Category: literary fiction

Fiction, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: Here One Moment by Lianne Moriarty

twonightstands

“I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predestined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road”

It was supposed to be a short, domestic, uneventful flight from Hobart to Sydney. We meet the passengers boarding the plance and get a short description of various characters. All of a sudden mid-flight, an older lady starts walking through the aisles, pointing at passengers and telling them their cause of death and the age at which they will die.

Some had long life predictions (we’re talking over a 100) and some had predictions that were round the corner. No one was spared because even the little baby got a drowning prediction in a few years. It was all a joke to everyone as the woman seemed to be in a dream like state and when she got back to her seat and asked for water, it seemed like a case of dehydration till a few month later, the first prediction comes true…exactly as she said it.

“You won’t necessarily win against fate, but you should at least put up a fight”

Once the lady, whose name is Cherry by the way, started giving the predictions, my anxiety shot all the way up because I imagined being trapped in the air and someone giving me unsolicited information about how and when I will die but once the first prediction happened, I was hooked. And was hooked to the very end. In the Moriarty books I’ve read, it usually takes her a while to get us to the point so having the premise from the get go was a welcome pleasant surprise.

“Everyone loves a particular version of you, and when that person is gone, that version goes with them.”

Moriarty did her big one here because the development of the story was great. We go back in and learn about Cherry, who is the main character and we learn about her upbringing and her life till the moment on the plane. Her mother being a clairvoyant was definitely an interesting tid bit. At the same time, we get to know a couple of characters who were also on the plane. We get to know more about their life and to make it even sweeter, Moriarty drops little easter eggs here and there that show connections among the characters.

“La vita va veloce: this life goes fast, much faster than time”

Part of getting to know the other characters involves how they react once the predictions start coming true. It was interesting to see how some were still cavalier about the whole thing while others took it very seriously and went over the edge convincing themselves that they could control their fate. I liked the balance of light and breezy and thought provoking because some story lines explore what could have been with certain life choices chosen or not chosen.

I always say Moriarty is an overrated writer and I can’t believe it but I enjoyed thisone and I would recommend. Because it’s quite intriguing, the pages go by fast. If you have read this one, what did you think?

Taynement

Fiction, literary fiction

Book Review: Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

twonightstands

“There has never been, in the history of all human interaction, a way for a woman to explain effectively that she’s calm when a man has suggested she isn’t.”

In 1980, a wealthy Jewish businessman, Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later and the family moves on with their lives. Two simple minded brothers are arrested for the crime after marked bills used to pay for the ransom are found in circulation but only a couple thousands are found with them. They are imprisoned with the underlying understanding by everyone that there is someone else who masterminded the whole thing and has gone scott-free. Nearly 40 years later, it is clear that nobody has ever gotten over anything, after all. Carl is barely functioning when he’s at home. Ruth, his wife, has spent all her time protecting her husband’s emotional health and left the kids to their own devices.

“They had watched all this, as the understanding of what had really gone wrong in their lives revealed itself to them, which was that the tide pool you’re born into is only manageable if someone gives you swimming lessons. Or, put more simply, in order to be a normal person, you had to at least see normal people.”

The three kids born into the family – 2 brothers that were alive during the kidnapping and a sister that was born after the kidnapping but born into a life that has been shaped by the most consequential thing in their lives. Nathan’s chronic fear won’t allow him to advance at his law firm and is constantly anxious. Beamer rose to Hollywood fame by writing a blockbuster that involves a kidnapping and now has not been able to write anything else and has had to watch his writing partner go off and start a successful series that Beamer suspects is based fully on his family. Beamer deals with his perpetual terror by consuming anything that will numb him – drugs, food, women. Jenny has spent her entire life so bent on proving that she is better than her family, railing against capitalism while accepting the money she is paid every month from the family business.

“The irony of it nearly crushed her. She had been locked in a debate with herself her whole life about how to be good in the world, and the only thing she left out of that very private conversation she was having was the actual work of being a nice, normal human being.”

I like a book that knows the characters they are writing about. I love the process of recognizing a character and just reveling in them being who they are and the author making no apologies for them. I recognize that people grow as they become older but as I’ve become older, I recognize that more people remain the same than grow. I think in a society and generation where we go to therapy and talk a lot about introspection, we have convinced ourselves that we are constantly self-improving, but I would posit that we are just talking about the same issues with our therapists over and over again and learning coping mechanisms, but we aren’t changing.

I say all this to say that the characters the author created are amazing. They are proudly Jewish and rich with all the trappings that come with that. They have grown up insulated from the rest of the world and it has played out in their lives and the author lets us be a spectator to their glorious lives. These are characters that seem so real, you feel like you can see them and you think you know them.

“Maybe that was the real Long Island Compromise, that you can be successful on your own steam or you can be a basket case, and whichever you are is determined by the circumstances into which you were born. Your poverty will create a great drive in your children. Or your wealth will doom them into the veal that Jenny described at her science fair, people who are raised to never be able to support a life so that when they’re finally allowed to wander outside their cages for the first time on their way to their slaughter, they can’t even stand up on their own legs. But the people who rise to success on their own never stop feeling the fear at the door, and the people lucky enough to be born into comfort and safety never become fully realized people in the first place. And who is to say which is better? No matter which way it is for you, it is a system that fucks you in the ass over and over, in perpetuity, and who is to say which is better?”

I loved the end of this book. I thought it was realistic. Rich people keep being rich and keep being bailed. This is not a fairy tale. We live in a capitalist society, and this is what it looks like. No one is better at the end of the book and that’s something you have to sit with and accept. You want to read about rich people being rich living their lives in their bubble and never knowing real life? This is the book for you but also what is even real life? Whatever life anyone is living is real. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

Black Authors, literary fiction, race, women's fiction

Book Review: Hold My Girl by Charlene Carr

twonightstands

Tess and Katherine are two women who could not be any more different but they have one thing in common, they both desperately want to have a child. Katherine is married and has spent most of her life trying to be perfect, obsessing over her home and family looking perfect. The one thing that’s missing is a child. Tess is recently divorced, estranged from her family and generally unhappy. Both women underwent IVF a year ago at the same hospital. Katherine’s resulted in a baby girl, while Tess had a stillborn.

A year later, Katherine is about to celebrate her daughter, Rose’s first birthday while Tess is still grieving her loss. Katherine, who is biracial (half black/half white) has been harboring a secret fear due to her daughter’s pale skin and bright blue eyes and her fear is confirmed when both women receive a call from the fertility clinic letting them know that their eggs were switched. This starts the story of one woman’s life falling apart while the other thinks it’s a start of a new life for her and Carr takes us on a journey for the battle for Rose.

This book had me thinking hard – in a good way! I really enjoyed it. For me, it was a unique story in that I haven’t read anything with this storyline and that in itself is surprising as it seems like a very likely thing to happen. There were so many layers to the story that I cannot give away without spoilers but I truly kept going back and forth on who has the right to Rose? What makes a mother? One person carried her to term and raised her for a year but the other is biologically her mother.

The author is a black Canadian woman and I expected more in terms of Katherine’s race and how it played into the battle – in court and within her husband’s family. I also wish we got as much of Katherine’s parents as we did of her husband’s family. That being said, Tess was fully developed and we definitely understood every facet of her life and what made her who she is today. Carr did a good job of navigating multiple narratives with multiple characters and also time spans without it feeling bogged down.

While I highly recommend this book, I do want to let you know that there are some trigger warnings with topics of rape and infertility. Ultimately the book is about motherhood. Being able to be one, the journey to being one, the longing to be one when your body betrays you and all the side effects it comes with. This book is definitely one that would be a great one to discuss with others.

Taynement

Black Authors, Fiction, Historical, literary fiction, race

Book Review: James by Percival Everett

twonightstands

“Belief has nothing to do with truth.”

When enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to sold to a man in New Orleans and separated from his family forever, he decides to hide in nearby Jackson Island until he can decide what to do. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father on that same day. This leads to a collision that leads to Jim being wanted for murder and being a runaway. This also leads to a dangerous journey via a raft, down the Mississippi River towards the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

“At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them, sounding them out or comprehending them. It was a completely private affair and completely free and, therefore, completely subversive.”

I avoided this book for the longest time because I believed it would be too depressing for my state of mind at the time. I went to Barnes and Noble with a friend who bought me a copy of this book and seeing how slim it was, I decided to just give it a go and then couldn’t put it down. Everyone says this is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn, which is a book I’ve never read, so you don’t have to be worried about not getting it if you haven’t read it. I decided to ignore all talks of a retelling and just read the book as its own thing. Even though this book is about slavery and its many horrors, Everett finds a way to make it a great adventure novel that always tried to put the humanity of its characters at the forefront of the novel.

“I did not look away. I wanted to feel the anger. I was befriending my anger, learning not only how to feel it, but perhaps how to use it.”

I don’t understand why the Goodreads blurb of this book calls it “ferociously funny”, there’s nothing funny about this book. I can’t even think of one scene that made me laugh out loud. This book is serious and thought provoking and no, this is not euphemism for boring. It really gives you a lot to think about, especially the power of language, how we use it and how it’s used to empower or colonize a group of people. This is not an easy book to read because lots of terrible things abound and most of these terrible things happen to people because of the color of their skin but Everett’s writing makes it a fast read.

I found this book to be suspenseful and heart wrenching and I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads.

Have you heard about this book? Have you read it? Let me know in the comments what you think about it!

Leggy

Chick-Lit, dystopian, Fantasy, literary fiction, Magical Realism, romance, women's fiction

Book Review: The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

twonightstands

“You can’t stay married to someone forever just because they climb out of your attic one afternoon.”

Lauren returns to her flat in London late one night to be greeted by her husband, Michael. There is only one problem – she’s not married. She’s never seen Michael in her life. But according to her neighbors, friends and family, this is her husband, they’ve been together for years. As Lauren tries to make sense of this situation, Michael goes up the attic to change the bulb. In his place, a new man emerges from the attic and a slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren has to decide what truly matters to her in a man. How do you decide to stick with what you currently have if there is a chance that better could be coming down from the attic? When do you stop trying to get better?

“She has always thought of her willingness to go along with things, her outsourcing of decisions to friends and circumstance, as passivity, not courage. But observed and described by this man she likes so much, she can almost believe in herself as someone with an audacious spirit.”

This book was my pick for Book of the Month in April and the description intrigued me. When I finally picked it up, it was a fast but exhausting read. Reading Lauren continuously go through man after man was insane. It tired me out. I can’t even begin to imagine what Lauren felt living it. I think Gramazio achieved what she set out to do with this book. I also found the attic to be a metaphor for dating apps or dating in general, when do you decide to settle with good enough? Is there always going to be better? When do you make a decision and stick to it and see how far that decision takes you and your partner until it ends, or it doesn’t? If you can switch out men for eternity, what determines when you stop?

“In the years before the first husband emerged from the attic, she had felt the burden of long singleness lying upon her. Being happy to be single had felt obligatory, a statement of feminism or autonomy or just a way to head off coupled friends who she didn’t want feeling sorry for her. The weight of that requirement had made it difficult, sometimes, to figure out how she really felt.”

Another thing I loved that Gramazio demonstrated was the autonomy of the other person to also decide to not be with you. Even though, Lauren sent man after man back into attic, there were men that she thought she could be with who unknowingly went back to the attic and out came a completely new person. In the end, it wasn’t just up to Lauren to make a decision, you can make a decision and the other person can decide that they don’t want you or life happens, and the relationship just doesn’t work out. Even when Lauren decides to stop exchanging the men, the men had to make the decision to also stick with her and also the attic kept luring them back in.

“She’s chosen her husband. She hasn’t met him, but she’s chosen him. And if he’s not right, she’ll get out of it the old-fashioned way: an immense pile of onerous legal chores that wear her down over the course of many months, and a determination to keep it cordial that ultimately collapses over a missing vase that they both fixate on as a metaphor for their mutual failings.”

Ultimately, this book ended the best way it could have possibly ended. I understood the choice the author made to end it in the way that she did, and I quite appreciated the ending. By the time I got to the end though, I was so tired of reading this book because I was worn down by the many, many men and how quickly they came and went. We never got to know any intimately. All in all, I enjoyed this book and recommend it. I gave it 3 stars on Goodreads.

Have you read this book? Did you enjoy it? Let me know in the comments.

Leggy

Black Authors, Fiction, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: Sugar,Baby by Celine Saintclare

twonightstands

“I think of Constance’s hushed voice whenever we were cleaning together. Once some things get dirty they can never be clean again and once some things are broken they can never be fixed.”

Agnes is a 21 year old black girl who lives at home with her religious immigrant mother, Constance, and her sister. Agnes is in limbo not knowing what to do with her life so in the meantime, she is cleaning houses with her mother. In between, she is sleeping with a guy who clearly isn’t interested in anything but her body and hanging out with her friend, Jess at clubs. One day, the daughter of one of their cleaning clients, Emily takes an interest in her and introduces her to the world of being a sugar baby. Agnes seems to have found the excitement she was looking for in her life. But as things begin to ramp up, she starts to wonder if it is worth it.

“I can admit it. It feels good to be wanted, to be delectable, delicious. But if I’ve learned anything it’s that I don’t want to be consumed. I have teeth of my own.”

I loved this book so much that I can’t believe it is not being spoken about in every corner of the literary world. This book took me into a world that is not my reality and made me understand Agnes’s decisions. Agnes is poor, doesn’t know what to do with her life and constantly having to endure her mom’s religious overzealousness. She is already sleeping with a no-good guy so what is the difference doing so with people who she is actually attracted to and getting paid for it especially when she wasn’t always sleeping with them?

What does it say about me that I enjoy this, sex with a man who doesn’t respect me whatsoever?

I enjoyed going through the journey with Agnes where she constantly straddled giving in to her lust and desires and hearing her mother’s voice. I also felt happy for her when she got to get all dolled up, visit places she had never been to and afford things for her sister. One of the best things about this book is SaintClare’s writing. It’s hard to believe it was a debut because it was so effortless.(SaintClare is 28). The story truly just flowed even though all the while I kept feeling “this can’t end well”. As Agnes’ journey grew more dangerous (to me) I kept hoping she would be okay as if I knew her personally. Her friendship with her friend, Jess was complicated and I couldn’t tell if SaintClare wanted us to view her as a good friend or a fairweather friend.

“It’s so deeply entrenched in me, the Fear of God, so much more strongly than the belief.”

It’s easy to reduce this book to just one about being a sugar baby but it had a lot more to it. It’s a journey of a young person trying to understand and find themselves, having a complicated relationship with their mother and friends and just trying to find a way out of poverty. There were other side stories which I found interesting as well and loads of graphic sex scenes. The author seems very knowledgeable and insightful about the world of being a sugarbaby which made this book even more interesting to read. If you couldn’t tell, I truly enjoyed this one and I definitely recommend it.

Taynement

Fiction, literary fiction

Book Review: What Happened To Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jimenez

twonightstands

“We were not that kind of family, the type who spoke politely to each other about where and how we were in pain.”

In 1996, Ruthy Ramirez never makes it home from school. Twelve years later, her two sisters, Nina and Jessica are watching a reality TV show, “Catfight” which can basically be described like the real life show, “Bad Girls Club”. They see a girl called Ruby and are convinced that it is their sister. Ruby has red hair like Ruthy, a birth mark below her eyes like Ruthy and she is also from Staten Island. Same place they are from.

They hatch up a plan to stake out the Catfight house and confirm that Ruby is indeed Ruthy. Their mother, Dolores finds out about it and includes herself and her friend in the quest and the story goes back in time and gives us the POV of how Ruthy’s dissapearance affected each of them in different ways.

“Besides, you can only sympathize so long for somebody else’s loss before you run out of encouraging things to say.”

When I finished this book, one of my descriptions was that it was an easy read and I immediately felt like I had to take this back because though I found it to be a quick and easy read, it does touch on sexual assault and loss and that won’t be an easy read for everyone. Ramirez did a good job of making the characters real. You really felt like this Puerto Rican family were your family friends. Immigrant families would recognize some elements like family expectations, duties, religious mothers etc.

“Sometimes it feels like the three of us are still stuck in that car. Shouting out Ruthy’s name into the unanswering dark.”

While we get the POV from the sisters and mom, it felt like the main voice was Nina’s and she was a competent narrator. Part of what Jimenez does is take us into their mindset then and now. So we get to feel Nina’s unhappiness at her life at the moment and Jess’s home life with a baby. That being said, I felt like I could feel the hole that Ruthy left. Speaking of Ruthy, I liked that she was included in the POVs and we get to know her life before she disappeared. We learn Ruthy wasn’t an angel and had her own fiery personality.

And it seemed to me then, and still does now, that I could have become a completely different girl, a completely different woman, if Ruthy had never gone.”

I’ve seen a lot of people complain about the amount of curse words being used and I am so confused as to why this is even a thing. It’s 2024 and I assume it is adults reading this book, why is it a big deal? Anyways, I do recommend this book because I think the real story is more about following the story of a family who is still dealing with losing a family member many years later and are faced with a glimmer of hope. Another reason I liked this was that we actually get closure for Ruthy’s story and it is not one of those books where there is a vague ending where the interpretation is left to the reader.

Taynement

Fiction, literary fiction, Magical Realism, romance

Book Review: Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

twonightstands

“Wren saw now how passion was delicate and temporary, a visitor, a feeling that would come and go. Feelings fled under pressure; feelings did not light the darkness. What remained strong in the deep, the hard times, was love as an effort, a doing, a conscious act of will. Soulmates, like her and Lewis, were not theoretical and found. They were tangible, built.”

Few weeks after Lewis and Wren get married, Lewis gets a rare diagnosis. He’s going to slowly turn into a shark while retaining all his memories and consciousness. As Lewis develops the impulses, features and appetite of a great white shark, he struggles to figure out what his future will be like and what life awaits him when he’s released into the ocean. Wren takes a break from her job to fully care for Lewis while trying to figure out a way for them to still be together after Lewis is a shark. This transformation triggers Wren’s memories of her own mother’s change into a reptile and how she went from the best, loving mother to someone Wren had to take care of and escape from.

“All the hours he spent theorizing about magic seemed so naive now. The main ingredient in transformation was not magic, it was pain.”

When I first started this book, I thought the transformation thing was an allegorical way to talk about the many changes people go through in long term relationships but as I read the last page of this book, I just thought: Wow, this was really just literally about people turning into animals. Yes, I know that it is still a metaphor for relationship strains and ills but Emily Habeck really writes it like she means it literally. The writer really did pull this off. I can’t believe someone agreed to publish this book as a debut work. The author still manages to explore the nuances of change even within such an outrageous premise and after a couple of chapters you ignore the fact that the premise is in fact ridiculous and just get really into the characters.

“Plants were probably the most sentient of all living things: rational, bloodless bystanders, witnessing the great horror of it all.”

Told in alternating timelines, this book explores the past, present and where both timelines meet. The writer tells this story with such beautiful language and unique structure that it was hard to tear myself from this book. This is such a tender look at how such a diagnosis absolutely devastates a happy couple and it is an exploration of all the lives we lead that brings us into the people we are presently and how that present life will lead us into the people we will become in the future.

“Wren no longer sees life as a long, linear ladder with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, she considers how life is like a spiraling trail up a mountain. Each circling lap represents a learning cycle, the same lesson at a slightly higher elevation. Wren realizes she likes to rest as much as she likes to climb. She begins to enjoy the view.”

The chapters are short and sweet and never more than 4 pages. Some chapters are written in stanzas or are a couple of sentences. The first part of this book deals with Wren and Lewis as they deal with the diagnosis, the second part takes us back to Wren’s mother’s life before and after her own diagnosis and the third part brings us back to the present day. The middle part where we explore Wren’s mother’s diagnosis and life is really such a great way to talk about intergenerational trauma. Wren’s mother, Angela, tries so hard to be a different mother from the one she had but ends up being diagnosed with a reptile mutation that she becomes unwillingly the monster that her own mother was.

“In the rare hopeful hour, I tell myself this darkness has a purpose: to help me recognize light if I ever find it again.”

Even though I really enjoyed this book, I ended up giving it 4 stars because it dragged in the middle once it left Lewis and Wren’s point of view and it tied up a little too neatly for my taste. I still recommend this book because it contains such great writing and has all the heart a story needs to be amazing. I can’t wait to read what Emily Habeck comes up with in the future.

Leggy

Black Authors, Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan

twonightstands

“You accept a man shitting on you,” she used to say, “he’ll make himself at home. There’s no three strikes. You use me, take me for granted, you prove you don’t deserve to be in my life.”

Soledad has devoted her life to her family which consists of her husband, Edward and their three daughters. She is also a fantastic domestic goddess who excels in cooking, catering and planning. While going through a rough patch with her husband, things go from bad to worse when her life is upended by her husband’s choices and she has to rethink and restart her life from scratch. This includes trying to ignore the chemistry she has with a man her husband’s hates, Judah Cross. Judah is going through his own struggles trying to co-parent his autistic twins with his ex-wife, Tremaine. How long can these two ignore their feelings?

“Life is always gonna be complicated, but the good stuff is worth fighting for.”

First of all, this book goes against my usual reading style in that it is apparently part of the [Skyland] series (not a fan of series), which I didn’t know it was when I read the first book, Before I Let Go and some consider it a romance novel (not a fan of the genre). This is my second Kennedy Ryan book and I still don’t consider both books romance novels because the romance is not the center of the story. Much like the first book, I liked this one.

“A woman who wants more and realizes she deserves it is a dangerous thing”

The book centers around two characters that seem like very real people with real people problems. Soledad realizes that she wants more from her marriage and her life so far, and Judah has to learn how to let love in while being a caretaker to his twin boys on the spectrum, which in itself is a full time job. Which brings me to what Ryan does so well which is making her characters so real and relatable. Anyone familiar with dealing with loved ones on the spectrum will appreciate Ryan’s depiction of it (she has a son on the spectrum).

Ryan does such a good job of showing the time, care and expense involved with it. I also appreciated how even though they were twins, they had different manifestations of it. While Ryan never explicity mentioned it, I did like the insinuation that Judah himself is just realizing that he might also be on the spectrum.

“Can I be the love of my own life?”

I mentioned earlier how Ryan knows how to make characters real and one of my favorite parts is when Soledad, going through her confusion is going through her late mom’s things and finds a letter she wrote to herself and Soledad gets to see her mom as a woman and not a mom. Through that letter are pearls of wisdom that would be beneficial to anyone.

“When are we ever done working on ourselves? I believe wholeness is not a destination, but a lifetime process. Something that instead of waiting for, you could be living for.”

Once again, even with many threads, Ryan didn’t make it complicated. We get to still enjoy strong friendships, healthy co-parenting, teenage angst, romance and yep, she doesn’t skimp on the sex. I will say though, one of my gripes is that Judah Cross came off as too perfect. I am not sure I can recall any negatives of his and I don’t think that’s realistic. I definitely recommend this book and I am looking forward to the next one which will be Hendrix’s story.

Taynement

Fantasy, Fiction, literary fiction, romance

Book Review: The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman

twonightstands

Life was made up of a series of accidents and drastic errors. The unexpected became the expected, you made the right turn or the wrong turn, and all of it added up to the path you were on.”

Ivy Jacob is from an affluent family in Boston but is not able to relate with her family. She gets pregnant as a teenager and with no support from her family and the father of her child, she runs away. She unfortunately finds solace in a cult. Cult leader takes a liking to Ivy and marries her while also promising to be a father to Ivy’s child, Mia. It doesn’t take long for Ivy to realize that this is a mistake as the rules are stifling. Children belong to the community, members are not allowed to read books and disobedience is punished by branding but Joel has threatened Ivy that if she ever leaves she will never see Mia again.

“In a place where books were banned there coud be no personal freedom, no hope, and no dreams for the future.”

Mia gets older and becomes curious. She discovers the local library and breaks the rules and begins to steal and read books. She discovers The Scarlett Letter that seems to have a personalized note addressed to her but how could that be? The book saves her life as a series of events leads to her having a new life until one day she is face to face with the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne and has to make a choice about her future.

“It wasn’t easy to walk away from the past, even when you locked it up in a box for which there was no key. Memories rattle around late at night, they claw at the latch, escaping when you least expect them to do so.”

This is my first Hoffman book and I was very much into this story. All the themes were up my alley and the plot was paced in a way where you were slowly drawn into the story. I felt so many emotions from joy, dread, sadness and I was still looking forward to what was going to happen. I enjoyed the subtle way she conveyed the powerful love between a mother and daughter and how parenting comes with hard decisions. Right from the note to readers that was in the beginning of the book, you could tell with every line you read that Hoffman loves what she does and truly believes in the power of reading. As Mia discovers reading, Hoffman found a way to remind the reader of just how powerful books can be.

“Herein are a thousand different doors, and a thousand different lives. Turn the page and you open the door.”

Everything was going great for me till we entered the magical realism portion. I have mentioned before that I am going through the fictional best reads of 2023 and I have noticed that this seems to be a popular genre. When Mia encounters Nathaniel Hawthorne and they start a romantic affair, I was so confused. I don’t think an explanation was given as to how the portal was unlocked.

In my confusion, I looked up Hawthorne’s biography and Hoffman stayed true to his life story. As Mia decided whether to stay in that time period or return to the present, again I was confused. After experiencing the freedoms of the modern world as a woman, who on earth would even consider staying in a time period where women had little to no rights?

Overall, I thought this book was good storytelling and had a mix of everything and my only gripe as mentioned above, could probably be because I am too much of a realist and I struggled with accepting the magical liberties.

Taynement