Book Review: "The Breakup Tour" by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Riley Wynn might be the most famous singer/songwriter at the current time. Her natural charm, her beauty, and her talent have garnered her countless fans, and her romantic relationships keep her in the public eye.

When her marriage to a handsome actor ends after only a few months, she chooses to put her pain into her music. She writes what is essentially an album of breakup songs, each one inspired by a different relationship. The lead single, “Until You,” becomes an instant hit, with her ex-husband publicly discussing how he inspired the song.

The truth is, though, the song is about her college boyfriend Max, a fellow musician who decided to stay home and run his family’s retirement home instead of pursue their romantic and musical dreams together. Now 10 years later, Riley shows up to ask Max if she can tell the world that he inspired her song. His counteroffer is to play the song on tour with her.

As they travel across the country, the song sounds great but it’s not authentic because there’s no connection between them. Both are fighting to keep their feelings in check, afraid if they pursue love again, it could shatter them forever.

I’ve seen many people refer to this book as the “Taylor Swift story”; even one of the blurbs on the back cover says, “This one is for the Swifties.” For me, knowing these things made it difficult for me to separate the main character from her alleged inspiration.

This character isn’t particularly likable. She’s immensely cynical and seems to view love—its beginning and ending—as nothing more than musical inspiration. Obviously there is more to her than meets the eye, but while I enjoyed the book, I found it hard to get fully absorbed by Riley’s story.

Book Review: "The Same Bright Stars" by Ethan Joella

That feeling when an author whose two previous books have been on your best-of lists writes a new book that surpasses them all. Thank you, Ethan Joella, for leaving me smiling, sniffling, and utterly in awe about how easily your stories pull me in.

Schmidt’s restaurant has been a fixture in Rehoboth Beach for three generations now. Jack Schmidt has been at the helm for years, running the place his grandmother and father devoted their lives to. And Jack has done the same—put the restaurant and its staff above everything else in his life, including relationships, travel, even simple relaxation.

The DelDine group has been purchasing family-owned and small restaurants all over Delaware, and they’ve cast their sights on Schmidt’s. Jack has absolutely no intention of selling his family’s legacy, but the more tired he gets, the more he wonders if maybe he deserves to put himself first for once.

As he ponders the decision, he thinks about the paths he could have taken, the chances he passed up, and the regrets he has. He worries about his employees and whether DelDine will honor their promise to take care of them if he sells. And when he learns of a secret hidden from him for years, he wonders if this is the sign he needs to act.

The richness of this story, the depth of the characters, the emotions and images it evokes, all blew me away. This is a gorgeous story about family, friendship, love, loyalty, regret, hope, and possibility. I will never get enough of how well Joella tells a story.

Thanks so much to NetGalley, Scribner Books, and Ethan for the advance copy! The book will publish 7/2.

Book Review: "A Fire So Wild" by Sarah Ruiz-Grossman

Intriguing and thought-provoking, A Fire So Wild is both a meditation on climate change and a look at housing inequity, as well as how the path back from disaster looks different for the haves versus the have-nots.

It’s an unbearably hot summer in Berkeley, California, much as it has been for some time with the damage wrought by climate change. A wildfire in the distant hills threatens the city, but many aren’t too concerned that it will actually reach them.

Abigail works for an affordable housing organization, not seeing the irony of living in a hillside mansion with her wife and son. She’s desperate to show that she’s doing good for the community, so she decides to throw a fundraiser for her 50th birthday, to subsidize more affordable housing units in a new building under construction.

Sunny and his girlfriend, Willow, are currently living in their van, but have recently been approved for one of the apartments—if the funding comes through. They dream of the difference a place of their own will make, not having to move the van every night. And then, in the midst of it all, flames rush into the neighborhood, destroying homes, lives, and futures.

This was definitely a character-driven book, and there are a number of characters the story follows. Not all of the stories are as fleshed out, but I felt drawn into the fear and anger, and the descriptions of the fire were so evocative. I was worried that the book might veer into melodrama, and was so glad it didn’t. Definitely kept me thinking!

Book Review: "Bloom" by N.R. Walker

This book was so sweet and romantic, I feel like my heart grew a few sizes while reading it!! It was included on a list of indie queer romances that a friend of mine posts each month, and I’m so grateful to have found this!

Keats owns his own flower shop in Sydney. It was a dream of his for some time, and while things are going well, running a successful business is exhausting, and he’s been able to focus on nothing but that for the last two years. He does wonder what it would be like to have a personal life again.

One day, Linden walks into the store looking for a bouquet of murder flowers to give to his cheating boyfriend. Keats convinces Linden to go for flowers that send a message rather than ones that could cause actual physical pain and suffering. Linden makes a purchase, and both aren’t shy about flirting with each other.

Neither man can get the other out of his mind. Their chemistry is intense, their senses of humor mesh perfectly, and they’re quickly smitten with one another. Given Linden’s recent romantic history, would getting involved with Keats doom him to be the rebound guy? And given that the store has been an impediment to Keats dating, is Linden different?

For me, this book was the perfect mix of flirtatious banter, the giddiness of attraction, and some exceptionally hot steam, along with fun supporting characters. I’ll definitely be looking up the meanings of any flowers I give or get in the future!!

Book Review: "Owning Up" by George Pelecanos

Ever since I read one of his first books in the early 1990s, George Pelecanos has been one of my absolute favorite crime writers. Although he has done well as a writer and executive producer of shows like The Wire, Treme, and The Deuce, he really should be more of a household name for his books.

He hasn’t published a book since 2018, so I was really excited to find his latest book during a bookstore visit this weekend. Even if this is more fiction with a dash of crime, it is so good to read his work again.

Owning Up is a collection of four novellas, each of which follows its main characters for a number of decades. In “The Amusement Machine,” two former inmates meet in a completely different environment since they’ve turned their lives around, at least until one finds money more tempting than freedom. In “The No-Knock,” a crime writer’s life is turned upside down when federal agents ransack his house, looking for evidence that his eldest son committed a crime.

Family history, as well as the history of some major acts of violence and disaster in Washington DC, are at the core of “Knickerbocker,” when a woman leading her grandmother through reminiscences brings her into a whole different world. And in the title novella, a young Greek man comes of age during two hostage crises in Washington, and he learns a valuable lesson from a coworker.

While I missed the whipsmart intensity of Pelecanos' crime novels, these novellas reminded me how well he creates characters that reside somewhere in the grey space between good and bad. There are familiar themes in this book, of family and heritage, over the struggle to do the right thing, and issues of racism and racial inequity. I’ve always loved the research he does for his books, and it’s gotten to the point where I’ve been here long enough to remember many of the places he writes about!!

Book Review: "After Annie" by Anna Quindlen

“Grief was like spring, maybe. You thought you were getting out from under it and then it came roaring back. And getting out from under it felt like forgetting, and forgetting felt like treason.”

One night while cooking dinner, Annie asks her husband Bill to get some Advil for her headache. The next second she falls to the ground in front of her children, struck by an aneurysm.

The suddenness of Annie’s death hits everyone hard, most notably her husband, their four children between the ages of 6 and 13, and Annemarie, Annie’s best friend since childhood, who leaned on Annie about as much as her family, at times more.

The book is narrated by Bill, Annemarie, and Ali, Annie and Bill’s oldest daughter. Lots of things happen—tensions, breakdowns, arguments—as well as the simpler moments which illustrate how life does go on even when it feels like it absolutely can’t.

How do you deal with your grief when you have four children who need to get back into their routines, and they need your help? How do you handle having to take charge of raising your father, your siblings, and yourself when you’re only 13, and don’t really understand all that’s happening in your own world? What do you do when the one person you’ve counted on to save you is no longer there, when you need her the most?

I thought this was beautifully written and sad (although not as sad as I expected), but the pacing was a little slow at times. It also felt like there might have been one too many things happening at the same time. But the emotions, the differing stages of grief and how we handle them, it all made for a powerful story.

Book Review: "Family Reservations" by Liza Palmer

This book couldn’t have been more tailor-made for me, given that it’s a combination of two things I love the most: family drama/dysfunction and books about cooking and the restaurant world. It was so good I stayed up super late to read the whole thing!

Maren Winter is a culinary pioneer. She blazed a trail when only a small number of women were chefs—and even fewer owned their own restaurants. She’s built an immense legacy that’s about to get even bigger with the imminent opening of her latest restaurant, Central Trade.

But as Maren gets older, each of her daughters wonders when she’ll step down from the helm, and which one of them she’ll entrust with The Winter Group. Will it be shrewd Sloane, desperate to finally step up as a leader? Julienne, the communications expert and middle child, who is rarely seen for the full extent of her intelligence? Or will it be Athena, the youngest, who has truly followed in her mother’s footsteps to become an acclaimed chef on her own?

During Maren’s annual New Year’s Eve Dinner, decisions are made and events occur that threaten to destroy the family. At least two of the three daughters see this as their chance to grab the reins, but they don’t count on their mother’s restlessness or how getting closer to your dreams sometimes doesn’t feel as good as you think.

Most of these characters aren’t particularly likable, but I couldn’t put this book down. I was completely immersed in the power struggles and emotional realizations that occurred, and couldn’t wait to see how it all wrapped up.

“There’s something particularly irrefutable about finding actual evidence of how truly clueless you once were. The blind hope of it just breaks your heart.”

This was my Amazon First Reads pick for March. The book releases 4/1.