Contemporary/General Fiction Archives - Page 4 of 4

Book Review:: Promise Me Sunshine | Cara Bastone

One does not simply move on when their best friend dies. The friend who has been by their side through every important milestone in their life. The friend who is the other half of who they are. When the one left behind doesn’t even know who they are without the other. So when Lou dies, Lenny is not okay.

Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone Book Cover

She can’t go home. She can’t answer the phone. She can’t feed herself properly or take any kind of care of herself. She’s in full denial. But she does take a short-term nannying job one weekend to help out a single mother, and caring for someone else? That’s what she’s used to. That, she can handle.

It’s where she meets Miles, the uncle of the kid she was hired to care for. Though they get off on the wrong foot (who can blame the guy, when she looks like a hollowed-out shell of a healthy woman and he didn’t know her from Eve), Miles sees right through Lenny. He recognizes her pain, because he’s felt it too – a grief so profound it fundamentally rearranges you. They strike up a deal that she’ll call him when she’s in the thickest throes of her pain, if she’ll help him connect better with his niece, who Lenny is so good with. This is the beginning of a stunning and glorious friendship.

This is not your typical romance novel. This book is dripping with sadness and loss and the kind of hopeless feeling you can’t just shrug off or accept. It’s the kind of feeling that leaves you falling asleep on perpetually running ferries at night or showing up to nightclubs with all-night dance parties – anything to stay out of the apartment you can’t stand to exist in alone. It’s the kind of sadness that leaves you gasping for air through tears and sobs and the most minute of memories. But death happens every day, and when you find someone who understands, when you find someone who sees you and isn’t afraid of the grip grief has on you…that person is worth everything.

I can’t seem to get into the details of this one, can I? I keep harping on the vibes, but man, this book is excellent. Lenny is hurting, but she’s a free-spirit fun-loving bubbly girl by default, which plays in beautiful contrast with Miles’ buttoned-up and reserved sort of stiff-man quiet-guy thing he’s got going. They’re an unlikely pair, maybe, but sometimes all you need is someone who understands to just be with you. Sit with you. Sleep next to you…so you’re not alone.

I don’t really have any notes for this one. It’s a little long, and I can think of a few scenes I would personally have shortened, but really, it all works, and if it was shorter I’d have wanted more, surely. I’ve listened to a few of Cara Bastone’s Audible Originals stories, and I have to say she has a knack for creating characters with real depth, even in the shorter format. Of course a full-length novel was going to crush it in character work.

This is the type of story that lingers. Lenny and Miles have been in my thoughts many times in the days since I experienced their story. If you’re looking for a novel to emotionally wreck you that is ultimately uplifting and hopeful, this is your official recommendation for Promise Me Sunshine.

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Details

Title:: Promise Me Sunshine
Author:: Cara Bastone
Genre:: Contemporary Romance
Publisher:: The Dial Press
Length:: 416 pages
Audio Length:: 11h 11m
Audiobook Narrator:: Alex Finke
Audiobook Publisher:: Random House Audio
Published:: March 4th, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars
Spice Rating:: 3 (open door but…classy? not vulgar)

If you liked this book, check out these other books about grief…

PS I Hate You | Lauren Connolly
The Last Love Note | Emma Grey
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife | Anna Johnston

Book Review:: When We Grow Up | Angelica Baker

Looking for a book that hits on every hyper-zennial political and culture topic there is without actually giving any substance to any of it?

Man, I hate writing negative reviews, but this one was just.not.it.
I will give the two major trigger warnings for the book here so you don’t have to read through the rest: miscarriage & extra-marital affairs.

When We Grow Up by Angelica Baker Book Cover

The premise of When We Grow Up is a group of friends from childhood go on a vacation together just before turning thirty.

I was expecting it to be an exploration of deep humanity and how we grow and change and how things in our lives that seemed so foundational just don’t make sense anymore. Instead we have a whiny narrator, Clare, who has major self-esteem issues and a group of friends who don’t even like each other all that much (past or present).

Clare is floundering. She doesn’t seem confident in any of the choices she’s made in her life. She also doesn’t seem close to any of these friends. It’s a paradox that they know one another more deeply than anyone because of how much shame and humiliation they witnessed in each other growing up (inevitable in middle school), but they also know hardly anything about each other as an adult. They claim they’re so close, but they almost never talk about anything personal. Everything is so damn surface level. Then when they finally do, it’s like they could be talking about literally anyone.

I only know Clare by the choices she makes in the novel, and how self-critical she is. I don’t really know a damn thing about her character. That’s a problem.

I didn’t like Jessie, the only other girl in the group (why are there so many girls on the cover?), and the boys didn’t have enough personality to even tell who is who until far too late in the novel. There was a black one and a gay one, and I thought they were the same person for most of the book. We knew who Liam was because Clare is having an affair with him, which also irks me because she didn’t seem to even know why, beginning, middle, or end. (I’m not even counting this as a spoiler since it is alluded to in the blurb).

The biggest problem was I didn’t care. There was nothing interesting about the book except the first chapter. Their vacation in Hawai’i happens to coincide with the false missile alert that went out to everyone on-island in 2018. That happens on page one, and kind of explains the whole book. The characters are completely apathetic, even when they’re warned they’re about to die. This absolutely should have been a short story. It actually would have been an excellent short story.

I wanted to like a book like this. As I read I was hoping that things would shift and the insights would start bringing everything together in some profound way. Nope. Never happened. The only insight here is that Clare is unhappy and kind of judgy. In some ways it kind of felt disparaging toward the whole generation, which, for context, I am the same age as these characters. In 2018 I was turning 30.

(spoiler)
Near the end, Jessie kind of confronts Clare by telling her being a boy’s girl is essentially a fucked-up thing to be.

Ahem.

Like I said, this book was not for me.

Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Details

Title:: When We Grow Up
Author:: Angelica Baker
Genre:: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher:: Flatiron Books
Length:: 288 pages
Audio Length:: 9h 53m
Audiobook Narrator:: Imani Jade Powers
Audiobook Publisher:: Macmillan Audio
Published:: February 25th, 2025
The Litertarian Rating:: 2-Stars

If you liked this book, check out…

The Most Fun We Ever Had | Claire Lombardo
It’s All Relative | Rachel Magee
The Summer Pact | Emily Giffin

Book Review:: Beartown | Fredrik Backman

For most, hockey is just a sport, but for one little town deep in the forests of Sweden, it is everything. For the first time in decades, the Beartown Junior team has the skill and raw talent to really go the distance, giving the failing factory town hope again. But at what cost?

If you’ve never read a Fredrik Backman book before, this is your sign to run out and grab one. This one, or another, whatever appeals to you most. It won’t matter which one you choose, because whatever it is will be amazing. How do I know this when I’ve personally read only three of his books? Because he’s just that good. I trust in his taste, his ability, his discernment. The man knows how to tell a story; a story that will interest you, surprise you, and ultimately move you in ways many books don’t come close to achieving. I even find myself entranced by his social media captions!

If you are honest, people may deceive you.
Be honest anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness.
Be kind anyway.
All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

This story is a series of dominoes. They’re not lined up exactly. More like grouped together in this community amongst the trees, each facing their own direction. It starts with the town hockey club deciding to oust its oldest and most accomplished coach in favor of a younger more energetic man whose only objective is to win. The dominoes are already set, and when this one stumbles it sets forth the kinetic energy that propels the rest of them to wobble, tumbling and bumping into one another. Some in ways anyone might see coming, others in ways people refuse to even acknowledge.

“The people who live here are tough, we’ve got the bear in us, but we’ve taken blow after blow for a long time now. This town needs to win at something. We need to feel, just once, that we’re best. I know it’s a game. But that’s not all it is. Not always.”

This is an account of a fictional town in a fictional race for greatness, but it is one of the most realistic books I’ve ever read. The characters, the setting, the words themselves, are so alive. It might actually be the perfect novel.

Details

Title:: Beartown (Beartown #1)
Author:: Fredrik Backman
Genre:: General Fiction
Publisher:: Atria Books
Length:: 415 pages
Audio Length:: 13h 11m
Audiobook Narrator:: Marin Ireland
Audiobook Publisher:: Simon & Schuster Audio
Published:: September 15th, 2016
The Litertarian Rating:: 5 (thousand)-Stars