The Most Compelling Books of 2022

Reprinted from auburnpub.com

It’s the time of year for the Most Compelling Books of 2022. These are books that I still think about even months after I finished reading them, books with unforgettable characters and writing that takes my breath away.

Barbara Kingsolver is a writer whose works I never miss, and her new novel, Demon Copperhead is her best one yet. She takes on a classic- Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield- and sets her story about an orphan boy in Appalachia, as she tackles the topics of addiction, poverty, the foster care system, and the beginnings of the opioid crisis. I am not the only reviewer to pick this as the best book of the year. 

I read a great deal of historical fiction, and Adriana Trigiani’s moving epic about the importance of family stories The Good Left Undone, takes the reader from WWII Italy, France, and Scotland as Matelda, the matriarch of the Cabrelli family, shares her mother’s long-lost love story with her children and granddaughter so that it will not be forgotten. Every detail here is perfect. 

 

Anthony Marra’s Mercury Pictures Presents is also an epic about a young Italian woman who flees WWII to Los Angeles where she ends up working in the motion picture industry. Marra’s characters are so well-drawn they feel real, and his story is engrossing. 

Melissa Fu’s Peach Blossom Spring is set in 1930s China as Japan’s aggression forces Meilin and her young son to flee their home. They become separated from their family and Meilin does anything she has to in order to keep her son safe. When he grows up, he moves to the United States but Meilin stays behind. It’s a powerful story of a mother’s sacrifice for her son.

John Searles’ superb suspense novel, Her Last Affair is set at an abandoned drive-in theater as a blind widow rents out a cabin to a mysterious man, and a married woman reconnects on Facebook with a high school boyfriend. How Sayles cleverly connects these three characters at the end had me gasping. 

Another book that connects its characters in a clever manner is Fiona Mozely’s  brilliant Hot Stew about a group of people who are affected when a developer decides to sell a building in Soho in London to put up luxury condos. The tenants, including two women who run a brothel there, band together to defeat his plan. 

Matt Cain’s charming The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle is the feel-good book of the year. Albert is a lonely postman facing retirement in a small English town. He decides to confide in his coworkers about his life and makes a friend in a young single mom on his route. This beautiful story restores your faith in humanity. 

Jennifer Close’s Marrying the Ketchups is a wonderful story about a family who owns an Irish family restaurant in a Chicago suburb. When the patriarch passes away suddenly, there is a void and a decision about who should run the restaurant- the cousin who has been doing most of the work or the daughter who returns home from New York? I love a good Irish family story and throw in a family business and I’m in. 

Another foodie-novel I liked is Natalie Caña’s romance A Proposal They Can’t Refuse about two grandfathers who play matchmaker with their grandchildren- Kamilah, who is trying to save her family’s Puerto Rican restaurant, and Liam, who runs his family’s brewery next door. I love the combination of food, family businesses, and hot romance in this enemies-to-lovers novel. 

I read two nonfiction books that are outstanding. Laura L. Engel’s heartbreaking You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is a memoir about her experience after becoming pregnant in high school in the 1960s. She was sent to a home for unwed mothers where she was forced to give up her baby and it scarred her for life. It’s a searing book. 

Vanity Fair writer Marie Brenner was given unprecedented access as she wrote The Desperate Hours about the beginnings of the COVID pandemic in New York City as seen through the eyes of doctors, nurses, administrators, and patients on the front lines at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. It’s a harrowing story well-told. 

Three books I read in 2022 to look for in 2023- Amy Poeppels’ charming The Sweet Spot, Lauren Willig’s fantastic historical novel, Two Wars And A Wedding, 
 and Mary Beth Keane’s amazing novel The Half Moon. 

I wish you all a very happy holiday season.

Friday 5ive- May 13, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish blog post featuring five things that caught my attention. Happy Friday the 13th- look our for black cats and don't walk under any ladders.

1)  I received an invitation to my niece's baby shower, and included in the invitation is this adorable card "Books for Baby". Like many baby showers, guests are asked to bring a book for the baby. What is really great is that we are asked to bring a book that has special meaning for us, something we loved as a child, or something that will remind the baby of us. We are asked to sign the book to the baby as well. I squealed with joy when I read this card, it is the best idea I have seen in a long time.

2)  Our neighborhood Italian grocery store, Agata & Valentina just opened a Gluten-Free and Organics smaller grocery store across the street from their main store. I ,haven't been in it yet, but I think that is a terrific concept that will work well in our bustling neighborhood. 

3) I watched two author book events on Zoom. The first was hosted by Books In Common NW with author Claire Lombardo interviewing Bonnie Garmus about Bonnie's debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry. Everyone I know has been raving about the book.  Set in the 1960s, it tells the story of a female research chemist who finds herself the host of a popular cooking show on TV. The interview was terrific, Claire had insightful questions, and Bonnie's description of how she came to write the book was one many women can relate to- she was in a meeting at work and spoke up about an idea she had. She got no response from the group, but when a man immediately repeated her idea as his own, the team loved it. She called him out on it, but he denied it. She went back to her office and began to write the first chapter. I'm excited for this one, one of my Book of the Month selections. It was a fascinating discussion.

One of my other Book of the Month selections was Jennifer Close's Marrying the Ketchups, about a family who owns a restaurant. Jennifer was in conversation with author Lauren Fox at Boswell Book Company about the book, which I chose because my husband and I owned two fast-food restaurants in another life and it sounds perfect for me.  I  enjoy a good family story, and listening to Jennifer talk about the multiple narrators and the storyline had me moving this one up to the top of my TBR list.

4) We watched the last season of Neflix's Ozark. Oh, I had a pit in my stomach the entire time. There was so much tension wondering how they were going to wind up the story of the Byrde family, trying desperately to get out from under the control of the Navarro drug cartel, no matter what the cost. Do they succeed? You have to watch. The addition of Richard Thomas as Wendy Byrde's father was brilliant casting. He's come a long way from his John-Boy Walton days. 

5) I read two amazing books this week. Kirsten Miller's The Change, a Good Morning America Reads pick for May, has great timing. It's a novel about three middle-aged women who find they each are called to avenge the deaths of young women in their wealthy Long Island community. Nessa is a widow now experiencing empty nest syndrome when her twin daughters go to college. Nessa hears the voices of dead people, who lead her to where their bodies are. It is a "gift" she inherits from her grandmother. Jo owns a women-only gym in town, and her trip through menopause leaves her with an incredible physical strength. Harriet "retired" from her career as an advertising director when she is unfairly passed over for a well-deserved promotion, given instead to an unqualified man. The townspeople believe Harriet is a witch because she has turned her previously well-attended landscaping into a wild grown jungle. The women band together to discover who killed the three young women who called out to Nessa. These women use their righteous anger to right wrongs. It's a mystery-thriller-revenge fantasy that is so well-written, and the main characters are fascinating I highly recommend it. 

The other book I read is Barbara Kingsolver's upcoming October release, Demon Copperhead. The story takes its inspiration from Charles Dicken's David Copperfield, with young Damon living in poverty with his young single mother in Appalachian coal country. Damon has to struggle his entire life through bad foster care situations, homelessness, enforced child labor, and eventually finding a talent for football. The voice of Damon is unforgettable as he narrates the ups and many downs of his life, through loss and love and the scourge of rampant pill drug abuse foisted on the people in his rural community by a powerful pharmaceutical company. It's a big book, over 500 pages, and an important book, destined to be as classic as Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, one of my all-time favorite novels. Make sure to put Demon Copperhead on your radar this fall. I will be talking this one up all summer long.

Have a great week, stay safe and healthy.

Book Report- Three Novels About Romantic Relationships

Reprinted from auburnpub.com 

This month’s Book Report tackles the topic of romantic relationships. Two of the novels, “This Must Be The Place” and “The Hopefuls” deal with the ups and downs of marriage and identity, and the third, “The Hating Game”, reveals a relationship as it blossoms from hate to love.

Sally Thorne takes on workplace romantic relationships in “The Hating Game”.  Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman sit across from each other in their respective positions as assistants to co-CEOs of a publishing company. When the companies merged, Lucy and Joshua were forced to work in close quarters, much their displeasure. 

Lucy’s Bexley team are lovers of literature, people who believed that literature is art, as necessary to people’s lives as air is to breathe. Joshua’s Gamin team is more analytical; they believe in “key performance indicator targets” and that books are units to be sold.

Each team needs the other to survive in today’s competitive market. Joshua thinks Lucy is too soft on her staff, letting them shirk their responsibilities so that she has to pick up their slack. Lucy thinks Josh is a jerk, and the macho posturing of his team annoys her.

Though they claim to hate each other, events conspire to throw them together and the course of true love never runs smooth. The fact that they are up for the same promotion makes their rivalry even more personal and intense.

“The Hating Game” is a terrific workplace romance novel, and the reader roots for Lucy and Joshua to realize their feelings for each other. Thorne writes some hot and steamy sex scenes. Her first book is so well done, it felt like it was written by someone who has been doing this awhile. I loved the characters and hope to see them again sometime.

Jennifer Close’s third novel, “The Hopefuls” is publishing at just the right time. Matt and Beth’s story takes place in Washington DC, where Matt hopes his work as legal counsel in the Obama administration will help him land a position that he can leverage into running for political office himself. 

Beth reluctantly follows her husband from New York City to DC, hoping to find her place there as well. She doesn’t like politics, and in a company town like DC, it’s hard to meet anyone who doesn’t identify themselves by their security clearance level.

When they meet golden boy Jimmy and his wife Ash, Beth finally feels like she has a friend. Matt is envious of Jimmy’s position and his easy way with people. Everything seems to fall in Jimmy’s lap.

“The Hopefuls” reveals Matt and Beth’s marriage through the prism of politics, and how difficult it is to be married to someone who is so totally consumed by his career when the other person’s  career is less satisfying. Matt and Beth compare themselves to Jimmy and Ash, and when they follow them to Texas to help Jimmy run for office, the problems in their marriage become magnified. Close gets the details of marriage so right in this book, investing the reader in their marriage.

She excels in her character development. The scenes with Matt’s family, his overbearing mother who makes the in-laws sit at a separate dinner table from their spouses, are so perfectly written that we know these characters well even though they are only around for a little while.

Maggie O’Farrell’s “This Must Be The Place” weaves together the story of Daniel, an American who while on a trip to Ireland to pick up the ashes of his dead grandfather, meets Claudette, a famous actress who ran away from her director husband and stardom with her young son to live in seclusion. 

Daniel is upset about the dissolution of his marriage and the fact that his ex-wife refuses to allow him to see his children. He falls in love with Claudette and Ari, her son. He stays in Ireland, they marry and have two children of their own.

Claudette is a difficult woman, she prefers to stay on her secluded property, homeschooling her children. Daniel works as a professor of linguistics and loves his wife dearly. 

Daniel has to face an event from 20 years ago that forces him to look at just the kind of man he really is, is he the good man he thinks himself to be?

O’Farrell brilliantly weaves together Daniel and Claudette’s story, using perspective from others along the way. Her theme of the redemptive quality of love is one worth contemplating in this moving story.

“The Hating Game” by Sally Thorne- A

Published by William Morrow Paperbacks

Trade paperback, $14.99, 384 pages

“The Hopefuls” by Jennifer Close- A-

Published by Alfred A. Knopf

Hardcover, $25.95, 320 pages

“This Must Be The Place” by Maggie O’Farrell-A

Published by Alfred A. Knopf

Hardcover, $26.95, 382 pages

The Smart One by Jennifer Close

The Smart One  by Jennifer Close

Published by Vintage ISBN 978-0-307-74370-1

Trade paperback $15, 432 pages

While vacationing at the beach, I read the perfect beach book- Jennifer Close’s The Smart One. I read her previous novel, Girls in White Dresses, and liked it, but found it hard to relate the 20-something single girls, as I have passed that mark awhile ago.

But The Smart One refers to Weezy Coffey, the fifty-something wife and mother of three adult children, so I was all about this book. Weezy is knee-deep in preparations for her daughter Claire’s wedding. Then the wedding gets called off and Claire goes into a tailspin, quitting her job too.

So she must move back home to Pennsylvania, where oldest daughter Martha also lives. Martha was a nurse for a short time, but that didn’t work out, so she has been working as a manager at J. Crew. Martha has social issues; she really has no friends and never had a boyfriend. Coping with the world is not her best skill.

Son Max is eighteen and away at college. Then he gets his girlfriend Cleo pregnant and they move into the basement.

So now Weezy and her husband Will, who had been looking forward to an empty nest, find themselves with all three adult children back home. How did this happen?

Weezy so enjoyed all of the wedding planning that she just never told the florist or the caterer that the wedding was off. She continued to meet with them, tasting menus and looking at gorgeous floral arrangements. What was the harm in that?

I identified with Weezy, and winced when I saw characteristics in her that I do not like in myself. “Weezy had a high horse. And she could get on it whenever she wanted. Maureen used to always tease her when she’d go off on other people’s behavior. “Uh-oh”, she’d say. “Giddyup! Here comes the horse.” Ugh.

Weezy not only had to deal with her children, but her elderly mother Bets and sister Maureen. The descriptions of family Thanksgiving celebrations and all of the maneuvering and trying to keep peace and not blow a gasket, well if you can’t relate to that, you’ve never had a family Thanksgiving.

The story is told from alternating view points- Weezy, Martha, Claire and Cleo. Their voices are all distinct and strong , something I found a bit lacking in Girls in White Dresses.

The details in this novel are so perfect. I loved the list of THINGS WE NEED that is taped to the refrigerator. When things got purchased, they were crossed off, and a new list was started.

Max played hockey, and the descriptions and feelings that Weezy had about being a hockey mom brought me back to my days as a baseball mom. I don’t know how someone as young as Close was able to tap into that, but she sure did.

She also nails the new parent feelings that Max and Cleo have when their baby is born. Those feeling you have of love mixed with sleeplessness mixed with exhaustion mixed with joy; it’s all right there.

And I loved the idea of naming tables at your wedding after favorite books! Oh I wish I had thought of that 26 years ago.

One of the characters, Jaz, a wise woman, tells Martha “It’s funny, you know. Not what I had planned for my life, but that’s how it works sometimes.” That pretty much sums up the theme of The Smart One. Life isn’t always what you dreamed; you play the cards you are dealt.

The Smart One bridges the gap between young women starting out and older women, watching their children make mistakes and not knowing what to do. I think that women of all ages should read this, it will help them empathize and understand each other.

Rating 5 of 5

Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close

Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close
Published by Alfred A. Knopf ISBN 978-0307596857
Hardcover, $24.95

The characters in Girls in White Dresses are women on the verge of marriage. We meet Lauren, Mary and Isabella at college, and follow them through various vignettes as they meet and date guys- some good, some bad- on their way to adulthood and eventually, marriage and motherhood.

Their stories are told in alternating chapters, snapshots of their lives. Mary is a serious law student who, for some reason unbeknownst to her friends, only dates ugly guys. She graduates and works many hours at her job, crushing on her boss. 

Isabella is the baby of her family, looking for a job in publishing and a good guy to love. She has several semiserious relationships, but none that seem to give her what she wants. Is it her?

Lauren graduates from college, moves to New York, and ends up waitressing at a lousy restaurant, dating a scuzzy bartender. "This is not what Lauren went to college for. This was not where she was supposed to be. These were not the kind of people she was supposed to be around."

This book can be a bit of a downer. We see all of these women at their most vulnerable, emotional time in their 20s, when they are out in the cold world, trying to find a career, trying to find love. They work at lousy jobs, have tiny city apartments, and kiss a lot of frogs looking for a prince. They see their friends getting married, (one hilarious chapter deals with the many, many bridal showers they have to attend as bridesmaids for one of their friend's weddings) getting great jobs, moving to the suburbs, having children, and their journey to the same life seems fraught with trouble. One thing that sustains them is their friendship with each other.

At times there seemed to be too many extraneous characters, but when the author focused on her main characters, I felt compelled to keep turning the pages. Close really nails the confusion of young women, and most women who read this will identify with their lives, even if their 20s are in the rear view mirror.


rating 4 of 5 stars