Sometimes a book’s marketing can end up working against it. I found this to be the case with Caroline Leavitt’s Cruel Beautiful World. The synopsis and various blurbs referenced the Manson murders—a real piece of clickbait and yet, aside from being set in the summer of 1969 and the main protagonist’s worry about being left home alone the novel had nothing to do with ... Read More...
Is This Tomorrow
In 1956 there was plenty to worry about- the Communists and nuclear missiles, but missing children were an anomaly. In Waltham, Massachusetts, the setting for Is This Tomorrow, people didn’t even lock their doors and children moved from one house to another, playing and eating snacks until the call home for dinner. When twelve-year-old Jimmy disappears one afternoon this quiet ... Read More...
