book review

Five Star Books: 2019

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In my last post, I gave myself the idea of making a top ten list of my favorite books that I read in 2019. Well, I thought of it for about 23 seconds and decided that’s impossible. I can’t tell you the very best. What kind of a monster do you think I am?!

What I can do, though, is give you a list of all of the books I marked with Five Stars on Goodreads, though! Hey, follow me on Goodreads if you want to.

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I don’t really have a super thoughtful method to describe how I decide that a book is five-stars-worthy. It’s  just, if I really liked it. Like, if I would super duper recommend this book to someone else, then it gets five stars. If I liked it fine but I probably won’t evangalize about it or anything, I’ll give it four. Looking at my Goodreads account, though, it turns out that if I wouldn’t rate it four stars and above, I probably won’t finish it. So… we both learned something about me today. There are too many books to spend time on three-star ones. AND WE’RE OFF!!

Five Star Books I Read in 2019 (in no particular order of preference):

Maisie Dobbs (book #1) by Jacqueline Winspear
I listened to this on Audiobook. It’s the perfect cozy mystery series. I don’t usually love a series but I will definitely read more from this one.

Exit West by Hamid Mohsin
This is the closest thing to science fiction that I can get. But I loved it. It took me to places and scenarios that are so different from the live I currently live.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
I felt so connected and invested in all of these characters.

Becoming by Michelle Obama
Hated the ending. But adored all the rest in this book full of so much love and humanity.

Kindred by Octavia Butler
No, this is the closest thing to science fiction that I can get! This book blew my mind! I know that I said that it would be impossible to list my top ten favorite books but it’s easy for me to tell you what my number one favorite was. It was Kindred. Ten stars. I want to read everything she’s ever written.

There You Are by Mathea Morias
I’ve been describing this book as if The Hate U Give and High Fidelity had a baby. It’s a love story but without the romance. And it’s so good.

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Blew! My! Mind! I love the way she played with structure. I loved the plot twist. I loved the setting and time period. I loved it all.

Girls Like Us by Randi Pink
This is a book about found family. It feels so honest and true–probably because it doesn’t stray too far from the very real history of women and femmes who had the misfortune of turning up too pregnant too early in our not too distant past.

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
The fact that this book was based on an American truth brought me to my knees in both sorrow, rage and acknowledgement that this story isn’t over.

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee
I wrote about this in my last post, so I won’t get into it again.

We are All Good People Here by Susan Rebecca White
This one took me to some unexpected places and wondering where I fit on the spectrum between Apathetic and Extremist.

The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner
This memoir broke my heart. At times, I only kept reading because I knew that the main character definitely survived because she was able to write this book.

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano
*See The Downstairs Girl

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett
This is like The Hunger Games meets The Handmaid’s Tale. I folded so much laundry while listening to this on Libro.fm.

The Mountains Sing by Nguyến Phan Quế Mai
Admittedly, I’ve never known that much about Vietnam. Neither the country nor the war that took place there. I felt so deeply for this family and for the way they fought for the promise of a future by searching their past. The writing is incredibly descriptive without bogging the story down in details. It was masterfully done.

Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson
The delicious undertones of this book are all focused on themes of forgiveness and whether or not it’s important to tell the whole truth all wrapped up in a delightful, exciting thriller.

*Bonus since I haven’t finished it yet but I will finish it before 2019 is over and I promise this is a five star book:

The Witches are Coming by Lindy West
I’m listening to this one on Libro.fm and every thirty seconds I’m chanting, “YES Lindy! YES!” Lindy answers so many questions but just for fun, here’s one: “How the eff are we seriously calling Ted Bundy ‘charming’ while also wondering if Elizabeth Warren is ‘likable’???” And I want to know the answer too. Just kidding WE ALL KNOW THE ANSWER. IT’S BECAUSE WHITE, CIS MEN ARE WORSHIPED JUST FOR BEING ALIVE EVEN IF THEY ARE VERY LITERAL SERIAL KILLERS WHILE EVERYONE ELSE HAS TO BEND OVER BACKWARDS WHILE BALANCING DISHES IN BOTH HANDS JUST TO BE CONSIDERED VAGUELY ACCEPTABLE. Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell but also, like, Lindy West makes me need to yell. WOO! Feels good!

Well, now that we know what my super favorite books are from this year, I wonder if it’s telling anything about what kind of books I like?

What were your top favorite, five star books of this year?

XOXO, Lib

Dear Edward and The Downstairs Girl

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915UZJcSq5LDear Edward is being released in early January and it’s definitely one of my favorite books that I read this year. I’m sure it would break the top ten list if I felt like sitting down and really ranking them all. Wait. Should I do that???

Anyway,  Dear Edward tells a really incredible story with not only a captivating premise (plane crash, one survivor) but also a lot of beauty and heart and serious honesty about the way that humans connect to one another–even if they’re strangers on a plane.

There’s a mystery that only Edward can solve–but he’s got to rebuild himself in order to solve it. Or does he need to solve the mystery in order to rebuild himself? Either way, there’s a lot of work to be done.

Though I wouldn’t necessarily shelve this in YA, it is going to be a great read for an older YA audience or anyone who loves a really good coming of age story–particularly for anyone who was a fan of Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker or Paper Towns by John Green.

I thought about gifting this book to my 14 year old niece for Christmas but then I was reminded about a few things, content-wise, that I might wait on. I’m not saying that she’s not mature enough to read a book with one not-overtly-graphic sex scene. I’m just saying, I’m not the one who’s going to give it as a Christmas gift. Maybe one day she’ll come over and browse my bookshelf and THEN I’ll happily pass it along. Ya know what I mean?

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Instead, I’m going to gift The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee to her. This book really has it all. I loved it so much. It’s a historical novel with themes around race and gender relations in the genteel south but it’s all wrapped up in a truly engrossing story!  I learned so much reading this book. Like, did you know that Asians weren’t allowed to own property in the south in the late 19th century? Nor was it legal to rent to Asians? So, like, where TF are they supposed to live?!

Anyway, by day, Jo Kuan is a lady’s maid for a very rich and quite cruel family in Atlanta. By night, she’s a secret advice columnist! In a world where non-white people didn’t have any voice at all, Jo Kuan spoke up! And she changed! Her! World!

I will end this piece with a quote from a review from “Kate (GirlReading)” on Goodreads: “Apparently historical fiction novels following badass teen journalist using their voices to stick it to societal norms and shine a light on injustice is absolutely my kryptonite.” Same, Kate. Very same.

XOXO, Lib

 

Virtual Book Club: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

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I’ve been looking forward to reading this book since the day I finished reading Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You in the spring of 2016. I just happened upon that book randomly at the local library. I’d been in a bit of a dry spell, reading-wise and Everything I Never Told You all at once flipped the switch inside of me and made me hungry for books. I went back to the library to find more books by her but there weren’t any. She hadn’t written any! Until now. *rubs hands together*

I’ve always had a love affair with first works by an author. It’s kind of like a musician’s first album—here’s the piece that’s been living inside of them for ages and they’ve had a lifetime to turn it over and make it perfect. Or, at least, that’s how I imagine it. And when the second book comes around, I’m eager to read it but not often as enchanted as I was that first time. This time was different. Little Fires Everywhere held me just the same.

Ng is a master storyteller. She is exactly what I’m looking for in literature. She can take all these individual strands and move them about in ways that make you eager to follow along, not sure where she’s taking this and then at the end you can see this magnificent braid with just a few fly-aways because she’s not afraid to leave some questions unanswered.

Sometimes I believe in spoilers and sometimes I don’t. For this particular book, I’m not going to tell you much. I don’t want to tell you any of the plot secrets and I don’t want to tell you my interpretation, either. Because I really want to hear how it spoke to you.

But in the first chapter, we more or less open on a house on fire. One of the fire inspectors knew that it was arson because there were “little fires everywhere.” Hearing the title of the book in the very first chapter piqued my interest in the direction of fire. So for the rest of the book I was noting when anything was described with fire language. This set me on a path of seeing what was living at the heart of this story: obedience vs rebellion.

As a girl who’s spent the past few years intentionally following my own arrow (and thusly repeatedly disappointing a certain type of people while also empowering another type of people)—this theme resonated with me in powerful ways. But who knows—it could just be this very thing in my life that saw that theme in the first point. Maybe it’s not there? Maybe it is? Who could know?

I can’t wait to have our book club meeting and find out (I’m writing this early and setting it to post after we’ve had our book club meeting but at the time of this writing, it has as of yet not taken place)! Our book club meetings are always so fun. I’m always in a weird mood and don’t really want to do it but the second we all start talking, it fills my joy-tank all the way up. Nothing fills me up like a book discussion does.

Anyway, go order Little Fires Everywhere. It’s just as good as Everything I Never Told You. Hell, order them both.

For the month of February we’ll be reading Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. I’m really stoked to get into this story. I haven’t seen the movie, yet! I know, I know. But I’m really excited to get into this one.

XOXO, Lib

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul + August’s Book Reveal

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Every single time I sit down to write one of these book reviews (and I’ve written, like, 13 by now?) I think, “Oh, but I don’t know how to do this.” I open up this blank word document and my brain, as it does when faced with any kind of expectation, goes into primate mode. “Book. Did like. Would recommend.” Is that good? Will you take that? Cool. Good talk. Thanks for stopping by, today.

No, but for real, this collection of essays has been such a joy to read through. I liked it so much that half-way through the copy that I got from the library, I returned it, went down to Bluebird Books, and bought my own copy. I did this so that I could underline the parts that felt so right that I couldn’t just leave them alone like they didn’t touch my soul.

One such passage: Nothing bad can happen to you if you’re with your mom. Your mom can stop a bullet from lodging in your heart. She can prop you up when you can’t. Your mom is your blood and bone before your body even knows how to make any.

Just take a moment with that.

She writes about the things you would expect a feminist child of immigrants to write about in 2017. She writes a touching story of visiting India for a cousin’s wedding. She writes about rape culture. Body image. The way we behave on the internet. The usual. But she has a fresh take that’s different from everything that’s been shared all over Facebook. And her writing style is so inviting and funny–it’s damn funny. And musical.

She told a story about when she was in college and how she and her friends lived themselves into a situation where they realized that one of them was likely a very serious alcoholic. She captured the progression so beautifully. The way it starts out so innocent and fun but eventually climaxes in a hard realization and a drunken fight. I love the way that she wraps up that story, too. It’s not about alcoholism or drunk stories. It’s about the way we get off on our own moral superiority. And she’s right, too.

One of the latter chapters deals with body image. She talks, specifically, about hair. How the hair on her head is seen as perfect and luxurious whereas the hair on her body is an absolute shame and something that she can’t be expected to reasonably control no matter how much time she devotes to it.
She says, “It’s easier to rebel against hair norms if you’re a woman generally unburdened by them in the first place. … For it to really matter, for your rebellion to extend outside yourself, you have to have been born with hair-baggage–that nagging reminder that what comes out of your body naturally makes you repulsive, or tells people that you’re deserving of a slur, or that your sexuality can exist only in a specific vacuum of kink or generous acceptance.”
As the owner of a fat body, I finally felt like someone out there understands me and the particular brand of self-worth that I go back and forth between celebrating and starving for. The way she is at a constant battle between “fixing” and accepting Her Thing. Me, too, Scaachi.

I’m going to be revisiting this book again and again as time goes on. I know this is one of those books that you read and then pick it up in a year and hear all new things. I feel really grateful to have come across this book right now.

9780399563997Next month, we’re going to be reading Amanda Wakes Up by Alisyn Camerota. I don’t know much about this book except that all of the reading podcasts that I listen to are talking about it and recommending it. This is one of my favorite ways to approach a book–with little to no knowledge about it, just the understanding that other people are reading it with you and so many people have great things to say about it.

As always, if you want to join our virtual book club just let me know! Shoot me a message on Facebook and I’ll add you to our group. Also don’t forget to head over to Staci’s blog to read her take on One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter. I love reading her thoughts after I’ve settled on my own.

Tell me what you’re reading! Are you keeping up with your summer reading list or has it gone out the window with mine?

XOXO, Lib

Three Wishes by Laine Moriarty + July Virtual Book Club Selection

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I’ve had such a limited amount of spare brain space this month that I wondered if I’d even get around to reading this month’s Virtual Book Club selection. So I put it off and put it off and put it off. One day, when I was so tired of packing things into boxes, I just sat down and started to read. It sucked me in and I finished it in two days! Which, long time readers well know, is pretty unusual for me since I’m usually a pretty slow reader. But, man, Liane Moriarty does a great job of serving me up these subjects and characters that I don’t know that I’m going to be so interested in.

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We decided to go for a light summer read for June and I think Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty was the perfect choice. One fun little fact: this story takes place in Sydney, Australia. So, yeah, it does take place in the summer but it’s also mostly centered around Christmas/ New Years time. I had to remind myself that the Southern Hemisphere has a different season calendar than we do here in the states.

So this novel is, at its core, a family drama (my go-to genre). It’s certainly comedic, though. Moriarty injects humor so effortlessly and realistically. She keeps the mood light by putting her characters into perfectly ordinary and relatable circumstances where the drama takes place.

Three Wishes opens with triplets, Cat, Lyn, and Gemma, celebrating their birthday in a restaurant. A huge portion of the beginning is told from the perspective of onlookers—you can almost picture it as a series of talking heads in a documentary style. These talking-head type scenarios play out throughout the book, too. We go with these women through relationships, dealing with personal struggles, and secrets. I think it’s a really engrossing book—just like everything else I’ve read by Moriarty.

If I was to boil down the main theme of this story as it revealed itself to me, it would be the interconnection of people. A few times in the book, other characters complain that the triplets are too connected to each other. Sometimes, maybe it’s true, but sometimes there are instances where you lay down your whole life for someone else. How are we to ever know, in the moment, which is which? I thought that the talking-head style interjections, also, were a really creative way to showcase the way that we affect other people in the world without even really being aware of it.

41nYcChc04L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_In July we’re going to be reading One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul. It’s a collection of essays and all I know of this book at this point is that it has a beautiful cover and it’s on all the “you HAVE to read this, OMG” lists this summer. I’m debating whether or not I should learn more about it but I think I won’t. I’ll just leave it blind for now. That sounds kind of fun to me.

As always, message me if you’re interested in joining our book club and I’ll add you to our top secret Facebook Group where we talk all about books, reading, what we haven’t read, what we want to read, what we read and hated…
And don’t forget to check out Staci’s site to see what she thought of Three Wishes. One of my favorite parts of this book club is getting to find out what different people thought of the same text. Staci always has new and engaging insights (I especially love it when one of us loved something and the other person didn’t).

Have you read either of these books or anything by either of these authors?
What’s your go-to genre of choice when it comes to books?

XOXO, Lib