Category: literary fiction

Fiction, literary fiction, race

Book Review: Come & Get It by Kiley Reid

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It’s 2017 and 24 year old Millie Cousins, a young black woman, is back being an RA at the Belgrade dorm at the University of Arkansas. Millie is back after taking time off to help care for her sick mom. She has used the time to also work and save money. Millie is trying to buy a house so when Agatha, a visiting professor and author wants to interview some students as research for her new book, Millie jumps at the chance to earn some extra money. The initial interview is the start of a spiral that leads to boundaries crossed and complications.

Reid’s debut novel “A Fun Age” was my favorite book the year I read it and I was looking forward to this one. Not going to lie, it took a while for me to get into it because I couldn’t get the characters straight. Reid follows the lives of 4 roomates – Tyler, Casey, Kennedy and Peyton, Millie, Millie’s friends, Collette and Ryland, her bosses, her parents, Agatha, Agatha’s girlfriend, Robin. Okay I’ll stop but you get my drift. It was just a lot of people to keep up with.

I eventually got a handle on who was who and what the backstory was and while I still wasn’t sure where the story was headed, my intrigue was held because Millie lets Agatha stay hidden in her room to listen to the roomates’ conversations as fodder for her new book. Agatha does ask Millie if she is sure it’s okay but Millie is so casual when she says of course it is that I too was like “oh wait, is it?” With more thought, of course it wasn’t okay and because I knew nothing good could come out of it, I was on the edge of my seat wondering how this would play out.

I don’t know how Reid wanted us to see Agatha but she came off as unlikeable to me. I think Reid tried to include layers of race into the story without making it the focal point but I don’t think it ever quite took shape. Any plot that could have led to that was treated casually. Kennedy’s back story seemed to come out of nowhere and it seemed unclear whether we were dealing with a lot more than was led on.

So yes, while I admit that there was a lot going on, I think it’s a book you’d enjoy more if you aren’t looking for a neat ending. Think of it like the show Seinfeld – a show about everything and nothing. It worked for me, but I’d be curious to know what you think. Let me know what you think of it in the comments or on our IG – @twonightstands

Taynement

Fiction, literary fiction

Book Review: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

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“What is a game?” Marx said. “It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.

Sam Masur and Sadie Green met when they were children in a hospital. Sam was there for an accident that killed his mother and left him with a severely broken leg while Sadie was there visiting her sister who was going through chemotherapy. After a big friendship fall out, they don’t speak till they run into each other at a subway platform in Boston where Sam goes to MIT and Sadie to Harvard. As their friendship rekindles in college, a legendary collaboration on the game – ichigo, launches them into gaming stardom. Overnight, Sam and Sadie’s world changes and this brilliant pair become very rich with the gaming industry at their disposal.

“The way to turn an ex-lover into a friend is to never stop loving them, to know that when one phase of a relationship ends it can transform into something else. It is to acknowledge that love is both a constant and a variable at the same time.”

I must say that this is very much a book about video games. It is to the testament of the brilliance of Gabrielle Zevin that I was glued to every word of this book even though I do not know the first thing about video games or the industry surrounding the creation of them. Sam and Sadie’s friendship is intricately wrapped around the playing of video games, talking about them, designing them and promoting them. We are shown the anatomy of a platonic relationship spanning 30 years in which the beginning, the end, the middle and every rebirth revolves around different video games. Because Sam and Sadie are such interesting characters, I was never bored or lost any interest in their world. It made me so fascinated by the gaming industry and the passionate people it seems to attract.

“Sadie, do you see this? This is a persimmon tree! This is my favorite fruit.”
Sam used to say that Marx was the most fortunate person he had ever met – he was lucky with lovers, in business, in looks, in life. But the longer Sadie knew Marx, the more she thought Sam hadn’t truly understood the nature of Marx’s good fortune. Marx was fortunate because he saw everything as if it were a fortuitous bounty. It was impossible to know – were persimmons his favorite fruit, or had they just now become his favorite fruit because there they were, growing in his own backyard? He had certainly never mentioned persimmons before.”

As much as this is a story about Sam and Sadie, this is also a story about all the people in Sam and Sadie’s lives who shaped parts of who they turned out to be. All the characters that revolve around Sam and Sadie’s world are multidimensional and well-developed characters from Marx (Sam’s college roommate) to Dov (Sadie’s college professor) and Sam’s grandparents, Dong Hyun and Bong Cha, who were not the stereotypically Asian parental figures usually presented to us in literature.

“To allow yourself to play with another person is no small risk. It means allowing yourself to be open, to be exposed, to be hurt. It is the human equivalent of the dog rolling on its back—I know you won’t hurt me, even though you can. It is the dog putting its mouth around your hand and never biting down. To play requires trust and love. Many years later, as Sam would controversially say in an interview with the gaming website Kotaku, “There is no more intimate act than play, even sex.” The internet responded: no one who had had good sex would ever say that”

Sam and Sadie are both arrogant, loveable, flawed and absolutely infuriating. The dynamics of their friendship got tiring and repetitive and I wanted to shake some sense into them at some points in the book, but I loved them so much as characters. This is a well written and original novel. I know that this book will stay with me for a long time. I have to put a caveat, if you do not like character driven novels then this book will bore you to death. But if you are like me and enjoy reading about the anatomy of a friendship driving by two flawed characters, then you will not forget this book in a hurry.

“There is no purity to bearing pain alone.”

I gave Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, 5 stars on Goodreads. Have you read this one? What did you think about it?

Leggy

Chick-Lit, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

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Holly Shaw is a popular food blogger. Most of the women in America want to be her or be her friend, especially the women from her hometown in Nantucket. She is married to Matthew, a surgeon and they have a daughter, Caroline. Holly and Matthew’s marriage has been strained as her blogging popularity rose. One morning as Matthew heads out for a conference, he gets into an accident and dies.

Holly gets the idea to host a weekend with four of her best friends from different phases of her life. She also enlists her daughter, Caroline a film major to film the weekend in the hopes of fixing their fractured relationship. And so we meet Tatum, Dru-Ann, Brooke and Holly’s most recent friend who she met online, Gigi, each woman dealing with something major in their life.

I’m new to Elin Hilderbrand and this is only my second book of hers. Hilderbrand writes what could be called beachy/thriller reads all based in Nantucket. With this, she is 2 for 2 for me as I quite enjoyed this one. Listen, I don’t know how realistic to be able to get old and new friends alike at the drop of a hat but hey, let’s suspend imagination necause I do think it’s actually an interesting idea as you never know what you will get when you mix your friends together.

Hilderbrand wrote this book in great detail and you can tell she did her research. She knows her hometown well so not that but the detail in Holly’s dishes and just as a host was top notch. She did a good job making each character their own and they didn’t feel like they were fillers. Even in weaving their relationships, every interaction felt natural and not forced.

Even though the book starts with a death, I found this to be an easy and enjoyable read. In a weird way, it made me nostalgic and made me think back on my friendships over the years. Hilderbrand is supposed to be retiring this year and since this is just my second book of hers, I still have a lot of catching up to do. I definitely will be reaching for her titles in the future.

Taynement

african author, african stories, Fiction, literary fiction, Nigerian Author

Our Best and Worst Books of 2023

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“Tis the season where we round out our faves and not so faves of the year. Without further ado, here we go:

Taynement’s Best:

“How do you know if you’re genuinely happy or if you’re just mostly all right, with sprinkles of laughter and occasional shit storms of sadness?”

It’s so funny that this ended up being my favorite book of the year because when I started, I was so irritated by Maddie’s mom and feeling so bad about Maddie’s situation. By the time the book ended, I knew it would be my favorite read. I best describe this book as well rounded and very well written. You feel like you know Maddie. You can see my full review on this book here.

I had a good reading year and liked most of my reads. I read Purple Hibiscus for the first time and what a book! I didn’t include it because it’s old. I also liked as usual my reality show niche books.

Here are some of my other faves:

  • Yellowface by R.F Kuang (love me a book that makes me think. Full review is here)
  • Wellness by Nathan Hill (a real life depiction of a couple’s marriage and how their childhood played a part. Really liked this one)
  • My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin (another one that made you think. Full review here)
  • Rootless by Krystle Zara Appiah (Everyone I know hated the ending but it made sense to me. Our chitchat on it here)
  • Everything Is Fine by Cecilia Rabess (Such a complicated read and annoying character but truly enjoyed this one)

Leggy’s best:

“The power to protect is the highest of responsibilities, Diago. When a man is given it, his duty is not only to the people he thinks are worthy.”

I reviewed this book on our Instagram page. We do mini reviews over there during the week so follow us at @nightstands2. Anyway, I remember reading this book and just loving it. I would read a particular exciting chapter and immediately reread it at the end.

Vic Telimus enters the a powerful academy and uncovers the layers of mysteries and world changing secrets that are way bigger than his quest for revenge, bigger than his family and bigger than what he ever envisioned. I love fantasy books with heros who you want to root for and revenge stories are my kryptonite.

Here are some of my other faves of the year:

  • Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
  • Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang (full review here)
  • Drowning by T. J. Newman (I reviewed this on our Instagram!)
  • Everything Is Fine by Cecilia Rabess (full review here)
  • The Measure by Nikki Erlick (Full review here)

Taynement’s Worst:

After much thought and deliberation, it pains me to say that this was my least favorite book. Upon reflection on this book, I don’t know if it had a redeeming quality. It tried so hard to be different. From the characters not having a name, no punctuation, vague ending. I did not have any positive feelings when I was done. Full review here.

Leggy’s Worst:

This is basically a book where the protagonist is hung up on a relationship she had when she was 17 for one summer. She saw this boy every summer from 5 to 17 but they only had an actual relationship for one summer that she never got over even though our protagonist is now 31. I could not get over this premise and it colored the entire book for me in a bad way. I still gave this one 2 stars. I did not give any book 1 star this year. At least not yet.

We hope you have enjoyed talking books with us this year. We’d love to know what your best and worsts were so, let us know in the comments! Have an amazing Christmas and we’ll see you in the New Year. Happy reading everybody!

Leggy & Taynement

african author, Fiction, literary fiction, Nigerian Author

Book Review: The List by Yomi Adegoke

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Ola is a well known journalist who writes for an online magazine. She is engaged to Michael, who is a former podcast pro and about to start a new career. The two are what the kids call “Couple Goals”. She is also an outspoken feminist and makes her voice loud and clear on social media. She is the first to believe women and call out badly behaved men. Ola is knee deep in wedding planning and everything is going well until 2 weeks before the wedding, their whole lives are turned upside down.

A list has been shared on Twitter. It’s an anonymous list that consists of men accused of varying degrees of sexual assault or inappropriate behavior. Michael is on the list. Suddenly Ola finds herself having to put money where her mouth is. Does she cancel the wedding this close or is this a set up from a disgruntled woman from Michael’s past?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book because of how realistic it was. It’s very easy to spout “believe women” when it is hypothetical but what would you do when it hits home directly. I like how Adegoke depicted Ola’s turmoil between doing what she would have done and grappling with not being able to reconcile the accusation with the Michael she knows.

Adegoke was able to weave past back stories and really flesh out Ola and Michael’s lives separately so we get a good picture of the characters we are following. I liked how Adegoke kept the friends as supporting characters that moved the story along but never overtook or felt like an unnecessary storyline.

On the flip, sometimes the book leaned heavy into being social media buzzy. What do I mean by that, you ask? Well, it had a heavy social media emphasis and at some point it seemed like she was speaking social media language to appeal to that audience. I didn’t mind it so much because I think that was part of what Adegoke was trying to convey, the pressures that come with that world.

I am not sure how this would be received by sexual assault survivors because in some way, it provided an out. The fact that the list was anonymous and unverifiable and anyone could add to it made it seem like it couldn’t be taken seriously. The twist at the end was interesting, to say the least.

Overall, I did like the book but I feel like it would be a divisive one where you either really like it or you don’t. If you have read it, I would love to know what you thought about it. Let us know in the comments!

Taynement

Fiction, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book Review: Evil Eye by Etaf Rum

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“To surrender to the vulnerability of love and allow ourselves to be loved by others—isn’t that the most courageous act of all?”

Raised in a super conservative Palestinian family in New York, Yara thought she had escaped the fate of most of the women in her community by marrying a charming entrepreneur, Fadi who let her finish university and find work outside the home. Even though she is still a traditional wife who is in charge of her two daughters, takes care of the house and has dinner ready when her husband gets home, she still finds her life infinitely more rewarding than her mother’s life was. After she responds to a colleague’s racist provocation, Yara is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counselling to keep her position.

As more things in her life come tumbling down, she finds herself increasingly uneasy with her mother’s warnings of a family curse and old superstitions. To save herself from her increasingly chaotic behaviors, Yara must face the reality of her childhood and the reality of her current life and marriage to prevent her daughters from the same fate in the future.

Yara continues to explore the nuances between culture, motherhood, marriage, benevolence sexism and female autonomy. If you have ever wondered what benevolence sexism means, look no further than Fadi. Fadi is a representation of men who think they are so magnanimous to allow women have a little bit of freedom as long as it doesn’t disrupt the labor that they believe they are owed from women.

Fadi thinks he has been a better husband and father than Yara’s father, which is objectively true, but the freedom he allows Yara is just enough freedom to think she’s escaped her mother’s life and broken the cycle and that gratefulness that he’s not as bad as the other men, keeps her on a tight leash. When Yara dares to try to test the limits of her leash, she discovers that Fadi is not the man she had built him up to be.

I loved Etaf Rum’s debut book – A Woman is No Man. It was my favorite book of 2019 and I couldn’t wait to read what Rum came out with next. I have to say that this book did not live up to her debut work. The name of the book and the description made it seem like we were going to go into superstitious territory. Rum kept telling us stories that never built up to be anything or mean anything. The future Yara’s grandmother saw for her daughter before she left for America, was never explored, the fact that Yara’s mother kept saying she was cursed, was never explored. Rum kept mentioning storylines and effectively dropping them. When the truth about Yara’s mother and their constant communication came to light, I did not think it did anything for the plot or moved me in anyway. I was like okay, another story where she’s not going to explore the reason why.

When Yara finally made a decision at the end about her marriage, everything just seemed to be wrapped up in a bow. No mention of any blow back from her family and her overall community. Honestly, nothing happens in this book. Etaf Rum is a fantastic writer and it kept me reading this book but ultimately, it didn’t do what I expected it to do when I rushed to get it immediately after publication. I’m going to definitely pick up her next book but this was a 3 star read for me.

Have you read Etaf Rum’s new book? Did you enjoy it? Let me know in the comments.

Leggy

african author, african stories, literary fiction

Book Review: Maame by Jessica George

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“Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means woman“

Maame is the nickname given to Maddie by her mother. A name she resents because it comes with a lot of responsibility in her everyday life. See, Maddie lives in London with her dad who is ill from Parkinson’s. Her mother has decided to spend most of her time in Ghana and her brother spends his time being part of his friend’s entourage.

Her mother decides to come back to London and encourages her to start living. Maddie finds a place to rent, starts dating and tries to keep her work struggles at bay. When something major happens within the family, it rocks Maddie’s world and she has to rediscover herself and determine the life that she wants.

“We grow up fast. Not by force, but because we are needed.’ ‘I think sometimes we’re needed for the wrong reasons.”

I didn’t relate to Maddie but I could see many people in Maddie because she was a people pleaser. She is a familiar character in many African cultures and because of that I felt so triggered by it. I wanted to shake Maddie and I wanted to shake Maddie’s mom. Maddie so clearly was depressed and noone was looking out for her but she was expected to still figure things out and make things happen. George wrote Maddie as a character so well that you just wanted to protect her. Her early twenties confusion and naivete would be relatable to many.

“Everyone talks about the importance of standing out but never the benefits of fitting in.”

The best thing about this book is the writing. It’s never easy to weave in so many topics without making it complicated but George is able to make all the things that happen blend in seamlessy in Maddie’s life – grief, mental health, career dissatisfaction, race, culture, family and so much more – having this front row seat, gives us a better understanding of Maddie’s headspace. I really enjoyed Maddie’s life when she decides to take a chance and start living. The juxtaposition of the friction between her roommates and the security her friends provided was interesting.

“A person’s troubles are not measured by the size of those troubles, but by how much they weigh on the individual carrying them.”

This was a great representation of what it’s like to be influenced by culture and family and trying to find your voice when all you have heard your whole life has been one thing. It was the little things like her mom telling her to keep secrets and never confide in anyone or pushing her to get married even though she had never dated. Any book that can make me so angry where I had to take a step away from the book to cool down has done its job in writing a great narrative that makes me feel that deeply. I fully recommend this one.

Taynement

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

Book Review: Talking at Night by Claire Daverley

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“I’d say you just love the idea of her, then, she says. You’re pinning everything on something you’ve never even had. Something that’s not real.”

Will and Rosie meet one day as teenagers at a bonfire. Will is very intrigued with Rosie and a tense “will they, won’t they?” relationship develops between them. As they get closer and get to know each other over secret walks, runs, phone calls and text messages, they seem destined to end up together, at least for a while. One day though, at Will’s birthday party, which Rosie and her twin brother sneaked out to attend, tragedy strikes, and their future together suddenly seems impossible.

“She thinks she loves Simon, and she knows he loves her, but sometimes she wants him to look at her like he could eat her; wants him to touch her in a way that means she feels wanted, instead of just cared for. But he sips wine and talks and smiles with all his teeth and passes carrots across the table.”

If you’re a fan of Sally Rooney, this is the perfect book for you. Honestly, this sometimes felt like Normal People fanfiction to me and I say fanfiction because it is not as good as Normal People. I’m sure Daverley knows she’s going to get this comparison a lot. Also, when did it become the cool girl thing to write dialogue without any punctuation? This is also something Rooney is very fond of doing.

Anyway, this book is sad girl literature. It is a Taylor Swift song in book form. Shy, smart girl who is under her parents’ thumb being pursued by the resident school bad boy who is also secretly smart, and secretly soft (but of course, only soft for our heroine) and talks about how cool it is not to want to go to university.

I really wanted to like this book because I’m a sucker for a love story that is built entirely on sexual tension but there was nothing here. I didn’t like any of the characters. I didn’t root for them to be together, I just kept waiting for it all to be over. Also, the author just decided to throw every trauma at them to make them more interesting but all the traumas in the world won’t make one dimensional characters feel any more real. Trigger warnings abound in this book – child abandonment, death, OCD, food issues, weight issues, coming out as gay, cancer, alcoholism and the list goes on.

This is a debut novel so I do believe that Claire Daverley has the potential to be a fantastic author but I hope she knows she doesn’t have to convince us that she can write and she needs to figure out how to tell a good story without drowning us in flowery language. Everyone knows I’m a sucker for a good quote from a book but I also need to connect to the characters in order to be able to connect to the beautiful language. This was my problem with Rooney’s last book too, give me characters that I can recognize. I don’t have to relate to characters in the books I read but you have to convince me that these characters exist somewhere in the world for me to connect with the story.

All in all, because this was a debut novel and I grade all debut novels on a curve, I ended up giving this 3 stars on Goodreads. I sincerely cannot wait to see what Daverley writes next.

Leggy

Fiction, literary fiction, Mystery, thriller

Book Review: The Spare Room by Andrea Bartz

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Kelly packed up her life and moved from Chicago to Philadelphia because her fiance lost his job and found one in Philadelphia. Now there is a pandemic and he has just told Kelly they need to pump the brakes on wedding planning. Kelly doesn’t know a lot of people but has recently rekindled a friendship with her high school friend, Sabrina who is a popular author with a seemingly great life. Her and her husband, Nathan invite her to come stay with them. They have a spare room in their massive house and they could use the company.

Kelly hops on an Amtrak for a fresh start and along the way, she finds herself falling for the couple. They become a throuple until Kelly finds out their last girlfriend is missing and she is not getting good enough answers from her partners. So begins the thriller, as Kelly tries to figure out what is happening while living this new life that she is hiding from her friends and family.

I have never read a book by Bartz but I hear she and her sister are popular in this genre. It’s hard to find a good thriller these days and I didn’t think this was exceptional, it was just mid. I found Kelly to be a little juvenile. I am not sure if that is the right word. She seemed very easily manipulated and probably because she never seemed to have a stance on what she wanted. I mean Nathan and Sabrina had so many red flags and she dug her head in the sand so deep it was unbelievable.

Also, for a book that seemed so adult, I am not sure why the love scenes seemed to be sanitized. I don’t know if this is how it always is in Bartz’s books but why have a character who writes erotic books and have the scenes in the book be vague? The last quarter of the book that could be seen as the culmination of the thriller felt like a rush and in some parts, it came off disjointed. At some point, I just decided to go with it even though I had questions. I might have laughed out loud when the “whodunnit?” was revealed.

I will say that the writing style wasn’t bad at all, and it helped hold my interest in the story. More of the problem lay in the plot and how there were a lot of “raise eyebrow” moments. I think my standards are high when it comes to thrillers, and I haven’t read a good one since Gone Girl (I’m taking recs if you have one!). Not sure I would recommend this one but if you have read it, let me know what you think!

Taynement

Book Related Topics, Fiction, literary fiction, thriller, women's fiction

Book Review: The Whispers by Ashley Audrain

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The Loverlys’ young son is in a coma after falling from his bedroom window and his mother Whitney waits by his bedside without a word to anyone. Back in their neighborhood, their neighbors and friends are shocked and reeling from their different roles in this. As the author takes us back to the weeks before the accident and the intricate ways the different families are connected, a domestic drama plays out right in front of us.

I loved Audrain’s debut novel – The Push. I gave it 5 stars. It was so well written and I was so intrigued. Her second book does not live up to her debut novel. I know the publishers are selling this as a domestic thriller but I refused to call it that in my blurb above, this is a domestic drama at best. There is no thriller. From the 20% mark you already know exactly what is happening and what secrets the author is stretching out to reveal at the 90% mark and it is not worth your reading 300 pages to get to.

Audrain is a fantastic writer. I’ll give her that. Every sentence is well crafted but my problem with this book is that this is not a story worth telling. This book is told from different points of views of the women living in the neighborhood. There are too many points of views and one in particular is so unnecessary and the editor should have cut it – Mara. Mara is an elderly portuguese woman who is the last of her kind in a neighborhood that has been utterly gentrified by the rich. She sits on her porch and observes her neighbors. I think she added nothing to the story. Her backstory did nothing to move the plot forward. You could skip all her chapters except one and you’d still not have missed a thing.

This book explores the quiet sacrifices of motherhood. We see Blair, a mother who has given up everything to be a stay at home mother to her one child. In contrast to Whitney who puts her career over the needs of her children. Then finally, Rebecca, a woman who has had 5 miscarriages and is desperate to become a mother. While Audrain has a lot of astute observations about motherhood, it ultimately amounts to nothing. There is no lesson to be learnt here. Nobody wins.

Audrain writes these long paragraphs about miscarriages that I had to skim through. The way she explicitly writes about the foetus leaving your body and describes each one of the 5 miscarriages in gruesome details made me feel like this is extremely unnecessary. But I also understand that maybe I’m not the target audience and people who have actually had miscarriages might relate to the very detailed passages about feeling the clumps drop down in the toilet as the contractions grip you?

As we get to know Rebecca, Whitney, Blair and Mara, the author explores the decisions every woman makes and the judgement and guilt that follows. She shows the lives we choose, the ones we’re thrust into and the different ways we punish ourselves for those decisions.

Ultimately, while I went around proclaiming the amazingness of The Push, I’m afraid I won’t be doing that for this one. Audrain is a fantastic writer but I wish she had sat with this one a little while longer. I gave this 2 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy