Book Review: "I Know You Know Who I Am" by Peter Kispert

Why do we lie? What is it that causes some of us to reinvent ourselves, our past experiences, responses to people or situations, or something else? And why is it so hard for some to acknowledge these lies, instead being forced to live with a falsehood, sometimes for years?

The concept of lying is at the heart of Peter Kispert's debut short story collection, I Know You Know Who I Am. It was the object of much fanfare even before it was published in mid-February.

In Kispert's collection, each story centers around a lie that a character has told. In some cases it's a lie that was told in a split second, but in some cases, these lies have been carried around for months, sometimes years. How they handle these lies and convince others of their truthfulness poses an interesting dilemma for many of the characters in these stories.

The one story in this collection I was completely enamored was the title story, which opens the book. In this one, a man, desperate to prove to his lover that he was a likable person with friends, hires someone to portray a friend whom he invented. Will the scheme work or will his lie be discovered? It's a taut, funny, slightly bittersweet story and Kispert did such a great job hooking me from the first few sentences.

Unfortunately, for some reason, none of the other stories made me feel this way. Some of the stories are a page or two, so they were over before I was able to ascertain what they were about, while others I fully understood yet they seemed to hold me at some emotional distance, and I almost felt like I was reading them through some gauzy filter. Each story seemed to hint at something big but then never got there.

I'm a big fan of short stories and I eagerly anticipated this collection, but it fell really short for me. I tried reading it over a few different days in case it was my mood or external factors that were distracting me, but each time my feelings were the same. I've seen others give this a phenomenal review, so I'd definitely encourage you to read this and not be dissuaded by my reaction.

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.