2024 book 198

 Freya Sampson's Nosy Neighbors

I thought this was going to be a cute British mystery based on the description, but it’s really more of a women's fiction book featuring the POVs of two women who live in the same building--a cranky 70-something and a pink-haired twenty-something who have to come to terms with past trauma. And also their landlord is trying to tear their building down. I was into it at first but it gets really repetitive in the second half with the women alternating between liking each other and saying hurtful things to each other, and then it just jumps to the ending, which is tidy and mildly cheesy. B.

2023 book 69

 Kim Fay's Love and Saffron

Rereading this for book club—it’s a little bit more of a traditional “book club” kind of book than we usually read, but I think most of them will like it—it’s the story of two women writing to each other in the 1960s and it’s very sweet and a teeny bit cheesy. Some of the historical events feel shoehorned in, but I like both the characters and I do love an epistolary novel.

2023 book 19

 Shauna Robinson's The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks

So, this was cute. This is the sort of book I’d recommend to certain members of my book club who like cute books. It’s about twenty-something Maggie, who's at loose ends in life, who drives cross country to work in her college best friend's bookstore while her friend is on maternity leave. But the bookstore is in a small town where everything is about their one famous author, and the bookstore isn’t allowed to sell books that were published after the author died in the 1960s. Plus, Maggie hates reading, especially boring classics! At least until she meets a local romance author and discovers that some books are fun! Soon she’s secretly selling modern books and hosting secret silly book events and trying to hide it from the Society who runs all the town's businesses—including her new love interest. All very cute. Buttttttt a lot of things in this book don’t 100 percent make sense—lots of suspension of disbelief required. And I lost interest in the second half when I was ready for it to just come to its inevitable conclusion already (it does pick back up toward the end). A pleasant enough diversion for me, but I think ppl who like cute books and contemporary romances would be into it. B/B+.

2022 book 160

 Kim Fay's Love and Saffron

I wanted to read something on the lighter side after my last read (and after the excellent but mildly devastating Ducks by Kate Beaton), and this is a book about two ladies who develop a friendship writing letters about food in the 1960s! Super chill! I mean, it is /mostly/ super chill, but also really moving and did make me cry at the end. I will say for two white ladies in the early 60s talking about “exotic” cuisine, they are pretty culturally sensitive, I guess. This isn’t doing anything particularly groundbreaking but it was a pleasant read. A-/B+.

2022 book 88

 Linda Holmes' Flying Solo

I was in a mood and I was also mad that the last couple books I read were just MEH, so treated myself to the new Linda Holmes, which I knew would be good. And it was! It’s about a woman, about to turn forty, who returns to her hometown to clean out her beloved great aunt's house, where she gets interested in the story of a wooden duck she finds (luckily her high school boyfriend is now the local librarian). Lots of laugh out loud moments, and I will say as a single forty-something woman I found this protagonist very relatable. I also appreciated that while there was a romance, there was a lot to show that there is something to be said for living your life the way you want to (lots of cool old ladies in this book). I did have to suspend my disbelief a LITTLE that a freelance nature writer could take so much time off work, but otherwise this was a satisfying read for sure. A/A-.

__

A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in June.

2020 book 185

 Beth O'Leary's The Flatshare

Taking a brief break from epic fantasies to slide in this month's book club book under the wire! This is sort of a romance/women’s fiction-y thing, but it’s British, and I always like those. This centers on a woman, an editor at a craft book publisher with an eclectic personal style, who has to move out of her Extremely Bad ex's apartment, and winds up flat sharing with a (male) night nurse. So they have opposite schedules and communicate via post-it notes. That part is all very cute. There’s also a whole plotline where the heroine realizes she has ptsd and deals with that, and another plotline with the nurse's brother in jail for a crime he did not commit. Much of this was a little bit too on the nose, but I think the side bits about the gay WWII vet and the crochet designer becoming an Internet celebrity help balance things out. A-/B+.

2019 book 130

Allie Larkin's Why Can't I Be You
I needed something fluffy after reading a creepy book by Shirley Jackson, and Christina recommended this to me. It totally fit the bill! It's the story of a woman who's heading to a conference--and then her boyfriend dumps her at the airport. So when the organizer of a high school reunion at the conference hotel mistakes her for an old classmate, she just kind of goes with it. If you can get past this fairly ridiculous premise, the book is super cute. It's got a 90s romcom vibe for sure. That also gets at its slight cheesiness and how things work out at the end. Still, I'd watch that movie! B/B+.

2019 book 103

Marian Keyes' Anybody Out There
Rereading this for book club and it’s pretty much just as gripping as the first time I read it. It’s a moving portrayal of grief, loss, family, and the cutthroat cosmetics industry. Interspersed with emails from a PI working for the mob! Funny, sad, bittersweet, with a mildly less cheesy ending than some of Keyes' other works. B+/A-.

2019 book 31

Minnie Darke's Star-Crossed
I wanted to read something cute, and the description of this made it seem like it could either be cute or kind of annoying. Unfortunately, it was more of the latter. It’s about a young woman (in Australia) who wants to be a journalist. Then she encounters the boy she grew up with—and had a crush on—and uses her job at a local paper to start messing with his horoscope in an effort to spark a romance. I was not at all invested in either of them, but Darke does introduce some little side characters who are ALSO impacted by the fake horoscopes, and that little throughline was a lot more interesting to me. Still, I kept putting this down to play iPhone games and was in no rush to get back to it. It was FINE, just not particularly satisfying to me. B.

__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in May.

2018 book 166

Marian Keyes' The Break
I am still digging the Marian Keyes vibe. In this one, the protagonist's husband announces he needs a six-month break from their marriage to travel in Asia and find himself. But of course, that means she's in a break too. As always, I loved Keyes' characters and their complicated families, and I enjoyed reading this very much, though I did find the ending to be mildly unsatisfying. B+.

2018 book 163

Marian Keyes' The Woman Who Stole My Life

I was in the mood to read something . . . I don’t even know what, but this satisfied! I liked the other Keyes books I had read, she is sort of on the meatier side of the women's fiction beat. This one, which bounces around time-wise, centers on a woman who wrote a book, had a major health crisis, has various family and romantic issues, and is now flailing a bit. I loved the narrative voice, loved the characters, and even if it was a tad silly, found it very enjoyable. I need to read more of Keyes' work. A-.

2018 book 128

Rosie Walsh's Ghosted
Based on the reviews, I wasn't sure going into this whether it was a women's fiction sort of thing, or a thriller. It centers on a thirtysomething woman who has a whirlwind romance with a man over the course of a week, but she KNOWS it was something real, and when he doesn't get in touch after a quick vacation, she KNOWS something is very wrong. Anyway, not to give much away, but it does turn out to be a women's fiction sort of story, the kind that I find overly ridiculous. It lags in the middle but once the reveals start coming it does pick up a bit. Still, fairly ridiculous. B.

2017 book 196

Marian Keyes' Anybody Out There?
The fourth Walsh sisters book is I think the strongest of the series (I say that without having read the 5th one yet)—even though I pretty quickly picked up what Keyes was throwing down, I still cried several times. This one centers on fourth sister Anna, who in the previous books was kind of hippy dippy, but now has her act together and works as a publicist for a cosmetics company in New York (which was of course  right up my alley). I really liked the family relationships and friendships in this one, particularly. Really surprisingly moving. A-.

2017 book 195

Marian Keyes' Angels
The third Walsh sisters book focuses on second sister Margaret—the “good one”—who, after her marriage falls apart, goes to stay with her best friend, a struggling screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles. I liked the narrative voice here, and the way things were gradually revealed, but I found this to be the least satisfying of the three I’ve read. Keyes also sometimes leans a bit too heavily on racial stereotypes, which feels unnecessary. I mean, I was still entertained, and Maggie is a great character, but this wasn’t my favorite. B.

2017 book 194

Marian Keyes’ Rachel's Holiday
After the first Walsh sisters book, I was expecting something on the chick lit/women's fiction lighter side spectrum, but this was a bit more serious. It centers on middle sister Rachel, who is forced into a rehab center by her parents and gradually comes to terms with her drug addiction. It is super compelling and moving. A-.

2017 book 193

Marian Keyes' Watermelon
Rainbow Rowell recently recommended the fifth book in this series on Twitter, but I am a completist and so I started with book one. The series focuses on five sisters from an Irish family; in this first one, eldest sister Claire has just given birth when her husband announces that he's leaving her for another woman. Like literally, the day she gives birth! So she goes home to Dublin to stay with her parents and two youngest sisters (I loved the sister relationships here) to try and figure out what to do next. At first I was like, this is a cute mid-90s women’s fiction sort of story with occasionally brilliant humor, but towards the end I was super engaged with the heroine's emotional journey—it just really resonated with conversations I am having with friends right now. There is a great moment where she just runs out of f—ks entirely and I was practically cheering. I will say that this did not seem like an accurate depiction of new motherhood to me, but it was a very entertaining story and I already have the rest of the series checked out from the library. A-/B+.

2017 book 101

Joshilyn Jackson's The Almost Sisters
OMG, did Joshilyn Jackson write her latest book targeting it directly at me, or what? I love all her complicated-Southern-family books, but the protagonist of this one is a woman who makes a living as a comic book artist/graphic novelist, and also has weekly board game nights (Jackson doesn't entirely nail comic book culture but I had no major complaints). Things start with the protagonist discovering she's pregnant, the result of a one night stand at a comic book con with a guy dressed as Batman (omg), but things get more complicated when she discovers her grandmother has dementia and has to suddenly head down to Alabama. I liked the family stuff here a lot-- interesting characters and dynamics and secrets-- but there is a lot of like white lady thinking about race and trying to solve racism stuff going on (the baby she's carrying is biracial). I liked it a lot despite all that. A-.

__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in July.

2017 book 31

Kathy Hepinstall's The Book of Polly
This was recommended for fans of Joshilyn Jackson, which I generally am, so I figured I'd check it out, but it was just okay. It centers on a girl with an eccentric, older mother (the titular Polly), and the first half, which focuses on that relationship, is much stronger than the second half. The daughter is obsessed with the secrets of her mother's past, which, when revealed, are not that interesting (I mean, they could have been, but are not presented in a particularly interesting manner). There are also two attempted rape scenes, a very weird raft journey, and an ending that just can't bring it all together. Maybe one for a wine mom kind of book club, but not really my thing. B.


__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in March.

2016 book 153

Fiona Davis' The Dollhouse
I keep starting books and just not feeling them, which honestly was also the case with this one, but I was determined to just finish one and to break my curse! The writing here is just awkward as hell and both storylines are completely ridiculous and full of majorly unrealistic moments. In the present, a woman living in the Barbizon (everything about her is basically a terrible rom-com, so I'm not even gonna get started) becomes intrigued by the mystery of one of the long-term residents, and that woman's story--of arriving at the famed hotel in the 1950s to go to secretarial school, though eventually things turn tragic--is interspersed throughout. This book is basically about a bunch of sad-sacks with a super stereotypical Puerto Rican friend for good measure. I just thought this was so dull and cliched, though I did chuckle a little when someone threatens to go to Gawker with a scoop--how untimely this book's publication was. Content warning for attempted rape. B-/C+.

2016 book 134

Miranda Beverly-Whittemore's June
The plot synopsis of this novel made me look past that I was pretty meh on Beverly-Whittemore's last one, but I was pretty meh on this one too. It centers on a young woman, depressed, living in the bordering-on-derelict house that belonged to the grandmother who raised her, when a man shows up telling her she's inherited 37 million dollars from a movie star who might have had an affair with said grandmother--and his daughters are determined to prove he didn't. This is all interspersed with flashbacks to the summer before her grandmother's marriage, when a movie was being filmed in town, and there's a little neighbor girl (apparently in love with the grandmother? possibly genderqueer?) working on the set. Oh, and the house is sentient? Things vary between being implausible/being draggy, particularly in the modern chapters ("instead of doing a DNA test, let's INVESTIGATE!") and being melodramatic, though I did enjoy the parts involving the movie set. I mean, this was fine, just not really my thing. B.