Tag: William Morrow

Book Review:: Maybe Next Time | Cesca Major

There is something magical about finding the right book at the right time. When something about the state of your life at the moment resonates deeply with the book you’ve chosen to read at that time. It might not be something that blows everyone away with its grandeur, but it touches on some deep-rooted truth in you.

Maybe Next Time Cesca Major Book Cover

Emma is so focused on her career as an underappreciated literary agent that she’s been skimming past many other aspects of her life: her kids, her friends, her dog, and her husband. It’s their anniversary, and for the first time ever, she’s forgotten to write him their traditional anniversary letter. It turns out to be a pretty typical day for her, rushing past everything and everyone, until a catastrophic event happens just before bed and changes everything. The next day she wakes up and lives it again. And again. Maybe she has the opportunity to change things – to avert the catastrophe. If only she can find the way.

As a thirty-something working mama who’s been married 10+ years, this book hit me hard. It’s about seeing what’s right in front of you. Not taking anything for granted. Slowing down. We get so caught up in the things we have to do (make money), that we neglect the things that are actually the most important to us. Why is it so easy to get our priorities mixed up?

I think the part that connected so deeply is how realistic it seemed. Yeah, obviously she hasn’t connected to her friends in awhile. Yeah, her kid’s problems are probably going to be old news by the weekend at the latest. Yeah, she has important shit to do at work she needs to concentrate on and that take priority. Yeah, her husband is always there to help pick up any slack.

Ooof.

I cried like a little baby. A sobbing, inconsolable baby.

I will read this book many times in the future, but I’m really not sure if it will have the same effect on me when I read it again. I hope it does. And I hope you read it too. This is one of my favorites of the year!

Details

Title:: Maybe Next Time
Author:: Cesca Major
Genre:: Magical Realism
Publisher:: William Morrow
Length:: 384 pages
Audio Length:: 8h 38m
Audiobook Narrator:: Clare Corbett
Audiobook Publisher:: Harper Audio
Published:: March 7th, 2023
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars

Linky Links!!

Goodreads
Author Website
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[Hardcover] [Paperback] [eBook] [Audible]

If you liked this book, check out…

The Cheesemaker’s Daughter | Kristin Vukovik
Amazing Grace Adams | Fran Littlewood
The Most Fun We Ever Had | Claire Lombardo

Book Review:: Hate Follow | Erin Quinn-Kong

Hate Follow by Erin Quinn-Kong aspires to be the My Sister’s Keeper of this decade. Not many people will have children who need life-saving medical care and second children that are a perfect biological match. Everyone is on social media, and this book draws attention to the moral and ethical implications with posting content of those who have not (and cannot) give consent. And while this novel raises so many poignant aspects of the online culture, the plot sort of fizzles out by the end.

Hate Follow Erin Quinn-Kong Book Cover

Mia’s mom Whitney is a momfluencer. She makes incredible money by posting about her life as a widowed mother of four in Austin TX. As Mia is getting older, she doesn’t want to be a part of the photo shoots anymore. When she finds out exactly how much her mom has been sharing about her online without her permission, her little teen-y world implodes and she takes things into her own hands.

Such commentary!

When I met Whitney, I knew her. We’ve all seen them: the picture-perfect IG influencers whose entire identity becomes ‘be the ideal version of the modern woman who has it all‘. They’re real people out there, though it’s hard to imagine. They just tend to get carried away. The pressure increases, and their lives become all about numbers. But there’s still the facade that they’re doing good in the world, by sharing all this perfect sh*t, they’re helping people.

Then add in the layer of momfluencers. The ones who post about their kids online. Include their photos, tell stories from their lives: exploit them, in some sense. There is a lot of conversation about this already, but this book lights it up with the bat signal from hell.

I felt for the strained relationship of Whitney and her teen daughter. Those teen years are tough for everyone to navigate and add the hurt and immense grief of losing the husband/father they loved so dearly…all the ingredients of a city-block razing explosion are there. Though Whitney, as an influencer, is kind of despicable…the author humanizes her by having her shoulder so much responsibility. It is not just her own future in jeopardy if she can’t continue making a good living, it is her children, and her siblings, and her mother.

The heart of this story isn’t actually about the violations Whitney is subjecting her children to, it’s about simply getting out of your own way to listen.

For me personally, I was let down by a plot that promised a lot of juicy drama but ended up resolving a little too easily for my taste. It felt like a lot of build up for something so ultimately bland. I was getting so nervous when I saw the numbers closing in on my ereader (75%-80%-85%) and the big finale hadn’t started yet. Turns out it just wasn’t there. It’s a quiet ending to a problem that had so much potential.

I still think it’s worth reading, of course. The points discussed in this book are incredibly relevant for everyone on social media and I think it does a good job showcasing both the good and bad aspects if ‘influencing’. There is so much more I could say about the topic, but this is about the book, so I’ll leave it at that!

I was given the opportunity to read this book for free by netgalley and the publisher. All opinions are honest, and my own.

Details

Title:: Hate Follow
Author:: Erin Quinn-Kong
Genre:: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher:: William Morrow
Length:: 352 pages
Audio Length:: 9h 48m
Audiobook Narrator:: Carolyn Jania
Audiobook Publisher:: Harper Audio
Published:: October 8th, 2024
The Litertarian Rating:: 3-Stars

Linky Links!!

Goodreads
Author Website
Amazon Affiliate Links
[Paperback] [eBook] [Audible]

If you liked this book, check out…

Amazing Grace Adams | Fran Littlewood
Counting Miracles | Nicholas Sparks

Book Review:: Wrong Place Wrong Time | Gillian McAllister

It started with a feeling. Deja vu? Something like it? A bad feeling. The calm before the storm type of feeling. Like in the next instant, the world will change. Irreparably.

Wrong Place Wrong Time Gillian McAllister Book Cover

Jen knows something is wrong as she’s waiting up for her teenaged son to come home late on an October evening. Propelled by this supernatural feeling, she goes to the window and witnesses her son stab a stranger, killing him. The next hours are a nightmare as she and her husband Kelly grasp for answers about what happened and why. Somehow, they make it home to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. When she wakes, it is to the previous morning, before the crime. Her son is there, safe and happy. The next morning, it’s another day earlier. Somehow, she’s stuck in a backwards time loop, moving further and further back through time. Every day, she notices something new – signs she missed that led to that moment with her son holding a knife. She’s convinced it’s an opportunity for her to change things – to prevent that dark day from ever happening. But the more she discovers about the past, the more impossible it seems to untangle her family from the web of events that led them there.

We’re all familiar with the groundhog-day trope – living the same day again and again until things set themselves right – but this one does it different. Jen continues traveling back in time, weeks, months, years – gathering information she will need to unravel the mystery of that night and the truth everyone around her has been hiding.

There are twists and turns and each piece of the puzzle built the suspense and had my mind engaged the entire time. The pacing was just right; not so quick that you missed things because the details were too quick or subtle, and not so slow that any part of it was boring.

I don’t read this genre often because I have a soft heart that can’t take much evil, and though there are dark things in this book, for me, it was the perfect amount of darkness to still be able to enjoy it. I especially hate when books get darker at the end, taking a gruesome turn that haunts you. This one does not.

I’ve been reading a lot of books this year with protagonists who are mothers. I’m devouring them. There are certain things that are universal, and a mother’s love and falling into the trap of not paying enough attention to the every-day things are two of them. This is the suspense/thriller side of the same coin as Maybe Next Time by Cesca Major, one of my favorite books of the year. I highly recommend both!

Details

Title:: Wrong Place Wrong Time
Author:: Gillian McAllister
Genre:: Mystery/Thriller
Publisher:: William Morrow
Length:: 416 pages
Audio Length:: 10h 7m
Audiobook Narrator:: Lesley Sharp
Audiobook Publisher:: Harper Audio
Published:: August 2nd, 2022
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars

Linky Links!!

Goodreads
Author Website
Amazon Affiliate Links
[Hardcover] [Paperback] [eBook] [Audible]

If you liked this book, check out…

The Midnight Feast | Lucy Foley
Amazing Grace Adams | Fran Littlewood

Book Review:: The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife | Anna Johnston

Grief is one of the most universal constants of life. It is the opposite of love. The absence of anyplace to emote the love you feel, and it comes in many forms. Death. Abandonment. Betrayal. Lost opportunities. Failure. Illness. We all have to find ways to cope when grief finds us. We must keep hope alive – it is what allows us to carry on. The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife resounds throughout all the hollows of grief, touches all the raw and jagged edges of it, and teaches us to celebrate the opportunities still ahead of us through an unlikely hero with a heart of gold.

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife Anna Johnston Book Cover

Frederick Fife isn’t having the best day. After stretching his pennies as far as they can go, his landlord finally kicks him out. Unsure of what to do next, or where to go, Fred takes a stroll in the park and stumbles across the only person who might be having a worse day than him: his doppelgänger, a man who died peacefully in his wheelchair by the river on a nursing home outing. Frederick and his hero’s heart tries to help get the man back to his group when they both slide down into the river. At 82 years old, Fred’s body isn’t what it used to be, and he is unable to recover the body. Just as it floats around the bend (with Frederick’s dropped wallet), the nursing staff find Fred and mistake him for Bernard, the dead man. Bernard was in the early stages of dementia and was often confused, and as it happens, his carer that day is overwhelmed with her own personal issues and is only half listening. Frederick tries several times to set the record straight, but no one believes him. Turns out, Bernard had a pretty nice situation at the nursing home, and the warm bed and hot meals are impossible to ignore for a man like Frederick, who would otherwise still be in that park, sleeping on a bench. When he overhears Bernard has no visitors or family left, Fred stops struggling so hard to be understood. Perhaps the strange twist of fate is some kind of cosmic gift from Dawn, his late wife. Who is it hurting? Maybe it would be okay to borrow Bernard’s life for awhile. After all, he’s not using it!

This book does an incredible job of balancing humor with the intrinsically soul crushing themes of grief in all its holographic colors. Somehow, through all of the darkness, the story never feels unbearably heavy. Though it made me cry, they were the good kind of tears, brought on by the deepest empathetic connection to the characters during the epic finale.

Frederick is a gregarious guy. He’s had a long life and has learned many tough lessons. This new life in the nursing home is his big second wind. Suddenly, he’s not so lonely. He finds himself able to help the people around him in the simplest of ways. Conversations. Shared meals. Forgotten letters sent. He is a good and patient man. He is the embodiment of forgiveness and understanding. He is the medicine many of his cohorts are in need of, and they are the same for him.

Speaking of which, the cast of characters at the nursing home is quirky and endearing, and their antics help color the narrative with playfulness and heart. Not all of them are bubbly and positive in the monotony of assisted living, but together they brighten the setting and make it a wholesome place to spend 300 pages.

If you can’t tell already, I greatly enjoyed this novel. It made the topic of grief feel approachable. I’m still astonished at how many facets of the concept were explored, and while none of it felt glossed over, it also never felt overwhelming. What an accomplishment!

Details

Title:: The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife
Author:: Anna Johnston
Genre:: General Fiction (Adult)/Humor & Satire
Publisher:: William Morrow
Length:: 336 pages
Audio Length:: 10h 49m
Audiobook Narrator:: Tim Carroll
Audiobook Publisher:: Harper Audio
Published:: September 10th, 2024
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars

Linky Links!!

Goodreads
Author Website
Amazon Affiliate Links
[Paperback] [eBook] [Audible]

If you liked this book, check out…

The Most Fun We Ever Had | Claire Lombardo
The Last Love Note | Emma Grey
Maybe Next Time | Cesca Major

Book Review:: The Midnight Feast | Lucy Foley

One cannot escape the past. Crimes cannot be erased. And those who were affected cannot simply be forgotten.

The Midnight Feast is another edge-of-your seat, layered, multiple POV mystery by Lucy Foley that tells of the secret trauma of one fateful summer night on the English coast, and its rippling effects through time.

The Midnight Feast Lucy Foley Book Cover

Opening weekend at The Manor is slated to be the event of a lifetime with Francesca Woodland at its helm. The cabins are full, the facilities impeccable, and every detail has been fussed over and perfected down to the architect, the staff, the wine, and the turndown service. But by the time it’s over, the police are called in to investigate the dead bodies left in the aftermath.

The first 15% of this book followed the same blueprint as The Guest List (also by Lucy Foley), which had me scratching my head a little bit. Doubling down on a good thing, I guess. Instead of a new, exclusive, wedding venue on an Irish island, this book is based on a new, exclusive, glamping resort-type facility on the English coast. I feel like it probably could have been a little more original, but it’s ultimately forgivable.

We flip back and forth between the present and past diary entries kept by one of the characters on a summer holiday, revealing one entry at a time what happened all those years ago to create so much tension in the present. Probably my favorite part of a book like this one is how each of the POV characters fit into the grander story, and that is one thing this book does so well. Everyone has a link to the past, and they all have a role to play in the present, too.

I loved the folklore thread in the weave. Like any good English town, this one has a longstanding lore surrounding a hundred-eyed tree deep in the forest, and The Birds who seek justice on wrongdoing done in the community. It was a little exhausting reading the words “the birds, the birds, the birds” again and again, but the layer of uncertainty and supernatural it adds really worked for me.

About halfway through I knew this was going to be a banger. I listened as an audiobook and was honestly surprised when I looked down and saw I was only at the midpoint. It has the punch of a climax already at that point, but we get so much more, and the true climax is even more satisfying. If you’re looking for something thrilling and satisfying with elements of horror, this book is for you. Good luck putting it down!

Details

Title:: The Midnight Feast
Author:: Lucy Foley
Genre:: Thriller/Suspense
Publisher:: William Morrow
Length:: 354 pages
Audio Length:: 10h 20m
Audiobook Narrator:: Joe Eyre, Sarah Slimani, Roly Botha, Laurence Dobiesz, Tuppence Middleton
Audiobook Publisher:: Harper Audio
Published:: June 18th, 2024
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars

Linky Links!!

Goodreads
Author Website
Amazon Affiliate Links
[Hardcover] [Paperback] [eBook] [Audible]

If you liked this book, check out…

In the Likely Event | Rebecca Yarros
Burn for Me | Ilona Andrews