Book Review: "The Bookish Life of Nina Hill" by Abbi Waxman

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me or follows me on any of my social media feeds that reading is one of the most immense joys of my life. Whenever I am asked by someone how I read so many books, I explain in part that reading helps me decompress—days when I don't get the chance to read even for a few moments leave me feeling out-of-sorts and much more tense.

Perhaps that love for reading is one of the many reasons I was utterly charmed by Nina Hill, the title character of Abbi Waxman's wonderful, thought-provoking new novel, The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. At times the book—and Nina herself—are almost too quirky for words, but her story captured my heart from the first few sentences, and I don't think it will leave me anytime soon.

"Nina had looked around and realized she would never run out of things to read, and that certainty filled her with peace and satisfaction. It didn't matter what hit the fan; as long as there were unread books in the world, she would be fine. Being surrounded by books was the closest she'd ever gotten to feeling like the member of a gang. The books had her back, and the nonfiction, at least, was ready to fight if necessary."

Nina lives a life that leaves her content. She loves her job in a bookstore, she enjoys competing on her tremendously successful trivia team (even though they keep getting banned from different bars), and she keeps her life meticulously planned, even though she's happy to make any excuse to miss yoga and just read instead. Her life may be reasonably solitary, and she may have trouble at times dealing with anxiety (which has plagued her since she was a child), but even when she wonders if there is more she should want from life, she just picks up another book.

The only child of a single mother who left the nanny to raise her, Nina learns one day that the father she never knew existed (beyond the fact that she wasn't immaculately conceived) knew she existed, and has recently died, leaving her a beneficiary in his will. Beyond that, however, she suddenly finds that she has brothers and sisters of all ages (her father was married three times), not to mention nieces, nephews, great-nieces, and great-nephews (some of whom are actually older than she is). Most of them are thrilled to discover a new relative, and Nina is shocked to find how much she enjoys being part of a family.

Nina is also a little thrown when she realizes she has feelings for Tom, a member of her trivia team's fiercest rival. He's handsome, seems to have a terrific personality, and he knows a lot about sports, which is a subject she's woefully weak on. To top it off, Tom is interested in getting to know her better. But Nina isn't sure she has room in her life for a relationship, what with her job, her new family, and the time she sets aside for reading every day. Plus, the more she realizes how strongly she feels for him, the more afraid she gets, which doesn't feel good at all.

When a crisis arises that threatens the job she loves and frictions in her newfound family intensify, Nina wants to do what she's always done in the face of trouble: retreat into solitude. She isn't sure if she is able to open her life up to Tom the way he wants her to, and she's not even sure she's ready for the myriad challenges that family can bring.

Can we change the habits that bring us comfort and security if it means opening our lives up to someone else? How do we allow ourselves to trust someone else when we've always been independent and self-reliant? And, more importantly, can a voracious reader truly find happiness with someone who barely reads?

There's so much to enjoy about The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. Nina is definitely a unique character who is sometimes difficult to sympathize with, but how can a bookworm like me not love someone like her? This is a story about connection, about opening yourself up to trust and care about others, about family and friendship and finding community, and about a healthy obsession with trivia. But of course, it's also a book about the immense joy of books and reading, and the wonderful feeling of sharing that joy with others.

"It was the same way with everything Nina experienced; fictional characters were as real to her as the people she met and touched every day."

I found this book so wonderful, and even if I was occasionally irritated by the quirkiness of it all, Waxman's humor, her heart, and the beautiful characters she created snapped me back to reality pretty quickly. This definitely goes on my list of memorable books about reading and bookstores, and I know it's one I won't forget anytime soon.

Book Review: "Evvie Drake Starts Over" by Linda Holmes

If you're looking for a book to charm you completely and worm its way into your heart, you don't have to look any further than Linda Holmes' debut novel, Evvie Drake Starts Over. Boy, did I thoroughly enjoy this one!

It's been nearly a year since her husband died in a car accident, and Evvie (like "Chevy," not "Stevie") Drake has spent most of the time holed up in her house, trying to stay out of the public eye. Her husband was a beloved physician in their small Maine town, and she is rarely in the mood to hear everyone's continued condolences and their encouragement that she seems to be holding up well.

Everyone, including her own father and her best friend, Andy, think she spends her days trying to get her grief under control. She's not interested in correcting them and letting them know the truth.

Andy's childhood best friend, Dean Tenney, was a major league baseball pitcher. He was in a few World Series championships and was well known for his pitching skill. Until one day he couldn't pitch anymore. He wasn't injured, he wasn't exhausted, he wasn't ready to be done with baseball—he just couldn't seem to throw straight no matter how hard he tried. And he tried. Everything. But after a while he got tired of the world second-guessing and ridiculing him, so he just walked away.

When Andy proposes that Dean move into the apartment at the back of Evvie's house, it sounds like a good deal for the both of them. Evvie can pick up some extra money since she hasn't been working much over the last year, and Dean can find a quiet place to reset himself, outside the glare of the media. They settle on the perfect deal: Evvie won't ask him anything about baseball, and Dean won't ask her anything about her marriage or her husband.

"The amount of time people who have just met are supposed to look directly at each other, particularly without talking, is a unit that's both very short and very precise. When you exceed it, you get suspicious, or you get threatened, or you get this flicker of accidental intimacy, like you've peeked at the person naked through a shower door."

As the two start to build a friendship, however, those rules start to go out the window. Evvie tries to understand what is keeping Dean from pitching the way he used to, and tries to determine if he really is satisfied with giving it all up. And for his part, Dean begins to realize all of the secrets and emotions that Evvie has kept bottled up for so long regarding her marriage and her relationship with her late husband.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see where their relationship might be headed, and of course, there are complications along the way. How do two people who have gotten so used to keeping their lives so private begin to trust in one another, and how do they help each other without pushing too hard? Can a relationship between two people who are just beginning to truly know themselves really succeed?

"Your head is the house you live in, so you have to do the maintenance."

No matter how predictable some of the plot of Evvie Drake Starts Over is, this book is pretty wonderful. I enjoyed these characters, flaws and all, and I found their backstories just as fascinating as the road that Holmes unfurled for them throughout the book. Both Evvie and Dean have had their share of damage and hard-knocks, and it isn't easy to realize that you can't always fight every battle on your own, nor do you have to fight every single battle.

At times the book moved a little slower than I hoped it would, but I still couldn't tear myself away. This book does deal with some serious issues, but it also has a tremendous amount of humor and hope, not to mention a few pretty steamy sex scenes. I wouldn't mind a return visit to Maine, to Evvie and Dean and Andy and Monica.

This book is the perfect solution for you if you've been reading a bunch of heavier books recently. It will make you chuckle and it may even make you tear up with happy tears, but it will definitely give you someone to root for.

Book Review: "Breathe In, Cash Out" by Madeleine Henry

Allegra Cobb has spent nearly two years working as an analyst at one of the most well-known banks. Between working an unbelievable amount of hours each week, redoing PowerPoint slide decks and bar charts for her supervisors, and trying not to lose her mind, she dreams of quitting her job to start her own yoga practice—just as soon as her year-end bonus comes in.

She's spent most of her life being an overachiever, driven by a father whose primary mechanism of communication and affection was coaching her to victory. She went to Princeton, excelled at every sport she played, and she even won gold at the American Yoga National Competition. But now she's tired of being treating like a slave by her bosses, working until 4:00 a.m. some days only to be right back at her desk before 9:00 a.m., and she's ready for it all to be over.

All she needs to do is be patient and wait for the year to come to an end. It appears, however, that won't be easy. She's just slept with a hot man from her yoga class—who is now her new boss on a major deal. She's also just met Skylar, one of her yoga idols, and she's taken a real interest in Allegra. The thing is, however, Skylar wants to help her begin to focus more on herself, become more centered and intentional about her goals and her yoga practice. That doesn't seem to reconcile itself with the hellish pace at which Allegra spends her workweek.

As Allegra tries to balance her daily responsibilities with following Skylar's advice, she finds she's successful at neither. And the results are spectacular—spectacularly bad, that is. If things keep up the way they're going, she might get fired before she gets her bonus, which, of course, will leave her nowhere. She's alienating her closest coworker and burning the candle at both ends is also taking its toll on her physically. What do you do if you fall asleep when you attempt meditation?

The closer Allegra gets to bonus day, the more confused she becomes about what path she should take. Should she follow Skylar or set her own path? Is she crazy to abandon a promising—if destructive—career in finance to pursue her dreams? And perhaps more importantly, what is her father going to say when she tells him she's quitting? It's enough to make even the most centered person feel completely off-kilter.

Breathe In, Cash Out is a humorous look at the cutthroat world of finance and the first-world problems of young people making six-figure salaries right out of college yet feel they are overworked and underappreciated. (Wow, I might have totally sounded like a grumpy old man just then.) It's also a fascinating look at how easy it can be to self-destruct when you're not 100 percent focused, and how sometimes it just takes one person's belief in you and your dreams to help you pull yourself together—however briefly.

Madeleine Henry worked for Goldman Sachs and then started her own yoga practice, so she definitely knows of what she writes. She has a breezy, funny writing style, and even though I didn't understand a lot of the terms her characters used when talking about the finance world, I found myself fully immersed in this story. The plot is a little bit predictable but Henry still created enough uncertainty in exactly how far Allegra might fall, or whether she'd decide to pursue her dream in the first place.

Things did get a little repetitive toward the middle, and there are times when I almost wanted to read the book with my hands over my eyes because I was waiting for everything to simply explode, but this was a tremendously fast and fun read. The marketing for the book compares it to The Devil Wears Prada, and while there may be a few similarities, this is an enjoyable book on its own.

Trust me: you'll see Breathe In, Cash Out in a lot of people's hands this summer and fall. I am just trying to think about who could play Allegra in the movie version.

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

This book publishes July 9, 2019.

Book Review: "The Printed Letter Bookshop" by Katherine Reay

"...it often isn't the events that haunt us, though those hold power and can harm us, it is the choices we make within those events we carry all our days."

Madeline Cullen's aunt Maddie was the owner of the Printed Letter Bookshop in Winsome, a small town outside of Chicago. One of Madeline's fondest memories was spending a few weeks working with her aunt and uncle in the quaint, beloved store, until a family incident caused a seemingly irreversible rift.

Almost 20 years later, Madeline is shocked to learn that her aunt left her the store, her house, and all of her possessions. Even more of a surprise, however, is that the store is in serious debt—while her aunt was fantastic to her customers, she wasn't much of a businesswoman. When Madeline leaves her prestigious law firm, she makes the decision to try and get the store back on a more solid financial footing to make it more attractive for purchase.

"That's what books do, Maddie used to say; they are a conversation, and introduce us to ourselves and to others."

Madeline isn't counting on the fierce loyalty of the store's two employees, Janet and Claire. Both are dealing with issues of their own, not to mention their grief over losing their friend, and they aren't eager to see Maddie's legacy sold to the highest bidder. For her part, Madeline is surprised by how much she comes to love the store, and even as it continues to struggle financially, she starts to hope for a miracle to turn things around.

The more time Madeline spends in the bookstore, the more she realizes that her assumptions about her aunt were drastically incorrect. She's more determined than ever to try and make things work, but setback after setback make that possibility even less of a reality. But where does she belong? What path should she follow for the rest of her life? And what would the end of the bookshop mean for Janet and Claire?

I love books about bookstores almost as much as I love bookstores themselves. Katherine Reay's The Printed Letter Bookshop is a terrific new addition to that genre. But in addition to the story about the special relationship between bookseller and customer, and how bookstores often are the heart of communities, this is a book about second chances and the choices we make based on misconceptions.

Beyond that, this is a book about friendship, love, and hope. The plot is a little predictable, but I was charmed from the start, and I couldn't put this down. I really enjoyed the characters Reay created, and how she wasn't afraid to give each flaws which made them more realistic and more interesting.

Thanks (I guess) to a case of insomnia, I read this in just a few hours. I went to sleep with a smile on my face, wishing there was a place like The Printed Letter Bookshop in my town. But at least I got to read about it.

NetGalley and Thomas Nelson Fiction provided me a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!

Book Review: "Summer Hours" by Amy Mason Doan

"Whatever we'd been swimming away from, whatever we sensed lurking inside that gold nylon graduation cap above us, maybe we'd been right to fear it. We say we'll never be like them, but it happens. It happens gradually. We give in a little here, put off the hard decision there, say we're paying our dues. We forget to swim against the current."

It was the three of them—Becc, Eric, and Serra—against the world in high school. Becc and Eric always had an unspoken connection but his emotional issues caused him to keep her at arm's length, and when they went away to college, he barely kept in touch with her for reasons she couldn't understand.

A scholarship student at Berkeley, Becc always did what was expected of her—she took the right classes, got good grades, did the right things. In an effort to prove she's not the perfect girl everyone thinks she is, she pursues an affair with Cal, an older man with a connection to her life before college. While at first the relationship and the need to keep it a secret excites her, after a while she just wants to be a regular college student.

When Becc's secret is revealed, it destroys her friendship with Eric and any chance the two might have for happiness. It puts her scholarship at risk, and it also has the potential to hurt her pursuit of a journalism career, something she has spent years trying to pursue.

Ten years later, Becc is driving to Oregon through California for Serra's wedding. She is not alone, although her passenger is someone from whom she has been estranged for years, although he agrees to help Becc assemble a special wedding present for Serra. Along the way, they reopen old wounds and try to find explanations for their behavior and actions years ago. But some hurts, some decisions, require more than simple excuses and could haunt them forever.

Summer Hours is told in alternating chapters between the mid-1990s and 2008, tracing the genesis of Becc's decisions and her relationships, and then examining the aftermath of those decisions years later. Amy Mason Doan does a terrific job painting a portrait of how the lines of friendship can be stretched into romance, and where the pain points lie. It's also a look at the way a young woman's confidence can be shaped by her relationships, until she realizes she has more control than anyone.

Doan did a great job creating fully fleshed, complex characters—not just Becc, but Eric and Cal as well. I also was really taken by her use of imagery—I could see the beauty of Catalina and the California coast as she described them. I really enjoyed this book and love the way that Doan writes. This is the first book of hers I read and it definitely won't be the last.

As you might imagine, Summer Hours is a great summer read, although you can read it anytime. You'll want to experience Doan's writing and this terrific, well-thought-out story which will make you feel and make you think, and then you'll want to share it with your friends.

Book Review: "This is Home" by Lisa Duffy

This was a terrific book!

Sixteen-year-old Libby Winters is surrounded by family. She has lived with her father, Bent, in the middle-level apartment of a triple-decker house, since her mother died. Because Bent is a policeman and often works nights, his two sisters, Lucy and Desiree, are tasked with watching over her, which generally means smothering her or encouraging her rebellion, depending upon which aunt is in charge.

For her part, Libby is tired of everyone giving her advice or worrying about her, and she longs for the opportunity to be her own person.

When Quinn moves in to the apartment downstairs, Libby immediately chafes at the idea of another person crowding her. But when she realizes that Quinn has issues of her own to deal with, the two begin to depend on one another—although their lives are vastly different, both are weighed down by the pressures of life and disappointed by those around them.

Quinn's husband John, who deployed to Iraq shortly after they got married, returns home after two tours, the man her husband has become isn't someone she recognizes. He suffers from PTSD, which he refuses to acknowledge, choosing instead to self-medicate with copious amounts of alcohol.

When John disappears after revealing his plans to return to Iraq, John sends Bent, his former platoon leader, to bring her to his home. At first, Quinn doesn't want someone else to do her husband's bidding, but she begins to rely on Bent more and more as events in her life become more uncertain.

"It occurred to her that over the years, she'd accumulated things to show her existence: a birth certificate, a marriage license, a college degree...but she'd never really thought about herself outside of these narrow margins—who was she after all? Especially now, with the hours stretching in front of her and nowhere to be?"

As Libby deals with problems which challenge a long-time friendship, and tries to figure out the revival of an old attraction, Quinn must figure out what she wants from John, for her future, and from others that seem to occupy her mind and her heart.

Lisa Duffy's This is Home is a beautiful, emotional story about family, friendship, parenthood, and the struggles and challenges love can cause. Duffy does a great job capturing how PTSD affects not only the individual suffering from it, but those around them, and the ripple effects it can cause.

There is a lot going on here, and not every storyline gets resolved neatly, if at all. But Duffy has created such memorable, complex characters, and no one is without flaws or struggles. It will be a while before I can get them out of my mind.

This is Home is a book that has gotten a lot of hype, and it's great to see just how worthy it is of this praise. Read it!

Book Review: "Lot" by Bryan Washington

"It didn't take long to see that there's the world you live in, and then there are the constellations around it, and you'll never know you're missing them if you don't even know to look up."

Lot, Bryan Washington's new story collection, is raw, potent, and packs a powerful, emotional punch.

Taking place in Houston before and after Hurricane Harvey, many of the stories focus on one young man, the son of an erstwhile Latino father and a black mother, as he grows into adulthood, confronts the prejudice and the social and economic realities of the community he lives in, this community of immigrants.

At the same time, he comes to terms with his sexuality, although he never views his encounters with other boys and men as anything more than physical.

There are stories exploring the complicated relationships in broken families, the expectations of masculinity, the treatment of women as often little more than sexual objects and maids, and the menial and dangerous jobs boys and men living in these neighborhoods turn to. Washington's stories explore what makes a community, what makes a family, what makes a life.

Washington's stories aren't quite happy. Even those that appear to have a more positive spin have a tinge of sadness or elements of disaster or trouble just around the corner. But many of the stories work despite their tone because of Washington's tremendous writing ability—his use of language, his talent with imagery which conjures images of setting and character in your head.

While I didn't love all of the stories, some really stuck with me, including: "Alief," in which a community reveals a neighbor's affair to her husband but is unprepared for the destruction that might cause; "610 North, 610 West," where a son is brought face-to-face with his father's infidelity; "Shepherd," which tells of how the visit of a cousin from Jamaica causes chaos among family members; "South Congress," about an interesting relationship between a local drug dealer and a teenager who barely speaks English; and my favorite story, "Waugh," about a group of young hustlers.

I'm a big fan of short stories, although I've not read many collections this year. I was definitely struck by the power and poignancy of Washington's voice, and I think Lot hints at the amazing career ahead of him.