Book Review: "Once Upon a Wardrobe" by Patti Callahan

Patti Callahan's new book is utterly magical and beautiful.⁣

⁣ I’m a firm believer that sometimes whether or not we like a book depends on what’s going on in our lives and where we are emotionally, as much as anything else. And sometimes a book comes along at just the right time.⁣

⁣ The latter was the case for me in reading Once Upon a Wardrobe. I recently found out that one of my closest friends had decided to end his fight against multiple illnesses and go into hospice. That news, and subsequently saying goodbye to him, hit me hard. This book was just the balm to help with those emotions.⁣

⁣ Megs Devonshire is a fiercely intelligent young woman on scholarship at Oxford. She loves figures and equations, but she loves her younger brother George even more. Eight-year-old George has been ill since he was born, but the doctors don’t expect him to see his ninth birthday.⁣

⁣ What George loves more than anything is a good story. He is utterly captivated by a brand-new book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and he dreams of being transported to a magical land like that. When he learns that the author of this book, C.S. Lewis, teaches at Oxford, he convinces Megs to seek the man out and ask where Narnia came from.

⁣ ⁣ When Megs connects with the man and his brother, “Jack” Lewis regales her with tales of his childhood and the magical places they created. But while he never quite answers Megs’ question directly, what he gives her and her brother is something even more special.⁣

⁣ I loved this so much. It’s sad but hopeful and just utterly beautiful!!⁣ ⁣

Book Review: "After Francesco" by Brian Malloy

Wow, Brian Malloy's After Francesco is just an absolutely beautiful, moving, hopeful book.

It’s 1988. The gay community in the U.S. has been rocked by AIDS. For 28-year-old Kevin and many others, life is an endless journey of watching friends waste away and die, and attending far too many funerals.

Kevin hasn't stopped mourning his partner, Francesco, in the two years since he died. He still lives in their NYC apartment. Everyone tells him he should try and move on, but he can’t seem to find the motivation to do so, preferring to numb the pain with alcohol.

When he hits rock bottom, at the urging of friends and family, he returns home to Minneapolis to live with his aunt Nora. He tries to move forward in fits and starts, and with the help of a support group for people whose partners have died, he feels like he’s making some progress. But he is further tested by news that his best friend is nearing the end of his struggle with AIDS, so he heads back to NYC.

This is a gorgeously written, emotional book about grief, fear, feeling like no one understands how you feel and what you’re going through, and the guilt of surviving that many felt (and still do). How can you get on with your life when your partner and your friends didn’t have that chance?

There is certainly sadness in After Francesco but I never found it overwhelming. Malloy captured the feel and vibe of the late 1980s so well. I began coming to terms with my sexuality then, and I remember the fears and uncertainty surrounding dating and sex because no one was 100 percent sure how you could get AIDS.

For me, this book stands with The Great Believers and Christodora, two other terrific books which chronicled that time period. (You should totally read those if you haven't.)

Book Review: "How Lucky" by Will Leitch

Will Leitch's new novel, How Lucky, is an utterly unforgettable, beautiful book about hope, friendship, and survival.

If you were to look at Daniel, you’d assume he was miserable. Since childhood he’s lived with a degenerative disease that has confined him to a wheelchair, mostly unable to speak, and he knows ultimately that this will be his death sentence.

But while Daniel may not be living the kind of life people envy, he has a full life. He has friends and a strong support system of people who care about him, a job for a regional airline, and living in Athens, Georgia, he loves to experience the jubilation of college football and how it transforms everything.

“Real life, mercifully, isn’t a thriller. Those things don’t happen to you, and they don’t happen to me. My life is nothing but small moments, and so is yours. We don’t live in a series of plot points. We should be thankful for that. We should realize how lucky we are.”

One morning Daniel sees a young woman walking down the street past his house. She does this every day. But on this day he sees her get into a car, and the next day he hears she has gone missing.

What could have happened to this woman? Daniel wants to tell the police what he knows, but will they believe someone like him? What Daniel doesn’t realize is he’ll set a chain of events in motion which could threaten his life—but he’d probably do it anyway for the sake of the young woman.

How Lucky is suspenseful, uplifting, funny, poignant, and utterly charming. It has elements of Rear Window but it’s a story all its own, with one of the most engaging and wonderful protagonists I’ve ever seen. It makes you think, it’ll make you smile, and if you’re like me, you’ll probably tear up.

Leitch did such a great job creating these characters and definitely did his research on what it's like to live with a disability like Daniel's. And extra points for commentary on the fact Glenn Close STILL hasn’t won an Oscar!!

Book Review: "We Are the Wildcats" by Siobhan Vivian

Other people believing in you is important; believing in yourself is vital if you want to succeed. That's one message I got from Siobhan Vivian's latest book, We Are the Wildcats.

“Team first, always.” That’s the mantra of the coach of the West Essex Girls’ Field Hockey team. Some say he’s too hard on the team, some say he’s manipulative, even abusive. But this mantra seems to be working—the team has won four of the last five state championships.

Last year, however, things fell apart and they lost in the championship game. No one was even sure if Coach would come back this year, since he deserved to be coaching on the college level. The girls are all determined that what happened last year won’t happen again, and all battle to make the team for another year. They say, and try to prove, that they’re stronger, faster, tougher, and a few new, younger recruits show promise.

Coach doesn’t agree, though. He doesn’t believe this team is ready to go all the way. He doesn't even think they can win their first scrimmage. And over the course of one night—which is supposed to be the team’s traditional Psych-Up Party—Coach injects himself in ways that cause the girls doubt, yet they are even more motivated to prove, especially to him, just how much they want to win.

At the same time, though, Coach’s subtle manipulations magnify the girls’ vulnerabilities, and it’s not long before secrets are revealed (and discovered), lies are identified, and crucial decisions need to be made. It may be more than Coach bargained for.

I thought this was an interesting book but it was a little different than I expected. I was expecting more Mean Girls but it wasn’t cruel like that. The book was narrated by a number of team members so at times it was tough keeping everything straight.

Vivian did a great job creating tension throughout the whole book, and I was definitely hooked. I kept worrying that the plot might veer into uncomfortable territory, and there was lots of potential for that. But she remained true to her story, and while there might not be a lot of surprises, this was a good read.

Book Review: "One True Loves" by Taylor Jenkins Reid

As if I wasn't a huge fan of hers after reading The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones and The Six, reading this book has further convinced me that Taylor Jenkins Reid is a freaking goddess, y'all!

Emma Blair wants nothing more than to get as far away from her small New England town and her parents’ dream of her taking over the family bookstore. When she meets Jesse in high school and they fall in love, she finds the key to her dreams.⁣ They move to California and begin exploring the world after college.

⁣ They marry in their 20s, having experienced so much of what they both dreamed of. One day short of their 1st anniversary, Jesse gets on a helicopter for a job. The helicopter goes down and everyone, including Jesse, is presumed dead. Emma is utterly overwhelmed by her grief. She decides to move back home and take the path her parents wanted. Suddenly it all makes sense to her and as the years pass, this life seems right.⁣

"Do you ever get over loss? Or do you just find a box within yourself, big enough to hold it? Do you just stuff it in there, push it down, and snap the lid on it? Do you just work, every day, to keep the box shut?"

⁣ When she connects again with Sam, a friend from high school, a few years after Jesse's death, she realizes she might have another chance at happiness. She knows she'll never be completely over Jesse, but she can't spend her life mourning him either. Emma and Sam fall in love and get engaged, and look forward to their future together.

And then Jesse is found alive, ready to get back to the life he and Emma had before the helicopter crash. Now she has a husband and a fiancé, and she doesn't know what to do about either of them.

⁣ ⁣ "I don't think that true love means your only love. I think true love means loving truly. Loving purely. Loving wholly."

One True Loves is an amazing book about love, grief, family, and finding your way after setbacks. I read the entire book on a plane and loved every incredibly emotional, well-written page.⁣ Sure, I was able to predict where the plot is going to go, but I loved these characters so much I didn't care. I couldn't get enough of this beautiful love story.

If you've never read anything by Taylor Jenkins Reid, you need to remedy that, stat. Now that I fell in love with this book, I plan to explore more of her backlist, since all of her recent work is so fantastic.

Book Review: "Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune" by Roselle Lim

What a wonderful book this was, full of emotion, hope, food, love, and even a little magic. But be warned, you'll be craving Chinese food long after the book has ended!!

Seven years ago, Natalie left her home in San Francisco's Chinatown after she and her mother disagreed about Natalie's choice to become a chef. She wasn't willing to give up her dream and her mother forbade her, so Natalie left and hasn't spoken to her mother since that day. While Natalie hasn't quite succeeded, she has had the chance to cook in many different parts of the world and realize how important cooking really is to her.

"The best cooks doubled as magicians, uplifting moods and conjuring memories through the medium of food."

She is summoned home when her mother dies suddenly. Although she had emotional problems and was agoraphobic, her death came as a surprise to those friends who cared for her. Natalie is devastated that she never had the chance to make amends and let her mother know how much she loved her despite their disagreement.

She is also surprised at how much her neighborhood has declined—all of the businesses that used to flourish are now in decline and disrepair, and a overly zealous real estate agent is pressuring the tenants to sell so the neighborhood could be gentrified and converted into something new.

Natalie's biggest surprise, however, is that she has inherited her grandmother's small restaurant, which occupied the ground floor of the building she and her mother lived in. Natalie's mother refused to follow in her grandmother's footsteps, but in her will she decided to encourage Natalie's dreams after all, and encouraged her to reopen the restaurant, which was once the anchor of their community.

The local seer tells Natalie she must cook three dishes of her grandmother's for three of their neighbors who are having trouble. How can Natalie figure out which dishes to cook, and for whom? Will cooking these dishes actually make a difference? And why should Natalie care, when her neighbors left her and her mother to fend for themselves throughout her childhood?

Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune is a story about finding the courage to pursue your dreams no matter who stands in your way, and not giving up even when it seems every obstacle is trying to thwart you. It's also a book about finding your place in your community, and recognizing that caring about a person doesn't always mean agreeing with all of their choices. In the end, this is also a powerful story about secrets and how surprising it can be to learn the truth about things.

"Dreams, even modest ones, had a steep price. Mine had cost me my mother and given me the silence of seven years. Now that silence could never be breached."

I tend to enjoy books with a little bit of magic thrown in to the plot. Roselle Lim uses evocative imagery to convey the healing and restorative power of Natalie's cooking, as well as to describe emotions. Her words are truly gorgeous and create such wonderful mind pictures. Parts of this story warmed my heart, and parts made me cry.

Sure, the story gets a little bit melodramatic from time to time, and you pretty much can predict nearly everything that will happen in this book. But that barely mattered for me because of how much charm Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune had, how it tugged at my heart, and how the recipes included in the book made my stomach growl.

This is a quirky, sweet, tremendously endearing book that may be the perfect change of pace you're looking for. It's definitely a book I'll remember!

Book Review: "Hope and Other Punchlines" by Julie Buxbaum

"I know better than anyone that you can't always draw a straight line from the who you once were to the who you are now."

Abbi Hope Goldstein celebrated her first birthday on September 11, 2001. While that doesn't make her completely unique, one fact does: on that fateful day, a photographer captured her, wearing a birthday crown and holding a red balloon, while the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed behind her.

That photo, entitled "Baby Hope," became an iconic symbol of that day. It truly gave people hope, and as Abbi grew older, she continued to be the subject of intense media curiosity. Strangers would stop her on the street and hug her, crying, sharing their memories of 9/11. It's hard to be infamous for something you didn't have any control over, and living in the New Jersey town that experienced the greatest number of casualties outside of NYC that day, she can never seem to escape the legacy of "Baby Hope."

But this summer, just before she turns 17 and starts her senior year of high school, she's determined to do something for herself. She signs up to be a counselor at a day camp two towns away, where no one will know her as anyone but Abbi. It's the perfect plan before she has to confront some issues she's dreading.

It turns out that Noah Stern, who is one year behind her in school, has decided to be a counselor at the same camp. Not only does he know that she is Baby Hope, he believes it was his destiny to meet her. His life changed, too, on 9/11, and he convinces/blackmails Abbi into helping track down the other people who were in her iconic photo. But neither of them is being completely honest about the impact of that day on their lives.

As they work to carry out Noah's plan, their relationship begins to deepen, but the secrets that both are hiding could be a barrier too great to overcome. Hope and Other Punchlines is a powerful, poignant story about trying to move away from the shadow of your past, and finding the strength to make a fresh start. But at the same time, the book shows us that everything that occurs in our life makes us the person we are, even if we'd rather not acknowledge those things and their effect on us.

"Something happens when the story you tell yourself turns out not to be your story at all. You have to figure out what to replace it with. Something needs to grow in the space left behind."

I found this book absolutely beautiful—it's emotional but it's funny, too. Even when I thought there really wasn't another angle by which to approach 9/11, Julie Buxbaum found a gorgeous story which sprung from those left behind. The burden that these kids carried on their shoulders, for different reasons, really moved me, and I was completely invested in this story from start to finish. In fact, I read the entire book in just a few hours.

I had never read any of Buxbaum's books before although I've always meant to, since I'm such a YA fan. Now for sure I'll definitely be picking her earlier books up. But I can't recommend Hope and Other Punchlines enough. It's a story of family, friendship, love, loss, guilt, grief, and, of course, hope.

Book Review: "I Wish You All the Best" by Mason Deaver

Yes, yes, YES. I loved this book so much!

Ben De Backer has finally decided it's time they come out to their parents as nonbinary. While Ben knows their parents, particularly their father, are difficult and have strong religious beliefs, in the end Ben thinks that their parents should be okay with their coming out. Ben is their child after all, right?

Ben couldn't have been more wrong. Their parents kick Ben out of the house and with nowhere to turn, not even shoes on their feet, Ben turns to their estranged sister, Hannah, who left home 10 years ago and never looked back.

Although it takes a moment for Hannah and her husband, Thomas, to understand what nonbinary even means, there's no question that they will take Ben into their home. Hannah feels so much guilt about leaving Ben behind with their parents all those years ago, and Ben only knew she was married via social media. But Hannah is determined to help Ben deal with the stress of accepting their identity coupled with their parents' rejection.

"Like, what do you do when your parents kick you out of your house? When your entire life is upheaved, all because you wanted to come out, to be respected and seen, to be called the right pronouns?"

As Ben tries to settle into a new high school for one last semester before graduation, they hope to keep a low profile. But that plan is quickly thwarted when Ben meets Nathan Allan, whose charm and humor make him seem almost larger than life. Nathan wants to be Ben's friend and doesn't understand why they keep pushing him away, so little by little Ben's defenses come down and they open up to the idea of Nathan's friendship, and in turn, Nathan's best friends as well. It's difficult, though, to be close with people from whom you're keeping your true self secret, but Ben isn't interested in the possibility of rejection again.

While Ben tries to reconcile their conflicted feelings toward Hannah and deal with panic attacks and anxiety, they're also frightened by how much Nathan is starting to mean to them. Can Ben find the courage to let Nathan know the truth about them? Would Nathan push them away? And even if Nathan were interested in them, is it worth exploring when Nathan is set to leave North Carolina for college in just three months?

Dealing with just one of these issues is tough for anyone, but all of them compounded prove immensely challenging for Ben. They find themselves turning more and more to their therapist and Mariam, their only nonbinary friend, with whom Ben speaks via Skype and text. Mariam has made a career from their experiences accepting their identity and living their life openly, and they want Ben to do the same.

I Wish You All the Best is a beautiful, moving book about everyone's right to be happy with who they are, and their need to be surrounded by love and friendship. It's such an amazing story about how you can't tackle all of your problems on your own—only by letting people in can you start to achieve happiness and self-acceptance. At times it's a difficult book to read, because of the emotions and challenges Ben has to deal with, and how difficult it is for them to communicate how they feel, but it seemed immensely realistic, and I found myself hoping that Ben would find their way through this.

Mason Deaver brought so much humor, emotion, and hope to this book. These characters were amazing. I read the entire thing in just a few hours and loved it so much. I really found it a tremendous learning experience for me, because I'll admit I don't know nearly enough about nonbinary people. I hope this book gets into the hands of those who need it most.

If you follow my reviews you know how much I marvel at the tremendous amount of talent in the YA genre in particular. I love the courage and boldness with which these authors tackle difficult subjects, and I am so thankful that there are so many authors like Deaver willing to share their own struggles with readers in the hope they can reach those who need to hear, and see, that progress and happiness and acceptance may seem impossible to fathom, but it truly is possible.

Book Review: "The Memory of Things" by Gae Polisner

September 11, 2001. A day etched into our memories. Each of us that was old enough to understand the events of that tragic day can remember where they were, what they were doing, when they heard the news, or in some cases, saw the events unfolding before their disbelieving eyes.

In Gae Polisner's exquisitely moving novel, The Memory of Things, 16-year-old Kyle is in class at Stuyvesant High School when the first of the Twin Towers collapses. The school is evacuated and students flee for the safety of home. Rushing across the Brooklyn Bridge, Kyle encounters a girl about his own age huddled on the bridge, covered in ash, wearing a pair of costume wings. She can barely speak, and doesn't know her own name, but Kyle makes the decision to bring her home with him.

Kyle's father is a New York City police detective, and he knows his father is down at Ground Zero, but he doesn't know whether he's safe. His mother and younger sister are stranded in Los Angeles, so it's Kyle, his Uncle Matt, who was seriously injured in an accident a few months earlier, and the mysterious girl, who come together amidst the chaos. Kyle wants to help the girl figure out who she is and where she came from, but the more he helps her, the more he realizes he doesn't want her to remember, to leave him, even though his father would make him do the responsible thing and alert the authorities.

"Tuesday, and those planes, they've broken something. Permanently. And in the process, they've changed everything. And everyone."

The book shifts its narration between Kyle, who is trying to process the tragedy while worrying about his family, caring for his uncle, and simultaneously wanting to help the girl and keep her with him as they grow closer, and the girl, who, through flashes of memories, begins to let her story unfold. This is a beautiful story, about the need to keep hope alive in the midst of any tragedy, because it is often hope that buoys you through. As Polisner says in her equally moving and thought-provoking Author's Note, "Ultimately, this is not a 9/11 story, but a coming-of-age story, one about healing and love. This is a story about hope."

This really was a wonderfully told, compelling story. Polisner is a terrific writer, and I'm definitely going to have to read some of her previous books, because I love the way she let this story unfold. The girl's narration is a little off-putting, as it's mostly told in snippets of memories, but it so works in the frame of this story. I felt Polisner really captured the emotions, the feelings of confusion and hopelessness and fear that so many felt in the first few days after 9/11.

I won't deny that this story is moving and emotional, but it never gets maudlin. It's definitely one I won't forget anytime soon.

NetGalley and St. Martin's Press provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!