Author: twonightstands

celebrity memoir, Memoirs, Uncategorized

Book Review: Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry

twonightstands

“Do you know what St. Peter says to everyone who tries to get into heaven?”

“Peter says, ‘Don’t you have any scars?’ And when most would respond proudly, ‘Well, no, no I don’t,’ Peter says, ‘Why not? Was there nothing worth fighting for?”

I picked up this book because Chandler was always my favorite on Friends and I could not watch the reunion special because I could not believe how bad all the men aged. I wanted them all stuck in my head how they were when I watched the original show. Now, Friends premiered when I was 3, so obviously I watched it after it had ended and so avoided any knowledge of any of their private or celebrity news. I had no idea Mathew Perry was an addict until I picked up this book. Perry in this book is baring his addiction in such a glaring way that it is hard to read and yet, so hard to look away. I listened to this book on audio and could not listen all the way through. I could only do 2 hours at a time because the big terrible thing is really that big and terrible.

“I’m hopeless and awkward and desperate for love!”

A lot of fans know that a lot of Mathew Perry went into the character of Chandler on Friends. Mathew Perry is Chandler without Monica and without the twins at the end, but with the same baggage and an insane addiction problem. Perry takes us through his birth in America, his childhood in Canada with his mother who was Trudeau Sr. ‘s Chief of Staff when he was Prime Minister and then to his return to America to live with his father. Perry has had a roller coaster of a life. He started drinking at 15 and then never stopped. Every time he picked up any substance at all, he got addicted. There is no drug he hasn’t done, there is no amount of alcohol he hasn’t drunk, it’s actually quite insane to listen to. Perry spent most of his young life wanting desperately to be famous. He was actually getting steady work doing a lot of guest starring roles, shows that never led to anything while drinking his nights away with friends and sleeping with as many women as possible.

“Now, all these years later, I’m certain that I got famous so I would not waste my entire life trying to get famous. You have to get famous to know that it’s not the answer. And nobody who is not famous will ever truly believe that.”

I’m going to say something I don’t think anyone has ever said about a memoir but this book is too honest. Perry is so honest that I can see why people would consider him unlikeable after reading this book. He doesn’t pretend that he just loved acting and that’s all he wanted to do. Perry wanted to be famous. He longed for it, him and his friends would audition all day and then meet up at night to fantasize about being famous. Perry talked about his obsession with love. He was rarely ever single even through the worst of his addictions. He was either in a committed relationship or he was sleeping his way through Los Angeles. I can see why people would consider him a womanizer who objectifies women, but you don’t pick up a memoir about an addict looking for a saint. He would date amazing woman after amazing woman and break up with them before they had a chance to leave him. He would be at the cusp of proposing then crack a joke and then never do it.

Yes, he really is Chandler and it would be endearing and funny if he didn’t spend most of his time trying to escape reality through drugs and alcohol. Perry doesn’t make excuses about his mistakes. His story telling is very matter of fact. He tells you how much he’s spent on rehab. He tells you how most rehab are bullshit and he could sue them. If you’re looking for a humble man who is looking for forgiveness for his actions, you won’t find him here. Does Perry wish that he didn’t have this disease? Absolutely. But this book is not about convincing you that he is a good man who was riddled with this addiction. It is just a book about an addict.

“I was so often just a tourist in sobriety.”

There’s info about Friends and lovers, yes, but don’t pick up this book if that’s all you want scoop on. 75% of this book is about the big, terrible thing. This book desperately needed an editor. There are so many jokes that fell flat that should have never made it to the page. The Keanu Reeves joke for example. It made so many people mad that when I went to Goodreads to rate this book and saw so many 1 star ratings, I was so confused until I saw that some of them were mad about the Keanu quip (which Matthew Perry has apologised for). Also, this book was not linear so sometimes it left me confused, trying to figure out where we are at any particular time. Also a lot of it read as repetitive. Where were his editors? This book would have been so much better if it was thoroughly edited and a proper timeline worked out for all the events outlined in the book.

“If I drop my game, my Chandler, and show you who I really am, you might notice me, but worse, you might notice me and leave me. And I can’t have that. I won’t survive that.”

I felt sad after reading this book. It’s so hard to evaluate memoirs because how do you judge a person’s life story on a point system? I’m curious to see how reading this book is going to affect my further watching of Friends. I wonder if I’m going to still see my beloved Chandler Bing or if I’m going to be stuck staring into the crack Mathew has opened in this funny character. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads and based on the reviews I’ve seen about it, I will give one warning – do not read this book if you will be offended by the actions of an addict.

Leggy

Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, romance, women's fiction

Book Review: Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan

twonightstands

“That,” she says, “is an irreversible outcome. Divorce may or may not be. Broken relationships may or may not be. You may never repair those completely, but you’re still here to try. Do you recognize what an amazing gift that is? To still be here to try?”

Yasmen and Josiah were what the kids would call “#couplegoals”. They liked and loved each other, the sex was great, they had two kids and shared a vision and a business together. Until they go through some tragedies and realize that their love was not enough to hold them together and they eventually divorce. Now, they are living in their new normal, still business partners but learning to co-parent. But spending that much time together jogs both their memories and they start to reminisce about the good times. The story takes us down memory lane to the beginning of their story, how they got here and if there is a chance for a future as a couple again.

“Depression,” she goes on, “is a liar. If it will tell you no one loves you, that you’re not good enough, that you’re a burden or, in the most extreme cases, better off dead, then it can certainly convince you that you’re better off without the man you love, and that, ultimately, he’s better off without you.”

Y’all know that I am not one for romance novels and I don’t think I quite knew it was a romance novel but it worked for me and I really liked it. I liked this because it was very realistic and definitely wasn’t a “boy meets girl” story. Ryan did a good job of giving us a clear picture of who Yasmen and Josiah were as a couple from the beginning to present day, so you feel like you know them. I liked how she introduced their traumas in just the right doses and didn’t try to shove it all down at the same time. And when I say traumas, this also serves as a trigger warning for pregnancy loss, depression and suicidal thoughts. Ryan found a way to weave these real life situations into the story while also incorporating the different reactions people have to therapy and the different ways people deal with grief.

“Do people remember the exact moment they fall in love? I’ve learned it’s not one moment, but a million of them”

I have mentioned earlier but I would reiterate that the best thing about the book was how realistic it felt and that is a testament to Ryan’s writing. From something as little as Yasmen acknowledging the versatility of black hair or being kind to her body or her rebellious teenager. As much as I mentioned the TWs earlier, there were fun moments in the book like the great friendship Yasmen develops as an adult, the passion for their restaurant and the healthy friendship between Josiah and his best friend that is open. I have said in previous reviews how I have noticed a lot of books lately seem to be incorporating food into their stories and this was no different

I can’t sing the praises of this book enough. If you are looking for a mature, happy ending having romance novel look no further. This was my first Ryan novel and I was not disappointed. It reminded me a bit of Seven Days in June. Oh , I forgot to add that there’s loads of sex in the book but that’s not why I am recommending 😀

Taynement

Chick-Lit, Fiction, romance

My Favorite Romance Books in 2022

twonightstands

I’ve really enjoyed reading romance this year. I find that a lot of the books I read this year were quite delightful and everything I wanted in a good book. I’m usually a fan of the romantic comedy genre. I’m not a fan of the angst in dramatic romanceo so, I’m sure my list is going to reflect that. Also, these are my favorite books that I read this year and not just books published in 2022, even though some of them are. Anyway, without any further ado, these are my 2022 favorite romance books!

  1. Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan:

Nora Hamilton is a romance channel screenwriter. She knows the formula for a corny romance novel – two people have a meet cute, fall in love, 90% into the movie they fight and the man leaves, then 99% into the movie the man comes back and they live happily ever after. She’s been churning these out her entire career and taking care of her children and free loading husband. When Nora’s marriage falls apart, she turns the story of the breakup into a screenplay that gets picked up by a big Hollywood director complete with a star studded Hollywood cast including former Sexiest Man Alive, Leo Vance who plays her ex-husband. When Vance comes to film in her house, the two connect in such a deep way and she starts experiencing life like never before. The full review of this book can be found here!

2. Funny You Should Ask by Elisa Sussman:

I’m genuinely shocked that I never reviewed this book on the blog or on our Instagram timeline, I think I just talked about it on Twitter and then thought I reviewed it? Wow. Okay here goes!

Chani Horowitz is stuck writing puff pieces which is not what she went to her MFA program for. All her former classmates are getting book deals but she’s stuck with no way to move forward. She gets hired to write a profile piece of movie star, Gabe Parker. The hottest Hollywood leading man, according to her, and currently her phone screen saver! Chani is so excited and terrified but she knows that if she keeps her cool and nails this piece, it could skyrocket her career. But what comes next proves to be life-changing in ways Chani never saw coming, as the interview turns into a whirlwind weekend that has the tabloids buzzing.

10 years later, she’s still getting asked about that profile piece. No matter what new book she’s promoting, it always came back to Gabe. The speculation of if she slept with him or not. So when Gabe’s PR reaches out and wants a recreation of that amazing profile piece and weekend, she really wants to say no because there is so much that happened during that weekend that she left out of her piece and is only known by the two of them. This book was inspired by an amazing profile piece that a journalist did on Chris Evans that I think you should read before going into this one. It makes the book even more amazing. Link HERE to the real life Chris Evans piece!

3. Book Lovers by Emily Henry:

Emily Henry has become such a reliable author for me. I’ve liked every book better than the last so I’m so excited for what she has coming next and also terrified that she’s reached her peak with this one!

Nora Stephens is an amazing book agent who loves her job and loves living in New York City. She comes to Sunshine Falls with her pregnant sister before the baby comes, to destress. Instead of running into a hot farmer and having a stereotypical Christmas romance (you know those ones!), Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, an editor from the city who is in Sunshine Falls to take care of his aging parents and whip their affairs into order. Charlie and Nora have met many times before but always on days when they both weren’t bringing their best to the world, so this presents a chance for them to start over and get to know each other as people not as an editor and agent. I really loved this one. It was smart and funny and realistic. I love that Nora loves her job and makes no apologies for it. You can read my full review of this one here!

4. It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey:

I reviewed this one on our Instagram timeline where I review a book every Wednesday on the timeline, (follow us!- @nightstands2)

Piper Bellinger is an influencer. She just is. Think Paris Hilton at the height of her fame. She’s from a rich family, has multiple relationships that never last more than a month and she loves to party. After one of her massive parties goes awry and she lands in jail, her step father sends her to a small town in Washington to show some contrition and taxes her with running her dead father’s dive bar – a man who died when she was young and she has no connection to. Piper has not been in Westport, Washington for up to 5 minutes when she meets Brenda, a gruff fisherman, who thinks she won’t last a week outside of Beverly Hills, so she sets out to prove him wrong! Don’t be put off by the rich, spoilt girl trope here. Piper is smart, funny and kind but just happens to be spoilt and rich. I found her so likeable and it made it so easy for me to root for her. One of my favorite romance reads of the year for sure!

5. The Deal by Elle Kennedy:

This is another one I reviewed on Instagram (again, follow us! You’re missing out!)

Hannah Wells has a lot of baggage when it comes to sex and seduction but if she wants her crush’s attention, she’ll have to step out of her comfort zone and make him take notice. Even if it means tutoring the annoying, cocky captain of the hockey team in exchange for a pretend date to drive up her popularity and make her REAL crush notice her. Obviously, shenanigans ensue. I really enjoyed this book. It was such a fun read, and I hadn’t read anything in recent memory set on a college campus which I utterly enjoyed. Even though I felt this was a fun read, it’s important to note that there are trigger warnings – rape, emotional and physical abuse but all of this happens off the page and in the past, just events referred to.

Which romance books have been your favorite of the year so far? Let me know in the comments!

Leggy

celebrity memoir, Memoirs, Non-Fiction

Book Review: You Should Sit Down For This by Tamera Mowry-Housley

twonightstands

Tamera Mowry-Housley is best known as half of the identical twin duo that starred in “Sister, Sister” and as one of the talk show hosts on “The Real”. Because everyone gets to write a memoir these days, Mowry-Housley has written one at age 44. The book title says it’s about life, wine and cookies which I assume is supposed to be about her personal life, her career and I guess life advice as she sprinkles across the book, something she calls “Tamera-isms”.

I won’t mince any words and just flat out say that I thought this was a terrible book. In fact, it was an insult to the word memoir. I picked up this book because Mowry-Housley has the reputation of being the “boring” twin and is often misunderstood, I figured I’d pick this one up to hear from her point of view and see if I could gain a different perspective of her and unfortunately, this did not help her case at all. It was awful.

As always for a celebrity memoir, I did this on audio and I wanted to end my suffering as soon as I started. I am not sure who signed off on this because the tempo was not it at all. It was almost like she was putting on a forced positivity and the cheeriness came off as fake. It was just over the top. But it was just 5 hours long so I figured I could bear it. The book had soooo many metaphors and euphemisms that were over the top and was distracting from whatever surface story she was telling us.

When you read a memoir, you should feel like you learned things about them that you didn’t know before reading and this was not the case here. In fact, you would know more about Tamera looking up her old interviews and watching The Real than reading this book. For example, in a story talking about her breakup with her now-husband, Adam she says “I don’t want to talk about it, even just thinking about it now brings a tear to my eye”. No memoir should have the phrase “I don’t want to talk about it” that is a signal that you do not need to be writing a memoir.

As mentioned above, she is best known for “Sister, Sister”. I had settled in to listen to the behind the scenes of the show and couldn’t believe that it was a blink and you miss it situation. One minute she mentioned they booked the show and the next she is saying when the show ended. For someone who is partly famous because she is an identical twin, she barely if at all talks about their relationship. We don’t learn more about her family and that’s because most of the stories were surface. I didn’t understand the choice to not talk about being biracial instead she refers to herself as a black girls with curls. She never referenced the reality show she had with her twin sister, never referenced the depression she went through in college.

I can give a little credit to her getting a little more authentic when talking about being on The Real and how much anxiety it gave her but she over compensated by telling us every 5 seconds how much she loved her coworkers and she spent most of it defending her husband. The chapter where she talks about the death of her niece due to gun violence was the other story she was authentic about. She tries to be down with people by talking about sex and how people consider her a prude to which she boldly tells us that they are wrong and she is infact “a freak in the sheets” (cringe). She proceeds to share her sex goals which are places she wants to have sex that include a lavender field and on top of a car in the rain (gosh) and then follows it up with it’s none of our business which ones she has checked off. Sigh.

Overall, I just got the impression that Tamera is the kind of person who likes for everything to look nice. She mentions how she is proud of her positivity but it almost sounded like a detriment in this book. I think the idea of the book was a cross between Yvonne Orji’s “Bamboozled by Jesus” and Gabrielle Union’s “We’re going to need more wine” except she failed on both ends. Orji found a fun way to give fun, personalized advice while Tamera told us things that everyone already knows and wasn’t able to capture Union’s realness. In case you couldn’t tell, I do not recommend this book. I gave it 1 star and immediately told Leggy that it is in the running for my worst read of the year.

If you have read this and think otherwise, I’d really like to hear your thoughts. Let me know in the comments!

Taynement

Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, race, romance, Uncategorized, women's fiction

Book Review: Mika in Real Life by Emiko Jean

twonightstands

“It seems the tighter I try to hold on, the more things slip through my fingers. It is a reminder to me of how impermanent life is.”

Mika Suzuki’s life is a mess. She’s 35 and has just been laid off from her paralegal job. She’s living with her best friend but still can’t make ends meet. She is an absolute disappointment to her traditional Japanese parents. Her last relationship ended in flames. Mika is at her lowest when she gets a call from her daughter Penny – the daughter she gave up for adoption 16 years ago. Penny wants to get to know her birth mother and Mika is determined to be a woman who daughter would be proud of. Mika spends the entire month talking to her daughter and making up the perfect life for herself – the perfect career, the perfect romantic relationship, and even the perfect house. As the lies snowball into a fully fledged fake life and Penny decides to come visit Mika in Portland with her adoptive widower dad, Thomas Calvin, Mika must figure out a way to keep up with her lies while forming a relationship with her daughter.

I really liked all the family dynamics portrayed in this story especially the one between Mika and her mother. Mika and her parents have a very difficult relationship where she has never felt understood. Her parents being immigrants has shaped a lot of their experiences and has made it hard for them to understand each other. Their relationship involves church, her parents trying to introduce her to eligible Japanese men and Mika asking them for loans which she always promises to pay back but never does. I like how the author portrayed Mika’s mother as complex instead of demonizing her as an absolutely bad mother. She was just a woman who was limited in her world view and moved to a country she didn’t want to be in in the first place and then was saddled with a daughter who didn’t want the traditional path to success her parents had set out for her to follow. I enjoyed reading about her experiences and what made her into the person she was today.

I didn’t expect this book to grab me as much as it did. Sure, there’s romance in it and a few spicy scenes but that is not all this book is about. The romance lends a certain layer of lightness to this story that would have otherwise been depressing. The relationship between Mika and Penny’s adoptive father, Thomas comes across very organic and believable. The relationship Penny and Mika build throughout the book was so well done to me. Seeing Penny being accepted into Mika’s family and beginning to explore her Asian identity was very touching. This book explores interracial adoptions and some of the pitfalls. Even though Penny’s adoptive parents tried to expose her to Asian culture, their whiteness still gave them a lot of racial blind spots.

I really enjoyed this book. Are there some aspects that felt predictable? Sure. But it explores so many topics and does them in a nuanced way. I really recommend this book. I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

celebrity memoir, Memoirs, movie related topics, Non-Fiction

Book Review: I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy

twonightstands

“Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them? Especially moms, they’re the most romanticized of anyone. Moms are saints, angels by merely existing. No one could possibly understand what it’s like to be a mom. Men will never understand, women with no children will never understand. No one buts moms know the hardship of motherhood and we non-moms must heap nothing but praise upon mom because we lowly, pitiful, non-moms are mere peasants compared to the goddesses we call mothers.”

I know. What a title. If this is your first time hearing about this book then congratulations to you because the marketing team for Simon & Schuster definitely went all out on this one. There was no way I was skipping out on this book, especially after Leggy read it first and told me about it.

Jeanette McCurdy is a former child actor, best known for her role on iCarly. Her memoir mostly recounts her life getting into the business and navigating it while managing the emotions of a narcissistic, emotionally abusive mother. She shares how her mother controlled her life and emotions including her weight which eventually led to an eating disorder. She speaks about how her life was still controlled by her mother’s voice even after she passed away from cancer in 2013.

Like most people, I know McCurdy from her days on Nickelodeon but I didn’t know anything about her personal life till I read a People magazine article on her in 2021 that talked about her one woman play with the same name as her book. I remember being taken aback by the title but much like the quote excerpt above from her book, I remember thinking back then that if her mom did do horrible things to her, why do we in fact romanticize the dead?

McCurdy is very blunt and matter of fact about how she recounts her life story especially how she walked on egg shells around her mom and spent most of her life trying to keep her mom happy including fulfilling her mom’s dream of being an actor. She does mention her dad in the book but he doesn’t seem to have had an active role in her life. I wondered if she harbored any resentment towards him but that is something she did not go into detail about. The other thing I wondered about was that McCurdy recounts things so well, to a time period as far back as when she was 6 years old that it made me wonder how she was able to remember everything verbatim and when I say that I mean generall. It was impressive.

I have seen this book described as humorous but I have to be honest, I did not encounter any humorous moments. I was more wrapped up in how in so many words, she was her mom’s emotional support human and through the pages I felt claustrophobic for her. The second half of the book follows her life beyond her mom’s control and how she tried to live life and manage her eating disorder. I confess I did not find the latter half as interesting and instead found her Nickelodeon years more interesting especially her description of Ariana Grande, the resentment she had for her back then definitely came through the pages.

Overall, while I did not think it was an exceptional book, it was entertaining enough and I do think it was brave of her to push past the norm and recognize that she was not treated well by her mother. The book never addressed if her mom suffered from a mental illness but probably there was no chance to, given her cancer. As always, I did this on audio and McCurdy reads it herself but be warned that it does sound like she is rushing through, so don’t worry your audio speed is just fine 🙂

Taynement

literary fiction, Mystery, romance, Uncategorized

Book Review: Some Of It Was Real by Nan Fischer

twonightstands

“It’s important you understand that I don’t have a clear definition for what I do. Psychics use their intuition or spiritual guides to gain information about the past, present, or future. Mediums are channels that deliver messages from those who have passed over. I’ve been called a psychic-medium, and that’s as good a definition as any. But the truth is that I’m not sure why I hear voices, see images, sing at times, or scribble notes—it just happens and I can’t tell you how because I truly don’t understand it.”

Psychic medium, Sylvie Young, starts every show talking about how she discovered her powers but she leaves out a lot. Like the fact that she isn’t actually sure that she’s a psychic, she’s estranged from her birth parents who think she’s a scammer and her publicist insists that she research some of her guests before every show. Journalist, Thomas Holmes, has it out for people he sees as “grief predators”. After a catastrophic reporting error, he’s anxious to get a great story and prove himself to his editor. So he pitches a story about psychics, he’s determined to prove that Sylvie is a crook. He plants some decoys in the audience and Sylvie falls for it having researched them beforehand. He approaches her and asks her to let him shadow her for the full week before her next big show, make sure she doesn’t research anyone, so that he can either expose her as fake or tell his LA Times audience that her powers are real. He insists that if she is indeed real then she should have no problem with his request.

This book is not your typical rom-com. You can feel them connecting but the romance takes a backstage for most of this book. Sylvie and Thomas play a game of cat and mouse trying to out maneuver each other. I personally found myself rooting for Sylvie even though a part of me wasn’t sure if she was actually a scammer or not. Sylvie takes Thomas through a journey to her past to get him to understand the origin of her powers. She goes back to her adoptive parents’ house and tries to trace who her biological parents were and why her adoptive parents lied to her for so long about where she’s from. All the stories about her parents’ death is starting to sound fake to Sylvie and she decides to trust Thomas to figure it out with her. Thomas thinks this is another fact that proves she’s a liar because if she really has the power to speak to the dead, why has she never spoken to her mother?

Thomas is also hiding a lot of family secrets. Grief vampires feel very personal to him because after his father and brother died, his mother completely lost herself to psychics. Spending all her money trying to contact her late husband and son, trying to find closure and neglecting her actual living son. Both Thomas and Sylvie are struggling with their past and there was something so wholesome about watching two broken but very good people try to fix themselves. They spend so much time together in the book that you can actually see them slowly liking each other. There’s a twist near the end of the book that the author didn’t make a big deal of. She dropped it like the readers weren’t going to go “DANG!” but I actually think that is the beauty of this book. It grabs you in a really surprising way and the plot keeps moving at an alarming pace and doesn’t stop till the very end.

Thomas forces Sylvie to reexamine the way she makes a living while she encourages him to confront his demons and let go of the past. Thomas also struggles with the ethics of writing an expose about someone he is now attracted to. This book is told in alternating point of view chapters, both in first person. It allows you to get into the head of what each character is thinking as they play this game with each other. I will say that if you really are primarily looking for romance with this one, then skip it. I would never recommend this book as a rom com. Even though I bought the fact that Thomas and Sylvie would fall in love after spending so much time together, I didn’t quite buy how it was presented on the page.

I think this is one of the most surprisingly good books I’ve read this year. It really took me unawares. I started it and couldn’t put it down till the very end. I absolutely recommend it. I gave this 3 stars on Goodreads.

Have you read this one? What did you think?

Leggy

Fiction, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: Notes On Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach

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Sally is Kathy’s younger sister and she looks up to Kathy. She thinks Kathy is the coolest, smartest person and hangs on to her every word. They had a great summer going to the pool, taking family trips and obsessing over Billy Barnes who is a senior. Kathy has had a crush on him for a while and he eventually becomes her boyfriend. By the time school starts, Sally might also have a crush on Billy even if it seems like her sister only spends time with Billy.

One morning, Billy is driving them to school and they get into an accident that kills Kathy. Billy has severe injuries but Sally is unscathed. The book becomes Sally narrating her life to Kathy over the next fifteen years as she navigates life with her parents who are grieving differently and her interesting relationship with Billy.

I’d seen this book everywhere and hopped on it as soon as it checked out to me at the library. I liked it because it was an easy, straight forward read. The book was written in the voice of Sally and it was as if she was writing letters to Kathy. I liked that it was written progressively in time, so there were no worries about going back and forth in time.

I saw afterwards that this book was marketed as a thriller and I wonder why because I don’t think there was any element of thriller in it. This book explores grief, emotions and family dynamics. I didn’t have a problem with how the book was written but I didn’t quite like Sally. Now I know everyone grieves differently but I didn’t understand Sally’s grief. She actually seemed detached but that might have been her trauma. It was interesting that even though the accident wasn’t technically her fault, in some way I still blamed her and I was a little surprised she never seemed to blame herself or feel any guilt. All those emotions seemed to have been written into Billy’s character and I understood his complicated emotions. Sally’s parents truly were something else. Very quirky.

Overall, even though it’s nothing really extraordinary, I would still recommend the book. The author lost a brother when she was young as well so I can imagine that this might have been cathartic for her. Even though grief/death is the topmost theme, this is not a dark book. In fact, there is a weird romance thrown in for good measure.

Taynement

Fiction, literary fiction, Mystery, thriller, Uncategorized

Book Review: Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

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“Banter can hide the worst sins. Some people laugh to hide their shame, they laugh instead of saying I feel embarrassed and small.”

One late October, Jen is waiting up for her son, Todd, to come home after midnight when she witnesses a murder. As she watches from a window, Todd approaches but he’s not alone, he’s walking towards a man, armed. As Jen watches in horror, her son stabs the man fatally for no apparent reason and refuses to talk about why he did it. Todd is now in custody and the police won’t let his parents see him or talk to him plus he’s refusing a lawyer. Jen goes home and falls asleep in deep despair only to wake up in the morning and it’s the day before the murder. Jen keeps sleeping and waking up days before the murder with another chance to try and stop it. Somewhere in the past is the trigger for this murder and Jen has to spot it, catch it in time, to avoid her son’s future being ruined.

“How sinister it is to relive your life backward. To see things you hadn’t at the time. To realize the horrible significance of events you had no idea were playing out around you.”

I’m a fan of people being stuck in a time warp. Living your life backwards? Living an alternative reality? Sign me up. This book was very well written and the time warp very well plotted with the main character actually doing things that I would have done from the start. I enjoyed how fast she understood the predicament she was in and started acting fast. I knew from the start the main person she should be taking a look at so I wasn’t that surprised by the twists and turns the author came up with. But I enjoyed the ride even though I knew where the author was taking us. It did not at all diminish my enjoyment of this book.

This book makes you consider if you really know anything about the life you’re living. There’s something about reliving your life and looking at past scenes with a critical eye as you search your son for the period he became a murderer. Your sweet, funny, nerdy son who cried when his first girlfriend dumped him. What did you miss about his behavior lately? Who is this girl he’s seeing who he doesn’t really let you get to know fully?

At the 75% mark of this book, I became exhausted reading about Jen waking up further and further into the past. The constant past loop of her life made me so tired even though I kept trudging through it. If I was that tired reading Jen’s constant turmoil of spending so long in the past, I can’t even imagine what it was like for her to live it. Even when she thinks, “Okay, I’ve solved it, this is it”- there’s still yet another revelation and even further into the past the thread leads. After a while, I just wanted it to end. I was rooting for Jen all through to save her boy.

I totally recommend this book. If you’re looking for a thriller that makes sense and isn’t trying to be the next Gone Girl, pick up this book. I’ve tried to avoid spoilers in this review and I would recommend just skipping the blurb and diving in. It’s really good writing and she really does make the pay off worth your while. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads.

Have you read this one? Let me know in the comments what you thought of it. If you haven’t read it, will you be picking this one up? Let me know as well!

Leggy

Fiction, literary fiction, race, romance, women's fiction

Book Review: Love Marriage by Monica Ali

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“She was greatly moved by her mother’s love marriage, more than she had been in years. Love, Ma was telling her, not only in words but by example, conquers all.”

Yasmin is of Indian descent and lives in the UK with her family (mom, dad and brother). She is training to be a doctor like her dad and is engaged to Joe, who is white and also a doctor. He lives with his single mom, Harriet. The two families couldn’t be any different as Yasmin’s family is a typical immigrant family who puts their head down and does what is expected and the family never discusses anything and sweeps things under the rug while Harriet is a loud and proud well known feminist who is very open about her sexuality.

Wedding planning is underway and as the families get to know each other a bunch of things are uncovered along the way that threaten the wedding day ever happening. The book uncovers all the things they all have to face as everyone starts being honest with themselves and for better or worse, start living in their truth.

Whew! I am not going to tell you guys how long it took me to read this book but just know it was a long time! This was my first time reading Ali’s work, so I had no frame of reference. This book was the epitome of throwing everything but the kitchen sink and hoping something sticks because let me tell you that there were A LOT of stories flying everywhere.

It took a while to lay the ground for the characters and the minute you thought you had an idea of who they are, everything was unraveled as we begin to see the secrets unearthed and boy was there much to unearth. From sex addiction to rape to infidelity to racism, culture differences, ambition, corporate red tape and much more, there was so much that was covered.

I think Ali managed to do the social commentary better than some other topics but it just didn’t need everything. I wish there had been a singular focus on the central characters but there seemed to have been a desire to have even the side characters get their own shine but that could be because the main characters weren’t quite interesting per se. I found Yasmin to be unsure of who she was, which is realistic at age 26 but nevertheless, still annoyed me. Joe seemed a tad boring and at some point I wondered if he really did have a sex addiction?

What I enjoyed about the book where psychiatric nuggets that we get from Joe’s therapy sessions that seemed to be based on true life medical research and the introspection by the characters at the end, to help forge some better life living. I think Ali was trying to show how children judge their parents based on what they know but sometimes they have no idea.

That being said, I thought the ending was a bit vague and rushed and its ironic that its also when it kind of tongue in cheek addressed the title of the book and what a love marriage truly means. But I welcomed it because this book was way longer than it should have been and an editor should have earned their paycheck on this one.

Overall, this book has all the ingredients for an interesting read but failed to get us there because of writing and editing choices. I wouldn’t recommend this as I think there are better family with secrets books out there that would be worth your time.

Taynement