Rock Paper Scissors

Sometimes things have a way of working out. My little book club (previously the community book club) selected Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney as our September title. I went to request it from the library and it was only available without a long wait as an audio book. So I put the hold on anticipating to get it a week or so later. Imagine my surprise when I got it the next day. We'd have it just in time to listen to it in the car on our drive back to Florida from New York. Unlike many of the novels my book club reads, it sounded like something my  husband, the non-reader, might also enjoy.

I think I liked this one as much as I did because I listened to it in the car with my husband. Thrillers, domestic or otherwise, are not titles I would ordinarily pick up, but it did seem like something we might both get engaged in while on a long car ride and that was totally the case.

The story about Adam and Amelia had more twists than the roads we were driving on. They've been married awhile and for lots of reasons, things just aren't right between Mr. and Mrs. Wright. They go on a weekend getaway to a converted chapel in Scotland to try and salvage things. It's make or break. Of course, their drive up from London is a terrible snow storm. They get to the chapel and no one is there to greet them. The power goes out. They start seeing and hearing things. It definitely was portrayed as a creepy place to bit.

Interspersed with narrative about their weekend are letters that Amelia writes, but doesn't share, on each of their wedding anniversaries. I thought that was pretty clever.

Whenever we'd come across something that didn't make sense, I'd need to remind my husband that eventually the author would choose to have it make sense and we'd get some clarity. At the end we were able to say, "Oh, yes, now I get it."

Maybe because I don't read that many thrillers, to me the story was fresh and entertaining. I have a feeling we'll be talking more about the author's craft than the actual story when we discuss this in our book club.

A final note: In this novel, Adam suffers from face blindness. A day or two before listening to this novel, I'd read an article about Brad Pitt suffering from facial blindness. It added an extra bit of interest to listening to this story.
 

She's Up to No Good

While I was waiting for one of my library books to become available, I picked up She's Up to No Good by Sara Goodman Confino, one of my two Amazon First Reads from July. (In case you're unfamiliar, if you're an Amazon Prime member, you get to pick one - or sometimes two - titles from a list of free books every single month. Most of them have been pretty good.)

For months after Jenna's marriage falls apart, she's living in her childhood bedroom at her parents' house in Maryland, only doing what's necessary to get through the days. Her elderly grandmother is planning a trip to her hometown in Massachusetts. Jenna volunteers to drive her grandmother up there. Maybe a change of scenery would do Jenna good.

This book reminded me of two of the books I'd recently read, The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner and The Secret Love Letters of Olivia Moretti by Jennifer Probst. But what made She's Up to No Good stand out was Evelyn, Jenna's grandmother. She is a hoot. she manipulates words, has no filters. She'd probably drive me mad if she was my mother or grandmother. But reading about her, I loved her!

Evelyn had been a girl in a large Jewish family growing up in a Massachusetts fishing village. Many of the fisherman families are Portuguese. A Jewish girl falling in love with a Portuguese boy is a no go in the 1950s. That's the story that Evelyn shares with Jenna, bit by bit, as they make their drive and spend time together in the rented cabin where they are staying.

It's a typical romance story. Then again, it's not. It's a story about getting to know your family, about family secrets, and about second chances. I enjoyed it. It was a nice break after The Handmaid's Tale.

The Handmaid's Tale

Every time I thought about picking up The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, I put it down. The premise of the book, limiting the role of women in society to being birth factories, was just too disturbing.

Little by little, over the past few years, I've seen real life imitating art. After the Supreme Court effectively overturned Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, I decided that it was time to read The Handmaid's Tale. Now I wonder how Margaret Atwood was so prescient. The Handmaid's Tale read like non-fiction in July 2022. That is horrifying!

Life is as we (used to) know it at the start of The Handmaid's Tale. Offred has an actual name. She's got a job she enjoys, a husband, a daughter, friends. Life is pretty good. The religious right somehow comes into power. And suddenly women can no longer hold jobs, can no longer control their assets. Families are torn apart. Women with viable ovaries can become handmaids. They will give birth to the children that the infertile wives of the leaders cannot have.

We were staying in our Airbnb in New York when I read The Handmaid's Tale. We had Hulu on our Airbnb tv, something we don't have at home. After turning the last page of the book, I turned on the series. We were in a tiny Airbnb so whatever I watched, my husband couldn't help but watching. After the 3rd episode of season 1, he said he couldn't watch anymore. It was just that disturbing.

I'm not going to get all political in this review so I'm pretty much going to leave it here and not say anymore. Other than to suggest that everyone read this book. We are well on the way to life as told in The Handmaid's Tale. Think about that when you go to vote in November.

 

This Time Tomorrow

As soon as I read about Emma Straub's latest, This Time Tomorrow, I immediately requested it from the library. I'd heard it was a non-fantastical time travel book, if that makes any sense. I was anxious to read it. Happily, it did not disappoint at all and was a most enjoyable read.

Alice is a content almost 40-year old who was raised on Pomander Walk in Manhattan, now living in Brooklyn. After college, she started working at the private high school she attended and all these years later is still working there. Her father is in a hospital towards the end of his life. After having dinner with her lifelong best friend, Alice has a few drinks alone to celebrate her 40th birthday. She then returns to her childhood home to reflect on life. Did she to easily just go with the flow? Is something missing in her life? She wakes up the following morning in the storage shed on Pomander Walk and it's 1996. She's 16. Her father is a young, vibrant 40-something year old man. Pretty close to Alice's current age.

Once Alice realizes the "secret" of her time travel, she repeatedly returns to the past to see if her actions can change her father's outcome without changing anything else. Can that be done? What would you do if you could have a do-over? Alice's story repeats itself in many different ways each time she returns to the past. But what has really changed?

I learned that Straub wrote this novel in 2020 when her father was gravely ill and she was closely reexamining their past lives. She used her writing to process what she was going through in her own life. It shows as this book is clearly written from the heart.

This is my favorite quote from the book as well as being a good reminder for us all.

Maybe that was the trick to life: to notice all the tiny moments in the day when everything else fell away and, for a split second, or maybe even a few seconds, you had no worries, only pleasure, only appreciation of what was right in front of you. Transcendental meditation, maybe, but with hot dogs and the knowledge that everything would change, the good and the bad, and so you might as well appreciate the good.

This Time Tomorrow is also a celebration of New York City. I'd never heard of Pomander Walk but now I'd love to go back to New York and check it out. Part of Alice's teenage birthday routine was going to Papaya King, a hot dog spot that somehow, even though I was eating hot dogs in the 1970s, I never went to. Even though Alice is years younger than I am, a lot of her New York City descriptors made me feeling quite nostalgic.

I'd highly recommend this novel, even to those who don't think they're into time travel. Time travel is what allows Alice to think about life. Her reflecting is the larger part of this compelling story.

The Secret Love Letters of Olivia Moretti

I am really not sure why I picked up The Secret Love Letters of Olivia Moretti by Jennifer Probst after I didn't really love the first book of hers that I'd read, Our Italian Summer. I guess it's because I truly am a sucker for books that are set in Italy.

I did enjoy The Secret Love Letters of Olivia Moretti a little bit more than Our Italian Summer probably because my expectations were a little bit lower. It's also quite possibly because The Secret Love Letters... did a much better job of evoking Italy than Our Italian Summer did. There were a few inaccuracies in this one such as referring to Tuscany a few times. The book was set in the Amalfi coast, not in Tuscany. The other was something about spaghetti and meatballs which is a decidedly American dish and you will never find that in an restaurant in Italy. I made a note about Coca Cola, too. But can't decipher that now.

Otherwise, as romance goes, not a bad story. And as I said, this gave me much more a feel for Italian than One Italian Summer did.

You might like this one. It's not bad. But I can't truly recommend.

 

Britt-Marie Was Here

I love my new iPad - for almost everything but updating my blog. And it's only because I care to include the picture of the book cover in my review. If I left that out, I think I'd be okay.

Luckily, goodreads.com helps me keep a record of the books that I've read. But will I remember what each book was all about?

I loved Fredrik Backman's Britt-Marie Was Here. It is a totally memorable book, as are all the books I've his that I've read to date. Britt-Marie is the story of a 60-something woman starting over. Completely starting over. For years she's taken care of her husband, his kids and their home. All of a sudden, she has to take care of herself. 

To say that Britt-Marie is rigid would be an understatement, but I hesitate to say she has Asperger's. But you get the idea. She has difficulty with any changes to her routine. When you're starting your life over, there are plenty of changes to routine. She also struggles with basic verbal communication with others.

This novel reminds us that everyone has a backstory. Whether we know the backstory or not, everyone deserves kindness unless it is proven otherwise. Highly enjoyable and poignant read that I'd recommend.