KJ

Whether you love Valentine’s Day or loathe it, I have a read for you. To me, the child of an elementary school teacher (later middle school and then administration), Valentine’s Day is mostly a holiday for sticking adorable paper hearts in varied colors of red and pink to things and also, candy. I like candy. Also chocolate, absolutely, big fan. I have zero strong feelings about who gives me said chocolate and will happily buy it for myself, but I […]

Go ye into the world and grab this booky writery thriller. If you loved The Plot, this is a great place to go next (and vice versa)–everyone in this book is fascinating and disturbing and behaving badly, much to the delight of the reader. To sum up: Maud Dixon is the pseudonym for anonymous author of a Crawdads-like success, blocked for her next book. She hires an assistant, a wanna-be writer herself, who then wakes up in the hospital after […]

If you’re a fan of magical realism, small towns, families struggling to accept one another and happy endings, Karen Hawkins’ Dove Pond series is for you. I was lucky enough to get an advance of this one, so I was able to sink in for another visit to this little town where there’s a touch of magic, sure–but the real magic lies in the ability to foster forgiveness and help newcomers to open up to the prospect of love and […]

Really, really enjoyed this kinda uncategorizable novel. The trailing spouse (and family) is a fascinating fixture of diplomacy, and I was absolutely in for the story of the Auntie Mame-like genius that is the experienced wife taking the newbie under her wing. And when things started to get thriller-esque, I was very happy to be along for the ride. There are so many stories in here, and I mean that in the best way–a critique of diplomacy and the Peace […]

Ok, confession: haven’t read Daisy Jones yet. (#TBR). But I loved, loved, loved Malibu Rising, a complicated, mulit-POV family saga that takes place in one day in ’80s Hollywood but moves around in time to show how everyone got there. So much happens, and yet in a sense the whole thing could easily be summed up in two words, one of which is a spoiler–but that’s the best kind of book. Sprawling narrative, tight core. A go-to beach read.  

Yes yes yes. The first half of this is stream of consciousness combined with social media interaction of the loopiest kind, the sort of thing you follow people for, random musings, clever asides, deeper-than-they-seem one-liners. And then, life forces itself in, as it will, and the rest is sort of fictionalized memoir of a terrible tunnel of tragedy that the author and her people couldn’t side-step with the clever half-present tricks of online life. The contrast is a jolt, and […]

Oh writers and editors. You know us so well. It’s true: put book, read or bookstore in the title and if nothing else, I’ll pick it up to read the cover copy. Sound fun? Have good blurbs (even though I know how the sausage is made I still like a good blurb). I’m in. I was in for this story of a blocked romance writer using the sparks that still fly between her and her ex to spur her to […]

Lauren Weisberger’s take on the college admissions scandal? Yes please. Three POVs–the kid whose too-helpful parents pulled the scam, the wildly successful morning show anchor mother and the mother’s very judgemental not-so-successful sister are part of what makes this fun–we see the antics from all sides. There’s a touch of white savior that’s mildly problematic, so be warned (it’s not super germane to the plot but it’s there) but the book is overall extremely fun and the ending satisfying. Another […]

“Smart at books and work, not at life?” Any protagonist who meets that description is a protagonist for me–even if they books and work aren’t at the level of the MC from Transcendent Kingdom, I love a book about someone who thinks they have it all together–because they can feel and clothe and support themselves–but has to learn that that isn’t really living. The Butterfly Effect is also a sibling story (brother/sister–that’s kind of unusual) and a midwestern story, a […]

Full disclosure: I’m very, very leery of books that an English teacher might force me to read in some imaginary English class that I haven’t been in in decades. As a general rule, you say “literary” and I say “leaving now.” I’m afraid, and I’ve been burned, by protagonists who won’t learn, entire books peopled with characters I wouldn’t even get a sip of beer with and writers who seem to have entered a competition to see who can create […]

A love story in the past, a main character who’s never really had a love story in the present and a curse–the “second born sisters” in this family never, ever find happiness. The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany made me happy, it made my mom happy, it crossed all its i’s and dotted its t’s and nailed the landing. Basically, this book satisfies–everything it promises in the description it delivers. A January @BOTM pick, which means you can grab it next […]

Could. Not. Stop. Reading. All the Birds in the Sky gets wild–witchcraft and tech, parents who want their children to be something they’re not, environmental disaster looming and an overarching question–is Earth our planet–as in humans–or is it our planet in a larger sense. But don’t worry, there’s a mad, fast, oh-gosh-what-happens next story in here too, and two fascinating protagonists who tell an alternating story that’s unpredictable and gripping. If anything I’ve said here sounds fun, trust me–you’ll like […]

Sometimes you want a fun romp with a happy ending, and when you do, none of these authors will fail you–and they also won’t fail to keep you guessing and appreciating the smart characters and the powerful things that drive them both together and apart. Romance or no, I want more from a book than just “how will they get together” and these three books deliver with smart, fun stories about characters doing much more than just finding their way […]

Two super-fun, juicy, all-the-people-behaving-badly multi-narrator treats that will absolutely keep you turning pages. They’re not a total read-alike match, but they’ve both got a chatty, filling-you-in-on-all-the-gossip vibe that I loved and I think you will too.  

Outlawed is the Reese’s Book Club January pick–a driving, fast-paced story with a fascinating woman at its heart that’s–as Reese Witherspoon said–not really like any book I’ve read before. But there are echoes of The Giver of Stars, with some women protecting and empowering each other and others giving in to societal pressure to conform and betray, and some of the intensity and desperation of Scribe in its alternate history and in the way the circumstances and the rules of […]

The Big Door Prize has one of the grabbiest premises I’ve ever seen–a machine that promises to read your DNA and tell you “what you’re meant to be” appears in a quik-mart in a small town and upends everything and everyone–but underneath that flashy promise is a story with deep heart and lovable, fallible heroes trying to find their own places in a world that’s not been kind or easy. Multiple narrators tell an intricate story that still lands close […]

Stay With Me is the unexpected story of a marriage invaded–by family, by expectations, by culture–and a second wife, intended to provide the offspring wife number one has failed to produce. But no one has the full story (do they ever?), and even the people who claim to be playing by the rules aren’t. This book surprised me in many ways–the plot kept me guessing, and the characters were uniquely themselves. Like Outlawed, it’s a consideration of what it means […]

What do these three books have in common? A setting that really makes the story (I literally found myself missing WHERE I was going as I read the Shergill sisters as much as I missed the Shergills themselves). Complex characters that you have to be a little patient with as they grow on you, and people with some enviable opportunities making bad choices. The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters has all the disastrous family travel of The Jetsetters in […]

I’m going to diverge from the norm and NOT compare this to Maybe You Should Talk to Someone–although it’s a fair comparison. But The Group, while it absolutely is about therapy, has a raw, tell-it-all, scraped to the bone quality that I didn’t find in Gottlieb’s book (and that it didn’t need, that’s not a critique). If your kind of memoir is one that pulls zero punches and never lets up, this is for you. One note–I’d hesitate before I […]

A round robin of a piece of historical fiction, from a moment before it was generally assumed that any literary person in pursuit of a proper English vacation would make a pilgrimage to the home of Jane Austen. This had a lot to love–village life, romance, Hollywood, people learning to take chances and stand up for themselves and to trust one another. I’d say you could safely give this to absolutely any book lover on your list.  

A true feel-good, multi-generation rom-com with serious emotional heft. An exhausted MBA consultant-type in London is sent on a forced sabbatical and trades places (literally, not Freaky Friday) with her grandmother, recently divorced from her no-good cheater husband and mainstay of an entire village. Our MBA will take over her grandma’s volunteer and village work while her grandmother tries out online dating from the MBA’s apartment in the city (with her roommates). There’s a lot going on and so many […]

Modern Jane Austen adaptation? Yes please. Set in the world of restaurants with a dash of reality TV competition? Tell me more. In Edinborough? With a much more self-aware and confident heroine than Persuasion’s Anne who shows everyone exactly what she’s made of? I am so there for that. Dont let the unfortunate coloring on the cover of this one (It says “All Stirred Up”) make you pass it by, it’s an absolute delight in a season when we need […]

His Only Wife has a literary feel, while The Ties that Tether is straight up glorious rom-com, but both explore the weight of (different) African culture on a new generation of women who want to honor and embrace their heritage–and please their mothers–while also finding their own way. Maybe it’s too obvious a comparison, but if you’ve begun to explore the African immigrant experience through novels (see also the amazing Transcendent Kingdom), The Ties that Tether offers a light-hearted, escapist […]

When I put this book down I felt… happy. I don’t know about you, but 2020 has been a rough year for happy around here. For a minute there I didn’t even recognize it. It was glorious, and all I want is to repeat it as often as possible. I should maybe have popped some Kristan Higgins into that comparison, or Jenny Colgan or (for those of you who are suckers for a good yarn shop romance as well as […]

If you’re in for a story of a young single mother trying to find housing, figure out the system and build a future for herself and her child–a la Maid–then Lauren Sandler’s This Is All I’ve Got is a #mustread. It’s not a memoir, and Sandler is acutely aware of the problem with her (a successful white journalist) telling this story–but it’s not a story that the person who is living it is going to be able to tell in […]

Bunny… is a WEIRD BOOK. Very Halloween-y. Think Heathers only with characters who can–I don’t want to ruin anything–use very strange powers to do very strange things in search of the perfect companions. It’s very much in the these–young-women-might-be-okay-if-only-they’d-never-met vein, with a lot of rather clinical gruesome stuff that doesn’t really touch anyone for most of the book, with an out-of-place narrator in a fancy-school setting that might be why I stuck with it. If you read it tell me […]

I have to put this out there for your October reading pleasure. Imagine a stronger Austen heroine, like Emma, trotting off to a supposed gothic manor a la Catherine in Northanger Abbey but determined to believe none of it–and then caught up, like the women in The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, in a gruesome-but-real horror story she can’t evade. It’s MILD horror though. No nightmares. Promise.

The truth about why I ALMOST put both Writers and Lovers and Queenie down? I have a hard time with protagonists who don’t have their external shit together. If you’re stabbing yourself in the foot by cutting off all your friends, ruining your love life, struggling with your family–I’m there. If you’re sabotaging yourself by screwing up your education or career, I have less patience with you (“You” being the protagonist in the story). Transcendent Kingdom has many of the […]

A fun October romp in the “millionaire makes a game with prizes everyone wants” vein, with wildly atmospheric scenes and a “found family” that will make you want to have a beer with each and every character. Even the villain. A very careful beer. Tuesday is a protagonist with issues, but also one who does have control of some elements of her life–think Transcendent Kingdom rather than Writers and Lovers–and that makes her fun to follow as she tries to […]

This is my current total escape. There is absolutely nothing about this book that will remind you of anything real. It makes zero statements about anything. It has no overarching theme (well, ok: hubris is not good). Here is no work deciphering beautiful language or high-faluntin’ POVs. You just kind of open it, dive in and come up later, refreshed and ready to tackle 2020 again. (Ok, that’s a lot to ask of a book. But it helps.)

Caste is the read of the moment, and with good reason. I learned so much history that I wish had been a fundamental part of my education, especially growing up in Texas and Kansas, where there was a focus on American expansion. That said, it’s anything but dry. There are so many personal stories contained within it. It really is a #mustread—and I’d put Wandering in Strange Lands in that category as well. As a much more personal history, it’s an […]