Book Review: "Summer in the City" by Alex Aster

“There are moments in life, I think, that make you grateful you didn’t just stay in your room.”

Elle is a successful screenwriter, but no one knows it, because she writes under an alias. She’s just gotten the chance for her big break, to write a big-budget rom-com set in NYC, so she moves to the city for inspiration.

She has the summer to write the script, but she has writer’s block. Bad. To make matters worse, she discovers that her neighbor in the apartment next door is Parker, the tech billionaire she met two years ago. They hooked up at a nightclub and he offended her, so Elle has hated him ever since.

Parker doesn’t seem to remember Elle, but their constant interactions fuel her anger, which in turn spikes her creativity. What happens when you realize your nemesis is actually your twisted muse, helping you do some of your best work?

When Parker needs a girlfriend to attend events while his company is in the midst of a crucial negotiation, he asks Elle. In exchange, he offers to accompany her to the different locations featured in her script. It’s just for the summer—and no feelings will be involved. (Sure…)

I’m a complete sap and this book hit all the right notes for me. It’s full of great banter, hot steam, and real emotion. Elle’s stubbornness was irritating at times but I still rooted for the two of them.

Book Review: "Greenland" by David Santos Donaldson

Greenland is creative, mesmerizing, and beautifully written.

Kip has dreamed of being a published author his entire life. His parents even named him Kipling (after the author), so how could that not be his destiny? But while his first manuscript had promise, it’s not ready to be published.

When an editor gives him the idea to shift the focus of his novel to tell the story of Mohammed El Adl, the Black Egyptian tram conductor who had an affair with famed British author E.M. Forster, Kip pounces on the idea, being Black and queer himself. But of course, there’s a catch: the editor is retiring in three weeks and the publishing house has been sold, so if he doesn’t finish in time, there’s no deal.

No matter. Kip has boarded himself in a basement study with “five boxes of Premium Saltine Crackers, three tins of Café Bustelo, and twenty-one one-gallon jugs of Poland Spring Water.” And a hammer. And a gun. And he won’t leave until he’s done, much to the worry of his ex-husband and his ex-best friend.

What ensues is a novel within a novel. We get Mohammed’s story, told while he was in prison, but we also get Kip’s story, and they intersect in many different ways. And as Kip’s mania drives him to finish this book, in essence, Mohammed is telling his story to Kip. It’s fascinating, a little confusing, and utterly dazzling.

This book is unlike any I’ve read. It’s a meditation on feeling like an outsider, a look at interracial relationships (particularly queer ones), and a portrait of the creative process. It’s definitely not a book for everyone but I’m so glad I finally read it.

Book Review: "And They Lived..." by Steven Salvatore

Steven Salvatore's second YA book, And They Lived..., hit me square in the feels.

Chase is a lover of fairytales, of happy endings. He dreams of a career as an animator and is pursuing that in college. He’s struggled with body dysmorphia and an eating disorder in the past, and he’s not quite sure if he’s gay, genderqueer, or nonbinary. Ultimately, he’s hoping college will help him feel more comfortable with himself as he finds his circle and has to deal with the drama of competing with a former friend.

And then he meets Jack. Jack is a poet, a writer, obsessed with stories and the power of words. He’s handsome, athletic, confident—or at least appears that way—and immediately they feel a pull toward one another. But Jack isn’t sure about whether he’s gay, and worries about the reactions of his conservative family, so he’s constantly giving Chase mixed signals.

As the semester heats up, and Chase is trying to win a prestigious mentorship, he’s desperate to figure out who he is, where he wants his life to go, and whom he wants around him. But at the same time, he needs to see if a happy ending with Jack is possible or if their story needs to go in a different direction.

I fell in love with And They Lived... almost immediately. Chase is such an endearing character—some of his struggles were very familiar and personal to me—and the supporting characters were such fun, too. Salvatore knows how to touch your heart, and they say in their author’s note that this is their most personal book to date.

Thanks to Storygram Tours and Bloomsbury YA for inviting me on the tour for And They Lived... and providing me with a complimentary advance copy of the book. Pick it up when it publishes 3/8!!

Book Review: "The Roughest Draft" by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

In this latest collaboration between married writers Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka, two writers face a challenge even worse than writers’ block.

Katrina and Nathan met at a writers’ program and immediately felt a creative connection. They became a writing team, and their second novel catapulted them into fame. But as soon as that book was done, they ended their partnership without explaining why, and they’ve not spoken since then. Did they have an affair? Was there jealousy? Abuse? Creative differences? No one knows, except them.

Now, with various pressures (financial and otherwise) mounting, they’re forced to collaborate on one more book as per their contract. They never expected they’d have to go back to the house in Florida where they wrote their last book, and confront all of the issues that tore them apart in the first place.

Will creative magic strike again? Can they find a way to talk through all of the things they’ve never said to one another, and come out stronger? What would a happy ever after look like for them?

This is the first foray into “adult” fiction for real-life married writers Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka, who’ve written YA romances to this point. I thought they did a good job here and I was invested in the characters’ story. I just felt the pacing was uneven, and at times I just wanted to skim the book until it got moving again.

Book Review: "Blaine for the Win" by Robbie Couch

Robbie Couch's upcoming YA novel, Blaine for the Win, is a fantastic, heartwarming story about finding yourself and deciding what you want from life and love.

After loving Couch's first book, The Sky Blues (which was one of my favorites from last year, as you can see on this list), I was so excited to get an ARC of his new book, thanks to some arm-twisting by my dear friend Amy. Couch truly is the king of feel-good YA fiction!!

Blaine is creative, artistic, a bit of a daydreamer. He loves painting murals on buildings in his downtown Chicago neighborhood, and he loves his boyfriend Joey, who is a type-A overachiever with plans of becoming president one day.

When Joey breaks up with him—on their one-year anniversary and at the fanciest restaurant in Chicago—he tells Blaine he needs to date someone serious to be his partner in success. Blaine is too scatterbrained, too flighty, and he dresses too flamboyantly.

Blaine is devastated but he’s determined to win Joey back. To do that, he’ll become a serious guy—and to prove it, he’s decided to run for senior class president, to succeed Joey—and defeat Joey’s new, perfect boyfriend, Zach. Given that Blaine has never even been on student council (or cared), it’s an uphill battle which will require a lot of work, not to mention the support of his best friend…and some unexpected others. But will becoming a serious guy ruin what is best about Blaine? Will it close his eyes to those who truly care about him?

I loved this book x 1,000,000! It was sweet and fun, but there’s lots of discussion about teenagers’ mental health which is such an important topic to address.

Blaine for the Win publishes 4/12, and if you’re a YA fan you’ll want to pick it up!!

Book Review: "Love Lettering" by Kate Clayborn

Love Lettering was a slow-burn rom-com that snuck up on me and grabbed my heart!

First of all, I’ve got to say that this book wins for the most unusual professions of its main characters. Meg is a designer who specializes in hand lettering—she does in journals, planners, signs, cards, etc., and has even been called "The Planner of Park Slope"—and Reid is a quant, or quantitative analyst. (He’s a numbers guy in the finance world.)

Meg met Reid about a year ago when she was finishing up all of the printed material for his wedding. Something about that encounter and the dynamic between Reid and his fiancée compelled her to sneak a secret message of warning into their wedding program, amidst the frills, flowers, and fairies. No one will notice, right?

A year later Reid returns, and wants to know how Meg knew that his marriage was doomed to fail. (Of course he found the message. He finds patterns and signs every day.) Of course, Meg is most worried what Reid's discovery—and the possibility of him going public with it—could do to her career.

They couldn’t be more different from one another. But with a major deadline looming and her creativity blocked, Meg tries to enlist Reid into noticing the beauty of letters, fonts, and signs throughout New York City and Brooklyn. As the tension between them thaws, her creativity flows again.

But both are tightly wound, heavily guarded people, unwilling and unable to let the other in. And when a scandal erupts, both must decide whether signs point to a future together or apart.

"The point is...sometimes fighting isn't about leaving, it's about staying. It takes practice to get it right, and it's painful, but if you want to stay with people, you do it."

This book was enjoyable and unique in many ways, even as it followed the traditional rom-com patterns. I loved the juxtaposition between the creative and the analytical, and Meg and Reid's relationship really seemed believable. This one isn’t too steamy (one or two scenes but that’s it) but the whole story, and Kate Clayborn's storytelling, are just so appealing.

Book Review: "Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice" by Colum McCann

I love following friends on Goodreads who have similar tastes in books to mine. It's always fascinating to see different people's perspectives on books you've read, to see if they love the same ones you do, and if they were as disappointed as the ones which let you down. The potential downside? When it seems as if EVERYONE has read a book that you hadn't even considered, or just haven't gotten to yet. You know what I mean...

It's not that I hadn't considered reading Colum McCann's Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice, it's just that there are always far too many books and far too little time, so I thought a foray into nonfiction might bog me down. And then the reviews started popping up—people were breathless with their praise, they were moved, some were even in tears! Well, hell, I couldn't let this one pass me by then.

The fact is, when I was in fifth grade I wrote my first novel. Since I was mostly influenced by my afterschool diet of soap operas and my prime-time consumption of television shows like The Love Boat and Fantasy Island (it was the 70s, after all), the book was a tad melodramatic. In fact, my very first reviewer, my aunt, said to me, "So, does anyone in this book do anything more than get married, have affairs, have babies, kill each other, and die?" Well, no. Needless to say, the novel died a quick death.

I have dreamed of being a writer for most of my life. I write quite a bit as part of my "real job," but not fiction (although the occasional marketing copy or memo to my Board of Directors might qualify). I've written a few short stories that I tried to get published, but I've never gotten that far. I know I have a story, or a novel, inside me, but I just can't seem to flesh out the ideas enough to get them on paper.

Needless to say, McCann's book didn't just speak to me, it sang. Filled both with new takes on advice I've heard before, and new perspectives I hadn't considered, Letters to a Young Writer both encouraged me and made me realize the things I've perhaps been doing wrong in my pursuit of the fiction deep within me.

"One day you might find yourself hating writing precisely because you want to make it so good. Yet this awful truth is just another form of joy. Get used to it. The sun also sets in order to rise."

Beyond the inspiration of this book, what I loved is that while McCann treated writing as a calling, something writers feel they must do, he recognizes it can't be the only thing. He talks about the need to escape the pressure of writing, the need to enjoy life outside (and the outside), and the importance and sheer beauty of reading, one of my most favorite activities in the world.

"You read to fire your heart aflame. You read to lop the top of your head off. You read because you're the bravest idiot around and you're willing to go on an adventure into the joy of confusion. You know when a book is working. Give it time. ... A good book will turn your world sideways."

I am energized by this book, with the desire to write, certainly, but also the desire to read more of McCann's work. The fact that he could dazzle me so with a book about writing, combined with how I felt about Thirteen Ways of Looking (see my original review), definitely convinces me to revisit the one novel of his I had trouble with, as well as his other books.

Do you need to be a writer, or want to write, in order to enjoy this book? It certainly helps, but the fact is, anyone with an appreciation of the craft of writing, or who simply marvels at the lyrical beauty of sentences will enjoy this. McCann is a writer at the top of his craft, sharing his craft with us as he tells us about his craft. It's a little meta, but it's a lot fantastic.

Book Review: "The Chalk Artist" by Allegra Goodman

Whether she intended it or not, I feel like Allegra Goodman's newest novel, The Chalk Artist, is two books in one.

It's a love story of sorts between two dreamers who come from different backgrounds and share different perspectives on how to make their dreams come true. At the same time, it's also a look at the world of video gaming and virtual reality, and the way it pulls all different types of people into its wake. On the surface you wouldn't think that these two disparate halves could make a whole, but the end result is a tremendously compelling, beautifully written, slightly imperfect book.

Collin is a tremendously talented artist who never felt like he belonged in art school. His preferred medium is chalk, and he's all too happy to create beautiful pictures and images to captivate viewers, only to erase them and start again. It's a philosophy he follows in life, too—nothing is really permanent. He's really biding his time, waiting tables, acting and designing in a theater company he and his roommate founded, and trying to figure out what the future holds.

When Nina walks into his restaurant, he's immediately smitten. A Harvard graduate who is teaching as part of Teacher Corps, she wants to dazzle her students so they love literature and poetry as much as she does, but she can't seem to reach them or get them to pay attention to her. Although it takes her a while to let her guard down with Collin, she loves how his creativity and fearlessness has awakened her, and she hopes her practical nature will inspire him to do something real with his artistic talent.

Nina is the daughter of a gaming and technology mogul whose video games are tremendously popular. His soon-to-be released game is revolutionizing the world of virtual reality, so in an effort to help Collin harness his talent in a practical way, she convinces her father to give Collin a try at his company, Arkadia. It's a move which energizes him but creates barriers—both real and artificial—in their relationship.

Meanwhile, Arkadia is using some slightly questionable marketing tactics to raise the anticipation for its newest game, and a student at Nina's school, Aidan, gets caught up in both the game's incredibly dazzling magic and the painful realities that his obsession causes. It could prove dangerous not only to him, but to his twin sister, Diana, a student in Nina's class, and others.

When I started reading The Chalk Artist, I couldn't understand why Goodman would want to muddy the waters of Collin and Nina's story with a completely unrelated thread about a teenage boy obsessed with virtual reality. But the more I read, the more I realized how this virtual world really served as a counterpoint to Nina's need for permanence and real reality, and there was so much more to this plotline than I first thought.

Goodman's writing practically sings when she describes UnderWorld and Collin's art. Her imagery really felt as if it would be right at home in any fantasy novel, and it was unlike anything I've seen from her work to date. While Collin and Nina's story is definitely one you've seen before (and depending on your personality, you'll definitely prefer one character over the other), it still is compelling, and you hope that neither will do something stupid.

Not everything works in the book—I felt that Aidan's sister was a little superfluous, and felt like the plot shifted back and forth a little too abruptly at times. But overall, I enjoyed this a great deal. I'm a big fan of books that embrace the power of dreams of all kinds. This book really solidified Goodman as a favorite author of mine, one whose deft hand has created some truly memorable characters through the years.

NetGalley and Random House/The Dial Press provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Book Review: "The Truth Commission" by Susan Juby

Will the truth really set you free? In Susan Juby's quirky and enjoyable The Truth Commission, three art students believe so, and strive to compel their fellow students to expressing the truth about the various situations they're in—but they don't realize that the truth comes at a price, and that facing your own truths may cause more difficulty than you realize.

Normandy Pale is a student at the Green Pastures Academy of Art and Applied Design in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. She is a tremendously talented artist and embroiderer; trouble is, she lives in the shadow of her older sister, Keira, also a graduate of Green Pastures. Keira became famous with a series of graphic novels that lampooned Normandy and their parents, but their parents don't seem to care, and only seem to indulge Keira's behavior.

One day Normandy and her two best friends, Neil and Dusk (whose real name is Dawn—gotta love it), launch what they call The Truth Commission, designed to get their fellow classmates to reveal their not-so-secret secrets. As they start questioning their peers, they find the whole process tremendously empowering, although they're not the ones telling the truth, but their efforts start an interesting domino-like effect across the school, which has both positive and negative results.

But the truth that Normandy finds herself most compelled to uncover is the truth about Keira, who left her university studies and returned home, ostensibly to write the next installment in her graphic novel series. Keira is acting more eccentric than ever, and Normandy can't quite understand why their parents won't get to the bottom of what's going on with her. And then, without warning, Keira starts to confide in Normandy about an incident that has left her shaken. Normandy faces the ultimate dilemma: as she and her friends pursue their search for other people to reveal their truths, should she try to do the same with Keira? Will anyone care if she does?

This was a warm, amusing, and utterly engaging book, populated with really intriguing characters. While so many of the issues the characters dealt with are familiar, Juby makes you care about her characters, so you want to keep reading. The book is ostensibly Normandy's junior project in school, so it's a reflection on the events that occurred and how they made her feel, along with her wry (and sometimes off-topic) observations, even some drawings here and there.

I don't know how you read a book, but this one has a lot of footnotes, mostly Normandy's observations and comments to the readers of her manuscript. When you read a book with footnotes on a Kindle, you have to click back and forth between the footnote and the text, so it took a little longer to get through the text, and sometimes the footnotes didn't advance the story that much. But in the end, it's a tiny irritation that didn't dampen my enthusiasm for this terrific book in the slightest.

Book Review: "Still Life with Bread Crumbs" by Anna Quindlen

Lovely. That's the word that kept coming to my mind as I read Anna Quindlen's latest novel, Still Life with Bread Crumbs. It was just a lovely book, emotional, thought provoking, and really enjoyable.

Rebecca Winter used to be something. A once-revered photographer whose iconic works were viewed as feminist statements, her photographs aren't selling well anymore, her agent is becoming increasingly more hostile toward her, and her bank balance keeps declining. At 60 years old, when she receives a notable prize for her body of work, she realizes what this recognition means.

"To Rebecca, it was now official: she was done. Yesterday's news. In your heyday, you got attention; in your senescence, prizes."

She flees her posh New York City apartment to live for a year in a cottage in the country, hoping the rent from the apartment will help abate some of her financial woes, and the change in setting will inspire her to create again. Yet things are seldom what they seem: the cottage is much more rundown and isolated than she imagined, and the charming town she envisions is a little more smothering than she thought it might be. But when a raccoon invades her attic, she meets roofer Jim Bates, and the two strike up a casual friendship that teaches Rebecca that what she sees through her camera lens isn't always what is real.

As Rebecca struggles with doubt in her professional abilities, worries about her financial situation, grapples with the decline of her elderly parents, and ponders the dissolution of her marriage to a man who traded in for a younger woman every 10 years, she begins to feel herself warming to the cottage and the small town. Her daily hikes lead her to photograph everything she sees, and when she encounters a series of homemade wooden crosses in the forest, they inspire a vein of creativity she thought had tried up. But she has no idea what these crosses mean, why they're scattered haphazardly through the woods and accompanied by everyday objects, and their connection to someone in town.

This is an emotionally rich and compelling story about believing in yourself again, trusting your talents and having faith in your own worth. It's also about believing you deserve a second—and even a third—chance at happiness, and how the things we don't say are often the most powerful statements we make. I really enjoyed this book very, very much, and found myself devouring it very quickly.

It has been a while since I've read a book by Anna Quindlen, but after reading Still Life with Bread Crumbs, I was reminded just how much I love her writing, and how good books can make you feel.