Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell (audiobook)

 genre: contemporary fiction

Cherry's alone.  She's not happy about her marriage to Tom failing and it wasn't her choice to be left behind but she's trying to make the best of it.  She's got work.  She's got her giant dog.  And she's got her boisterous sisters.  But what if that isn't enough?  Not only that, her ex-husband is a cartoonist on the verge of being crazy famous, which makes living in her community really challenging sometimes. 

Something important to Cherry about Cherry is that she is fat.  This is the word she uses to describe herself.  And being fat means that you're looking at the world and those who navigate it with a different perspective.   Relationships and attraction, she knows that the way her body looks can impact that but Cherry is also an extremely capable, confidant, boundary-setting woman.  She won't settle but she also loves to be loved like the rest of us.  Is there another guy who could love her the way that Tom did?  

The narrator of this audiobook is SO good.  I just need to say that.  At about the one hour mark  I thought - how can this story last so so many more hours?  But then things got more and more complicated and I was so glad it was long because sometimes love stories are not easy and clear cut.  Sometimes they are messy and require a lot of negotiating with ourselves as well as whoever our partner might be.  Warning: there is a lot more explicit sex in this book than in others by this author but it gets four big stars from me.

Little One by Olivia Muenter

genre: contemporary mystery/thriller/fiction

Catharine will be fine if she never talks about or thinks about her childhood again.  While it may sound lovely, what with the fields of fresh produce and a strong sense of communal ownership on the farm where she lived, there is darkness there.  When a reporter shows up with just enough information to make her curious, Catharine has to decide what she's willing to do to get the answers she so desperately wants.

Catharine's aloofness makes her a really hard character to like.  The story goes back and forth in time, and the pacing is good, but I just never liked her very much.  I can see how that is intentional, to show us how living in a cult-like environment can impact our relationships and social awareness, but I had a hard time investing in her in the present.  When we flashback to the past, that was still painful to read but also more understandable. 

There is a mystery here that I don't want to spoil, but I was definitely into figuring that out.  The resolution to that was not unbelievable but I didn't love it.  I do enjoy cult stories so learning about her life on the farm was fascinating in the way you look at car accidents to just SEE what happened so I always was eager enough to read it but now that I'm done, I feel like probably three stars is a good representation of the book as a whole.

What Boys Learn by Andromeda Romano-Lax (audiobook)

genre: contemporary thriller

You'd think that Abby's training as a therapist and counselor would prepare her for when a student winds up dead at the fancy private school where she works.  But nothing can really prepare you for that - especially when your son who GOES to that school might know something.   How do you help figure out what went wrong without incriminating your own child - and how can one ever even believe such a thing?  This is a twisty novel that looks at how some men and boys view women and the ways that can manifest itself in behavior.  It's also about what's inside us and how we can heal from past trauma - or let it turn us into monsters.

This fairly long audiobook did go by quickly.  Sometimes Abby drove me crazy with her choices and there are some plotholes that stuck out but it definitely kept my attention.  It's upsetting, obviously, but I actually feel like the ending was redemptive in an important way.  I didn't guess everything until later in the story and even then I hadn't guessed all of it, which I super appreciate.  I feel like it deserves three stars for how often I wanted to listen and because the narrators really did quite good.  My only gripe is that sometimes the ends of their words were so soft you couldn't hear well what they were saying, but that was only occasionally.

How Iceland Changed the World: The Big History of a Small Island by Egill Bjarnason

 genre: nonfiction

While preparing for a trip to Iceland, I saw this book at a thrift store and immediately grabbed it. I have been there twice before and genuinely love this beautiful and wild country. Several things about this book made it a really enjoyable read for me. First off, I learned a lot of things I just did not know. Second, it was organized in such a palatable way, with sections based on a theme that also was still chronological. it just really worked for how my brain likes to learn. And third, the the writing style is not stuffy historical writing. You're learning history, yes, but it's put into modern context and is incredibly readable.  Sagas and volcanos, world wars and the space race, it's all in there.  Even if you have never been, if you’re at all interested in this country, this would be a great introduction to how Iceland has played a part in world history.

Land by Maggie O'Farrell (audiobook)

genre: historical fiction

Tomás is wandering the wilds of Ireland with a purpose: he is working on a great project to map the whole of Ireland. Of course that means he's working for the Red Coats, who treat him and his son, Liam, like garbage. But Tomás knows what he's doing and, in a way, sees it as his duty to record what's left after the Great Hunger has ravaged his beloved homeland.  But the land can change a man - a copse of trees or a deep, clear well can trigger something deep inside and change them forever.  It can unearth the kind of ghosts that might haunt you, without you ever having seen a thing.

This is not a paranormal story, not in any real way.  The ghosts that haunt its pages aren't really the undead but the incorporeal manifestation of the Irish experience.  But the past itself, the pain and the suffering and how it has put things in motion, that's what's weaving in and out of this beautifully written tale.  It is a story of siblings and the parents, of a remote house out on a peninsula and how the land and the people change each other.  It's about decisions that can't be unmade and how our choices don't just impact ourselves but also those we care about.  It's about the brave decision to pivot when things no longer feel right and the courage to do what must be done even when it feels like it might break us.  And knowing when it's time for each.

This is a evocative and atmospheric book.  More than once I felt actual physical feelings for these characters and what they went through.   I never ended up crying so much as just ACHING for how little of life we can control sometimes.  It is a bit slow going, that's the only thing I would complain about, and even that's no reason not to pick up this book.  

The audiobook narrator is brillant, both his female and male voices were so lilting, it truly helped me get into the narrative.

The Girls Trip by Ally Condie

 genre: contemporary thriller (?)

I was genuinely excited about this based on the blurb I read a few months ago and it started off pretty strong.  Three ladies plan a girls trip to Southern Utah but one of the ladies is a famous actress.  For sure someone will get killed or disappear and I got into it pretty quickly.  But about halfway through, plot holes just kept cropping up.  So many plotholes.  And the dialogue was just...clunky?  Pedestrian?  I just never fell in love with the writing at ALL and the ending felt like a big sploosh of "what in the world."  But again - I did read the whole thing.  So, 2.5 stars for entertaining me enough to make a long work shift go by and that's not nothing.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

genre: contemporary mystery

This book isn't so much about murder solving as it is about the people SOLVING the murder.  In this case, those solving the murder are four senior citizens living in a retirement/assisted living community in the British countryside.  Each of these four are quirky in their own way, and their camaraderie is what made this book enjoyable for me.  Otherwise, it was a bit slow going. There are many secondary characters that feel a bit caricatured and we switch point of view so often it can get disorienting but one particular point of view was great fun.  In the end, the whole plot felt quite cobbled together but I'm not sorry I gave this a try and I bet an audio version might have been more enjoyable but ah well.  

Devout: Losing My Faith to Find Myself by David Archuleta (audiobook)

 genre: memoir

I was never obsessed with David Archuleta.  I obviously knew of him and, as an active Mormon at the time, felt excited about a fellow church member being so much in the public eye.  His music was great but I didn't think about him much until he came out.  I remember THIS being shocking, especially because of how close I knew he was to those in the leadership of the Church.  I wondered how it would work out for him.

And now I know.  And it is a hard story to read.   I enjoyed learning about his start in performing and his professional journey was such an interesting one.  What most sticks out to me, though, is how David's relationships with his family were so traumatic and complicated.  I had no idea.  But even more than that is his suppression of his homosexuality to appease his family, yes, but even more, to appease a God that he believed could absolutely never love or accept him as a gay man. 

It is heartbreaking to experience his struggle with him.  My heart ached for his view of the world - one that I shared myself for more than forty years - a view that said that there is only one kind of way to be a person that could ever be with God again.  His faith deconstruction brought up a lot of my own painful feelings from this same process and he articulate so well how truly agonizing it is.

My only compliant about this book is that the writing is sometimes rather juvenile.  No shade on David - this is a super important book - but sometimes it feels like a truly complex memoir and other times he goes into a kind of colloquial mode full of swears and sexual language that feels like it was thrown in there to show that he's a tough guy now.  I think it was the flip flop between the two that just felt performative.   

That being said though, HIS STORY IS IMPORTANT.  The leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints could genuinely benefit from listening to former members like David whose heartbreaking experiences need to change the way that lgbtq+ folks are treated across the church.

Also, the song at the end of the audiobook is touched a really raw place for me.  Absolutely beautiful.

I Am You by Victoria Redel

genre: historical fiction

Have you heard of Maria van Oosterwijck? Because until I read this novel, I had not. I have now looked at her artwork and it is absolutely astonishing. This fictionalization of her life is told from the point of view of the young girl who becomes her maid and later her student and lover. The story is about art and artists. It is about relationships and how enmeshment can unravel us. It is about honoring our gifts and the price that women have had to pay over centuries to make their way in a world run by men. This book is lush and sometimes painful, beautifully written. I genuinely loved learning about the actual processes to make paint and how one would become trained to be a still life artist.

Some of the things that happened seem fantastical and a huge stretch, but when I looked up her biography, she really led an incredible life. So much of this story, though, is only about the relationship between Maria and Gerta - that's essentially the main story arc more than either of them being artists.   There IS a secondary storyline that is only deeply traumatic so I would caution sensitive readers to just be aware that there are some really heavy things that happen in this book. I understand why they happened and they definitely impact Greta and how she sees herself but it will not be for everybody.

All the World Can Hold by Jung Yun

genre: fiction

I can't bring myself to call this book "historical fiction," since I remember the aftermath of 9-11 so well myself, but in some ways, when this book begins is a time set apart.  Days after the towers have fallen, cruise ships are once again leaving the eastern seaboard of the United States and heading to Bermuda. For three individual passengers, the trip is a choice they made that is all tied up in their past and their hopes for the future.  No one feels GOOD having a happy old time after a momentous tragedy, but for our different three main characters, taking this cruise felt right enough that they got themselves on board.

This book not only tells an interesting story of a themed cruise ship sailing but we also really dig into the heart of a South Korean daughter who wants to honor a mother she doesn't understand, a washed up tv star with a lifetime of regrets and a Black female graduate student from MIT who is trying to put together a life that will life up to her parent's expectations and maybe somehow feel like she's being true to herself.  Each storyline has painful and uncomfortable moments and other moments where you get just a glimmer of light.  I liked when we occasionally saw each character through another's eyes and as someone who has been cruising since just after this time period, the atmosphere of a cruise itself is SPOT on.

I appreciated the way that the group trauma of the terror attacks of 9-11 is handled here.  It is insightful and raw and brings up my own thoughts and feelings from that time.  How do I just go enjoy my life when five miles from my house a plane flew into a building ON PURPOSE?  What do I do with these feelings of fear and desperate sadness when I still have to get up and feed my one year old child and do the laundry and study for my comprehensive exams for my Masters Degree?  I feel like Jung Yun gets that bind and the characters here wrestle with that same issue - the mess of their lives plus this mess of a national disaster PLUS a cruise full of strangers.  This was a good book.