Book Review: "Almost Life" by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

I will admit that this book started slowly for me, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep reading. But I persevered a little longer and was richly rewarded by this beautiful, emotional love story.

Erica and Laure met in 1978, on the steps of the Sacré-Coeur in Paris. Laure is French, a graduate student at the Sorbonne. She’s very cerebral and lives her life the way she wants, no matter what. Erica is enjoying the summer before returning to England to start university.

Both women feel a spark the moment they met. While Laure has had relationships with women before, the awakening of this desire surprises Erica. They fall quickly, knowing they only have the summer. Yet once they part, the longing, the emotions, the hurt all continue.

“It is the condition of the heartbroken to believe no one has felt as they have, ever in the history of the world.”

The book spans more than 30 years. It sees Laure and Erica together and apart, trying to wring everything from each encounter. It traces the strength of their love despite other lovers, marriages, and changes both personal and political. In addition to being a love story, this is a reflection on the changing culture and politics toward equality.

This book was a very emotional one for me. I was surprised at just how much it took hold of my heart. I love books that take place in Paris, as I could see the city in my mind’s eye. Don’t be put off by the slow start, as the story is so worth it.

Book Review: "Waiting on a Friend" by Natalie Adler

It’s 1984 in New York City’s East Village. AIDS has started ravaging communities all over the country, but NYC has been hit particularly hard. Renata has been seeing ghosts of people who have died, some she was friends or acquaintances with, some she never knew. She isn’t quite sure how to help them, but for the most part, they don’t cause trouble.

When Mark, Renata’s best friend and roommate, dies from complications of the disease, she is devastated. She wasn’t at the hospital when he died, which was how she imagined it would be. So she’s eagerly awaiting Mark’s ghost to visit her. But for some reason, he’s not showing up.

“I thought about the ghosts I had known. Were any of them suffering? How would I know? Who can really tell what goes on in someone else’s life, or death? Some of them remained, outwardly, at least, concerned with the petty issues of their lives, and others were above everything, as if they had one foot in our world and another in a place we couldn’t imagine.”

As Renata mourns Mark and takes tentative steps toward a relationship with a nurse she met, Claude, she tries to move on. But at the same time, a company has popped up in the city promising to rid people’s apartments of ghosts or other disturbances. Renata is convinced this shady company is not doing the good deeds it purports to do, and it’s up to her and her friends to try and uncover their true motives.

“How was I supposed to mourn anyone—Mark, François, my mother, whoever was next—when it would take the rest of my life to accept that they were gone when they should have been here still? How do I mourn someone when I can’t get over that one fact, that they were supposed to be alive but they were not and there were people responsible for that?”

This is another terrific 2026 debut. It definitely packs an emotional punch, and some scenes remind me of the movie Longtime Companion, which I love. How much would we love a glimpse of loved ones we’ve lost, just one more time?

Book Review: "Invasive Species" by Ellery Adams

Whoa, this was so freaking creepy! I’m definitely not going into any water that isn’t clear, that’s for certain. I’ve been such a fan of Ellery Adams’ cozy mystery series, but nothing prepared me for how unsettled I’d feel after reading this!

Cold Harbor, NY, 1982. Natalie has just taken a job as a real estate agent, and is immediately saddled with a difficult listing. Not only does the house need a lot of work, but its backyard looks out on the creepy woods surrounding an old mansion that looks like something out of a horror movie. The owner, Mrs. Smith, has never been seen but she is definitely feared.

As curiosity around Mrs. Smith grows, the town is traumatized when some sailors disappear in a storm, and then when students in a sailing regatta meet the same fate. But two kids—including Natalie’s daughter Jill—believe they saw a bunch of eels with really sharp teeth going after the students.

And then, unexpectedly, Mrs. Smith makes her first public appearances. No one expects her to be beautiful and seductive, but all of the men in town definitely notice her. This is Mrs. Smith’s human form; she needs to devour nine teenagers in order to continue surviving for another century.

People know that something is off about Mrs. Smith, and lots of weird and inexplicable things happen to the residents of Cold Harbor. But it’s up to Jill and her Icelandic housekeeper Una to try and figure out how to destroy this creature before they all get devoured.

Adams did such a great job with this book, weaving horror and 1980s-era problems. I can’t wait to see what she does next!

Book Review: "The Midnight Show" by Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne

I stumbled on this book the other night and while I hadn’t heard of it before, several other books the authors have written are on my TBR. I was completely hooked within a few pages.

Lillian Martin was a trailblazer for women in comedy in the 1980s. Yet she never set out to follow that path—she left a sheltered, lonely childhood in rural Canada for college at Boston University. It was there she met three friends—Kent, Sam, and Stevie—who had an improv comedy group, The Townies. Although Lillian seemed an unlikely comedian, her talent gave the group a much-needed boost.

The members of the Townies get invited to New York City to audition for a new sketch comedy show called The Midnight Show, which will air live every Friday night. The show—and the cast members—will ultimately change the face of comedy and television.

At first, no one is sure what to make of the show. But Lillian quickly becomes a breakout star and her writing talent both impresses her fellow cast mates and the writing team. And while the cast revels in the notoriety the show’s success brings, Lillian is often uncomfortable with being in the public eye.

Behind the scenes, the show is a hotbed of jealousy, rivalry, drugs, sex, and emotions. As the trials of fame and an intense relationship with a costar take their toll on Lillian, one night after a show, she disappears. No one can figure out what happened. Did she kill herself, was she a victim of violence—and was a costar responsible? Even 40 years later, a journalist doing a feature story on Lillian still can’t get all the answers.

The book is presented as transcripts from interviews the journalist does, intertwined with her notes, and some news articles from the 1980s. It may be frustrating for some, but it really worked for me. I think it would make a great movie or television adaptation.

Book Review: "The Summer Boy" by Philippe Besson

This was such a beautiful little book. Philippe Besson always writes books that evoke the complicated emotions of one’s teenage years, and they’re tinged with a sense of nostalgia and longing. Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for the advance copy!

“Again I find myself thinking about the things people tell us between their words that we don’t understand, about what they show us of themselves that we don’t see, because we’re busy doing something else or simply distracted, because another person’s life doesn’t interest us that much, or because the swimmer, far out to sea, who appears to be waving to us is actually drowning.”

It’s the summer of 1985. Philippe and his parents spend a few weeks on an island off the coast of France. This is a tradition for them: they stay with close family friends who have a son Philippe’s age. He and François are close even though they only see each other once a year, plus Philippe is gay, while François is not.

The two spend languorous summer days wandering around with their friend Christophe and a new friend, Nicolas. They spend time at the beach, they talk in the serious manner that 18 year-olds do, and at night they drink and go to bars and clubs. Philippe feels a connection with Nicolas very quickly; they seem to see each other more clearly.

They meet Alice, whom François is attracted to, and her older brother Marc, who takes an interest in Philippe. The six of them know this is their last summer before the obligations of adulthood take hold. They weather a bout of jealousy, but enjoy each other’s company. Until one night something happens that changes them all.

I know what it’s like to form a connection quickly, one that still lingers in the mind long after it ends. This book is a beautiful paean to simpler times that suddenly become complicated, and shows how one fleeting moment can move and shape us. What a lovely book!

It will publish 5/26.

Book Review: "Lake Effect" by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

It’s 1977 in suburban Rochester, NY. A woman who has scandalized her neighborhood by getting divorced decides to buy her friends a copy of The Joy of Sex. What she views as a bit of a prank sets off some serious ripples.

Nina is married to Sam and they have two teenage daughters, Clara and Bridie. When Nina gets a copy of the book and hears her friends sharing details about their sex lives, she realizes how empty her own is. At that moment she decides she wants to have an affair, and when she lands on her neighbor, Finn, he’s all too willing to partake.

But the ramifications of an affair in their claustrophobic neighborhood quickly cause Nina to put the brakes on. Yet Finn, who is deeply dissatisfied in his own marriage, can’t imagine a life without Nina. To the surprise of everyone, Nina and Finn leave their families, get quickie divorces and marry each other, and head back to town.

The family members left behind each feel a different sense of betrayal. But her mother’s actions hit Clara in a different way: she was just falling in love with Finn’s son Dune, who now wants nothing to do with her.

The book spans from the 1970s to the 1990s, and traces the many ways the actions of Finn and Nina continue to cause issues for their families years later. There is a lot that occurs in this book and there’s definitely some weighty content, but it never felt forced or false.

Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney has a real knack for capturing the dynamics and dysfunctions of families. I was swept into the story of the Larkins and the Finnegans, and was amused, moved, and affected by them.

Book Review: "The Shards" by Bret Easton Ellis

“We were teenagers distracted by sex and pop music, movies and celebrity, lust and ephemera and our own neutral innocence.”

In high school and college, Bret Easton Ellis was an auto-buy author for me. Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, and American Psycho definitely cemented his talent for me. I read another one or two of his books in the late 1990s and that was it, until in 2023 his first book in 13 years, The Shards was released. I was excited but 600 pages?

Anyway, the book has been glaring at me from my shelves so I finally picked it up. We find ourselves in 1981, at the prestigious Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, CA. Bret is a senior, and he and his friends have a singular plan: get as drunk, as high, as stoned as possible.

Surprisingly, a new student, Robert Mallory, joins the senior class. His effortless charms win over many of Bret’s friends, but not Bret himself. He’s suspicious of Robert and why anyone would go to a different school in their senior year.

As Bret’s resentments grow, so does his obsession with The Trawler, a serial killer who is going after young women. Bret gets totally engrossed in the search for the killer, and then he decides to make a timeline of the murders. He makes a shocking discovery: the murders seem to correlate with Robert’s arrival in California.

This is definitely a work of fiction, despite its connections to reality. It treads some of the same territory of Ellis’ early books—the rich, affected, drug-addicted students—but it also has its gruesome moments in describing the murders. The core of the story was really compelling but the plot meandered and the book didn’t need to be this long. I’m glad I finally read it though!

Book Review: "How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder" by Nina McConigley

“To have freedom, there is always a fight. Sometimes you lose part of yourself. Sometimes you gain something altogether different from what you thought. And sometimes which side is right and which side is wrong gets all muddled together.”

You know me and books with cool titles! This is one of those books that deals with a very serious subject but tries to put a humorous spin on it. It’s an interesting approach but I think it lessened the overall power of the story.

Agatha and Georgie are sisters growing up in rural Wyoming in 1986. Their American father is often absent, working for an oil company. When their relatives—their uncle, aunt, and young cousin—arrive from India, they are very excited to see family and learn more about their Indian culture.

But shortly after their family arrives, both sisters are repeatedly molested by their uncle. He warns them that if they tell anyone, no one will believe them and he and his family will have to go back to India, which will devastate their lonely mother. So at that point Agatha and Georgie decide their uncle has to die.

Their plan to kill their uncle is juxtaposed with a look at how this changes the relationship between the sisters. The plot also meanders through anecdotes of their family’s history, India’s independence, the history of Wyoming, the oil industry, and other topics, and is intercut with magazine quizzes about love and other emotions.

When the book focuses on the actual story, it’s very powerful and emotional. But all of the detours quickly frustrated me. One or two might have been interesting, but after a while, I just wanted the book to stop being clever and coy.

Book Review: "Cheesecake" by Mark Kurlansky

Interestingly enough, this book (a rare foray into fiction by the award-winning author) is both about and not about cheesecake. It is more social commentary, about the changing nature of NYC neighborhoods, apartments and landlords, gentrification, and art.

Art Katsikas, along with his brother Niki and sister-in-law Adara, were part of a cheese making family in Greece. The three decide to move to NYC in the 1970s and open a diner (a business sure to succeed, they are told by friends). They open Katz Brothers on the Upper West Side, and it becomes a popular spot for the neighborhood.

But while Niki and Adara are happy with their humble (yet successful) diner, Art has larger ambitions. He sees the changes coming to the neighborhood as landlords raise rents to drive their tenants out, and he wants a part of this. So he convinces Niki and Adara that the diner should be changed into a fancy restaurant, Mykonos, which will serve “modern classical cuisine.”

The centerpiece of the menu is cheesecake, but an adaptation of the earliest-known recipe by Cato the Elder, a Roman born in 234 BCE. This cheesecake is very different, both sweet and savory, and its introduction at Mykonos is met with fantastic reviews. Of course, imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery, so it’s not long before everyone is trying to replicate Cato’s cheesecake—in very different ways.

While the restaurant and cheesecake are core to the story, much of the book focuses on various neighborhood residents and their encounter with Cato’s cheesecake, as well as what variation they become involved with. At the same time, it follows Art’s transformation into a ruthless landlord and how the neighborhood where Mykonos is changed through the years.

Mark Kurlansky is an excellent writer, and the book is tremendously informative about cheesecake’s history, variations, etc. I felt like the book was a little overstuffed with characters and subplots that didn’t quite come to fruition, when the story of the Katsikases would have been enough.

Book Review: "Disco Witches of Fire Island" by Blair Fell

How could I resist a book with a title like this? My thanks to Alcove Press and NetGalley for the advance copy!

In 1989, Joe and his best friend Ronnie plan to spend the summer working and playing at the gay mecca of Fire Island Pines. Ronnie is looking for a sugar daddy, while Joe realizes it’s time to move on from grieving his late boyfriend Elliot, who died of AIDS.

When Ronnie’s promised job and accommodations both fail to materialize, Joe meets Lenny and Howie, two older gay men who are housecleaners on the side. They take Joe under their wing, and although they’re tremendously kind and generous to him, they seem to have a lot of secrets and quirky habits. What are they hiding?

Howie and Lenny are part of a coven of disco witches. They use dance to conjure up protection for the younger gay men who might become overwhelmed by the availability of sex and drugs on Fire Island. Both of these have destroyed too many men already, and they’re committed to protecting Joe. But the coven has been depleted by the loss of many of its members to AIDS, so they’re not as powerful as they once were.

While Joe works as a bartender, he finds himself attracted to a bisexual ferryman, and tantalized by a muscular man that keeps disappearing. Lenny and Howie try to warn Joe away from the mysterious hunk, saying that he represents impending danger. Will the disco witches be able to keep everyone safe?

This was such a fun, poignant, nostalgic, and steamy book. I can’t pass up anything set in the 1980s, and when you throw in a little magical realism—plus disco—I’m hooked. I really enjoyed this, and it made me think back to those we’ve lost.

Book Review: "Run Away with Me" by Brian Selznick

Thanks so much to Scholastic and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book! This was a sweet and emotional read.

In the summer of 1986, Danny is 16 years old. He and his mother are spending the summer in Rome, as she has a job at a museum. Left to his own devices, he wanders the streets, visiting the sights, and waiting for something to happen to him.

And then he meets Angelo. Angelo seems to be following him through Rome—but once he steps out of the shadows, he has a powerful impact on Danny’s life. Angelo has stories about so many of the places and things they see, each of which focuses on love stories between men throughout history. Against this backdrop, the two boys’ attraction to one another quickly turns to love.

Of course, their relationship has an end date, since Danny will have to go back to the U.S. with his mother at the end of the summer. This only serves to intensify their feelings for one another and the emotions related to Danny’s impending departure.

As much as this is a love story between two young men, Brian Selznick has also written a gorgeous love letter to Rome. I’ve never been but Italy is very high on my bucket list. Selznick’s prose made me feel immersed in the sights and sounds of the city.

Having grown up in the 1980s, I love books set during that time. It’s always interesting to read a love story that takes place before the immediate connections that mobile phones and email could provide. The added bonus is the beautiful illustrations that Selznick drew. This book really packed a punch.

Book Review: "The Imagined Life" by Andrew Porter

Thanks so much to Knopf and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book! What a powerful and emotional read this was.

In 2008, I stumbled on a story collection called The Theory of Light and Matter by Andrew Porter and I was totally blown away. Porter is such a fantastic writer, and I’ve read everything that he’s written.

In 1984, Steven’s father disappeared. He was a college professor—smart, popular, handsome, and enigmatic. But that summer, his father was awaiting a decision on tenure while he was slowly sabotaging his life. Steven watched the events of that summer through the eyes of a child, and he was insulated by his mother’s need to protect him.

“I’d never held him on a pedestal, never believed him to be a great man. I knew that he was flawed, knew that he had made a lot of mistakes in his life, and besides, I had grown up amidst the collapse of his career, the spurious allegations that ensued, the rumors and hearsay.”

Steven’s life has been defined by feelings of anger, betrayal, and abandonment. In an effort to find some closure, he embarks on a trip all over California, meeting with family members, as well as friends and former colleagues of his father. While he never gets all of the answers he seeks, he gets a fuller picture of the passionate, troubled man his father was.

I really thought this was poignant and thought-provoking. Do we ever really know our parents and understand what made them tick? How different are childhood memories from what we understand as an adult? In Porter’s hands, this is a beautifully told story.

The book will publish 4/15/2025.

Book Review: "A Gorgeous Excitement" by Cynthia Weiner

Powerful and moving, Cynthia Weiner’s debut novel captures the boredom and impatience that occurs in the summer before college. Inspired by her own coming of age, it felt so authentic to its setting, NYC in 1986.

Nina is so ready to leave NYC and attend college at Vanderbilt. Her mother’s manic depression leaves her and her father constantly walking on eggshells, and she can’t wait to be away from not knowing what mood her mother will be in. She’s also Jewish in a sea of blue-eyed blondes.

Before she leaves for college, however, she’s determined to lose her virginity. Her drunken encounters with guys she knows have all been disasters, and she hates feeling like she’s the only one left who hasn’t had sex. She wants to go to college as a totally different person.

She spends the summer after high school graduation cycling in and out of temp jobs, and she and her friends spend most of their time at Flanagan’s, the bar where the preppy kids hang out. Nina starts falling for Gardner—handsome, preppy, and enigmatic—but with a self-destructive edge.

As they grow closer, and Nina discovers cocaine, things become more tumultuous. There are fights with friends, her mother seems to recover thanks to a new drug, and it all culminates with a shocking murder—inspired by the actual “Preppy Murder.”

Having been in high school in 1986, I remember this time all too well. Nina isn’t always the most likable but her story is compelling, and Weiner using her own experiences definitely added weight to the story.

Book Review: "Stealing Time" by Tilia Klebenov Jacobs and Norman Birnbach

What a fun romp this was!! Thanks so much to Get Red PR Books for the complimentary copy!

It’s 2020 and teenage Tori is pretty dissatisfied with her life. Her parents are getting divorced, her father is annoying, and the pandemic has motivated her mother to move the two of them from their NYC home to Massachusetts to live with Tori’s aunt until the world gets back to normal.

Just before she heads to Massachusetts, “land of Boston accents, inferior bagels, lousy pizza, and having to be driven everywhere,” Tori makes a shocking discovery. (Well, she overhears it.) Apparently her paternal grandfather (whom she’s named after) was accused of a colossal jewel heist 40 years ago.

As if that’s not unsettling enough, the next thing Tori knows, she’s in 1980. The world—and NYC, for that matter—is very different than what she knows. She finds herself becoming allies with a teenage version of her father, on a mission to stop the jewel theft and perhaps correct the course of their family’s lives.

Getting used to a world without cell phones and the internet is not something that Tori ever wanted to do. It’s good to feel like you can have an impact on the future. But will she able to make it back to 2020? And will she have to share her secret with the 1980s version of her dad?

I’m a sucker for a time travel book, and this was a fun adventure. There was humor, emotions, family dysfunction, and so much more.

Book Review: "A Reason to See You Again" by Jami Attenberg

Post-Thanksgiving and pre-holidays, here’s a healthy dollop of family dysfunction in book form!

Rudy was a Holocaust survivor who traveled the country speaking to groups about what life was like in the camps. His traveling secretary, Frieda, becomes his wife, and together they raise two daughters, Nancy and Shelly. Rudy is the peacemaker, the one who smooths Frieda’s rough edges, as she becomes increasingly critical of her daughters. (It intensifies more when she drinks, which is becoming a nightly activity.)

When Rudy dies, the three women are adrift without a buffer. Frieda’s drinking becomes more of a problem, Nancy leaves for college, and Shelly throws herself into her schoolwork in the hopes she can get as far away as possible. But Frieda’s abuse takes its toll on the self-esteem of both her daughters.

As the years pass, Nancy marries young and has a daughter, but isn’t really sure that this is the life she wants. Shelly moves to the West Coast and becomes a driving force in the rapidly growing field of mobile phone technology. The sisters don’t see other much, and when they do, their interactions are affected by uncertainty, envy, and resentment.

Meanwhile, Frieda has moved to Miami, and continues her self-destructive ways. She also has some guilt about how she treated her daughters when they were growing up, and she mourns the life she had before her husband died. But at some point, all three women realize that you can only blame others for your misery for so long before you need to take responsibility for your own life.

The story spans four decades, beginning in the early 1970s, and is narrated by all three women and Rudy. I felt the story had promise early but lost its way; there’s only so long you can read about people unhappy and not interested in changing things.

Book Review: "The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern" by Lynda Cohen Loigman

What a fantastic book. Lynda Cohen Loigman has done it again!!

Forced into retirement just before her 80th birthday, Augusta doesn’t know what to do with all of her free time. She moves to Rallentando Springs, a retirement community in Florida. Much to her surprise, the first person she runs into is Irving, who worked as a delivery boy at her father’s pharmacy 60 years ago. He was her first love and her first heartbreak.

Augusta grew up in Brooklyn in the 1920s. She admired her pharmacist father more than anyone, and although it was almost unheard of at that time, she wanted to follow in his footsteps. But when her great-aunt Esther moves in with their family, Augusta’s perspectives change. Esther is a healer, and Augusta sees that there are ailments that traditional medicines can’t help.

Meanwhile, she and Irving draw closer together, and she dreams of marrying him and working with him when they take over her father’s pharmacy. But one night, everything changes and her dreams of a future with Irving are shattered. It’s a blow from which Augusta has never quite recovered, even 60 years later.

Augusta seems to constantly run into Irving in her new Florida community. Yet he seems oblivious to the hurt and anger she still carries. And when another old friend from their Brooklyn days appears, the tension between him and Irving confuses Augusta and makes her wonder what she missed all those years ago.

The book is told in dual timelines, in the 1920s and the late 1980s. It’s a story of love, family, tradition, and maybe a little bit of magic, and I was hooked from the very first page. I loved this so much.

Book Review: "This Motherless Land" by Nikki May

How much are our lives defined by the choices our families make? Are we doomed to follow the same paths or can we forge our own? These are questions that came to mind for me when reading This Motherless Land.

Funke is growing up in Nigeria, the daughter of an English mother and an African father. She loves her life, even loves school, and tolerates her annoying brother, although she doesn’t love that because he is a boy he’s considered more important.

When tragedy strikes, Funke is sent to England to live with her mother’s estranged family. Everything is much different than she imagined from the stories her mother told, and her aunt is often rude and condescending to her. But the one bright spot in her life is her cousin Liv, who appoints herself Funke’s protector.

The two cousins become the closest of friends, and that friendship continues into their adulthood. But when another tragedy strikes, the ramifications of the decisions made by Funke’s mother and aunt impact her and Liv. Accusations are thrown and actions are taken which shatter their relationship, leaving them both without their closest friend.

The story takes place from the mid-1970s through the late 1990s, and shifts between Funke and Liv, as well as between Nigeria and England. It’s a story of family, both blood and chosen, and how breaking free of expectations can actually enhance your life.

I enjoyed May’s storytelling, and I also enjoyed her debut novel, Wahala. The book is referred to as a decolonial retelling of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, but my understanding is it’s a VERY loose retelling. I found certain characters very difficult and their behaviors irritated me, but I really enjoyed Funke and Liv.

Book Review: "I Was A Teenage Slasher" by Stephen Graham Jones

I’ve read two horror books in two months. Go me! TBH, I wasn’t thinking of reading this until I saw how much a Bookstagram friend raved about it. (I am powerless in the face of FOMO.)

“If I could unkill six people, not make the whole town of Lamesa, Texas gnash their teeth and tear their clothes and have to go to funeral after funeral that searing-hot July?”

It’s the summer of 1989 in a small Texas town. Tolly and Amber are best friends, getting ready for senior year of high school. Neither quite fits in, but they have each other to hang with.

On what seems like a normal night in Lamesa, Tolly and Amber go to a party where most of their classmates and former classmates will be. While Amber tries to fit in, Tolly makes a fool of himself, leading some of his classmates to teach him a near-fatal lesson. But it’s the events that follow which rock the town, and set Tolly on a revenge-killing path.

I love morally grey characters, where you can’t help but root for someone who does horrible things. The book is narrated by Tolly, as sort of a memoir or autobiography that he earmarks for Amber to explain it all. You can feel his regret as well as his unrequited feelings for her.

There’s definitely lots of gore and violence in this book, but lots of heart and humor as well. Jones has totally captured the spirit of 1989, and he is an amazing storyteller.

Book Review: "Some Strange Music Draws Me In" by Griffin Hansbury

“For some of us, there comes a moment when we realize that the object of our desire lies outside our known world, beyond our towns and families. Out there, we understand, there is another way to want, to have, to be. Sometimes, even when we do not venture out to find it, when we try to want only what we are given, the object comes to us. And the world, without our consent, breaks open and expands.”

It’s the summer of 1984 in the small town of Swaffham, Massachusetts. Thirteen-year-old Mel (short for Melanie) will start high school in the fall, so she plans to spend the summer with her best friend Jules, riding their bikes around town, avoiding their parents, and getting into mischief.

One day she sees Sylvia, a strong woman with bravado, who reminds her of Joan Jett. She is utterly transfixed by Sylvia, strange feelings for Mel. Then she learns that Sylvia is a trans woman—a choice not particularly popular in Swaffham. But Mel is drawn to Sylvia, who takes her under her wing, which causes trouble with her mother and Jules, among others.

In 2019, Mel is now Max, a trans man whose teaching career is in jeopardy because he still thinks of things with more traditional labels. He returns to Swaffham to deal with his depression and clean out his late mother’s house, but being home triggers many memories and traumas.

This is a powerful and moving book that definitely may trigger some people. It shifts back and forth between the 1980s and 2019, and looks at the personal dynamics of a teenager struggling with their sexual and gender identity and dealing with how different they are from their friends. It also looks at how, in the present, there are some who struggle with a person who is confident in their own gender if it doesn’t fit their own views of the world, family or no, and it provides perspective on how societal thinking shifts and changes.

Book Review: "The Only One Left" by Riley Sager

At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope
Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother's happy life
"It wasn't me," Lenora said
But she's the only one not dead

In 1929, the state of Maine was shocked by the brutal murder of three-fourths of the wealthy Hope family: the powerful patriarch, his wife, and their older daughter, Virginia. The police suspected the sole survivor, 17-year-old Lenora, who was found covered in blood, but they were never able to prove it.

While the crimes fascinated the public, Lenora never left her family’s mansion again. As she grew older, she suffered a series of strokes which left her almost completely paralyzed and unable to speak. She can only move one hand, with which she can tap out yes or no answers to questions, as well as type.

In 1983, Kit is a home-health worker who is hired to care for Leona. She is troubled by what she thinks are footsteps in Leona’s room late at night, even though that can’t be possible. Then one day Leona asks to use the typewriter and offers to tell Kit everything.

As Leona slowly types out the events leading up to the murders, Kit realizes there’s much more to the story than she ever thought. But as other shocking discoveries are made, Kit can’t be sure whether Leona is telling the truth and she is innocent, or whether Kit is being manipulated by a master.

Riley Sager’s books are hit or miss for me. I probably wouldn’t have read this if it wasn’t the selection for our book club. It was an entertaining read, although I thought the pacing was slow until the end, when Sager dropped a million twists nearly simultaneously.