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Sorrow and Bliss: A Novel

May 5, 2021

sorrow

Sorrow and Bliss opens after Martha and her husband Patrick have returned from a party he threw for her 40th birthday. It did not go well and two days later Patrick says he’s leaving. It’s both an ending and a beginning for Martha as she grapples with what to do next in a life that often feels like too much to bear. When she’s 17 Martha is suddenly under such physical, ... Read More...

10 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, debut, mental health, relationships

Love in Case of Emergency

April 16, 2021

emergency

Can I just say I love this cover and leave it at that? Probably not, but I really love this cover and wanted to feel the same way about the book. This is also an admission on my part that I don’t have a magical formula or innate gift for picking outstanding reading. Sometimes, I’m hoping the cover ties directly to the contents—at least as a metaphor.  In Love in Case of ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, literary, relationships, women

Of Women and Salt: A Novel

April 9, 2021

women

Jeannette is first-generation American in her Cuban family, but feels she knows nothing about her mother’s life or family left behind in Cuba. When asked, Carmen goes quiet. The only life she cares about is the comfortable one she has now in Miami. Ana is an 8-year-old girl who arrives home from an overnight stay at a babysitter’s house to find their home locked and no one ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, debut, historical fiction, literary

What’s Mine and Yours

March 26, 2021

In Piedmont, North Carolina in the 1990s two women are faced with raising young children on their own. Jade and her son Gee are Black while Lacey May and her three daughters are White. Both are living on the same edge of desperation, but in What’s Mine and Yours each responds to her circumstances in very different ways. Ways that come to clash a decade later, when despite it ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, racism, social issues, Southern life

One to Watch: A Novel

March 22, 2021

watch

I’m going for a change of pace this week. At the beginning of the month my reading was mostly diverse and a bit dark so I needed to change it up a bit. Thankfully, One to Watch and the book I’ll review on Wednesday were both the kind of reading you pick up and don’t want to put down.   Bea Schumacher is a successful plus-size fashion blogger and fan of the reality show ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, debut, social issues

We Run the Tides

February 24, 2021

tides

I'm not sure it's an actual publishing trend for 2021, but it's fairly unusual for me to read three novels on the same subject in one year. In this case, it's private girls' schools—always fascinating to me, but to the general public? I guess so. In January, there was The Divines and this month, All Girls. The final novel in this trifecta is today’s review: We Run the Tides by ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, friendship, literary, San Francisco

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