what i’m reading

Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (4.2.23)

The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton (★★★★★)

Audiobook • Libby • Historical Fiction • 2020

Short synopsis: It’s 1935 in Key West, and a hurricane is barrelling down on the city. Three women will be caught up in its wrath: Helen, who is 8 months pregnant and in an abusive marriage; Mirta, who just got married to a man she barely knows and is on her honeymoon; and Elizabeth, whose family was decimated due to the Wall Street crash and is in search of her brother.

I loved this story. It captured my attention from the very beginning and I was always excited to return to my audiobook to listen to more of these three women’s stories. I’m also glad I did not listen to this book during hurricane season because I think it could have been a bit triggering, ha. Learning more about the 1935 Labor Day hurricane (which was one of just a handful of Category 5 hurricanes to hit the contiguous United States) and how much it destroyed Key West and the surrounding communities was really fascinating, as I’ve never heard of this hurricane before! What was most disturbing to learn about, though, were veteran work camps, which were established for the veterans returning home from war and in need of jobs. These work camps allowed veterans to work as laborers; in Key West, they were working on a bridge that would connect Key West to the mainland. But the conditions at these camps were awful and because of the storm, hundreds of veterans died. It’s another hard part of our history that I knew nothing about. In the end, this story was a five-star read for me because I loved the characters, was engaged from the very beginning, and enjoyed the history lesson I received between the pages.

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb (★★★★☆)

Print • Library • Contemporary Fiction • 2022

Short synopsis: Ray McMillan is a Black classical musician who inherited a priceless Stradivarius violin and is an up-and-coming star in the classical music scene. But then his violin gets stolen and held for ransom right before he’s to compete in the international Tchaikovsky Competition. Who has his violin and how will he get it back?

The first thing to know about this novel that it is not a mystery or thriller. Sure, there is the underlying mystery of what happened to Ray’s priceless violin, but this story is so much bigger than that. It’s about Ray, about being Black and the racism Ray experiences in the classical music scene, about being constantly overlooked and put down because of the color of his skin and being poor, about family and greed, about how far someone will go for money. Parts of this book were so hard to read because I just hated everything Ray had to go through. His family was terrible and the racism was hard to witness. But it was so well-written and a beautiful ode to classical music. Ray was such a fully developed character that every bad thing that happened to him made me angry and every good thing made me so happy. The sign of a great book, for sure. This is the kind of book I would love to see made into a movie or short TV series!

A Caribbean Heiress in Paris by Adriana Herrera (★★★★☆)

E-Book • Libby • Historical Romance • 2022

Short synopsis: Luz Alana is a Dominican woman who became owner of her family’s rum business when her father unexpectedly died. Along with her younger sister and two female friends, Luz Alana embarks to Paris to take part in the 1889 Exposition Universelle, a world’s fair where she will be able to showcase her wares and hopefully build a network of merchants who will sell her rum. Unfortunately, everyone she encounters is rude and dismissive. Until she meets Evan Sinclair, the Earl of Darnick. Evan can’t get enough of Luz Alana when he first meets her; she goes toe-to-toe with him as they spar and it lights a fire in him. When he learns about the difficulties she’s experiencing selling her rum, he vows to help her.

Okay, I think we need to get this out of the way: This book is more historical adjacent than straight-up historical. This is Herrera’s first attempt at a historical romance novel and while I can appreciate what she did here, she didn’t quite meet the mark when it comes to historical fiction. What I did love was having a whole cast of people of color in a historical romance, which is not something you see ever. There were also a lot of mentions of slavery and colonialism… also topics you rarely see in these books. The chemistry between Luz Alana and Evan was believable, and so was the way they fell in love. There were parts of the story where the author tried to amp up the tension with some miscommunication issues, and I just had to roll my eyes. We can do better than this, romance authors! There are so many more interesting ways to create emotional tension than miscommunication subplots. Anyway, this was more of a 3.5-star book, but I’m boosting it up to 4 stars because it did keep me pretty well engaged and I loved seeing such great representation in a subgenre that doesn’t often have that.

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Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (3.20.23)

Georgie All Along by Kate Clayborn (★★★★☆)

Print • Owned (Book of the Month) • Contemporary Romance • 2023

Short synopsis: After many years away, Georgie is back in her hometown without a job and without any idea of what her life should look like going forward. It’s here she uncovers a forgotten diary she wrote as a teenager, filled with dreams and things she wanted to do in high school. For her, this diary feels like a beacon, a place where she can start figuring out what’s next in her life. The only person standing in her way might be Levi, the brother of her high school crush and someone who used to be trouble but has since carved out a respectable life for himself in Georgie’s hometown. When he offers to help with her quest, she may find that what she’s looking for is right by her side.

I loved this romance! I have such tenderness toward Georgie and Levi, the two main characters of this novel, and I just need both of them to be okay at all times. I loved the slow build of the romance, the exploration of a healthy best friendship, and all of Georgie’s career/life floundering. I think a lot of people can relate to this idea of not having a defined life path. It’s hard when there’s not a specific career or type of life that you feel passionate about. I can relate! I really liked that the author gave Georgie the space to decide what comes next for her. Levi’s storyline was a bit darker and my heart went out to him. I understand family estrangement, and it really sucks. I just wanted him to let down his walls and let Georgie love him! Their love story was so sweet and satisfying. It gave me all of the heart eyes! This is a super solid romance that I can happily recommend to anyone!

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson (★★★☆☆)

Print • Library • Mystery • 2022

Short synopsis: Ernie (or Ern, for short) is penning a mystery novel about the short time his family spent at a ski resort. As the title states, everyone in his family has killed someone. His father, his brother, his mother, his stepsister, his wife, his uncle, his stepfather, etc. And when dead bodies start appearing at the ski resort, nobody can quite figure out who the real murderer is this time.

You guys, I just don’t know if I was smart enough to “get” this book. It has a super unique structure and voice, and I loved the way Ern broke the fourth wall with us multiple times. He kept reminding us about the rules for mystery novels and how we shouldn’t get distracted by certain plot elements. There came a time, though, when there were just too many characters and I couldn’t keep everyone straight (highly recommend making a character bible when you’re reading this!) and things started to get really complicated and convoluted near the end. It appears that this book will be adapted for HBO, and I think it will do really well in that format. I hope it does end up becoming a short series because I need to see this all play out on my TV for sure. Even though the book made me feel slightly dumb (ha), I still think it’s a super fun mystery that I want other people to read so we can discuss!

Finding Me by Viola Davis (★★★★☆)

Audiobook • Libby • Nonfiction (Memoir) • 2022

Short synopsis: Award-winning actress Viola Davis takes us into her life, starting from the time she was a young girl living in poverty to where she is today. She tackles domestic violence, sexual assault, colorism in Hollywood, and so much more.

This was an incredible memoir, and I think it must be listened to on audio because Viola Davis’ narration is out of this world. (She won a Grammy for it, after all!) Davis has lived a harrowing life and somehow managed to come out of it with grace, humility, and confidence in who she is. Her stories of her younger years were so, so hard to read about because she had a hard life as one of six kids growing up in poverty. Her early years of acting were filled with rejection, small parts, and continually being passed over for her white (or lighter-skinned) counterparts. Her indictment of colorism in Hollywood and the stories that are only told for white audiences are not new to read about, but it does feel different coming from a darker-skinned Black actress. I really, really enjoyed this memoir and it made me love her even more than I already do.

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Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (3.13.23)

The Lost Ticket by Freya Sampson (★★★★☆)

Audiobook • Libby • Contemporary Fiction • 2022

Short synopsis: Libby arrives in London with her life in disarray. She’s brokenhearted and job-less. It’s a chance encounter on the bus that sparks new life in her. She meets an elderly man named Frank who has been riding this bus route for 60 years to try to find the woman he met on this very bus in 1962 and who changed the course of his life. Libby decides: She’s going to help Frank find this woman, with the help of an unlikely partner and some willing strangers.

This book was so heartwarming! It’s not going to change your life, but if you’re looking for a nice palette cleanser between heavier books, I highly recommend this one. There was a plot device used in this book that I normally really, really hate, and I was very tempted to abandon the book after the reveal, but I kept pushing through and, I have to say, the author made it work. It added a new layer of complexity to the novel, but in a way that made sense and helped to propel Libby’s character into a new direction, which was much needed. A sweet story all-around!

The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark (★★★★☆)

Print • Library • Thriller • 2022

Short synopsis: Meg Williams is a con artist who has made it her mission to make people pay. She finds her mark, assumes an alias, involves herself in the mark’s life, and then she’s gone before the mark finds out they’ve lost everything. Kat Roberts is a reporter who has made it her life’s mission to expose Meg, and she’s getting closer and closer to doing so.

What a fantastic thriller! I really loved that it didn’t rely on typical thriller theatrics with lots of twists and turns, unreliable narrators, and a crazy ending. Instead, it was more about the two women at the heart of the thriller. Watching these two women come together and try to out-con one another was really fun, and I think the ending was just perfection. Was it believable? Eh, not really. But I had so much fun reading this book and getting into the psyche of a con artist that I didn’t really care that much. This book was just so satisfying!

Lucky Star by Susannah Nix (★★★☆☆)

E-Book • Owned (Amazon) • Contemporary Romance • 2022

Short synopsis: Boone Sheridan is a TV star who is currently involved in a public relations firestorm. What he needs is a nice, normal girlfriend to “fake date” for a bit of time. Enter Eve, the barista at his local coffee shop. She’s down on her luck and needs a break, and surprisingly, she’s up for the challenge. But what happens when fake dating starts to feel real?

I have complicated feelings about this book. Let’s start with the good: It was a fun contemporary romance that was hard to put down! I loved these characters and wanted the best for them. It was also fun getting a glimpse into celebrity life. The chemistry between these characters was crackling and the sex scenes were… *chef’s kiss*.

Now for the bad. The ending was completely unrealistic and disappointing. It felt like such a cop-out from the author, as if she had written herself into a corner and couldn’t figure her way out, so she just gave up. Secondly, it was so, so obvious that Boone needed to be in therapy and that he should not have entered into a relationship with Eve so soon after getting out of a toxic relationship. The way he relied on Eve was unhealthy, and I’m very angry at this author for not addressing that at all. There is no way this ends well for Eve and Boone. I also found the way Eve and Boone dealt with a negative situation early in the relationship to be incredibly immature and silly. It didn’t shine a good light on these two characters.

While I did enjoy this romance novel, there are many issues with it and, as such, I don’t think it’s one I can wholly recommend.

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Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (3.6.23)

The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After by Clemantine Wamariya (★★★☆☆)

Audiobook • Libby • Nonfiction (Memoir) • 2018

Short synopsis: Clemantine was 6 years old in 1994 when the Rwandan Genocide caused her and her older sister to flee their home and spend the next 6 years wandering throughout Africa, living in and fleeing from different refugee camps along the way. When she was 12, she and her sister were granted asylum in the United States, and there, Clemantine was safe but had to learn a whole new way of life: a new language, new customs, new cities, new families. The Girl Who Smiled Beads discusses the true cost of war and its aftershocks.

I have very complicated feelings about this book. I always have a hard time rating memoirs because these are people’s real lives and they are inviting us into their deepest thoughts and feelings. For me, this book felt a bit chaotic and Clemantine was a very hard person to connect with. The book jumped back and forth in time, starting with Clemantine’s appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006 and then immediately pulling us back into the earliest memories of the author’s life. I was never excited to listen to this audiobook, forcing myself to push through it because it’s such a beloved memoir and I thought I was missing something. In the end, it just didn’t work for me. I thought Clemantine was so, so angry throughout the whole book. And she is entitled to this anger! She has lived through a genocide. But what purpose is it serving her life to continue to be so angry? While I didn’t expect a neat and tidy ending, I still wanted a little introspection from the author on her anger (or hell, at least some mentions of going to therapy), but we never got that. We just got a rather unstructured, chaotic book about her journey to where she is today and why nobody else in the world can understand her (not even her sister or her mother). I also wish there had been more discussion of the Rwandan Genocide. While the author did a great job of expressing how this crisis affected her country (refugee camps, little to no food, constant terror), I think it would have been helpful to bring us into how the genocide happened and how Rwandans responded. But I guess I can just read Wikipedia for that info.

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng (★★★☆☆)

Print • Library • Fiction • 2022

Short synopsis: For nearly all of Bird Gardner’s life, society has been ruled by PACT, the Preserving American Culture & Traditions Act. Anything anti-American, like books written by or about Asian-Americans, is destroyed. He lives in a one-bedroom apartment with his father and disavows his mother, who left them when Bird was nine. But a mysterious note will take Bird on a journey to find his mother again.

I really, really enjoyed the first 1/3 of this novel, which follows Bird’s perspective. I found this world Ng created to be both interesting and slightly terrifying because this near-future dystopian novel felt too much like our world right now. Empty school bookshelves, getting rid of any books that discuss a certain race, highly monitoring what people are doing and saying. When the story jumps to Bird’s mom’s perspective, the book started to fall apart for me. It felt like Ng was spending too much time trying to be literary and the book suffered because of it. For one, she decided to not use quotation marks when characters were speaking. (WHY?!) She wrote in sentence fragments and poetic prose that just didn’t work for me, and made me roll my eyes more than a few times. The ending was… fine. I was hoping it would tie things together in a more interesting way, but the book really just ended and that was that. All in all, my least favorite book by her. I appreciate what she tried to do with this novel, but I think her strength lies in character studies, not societal analyses.

After Hours on Milagro Street by Angelina M. Lopez (★★☆☆☆)

E-Book • Libby • Contemporary Romance • 2022

Short synopsis: Alex is back home after 12 years away and this time, she’s on a mission to save her grandma’s bar that has been bleeding money for months. Standing in her way? Jeremiah, the local professor who is interested in buying the bar to turn it into a historical museum. But when a property developer might steal the bar out from under them, Alex and Jeremiah must join forces to stop them.

There was so much I disliked about this book. I should have abandoned it, but I didn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever hated a FMC as much as I hated Alex. She was rude and mean and incredibly judgmental. She didn’t give a single person in her life the benefit of the doubt, but expected those around her to do so for her. I couldn’t understand what Jeremiah saw in her. What drew him to her, other than her looks? She was so damn rude to him again and again and again! It made it so hard for me to believe in and root for their relationship. The secondary plot about Alex’s grandma’s bar and making sure it didn’t fall into nefarious hands was really, really boring. I just didn’t care about it at all! There were even some cool elements like secret passageways and bootleggers and 1920s-era whiskey and I. Just. Didn’t. Care. This book was overly long, Alex’s emotional arc didn’t endear me to her at all, and I just cannot in good conscience recommend this book.

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Categories: Books

What I’m Reading (2.22.23)

Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade (★★☆☆☆)

I continue to be annoyed at 400+ page romance novels. A romance novel does not need to be that long! There is no reason for it. And there was no reason for this romance novel to be as long as it was. This slow-burn romance is about two actors, Maria and Peter, who have a one-night stand the day before they are both cast on the same television series together. Oops! The story takes place during the six years they filmed on location on a desolate island in Ireland, where they learn more about each other but promise to not make things awkward by dating or hooking up. It’s only afterward, when they have to do press about their final season, that they finally give in to their burning chemistry. What I liked about this novel is that it featured fat protagonists (both the female and male!) and it was fun to get some insights into what it’s like to act and produce on a television show. What I didn’t like about this novel is that it was so damn long! And the pacing just didn’t work for me – there was a point about 300ish pages in that seemed like a natural stopping point for the book and I was astonished to realize I had 100 pages left! What the hell? I think a tighter edit could have made this book so much better.

The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers (★★★☆☆)

This historical novel is our February pick for book club, and I am really looking forward to discussing it with everyone because I had a weird experience reading it. This book is about Maddie, a 15-year-old girl who is spending the summer with her aunt and helping out with her aunt’s sewing business. Her aunt is the seamstress for the Tobacco Wives, a group of society women who are married to the men who run Bright Leaf Tobacco. It is 1946 so everyone smokes and doctors tell their patients that tobacco is good for them (even pregnant women). Through a series of events, Maddie becomes the main seamstress for the wives and is working on all the dresses these women will be wearing for a big party at the end of the summer. In the midst of all that, Maddie uncovers evidence about the real health risks of tobacco and how some Bright Leaf executives are trying to cover up the story. There’s a lot going on in this novel, and while some of it was really interesting to me (mainly about tobacco farming, the wives of these powerful executives, and how smoking was such a normal part of everyday life at this time), I just don’t feel as if the book was well-executed. There was so many other things happening in the periphery that it felt like the real story of the novel didn’t have enough time to shine. Would I recommend it? I think it could be interesting for people who enjoy historical fiction and want to learn more about the world of Big Tobacco. But it’s not a book I’m giving my stamp of approval. YMMV, though.

Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhon (★★★★★)

This story was so amazing! It’s a fictional retelling of a real woman’s life, and I am just so in awe of this woman and everything she did for the Resistance during WWII. I know we’re all a little tired of reading books about WWII (I know I am, at least), but this novel definitely brought me into a part of the war that I haven’t read much about, which is resistance fighters and spies who were fighting against the Nazis. Helene is the code name for Nancy Wake, a woman who becomes one of the leaders of the French Resistance and who ends up commanding hundreds of men during her time. She is an incredible woman and this story was such a beautiful one. It drifts between two timelines: 1944 where Nancy is leading the French resistance and 1936 where Nancy is an intrepid freelance reporter and falling in love with Henri Fiocca. Both storylines were strong and impactful, which is not something I can often say in these historical novels and go back and forth in time. But it was so interesting to see how Nancy came to who she is today. This is a novel I wholeheartedly recommend, especially if you love a good WWII novel.

What are you reading?