Monday, May 31, 2021

Review: So Happy Together by Deborah K. Shepherd

Are you the same person you were ten years ago? Fifteen? Twenty? We all change as we experience different things, as life leads us down different paths. But what if you took a look at yourself and the life you were leading and you felt like you'd lost the best part of yourself, the piece that made you the happiest, the you that was most authentic? How do you handle that realization? In Deborah K. Shepherd's novel So Happy Together, main character Caro takes off on a road trip away from the life she's created and her unraveling marriage back towards the man she loved in college and the woman she was then, despite how it all ended. Can Caro recapture that love and the life she once craved? Should she?

It's the 80s. Caro Tanner is a wife and mother of three living a conventional life in Westport, Connecticut with her lawyer husband Jack. She is dissatisfied with her life, mourning the loss of her once promising life as a playwright (she hasn't written anything in years), unhappy in her marriage, and suffocated by the image of the perfect housewife and mother (nose job, dyed hair, PTA, country club, and all) that she has turned into. Once upon a time, Caro was a completely different person. At the University of Arizona in the 60s, Caro was a free wheeling, pot smoking, protest attending, free love practicing, kooky spirited playwright. She was authentic in ways she lost over the intervening 20 years. The morning that she puts her three children on the bus for summer camp, Caro leaves a note for her husband, telling him she needs time away, and she hits the road to find Peter, the man she has always loved, the man who accepted her exactly as she was back in school and who she has convinced herself is her soul mate, the solution to all the discontent in her current life. As she slowly wends her way across the country, memories of that time and the deep friendship and love she had for Peter accompany her, interwoven occasionally with scenes from her life with Jack and of her travels west.

Caro has lost herself, sold out, and she doesn't much like herself as she drives along. Together she and Jack changed from idealistic young protesters to a conventional, establishment couple. Her unhappiness and the ennui in their marriage is palpable but so is her love for their children. At the same time, her idealized return to her past through her memories drives her desire for a new start with Peter. Shepherd captures the 60s time period very well, the atmosphere, the feelings, the rebellion. Her young Caro is naive and damaged, searching for acceptance and love, but she's also talented, smart, and principled. Like Caro, Peter is carrying some pretty heavy baggage, wanting to be someone he's not. He is gifted at playing a part, onstage and off. They care very deeply for each other but sometimes that's not enough. Both characters are well drawn and their story is engaging. Caro and Jack's story is less fleshed out than Caro and Peter's but it does take Caro revisiting her feelings about and life with Peter for her to really see the truth in her everyday life with Jack. The story is definitely engrossing and although the reader understands the truth of the past and the present long before Caro does, they will still turn the pages quickly to find out what happens with Caro and Peter and Jack. This is a novel of second chances, rediscovering the core of who you are, cherishing memories, and moving forward. Caro learns a lot about herself and who she wants to be on her road trip and while the novel ends in the 80s, I'd love to know who Caro is in the 2020s.

For more information about Deborah K. Shepherd and the book, check our her author site, look at the book's Goodreads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and publisher She Writes Press for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston.

The book is being released by St. Martin's Griffin on June 1, 2021.

The book's jacket copy says: For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.

But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.

Monday, May 24, 2021

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

(This explanation still fits so I'm leaving it.) It's been an age since I posted so this is many weeks worth but I was in a reading slump for much of it so it still won't be long. This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed over the past weeks are:

Heartwood by Barbara Becker
My Own Miraculous by Joshilyn Jackson
Duchess If You Dare by Anabelle Bryant
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
After Francesco by Brian Malloy
When the Apricots Bloom by Gina Wilkinson
Assembly by Natasha Brown
The Walls Came Tumbling Down by Henriette Roosenburg
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
Silence by William Carpenter
The Ghost Dancers by Adrian C. Louis

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

The Boat Runner by Devin Murphy
Brother Sister Mother Explorer by Jamie Figueroa
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
Interior Chinatown by Cahrles Yu
The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey
House of Trelawney by Hannah Rothschild
Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump
In Love with George Eliot by Kathy O'Shaughnessy
Other People's Children by R. J. Hoffmann
When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson-Brown
Inheritors by Asako Serizawa
We Learnt About Hitler at the Mickey Mouse Club by Enid Elliott Linder
The Restaurant Inspector by Alex Pickett
Modern Jungles by Pao Lor
Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed
Miseducated by Brandon P. Fleming

Reviews posted this week:

still nothing

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London
Minus Me by Mameve Medwed
We Think the World of You by J.R. Ackerley
What You Wish For by Katherine Center
The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Initiates by Etienne Davodeau
You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle
The Arctic Fury by Greer MacAllister
Writers and Lovers by Lily King
Better Luck Next Time by Julia Claiborne Johnson
Austenistan edited by Laaleen Sukhera
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
Love Is Blind by Lynsay Sands
Saving Miss Oliver's by Stephen Davenport
Refining Felicity by M.C. Beaton
Queenie by Candace Carty-Williams
Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson
Sea Swept by Nora Roberts
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
More Confessions of a Trauma Junkie by Sherry Lynn Jones
Inlaws and Outlaws by Kate Fulford
The Belinda Chronicles by Linda Seidel
Jane in Love by Rachel Givney
Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau
The Wind Blows and the Flowers Dance by Terre Reed
Lovely War by Julie Berry
A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole
Dear County Agent Guy by Jerru Nelson
This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear
The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict
All Adults Here by Emma Straub
Nice Girls Finish First by Alesia Holliday
Cosmogony by Lucy Ives
Heartwood by Barbara Becker
My Own Miraculous by Joshilyn Jackson
Duchess If You Dare by Anabelle Bryant
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
After Francesco by Brian Malloy
When the Apricots Bloom by Gina Wilkinson
Assembly by Natasha Brown
The Walls Came Tumbling Down by Henriette Roosenburg
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
Silence by William Carpenter
The Ghost Dancers by Adrian C. Louis

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

The book is being released by Ballantine Books on June 1, 2021.

The book's jacket copy says: Malibu: August 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer Mick Riva.

The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time for him to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.

Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.

And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come rising to the surface.

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them . . . and what they will leave behind.

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

The Stars We Share by Rafe Posey.

The book is being released by Pamela Dorman Books on May 18, 2021.

The book's jacket copy says: Set against the backdrop of World War II, a sweeping, atmospheric novel of sacrifice, ambition, and commitment, and the secrets we keep from the ones we love

It's 1927 when Alec and June meet as children in a tranquil English village. Alec, an orphan, anchors himself in the night sky and longs for adventures. June memorizes maps and railway timetables, imagining a future bright with possibilities.

As the years pass, their loves feels inevitable, but soon the Second World War separates them. Alec enlists as a Royal Air Force pilot flying daredevil fighter sorties at night; June finds her calling as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park, covert work that will mean keeping her contribution to the war effort a secret from Alec forever. Each is following a dream—but those dreams force them apart for years at a time.

Their postwar reunion is bittersweet: Alec, shot down and imprisoned in a series of POW camps, grapples with his injuries and the loss of his RAF career. June, on the other hand, has found her vocation and struggles to follow the expected path to domesticity, as much as she loves Alec. But Alec wants nothing more than to make a life and a family together.

With the war behind them, their scars—both visible and unseen—make them strangers to each other. Now each must decide how much to reveal to the other, which dreams can be sacrificed, and which secrets are too big to bear alone.

Spanning forty years and shifting from bustling Indian ports to vibrant gardens in Edinburgh to a horse farm in Kenya, The Stars We Share is a poignant, heart-wrenching novel about the decisions and concessions that make a life and a love worth having.

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

The Guncle by Steven Rowley.

The book is being released by G. P. Putnam's Sons on May 25, 2021.

The book's jacket copy says: From the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus and The Editor comes a warm and deeply funny novel about a once-famous gay sitcom star whose unexpected family tragedy leaves him with his niece and nephew for the summer.

Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. That is, he loves spending time with them when they come out to Palm Springs for weeklong visits, or when he heads home to Connecticut for the holidays. But in terms of caretaking and relating to two children, no matter how adorable, Patrick is, honestly, overwhelmed.

So when tragedy strikes and Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick's brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian. Despite having a set of "Guncle Rules" ready to go, Patrick has no idea what to expect, having spent years barely holding on after the loss of his great love, a somewhat-stalled acting career, and a lifestyle not-so-suited to a six- and a nine-year-old. Quickly realizing that parenting--even if temporary--isn't solved with treats and jokes, Patrick's eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility, and the realization that, sometimes, even being larger than life means you're unfailingly human.

With the humor and heart we've come to expect from bestselling author Steven Rowley, The Guncle is a moving tribute to the power of love, patience, and family in even the most trying of times.

Popular Posts