Book Review: "Killer Potential" by Hannah Deitch

What a crazy, fun debut this was! This book definitely read like a movie at times, and I mean that as a compliment.

Evie was one of those kids with bucketloads of promise. She was super smart and dreamed of making her mark on the world. But despite graduating from a prestigious college, she now spends her days as an SAT tutor for privileged kids in Los Angeles.

One day when she arrives at the home of the Victor family for her appointment with their daughter Serena, she walks into a nightmare. She finds both parents dead, obviously murdered, and as she’s trying to make sense of it all, she finds a young woman tied up in a closet. Evie frees the woman and they escape before the police arrive.

Of course, it’s not long before law enforcement and the media are determined to find Evie and her “accomplice.” Suddenly she’s being called a brutal murderer, a smart girl gone bad, even Manson-like. But Evie doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life hiding or on the run. She hopes to find the real killer so she can have her life back.

What ensues is a race against time, as Evie and her new companion —who refuses to speak—try to keep ahead of the authorities. Their escape plan takes them across the country and makes them wonder where things will end for them.

I definitely had high hopes for this book. It was a quick read and it hooked me completely. Of course, parts of the plot require you to suspend your disbelief, and I thought the ending didn’t quite match the promise of the rest of the book, but this is still really enjoyable!

Book Review: "Make Sure You Die Screaming" by Zee Carlstrom

Thanks so much to Flatiron Books for the complimentary advance copy of this book! This definitely is a bleak yet well-written book that will stick in your mind.

If you think your life is out of control, it’s nothing compared to that of our unnamed narrator. They’ve recently come out as nonbinary, lost their corporate job in fairly spectacular fashion, and probably suffered a brain injury in a fight with their ex-boyfriend.

“I guess you could call me the World’s First Honest White Man, but I don’t identify as a man anymore, so you’d probably call me other things first…”

To top it off, their mother called to let them know that their father, an ultra-conservative conspiracy theorist, has gone missing. So now they’re headed from Chicago to Arkansas (no culture shock there) in a fancy car they’ve stolen from their ex-boyfriend.

Their partner on this road trip from hell is Yivi, whom they met when they were both crashing at an illegal Airbnb. Yivi has her own issues: she screams in her sleep, she’s constantly high on something, and there’s apparently someone following her.

This book taps into some really raw emotions. The narrator has been avoiding dealing with some real emotional baggage beyond their father’s disavowal of their sexuality. There’s loss, trauma, and addiction, but there’s also real rage at the inequity that exists. This isn’t a lighthearted book but it’s a good one.

It will publish 4/8/2025.

Book Review: "My Mother and Other Wild Animals: An Essay" by Andrew Sean Greer

I’m all about irony, so on Father’s Day, when I’m missing my dad, I decided to read this essay by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Andrew Sean Greer, about his mother.

“Not just in youth do we need new vistas, or new ways of looking at an old one: a tilted view, to baffle and amuse.”

As he plans to drive home to San Francisco from a month-long writer’s residency in Wichita, Kansas, Andrew gets a surprise from his mother: she wants to fly out to meet him and they can drive back together. His mother, a chemist, has always been a serious person, not prone to flights of fancy.

Andrew plans the perfect road trip home, designed to amuse his mostly unflappable mother. They travel through kitschy tourist attractions, and if there’s a unique place to stay, he books a reservation there. They stay in a wigwam-themed resort, a haunted Wild West hotel, and many others.

While Andrew has always thought of his mother as a serious person, she has made some waves in her own life—telling him that she is a lesbian shortly after he came out as a teenager, and ending her marriage to live her true life.

This was a moving essay, full of emotion, humor, and highlight-worthy sentences. I’m glad to have been a secret passenger on this road trip!

Book Review: "The Bump" by Sidney Karger

Sometimes you find the right book to fit your mood. For me, the most recent example of this is Sidney Karger’s upcoming book, The Bump. It hit me square in the feels and left me smiling, too.

Wyatt and Biz have been together for a number of years now. Wyatt is a director of commercials; Biz, a former child actor, is now a food writer. Wyatt is the high-strung planner; Biz is the more spontaneous, fun-loving one. The couple lives in Brooklyn with their dog, Matilda.

But everything is about to change for them. They’re having a baby (through a surrogate) in a few weeks, and both are getting pretty tense. Biz decides that instead of flying to California for the baby’s birth, they’ll drive, making a few stops on the way so it’s kind of a “baby-moon.” (Biz is starting to panic, so he hopes the road trip will calm him down.)

In their old VW convertible, they start their journey in Provincetown, the scene of many great memories for them. But Wyatt feels like Biz is trying to avoid becoming a father, while Biz wishes Wyatt would just mellow out a bit. The tension makes it hard to enjoy, and then their plans go awry when an emergency with Wyatt’s family necessitates a detour.

Each time they try to get back on course, something else happens which causes another detour. And at the same time, secrets are revealed and discoveries are made which ratchet up both of their emotions, not to mention the tension between them. Can their family survive before it even starts?

While much of the drama in the book would be solved if Wyatt and Biz would just TALK to each other, the miscommunication didn’t bother me as much as it usually does in books. They make an adorable couple, and I really was rooting for them, plus I enjoyed the supporting characters as well. The book was a good mix of serious and silly, romantic and fun.

Many thanks to Berkley and NetGalley for the advance copy! The book will publish 5/21.

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.