The idea of the book was intriguing, and I do enjoy a post-apocalyptic/end-of-society book without much gratuitous violence. (Station Eleven, anyone?) However, while I was drawn in by the premise of this book, I didn’t think the book went far enough with its story. Due to human negligence and severe weather changes, human society moves underground in order to attempt to survive. Jesse, his sister, and their mother abandon their father to move underground before … Read More “The Doomsday Book of Fairy Tales by Emily Brewes” »
I’ve gone back and forth a bit on whether or not this is a 3.5 or a 4 star book, mostly because I thought that the big gotcha moment was predictable from very early on in the book (although I didn’t think the author would go quite as far with it as she did.) I ended up at 4 stars because I did enjoy reading it overall, and I have respect for an author who … Read More “The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz” »
Stephen Aston is in the process of divorcing his first wife – after decades of marriage – in order to marry a much younger one. Not an uncommon plot, necessarily, but here, his current wife is living in a nursing home for people with dementia. Stephen’s two adult daughters—with their own deeply-repressed issues—not only can’t figure out why he is rushing to the altar with someone their age, but also don’t understand why their mother … Read More “The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth” »
Columnist Bells Walker finds herself pregnant (again!) and packs up herself and her two teenage children to follow her husband from New York City to (in her mind) the middle of nowhere, which is the only place he’s able to get a job. She takes an instant dislike to their new house, the town, and the people living there and starts a blog at her old newspaper in NYC, where she anonymously insults everything and … Read More “The Truth and Other Hidden Things by Lea Geller” »
I didn’t know what to expect when I picked this one up and probably didn’t start out in the best headspace for this genre, but a few chapters in, something clicked, and I found myself really, really enjoying these characters and the story. Set in London, this book is about the development of an unlikely (platonic) relationship between Mukesh, a recent widower still at the beginning of mourning his wife, and Aleisha, a teenager working … Read More “The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams” »