Book Review: "Fail Sons" by Adam Wilson

Scott and his younger brother Nick have to fly to Arizona to pick up their father’s body, which has been cryonically frozen since his death in the 1990s. The plan is to take him back to the cryo company’s headquarters and they will attempt to reanimate him in a few years.

So they’re driving across the country with their father’s body on dry ice in a trailer. They’re both obsessed with the app that tracks the body’s temperature, since if it thaws it will no longer be viable. Scott and Nick don’t get along well, and they couldn’t be more different. Scott is a lazy stoner whose wife is about to have their first baby; Nick is uptight but in excellent physical shape.

“I’m here because I’m going through what may, in fact, be a midlife crisis on the cusp of fatherhood, and though the nominal purpose of our journey is to transport our father’s frozen corpse across this fair nation under the delusion that he might rise again—like the South, like Christ on Easter, like Rocky after twelve rounds with the Russian—what I really want is a drunken send-off before my firstborn arrives, and I’m disappointed that you’re not the right companion for the job.”

Nick insists on wearing a KN95 mask, as it’s 2022 and he never contracted COVID during the pandemic. But of course, as they drive through red states, his mask immediately gets peoples’ hackles up.

Their road trip sees them interacting with hippies, visiting Nick’s old girlfriend, taking various drugs, and mostly avoiding talking about their father. Meanwhile, Scott is worried about his wife and dealing with back and prostate problems, but he views the trip as a bit of a last hurrah.

This was darkly funny and very thought-provoking. It certainly was an adventure I never imagined reading about! I found both of the brothers to be amusing, quirky characters in their own way, and I was really curious about what would happen to their father’s body.

Book Review: "Before You Were Anne" by Emiko Jean

“Love is just creating something the world can take away.“

This book was one of my most anticipated of September, and it definitely didn’t disappoint. Emiko Jean’s last book, The Return of Ellie Black, was one of my absolute favorites of 2024, and this was a worthy sequel!

Detective Chelsey Calhoun is a few months pregnant, but she’s not ready to go public yet, because she doesn’t want to get stuck behind a desk. Yet when she and her partner have to investigate the murder of a woman and the disappearance of her teenage daughter, she’s not prepared for the case to hit so close to home.

The murder victim was a woman named Anne, but behind that simple name was a frightened woman who had to find her own way again and again. She was raised on a farm in a remote Japanese town, only to get involved with the yakuza in Tokyo, then flee to Idaho for a new start, only to seek refuge in Seattle. Her 16-year-old daughter Naomi is missing, and Chelsey is worried that she might meet the same fate as her mother.

The more Chelsey and her partner dig into Anne’s past, the more secrets are uncovered about her past. For Chelsey, who was adopted as a young child, the questions about Anne make her wonder about her own past. But she also finds that if some secrets find the light of day, it might prove deadly.

This is both a twisty mystery and an emotional story. Chelsey’s pregnancy definitely made her even more focused on finding Naomi before it’s too late. The book is narrated by Chelsey, Anne, and Naomi, and each voice is slightly different. I hope we’ll get back to Seattle in another of Jean’s books!

Book Review: "Enormous Wings" by Laurie Frankel

Every time I read a book by Laurie Frankel I’m tremendously moved but I’m also changed. Her books make me think beyond my worldview and they challenge me both intellectually and emotionally. Her newest book is no exception.

“People like their old ladies polite and demure, but as one ages, things get more fucked-up, not less, and it seems important to say so.”

Pepper is a feisty, independent 77-year-old whose children force her to move to an independent living community in Austin, Texas. She’s not happy about it but she quickly finds a group of friends and, much to her surprise, starts up a relationship with her next door neighbor, Moth.

Not long after they sleep together, Pepper starts feeling sick—woozy, nauseous, tired, and sometimes disoriented. She starts to worry that there’s something seriously wrong with her. But the doctor reveals an even more surprising diagnosis: Pepper is pregnant.

She cannot believe that some 40-plus years after her last child was born that she’s pregnant again. The doctors don’t expect the pregnancy to be viable for long, but as the months go on, Pepper is faced with some serious decisions. But living in Texas, abortion is illegal, and once the press gets ahold of her news, she is approached by groups on both sides of the issue. Her life is turned inside out, and the facility where she lives is overrun with media.

I loved this book because while it focuses on the issue of bodily autonomy and women’s rights, it’s also a very human story. I love how Frankel focused on the emotions everyone felt over Pepper’s pregnancy more than the morality and politics, even though that needed to be addressed as well.

Book Review: "Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead" by Mai Nguyen

“That’s one of the great paradoxes of grief I suppose: It touches each and every one of us, yet it has the effect of filling us with an aching, unignorable loneliness.”

Cleo and her husband Ethan are eagerly awaiting the birth of their first baby. Adding to the excitement is the fact that Cleo’s best friend Paloma, who lives across the street, is pregnant, too, and due around the same time. They cannot wait to raise their babies together.

Tragically, something happens during the birth of Cleo and Ethan’s daughter Daisy. She sustained brain damage during delivery, so a few short days later, they take her off life support. They are both overwhelmed by grief, made even a bit more difficult by the fact that Paloma’s baby was perfectly healthy and is fine.

Cleo can’t function. She can’t sleep or eat, she can barely move. Yet there seems to be an expectation that she shouldn’t wallow for too long, that she needs to get back on her feet and live a “normal” life. And then there are all the platitudes and advice that people share, much of which isn’t helpful.

She had taken a year of maternity leave from her job as an actuary, and the company wants her to take that time. Cleo winds up taking a job at a funeral home, as the director’s assistant. In some ways it’s the wrong thing for her to do, yet helping other families deal with their saddest moments does prove cathartic.

I’ll admit that I expected this book to be more maudlin than it was, although it was an emotional read. Cleo is an absolutely fascinating character, and even when she does or says hurtful or unhinged things, I felt for her. I loved how this book demonstrated the messy, nonlinear paths grief can follow.

Book Review: "The Mad Wife" by Meagan Church

“‘We call this hysteria.’ He said it so matter-of-factly. I didn’t feel hysterical, and I wanted to tell him that, but I feared that anything I said would only prove his point. Instead, I smiled and nodded. He packed up his bag and continued, saying, ‘I see this in women such as yourself all the time, this housewife syndrome. You’re a bit tired, doing a lot around the house. Not really feeling like yourself. Finding yourself a bit moody like your kids.’”

I’ve been meaning to read this book for a while. I had a feeling it would be a powerful one, but wow. (Kudos to Meagan Church for an introductory note that says, “If you find the pages growing heavy, if the emotions press too hard against your heart, please know you have permission to set the book down. Step away, take a breath, and return only when you’re ready.”)

Lulu tries hard to be a model housewife of the 1950s. She knows what her responsibilities are: keep her husband happy, take care of her young son Wesley, clean the house, cook meals, and be a fabulous entertainer. And as the so-called Queen of Molded Food, her gelatin salads and desserts are the envy of all.

Following the birth of Lulu’s second child, everything starts to unravel. She’s not sleeping, she’s tired all the time, and she’s just not happy or in the mood to be the perfect housewife. When new neighbors move in across the street, Lulu becomes fixated on the wife, Bitsy.

The more difficult it is for Lulu to pull herself together and be happy, the more scrutiny she finds herself under. And as she uncovers secrets about Bitsy, she starts to worry if she’ll face the same fate. But what’s true and what has Lulu invented in her mind?

This book really packs an emotional punch. It’s sad to think that this was (and in some cases, still is) the reality for women in the 1950s. I absolutely felt for Lulu and rooted for her to have a happy ending. Definitely a thought-provoking read!!

Book Review: "The Irish Goodbye" by Heather Aimee O'Neill

Here’s another terrific debut novel to add to the list of the ones I’ve enjoyed this year. You know I’m a fan of family dysfunction and drama (fictional, of course)!

The Ryan sisters—Cait, Alice, and Maggie—haven’t all been together in their family home in years. But this Thanksgiving, they’ll all be spending the holiday together, despite the misgivings and unspoken resentments each feels.

Twenty years ago, their brother Topher was involved in a boating accident that killed the younger brother of his best friend. The resulting lawsuit and the requirement that Topher admit guilt destroyed their family, and ultimately sent him into a downward spiral. But all those years later, Cait still feels immense guilt about her role in the accident.

Maggie, the youngest, is bringing her new girlfriend Isabel home with her. It’s the first time she’s brought anyone home, since her devoutly Catholic mother has never really accepted that she’s gay. But amidst the nervousness about the situation, Maggie is worried her job might be in jeopardy for a mistake she made.

Alice lives very near to their parents and has taken responsibility for their care, something she resents her sisters for. She, too, has a secret that has the potential to destroy her marriage and her future ambitions. All of these issues will be brought out in the open, as is often the case with the holidays.

Heather Aimee O’Neill is a terrific storyteller. While there’s a lot happening in this book, she deftly steered the plot away from too much melodrama or shocking pronouncements. I wanted to shake some sense into the characters at times, but I want to do that to people IRL sometimes, too. This reminded me a bit of Tracey Lange’s books. Can’t wait to see what O’Neill does next!

Book Review: "Tilt" by Emma Pattee

Wow. This was such a powerfully written book, one which filled me with anxious tension.

It’s the first day of Annie’s maternity leave, as she’s nine months pregnant and ready to give birth. She decides to go to IKEA to buy a crib for the baby, as she and her husband haven’t gotten around to that task yet. In the middle of shopping, a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon, throwing the city—and Annie—into utter chaos.

“Last I checked, your father and I have $836 in a checking account at Wells Fargo, a Subaru with 160,000 miles on it, and a two-bedroom apartment we can only afford because the landlord feels too guilty to raise our rent or kick us out. And here I am, thirty-seven weeks pregnant at IKEA. On a Monday. With a credit card I’ll probably die before I pay off.”

With no way to reach her husband because phone lines are down, and with the streets either wrecked or clogged with traffic, Annie decides to walk to the cafe where her husband works.

As she walks through the streets and witnesses the destruction first-hand, Annie reflects on her life, her marriage, and her anxieties over the impending birth of her baby. Her emotions spiral through fear, anxiety, grief, and anger, and she grows more uncomfortable physically.

Along the way she encounters examples of human kindness as well as the chaos that occurs during natural disasters like this. She’s not fully sure that she and her husband are ready to be parents (or adults, for that matter), especially as she witnesses the anxieties of parents.

Emma Pattee is a climate journalist, and that expertise is truly evident in the imagery she uses. I felt like I was walking beside Annie, seeing the same destruction and feeling aftershocks along the way. This book really made me think how I’d handle being in this situation.

Book Review: "Holmes is Missing" by James Patterson and Brian Sitts

Having devoured the first book in this series, Holmes, Marple & Poe, you can bet I snapped up the second book as soon as it hit stores! This really is a great series and now we’ll see how long it takes for Book 3 to come out.

Brendan Holmes, Margaret Marple, and Auguste Poe are best friends and private investigators who have become the talk of NYC after their success solving a few cases. (It doesn’t make them popular with the police, however.)

The latest case they become involved in deals with the kidnapping of six babies from the nursery of a NYC hospital. The families want to hire the trio to find their babies, but they’re not at full strength, as Holmes has been away dealing with a personal issue. And even though he agrees to help with this case, he makes it very clear he wants out of the business afterward.

As they try and figure out what happened, they discover that the kidnappings are related to other cases, both in the U.S. and the U.K. But what ties all of these incidents together, and what’s the motive behind them? It seems like it’s only a matter of time before more children are kidnapped.

Meanwhile, Holmes encounters an amateur detective who tells of a fascinating set of cases. But it’s not long before he realizes that the cases are real, and there’s more danger afoot, which could land closer to home. And Poe has problems of his own, mainly dealing with Police Detective Helene Grey.

I love these characters and how well they play off one another. Marple, in particular, proves to be a total badass in this book. There’s pulse-pounding action and great banter, and I couldn’t put this down.

Book Review: "I'll Come to You" by Rebecca Kauffman

This book is one of those slice-of-life novels that is more character-driven than plot-driven. And much like everyday life, it is made up more of quiet moments than overly dramatic ones.

Spanning the course of one year (1995), I’ll Come to You is the story of a family, connected by blood and marriage. Ellen is recently divorced and doesn’t really understand why her marriage ended. She gets set up on a date—which convinces her she’s not ready for another relationship—but it does spark a friendship.

Meanwhile, Ellen’s son Paul and his wife Corrine are expecting a baby, after a long period of trying to get pregnant. They are understandably nervous about what’s to come and how their lives will change.

Corrine’s mother, Janet, is one of those women who is always finding something to complain about, some instance in which she gets less than others. Her husband Bruce is facing a health crisis that she’s been less than forthcoming about with her children.

Corinne’s brother Rob is a car salesman who is navigating a divorce and watching his twin sons grow up differently than he would have raised them. Rob’s penchant for lying, a habit he’s had since childhood, has eroded his relationships with his family, and one person in particular.

I think Kauffman’s storytelling is excellent. She created a web around which all of these characters revolve, and there’s enough nuance to keep it all interesting. I thought this book had an Anne Tyler-esque feel to it, in that Tyler specializes in creating irascible characters who wind up somewhat endearing.

Book Review: "The Coldest Case" by Tessa Wegert

One of the things I love about reading a long-running series is how attached you become to the characters. This book is the sixth installment in Tessa Wegert’s series featuring Senior Investigator Shana Merchant, and the series gets better and better.

It’s winter in New York’s Thousand Islands, which means brutally cold temperatures and driving snow, which could strand people for days, even months weeks. One island, Running Pine, is so remote and isolated that only a few people spend the winter there.

When Shana and the police learn that a social media influencer has disappeared from Running Pine, they snap into action. It turns out that Cary and Sylvie have moved to the island for a year and are documenting the experience for their thousands of followers, and have landed some significant endorsement deals on top of that. And then one morning, when Cary goes ice fishing with two of their neighbors, he disappeared.

The police put themselves in harm’s way getting to the island, as there is a storm coming. The more they dig into what happened, the more questions arise for them. What happened to Cary? Did he disappear of his own free will or is one of their neighbors responsible?

Time is running out. As Shana and her colleagues rush to find answers, she also is reminded of another unsolved murder from her days with the NYPD. And both cases have the potential for danger.

Wegert is definitely one of my favorite thriller writers out there right now. With every book in this series I worry it’ll be the last, but I’ll still read anything she writes!

Book Review: "The Most" by Jessica Anthony

It’s a Sunday in November of 1957. Winter should be on its way but for some reason it is unseasonably hot. Kathleen decides she doesn’t feel like going to church with her husband Virgil and two sons, and stays in bed while he gets the boys fed and dressed.

While the rest of her family is at church, Kathleen cleans up after her husband and puts the house back in order. Then she finds her old red bathing suit in a closet and she decides to get into the pool. That is where Virgil finds her when they get home from church.

Virgil is planning to go golfing with his boss and colleagues from the insurance company where he works. For some reason, however, Kathleen doesn’t plan to get out of the pool. The boys watch her from their apartment balcony, so Virgil goes to the golf course.

Much to his surprise, Kathleen is still in the pool in the early evening. Over the course of the day, both of them make discoveries about their marriage that had been obvious all along, stemming from a few phone calls.

The entire book takes place in an eight-hour period, although there are lots of flashbacks to Kathleen and Virgil’s earlier lives, as well as chronicling their relationship from its start to the day the book takes place. It’s a fascinating, well-written, and character-driven book. However, I didn’t find either Kathleen or Virgil to be particularly likable.

Book Review: "Evenings & Weekends" by Oisín McKenna

London, June 2019. The city is in the midst of a record heatwave. But beyond the joys of summer, London is experiencing chaos, as a large whale has gotten stuck near the shore of the Thames. The world watches as marine biologists try to figure out how to save it.

Maggie can’t believe she’s 12 weeks pregnant, but she and her boyfriend Ed are getting ready to move back to their suburban hometown to start a new chapter. Both are overwhelmed by the stress, and Ed is also dealing with the possibility that some secrets from his past might be revealed.

Meanwhile, Maggie’s best friend Phil is in love with one of his housemates, Keith, but Keith also has a boyfriend. Phil is struggling whether to tell Maggie what he knows about Ed, and he also has to figure out what he truly wants in life.

Phil’s mother Rosaleen is proud of her marriage and her two sons, but at times longs for the illicit friendship she had back in Dublin when she was younger. She’s now dying of cancer, but she can’t seem to get in touch with Phil to tell him.

All of their lives intersect over the course of several days. There will be happiness and tears, life-changing decisions, secrets and betrayals, and plenty of introspection.

This is one of those character-driven, slice-of-life books, in which not a lot happens but there are ramifications for all. I enjoyed this debut novel but at times Oisín McKenna packs so many details into a paragraph that they seem to go on and on endlessly. However, this book definitely highlights his talent!

Book Review: "Margo's Got Money Troubles" by Rufi Thorpe

I hate being an outlier, especially on a book I’ve really been anticipating, but this just didn’t grab me, although I appreciated its message.

Margo is a student at a junior college, working as a waitress to make ends meet. She really doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life, but her English professor, Mark, thinks she’s tremendously intelligent and can do almost anything.

It’s not long before Margo and Mark start sleeping together, despite the fact that he’s married with children of his own. But after Mark ends the affair, Margo discovers she is pregnant. Although everyone—Mark, her mother, her friends—tell her that she should have an abortion, that having a baby will ruin her life, she decides to give birth.

When her son Bodhi is born, she’s 20 years old, and she’s quickly at the end of her rope. Her mother won’t help, and she can’t find anyone to watch the baby, so she can’t work. When her estranged father Jinx, a former pro wrestler, needs a place to live, he moves in and helps take care of the baby.

Margo still needs money, however. Her father tells her about OnlyFans, and while she can’t quite imagine filming herself, the money she could make is a powerful enticement. Little by little, she comes out of her shell, and the experiment becomes a smashing success.

There are definitely some funny moments in the book, including the baby shower (IYKYK), but there’s a lot of poignancy as well. The gimmick in which the narration shifted between first and third person threw me off a lot. But lots of people have loved this, so give it a try!

Book Review: "Women! In! Peril!" by Jessie Ren Marshall

Do you ever wonder if your sense of humor is so different from other people’s? I often feel that way when I read a book that’s supposed to be “funny” or “zany,” and I’m sitting there thinking, “do I have no sense of humor?”

Jessie Ren Marshall’s debut story collection, Women! In! Peril!, has been labeled “ferociously feminist.” Indeed, the 12 short stories each have women at their center—either from the present or the future, real or robotic, in a variety of situations. The stories deal with issues from queerness and motherhood to relationship woes and cultural identity.

Some of the stories I enjoyed the most were “Annie 2,” about a sex bot who hopes not to be returned, and “My Immaculate Girlfriend,” in which a woman tries to figure out if her girlfriend really has a miraculous pregnancy.

I love short stories—at times it’s amazing how an author can give a novel-like feel in a short number of pages. At times though I feel like they leave me hanging, and just a little more might give me resolution. I felt a little bit more of the latter with this collection.

Book Review: "Perris, California" by Rachel Stark

“Each other is the whole of what we’ve got. People are there for us to love. It ain’t the other way around. It’s the greatest and most excruciating gift of life.”

Rachel Stark’s debut is bleak, beautiful, and complex, and so well-told.

Abandoned by her mother, Tessa endures an abusive life living with her stepfather and stepbrother. The only saving grace is her friendship with Mel, one of her high school classmates. The two young women are drawn together, each suffering from their own losses and hardships, until Mel is sent away by her mother, forcing Tessa to survive on her own.

One night when the abuse is too much to bear, Tessa finds refuge at the home of Angie, her husband Buck, and their sons. Angie knows the truth of what Tessa endured, but vows to keep it a secret. Years later, Tessa has married Angie’s son Henry, and they’re raising two children (with one on the way), living in a trailer on Angie’s property.

One day, Tessa discovers that Mel has returned to Perris to move back in with her mother and work as a pharmacist. Seeing Mel again stirs up all of the old emotions for Tessa, but at the same time, she knows that her life is with Henry and their children. But she is haunted by memories of their relationship, as well as the abuse she endured and her mother’s abandonment. It’s also hard to endure Angie’s need to be involved in every aspect of their lives.

The book shifts between past and present, and alternates POVs. There are lots of triggers here—sexual assault, physical abuse, accidental death—but at its core, this book is about strength under fire and how we can always find someone to support us through the dark times.

Book Review: "The Unquiet Bones" by Loreth Anne White

Human bones are found one day beneath a chapel on the grounds of a ski resort. It appears they’ve been there for nearly 50 years. The evidence links the strangely well-preserved remains to 16-year-old Annalise Jansen, who went missing in the mid-1970s.

Detective Jane Munro, assigned to handle cold cases as a punishment for acting out, knows what it’s like to have a loved one go missing. Her fiancé disappeared while on a hiking trip, and shortly thereafter she found she was pregnant. Jane is determined that Annalise’s family will get the closure it needs once she and her colleagues figure out what happened.

Quite a lot went on the night Annalise went missing in 1976. Six of her closest friends made a pledge to stand by each other’s alibis, and even were dubbed “The Shoreview Six” by the press back then. But when news about Annalise’s remains being recovered goes public, it threatens to fracture the promises and expose the fears and assumptions that have lingered in the back of their minds all these years.

I love police procedural-type books, and while this is a mystery as well, I found the partnership between the police and a forensic anthropologist to be fascinating. There were definitely some things I never knew were possible to detect from bones.

I really enjoyed Jane’s character and how she balanced her own issues with her determination to solve the case. I felt like there definitely were hints that this could be the first book in a series, perhaps teaming her up with Dr. Quinn, the forensic anthropologist, and I’d love that.

The pacing of the book was a bit uneven; it was very slow at first and then so many secrets were revealed it was hard to determine what were facts and what were distractions. There also were so many characters to keep track of, and in some cases they had different names and/or nicknames back in the 1970s, so I had to write stuff down.

Book Review: "Family Family" by Laurie Frankel

“There are infinity different kinds of families. And every member of every one has a different story to tell about it. So the fact that a few stories about adoption are the only ones that ever get told seems like a problem to me.”⁣

⁣ India’s dream was always to be a successful Broadway actress. Thanks to hard work, perseverance, and pretty impressive talent, she achieved her dream, finding success on the stage and on television, which led to the lead role in a movie.⁣

⁣ The movie is about adoption, and as the adoptive mother of fraternal twins, India is excited that this story will be told. But it’s not long before people criticize the film—and India—for what they believe the message of the film is. She’s frustrated by public reaction, so she decides to set the record straight. But she winds up making everything worse—and then some.⁣

⁣ The fact is, there’s much more to India’s life than most people know. As all of her own choices are called into question, others in her life decide to take control of the situation. And so the wild ride begins.⁣

⁣ Laurie Frankel is truly an artist. Her books are so rich in emotion, character development, and their treatment of issues related to love, family, and parenthood. I thought this was incredible, and utterly thought-provoking.⁣

Book Review: "Ready or Not" by Cara Bastone

Is it sweet and emotional in here or is it just me? Well, if you love rom-coms that make you smile, swoon, and maybe even tear up, give Ready or Not a try!

Eve is rarely an impulsive person. But her one-night fling with a handsome bartender is exactly what she needed. Although the last thing she expected was to find out a few weeks later that she is actually expecting. As in, a baby.

With her siblings living in Michigan (and they don’t seem to get her anyway) and her best friend Willa unable to provide the emotional support Eve was hoping for, a savior emerges: Shep, Willa’s older brother. The three grew up together and he’s currently living with Willa and her husband as he deals with his own issues.

As Eve tries to figure everything out—telling the baby’s father, continuing to work, starting to realize how much a baby costs—Shep is there by her side. It’s really what she needs, considering that Ethan (the baby’s father) is vacillating between wanting to be involved and running away. And maybe it’s just the pregnancy hormones, but why does she suddenly want to jump Shep’s bones?

There were so many moments in this book that made me grin and had me feeling emotional (sometimes simultaneously). It really was utterly charming, fun, even a bit steamy, and just so good!

Book Review: "Pizza Girl" by Jean Kyoung Frazier

Pizza Girl is quirky and entertaining, but with surprising emotional heft.

Our main character is 18 and pregnant, and works as a delivery girl for a local pizza place. She has a strong support system in her mother and her boyfriend, but the love they both give her seems smothering at times. She is also grieving the death of her father, but she doesn’t want to acknowledge that he was an alcoholic—and maybe she drinks more than she should.

One day she takes a call from Jenny, a mother who calls with a strange order—a pizza with pepperoni and pickles. If she doesn’t get the pizza, her son won’t eat, as his way of expressing displeasure that they moved to Los Angeles from North Dakota. While the pizza place doesn’t offer pickles as a topping, she can sense Jenny’s desperation, so she buys a jar of pickles to top the pizza with.

It’s not long before she’s delivering a pepperoni-and-pickles pizza to Jenny’s house once a week, and the two strike up a strange friendship. She sees motherhood through Jenny’s eyes and becomes slightly obsessed with her.

This was a very interesting story that made me wonder where it would go. I kept worrying it might veer into creepy territory but thankfully it didn’t. The story is a mixture of the mundane and the unusual, and was surprisingly emotional at times, as the narrator struggles with grief and uncertainty about the direction her life is taking before she’s sure she’s ready.

I’ve seen very mixed reviews for this but I loved the complexity of the main character. This is a strange but utterly fascinating story.

Book Review: "Josh and Gemma Make a Baby" by Sarah Ready

In Sarah Ready's new book, Josh and Gemma Make a Baby, Gemma doesn’t need much…just Josh's sperm.

Gemma is mostly happy with her life. She loves working for handsome self-help guru Ian Fortune and loves living in NYC. But one thing is missing: she wants a baby. And although she’s been told that she’ll never get pregnant, she’s determined to prove everyone wrong.

When she finds a doctor who tells her IVF is possible, she decides the best person to father the child is Josh, her brother’s best friend. He’s always been around her family, he’s handsome, laid back, and currently unattached, so he seems the perfect candidate. She’s shocked when he agrees, but they vow to keep their relationship strictly transactional—he can decide if he wants to be part of the baby’s life, and they’ll keep emotions out of it. (Because no emotions come from pregnancy or childbirth, right?)

Of course, the deeper they get into their IVF journey, the more intertwined their lives become. But Gemma has romantic interests in someone else and Josh isn’t interested in her, right? Does she even know what Josh’s life is like outside of this?

This was sweet, emotional, a bit slapsticky, and good-natured, for the most part. I didn’t love Gemma as a character, TBH, but I loved Josh and some of the supporting characters. There were some scenes that had me laughing out loud—and I’ll never look at a park bench the same way.

I also had trouble with the fat shaming Gemma endured, especially by her mother, and while I know this happens in real life, it set my teeth on edge a bit. I’d also imagine the fertility/IVF process may be triggering for those who’ve dealt with these issues.

Thanks so much to my friend Susan, who sent me a copy of this after she enjoyed it so much. I’m so glad I got to read it!