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Book Reviews

Coming Attractions – Our Most Anticipated Book Releases – I

July 20, 2018 by Host 1 Comment

(This post contains affiliate links. Full info here)

 

We’ve read and loved these amazing books coming in the summer, fall and winter of 2018 and recommend them with full certainty you’ll love them, too (or hate them because the loathsome characters and circumstances were SO well-written that you want to give the author(s) a giant hug for their perfectly executed creative works, and then punch them in the nose for what their devastating masterpieces put you through. ALL THE FEELS.)

Host Note/Transparency Statement/Additional Disclaimer: All of these books were provided free of charge from the publisher for bloggers, bookstagrammers, librarians, and industry professionals to read and review. There is no financial or other compensation in either direction—one is not obligated to discuss, recommend, or publicize the books and criticism or polite silence is welcomed and respected. All of the new releases featured were read and loved by the actual human readers here, and we’re sharing and recommending them sincerely in good faith as excellent reads in this blog’s capacity as a reading resource. Thank you for your trust and passion for literature. Now go forth and delight in these stunners!

 

 

Ohio: A Novel by Stephen Markley

Raise your hand if multi-perspective novels set in iconic American wastelands, with interwoven narratives competing for most gaunt and raw knuckled, and hurt people hurting people to infinity until high school mistakes ripple out to coat the entire wounded world keep you up all night and begging and dreading the wretched end of the stories and your reading experience.

*RAISES HAND FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT*

Ohio takes no prisoners. Our children and grandchildren are going to be reading this one.

Five stars.

 

The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin

Ms. Frumkin did NOT come to play. Every page of this multi-generational, blast-of-lightening debut novel is loaded with so much detail, so much nuance, so much enormous plot that you’re fully immersed by the middle of chapter one.

(Spoiler-Free, Gentle Warning: for those in substance recovery, please note that there’s constant description and realistic portrayal of active addiction in the book that got pretty tough to read for one of our team members working the steps.)

 

The Lion’s Binding Oath and Other Stories by Ahmed Ismail Yusuf

This is a powerful book that we cannot recommend strongly enough. Ahmed Ismail Yusuf has given the world a gift, that when opened reveals more gifts, and inside each of those gifts, ever more. The short stories of The Lion’s Binding Oath contain all that is good and should be cherished and protected, and all that is evil and should never be forgotten or ignored. Family, history, culture, art; cruelty, hunger, hate, war.

 

This Body’s Not Big Enough for Both of Us by Edgar Cantero

This is a wackadoodle romp that’s campy, trope-y, dorky, and alllllllmost begins to consider the idea of threatening some moments of insight, poignancy, or universal theme of meaning. It doesn’t. At all. Don’t read it thinking it will because it won’t. SO FUNNY.

 

Feared by Lisa Scottoline

Block out the next few weekends on your calendar. Take a giant nosedive into this series. You can thank us later. Twisty, turn-y, thrill-y, with our favorite eternal question/tagline of 2018:

Is it better to be loved, or feared…

 

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson

You gon’ cry. Your mama gon’ cry. Just get a leg up and start crying now and when this hits your shelf you’ll be primed and ready. Written in correspondence style like 84, Charring Cross Road this is the charmer to end all charmers. Gorgeous novel, and like other recent five star read White Houses, Youngson’s debut features and celebrates characters outside of the 18-24 year old demographic.

 

The Devil’s Half Mile by Paddy Hirsch

Paddy Hirsch’s debut novel is about violent crime and financial disaster in New York City in 1799, with an edge-of-your-seat plot and stellar, brilliant character creation + historical accuracy/detail. Wonderful dialogue and the classic themes we know and love: murder, fraud, lust, greed, more murder, and then some fraud. Joking aside, this is an EXCELLENT thriller, but please note that it is, again, about violent crime and financial disaster in 18th century NYC.

 

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

2018 is the year of the magical debuts, because Delia Owens has written a novel that we don’t deserve but desperately need. We were reminded of Rachel Carson’s descriptive power; the rhythm of Gullah live-storytelling; the surge and draw of life as a recluse. The book’s gonna make you cry some more but also going to make you blush and also make you wanna get in a fist fight with ten dudes twice your size and WIN. So grateful for this novel.

 

Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

You don’t need us to tell you to read this book. Read it. Read. It.

 

Thank you for reading along with us! What’s your favorite read of 2018 so far?

Filed Under: Book Lists, Book Reviews, Coming Soon, New Releases, To Be Read

Collection of Reviews – Spring of 2018 – #1

April 16, 2018 by Host Leave a Comment

(This post contains affiliate links. Full info here)

 

We are so proud to be posting our very first collection of reviews. We want to hear any and all of your thoughts, as always! Please comment or email us. Thank you!

 

White Houses – Amy Bloom

“If you’re a queer woman you cannot go another day without reading this book.

What Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe did for budding, unsure, closeted lesbians in the 90s, White Houses does for the bold, unapologetic, aging queer women those girls have grown to be: Bloom gives a voice. Bloom represents.

The story woven ripped my guts out one slow-burning shred at a time. Throughout the entire novel, I felt myself imagining that perhaps Eleanor Roosevelt lived her whole life mistaking a tickle in her throat—“Pollen, maybe…a need for a cup of tea?”—for what was in fact a desperate need to fall to her knees and scream. That’s what I wanted to do for both she and Hick: scream and pound the floor until all their barriers crumbled. But that’s a reader’s dramatic interference—the reality remembered, recorded and enhanced doesn’t need the fury of a modern eye. The reality of a long and winding thirty year relationship told in the resigned but love-strong, blunt and dry voice of a plain old regular women about her plain old regular true love—the 28th First Lady of the United States of America—is enough. So much more than enough.”

–

 

Eat Dairy Free – Alisa Fleming

“If you’re climbing the mountain of sustainable, ethical, whole and simple eating, this is an excellent cookbook for you.

Elements that make Ms. Fleming’s dairy-free resource special include:

+ Full menus. It’s inspiring and fun to see full day’s worth of delicious food laid out in easy to follow groupings.

+ Idiot-proof explanations of substitutions and healthy cooking staples that are often overwhelming in the grocery store aisles. Sorghum flour? Nutritional yeast? Fear not: they are delicious and easy to incorporate.

+ Variation options included in recipes so you don’t have to experiment quite so much to customize to your tastes and needs. Gluten-free options, vegan options, high protein options etc.

+ many more unique and useful features!

Don’t miss the Carrot Cake Breakfast Shake, Cream of Portobello Soup, Mushroom Pesto Pizza, and Oatmeal Apple Pie Cookies”

–

 

Come to the Rocks – Christin Haws

“Take a couple of hours and disappear into this sweet, cozy, queer-mermaid-vengeance-murder-true love tale.

The author’s vivid descriptions of the nature and power of the sea and shore are rivaled only by the deft exploration of the effect of psychological abuse on the mind of the victim—and the certain deterioration of the abuser’s boundaries into physical violence and worse.

If I were to offer one respectful suggestion: the book warns of sexually explicit content, but there is none (disappointing for we lovers of sexually explicit content.) Perhaps the disclaimer is unnecessary? Or could be replaced by a warning for the one burst of extreme swearing/profanity?”

–

Fifteen Things They Forgot to Tell You About Autism – Debby Elley

“It shouldn’t be rare and/or profound that a book on building happy, healthy lives for the autistic children in your care be written by people ACTUALLY PARENTING autistic children, but here we are. May this shining, brilliant, hilarious book of raw hope mark the changing of the tide.

This book is hysterically funny but I also cried twice during the introduction. And several times after. And not at the poignant bits necessarily, but at the clarity of perspective, and the firm and simple definitions that would be so easily accessed and understood by even the most uninitiated (if you or your loved ones are on the spectrum you know how desperately important this is) and once even at a chapter heading: “Communication is What Happens While You’re Waiting for Speech.” Imagine a world where we all understood this, NNT or not.

I wrote several versions of “the author’s voice is both humble and bold” or “a mother’s ferocity and patience shines through” etc etc, but my honest impression is that Ms. Elley is the kind of hero-poet that would beat your ass if needed but also be moved to tender tears by a cheesy song at a karaoke bar. Anyone that reads this book and claims that don’t want to be her best friend is lying.

Not a memoir, except for the parts where it is. Not a point-by-point how-to manual, except for the parts where it is. There is not a single person on planet earth that could read this book and not come out smarter and better equipped to be kind, more compassionate, and inclusive of the autistic children and adults in the world around them. Read it, read it to or adapt it for your neurotypical or neurodivergent kids. Buy a copy for your willfully ignorant family members and any group you’re a part of that needs a foundation to understand the reality of life as or life with a person with autism.”

 

 

Filed Under: Book Lists, Book Reviews, Female Authors, LGBTQ, To Be Read

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