Unstuck

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by Barbara Dee
First sentence: “Okay, here we go.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some friendship drama, anxiety depictions, and mild crushing. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Lyla loves to write. She’s got a whole novel inside her head, and when her ELA class comes to a creative writing unit, she’s super excited. The excitement only intensifies when her teacher mentions a short-story contest that gives actual money prizes. Lyla just knows she can win this. Except, when the time comes, Lyla is paralyzed. She can’t put anything down on paper. And it seems like external pressures – the fight she’s having with her best friend and the secrets she’s keeping for her older sister – are just making her even more anxious.

On the one hand, the fact that this was about something simple – Lyla’s inability to write the story in her head on paper – was quite refreshing. Her parents were loving, if a bit helecopter-y; she was having friend trouble, but it wasn’t all-consuming; her sister was having problems motivating herself to go to college – nothing life-shattering. It all felt very normal and authentic. That said, it was also often very anxiety-inducing. (Which is probably a sign of good writing.) I had to put it down quite a bit because I just couldn’t handle Lyla’s anxiety spirals. But, she does learn coping mechanisms, and she does learn to accept things and communicate her feelings, so in the end, I think the depictions of anxiety were a good thing. They were just hard to read.

I did really like this one, in the end. It’s good for kids who are thinking about being writers, or ones who just like good stories.

Audiobook: Soul of an Octopus

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by Sy Montgomery
Read by the author
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There’s probaby not a lot that’s questionable, content-wise. It’s in the science section of the bookstore.

I’ve seen this book around for years, and have even given it as a gift a couple of times, but have never read it. There was a sale at Libro.fm recently (Independent Bookstore Day, maybe?) and this was on sale, so I picked it up. I figured it might be a good listen while we were on vacation. (The kids nixed that; they said she sounded overly enamored with the octopuses.)

This is Montgomery’s exploration of octopuses. That’s really the best summary. It’s not a history, it’s not a true scientific exploration. No, Montgomery got to know several octopuses at the New England aquarium, and she was interested in knowing more about them. Not just the way they interact with humans, but how they act in the wild and how they process information. It’s kind of a memoir, since it’s her experiences, though she does talk to scientists and gets to know the director of the aquarium. Mostly, though, it’s her Thoughts and Experiences With Octopuses.

And it was interesting. She was a very amenable reader, though once my kids mentioned that she sounded overly enamored with the octopuses, I couldn’t unhear that. She does love the animals, and that comes through. I liked the depictions of interactions she had with the animals, and even though I felt like she anthropomorphized them, maybe they really did have the feelings/emotions/reactions that she attributed to them. I am a little conflicted about the way aquariums get their animals (I don’t know why I didn’t think they were taking them from the wild), but other than that, I enjoyed this one.

Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent

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by Judi Dench and with Brendan O’Hea
First sentence: “This was never meant to be a book.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some swearing, including a few f-bombs. It’s in the Shakespeare section of the bookstore.

First off: Dame Judi has been in a LOT of Shakespeare plays. This book is a play-by-play, role-by-role breakdown of all the plays (many of the plays?) that she has been in in her 60 years of acting. Which is a long time. It’s a conversation between her and Brendan O’Hea, as they go through each role, and talk about motivations, memories, and thoughts about each play.

It’s a fascinating book, but it’s a LOT of book. She’s been in a LOT of plays, and she has Thoughts about them. While I was reading it, I was fascinated by it all. But, I could only read a chapter a day, so it took me a long time to get through the book. I almost would have rather seen this as a documentary, but I did appreciate her thoughts. It’s more acting-focused, because she’s an actor (obviously), but I appreciated her thoughts on the words and the plays. Her memory is remarkable, and she has been around the block several times, so she has some worthwhile things to say.

So: worthwhile, but take it in small chunks.

Audiobook The Unwedding

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by Ally Condie
Read by Christine Lakin
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some mild swearing and mention of murders. It’s in the mystery section of the bookstore.

The life Ellory thought she had has completely fallen apart. Her husband filed for divorce after almost 20 years of marriage, and nothing has been right since. They had planned on going to a resort in Big Sur for their anniversary, but it’s non-refundable, so Ellory finds herself there alone. There’s a wedding scheduled for the weekend, and when Ellory finds the groom dead in the resort pool, things turn dark. Add to that, a rainstorm and a mudslide trapping all the guests there, and then another guest is murdered, things become desperate. The question is whether they can figure out who the murderer is before they strike again.

I wanted to like this one so much more than I actually did. My biggest problem? Ellory was so sad. So much sad. All the sad. Every chance she got she was “I miss my husband” and “I miss my kids” and “oh noes, my life is worthless now”. All of which I get: her divorce came out of the blue and she is mourning it, but in what has been billed as a thriller, it’s very distracting. Which, also: this really isn’t a thriller. I never felt like anyone’s life was truly in jeopardy, and while Ellory was trying to figure the mystery out, she didn’t actually solve it (but she also kind of did?). I was also hoping for a grand sense of place – we didn’t get to Big Sur on our recent California vaction, but I wanted to feel like I was there. But, no. I finished this one because I kept hoping it would get better (it didn’t) and the narrator kept me engaged (she was quite excellent).

I’m sure Condie still has some good stories left in her, but this one wasn’t it. Disappointing.

Painting the Game

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by Patricia MacLachlan
First sentence: “I am young, four years old, when it first happens.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s a slim book with lots of white space. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but I could see it going younger.

Lucy’s dad is a minor league baseball pitcher, hoping to be called up to the majors. She’s always been into baseball, but never had enough courage to pitch in her after-school games. But she has been practicing in the mornings, and maybe she’ll be able to pitch a game. And then, maybe she’ll be able to perfect her father’s specialty: the knuckleball.

There’s a couple of side plots with her parents: her mother opens up an art show, and her dad comes back from where he lives while he’s playing, but mostly it’s about Lucy’s determination to become a pitcher.

I don’t mind a low-stakes middle grade book. There’s not much to this one, either with plot or with words, but that’s okay. Lucy has a goal, she works toward it, and she succeeds at pitching a game as well as pitching a knuckleball. It’s nice. But that’s really all it is. Nice. The thing about nice books is that they really don’t have means to soar. There’s no real conflict so that the resolution doesn’t feel earned. But that’s okay: there’s some girl out there who wants to be a baseball player and she will find this book, and it will make her happy.

And that’s all that really matters.

Brightly Shining

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by Ingvild Rishøi (Author,  Caroline Waight (Translator)
First sentence: “Sometimes I think about Toyen.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: November 19, 2024
Content: There are four instances of the f-bomb, and some very bad parenting. It will be in the Christmas section of the bookstore.

Melissa and Ronja’s father can’t seem to hold a job. When he’s sober, things are going well, but all too often, he falls off the wagon and into the bottle again. This time, after he gets a job at a Christmas tree lot and ends up drinking again, Melissa decides to take matters into her own hands. She bargains with the miserly lot owner to take on her father’s job for him (and work off the big advance he took). That leaves Ronja alone, but she’s unhappy that way. So, she joins Melissa at the lot. Everything goes well… until it doesn’t.

Much like the Hans Christian Andersen tale “The Little Match Girl”, this one is hopelessly sad. It’s a reminder that not everyone gets magical Christmases and that there are those for whom the holiday is not wonderful. (And that some of those people are children.) There are brief moments of hope, and Ronja narrating the book helps, but it’s really just… sad.

The writing is gorgeous, though, and Rishoi knows how to be evocative. But, mostly, this was a bleak Christmas tale. Maybe it’s a reminder to be thankful you’re not spending your Christmas Eve under a tree in a tree lot, in the middle of a storm, with a drunk father who doesn’t even bother to come and find you.

So very sad.

Monthly Rond-Up: June 2024

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It wasn’t until I started doing this round-up that I realized just how many adult books I read this month. A LOT. In fact, my favorite this month as one of those (in fact, it was one that I picked up at a bookstore on vacation!):

Here We Go Again

Seriously: you have to love a book that makes you ugly cry on an airplane. As for the rest:

Middle Grade:

Bog Myrtle

Adult Fiction:

Summer Fridays
Murder Your Employer (audiobook)
The Paris Novel (audiobook)
Summer Romance (audiobook)
How to Age Discgracefully
The Mistletoe Mystery
The Wood at Midwinter

Graphic Novel:

If You’ll Have Me

Non-fiction:

There Was Nothing You Could Do

What was your favorite this month?

Bog Myrtle

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by Sid Sharp
First sentence: “Two sisters lived alone in a hideous, drafty old house on the edge of town.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: October 8, 2024
Content: It’s a short book, probably about beginning chapter level, with a lot of pictures. It’ll probably end up where The Wolf Suit did, in the Middle Grade Graphic Novel section.

Sisters Magnolia and Beatrice lived in a drafty house at the edge of town and didn’t have a lot of money. Magnolia, who was grumpy and just a bit mean, was always cold, so Beatrice, who was nice and kind, decided to go buy some yarn to make her a sweater. They didn’t have money (see: cold, drafty house) so Beatrice decided to go find treasures in the forest to trade for yarn. When that doesn’t work, she meets the Bog Myrtle and the course of the sisters’ lives changes. For both good and bad.

I didn’t know I needed a charming fable about kindness and sustainability with a strong anti-capitalist sentiment, but I guess I did. I adored this one quite a bit. It’s got a quirky sense of humor, much like The Wolf Suit, and it’s both sweet and a bit edgy at the same time. I do hope that there are kids who find this one, and who love it as much as I do.

A lot of fun!

Two Christmas Books

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The inventory manager at work is thinking about Christmas books, and is looking for the One that we can have as our featured book for the season. She threw two suggestions at me this week, and I have thoughts on both.

The Mistletoe Mystery
by Nita Prose
First sentence: “My gran loved all holidays, but her favorite by far was Christmas.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: October 1, 2024
Content: It’s short and sweet, and nothing objectionable. It’ll be in the Christmas book section of the bookstore.

Christmases have been hard since Molly’s grandmother died a few years back. She and her boyfriend, Juan, have tried to make things special, but it hasn’t been quite the same. And then there was the unfortunate Secret Santa incident at work last year that made things a bit worse. But this year, it seems that Juan is really determined to make things shine. Except he’s acting a bit odd. Can Molly get to the bottom of things before Christmas?

I liked this one well enough, though I might have liked it more if I had read the other books in Prose’s series. Molly is an odd character, and I think I was missing parts so I didn’t quite get the whole picture. And as a Christmas-specific book, it tried to be O. Henry, but it fell flat. It was fine, but not one that I will get to be a part of our collection.

The Wood at Midwinter
by Susanna Clarke
First sentence: “It was winter, just a few days before Christmas.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: October 22, 2024
Content: It’s illustrated, but it’s also a bit more adult in feel than a picture book would be. It will be in the Christmas book section of the bookstore.

This is a fable of sorts about a young woman who has a connection with animals and the woods and goes into them to ask for a baby, ends up with a bear cub as a child. I think. I’m not entirely sure what the plot of this one is. It’s more atmospheric – it has lovely illustrations, and I think the final package will be amazing. But, there wasn’t much substance to it at all. It tried to be a timeless Christmas tale, but I wanted more depth to it, more substance. And it says something when you like the author’s afterword better than the actual story itself.

Alas, no real Christmas winners yet this year.

How to Age Disgracefully

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by Clare Pooley
First sentence: “Police Constable Penny Rogers had been right on the bumper of the minibus, siren wailing and lights flashing, for several miles before it finally pulled on to the hard shoulder of the motorway.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is some swearing, including a few f-bombs It’s in the Fiction section of the bookstore.

I’ve been selling this one this way: this book is about what happens when a senior social group and a daycare band together to save the community center both call home. Also: Daphne is absolutely Fabulous. There’s more to it than that: much like all Pooley’s books, it’s about found family, community, and older people, as Pooley herself put it, bossing it.  

And much like Pooley’s other books, I adored this one. There were moments I laughed aloud – Pooley is excellent at writing characters, making them pop off the page, and having them do hilarious things. I love the way she makes misfits – from a teenage dad to a washed-up actor to a bedraggled housewife to a pop-up yarn artist – fit together in a coherent group. Her overall message is that community and friendship matters. It’s lovely to read about.

It’s such a joyous book, one I am very glad I read.