Review: City of Girls

Recap: It’s 1940, upstate New York, and Vivian has just been kicked out of Vassar College. It was the all-girls’ school way of reprimanding the student who wasn’t taking things seriously and wasn’t passing her classes. But Vivian didn’t see the point, living in a time when women were only expected to marry after college anyway. After being kicked out, her parents sent to her Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg. With no plan, no focus, and no idea what it’s like to live in the city, Vivian is thrown into a world beyond her imagination. She knew Aunt Peg ran a theater in New York City, but that’s about it. She soon found it was theater that performed low-tier original shows full of dancers, showgirls and lackluster talent. But it was a unique community offering, barely kept afloat by the regulars who attended the shows no matter how bad they were. Vivian, who loved to sew and make clothes, was in her glory. Upon learning of her talents, she was made to be the costumer for the theater, giving Vivian an “in” to befriend the women who were faster, flashier, sexier and harder partiers than she. Among that group was Celia. It’s not clear whether Vivian wants to be Celia or be with her, but nonetheless she befriends her, and soon Vivian is “inducted” into the group of boisterous women.

They encourage her to lose her virginity, to drink, to go clubbing, and Vivan loves every second of it. A progressive girl – particularly for that time – she has no shame about anything she’s doing. She simply wants to enjoy life, especially this big city life. Her Aunt Peg and Peg’s partner/friend, Olive, turn a blind eye to her outings and yet, always look out for her. That ultimately comes in handy.

Vivian is at the theater at a time when things start to blossom. Aunt Peg’s estranged husband, Billy, comes to New York from out of town and lives with them for a while. So does Peg’s friend, Edna, a superstar actress escaping the war in Europe alongside her handsome husband, Arthur. Billy, a writer, writes a new show for the theater, which Edna stars in. Suddenly smash reviews are coming in left and right and so are enormous audiences. Aunt Peg’s theater is the talk of town. And Vivian is living in the moment! But a sexually charged, alcohol-infused evening leads to a risque public moment – particularly for the 1940’s – that forces Vivian to leave the city, head hanging in shame.

And this, my friends, is just the first half of the book.

Analysis: City of Girls had been one of those books sitting at the top of my TBR List since it came out in 2019; I just hadn’t gotten around to it. I heard it was feminist (yay!), historical fiction (love!) and written by Elizabeth Gilbert, best known for her nonfiction smash, Eat Pray Love. So for several reasons, I was excited to dive in. I tore through it, though it is lengthier than my average read. It certainly entertained me, and I was riveted by the characters, but it was simultaneously both slow to start and then lost momentum at the end.

The first half of the book does a lot of scene-setting, introducing characters and offering a lot of exposition. The characters are a delight, and the dazzle of New York City, well, dazzles. But when one of my friends asked me if I’d gotten to page 250, I then had incentive to really power through the novel, and with good reason. The impact of page 250 is shocking and wild. At that point, I needed to keep reading to learn what happened next. The book is also told with a framing device of a now 95-year-old Vivian telling her story of her life to someone named Angela. The reader doesn’t find out until much later who Angela is, or how she’s connected to Vivian. So as the book continues, I became increasingly curious about who Angela was. But when I finally found out, it felt anti-climactic. And what’s most confusing is the book’s pacing. While the first half of the book centers around one year Vivian spends in New York, the second half tells the story of the rest of her life, speeding through decades and new characters. Vivian didn’t end up with any of the people I thought she would, and that’s probably the point. Ultimately, she ends up surrounded by strong women, a far cry from the “weaker” women described as her fellow classmates at Vassar earlier in the novel. And that womanly, feminist viewpoint is beautiful in its own right. I loved so many parts of this book. So much of it was fun, so much unexpected. But it also suffered from moments of meandering, and an ending that while nice, wasn’t as powerful as I wanted it to be.

MVP: Aunt Peg and Olive. This power duo becomes Vivian’s surrogate parents as her actual parents don’t legitimately seem to care much for their daughter. Peg and Olive are creatives, forward-thinkers, true New Yorkers through and through. The few scenes with them are some of the most powerful in the novel. They are the definition of strength.

Get City of Girls in paperback for $11.21.

Or on your Kindle for $14.99.

Review: The Candy House

Recap: In a dreamy, interwoven bit of organized chaos, Jennifer Egan once again delivers an exceptional story that’s not really a story, a tale with connecting throughlines, characters and themes but no real plot. It’s a tough one to explain to others. In fact, I tried to explain Egan’s storytelling to one of my coworkers recently who looked at me puzzled, and may as well have responded by saying “well, that sounds awful.” But what’s confusing, once understood, becomes brilliant and truly awe-some.

About ten years after her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, Egan published The Candy House as a sequel, following some of the characters from Goon Squad. Those carryovers include Sasha, LuLu and Bennie among others. Egan does the same thing in this sequel as she does in her first book: each chapter reads like a short story about a particular character. A minor character from that story is then the “hero” of the next chapter, so the reader learns more about another person in the story. Then another minor character tells the story in the next chapter. That same thread continues throughout. The stories aren’t necessarily connected either. They’re just little slice of life pieces of each of these characters. Some stories are told in present day, some in the future, some in the past. There’s a lot of hopping around and putting together the puzzle pieces of who’s connected to who, how and on what section of the timeline.

In Goon Squad, Lulu was a young girl. In Candy House, we meet her as an adult, where she is a spy (and has maybe the coolest chapter in the book?). Here, Lulu is also part of another chapter made up of emails sent between many of these interconnected characters, which further emphasizes the brilliant interweaving of everyone. It’s very “Love, Actually” and fun to read! The connections between the characters is one of the central themes of Egan’s books: that each person has an impact on another. But Candy House has another overarching theme about social media, authenticity and who you are versus how you portray yourself online and preserve yourself for the future — big themes about which we are already talking when it comes to AI and which make this story particularly relevant.

Analysis: What’s fun about The Candy House that I don’t remember from Goon Squad is that Jennifer Egan is playfully meta in her writing. Near the end of the book, she calls out the book’s title by writing “tongue in cheek nostalgia is merely the portal, the candy house, if you will, through which we hope to lure in a new generation and bewitch them.” It’s exactly what she’s doing with this book: trying to lure in a new generation of readers to her eclectic writing a decade after publishing her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that younger readers may have missed altogether. She goes on to question “do all roads start to converge after age 70?” The Candy House has an answer for that too: yes, or maybe even earlier.

When I read A Visit from the Goon Squad years ago, I remember being excited to read an award winning book. I liked it, but it didn’t have much of an impact on me. It took me a while to understand what was going on, and by the time I got it, I felt like I had spent so much of the book focusing on the wrong things and missing the beauty and creativity that was right in front of me. So sadly, it didn’t land. But for some reason, The Candy House clicked much more easily and earlier for me. Reading it felt like an adventure and made me appreciate Goon Squad and Jennifer Egan much more.

MVP: Lulu. There are a dozen characters I’d love to put here, but Lulu’s chapters were the most creatively written format-wise, and her character displayed such strength and a beautiful mix of masculinity and femininity.

Get The Candy House in paperback for $15.19.

Or on your Kindle for $13.99.

Review: It Starts With Us

Recap: It Starts With Us is the sequel to Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us and picks up immediately following the epilogue of It Ends With Us. That epilogue ends with about a year’s time jump and a brief interaction between Lily and Atlas, Lily’s first boyfriend from high school. As this second book in the series starts off, Lily is wondering if it’s even possible to make that relationship work again when she still has Ryle in her life. She and Ryle are now divorced, and their daughter is now about a year old. Co-parenting has not been easy. It never is, but when your ex is an abuser, there are added layers of challenges. She and Ryle have learned to get along while passing the baby between them but Ryle is clearly still holding out hope that they will get back together. He doesn’t quite understand the deep-seeded fear that now lies in Lily’s body. She quite literally contracts when he’s near. And he seems to be near a lot as he still has access to Lily’s apartment.

For the first time in the story of Lily and Atlas, the reader gets a clearer idea of how Atlas feels about their history and relationship. The book alternates narration between Lily and Atlas, bringing Atlas to the forefront of the story, compared to the first book in the series. As Lily deals with creating distance and space between her and Ryle to make room for Atlas, Atlas is ready to make room for Lily in his life, but it comes at a bad time. Someone has been vandalizing his new restaurant, and he quickly learns there’s a personal connection. As the two try to navigate all the complicated relationships around them, the one relationship they know they don’t have to question is the one they have with each other.

Analysis: After not loving much of It Ends With Us, I was concerned I would like It Starts With Us even less. But I was wrong. Revisiting familiar characters got me on board with the sequel much more willingly. I was happy to see Lily finally get the true happiness and joy she deserved. I was also happy to see Atlas deal with some of the abuse he faced when he was younger. It’s a point of pride – and relief – when Lily finally creates space between her and Ryle. My biggest gripe is her best friend, Allysa, who also happens to be the sister of Lily’s ex, Ryle. Though Ryle’s actions were reprehensible, it felt pretty implausible for her best friend to so quickly and willingly denounce her brother and stand by her friend. That makes her strong, sure. And her actions are right. But I do find it hard to believe that someone who loves her brother would so quickly take the other side.

It’s interesting to note that author Colleen Hoover did not originally plan to write this sequel at all, but her fans – and later, publisher – demanded it. It was nice to the rest of the story flushed out though. This is a rare occasion in which I feel the sequel actually added something of value, allowing for a real happy ending for Atlas and Lily and a more clear picture of and plan for how Lily and Ryle would continue to co-parent their daughter despite their relationship status. After having read this book, it makes It Ends With Us feel unfinished. This really completes the tale.

MVP: Atlas. He really is the best. He takes on new challenges without doubts and instead, full confidence that he can either a) handle it or b) it will all work out even if he can’t.

Get It Starts With Us in paperback for $9.65.

Or on your Kindle for $13.99.

Review: November 9

Recap: When Fallon goes out to lunch with her father on the dreaded day of November 9th, she’s full-on expecting to have a terrible time with her dad who just serves as a reminder of a the trauma that left her covered in burn scars and ruined her career as an actress. What she doesn’t expect is to have a boy named Ben try to come to her rescue, pretend to be her boyfriend and stand up to her dad, who acted every bit as the ass she anticipated he would. What follows is a magical day with this guy, Ben, who seems to see past her scars and makes her feel sexy and beautiful, something she hasn’t felt since the fire.

But there are two problems: one is that Fallon is about to leave and move across the country from California to New York City in a an effort to revive her acting career. The other problem is her mom told her never to fall in love before she’s 23, so she refuses allow that to happen for another five years. So she and Ben agree to meet with each other every year on November 9 for five years and see where they’re at, at that point. They’ll meet each year on the same date in the same place with absolutely no contact in between. They’re aware their agreement is as ridiculous as it sounds, but they know there’s something special between making it worth it.

Ben, an aspiring author, documents their November 9 over the year in the form of a book he will eventually allow Fallon to read. And the two give each other assignments or goals they want each other to achieve in the upcoming year until they meet again. But each time they meet again, it’s under different circumstances – some positive and some horrific. November 9, what was once a traumatic anniversary for Fallon, becomes a day of love, angst and twists and turns with Ben in a preposterous premise which just might have a happy ending.

Analysis: Yeah, I’ll say it again: preposterous premise. But it DOES work and only because author Colleen Hoover and both of her lead characters are evidently aware of it and make reference to it in a very meta way. She even references other books and movies that use similar concepts like One Day. The tongue-in-cheek of it all allows the reader to resolve and give in to the silliness. What results is a sexy, romantic romp with some twists on each November 9 that really make heads spin. Much like she does in Verity, Hoover proves her talent writing shocks and surprises that are completely gutting and make it impossible to put her books down.

That said, the final November 9 of the book is a little confusing timeline-wise (which does, in fact, matter when so much of the book revolves around the passage of time, recurrent dates and the calendar) and Hoover wraps it up a little too quickly, almost like she was in a rush to just finish the damn book already. But I was so heavily invested at that point, I more or less threw up my hands and said “whatever!” I was just happy to see Ben and Fallon so happy.

MVP: Fallon. She makes mistakes. Ben makes mistakes. Neither is perfect, and I could sit here and say “if she had done this, then it never would have led to this incredibly painful moment…” but ultimately they are teenagers. Young people in love do some crazy, stupid things and don’t necessarily think logically. Fallon makes mistakes that any young girl would but comes out the other side with such growth, strength and confidence. It’s a real hero’s journey for her and it’s satisfying to witness.

Get November 9 in paperback for $9.63.

Or on your Kindle for $12.99.

Review: Ugly Love

Recap: When Tate Collins moves in with her brother, Corbin, she anticipates she’ll have to share space with him and his friends, focus on school and work and make friends with classmates. All that is true. What she doesn’t anticipate is coming home to find a drunk friend of her brother’s outside their apartment, who she then has to drag to a couch. He’s a messy drunk and upset, sad about an ex. Tate is annoyed. This isn’t exactly what she signed up for. When she learns this drunk friend is a guy named Miles who not only works with her brother, but also lives down the hall, she realizes she’s going to be spending a lot of time with him.

And suddenly that’s not so bad. Every time they’re together, she feels an electric pull toward him and his eyes always starting deeply at her, almost through her. It’s not long before it becomes clear she must have Miles. So when he makes a move, another move, a smile, Tate starts to lose it. Before she knows it, the two of them can’t keep their hands off each other. All of this is kept secret from their mutual connection, Corbin, of course. And it’s not officials because Miles refuses to be in a relationship. In fact, he refuses to allow himself to fall in love. Tate thinks she can “handle” this, but of course she can’t.

As this “A” plotline is happening, a separate “B” plotline is underway too, as the book switches narrators. Tate narrates her relationship with Miles, while Miles narrates the story of his relationship with his ex from six years ago, eventually leading up to the reason he is the way he is; aka: completely blocked off from love and any kind of meaningful relationship.

Analysis: Ugly Love is one of the first books I read in a while that feels like a through and through “romance” novel. In fact, the only thing I can compare it to is Fifty Shades of Grey, which…would we really classify that as a romance novel anyway? Regardless, I stand by Colleen Hoover, despite all the flack she gets. Her writing: not the best. Her tropes: many are pretty obvious and have been done time and time again. But the sex scenes are sexy! And the woman can write a good twist. I thought I figured out why Miles was so closed off to love with Tate, and I was 95% of the way there, but I still didn’t figure out that last five percent. I still found myself destroyed when I learned what happened to him. And ultimately, I was so compelled by the story, I couldn’t put the book down. For me, plot trumps everything, even mediocre writing and weak female protagonists. Which is exactly what I found Tate to be. I wanted her to be stronger. I wanted her to speak up against Miles and his assholery even more. But if Hoover is going for realism in that respect, she pretty much hit the nail on the head because I think most women would want to hold onto a guy like Miles even if the situation was messed up. Particularly women in their early 20’s like this character is portrayed. Verity was the book that made me understand why people liked Colleen Hoover, but Ugly Love is the book that made me realize why people stick with her.

MVP: Miles. He’s mysterious. He’s an asshole. But in the world of mysterious assholes who women date and try to fix, he’s one that actually is fixed! And it stems from his own willingness to step outside his comfort zone and grow. Respect.

You can get Ugly Love in paperback for $10.34.

Or on your Kindle for $11.99.

Review: The Hurricane Sisters

Recap: It’s hurricane season ins South Carolina, and while a big storm hasn’t happened yet this season, Ashley and her mother, Liz, have their own personal hurricanes brewing. Ashley is a young, beautiful artist who’s working a pretty easy job and has a crush on a local lawmaker. So when he notices her at a party, she starts to think her life about it be right on track to be the artistic wife of a politician. But when they start dating, she pushes all red flags aside: his temper, his territorial and controlling nature and his ego. Some of her friends and family see it, but she refuses to accept that he’s not the “one” for her. Meanwhile, her mother is losing sight of her priorities as she hits middle age. While her work in the nonprofit world is going well, her mother, Maisie, is driving her nuts with her quirky elderly boyfriend, and she thinks her husband may have a sidepiece up in New York, where he often travels for business.

As Liz uncovers more family secrets and Ashley and her roommate come up with schemes to make some fast cash (they are poor twenty-somethings, after all), the truths are revealed about the men in their lives and suddenly things aren’t so perfect after all. Everything peaks as a massive hurricane is set to hit the coast where Ashley lives. Amid the internal and external storms, three generations of women must determine their next steps and whether they want to stay with the men who have done them dirty.

Analysis: This book came recommended to me, so I expected it to be a fairy high quality piece of literature. So I was surprised to find it was fairly reductive, predictable and lazily written. Upon more research, I learned these kinds of books are author Dorothea Benton Frank’s M.O. She is known for her chick lit beach read fare which often takes places in the South Carolina Low Country, where she’s from. She’s the author of many bestsellers. Knowing that, I kept with it and better appreciated it for what it was.

While the writing didn’t impress me much and I found myself mentally yelling at Ashley as her boyfriend started to abuse her, I did actually like the way Frank brought everything together in the end. The storylines started to feel as serious as they were, and the characters ultimately made the right choices. Liz even made some decisions I didn’t see coming, as did Ashley. Both of them proved to be much stronger characters, ultimately, than they seemed to be in the onset or even throughout the journey

The women stood together in the end in a way that was very hokey. A bit too saccharine for me. I don’t know that I would read another Dorothea Benton Frank book again unless I was in the mood for particularly light, brainless summer fun.

MVP: Maisie. The grandmother in this novel is a lively, elderly wackadoo and I loved it. She offers some lightness and playfulness that helped offset the melodrama of the women surrounding her in the novel. We could all use someone like Maisie.

Get The Hurricane Sisters in paperback now for $14.99.

Or on your Kindle for $11.99.

Review: Then She Was Gone

Recap: Laurel Mack has been struggling for a long time. Her daughter went missing at the age of 15 and was never found. It was the kind of tragedy that destroyed her marriage and broke her relationship with her other children too, as they remained just that: “other.” So when she meets a nice man, the first who has taken interest in her in quite some time, she is flustered, flattered and fairly fixated on him.

Very quickly she meets his daughter, Poppy. Laurel can’t seem to get Poppy out of her mind. Poppy and her daughter, Ellie, look so much alike that Laurel finds herself consumed with the disappearance of Ellie once again. She doesn’t want to let her family in on it since they’ve finally reached a point in which they’re getting along well again after so many years of grief, pain and awkwardness.

So she sets out for answers by herself, and what she learns leaves her astonished.

Analysis: Holy, Gone Girl vibes. This twisty thriller was a page-turner, but offered a different determination than Gone Girl did for me (and yes, Gone Girl has become my go-to book of comparison for all modern-day, female-written and female-driven thriller novels); where Gone Girl‘s twists captured me by complete surprised, I’ve now come to expect the shocking surprises. Instead of desperately trying to learn what happened in Then She Was Gone, I found myself powering through to figure out if my theories were rights.

As it turns out, it was. And therein lies the problem for me. As much as I enjoyed this book – and I really did! – the foreshadowing was anything but subtle. Several friends who read the book along with me also figured out at least some aspect of the mystery. And while it’s fun to play to detective, I think it’s more fun to be completely blown away. Without giving away any spoilers, my prediction of what led up to the book’s ending was definitely off. Some of the story lines played out a lot creepier and weirder than I expected.

What really made the story for me were the alternating characters narrating, as my favorite novels do. The book goes back and forth between present day and the time of Ellie Mack’s disappearance, offering us many more breadcrumbs as to what may have happened to Ellie.

MVP: Ellie Mack. Though we know less about her than some of the other characters, we learn enough to know that despite what she’s been through, despite her age, compared to the other characters, she might be the only one to have a good head on her shoulders.

Get Then She Was Gone in paperback now for $8.78.

Or on your Kindle for $11.99.

Review: Mistress of the Ritz

Recap: The year is 1940. The place is Paris, France at the Ritz Hotel, one of the most beautiful, extravagant and famous hotels in the world. Claude and Blanche are at odds with each other and the world. Fear envelops both of them as the war takes its firm grip on more and more of Europe. For so long, they lived a life of luxury living at the Ritz with Claude as the hotel manager and Blanche, his wife, gossiping among the wildly famous authors and artists who stayed there. Their marriage was never as strong as the confidence they portrayed separately.

The Nazis are taking over the hotel. Claude no longer runs the place. He must bend to the ways of the Germans and bow before their boldness. Blanche is in fear everyday, wondering what comes next while simultaneously loathing her adulterous husband. So she spends time with her friends, people like Lily, who Claude has come to vehemently dislike over the years.

Out of fear and anger and a need to do something – anything – to fight for her future, Blanche takes her own steps toward battling back against the Nazis, not knowing that her husband is doing the something similar. The lies increase in number but they also stem from good intention and a desire to better their lives.

Analysis: After reading another Melanie Benjamin book so recently, I was thrilled to start Mistress of the Ritz. I had already become familiar with Benjamin’s style of rotating narrators, strong female characters, historical fiction and varying timelines. But when I started Mistress, I was surprised to find this one wasn’t so female-driven. One of the narrators was a man. Would I like this partially-male centric novel as much? Especially when Blanche and Claude were so at odds with each other, so unlikeable initially and so spiteful? It took a few chapters, but yes.

Once Benjamin outlines some of the backstory between Blanche and Claude – their whirlwind meet-cute and wedding, their crazy honeymoon shenanigans and the ongoing issues between them – we start to understand why they are the way they are. And when the story takes a turn, offering solace to both of them via fending off Nazis, the true beauty of their personalities and relationship come to life.

Once again, Melanie Benjamin finds an already incredible TRUE story (Blanche and Claude Auzello were, in fact, real people who used the Ritz to assist the resistance against the Nazis) and finds a way of making it modern and relatable through her depth of characters and their relationships with each other. This is a story that’s 80 years old and not well known, and with the sentiment of a strong women finding her voice in the midst of turmoil, it Mistress reads as 2019 as anything.

MVP: Blanche. Not the most likeable initially, she uses her innate skills, talent and personality to find power in the most troubling times. Her growth and character development are a thing of beauty.

Get Mistress of the Ritz in paperback now for 17.38.

Or get it on your Kindle for $13.99.

Review: The Girls in the Picture

Recap: It’s the early 1900’s and Frances Marion isn’t sure what she wants, but she knows what she doesn’t want. She no longer wants to be married to a man she doesn’t live in San Francisco, a city that does nothing for her. So she moves to Los Angeles just as the movie industry starts to develop. She is fixated on somehow being a part of the world of cinema, but isn’t sure how. Until she meets Mary Pickford. And that’s when everything changes. 

The two quickly become best friends. Mary works toward a career in acting, while Frances soon finds herself writing screenplays. In the 1910’s and 1920’s, they are unicorns: women in the film industry. But they have the support of each other to keep working toward their dreams. They promise to never let men get in the way of their friendship. 

But it’s a promise made at too young an age to keep. When Mary falls in love with an already-married actor and Frances finds the perfect husband, Mary and Frances begin judging each other and the choices they’re making. As they stop supporting each other personally, they stop supporting each other professionally too. But will the different directions their lives are taking them ultimately bring them back together?

Analysis: I knew this was a historical fiction novel from the beginning, but didn’t know until midway through the book when author Melanie Benjamin started name-dropping other celebrities that Mary Pickford and Frances Marion were real women, and this was their true story, written in a fictionalized view, making the story all the more interesting. 

But more than anything else, the story is relatable. Every woman goes through ups and downs, even with their closest girlfriends. Every woman goes through ups and downs professionally. It’s a timeless story of women trying to balance friendship, work and love in modern times.

But their story is also timely. Historical fiction has a way of showing us how much and how little things have changed over the years. The film industry has changed immensely since it began in the 1910’s. All movies are “talkies” now, and shot in color and digital and the list goes on and on. But the #MeToo era proves that the painful experiences that women in film face — sexual harassment, pay disparity and lack of respect, power and opportunity — live on even after more than 100 years. 

Both tragic and beautiful, The Girls in the Picture gripped me so deeply, I couldn’t stop talking about it or recommending it to any woman or any fan of movies. 

MVP: Frances. Though stubborn in her ways and often judgemental, she is far more realistic than Mary about her role in the world. That gives her the ability to see clearly and realize when she has to take a step back from certain parts of her life. 

Get The Girls in the Picture in hardcover for $12.08.

Or get it on your Kindle for $12.99.