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Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro

October 25, 2022

signal

Author Dani Shapiro wastes no time plunging her pen into the marrow of human experience in her latest novel, Signal Fires. It’s a summer night in 1985 and the Wilf family, Ben, Mimi, and their teenaged children Sarah and Theo are about to go from a happy family living to four individuals reeling from unexpected trauma. Before that chapter can be completely digested Shapiro fast ... Read More...

13 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, family, literary

This Time Tomorrow

June 9, 2022

tomorrow

I’ve had mixed success with time travel novels this summer (I’m looking at you, One Italian Summer) so I was a bit hesitant to pick up This Time Tomorrow. What swayed me is that it’s by Emma Straub, whose last novel All Adults Here was a favorite of mine. Thankfully, while I may not have loved everything about this father-daughter novel I did appreciate the relationship and how ... Read More...

10 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, family, science fiction

Marrying the Ketchups

June 3, 2022

marrying

After my frank opinions in the May recap let’s start June off with some breezy family drama, shall we? Marrying the Ketchups by Jennifer Close is the story of the Sullivans, a restaurant-owning family in Chicago’s Oak Park neighborhood. The novel is cemented in place at the volatile end of 2016, when the Cubs win their first World Series in 100 years and America’s political ... Read More...

8 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, family, Midwest

The Survivors: A Novel by Alex Schulman

November 22, 2021

survivors

Alex Schulman is a well-known Swedish author with The Survivors being his first book to be translated into English. The novel begins with a policeman arriving at a lakeside cottage where three men wait, bloody and exhausted. Nils, Benjamin, and Pierre are brothers who came to the house to dispose of their mother’s ashes, a plan that fell apart as they began revisiting the ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: childhood, family, literary

The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman

October 14, 2021

magic

What you put out into the world came back to you threefold. In The Rules of Magic Jet Owens and her siblings Franny and Vincent were dealing with their family’s curse about falling in love. Decisions were made and prices were paid. Now decades later both Jet and Franny live in the family’s house on Magnolia Street with their niece Sally, who’s suffered the most, losing two ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: England, family, family saga, magic, New England, women

Fight Night: A Novel by Miriam Toews

October 4, 2021

fight

Sometimes when we fight…sometimes we’re not fighting in quite the right way…we need to adjust our game. But still, the main thing is that we’re fighting…your mom’s a fighter. We’re all fighters. Swiv comes from a family of fighters. At nine she’s suspended from school because King of the Castle is not a recess game to her, it’s a battle. One that she will win at any cost, ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, childhood, contemporary fiction, family, literary

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