Book Review: "Tom Lake" by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett is one of my absolute favorite authors. I’ve read all of her books—fiction, essay collections, even Truth and Beauty, her memoir about her friendship with the late poet Lucy Grealy. Not only do I love how she writes, but quite often, her books appear tremendously simple, only to surprise you with their depth. Her latest novel, Tom Lake, appears to be the story of a woman sharing youthful memories with her adult daughters, but it’s so much more than that.

When she was young, Lara was an actress of some promise. She had a prominent role in a movie that could make her a star, but its release was delayed, so she got an opportunity to perform in summer stock at a theater company in Michigan called Tom Lake. There she lands the lead in two plays, where she gets to share the stage with a charismatic, talented young actor named Peter Duke, and it’s not long before the two fall into a relationship. After that summer, Peter became a famous actor.

In the spring of 2020, Lara recounts her relationship with her daughters, as they have all returned home to the family’s cherry orchard in Northern Michigan amid the pandemic. Even though some of the story is familiar (and was the cause of much consternation during her oldest daughter’s teenage years), there is much that Lara has kept to herself all this time. Her reminiscences fill the long, laborious days of picking cherries and trying to keep the orchard afloat, and provoke strong emotions and opinions among her daughters.

This is such a gorgeously told story of family, love, memory, motherhood, and recognizing that happiness can come from a path other than the one you dreamed of. It’s also about growing up and finding out about your parents' lives before they were your parents. It’s an emotional story that will stick in my mind for some time.

“There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else.”

Book Review: "How to Save a Life" by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke

Sometimes saving the person you love is harder than you think. That's the concept behind How to Save a Life by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke.

Dom and Mia had what seemed like a storybook romance, culminating in a magical engagement. But shortly afterward, things fall apart, and they never see each other again.

Almost 10 years later, Dom runs into Mia at a coffee shop. He can’t believe he might have a second chance to try and build a relationship with her, and she seems interested, too.

On their first date, he’s determined to show her how much he’s changed from the overly cautious guy she used to know, but when Mia tragically dies, he is devastated. How could his second chance at happiness end so quickly?

But when he wakes up the next morning and discovers he’s repeating the same day, he thinks maybe fate has intervened. Yet no matter what he tries to do, Mia’s fate remains the same. He keeps living the day over and over again.

Dom’s desperation increases as he tries to figure out a way to save Mia. Can you actually control fate, or are we doomed to repeat life’s tragedies? Can he save Mia?

This is an interesting and thought-provoking story a la Groundhog Day. It definitely keeps you guessing and you feel for these characters, so you root for things to work themselves out.

This is the second book of Liz and Lisa I’ve read and I enjoyed their storytelling once again. I did think the storyline took a little too long to play itself out, but I still was pretty invested in how things unfolded.

And now I have the song by The Fray stuck in my head...

Book Review: "Redhead by the Side of the Road" by Anne Tyler

Does anyone create characters who are set in their ways (okay, you can call them curmudgeons) as well as Anne Tyler?

“Sometimes when he was dealing with people, he felt like he was operating one of those claw machines on a boardwalk, those shovel things where you tried to scoop up a prize but the controls were too unwieldy and you worked at too great a remove.”

Micah Mortimer is in his 40s, but he’s very particular about how his life operates. The owner of a (very) modest tech support business and the live-in superintendent of his apartment building, he’s one of those people who lives by his routines, is usually cautious and polite, and is an excellent driver, and he makes no apologies for any of it.

One day a college student shows up at his front door claiming that Micah might be his father. And on that same day, his relationship with his “woman friend” Cass (he doesn’t believe a woman over 30 should be called a “girlfriend”) starts deteriorating and he can’t figure out why.

Over the course of a few days, things start to go awry, and Micah begins to question his life. Is he alone because he never found the right person or because he hasn’t been the right person? Does it really matter in the end, or is his life fulfilling enough? If he is the problem, how can he change when he's so comfortable with his life?

Anne Tyler once again proves her strength in character development and storytelling with her latest book. This is about 200 pages long and nothing catastrophic or earth-shattering occurs, but Micah is such a fascinating, complex character that I was hooked completely. We all know people like Micah and the supporting characters in this book, and most of us have thought similarly to Micah every now and again.

Redhead by the Side of the Road was warm and thought-provoking and it once again reminded me how much I love the way Tyler writes. She is truly a treasure.

Book Review: "Pumpkinheads" by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks

What a terrific graphic novel!!

Deja and Josiah are best friends—at least from September 1 through Halloween, and at least while they’re working together at the pumpkin patch. (They don't see each other at all except during that period of time.) Tonight is the last night they’ll work together since both will head off to college next fall.

Josiah can’t imagine a world without the pumpkin patch. Deja doesn’t quite feel THAT strongly, but she’ll miss Josiah, and all the activity, and all of the great food. (Maybe especially the food?)

But tonight, Deja has a plan. It’s not going to be just a typical night. She’s gotten them a shift at a different post rather than the Succotash Hut, where they’ve worked the last three years. She’s determined that Josiah is finally going to talk to the girl in the fudge shop that he’s been mooning over for years. And she’s going to get all of her favorite foods.

Sounds perfect, right?

Of course, nothing quite goes as planned. Along the way they’ll run into a candy-apple-stealing punk, flee an escaped animal, say goodbye to old friends, explore what brought them together as friends, and come to some interesting realizations of their own.

This was so much fun, so charming, and had such a terrifically warm story, and the illustrations really made it feel like fall! Sometimes graphic novels are spare in their narration but this one really worked for me.

I'm a huge fan of Rainbow Rowell's (her new novel comes out 9/24 so I am super excited about that, too) and Pumpkinheads had so many of her trademarks, including a story that had so much heart. I read the book in one sitting and was sad that I was finished.

This is perfect for Halloween lovers and saps like me who love stories of friendship. But you probably shouldn't read this one on an empty stomach!

Book Review: "Things My Son Needs to Know About the World" by Fredrik Backman

Over the last few years, Fredrik Backman has been one of my favorite authors, with Beartown, Us Against You, A Man Called Ove and And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer capturing my heart and winding up on my year-end lists of the best books I've read. So when I had the chance to get my hands on his new collection of essays, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World, I jumped on it, despite not having a child.

Once again, Backman's writing is imbued with tremendous heart, emotion, and utter charm. While he's certainly proven his ability to make his fiction utterly compelling from the very first page, this book proves his talent isn't exclusive to fiction, but you can see why his writing has made fans of so many of us.

In Things My Son Needs to Know About the World, Backman gives advice to his young son, about everything from love to finding the right friends to surviving a trip to IKEA. The essays are punctuated with humorous anecdotes of Backman's interactions with his wife, episodes where his parenting skills (and even his thinking skills) are called into question, and declarations of love for his wife and child.

"We want you to be better than us. Because if our kids don't grow up to be better than us, then what's the point of all this? We want you to be kinder, smarter, more humble, more generous, and more selfless than we are. We want to give you the very best circumstances we can possibly provide. So we follow sleeping methods and go to seminars and buy ergonomic bathtubs and push car seat salesmen up against the wall and shout 'the safest! I want THE SAFEST doyouhearme?!'"

These lessons are beautifully universal and have so much meaning. There's also a tremendous amount of humor in the book, humor derived from situations Backman has experienced, like getting a sofa for your first apartment. ("...buy your first sofa secondhand. Not from IKEA. Buy one of those brown leather monstrosities as big as the Death Star...Buy the sofa you want, not the sofa you need...Because sooner or later you'll fall in love. And from then on, every sofa you own will be one long compromise.") He provides advice to live by, all saturated in the immense love he has for his son.

I don't have children, but I found this book tremendously appealing anyway. While some of the essays are more traditionally male-centric, there is a lot of the book that would apply to daughters as well. Some chapters are funnier than others, there's a lot of talk about poop and other messes, and sometimes the essays meander a bit before circling back to the core point, but I enjoyed this.

Things My Son Needs to Know About the World will make a sweet Father's Day gift, particularly for a reasonably new father, although "older" fathers will probably enjoy this, too. I think more than one guy will wipe away a tear—perhaps only in private. I'm looking forward to Backman's next novel (perhaps another Beartown book?), but this is enough to tide me over until then.

NetGalley and Atria Books provided me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!

This book will be published May 7, 2019.

Book Review: "When All Is Said" by Anne Griffin

Imagine you're on travel by yourself and you decide to spend an evening at a local pub. You're seated at the bar and one of the bar's patrons starts speaking—partially to you and partially to himself.

With nothing else to do, you listen to the man tell his stories. At first you're not sure what to make of it all, but little by little, you find yourself fairly engrossed in what he has to say. Sometimes his conversation is entertaining, sometimes it meanders a little too much, and sometimes it's even a bit emotional.

This is precisely the way it felt reading Anne Griffin's charming debut novel, When All Is Said. In this case, the man is 84-year-old Irish widower Maurice Hannigan, and the pub is actually the bar of a grand hotel in town. With his wife dead for two years and his adult son living in America, Maurice is usually alone, but this isn't just any night.

Tonight Maurice has decided to toast five special people in his life, and give them the due he never has. And with each toast comes a recollection of memories about that particular person, many of whom are now gone. Maurice's stories tell of love, fear, grief, family, courage, wonder, and frustration, of feeling incapable of expressing your opinions until the moment has passed you by. He's unafraid to make himself look the fool, the villain, or the one who causes pain, but he's also unafraid to illuminate his own pain, sorrow, and regret.

There are people we spend our entire lives with who touch us, and there are those who leave their mark after only a short time. There are situations that define us, and our actions during those times stay with us, showing us that a moment's victory may actually lead to a lifetime of regret. But a person's life is a long series of memories, people, scores that are settled and those that never are, hearts we won and those we lost.

"I'm here to remember — all that I have been and all that I will never be again."

When All Is Said feels so much like the stories told by kindly old men in pubs, because that's what it is. Obviously by having the book narrated in the first person you lose the perspectives of the other characters in the book, and you're left only to wonder what they thought about different situations. But what you gain in this case is the amazing persona of Maurice Hannigan, who is willing to lay bare his own flaws while sharing what five people have meant to him.

A number of people whose literary tastes I share have waxed fairly poetic about this book, so I wonder if that built it up a little too much for me. I enjoyed this but felt each of Maurice's stories went on a little too long, and while there were moments that choked me up, I was surprisingly not as moved as I thought I'd be given what a colossal sap I am.

Don't get me wrong, this is lovely and charming story, but it just didn't grab me quite as much as it has others. Maybe I was affected with Grinch syndrome while reading this, in that my heart was two sizes too small. There's no other reason to explain it, because Griffin has created a memorable character in Maurice, and his story is beautiful and touching.