Book Review: "In a Holidaze" by Christina Lauren

Christina Lauren's newest book, In a Holidaze, is like someone said, "Let's take the movie Groundhog Day, but make it Christmasy."

Every year, old friends and their families gather at a cabin in Utah over Christmas. It’s a tradition that has endured for a number of years, through divorces and childbirths, and now some of the children are actual adults. But the tradition is coming to an end after this year, and while the friends promise to recreate it somewhere else, everyone knows things will be different.

No one is sadder than Maelyn. She’s having a tough time right now—she hates her job, she’s moved back in with her parents, and the night before they leave Utah she makes a colossal error in judgment. And gets caught by the one person she was trying to hide it from. As her family drives away from the cabin, she thinks, “Please, show me what will make me happy.”

The next thing she knows, there’s the sound of screeching tires, breaking glass, and...she wakes up on the plane to Utah days earlier. She can’t figure out why she’s suddenly forced to keep repeating her time in Utah until she realizes she has to fight for the things—and the person—that make her happy.

This was definitely a cute book with a fun concept that has become more common in fiction lately. I love the fun sense of romance that Christina Lauren brings to their books, as well as the emotions that occur when the path to romance doesn’t go smoothly. (And does it ever?)

I thought In a Holidaze was a quick, enjoyable read. Having read a number of books where characters find themselves in different lives this year, I’m a little weary of the time it takes for them to get accustomed to where they are—the shock, the reacclimation, etc.—and that happened here, too.

In the end, though, I still felt all warm and fuzzy and got choked up, so that’s all I need from a rom-com! If you've never read a Christina Lauren book, they have so many great ones to choose from. My favorites include Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating, Love and Other Words, My Favorite Half-Night Stand, and Autoboyography.

Book Review: "A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom" by John Boyne

A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom is a sweeping look at love, family, history, and destiny.

Have you ever read a book that you felt you couldn’t describe properly? That’s definitely the way I feel about John Boyne’s newest book. What I can say, however, is once again, his storytelling blew me away.

We start at the dawn of time, 1 AD. A baby is born to a warrior and his wife, amidst his father’s acts of violence. The baby has an older brother, who mostly resents him.

The story shifts as time passes, changing locations, names, certain facts, but the general thrust of the story remains the same, as if to say that what is destined will happen no matter who or where you are. We travel through history, getting glimpses of historical figures and events through time, all the way to the future.

At times this felt more like interconnected short stories than a cohesive novel. This was an interesting concept and I loved what Boyne has to say, that no event or emotion is unique to just one person. In the end, though, I don’t know that this worked for me as much as I hoped it would. But his storytelling transcended it all, so much like I felt about Fredrik Backman's Anxious People, the writing elevated the book, in my opinion.

If you’ve never read Boyne before, please read The Heart’s Invisible Furies, The Absolutist, and A Ladder to the Sky.

NetGalley and Hogarth Books provided me with a complimentary advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!

Book Review: "Neverworld Wake" by Marisha Pessl

What a fantastic, crazy ride this book took me on!

As much as I hate comparing books, Neverworld Wake felt like a slightly-less-sciency Dark Matter (see my review) with a YA twist. There's definitely more angst and melodrama here, but with the twists and turns, the mystery-within-a-mystery, I really found it pretty spectacular.

When Beatrice was a student at the tony Darrow-Harker School a little over a year ago, she and her friends had their own little world. Even though she was on scholarship, not privileged like some of her friends, she somehow gained entry into the elite group, the cool, popular, beautiful people. And then everything changed. One night, her boyfriend Jim, a musical genius and the one member of the group that everyone was a little in love with, died mysteriously. The authorities ruled it a suicide, but Beatrice and her friends couldn't understand what would have driven Jim to kill himself.

After Jim's death, Beatrice left Darrow-Harker and her friends behind, trying to process her grief and move on with her life. She finishes her first year at college, and plans to do nothing more than help her parents run their cafe and ice cream parlor in her small Rhode Island hometown. And then she gets a text from her friend Whitley, someone she hasn't heard from in over a year. Whitley invites Beatrice up to her family's ancient home, which served as a headquarters for the group during high school. While she's afraid to drudge up her old feelings, what Beatrice wants more than anything is answers to what happened to Jim, so much to her parents' chagrin, she heads up to see her friends.

"Friendship, when it runs deep, blinds you to the outside world. It's your exclusive country with sealed borders, unfair distribution of green cards, rich culture no foreigner could understand. To be cut off from them, exiled by my own volition as I had been for the past year, felt cheap and unsettled, a temporary existence of suitcases, rented rooms, and roads I didn't know."

Seeing her friends again feels like no time has passed, but at the same time like they live in separate worlds. Beatrice feels Jim's loss acutely, feels like the dynamics of the group have changed inexorably. As much as she wants to demand answers, she goes along with their plans, which involve copious amounts of alcohol and loud music at a club. She vows to head home to her parents' in the morning. And then there is a knock at the door, a mysterious old man on the doorstep. What he has to say blows their minds.

"You're all nearly dead. Wedged between life and death. Time for you has become snagged on a splinter, forming a closed-circuited potentiality called a Neverworld Wake."

Essentially, they're going to live the same loop of time, over and over again. But there's only one way out: during the last three minutes of every wake (or loop), each member of the group must vote on the one person who will survive. Everyone else will move on to "true death." The decision must be unanimous, and until they come to a consensus, the loop will play itself out endlessly, if not forever.

As each individual tries to make sense of the reality they now find themselves in, they ultimately understand the only choice they really have is to convince the others they're the one who deserves to survive. But before that decision can be broached, they decide they should try and find out the truth about Jim's death. Of course, knowing whom to trust—and trying to uncover secrets thought buried—could have dangerous consequences, even if their sense of time is skewed. Beatrice has to decide if finding out the truth is worth the pain she may sustain.

There's a lot more to the story but it's best left to discover on your own. Suffice it to say that Marisha Pessl, whose previous books, Special Topics in Calamity Physics and the incredible Night Film (see my review), utterly dazzled me, has once again proven that her talent knows no bounds. Some weren't as enthusiastic about this book, in part because I think they expected the Pessl of Night Film and/or aren't fans of YA like I am. But I loved every twisty, confusing, melodramatic second of this book.

We've certainly seen stories like this hundreds of times before, where our memories are tested and we discover our friends might not always have been the loyal, amazing people we imagined them to be. But in Pessl's hands, this story takes on new life. Yes, the whole concept of time and the Neverworld Wake are present, which obviously requires the suspension of disbelief, but there's so much more to this—the flush of young love, the need to create, coping with loss, and the things we do for the strangest of reasons. There's a poignancy to this book even as it veers into The Secret History territory, and even a little bit of the movie Groundhog Day.

This won't be a book for everyone, but here's what I know: I would willingly read anything Marisha Pessl writes. (Keep me in mind if you need a test audience!) But seriously, even if this book doesn't appeal to you, give one of her other books a shot. This is an author of immense talent, once whose stories are at once larger than life and shockingly intimate.

"We swear we see each other, but all we are ever able to make out is a tiny porthole view of an ocean. We think we remember the past as it was, but our memories are as fantastic and flimsy as dreams. It's so easy to hate the pretty one, worship the genius, love the rock star, trust the good girl. That's never their only story. We are all anthologies. We are each thousands of pages long, filled with fairy tales and poetry, mysteries and tragedy, forgotten stories in the back no one will ever read."

Book Review: "How to Stop Time" by Matt Haig

"If you saw me, you would probably think I was about forty, but you would be very wrong. I am old — old in the way that a tree, or a quahog clam, or a Renaissance painting is old."

Because of a rare medical condition, Tom Hazard has been alive since the 1500s. Born into a wealthy French family, he has traveled all over the world, assumed many different identities, and led a life characterized by adventure, trauma, emotion, and loneliness. Tom has performed with Shakespeare, explored with Captain Cook, shared a cocktail with F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and experienced the drastic changes the world has undergone through the centuries.

Even though he has seen incredible things, what Tom wants more than anything is a normal life. He had that once, back in Shakespeare's time, when he met a woman and fell in love, but as his unchanging appearance caught the notice of suspicious and fearful townspeople, he had to leave that life behind. Yet he's never stopped thinking of her and wishing things were different, that he was different.

"So, don't think of me as a sexy vampire, stuck for ever at peak virility. Though I have to say it can feel like you are stuck for ever when, according to your appearance, only a decade passes between the death of Napoleon and the first man on the moon."

Those like Tom are watched over by a group called the Albatross Society, which protects them and ensures they keep their longevity a secret from the general public. The shadowy head of the society, Hendrich, controls Tom and calls in favors to move him to place to place every eight years (since that is about the period of time before people notice he doesn't seem to grow any older). But Hendrich has his own ulterior motives, and his own methods of ensuring Tom and his brethren are kept in check. And the one major rule Hendrich has impressed upon Tom for many years now? Never fall in love.

Tom's latest persona is as a history teacher in London, a place that stirs old memories for him, memories of love and loss. But when he meets a beautiful French teacher who seems to think she's seen him before, he starts to wonder whether the rules to which he's adhered are truly worth it. What good is living for hundreds of years if you have to do so alone, without letting anyone get close to you? But Hendrich will stop at nothing, will use everything and anyone to ensure his charges comply with his rules.

This is a fascinating, beautiful, moving book about love, loss, loneliness, and adventure. How to Stop Time shifts between Tom's current life and the different persona he assumed throughout the years. It's both a rollicking adventure through time and a love story through time, populated with fascinating characters and events.

Matt Haig is a tremendous storyteller, and I found this book so creative, poignant, and enjoyable. It gets a little slow at times, but for the most part it's just such a beautiful story. Obviously, some suspension of disbelief is necessary for a story like this, but at its core, it's a book that explores universal themes. Definitely a winner.

NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Viking provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Book Review: "The Bone Clocks" by David Mitchell

Holy crap, this book rocked! But honestly, as I was reading it and marveling in it, I kept thinking, "How am I going to review this?" So please indulge me.

"If you love and are loved, whatever you do affects others."

Holly Sykes is a sensitive yet rebellious 15-year-old growing up in 1980s England. When she gets into a huge fight with her mother over her new, older boyfriend, Holly leaves home, but quickly finds her plans to move in with him don't materialize the way she hoped. Searching for where to go next, she encounters strange people, hears voices, and finds herself in some bizarre situations. She remembers when as a child she heard voices she called "the radio people" and had visions of a beautiful, mysterious woman, but she was supposedly "cured" by a doctor. As Holly tries to make her way, things get stranger and stranger, and she has no idea she's caught in a tug of war between two different types of other-worldly people. And then she learns of a real-life tragedy that truly impacts her.

The Bone Clocks is divided into six novellas, of sorts, each in a different decade, from 1984 to 2043, and each main character has a connection to Holly. From an egotistical student at Cambridge with nefarious plans to gain the wealth he believes he deserves, to the war reporter who truly only feels alive when he's in the midst of crisis and danger, to the once-best-selling author determined to seek revenge on the critic he believes has ruined his chance for future success, each of the main characters find themselves drawn into the same type of mysterious situations Holly did.

For lack of a better word, this book is phantasmagorical, but so, so brilliant. I'll admit I didn't understand everything that happened between the horologists and the "carnivores" (and the less said about this, the better for someone yet to read the book), but David Mitchell's storytelling was so breathtakingly good, so utterly captivating, that it didn't matter. I truly was surprised by two things—that a 650-page book could have such rapid pacing, and just how much heart this book had. I was fascinated by the characters and the situations they found themselves in, and I was sad when the book ended, because I wish I could have spent more time with them.

I've never read anything by David Mitchell before, but The Bone Clocks has whet my appetite for more. This was unlike most other books I've read, but I am surprised at how much I loved it. This isn't a book for everyone, so you need to be comfortable with just letting the story flow, and suspending your disbelief. This is easily one of the best I've read this year.

Book Review: "The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells" by Andrew Sean Greer

God, this was such a wonderful, magical, and special book, I didn't want it to end! I had forgotten just how much I love the way Andrew Sean Greer writes.

In 1985, Greta Wells has been devastated by double blows—the death of Felix, her beloved twin brother, and the end of her long relationship with her lover, Nathan. Distraught over these losses, and the impending loss of her brother's lover, Alan (it's the early days of AIDS in New York City), she turns to a long course of electro-convulsive therapy as treatment for her depression.

But the treatments have an unexpected side-effect: it transports her between her current life and the lives she would have lived in different eras. In 1918, she lives a bohemian lifestyle, and embarks on a second romantic relationship; in 1941, she is married and has a young son. Yet even as she embodies the different Gretas and immerses herself in their lives, she is aware of what has transpired in her real 1985-era life, and isn't sure which life she really wants to live. "Don't bring me back, I remember thinking: Take me away."

The people in her life in 1985—Felix, Nathan, Alan, and her eccentric aunt, Ruth—all figure in some way in 1918 and 1941. And even though Greta knows what will happen to their future selves, she can't help but want to try and make things happen to ensure at least some of the characters find happiness. But to get to experience life with those you've lost is an incredibly poignant and cherished opportunity Greta doesn't want to lose, even as she points Felix, Nathan, and Alan toward their destinies.

"Is there any greater pain to know what could be, and yet be powerless to make it be?"

This is such a beautifully written, special book. I can only imagine what it might be like to have the chance to spend time with loved ones I've lost one way or another, even if they're a little different from the way I remember them. This is more than a book about time travel—it's a book about relationships, about always knowing what your heart wants, and about how even when we lose people there's always a part of them that stays with us. And one of the things I liked best about the story was that Greer didn't try to explain why Greta was being transported into different eras, so what occurred didn't lose its magic.

If you like books which touch the heart, even if they're not the most realistic in terms of plot (although who says this didn't happen), you're going to love The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells. And hopefully, like me, you'll enjoy it so much you'll want to finish it and yet be sad when it's finished. Truly wonderful.