I read one of the best books of the year this month and finished one of the… I’m not going to say worst books… but I did give it 2.5 stars on The StoryGraph and I’m absolutely befuddled by it. More on that later!

Reminder, all purchases from these links go to support our bookstore–Twice Told Tales in McPherson KS!

Only if You’re Lucky by Stacy Willingham
Download the audiobook here.
Order the hardcover here.

Only if You’re Lucky was everything I want in a thriller.  I regret that it took me so long to finally pick this book up because as soon as I did, I couldn’t put it down!

Margot is a shy girl who is entering her freshman year of college just a few months after losing her best friend in a tragic “accident”. Lucy is an enigmatic force of nature who, for whatever reason, has taken a liking to Margot. She invites her to move in to the house she’s splitting with two other roommates over the summer–just a back-garden away from a frat house. Just as Margot starts to really come out of her shell under the freedom of summer, she runs into a new pledge at the fraternity. She remembers him from her home town because he was responsible for Margot’s best friend’s death the year before. That’s all I’ll say but dang I enjoyed this! I honestly couldn’t figure out exactly where everything was going no matter how hard I tried and I love that in a mystery.

The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren
Download the audiobook here.
Order the hardcover here (or pick up a copy in-store).

Oh, well this was just an utter delight from start to finish. This was the second Christina Lauren book I’d ever read and I think I’m going to read all of theirs from now on. I like the way they write! Christina and Lauren are two different women who write together under the pen-name Christina and Lauren, btw.

This book is like if Pretty Woman was set on a rich private island. I desperately want to watch this as a film for the makeover montage alonnnnne! It’s like Pretty Woman except instead of a sex-worker situation, it’s two people (Anna and West) who got fake married so they could save money on housing back in college. And they were supposed to get divorced but because of reasons that I will not get into in this limited space–that fell through. And now, three years later, these two incredibly hot people have to keep up the marriage charade for one more week–on a private island at West’s sister’s wedding.

I REALLY liked the FMC in this book. She reminded me so much of my friend Kate who is not only beautiful and talented but has the funniest sense of humor that a lot of people who take themselves way too seriously don’t always understand but the girls who get it get it. In fact I even sent her a passage of this book and was like, “this character reminds me so much of you”! And I got “This is the BEST start to my day” as a response. So glad she agreed.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Download the audiobook here.
Order the hardcover here (or I’ll have a restock in a few weeks).

I was gifted the ARC of this book back in February. And I was like, “Oh I can’t wait to read this!” And then I didn’t understand 2 of the words on the first page and I put it away, intimidated. I wish I’d powered through though because it’s not an intimidating book at all. However, one of the benefits of not reading a book until the week it comes out is that you don’t have to wait that long before you can talk to people about it!

Many people describe this book as a genre-bender and I definitely agree. It’s got some spy-thriller. It’s got some historical fiction. It’s got workplace-comedy. It’s got some love story–I’ll talk more on that later because as a romance reader I have thoughts.

In the near-future a civil servant completes a series of job interviews–not sure what the job is for but she decides to take it anyway. Turns out time travel exists–okay, we just accept that with no questions asked, and her job is to be a Bridge. A baby-sitter or, more accurately, a translator of sorts for the folks what the British government is bringing back from the past. Our Bridge is assigned to Commander Graham Gore. As far as history knows, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic but we know that he didn’t die there–his body was never recovered. He was swooped up and brought to 2030-something.

This book is so funny. Commander Gore is charming as all hell. The other “expats” are so interesting in the way they interact with one another–despite their centuries in age difference. The spy thriller component is exciting and I was fully riveted.

Now, this is getting long but I gotta talk about how all the marketing is calling this a “romance”.  I believe that marketing teams are using that word because romance is very trendy right now. But the love story in this book doesn’t follow any part of the romance genre. In all my years of romance reading, I have never seen characters fall in love like this or a romance story end like this. There is a love-story sub-plot that magnificently enhances the main storyline. But it is not the whole story by any means. 

Lucky by Jane Smiley
Download the audiobook here.
Order the hardcover here (or stop in to Twice Told Tales, we have copies).

God I don’t want to write about this book. I usually DNF books I’m not enjoying so fast. I almost never finish a book that isn’t a 4 or 5 star review–specifically so I don’t have to write reviews about them. I realize this is a voluntary act but… woof.

I read this book because I have loved Jane Smiley’s books in the past (A Thousand Acres? Gutted.) and I really loved the cover of this one. Also the copy inside the front cover gave me Daisy Jones and the Six vibes! Here’s what it says:

_{Jodie comes of age in recording studios, backstage, and on tour, and she tries to hold her own in the wake of Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Joni Mitchell. Yet it feels like something is missing. Could it be true love? Or is that not actually what Jodie is looking for? Full of atmosphere, shot through with longing and exuberance, romance and rock ‘n’ roll, Lucky is a story of chance and grit and the glitter of real talent, a colorful portrait of one woman’s journey in search of herself.}

No. Just… I finished this book a week ago and I’m still mad at it. I have two copies at the store right now and I have no idea how to sell them to anyone. I know someone will pick this up and they’ll say, “is this one good?” And I’ll have to just… die I guess?

It’s Jodie’s life story essentially. I love an epic story centered on family so I was down. I was listening to this on audio and after a few days, I still felt like I was at that part in the beginning of a book where everything is just about to hit its stride and something big is just about to happen. But nothing ever actually happened. Or rather, things happened… but it was like a list of things happening. “I graduated and then I moved to an apartment and I always had money and never went hungry and I played music and then I quit for no reason. And then I moved to England and didn’t have to struggle a day in my life. I was so lucky.” I’ve never been less connected to a character. Everything in her life was fine. Nothing bad really happened. If it did, she quickly found the silver lining and just kept on going right as rain. I was ready to give up. But before I did that, I decided to read reviews to see if I was missing anything. There were several reviews that said there was a big plot twist in the epilogue (an enormous pet peeve of mine btw—that’s not what an epilogue is for). So, I kept going.

I desperately wanted our main character to explore her luck or examine her privilege—especially when we enter 2010-2015 and she goes on and on about how safe St. Louis is. Completely ignoring the shooting of Michael Brown and subsequent protests-turned-riots in Ferguson. 

I finished the book and found myself obsessed with one question: Why would anyone write this? 

I found an article that described this as a fictionalization of Jane Smiley’s own biography. Only as a musician instead of an author. That answered my question enough but left me disappointed. The worst thing that ever happened to our main character was that she learned about climate change!

This is a long, boring book about a privileged, white boomer with no capacity for honest self-reflection, just navel gazing.  And if anyone wants to read it, I have two copies at Twice Told Tales.

That’s the last book that I finished so, sorry to end on a bummer note but hey that’s how I felt.

XOXO, Libby