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Librarian's Next ChapterReading whatever I want to read
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This novel by J. Ryan Stradal has been on my bookshelf for awhile. I had few expectations when I began reading. Stradal does paint a vivid picture. I could smell the lake, sense the dim light and wood paneled walls of the supper club. As a kid of parents who took vacations on the roads less traveled, staying in motor lodges and motels often in the. midwest, I related to the setting and was set to enjoy the story. Mariel and Ned, both heirs to restaurants (though in vastly different realms) are in a period of great unrest in their marriage. When we meet them we are not exactly certain why that is, though by stepping back through time to a horrifying tragedy, we begin to understand. The story then reels back another generation and we are presented with the backstory of Florence, Mariel's mother, which leads us into Mariel's present. Once we are up-to-speed, the story lurches in yet another direction, focusing on Ned and Mariel's daughter and there the last third of the book remains. I was vested in the story until the last third. I felt as though I was misled by the first part of the book and felt no connection to the latter chapters. I did finish in order to see how it all turned out, but was vaguely dissatisfied. 
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After reading two thrillers, I needed a bit of a palate cleanse, aka lighter fare, and picked up The Baking Games by Rachel Hanna. I was drawn to this title as I enjoy stories told from multiple perspectives and a guilty pleasure of mine is cooking competition shows. The combination of both competition and a Big Brother-esque setting intrigued me. Savannah, one of our narrators, is a wonderfully complex character. Her mission is singular, but her dreams are big. As the story progresses we see her internal struggle to define herself beyond the narrow box in which she has placed herself. Our other narrator, Rhett, seems to be less complicated, but as events unfold they reveal that he is more than he seems. The secondary characters are well-defined and add to the plot. Several peripheral characters were also given their due, though their appearance was brief. There were a few twists, but I knew how things would end up. I was interested enough to keep reading and finished this book in less than a day. A fun Rom-Com for a gloomy day. 4 stars  I picked up Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino because it is Thriller/Horror/Suspense month for my book club and this title has gotten a lot of buzz. The story started out as a standard modern fiction read, so much so that I thought perhaps I had misread the genre in the description. However, much like steeping tea, it slowly began to change. Margo, the main character, began to devolve right before our eyes, dragging us into her obsession. As I read, I wondered if maybe a bit more backstory would have helped us better understand Margo’s motives/trip into the land of the unhinged. Kashino threw us a few gory details, but most of us have a few unpleasant childhood memories and manage life in a fairly typical fashion. Margo departs from the norm to an extent disproportionate to her childhood experience as it is described to us. Some of the auxiliary characters were well-developed, others appeared to have details thrown in as an afterthought to explain their presence. The story had events that were unexpected, but the ending left me dissatisfied as it was much too neat for the events that took place. The dangling detail as the last sentence seemed to be there as fulfillment of a requirement rather than leaving me thinking. I rate this 3.5 stars.  A bit of a pause before this title as I was trying to force my way through a different novel. Reading avoidance is a big red flag and after a few weeks of this, I resigned it to the DNF pile and moved on. I purchased Before We Were Innocent by Ella Berman after reading about it on the “Beyond the Bookends” blog and was not disappointed for the most part. My assessment:
All of this said, I read the book in one day as I was intrigued by the plot and invested in the characters. I would give this a solid 3.5 stars.  Wow. While I expected this novel to have some darkness after reading the description, I was totally unprepared for the places it went. Julie, an identical twin, receives a bizarre call from her estranged sister Chloe. She decides to visit her sister to find out more about this call, only to arrive at Chloe’s apartment and find her dead on the kitchen floor. In a moment of weakness, Julie assumes Chloe’s identity and takes on her sister’s life to try and find out what occurred. Chloe was a well-known influencer, Julie was a grocery store clerk, so this takes a bit of maneuvering both on social media and in person. It is when Julie (as Chloe) meets her sister’s influencer friends that things begin to take a dark turn. Oh what a twisted little path we are led down. I ended up reading as fast as I could, caught in the sticky fibers of the macabre little web Liann Zhang wove. I will go no further in description so as not to spoil it for anyone else, but recommend that you pick this up if you are into social media and thrillers. Many thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.  The Wheel did not disappoint when it selected another Ali Hazelwood novel as my next read. I carried this book along on a trip to visit my daughter and downed the whole thing on the plane ride. Problematic Summer Romance was light yet tense (in a good way), fun, full of twists and turns, as well as a dip into life abroad, albeit for a short amount of time. Keeping the relationships between the characters untangled took a bit of energy, but was well worth it. The romantic tension throughout the story helped it along and though I was fairly sure of the ending, I savored the story all the way through. A great summer read!  I whizzed through First Time Caller by B.K. Borrison in two days. That said, I struggled with the beginning of this book. As someone who has watched Sleepless in Seattle more than once, it seemed as though the author had lifted the story straight from the movie. It began to follow its own path, and I very much enjoyed the characters who were the unique aspect of this story, but my feelings overall were colored by that first impression. The author adds a note acknowledging a love of the aforementioned film, but I'm still sad that they could not use it as inspiration rather than a remix. Thank you NetGalley for the advance copy.  I have been a Neal Shusterman fan for years. As a middle school librarian I had his titles in science fiction, horror, and dystopian. No matter the genre, his books always hooked me at the start and kept me reading. His Scythe series is on my Top 5 list of all-time favorite series. That said, my expectations for All Better Now were very high. It did not disappoint. Set in the near future, the next world pandemic has struck. Those having contracted disease, once healthy, have a level of contentment, empathy, and happiness that has them abandoning their materialistic impulses. For obvious reasons, the capitalists titans are not pleased with this and are looking for a way to vaccinate the public against this scourge. The twisty plot and engaging characters kept me engaged through the entire novel. Highly recommend this read. Thank you to NetGalley for the advance copy.  The Wheel of Titles did well this spin. I loved this book. I did not want to put it down. I want to know what happens next, even though I am a firm believer that every story does not need to become a series. Five stars. Well, now that I have that out of my system I can tell you more about Didn’t You Used to be Queenie B by Terri-Lynne Defino. As an avid watcher of all types of food competition shows, just reading the blurb about this book had me hooked. What I did not expect were the honest and raw portrayals of addiction, recovery, and the wide swath of fall-out that accompanies both of those things separately and together. Gale, our protagonist, has settled into an uneasy recovery. A tragedy has launched him onto this path, and he has not forgiven himself for being a survivor where his friend Sean was not. He enjoys his work as a chef, the only place where he can lose himself, and has secret aspirations but little confidence to act upon them. Queenie B, after fame, fortune, addiction, and a rather nasty fall from grace, has reinvented herself as Regina. She becomes invisible, hiding in plain sight. When her world and Gale’s collide, they recognize each other as kindred souls and when Gale gets a chance to seize a dream, they collaborate. The character development in this novel was so real I felt as though it could be a memoir. Various threads of the plot were both resolved and unresolved, reflecting the complexity of life, experience, and relationships. This read was much more than I anticipated. Thank you to NetGalley for the Advance Reader’s Copy.  Confessions:
Though perhaps not as deep in poverty as Anna, most of us live outside the world of the jet-set elites. We wonder at their privileged existence and imagine what our own lives might be like given the advantages of money and status. Anna is given a peek at this world via her tutoring jobs and the opportunity to immerse herself when one of her students talks her parents into having Anna tutor over Christmas break. Once inside this world, Anna’s moral lines begin to blur as she wants to reinvent herself. Wandering down this path of deception, her true friends are left behind and we readers are left to wonder if Anna will succeed in her charade or will it all end rather badly. I enjoyed this book and felt that the characters were fleshed out fully. It resonated well in that there are no entirely happy endings, life is, after all, quite messy. A solid 4.5 star read. Thank you to NetGalley for the preview copy.  |
About meI am a newly retired middle school librarian who is experiencing the joy of reading books written for an older audience and sharing my thoughts. Archives
April 2025
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