Book Review: "My Darlings" by Marie Still

This book was utterly unhinged and crazy, yet I couldn’t get enough of it! I think it’ll be running through my brain for a long while.

Eloise seems to have it all—a wealthy husband, a breathtakingly beautiful mansion just outside Washington DC, a talented daughter, and a circle of close friends. She’s even the president of the PTO at her daughter’s prestigious private school.

She’s also a serial killer. And her need to kill seems to be increasing.

As she searches for her next victim, drama within her circle of friends creates chaos. Eloise is always the problem-solver, the one who offers solutions. But the chaos offers her opportunities.

There’s someone out there with their eye on Eloise. They know what she’s doing and they know what she’s capable of. Can they stop Eloise before she destroys everyone in her path?

You’ll want to check the trigger warnings on this book. It’s so twisty and crazy and goes gloriously off the rails. There are multiple narrators and the story shifts between past and present. I know one thing: Marie Still is definitely an author I’ll be following from now on!!

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: "Who Loves You Best" by Marilyn Simon Rothstein

This book was so sweet and enjoyable on so many levels. It also made me miss my grandmothers, and the characteristics that made them so special.

Jodi is a podiatrist in Boca Raton, Florida. She’s thrilled that her daughter Lisa has asked her to come up to the Berkshires to babysit her granddaughter Macallan. (Yes, like the Scotch.) Jodi doesn’t spend nearly as much time with Macallan than Di, Lisa’s mother-in-law, does, so she jumps at the chance for one-on-on time.

Yet when Jodi arrives, she’s shocked to find that she’s going to have to share Macallan after all. Not only is Di going to be staying at Lisa’s as well, but she also has to contend with “Grannie Annie,” the girlfriend of Lisa’s father-in-law. (She’s only 27.)

After some tense moments, the women start to get along and care for Macallan together. At the same time, Jodi has to deal with Jake, her husband, who has been unceremoniously let go from his job, so he’s falling apart a bit.

When Lisa shares that her marriage is in trouble, Jodi has to decide how she should help her daughter. But that decision could upend everything in Jodi’s life, so she’ll need to truly think things through. What can she change and what must stay the same?

This was such a warm, funny, and heartfelt book. These characters—especially Jodi and Jake—definitely seemed familiar to me, and that just enhanced my enjoyment of the book.

Book Review: "A Thousand Miles to Graceland" by Kristen Mei Chase

Two women. One convertible. One thousand miles.

This book was adorable and poignant.

Grace has found that the easiest way to deal with her outrageously over-the-top mother is to connect with her as little as possible. But when her husband ends their barely functioning marriage, she decides to cope with that by granting her Elvis-obsessed mother’s 70th birthday wish—a road trip from El Paso to Graceland.

What’s a road trip without adventure or chaos? Throw in an overabundance of her mother’s makeup and wigs, and lots of unresolved hurts and memories, and this one is sure to be a doozy. But as much as her mother aggravates her, spending all that time in the car, with Elvis songs on repeat, helps her understand some of what has made her tick.

Will they make it to Graceland in one piece? Can they overcome the issues from their past that made Grace leave home as soon as she could? And can the power of the King move them through?

This was a fun book, sweet and emotional. Reading it a few weeks after Lisa Marie Presley’s death gave it an added bittersweet note, but I love stories of family dynamics and, of course, Elvis.

Book Review: "The Switch" by Beth O'Leary

Could The Switch feel any more like a giant hug?

Leena is falling apart. It’s been happening for a while, ever since her sister died, although she’s been able to press on. But when she blows a big presentation at work, her boss forces her to take a two-month sabbatical.

Her grandmother Eileen is trying to move on after her unfaithful husband left her, but dating at 79 isn’t easy, especially in her tiny Yorkshire village of Hamleigh-in-Harksdale. (She knows all of the men and the pickings are pretty slim.) But she has her friends and her town projects to keep busy.

When Leena comes to visit and they talk about their various issues, she poses a great idea: the two should swap lives for two months. Eileen can move into Leena’s London flat and try her hand at online dating, while Leena can take on Eileen’s projects and decompress. And Eileen hopes that Leena can mend her relationship with her mother, which has been quite strained since her sister died.

Of course, nothing is as easy as it seems to be, and while Eileen finds freedom and opportunity in London, Leena struggles with finding her way, and realizes what she assumed was her grandmother’s simple, small-town life is anything but. And both make some interesting discoveries where matters of the heart are concerned.

This is an adorable, warm, moving book that utterly charmed me from start to finish. I loved Beth O’Leary’s first book, The Flatshare, and this book put the same smile on my face that that one did.

Can you see how the story will unfold? Sure. Does it matter? I don’t think so, not with these memorable characters and the terrific setting. It made me feel all warm inside!!

Book Review: "I Was Told It Would Get Easier" by Abbi Waxman

Who knew that a week-long trip to look at colleges would be so full of drama?

There’s an old “Far Side” comic which had a split screen of a man and a woman. The man is thinking about the woman, wondering if she's thinking about him, too. The woman is thinking about ice cream. The caption of the comic is “Same Planet, Different Worlds.”

I thought of that comic a lot while reading Abbi Waxman’s new book, I Was Told It Would Get Easier.

Jessica has worked hard to provide a comfortable life for her daughter, Emily. Sure, working those long hours meant she couldn’t always be there for her daughter, but Emily was able to go to an excellent school and has a great future ahead of her. So what if the live-in nanny raised her a little bit more than Jessica did?

The two participate in a week-long, cross-country tour of colleges. But while Jessica wants Emily to get into a good school, Emily isn’t even sure she wants to go to college, and doesn’t have a clue what she wants from life. Plus she's hiding a secret from her mother, and her mother has something she's not sharing with Emily either.

Of course, this only ratchets up the tensions between them. Emily feels that Jessica only cares about her job; Jessica feels like she’s always walking on eggshells with her daughter. And as they deal with a tight schedule, ultra-competitive parents, and visitors from Jessica’s past, the two will learn a lot about each other—and themselves—on this trip.

This was a sweet book which looked at the always-complicated relationship between mother and daughter (particularly teenage daughters). It alternated narration between the two, so it was interesting to see how differently each perceived what was happening and their interactions. (Hence my thinking about the "Far Side" comic.)

It’s not fun to spend a lot of time with a sullen, unhappy person, so at times Emily’s behavior—however understandable—took a little of the enjoyment out of the book for me. But I love the way Waxman writes, so I kept with it, and in the end, was left with a fun story. (And speaking of Waxman's writings, her last book, The Bookish Life of Nina Hill was excellent!)