Perfectly Impossible, well written, but ....3*

 

Perfectly Impossible

 

This light and sometimes heartwarming book felt like a throw-back to the sixties, when escapist reading often delved into the lives of the uber rich and the problems that they create just by being.  I didn’t care for them then and didn’t love this book now.  I’d rather read about accessible people, not modern-day fairy tales.

 

Yet if you take away the glitz and glam, you are left with Anna, an undiscovered artist who pays her way by working for The Rich and Famous and Vacuous KissyVon Bismark (only her husband calls her Bambi.). Anna is a personal assistant extraordinaire, who can and does solve problems from the tiniest to the unimaginable.  She’s so good, in fact, that she’s unbelievable.  I wanted to believe in her, and if I suspend my disbelief enough to accept the over the top things she does for her boss, I can, but the world I know and the one created just doesn’t let me go that far.  Maybe I’m too much of a pragmatist for this one.

 

If you like tales of the rich and the world they inhabit, you will enjoy this one.  It is an easy read, and well written.

 

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read it.

Sometimes, we all need a do-over. In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren. Great holiday escape!

In a Holidaze

 

When the annual family holiday trip to the mountains takes an unexpected turn, Maelyn Jones is devastated.  Not only has she engaged in a snog fest with the wrong brother, but the cabin where her family has vacationed all her life, with her parent’s college friends and families, is going to be sold and she’ll never have a chance at a do over with the right brother.

 

Only she does.  Again and again.  Maelyn gets thrown back in time and had to play out the entire vacation from the beginning, and only she knows what happened the first time.

 

This is a delightful holiday novel, just right for a season too busy for serious books.  The characters are the well drafted people who inhabit all our families, whether biological or chosen and they act accordingly. On top of that, it’s hilarious.  It’s a perfect book for 2020, because who wouldn’t want some “do overs?”

 

I received an ARC of In a Holidaze from NetGalley.  It’s release date is October 6, 2020.

Amazing Research is Jodi Picoult's Wheelhouse. Great read. Five Stars!

Dawn MacDowell is a gifted Egyptologist with a specialty in The Book of Two Ways, the direction for ancient Egyptians to guide them in the afterlife. But while she is absorbed with the historical treatment of death, the reality hits too close to home when her mother tells her she is dying.  Dawn must leave the work and the man she loves to be with her mother and care for her young brother.  When her mother dies, she is trapped with the need to handle her mother’s debt and the care of her small brother.  Egypt is so far away.  Dawn runs away from her first loves and drawing on the experience she’s had with her mother, becomes a Death Doula, helping terminal patients deal with the myriad of things left unfinished.  The struggle Dawn feels over her lost career, the man she loved first, the family and career she’s created conflict in heartbreaking ways.

 

When I started reading this book, I was afraid that the Egyptology portions which are so important to this book were beyond my understanding, but as Jodi Picoult is so good at doing, by the end of the book I just wanted more. 

 

I loved this book.  I enjoyed each level of the story and enjoyed the timeline hopping because it made it easy to understand why Dawn was so confused.  I loved learning about the history of Egypt, Death Doula’s and even the quantum physics Dawn’s husband teaches. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. 

 

Thank you to the publisher, Ballantine, and to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in advance. The book will be published on September 22, 2020.  

Great summer read: Better Choices, Rod Pennington and Jeffery A. Martin. 5*

 

Better Choices by Rod Pennington and Jeffrey Martin

I’d rate this story 5 stars if only because of the antics of twins Charles and Angela, who, despite their parents’ odd marital agreements, find ways to not only work the system, but beat it. Add in a quirky aunt or two, a dying matriarch and the central figure, Allison, whose father was a self-made millionaire, and the delightful story unfolds.

The authors have created characters I’d love to have for friends, and set them in a fantastic story…not exactly realistic, but fun anyway.  I’d read them again in a heartbeat! Great summer read!

I was granted an advanced reader copy of Better Choices by the publisher, Integration Press, and NetGalley.

Exciting Times, Naoise Dolan. Millennials in Hong Kong

 

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan

An inside look at the varied relationships of millennials in Hong Kong.  Ava is fresh out of college, teaching English as a foreign language in Hong Kong. The private school where she works is tightly run, determined to give parents what they pay for, even if the students don’t want it and even if it means teachers don’t have time for bathroom breaks.   From Dublin, where she has been sad, Ava is giving Hong Kong a try. Here she meets other young people, including Julian, a banker, with whom she had an intimate relationship, while both insist they are not a couple.

Ava needs a place to live and can’t afford anything she likes on her salary, so agrees to move in with Julian. While he is away on a business trip, she meets another banker, Edith, a Hong Kong local, educated at Cambridge.  Their friendship blossoms into romance, providing insight into Ava’s infatuation with Edith, Edith’s feelings of inferiority, and of course Ava’s conflicted feelings about Julian.

There is a lot of navel gazing in the book, but relationship books need that.  The scenes with Ava’s English students are fun and the reader gets to experience a facet of Hong Kong not generally seen.

I read this as an advanced reader’s copy courtesy of Netgalley. The book was published by Harper Collins and released June 2, 2020

What You Wish For, another great Katherine Center book, 5*

Whenever I see the cover of a new Katherine Center book, I smile. They are bright and cheerful, yes, but I also know there will be complicated characters who look for deeper meaning, deeper gratitude and deeper joy than from any other author. What You Wish For doesn’t disappoint.

Set in the historical and beautiful city of Galveston, Texas, What You Wish For is the story of school librarian Samantha Casey. Sam has a history of running away from problems, not the least of which was a paralyzing crush on colleague Duncan Carpenter. She finds a home at the charming private school on the island, and fits in until the day she experiences a return of her childhood epilepsy. Instead of running away again, she takes the advice of her mentor and recreates herself with joy.

Then her mentor dies, and none other than Duncan Carpenter comes to take his place. Only Duncan has changed too, and not in ways that Samantha can understand.

This book examines serious issues: bullying in school, creativity versus protection, school safety and the way people are marginalized for characteristics that don’t define them. Katherine doesn’t disappoint her readers. She lets her characters charge ahead boldly and with flowers in their hair. You will want to applaud.

This book was provided to me by NetGalley. It will be released on July 14, 2020.

The Second Home, by Christina Clancy 4*

When we picture the perfect place to spend summers as children, the house that Ed and Connie Gordon travel from Milwaukee to Wellfleet every summer might come to mind. When they adopt a nearly grown teenager who their daughter Ann befriends, the family of five seems complete. Then comes the jealousy, teenage hormones and the problems that too much freedom and too little information breeds. The three children, once close, separate into their own shadowy worlds and it takes the death of their parents, years later, to reunite them. The question of what happens to the Second Home force the issue.

Christina Clancy has created deep characters and a gorgeous setting that propels this book into the "great summer read" category. But it has some dark moments that hold me back from giving it a five-star rating. Every parents dream, and nightmare, all in one book.

This book was provided to me by NetGalley and will be published June 2, 2020.

Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear by Matt Salesses

 Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear by Matt Salesses

Invisibility is a social issue that doesn’t get the attention it deserves.  It affects many segments of the population, but some groups bear more of the burden of being unseen than others.  Disappear Doppelganger Disappear begins with an abbreviated list of disappearances…governmentally sanctioned limits on immigration, particularly affecting Asian immigration. Author Matthew Salesses addresses this burden through character Matt Kim, who has lost his parents, family, and quickly losing all sense of himself. As a Korean-American adopted child, Matt seeks connection.  He’s divorced and estranged from his daughter and seems to be willing to do anything to reestablish connections. Like the character in his own novel: “He was at an age of dwindling options: Each choice he made limited the choices he had left.”

Then there are the doppelgängers written as separate characters. There is another “Matt” who is everything the first Matt thinks he’d have liked to have been, but this Matt has been murdered.  The girlfriend, who changes her name, though the original Matt sees this change as the creation of another doppelganger.  The story reinforces the premise that in order to communicate, there must be a “share[d] belief in imaginary things: nations, limited liability corporations, money, gender, race.”  It isn’t clear what these characters believe in, but clearly, this author understands the nuances of humor.

This book is not for the person looking for an easy read.  It is hard to keep track of the many Matts, (including one named for the author.)  The magical elements, which let Matt travel through space and time (though only between two locations and times,) are interesting and unforgettable, but difficult as well, taking the form of cracks in walls, yellow yarn and bubbles.  It is in the existential questions where the universal appeal resides, and it goes beyond a plea for male Asian adoptees/immigrants to be seen.

“In this one and only world, messy and circumstantial and shared, nothing is completely free from its opposite. You are not only who you are, but who you are not.”

This is an important book for the times in which we live, and probably, for any time.  Crises change, but the need for human connection and living authentically never disappear, even when we want them to.

Recommended to anyone looking for deeper meaning in fiction. 

I read an advanced readers copy of Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear provided by NetGalley. The book will be released on August 11, 2020.

Big Summer by Jennifer Berg. 5*

Publication Date, May 19, 2020

Jennifer Weiner has been the voice of real women since her debut novel, Good In Bed.  When I say real women, I don’t do it to exclude anyone, but to add to the numbers of people who don’t get picked on for their looks, color, body shape, size, sexual orientation, nationality, age or any of the myriad reasons that get someone labeled as “other.” Jennifer’s books have wonderfully developed inclusive characters who aren’t afraid of showing up in a novel, and I personally find it refreshing.

Daphne Berg is one of those real women. She’s young, not thirty yet, but she is also smart and not a size 2. She’s also a rising star in the social influencer scene. Her adorable parents worked hard to send Daphne to private school where she excelled, but discovered all those elite cool kids, who treated her either as best friend or pariah. Daphne never knows which to expect, especially from her purported “best friend,” Drue Cavanaugh.

Once Weiner has hooked us on these fascinating characters, the book takes a solid turn into romantic murder mystery. Weaving well drawn characters into the idyllic setting of Cape Cod, Berg shows that she knows how to tie the threads up in an unexpected knot. 

This is a great book for summer reading, good for contemporary fiction, romance lovers, and people who enjoy a good mystery. Big Summer is another great read from Jennifer Weiner.

This was a Read Now selection from NetGalley and provided by the wonderful publisher, Atria Books.