Tell Me More

Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan is so intimate, moving and hilarious that it is as if When Breath Becomes Air had been written by Nora Ephron. 

After the unthinkable loss of her friend Liz followed by the unbearable loss of her father Greenie, both to cancer, Corrigan desperately wants to deserve her own life and the people in it. She starts to think a lot about the power of words and ultimately the twelve phrases that make love and connection possible. Each phrase is an essay in this book. 

In the chapter I Was Wrong, Corrigan has a total parental meltdown that involves a dog, poop and an unflushed toilet. Evidence that she and I would be fast friends in real life. 

My favorite phrase is No. It’s such a trope to coach women on how to say no without feeling guilty, but Corrigan is better than anyone else at teaching this particular lesson. She uses her mother as an example. “Very few people I’ve known are able to set themselves free the way my mother has. Liberated by the simple act of saying no.” 

The essay on Yes is actually a running list of things Corrigan will always say yes to. “Salted caramel, salted rim, salty jokes” among them. More evidence that she and I would be fast friends in real life. 

More than anything else this book reminds me of a C.S. Lewis quote that my dear friend Dina introduced me to: “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”

Many thanks to another dear friend Lauren for gifting me this book. Best paired with a Red Lobster poor of icy cold Sauvignon Blanc.

4 out of 5 bottles

An American Marriage

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones is my favorite kind of book: literary, provocative and compulsively readable. A February Book of the Month selection and Oprah’s latest book club pick— it lives up to the hype. 

Roy Hamilton is a black man born on the wrong side of the tracks who makes good with a college degree and sales career. His wife, Celestial Davenport, is beautiful and smart, from an upper-class family in Atlanta. Together they are a golden couple with a bright future. Then Roy is misidentified, wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison; and their marriage is tested. 

As Roy works to adjust to his new reality, he clings to Celestial like a life raft. “You don't know how demoralizing it is to be a man with nothing to offer a woman.” But Celestial struggles to put her life on hold while she waits for her man. “I know you're innocent, there is not one doubt in my mind, but I also know that you're not here.”

An American Marriage is intimate and heartbreaking. Their story is “too tender to explain to strangers.” It is equal parts of hope and pain, like life. Jones does a fantastic job of creating gorgeously flawed characters who each win you over. Roy with his childhood, like a sandwich “with no meat hanging of the bread.” Celestial with her “scotch-and-Marlboros alto,” her voice “like the middle of the night.” There is no right or wrong side. 

Jones’ writing is the type of subtle, well-crafted prose that you’ll want to read out loud to anyone within earshot. “When I was mad, I didn’t raise my voice. Instead, I lowered it to a register that you heard with your bones, not your ears.” Chills, I tell you. 

Best paired with a feast of short ribs, mac and cheese, and corn pudding with two slices of wedding cake that has been sitting in the freezer for 365 days as dessert.

Rating: 5 out of 5 bottles

Other People's Houses

Other People’s Houses centers on the inhabitants of a closely-knit neighborhood in a hip part of Los Angeles. There, Frances Bloom discovers her neighbor Anne, one morning, lying naked on the living room floor with a man who is not her husband.

Luckily for Anne, Frances is the one person you’d want by your side in a crisis. Still, a smart and glossy dramedy ensues. There is much soul-searching and life lesson-learning by Frances, Anne and the other members of the neighborhood. But this is so much more than just another precautionary tale or voyeuristic look behind closed doors. It is immensely enjoyable.

Abbi Waxman is a master at delivering heartfelt musings with wry humor,  such as: “it was one of the paradoxes of parenting that the children you wished you had were actually the version of your own children that other parents saw.” Or: “I had no idea how much mind-numbing, repetitive detail went into just keeping them alive.”

Waxman is adept at serving up a knowing slice of life “in all its imperfect, fractured, embarrassing glory.” Her tongue-in-cheek observations—“Marriage had so little to do with the bedroom, and so much to do with every other room in the house.”—and rich figures of speech—“There were drifts of clutter in every corner, like sticks and leaves in the edges and eddies of a stream.”—make this novel a wry and amusing examination of affluent suburban life.

If you can’t wait until its publication in early April, you can read Waxman’s first novel Garden of Small Beginnings now.

Best paired with a venti Americano and tiny tartelettes, each one folded like origami, filled with fresh figs and mascarpone.

Note: Net Galley and Berkley Publishing Group provided Booktenders Review with an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own!

Rating: 4 out of 5 bottles

Stillhouse Lake

So many of my favorite book bloggers and bookstagrammers recommended Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine but it fell flat for me, despite its premise.

This thriller has a fascinating setup: Gina Royal, a mousy Midwestern housewife, discovers her husband is a serial killer when a car drives into their garage and exposes his latest victim. “I’d been a tool, like the saws and hammers and knives in his workshop. I’d been his camouflage,” she reflects.

With her husband incarcerated, Gina reinvents herself as Gwen Proctor—a badass, gun-carrying mom—and settles in a remote town. But just when she thinks her kids might be able to experience a normal childhood, a body turns up in the lake behind her house.

As much as I looked forward to the Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs meets Sarah Connor from the Terminator framework, the book lacked substance for me. For the majority of it I felt like I was witnessing an action movie—graphic and shallow with no real character development or surprise. 

If you're looking or a satisfying novel about a psychotic serial killer, I highly recommend You and its sequel Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes instead.

Best paired with liver and onions, served with a nice pinot noir.

Rating: 3 out of 5 bottles

Castle of Water

If you’ve ever looked out of a plane window while flying over the ocean and shuddered to imagine dropping out of the sky, Castle of Water by Dane Hucklebrige will bring those visions to life.

Barry Bleeker has just quit his job in New York City finance to pursue art full time, and Sophie Ducel is a Parisian architect on her honeymoon. When their single-engine Cessna 208 crashes in the middle of the South Pacific, they are the sole survivors, two strangers who become stranded on a deserted island that is as beautiful as it is treacherous.

To survive, Barry and Sophie must recreate civilization from scratch—collecting clean water, hunting for food and building shelter—which is fascinating in and of itself. But the heart of the novel is the friendship that develops between Barry and Sophie amidst unbearable loneliness, near starvation and terror of never being rescued. Both characters are deeply flawed and profoundly likeable.

The story is told in mesmerizing prose “amid the blue honey water and white sugar sands.” Huckelbridge expertly uses nature and color as characters. We witness a “cotton candy-colored sunrise,” “a flamboyant, sorbet-shaded sunset” and the moon as “a pearly chaperone.” Insert an animated gif of me wiggling my fingers with unrestrained excitement.

Ultimately the book reminds us that even at moments of maximum crisis—companionship, optimism and love can restore us all. Best paired with a starchy bunch of bananas, a gulp of fresh rainwater and zero packages of astronaut ice cream. 

Rating: 5 out of 5 bottles

The Emperor's Soul

This was a gift from my dear friend Dustin who didn't even know that one of my reading goals for 2018 is to go beyond my usual genres of contemporary, women’s and historical fiction. Well, he couldn’t have done a better job of introducing me to fantasy fiction. 

I literally devoured this novella. As in, I read all 175 pages in one sitting. That never happens. To say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson is easily one of the most imaginative stories I've ever read, and my only regret is that I didn’t savor it more.

The story centers on an Emperor who survives an assassination attempt with his body intact but his mind erased, and the master Forger, Shai, who is tasked with Forging a new soul for him before the public finds out. So Frankenstein meets Katniss Everdeen, sort of.

The book is gripping and philosophical. “To Forge something you had to know its nature, its past.” It is also fable-like in its insight into the human condition. "Copy an image over and over on a stack of paper and eventually the lower sheets will bear the same image, pressed down. Deep within."

To read this book is to think hard about art, and the human capacity to make things anew. “The table’s dull grey splintery cedar became beautiful and well maintained, with a warm patina that reflected the light of the candles sitting across from her.” Sanderson’s imagery has been known to make grown men cry. 

The next time you are faced with a free Sunday afternoon, get lost in The Emperor’s Soul’s lyrical prose and page-turner of a plot. Best paired with a strong drink, medallions of elk and bunches of fruit.

Rating: 4 out of 5 bottles

Class Mom

Want a playful, irreverent and funny new read to dive into?

Check out Class Mom by Laurie Gelman, a gossip-packed satire about suburban parenting in America. Written in an easy girlfriendly style, it provides humourous insight into what a power-crazed group parents of kindergartners can be.

Jenn Dixon, the narrator, is the most lovable and subversive class mom ever. A low-level bitchiness thrums throughout her emails to the other kindergarten parents, becoming one of the book’s indispensable pleasures. For example:

“Hi, folks,

If you’ve ever seen The Hunger Games, you’ll have an idea of what I went through trying to make everyone happy with these conference times.

Here is how it shook out. If you don’t like what you get, well, good luck finding someone who cares.”

Gelman has penned a modern-day epistolary novel with several sets of major characters and a narrative scattered with a variety of marriage, friendship and parenting issues. It is full of moms and dads with emotional issues, a teacher with ethical ones, and contentious goings-on at a school. 

The laugh-out-loud scenes will make you feel deep gratitude for your room parents. If you’re a room parent, this screwball comedy may just make you feel understood for the first time.

Best paired with a glass of Oregon pinot noir, chicken, mango chutney, green beans with pesto and parmesan, and basmati rice. 

Rating: 4 out of 5 bottles

Last Christmas in Paris

Last Christmas in Paris is a novel in letters exchanged during the first world war. 

Thomas Hardy joins the army in September 1914 to serve his country in a war that everyone expects will be over by Christmas. He enlists with Will Elliott: “My childhood friend, my counsel, and my conspirator. The man who stood shoulder to shoulder with me when we went over the top the first time.”

Evie Elliott, Will’s sister, begins to write to Tom as a light distraction. In reality, the letters continue for four years and chronicle how their innocent spirits became heroic in brutal times. “That a fragile bundle of paper sentiments survived the war when so many people were lost has always angered me, but now I am glad of them.” 

The book’s heart is the relationship that develops between Tom and Evie. “The way the firelight lit your face. If only I could bottle you up and take you with me when I return to the Front.” 

But there is substance beneath the romantic charm and lightness. Tales of terrible tragedy and great courage. An examination of how women evolved over the course of the war. For example, Evie feels like “an unworn dress, hanging limply in the closet, without purpose or shape or form” at the start of the war, and just a few years later she is a popular columnist for the London Daily Times. 

The novel is also a tribute to Christmas as the title suggests, “how long we anticipate it and how quickly it passes”… how it stretches “before us, waiting to be filled with mirth and merriment and caroling and good brandy.”

The epistolary form has an uncanny ability to evoke the period, and the characters step out from the past radiantly. The narrative is a tapestry of bright and dark, and the voice is original and delightful. It is part The Notebook and part Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Best paired with a goblet of vin chaud, a hearty serving of Burgundy beef, sugared cherries and a roaring fire.

Rating: 5 out 5 bottles

The Wife Between Us

Smart, pretty and married to a wealthy man who adored her—Vanessa had everything she needed to live the life of her dreams. Then it all went horribly wrong. Today Vanessa is divorced from Richard, struggling to hold down a department store job and so unbearably haunted by her replacement in Richard’s life that she has to drink a bottle of Merlot just to make herself sleep at night.

“The clues were present, but I misread them. Not for the first time,” Vanessa muses. It is a wink at herself as the unreliable narrator and a nod to the reader that what lies ahead may look like the truth but prove to be false.

Little by little, we realize nothing is as it seems.

The Wife Between Us by writing duo Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen is a smooth, entertaining and believable psychological thriller. The plot is so well imagined that you’ll take pleasure in all the unexpected twists and turns on the way. The use of booze, insomnia-fueled hallucinations and anxiety-filled hypervigilance creates great suspense; and the characters have far more intellectual underpinnings than most books in this genre.

Even the most discriminating readers will be dazzled as Hendricks and Pekkanen skillfully spin and unravel a shimmering web of infatuation, jealousy and obsession.

Best paired with a bottle of white Burgundy, rosemary focaccia, filet mignon medium rare and rum raisin ice cream.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Eleanor Oliphant lives her life according to a very regimented schedule that consists of public transportation, crossword puzzles and meals for one. She is the butt of workplace jokes and celebrates Friday nights with “a margherita pizza, some Chianti and two big bottles of Glen’s vodka.”

Then she meets Raymond in IT.

When Eleanor and Raymond come to the aid of an old man in a tomato-red sweater who collapses on the sidewalk, Eleanor is forced out of her tightly structured routine and into a world of adventure, friendship and healing.

But Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine isn’t your average romantic comedy because Eleanor is a complex character with a dark past. What first appears to be Asperger’s-esque eccentricity turns out to be a kind of survival instinct, formed in response to a terrible childhood secret.

With a light touch and lacerating prose, Gail Honeyman reminds us to be kind for everyone we meet is fighting a hard battle. “There was no one in the world more alone than me.” Every sweet and charming moment has a somber undercurrent: “I felt the heat where his hand had been … I’d shaken hands a fair bit over the years—more so recently—but I hadn’t been touched in a lifetime.”

The mystery surrounding the past combined with the redemption story in the present makes for a very satisfying read. And Eleanor Oliphant is a character you won't soon forget.

Best paired with sausage rolls, cool clear vodka and chocolate pudding for broken hearts.

Mr. Dickens and His Carol

In Mr. Dickens and His Carol, a debut novel, Samantha Silva has taken on a fiction retelling of how the iconic book A Christmas Carol came to be.

The setting is mid-19th century Europe, and her London is a “great floating pageant.” In Silva’s magical reinterpretation, Charles Dickens’ work is no longer selling well and he is contractually obligated to write a short Christmas book to recover the losses.

The novel is a marvel of gorgeous lyrical yet melancholy prose, which is surely a tribute to its hero. The mood is the epitome of “firelight, wine-light, friend-light.” The story is at times heartbreaking but pierced by humor, with a plot that contains little subtlety as the back story falls neatly into place. However, it is Eleanor Lovejoy and her tiny son Timothy, Silva’s riff on the muses for A Christmas Carol, who lead to some of the book’s most poignant moments. “We are all lost, all broken,” said Eleanor, “Trying desperately to be whole again.”

Mr. Dickens and His Carol is at its eerie, enchanting best when Silva dwells on Dickens’ relationship with his art. “That first vertiginous thrill of being alone to do whatever he pleased, write whenever he wanted.” Or this: “He filled his lungs and closed his eyes, surprised to find his mental museum just where he’d left it, corridors stacked high, shelves overflowing.”

The writing doesn’t always come effortlessly. There are long midnight walks around London to cure his writer’s block and insomnia. But ultimately, his books are the source of great love in his world. “He knew that the end of this book was a beginning of their life without him, and he must let them be born into the world, and welcomed, as he felt sure they would be. Still, how grateful he was to have know them at all.” Isn’t that beautiful?

The result is a book that will make you fall in love with Dickens and Christmas and every one.

Best paired with cognac, turkey, goose, mince pie, filberts, candied fruits and a Christmas pudding, of course.

Holes

Holes by Louis Sachar is a classic middle grade novel narrated by Stanley Yelnats who is sent to Camp Green Lake for a petty crime he did not commit. It mixes past and present, realism and folklore, grim adventure across a barren landscape with goofy humor. The strong character development and lasting friendships reminded me a bit of The Outsiders. A 1998 National Book Award Winner, Holes is a book the whole family will enjoy but I especially recommend it for your reluctant boy readers.

Best paired with raw onions and a canteen of water hanging around your neck.

Little Broken Things

Thank you to Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, and NetGalley for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review. 

Nicole Baart fans now have something new to dig into with the release of Little Broken Things today. It is the suspenseful story of a Minnesota family in a wealthy lakeside community and their carefully concealed secrets that come to light with the arrival of a mysterious little girl simply introduced as Lucy. An entertaining novel that may be a bit formulaic but is nevertheless un-put-down-able.

Baart cuts back and forth among three main characters, continuously moving the narrative forward with clues about the little girl’s identity and the terrible circumstances that led to her being left on a doorstep in Key Lake, Minnesota. 

The impossibly sweet and beautiful Quinn Cruz who is married to a talented and ruggedly handsome artist. Her sister, Nora, for whom fierce loyalty and independence are main character traits.  Their mother, Liz, recently widowed and slowly discovering authenticity after years of acting. Each woman narrates in alternating chapters. The men remain two-dimensional: self-centered at best and pure evil at worst.   

Baart is skilled and controlled. Some of her passages are downright stunning, like this one: “Carnelian and tangerine, indigo and pink stirred so soft it looked like the raspberry sorbet she had loved as a girl.” Her book doesn’t shock like Gone Girls or sparkle like Big Little Lies but the plot is strong and the characters are likeable and the setting is interesting, making it the perfect Thanksgiving holiday read. 

Best paired with a tin of dark chocolate “laced with flakes of chili pepper.”

Rating: 4 out of 5 bottles

Turtles All the Way Down

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, best paired with a Blazin’ Texan Burger and a side of onion rings from Applebee’s. Cheers, Tara

In Turtles All the Way Down — John Green’s first novel since the phenomenal success of Fault in Our Stars in 2012— a 16-year-old girl named Aza Holmes struggles with crippling anxiety.

Fans of John Green will understand that this is a quieter novel than the epic tragedy of Fault in Our Stars, although the two books offer the same charming winks to literature, melancholy teenage romance and glorious exploration of astronomy and philosophy.

Uber fans of John Green will know that the book’s main character and author are inextricably intertwined. John Green has talked openly about his own battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Ava has a wistful mother (“Sometimes I miss you being a little kid, but then I remember Chuck E. Cheese.”), a deceased father (“And the thing is, when you lose someone, you realize you’ll eventually lose everyone.”), an old jalopy named Harold (I haven’t fallen in love with a fictional car like this since Herbie the magical Volkswagen), and a whole lot of teenage angst (“I was so good at being a kid, and so terrible at being whatever I was now.”)

The mystery of a missing billionaire introduces us to Davis Pickett, the billionaire’s son, and Aza experiences first love in all its saccharine glory: “Everyone always celebrates the easy attractiveness of green or blue eyes, but there was a depth to Davis’s brown eyes that you just don’t get from lighter colors, and the way he looked at me made me feel like there was something worthwhile in the brown of my eyes too.”

But the real star of the novel is the female friendship between Aza and Daisy Ramirez. Reminiscent of Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang, Aza and Daisy are each other’s person. “What I want to say to you, Holmesy, is that yes, you are exhausting, and yes, being your friend is work. But you are also the most fascinating person I have ever known, and you are not like mustard. You are like pizza, which is the highest compliment I can pay a person.”

The relationship breaks down over the course of the narrative—emotions, mistakes and insecurities are exposed—but  emerges stronger than ever. “My whole life I thought I was the star of an overly earnest romance movie, and it turns out I was in a goddamned buddy comedy all along.”

I loved the flawed friendship, the comfort the bond between two strong female characters brings to each of them, and I especially loved that a platonic friendship eclipsed romance as the soul of a YA novel.

Rating: 4 out of 5 bottles

Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies

When veteran entertainment journalist Michael Ausiello is on the set of The Americans he exchanges text messages with his husband, Christopher “Kit” Cowan, who is at the doctor’s office. There is a growth and then a biopsy and then the diagnosis. Suddenly Michael and Kit are dealing with the unthinkable. Kit has a rare form of cancer.

“Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies” is the intimate as-real-as-it-gets memoir that chronicles Michael’s love affair with the Smurfs, Diet Coke, television and of course Kit, who died in 2015 at the age of 42.

To read this book is to celebrate the messy parts of life, and not just the matters of life and death. The Good: “The size and shape of our bodies created the coziest, most soul-enriching canoodle … so much so that Kit took to whispering ‘click’ in my ear once we were fully attached.” The Bad: “From bouts of infidelity and codependency and sexual dysfunction and pot use and just general malaise of being together for more than a decade.” And the Ugly: “After overcoming a few messy speed bumps, I became a [colostomy]-bag-changing champ.” One of the most endearing things about Ausiello’s storytelling is that it is unapologetically open and honest.

I guarantee that every human being who reads what Ausiello has written here will walk away feeling less alone. There is so much here that resonates and lingers. And I have every reason to believe that one day Kit will look at the thousands of words Michael has written, and he’s going to so proud that his Bodge was brave enough to do this.

Best paired with two bottles of Prosecco, a bag of dark-chocolate nonpareils and Pinkberry with a side of peanut butter.

Caraval

Imagine a magical five-day party on a mysterious island in which guests are invited to play an adventure game against each other in an elaborate contest to win one powerful wish? That is the premise of Stephanie Garber’s dramatic and spellbinding Caraval.

This year, the ringleader of Caraval, Master Legend Santos, invites sisters Scarlett and Donatella Dragna to participate in this otherworldly performance that blends theater with adventure and fantasy with reality. Only he kidnaps Donatella and makes her the prize of Caraval, forcing Scarlett to win the game or lose her sister forever.

Though Caraval is marketed as a young adult novel, it won over this adult reader with the impeccable plotting of The Hunger Games, the elaborate innovation of Harry Potter and the topsy-turvy sensory overload of Alice in Wonderland.

The art for the book cover and chapter headings is stunning, and the detailed world that Garber has devised is just a feast for the senses.  As Scarlett navigates a fantastical world in search of clues to find her sister, she sees “a passionate sky made of melting lemons and burning peaches,” hears “violin music, richer than the darkest chocolate” and tastes “golden drinks as rich and thick as honey.”

The sense of place—whether its “sparkling black sand” or “weatherworn white archways and … clay-tiled halls”--and decadent costumes just beg to be a motion picture. Indeed, Twentieth Century Fox has optioned the book for film.

Caraval is a crisp modern-day fairy tale. Scarlett’s mother is absent and her father is evil. She develops a love interest and fights her feelings for him until the very last pages even though he is impossibly brave and handsome. When the two finally kiss, “it tasted like the moment before night gives birth to morning; it was the end of one thing and the beginning of something else all wrapped up together.” It’s all very Brothers Grimm. I am not complaining.

The ending paves the way for a sequel. Legendary will hit bookstores in May 2018 and I cannot wait.

Best paired with a flute of honey, waffles dipped in the darkest chocolate and cakes that look like clouds. 

Rating: 5 out of 5 bottles

The One-in-a-Million Boy

The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood is about the unlikely friendship between a 104-year-old woman named Ona Vitkus—“all those demure round letters in the first name, followed by the stalky surprise of the surname”—and the 11-year-old Boy Scout who has been doing her Saturday chores to earn a merit badge in community service. It is pretty much the lovechild of A Man Called Ove and A Prayer for Owen Meany.

We find out early in the novel that the boy has died suddenly when the boy’s father, Quinn, shows up on Ona’s doorstep to complete his son’s obligation. “Quinn’s inheritance, left to the father from the son: an old woman.”

Ona’s friendship with the boy and then the boy’s father trickles out in alternating chapters, her own century plus of life stories sprinkled throughout. Bird watching. Card tricks. Homemade cakes that taste like chocolate but are made with tomato soup. It’s all very whimsical, heartwarming and funny even as it explores the complexity of grief and regret.

Wood does an artful job of interlacing the past and the present, thread by thread.  “Can memory be revisited to allow us to see now what we didn’t see then?”

Her prose is precise—“The truth of this hurt him like a soft, blue bruise.”—and her insights radiate warmth—“But that was before Ona thought him a gentleman and made him want to be one.” Most of all I am struck by the book’s voice, pathos and humor.

If there were a literary award for Best Quirky Dramedy (Dramatic Comedy), it would definitely go to Ona and her strange, lovely, one-in-a-million boy.

Best paired with tea poured from a good pot, grilled cheese and a strawberry shortcake.

5 out of 5 bottles

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward is a majestic novel with devastating impact.

Set in modern-day Mississippi, this is the story of three generations of black Southerners—the ever-present racism that imprisons them, the dire circumstances that plague them and the ghosts that haunt them.

While there are many voices in this novel, the central ones belong to Leonie, a drug-addicted young mother, and her thirteen-year-old son, JoJo, who live on a farm with Leonie’s parents and toddler daughter, Kayla.

This is part road trip novel when Michael, the white father of JoJo and Kayla, is released from prison and Leonie takes her children and best friend to get him. “I watch the road roll out before me like a big black ribbon.”

This is part love story, both the muted romance of Leonie’s parents and the “loving across color lines” of Michael and Leonie. “He saw me. Saw past skin the color of unmilked coffee, eyes black, lips the color plums, and saw me.”

This is also a ghost story for the spirits of Leonie’s brother, who died in a suspicious hunting accident, and Richie, a young boy who was incarcerated with Leonie’s father, appear throughout the book.

Ward’s treatment of the supernatural pulls the afterlife close to this one in the same way that her lyrical writing style pulls her prose close to poetry.  

Best paired with meat, onions and garlic, bell pepper, and celery cooked in butter. A glass of wine in a mason jar and red velvet birthday cake for dessert. 

5 out of 5 bottles

Young Jane Young

Thank you to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review. 

On the surface, Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin (you may know her from The Storied Life of A.J. Fiery) is a cool breeze of a book. It opens in South Florida, “the most Jewish place on earth aside from Israel itself,” with Rachel Grossman recounting her adventures in online dating as a well-preserved sixty-four-year-old woman. 

Dig a little deeper, though, and the book contains an unexpected strand of political and social media criticism. More than a decade ago, Rachel’s daughter, Aviva, a young political intern, had an affair with her boss and got caught. Aviva is a thinly veiled Monica Lewinsky and a modern day Hester Prynne. Her boss is a Jewish John F. Kennedy, Jr. who “looks at you like you’re butter and he’s a hot knife” then like you’re “a doll he occasionally remembers to play with.” It is all compulsively readable but also smart, funny and deeply thoughtful. 

Aviva moves to a small town in Maine and reinvents herself as Jane Young, a very competent albeit understandably cynical wedding planner. “Sometimes I feel like the wedding is a Trojan horse. The dream I peddle to distract from the reality of the marriage.”

Her precocious, school-age daughter Ruby (think Matilda meets Curly Sue) narrates one section of the novel through letters written to a pen pal in Indonesia. Ruby, very much like her mother, is bullied and handles the situation with grace and bravery.

Then Aviva’s past comes back to haunt her and she crosses paths once again not with her former boss and lover but with his wife.

Zevin writes with a dry wit that is so appealing in its directness. “English was not his first language, and he seemed frightened of pronouns.” She compares political marriages to human trafficking and depicts men as casually misogynistic. She also has a sharp eye for the nuances of generation. The youth believe “everyone was very important, and very under appreciated, and very underpaid” and the aging fear that “someday soon … the switch would stick there, and [they] would never be seen again.” 

The author also plays with form in highly inventive and entertaining ways. A part of the book is told in the structure of a Choose Your Own Adventure story. 

Kirkus Reviews called Young Jane Young “the best thing to come out of the Monica Lewinsky scandal since Lewinsky’s own magnificent TED talk,” and I couldn’t agree more.

Best paired with a glass of champagne, a plate of falafel balls, a side of hummus and baklava for dessert. 

Gather the Daughters

A small island isolated from the rest of the world provides the atmospheric backdrop for this dystopian novel. Here society is ruled by a group of cold-hearted, misogynistic men. Until one year when the island’s female children begin to rebel, threatening social order and capturing our hearts.

We all know the wonder and terror and powerlessness of childhood, when terrors lurk in the dark. This book elevates that fear with wretched characters delivering harm in a stark landscape.

The author seems to be exploring dark truths about religion and gender inequality and childhood abuse in this haunting but beautiful book that reads like a melancholy dream.

Anyone who loved the despair of Flowers in the Attic or the desolate magic of The Ocean at the End of the Lane will enjoy this one.

Best paired with cake frosted with butter and honey and apple cider.

Rating: 4 out of 5 bottles