits every note beautifully.

This book of essays is a at times painful, other times funny, always real. Some of her stories are devastating. She is brilliant and quick and full of piss and vinegar. I had a great time reading this, except when it made me terribly sad, which was often. Ms. Cottom is a deep thinker and on top of her game. I will be keeping my eye out for all that she writes in the future. If you want to see another side of racism explained and explored, pick this book up. I don't know how I found it but I'm so glad I did.

Kingsolver so adeptly writes in the voice of a young man, taking us on his truly epic journey. His life is hard, dark and disturbing at just about every turn. But we the readers see his good heart, his never ending search for love and belonging and ultimately, his cathartic redemption. Our book club thoroughly enjoyed this read- a new and timely take on David Copperfield. I highly recommend this read if you enjoy getting to know all the characters that make up a protagonist's life and you want to take the time to settle in and follow Demon's arc. Kingsolver's writing is magical. She is a gifted wordsmith and, in my opinion, one of our greatest living novelists.

Do you want a book set during a blizzard? Then this is the story for you. And wow is it a good one. Good use of dual timelines, solid development of characters, plot points and important details were eased or rather teased out well. Great winter read. I definitely recommend this one.

I found myself caring about both women, Charlotte and Harriett. Both well drawn and likable- which is not often the case in books like these. I found the series of events fast moving and plausible. Overall this was a fun read and quick- I finished it in a day while home sick. Good ending too- well tied up- also not always the case with the domestic suspense genre.