Book Review: Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Happiness for Beginners
Author: Katherine Center
Publisher: Griffin
Publication date: March 24, 2015
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

A year after getting divorced, Helen Carpenter, thirty-two, lets her annoying, ten years younger brother talk her into signing up for a wilderness survival course. It’s supposed to be a chance for her to pull herself together again, but when she discovers that her brother’s even-more-annoying best friend is also coming on the trip, she can’t imagine how it will be anything other than a disaster. Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen’s well-behaved life: three weeks in the remotest wilderness of a mountain range in Wyoming where she will survive mosquito infestations, a surprise summer blizzard, and a group of sorority girls.

Yet, despite everything, the vast wilderness has a way of making Helen’s own little life seem bigger, too. And, somehow the people who annoy her the most start teaching her the very things she needs to learn. Like how to stand up for herself. And how being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes you just have to get really, really lost before you can even have a hope of being found.

Katherine Center has become a go-to author for me, but I hadn’t gone back and read any of her earlier books. My introduction to this author was the 2018 novel How to Walk Away, and I’ve read all her books published since then. Fortunately, I stumbled across Happiness for Beginners, and I’m so glad that I finally gave it a try.

As the story opens, Helen is a 32-year-old teacher whose life for the past few years has, frankly, sucked. She’s divorced from her alcoholic husband and has been stuck in her own sadness for quite a while now, desperately in need of a change. Despite her rocky relationship with her younger brother Duncan, whom she barely tolerates, she grabs onto his suggestion of a wilderness backpacking course as a way to shake up her life, but then is dismayed to learn that Duncan’s best friend Jake will be participating as well — and what’s more, that Duncan has promised Jake that Helen will drive him to Wyoming for the start of the course.

The wilderness course is a 3-week backcountry hiking adventure that has a reputation for being incredibly difficult and dangerous. Helen could have gone to Paris, but she feels like this is how she’ll find a new outlook on life. She does not need Jake tagging along, although she’s surprised to learn just what a great companion he can be during their road trip. Still, an ill-advised kiss later, she decides that any closeness with Jake is a mistake, and informs him that once the backpacking trip starts, they’re to act like strangers.

As the group sets off into the wilderness, Helen finds herself both the oldest in the group and a total outsider. The others are mostly college-aged jocks and sorority sisters, many participating for the sake of college credits, and most are in much better shape than she is. Helen finds herself stumbling along at the back of the pack, picked on by the trip leader, and excluded from the easy companionship she sees developing between the rest of the group.

Her situation improves over time as she proves herself through determination and picking up wilderness skills (she’s an awesome map-reader!), and she becomes friends with a younger woman on the trip whose academic focus is the study of happiness. With Windy’s coaching, Helen begins to learn to center herself with appreciation and being present in the good moments, and the trip eventually brings the personal transformation she’d so hoped for… although she has to deal with heartache along the way too.

At first, I was annoyed by the plot of Happiness for Beginners. I think I may have been ruined for this sort of fiction by Cheryl Strayed’s Wild (which bugged the hell out of me). Call me old-fashioned, but I have little patience for characters who set off on adventures that they’re totally unprepared for and shrug off warnings about the risks — and even less patience for stories where these unprepared characters end up totally fine and triumphant, making it seem like anyone could… I don’t know… hike the entire Appalachian Trail on a whim.

Putting that aside, though, Helen really grew on me as a character, particularly as we learn more about her childhood and difficult family situation. Having her brother’s best friend as her companion and love interest is an unusual set-up. Beyond their great chemistry, one of the elements I appreciated about Helen and Jake as a couple is how her developing appreciation for Jake helped her begin to see Duncan in a new and better light.

The adventure elements are great, and I really enjoyed vicariously hiking up and down trails, camping under the stars, and seeing the glorious sites. (I was happy it was only a vicarious experience, though, given the descriptions of how gross and smelly they all were by the end of the three weeks). In fact, I got a little miffed that we didn’t get even more of the hike — the narrative skips ahead days at a time in some points, and I get it — seeing them hike trails for twenty-one straight days could get repetitive — but at the same time, I wanted just a few more days of hiking.

The characters are terrific, the love story elements are believable and nicely built, and I loved the setting and the overall premise. For fans who’ve discovered Katherine Center through her more recent novels, I definitely recommend checking out Happiness for Beginners too.

Netflix released a movie version of Happiness for Beginners last month, and even though at first glance the casting and tone seem different from what I’d expect after reading the book, I’m up for giving it a shot sometime soon. Here’s the trailer:

What do you think? Would you watch this movie?

12Aug2023

Book Review: The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Invisible Hour
Author: Alice Hoffman
Publisher: Atria
Publication date: August 15, 2023
Length: 272 pages
Genre: Contemporary/historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage of Opposites and the Practical Magic series comes an enchanting novel about love, heartbreak, self-discovery, and the enduring magic of books.

One brilliant June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. The Scarlet Letter was written almost two hundred years earlier, but it seems to tell the story of Mia’s mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community—an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside world is forbidden, and books are considered evil. But how could this be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her?

Through a journey of heartbreak, love, and time, Mia must abandon the rules she was raised with at the Community. As she does, she realizes that reading can transport you to other worlds or bring them to you, and that readers and writers affect one another in mysterious ways. She learns that time is more fluid than she can imagine, and that love is stronger than any chains that bind you.

As a girl Mia fell in love with a book. Now as a young woman she falls in love with a brilliant writer as she makes her way back in time. But what if Nathaniel Hawthorne never wrote The Scarlet Letter ? And what if Mia Jacob never found it on the day she planned to die?

Nathaniel Hawthorne “A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”

This is the story of one woman’s dream. For a little while it came true.

When teenaged Ivy becomes pregnant, her wealthy Boston family treats her with scorn and decides — without her consent — that she’ll give birth and then give the baby away. In desperation, Ivy runs away, and a chance encounter with a stranger leads her to the Community, a farm outside the western Massachusetts town of Blackwell, led by a charismatic man named Joel Davis. At first, the Community seems like a haven. Ivy is welcomed, given a home, and captures the attention of Joel, who eventually marries her.

But the Community is not merely a peaceful communal farm — it’s a structure, highly regulated, isolated world completely controlled by Joel and his dictates. Women must dress simply, vanity is not allowed, children belong to the Community at large and not to their biological parents, and books of any kind are forbidden. Punishments are harsh — from lettered signs hung around necks for initial or minor offenses to having letters branded on the offenders’ arms for more serious infractions. But by the time Ivy realizes the truth of the Community, she’s stuck — she’s given birth to her daughter Mia, and Joel has made it clear that if she ever leaves, she’ll never see Mia again.

As Mia grows, Ivy and Mia maintain a secret bond despite its forbidden nature, and Ivy shares the stories and fairy tales she remembers from her own youth during their secret meetings in the woods. As Mia grows up, Ivy encourages her to sneak away to the Blackwell public library while working at the Community’s farmstand in town, and soon Mia’s life revolves around the books she hides in the barn.

Mia now understood that Joel was well aware that once a girl walked into a library she could never be controlled again.

After tragic events, Mia is more trapped than ever. In despair, Mia takes a random book from the library shelves and then heads to the river, where she intends to load her pockets with stones and drown herself, the only escape she can envision. But when she opens the books and begins to read, she’s awed to find that this particular book speaks directly to her, and offers her a new way to think about her life and her future.

The book is The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and it literally changes Mia’s life. Without going too much further into the plot points, I’ll just say that Mia finds a way to escape and start over, thanks to the help of a kind librarian (librarians rock!), and her love for Nathaniel Hawthorne eventually leads to a timeslip element that takes her into his world.

It’s hard to summarize my feelings about The Invisible Hour. As with all of Alice Hoffman’s books, the writing here is beautiful, with some passages and ideas that just take my breath away. And while some of the author’s books are among my very favorites, there are also many where I love the writing and feel disconnected from or let down by the plot. Sadly, The Invisible Hour mostly fits into the second category.

I was deeply engrossed in the first half of the book, where Mia’s childhood and youth at the Community are the focus, as well as her escape and her discovery of a future filled with books, autonomy, loving found family, and the ability to set her own path. When the timeslip elements come into play in the second half of the book, that’s where it loses me to a great extent.

It’s not that I have a problem with time travel or timeslip novels, not by a long shot! Somehow, the introduction of the time element in The Invisible Hour felt jarring and not at all believable to me. Perhaps it was the introduction of Nathaniel Hawthorne as a character that broke the spell for me. In any case, despite the seeming intention to show this as a magical element brought about by a special book, I just couldn’t buy it, and felt dissatisfied for much of the rest of the book.

On the other hand, I do love how beautifully the power of books and reading is shown throughout The Invisible Hour. Books literally save and then change Mia’s life

… he believed it was possible to see inside a person’s soul once you knew which books mattered to them.

I wish I had loved The Invisible Hour. As I’ve already said, the writing is gorgeous and evocative, and makes this book well worth reading. I just wish I’d felt as strongly about the plot itself as I do about the way it’s written. Mia’s story is sad yet ultimately lovely and full of hope, but the timeslip elements fell flat for me and detracted from the impact of the whole.

Side note: I don’t have particularly good memories of reading The Scarlet Letter way back in high school, but after reading The Invisible Hour, I’m very tempted to give it another try.

9Aug2023

Book Review: California Golden by Melanie Benjamin

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: California Golden
Author: Melanie Benjamin
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication date: August 8, 2023
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Two sisters navigate the turbulent, euphoric early days of California surf culture in this dazzling saga of ambition, sacrifice, and longing for a family they never had, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife

Southern California, 1960s: endless sunny days surfing in Malibu, followed by glittering neon nights at Whisky A-Go-Go. In an era when women are expected to be housewives, Carol Donelly is breaking the mold as a legendary female surfer struggling to compete in a male-dominated sport–and her daughters, Mindy and Ginger, bear the weight of her unconventional lifestyle.

The Donnelly sisters grow up enduring their mother’s absence–physically, when she’s at the beach, and emotionally, the rare times she’s at home. To escape questions about Carol’s whereabouts–and chase their mom’s elusive affection–they cut school to spend their days in the surf. From her first time on a board, Mindy shows a natural talent, but Ginger, two years younger, feels out of place in the water.

As they grow up and their lives diverge, Mindy and Ginger’s relationship ebbs and flows. Mindy finds herself swept up in celebrity, complete with beachside love affairs, parties at the Playboy Club, and USO tours to Vietnam. Meanwhile, Ginger–desperate for a community of her own–is tugged into the vibrant counterculture of drugs and cults. Through it all, their sense of duty to each other survives, as the girls are forever connected by the emotional damage they carry from their unorthodox childhood.

A gripping, emotional story set at a time when mothers were expected to be Donna Reed, not Gidget, California Golden is an unforgettable novel about three women living in a society that was shifting as tempestuously as the breaking waves.

Content warning: Parental neglect, child abandonment, partner abuse, cults, violence.

In California Golden, a legacy of neglectful parenting leads sisters Mindy and Ginger to the Southern California surf culture of the 1960s. Ignored and starved for affection by their mother Carol, whose own dreams were cut short by an unplanned pregnancy and the marriage that followed, the sisters throw themselves into surfing as a way to follow their mother and make sure she doesn’t abandon them completely. But while Mindy takes to surfing almost instinctively and displays a huge talent for it, Ginger struggles to keep up.

Over time, Mindy becomes a champion surfer, a surfing stand-in for the stars of beach party movies, and a spokesmodel for sponsors keen to have her sunny good looks and popularity attached to their brands. As Mindy becomes more involved with the club and music scene, Ginger instead gets caught up in the personal aura of a self-proclaimed “Surf God”, a charismatic beach bum who deplores surfing’s commercialization and who demands absolute devotion.

As years go by, Mindy and Ginger are pulled farther and farther apart by their different worlds — Mindy immersed in celebrity and stardom, while Ginger falls deeper into an abusive, all-encompassing relationship that leaves her powerless and penniless.

Meanwhile, Carol seems to live in her own world, always resentful of the sacrifices she had to make for the sake of motherhood, and wanting more than anything to reclaim her own body and her own passions.

With the Vietnam War ramping up and the surfing craze finally passing its peak, the lives of these three women intersect again and again, not always in ways that they’d expected or wanted.

Through these characters, California Golden shows the incredibly strong pressure (and hypocritical stances) imposed on women of the late 1950s and 1960s — to fit in, to become wives and mothers, to put men and children first, and to always do it with a smile. Carol is a hard person to sympathize with, but when later in the book, we get more of the story of her younger years, it’s clear that she faced a no-win situation where every last ounce of agency was stripped away from her. It’d hard to feel sorry for a neglectful mother, but at least we get to see how she ended up where she did.

The dynamic between Mindy and Ginger is complicated and sad, and it’s excruciating to see Ginger become pulled further and further into abuse, neglect, and a cult-like life revolving around drug smuggling and obedience.

The depiction of SoCal surf culture is evocative, although Mindy’s time in the music and celebrity life of the Sunset Strip feels somewhat repetitive of other books set in that era — the surf elements feel new and fresh, but the rest less so.

I appreciated the web of relationships and connections, but would have liked certain romantic connections to have more time to grow and breathe, and a conflict over racism isn’t especially well developed. I got the sense at various points that this book was trying to cram in too many iconic elements of the 1960s, sometimes to the point of overwhelming the central focus on the sisters and their mother.

The chapters focused on Mindy and Ginger’s childhood are so hard to read, so that when we do finally get the opportunity late in the book to learn about events from Carol’s perspective, it’s too late to salvage much in the way of good feelings toward her… but at least we get the chance to understand, even if we don’t condone or feel much empathy.

Reading California Golden, it’s impossible not to be grateful for reliable birth control and freedom of choice, endangered as that may be. If you want to convince someone that pregnancy and childbirth are traumatic, you might want to give them a copy of this book.

After a slow start (hampered by some weird chronology early on), the book begins to pick up steam — so while I wasn’t sure about it at first, by the midpoint, I was hooked and couldn’t put the book down. While I eventually got very caught up in the characters’ lives, I felt the ending tried to shoe-horn in too much, and left me with questions that I couldn’t ignore, despite the deliberate emotional fireworks.

Overall, I found California Golden entertaining, but questioned some of the plot choices, and didn’t feel that certain 1960s touchpoints added anything new or fresh to the book. It’s an interesting work of historical fiction, and for anyone interested in the era, it’s worth checking out.

6Aug2023

Book Review: The Celebrants by Steven Rowley

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Celebrants
Author: Steven Rowley
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication date: May 30, 2023
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises—especially to ourselves—by the bestselling and beloved author of The Guncle.

It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves.

But this reunion is different. They’re not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.

A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of selfhood and the people who keep us going, coupled with Steven Rowley’s signature humor and heart, The Celebrants is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth and the beautiful ways in which friendship helps us celebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.

The shortest of short reviews: I loved this book.

Want to know more? Okay, here goes…

The Celebrants is a funny, human, touching story of lasting friendship and chosen family, as well as a deeply impactful reminder to show love and appreciation to the people we care about while we still can.

In The Celebrants, a group of six best friends attending Berkeley in the mid-90s becomes a bereaved group of five after Alec dies tragically shortly before graduation. Numb, the friends gather after his funeral and talk about all the things they wish they’d told Alec while he was alive.

And so a pact is born: The five friends vow to hold “living funerals” for each other, to be held whenever someone needs a reminder that they’re loved and valued. Each person can trigger the pact when they feel they need it, and they each get one (and only one).

As they move into adulthood and into their own lives, the pact is largely forgotten, until almost twenty years later, when Marielle summons everyone back to the Big Sur house we’re they’d congregated after Alec’s death. With her marriage falling apart, feeling adrift and without purpose, Marielle calls upon the group to remind her of all that she has to live for.

From there, we see the group reconvene over the years at various crisis points in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. The gatherings are sentimental, funny, and ultimately, meaningful in different ways. Each person may need something different at their funeral, but the group is there to celebrate them no matter what.

I can’t say enough good things about The Celebrants. I came to really love the characters, both as individuals and as members of a friend group that’s based on love even at its snarkiest and most critical. The book is written with compassion and humor, and flows quickly from one funeral to the next, interspersed with the “now” storyline that drives the momentum of the novel as a whole.

In fact, the only discordant note for me was a scene where the group does mushrooms before going on an outing, which was probably meant to be much funnier than I found it and came across as fairly cringey.

Other than that, the writing is funny and emotional, a hard balance to pull off, but accomplished here incredibly well. The message of the book is powerful and left me thinking quite a bit — it’s all about celebrating life and the important people in it while they’re here, not waiting to tell people how and why they matter to us, because there’s no guarantee that there will be time later on.

None of them would leave this Earth without knowing that they were loved.

So much of this book resonated with me — holding onto lifelong friends, relishing small moments, sharing and facing difficult truths, and making space for the important people in our lives, even when we feel busy or overwhelmed ourselves.

I ended up listening to the audiobook of The Celebrants, which is narrated by the author. I’ve often found author narrations less than satisfactory, but not so in this case — he does a wonderful job of bringing the characters to life and conveying the humor and flavor of their banter and conversations.

I highly recommend The Celebrants. Don’t miss this lovely book.

5Aug2023

Book Review: Mrs. Porter Calling by AJ Pearce

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Mrs. Porter Calling
Author: AJ Pearce
Publisher: Scribner
Publication date: August 8, 2023
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

London, April 1943. A little over a year since she married Captain Charles Mayhew and he went away to war, Emmy Lake is now in charge of “Yours Cheerfully,” the hugely popular advice column in Woman’s Friend magazine. Cheered on by her best friend Bunty, Emmy is dedicated to helping readers face the increasing challenges brought about by over three years of war. The postbags are full and Woman’s Friend is thriving.

But Emmy’s world is turned upside down when glamorous socialite, the Honorable Mrs. Cressida Porter, becomes the new publisher of the magazine, and wants to change everything the readers love. Aided by Mrs. Pye, a Paris-obsessed fashion editor with delusions of grandeur, and Small Winston, the grumpiest dog in London, Mrs. Porter fills the pages with expensive clothes and frivolous articles about her friends. Worst of all, she announces that she is cutting the “Yours Cheerfully” column and her vision for the publication’s future seems dire. With the stakes higher than ever, Emmy and her friends must find a way to save the magazine that they love.

Emmy Lake is back! Mrs. Porter Calling is the third in a series of books about a magazine journalist and her group of close friends and colleagues, navigating life on the homefront in WWII-era London. In the first two books, Dear Mrs. Bird and Yours Cheerfully, we see Emmy land a job at Woman’s Friend magazine, where she eventually takes over the advice column, seeing it as her mission to offer compassionate, practical advice to women in need. Over the course of these two books, she also meets and marries a lovely man, and supports her best friend through horrible loss and recovery.

As Mrs. Porter Calling opens, the year is 1943, and Emmy continues her work at Woman’s Friend as well as with the fire service, which monitors and responds to disasters caused by air raids. Emmy’s beloved husband Charles is off on the front lines, the couple having had only a few short days together following their wedding before his deployment. Emmy shares a home with her best friend Bunty, and they lead busy, productive lives — they’ve learned to adapt and carry on, despite the constant fear and rationing.

Emmy’s professional life is thrown into a tailspin when the magazine’s owner dies. He’s bequeathed ownership to his niece, who turns out to be a spoiled upper-class woman who feigns delight with the magazine, provided they implement just a few of her “tiny ideas”. She finds the current version “A Bit Mis” — miserable — and decides that what the readers really need is more stories that are pleasant. Rather than focus on food columns about how to make good meals with limited rations or knitting/sewing clothing when supplies aren’t available, she wants glamour, fashion, and a focus on the beautiful lives of her own class. The staff of the magazine is appalled — this is not what their readers rely on them for — but having no choice, the magazine is changed to Mrs. Porter’s standards, and of course, readership and then advertising drop off. Soon, the future of Woman’s Friend is in doubt, and Emmy and her colleagues become desperate to save it.

Meanwhile, at home, Emmy and Bunty welcome a woman with three young children into their home, and soon their days are filled with activity and joyful chaos — but the realities of war are always present, and soon enough Emmy’s woes at the magazine are eclipsed by a more personal tragedy.

I enjoyed Mrs. Porter Calling so much! Mrs. Porter herself is an insidiously vapid character who acts sweetly haughty, until she hits the team with her “ideas”, all with the most saccharine of smiles and eyelash batting. As Emmy reflects:

I was beginning to feel as if I was being run over by a steamroller made from petals and kittens. It was delightful, but also somewhat immobilizing.

Beyond the work crises, where we can’t help but root for the underdogs — the hardworking, dedicated team of Woman’s Friend — the book delves sensitively into the lives of the women and children struggling to make ends meet on the home front.

“Don’t worry, Em, we’ll do what all the other women in Britain are doing.”

“What’s that?” I said.

“Cope,” said Bunty.

Again and again, Emmy, Bunty, and their circle of friends show what true bravery is, as well as devotion and determination.

While there’s sorrow and conflict in Mrs. Porter Calling, there’s a chipper, upbeat air that carries the story along — the “Keep Calm and Carry On” attitude that lets the characters find happiness even in the darkest of days. I loved the found family aspect of the characters’ lives — despite fears for loved ones on the battlefield or sorrow for those lost, they bond together to get through it all, and clearly show how love and friendship can mend broken hearts.

“War’s bad enough as it is. Imagine if you’re trying to get through this on your own.”

The Emmy Lake books are emotional, entertaining, and heart-warming. I recommend starting at the beginning of the series, and continuing on from there. I understand there’s at least one more book planned, and also read a comment by the author that she hopes to continue writing books that will take Emmy and friends through to the end of the war. I hope that’s the case! I’d really love to see more of Emmy’s story (and will be waiting to see what I hope will be a happy ending for her once the war ends).

3Aug2023

Book Review: The Hundred Loves of Juliet by Evelyn Skye

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Hundred Loves of Juliet
Authors: Evelyn Skye
Publisher: Del Rey
Publication date: August 1, 2023
Length: 337 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction / fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley

A woman discovers that she is part of a legendary love story that spans lives, years, and continents in this modern-day reimagining of Romeo and Juliet.

I may go by Sebastien now, but my name was originally Romeo. And hers was Juliet.

It’s a frosty fairytale of an evening in small-town Alaska when Helene and Sebastien meet for the first time. Except it isn’t the first time. You already know that story, though it didn’t happen quite as Shakespeare told it.

To Helene, Sebastien is the flesh-and-blood hero of the love stories she’s spent her life writing. But Sebastien knows better—Helene is his Juliet, and their story has always been the same. He is doomed to find brief happiness with her over and over, before she dies, and he is left to mourn.

Albrecht and Brigitta. Matteo and Amélie. Jack and Rachel. Marius and Cosmina. By any name, no matter where and when in time, the two of them are drawn together, and it always ends in tragedy.

This time, Helene is determined that things will be different. But can these star-cross’d lovers forge a new ending to the greatest love story of all time?

The Hundred Loves of Juliet takes the classic tragedy of Romeo and Juliet as inspiration for a modern-day love story that spans centuries.

After leaving her awful — manipulative, cheating, gaslighting — husband, Helene Janssen decides to create a new life for herself, and relocates to a small town in Alaska to recover her equilibrium and work on her novel. A professional journalist, Helene is eager to see if she can turn the snippets of stories she’s written all her life into an actual book.

Since middle school, Helene has had a vividly detailed imaginary hero at the center of her stories and daydreams. Whether as a nobleman at Versailles, a Swiss clockmaker, or trekking across the Sahara, the same man repeatedly appears in all her scenarios, and she knows everything about him — his appearance, his voice, even his quirky habits and gestures.

Imagine Helene’s shock when, on her first night in Alaska, the man from her stories shows up in the restaurant where she’s having dinner. He’s not just similar to her character — every detail matches up exactly. But when Helene approaches Sebastien, who’s clearly much beloved by the town and seems like kindness itself — he rudely rebuffs her and makes it clear that he doesn’t want to know her.

We soon learn more from Sebastien’s point-of-view, and what a story he has to tell! Sebastien is only his latest identity. Originally, he was Romeo Montague. Yes, that Romeo. And he lets us know just what Shakespeare got wrong. Juliet did die, shockingly and tragically, just a few short days after their secret marriage — but Romeo survived. Since then, he’s been cursed with immortality, and doomed to meet, fall in love with, and then lose reincarnations of Juliet, over and over again across the long centuries.

Each time he meets a new version of Juliet, he hopes things will be different, but each time, she dies — sometimes within days, sometimes after they begin a life together, but no Juliet has lasted more than two years after they meet. This time, he’s determined to save Helene — whom he immediately recognizes as Juliet — by staying out of her life. If he needs to run away from his life in Alaska in order to avoid her, he will… but when Helene is stranded near his home during a blizzard, he has no choice but to offer her shelter, and his carefully constructed walls can’t last once they begin to spend time together.

In many ways, The Hundred Lives of Juliet is highly enjoyable. Thanks to the alternating POV sections, we see the past vignettes as well as the current storyline unfold from both Helene’s and Sebastien’s perspectives, which helps us understand why they behave as they do. The rules of their curse aren’t clear-cut or consistent, and even Romeo/Sebastien isn’t entirely sure why things happen the way they do. Were they cursed by Mercutio’s dying words:

A plague o’ both your houses

Or is there some other reasons why Sebastien seems to live forever, while Juliet lives through sequential lives, always destined to die tragically at a young age?

There’s an undeniable tension that builds as the story progresses. Once Helene and Sebastien give in to the inevitability of their love, we can feel the clock ticking on their happiness. We know that all Juliets die, so there’s a sense of held breath — what will go wrong? This tension pulled me in and kept me reading, to the point where I just couldn’t stop until I reached the end.

At the same time, not everything here works well. We read Helene’s story vignettes scattered throughout the book, and there isn’t a particularly kind way to say that they feel pretty clichéd and stale. Not to mention, yes, Romeo has lived for about 700 years, but it still feels unlikely that his adventures would take him to quite that many new lives around the world.

On top of this, Helene’s novel-writing project is centered on turning her vignettes into a cohesive whole — but since it turns out that all of these stories are actually depictions of past lives she’s lived with Sebastien, how is that actually creative writing, and isn’t this all supposed to be a secret? (Also, I was amused that one of Helene’s first errands in Alaska is a trip to the local bookstore to buy a book about how to write a novel — is that really all it takes? A good how-to book?)

There’s a suspense element toward the end of the book involving a looming threat to Sebastien and Helene, as his secret is on the verge of being revealed (and they fear that if the truth gets out, he’ll be locked away in a government research facility forever — again, this feels very clichéd to me). However, the danger is dealt with pretty quickly in a way that is almost a deus ex machina solution, and I didn’t love anything about this part of the story.

Not to be overly nitpicky, but one scene in the first half of the book made me consider walking away from it all. Sebastien warns Helene not to go wandering around his house at night, she compares the warning to Belle being barred from the west wing in Beauty & the Beast, and he responds by calling her “childlike”. Okay, agreed, that’s rude… but she responds to the “childlike” comment by slapping him. SLAPPING him!?! Who does that? To a stranger who’s giving you shelter from a dangerous storm, and who may not be as polite as we’d like, but who has a right to set limits on where a guest goes in his home? Wow, I did not like this scene at all, and it made me think less of Helene as a person.

I’ve gone into greater details on what I didn’t like about the book, but the fact remains that I read the whole thing in about 24 hours, so clearly there was plenty that I did like! Helene and Sebastien’s struggles to make sense of their connection and to understand the past were very compelling, and the key concepts of the story are unique. I had a hard time suspending my disbelief, but ultimately decided to just go with it (immortality! reincarnation!) and not worry about whether every last bit made sense.

Overall, The Hundred Loves of Juliet is a compelling read despite its flaws, and I appreciated the momentum that builds over the course of the novel. It’s definitely more than a bit melodramatic, but considering this is a retelling/reimagining of Romeo and Juliet, I suppose melodrama is allowed!

29Jul2023

Book Review: With Love, From Cold World by Alicia Thompson

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: With Love, From Cold World
Author: Alicia Thompson
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: August 1. 2023
Length: 400 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction/romance
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher, via NetGalley
Rating:

She has a to-do list a mile long and falling for her coworker isn’t on it–yet somehow he’s become her top priority in this romantic comedy from the national bestselling author of Love in the Time of Serial Killers.

Lauren Fox is the bookkeeper for Cold World, a tourist destination that’s always a winter wonderland despite being located in humid Orlando, Florida. Sure, it’s ranked way below any of the trademarked amusement parks and maybe foot traffic could be better. But it’s a fun place to work, even if “fun” isn’t exactly Lauren’s middle name.

Her coworker Asa Williamson, on the other hand, is all about finding ways to enliven his days at Cold World–whether that means organizing the Secret Santa or teasing Lauren. When the owner asks Lauren and Asa to propose something (anything, really) to raise more revenue, their rivalry heats up as they compete to come up with the best idea. But the situation is more dire than they thought, and it might take these polar opposites working together to save the day. If Asa thought Lauren didn’t know how to enjoy herself, he’s surprised by how much he enjoys spending time together. And if Lauren thought Asa wasn’t serious about anything, she’s surprised by how seriously he seems to take her.

As Lauren and Asa work to save their beloved wintery spot, they realize the real attraction might be the heat generating between them.

In With Love, From Cold World, workplace tension between a pair of opposites hides a chemistry that pulls an unlikely couple together. Lauren is the buttoned-up bookkeeper who likes to keep her head down, focus on her spreadsheets, and — just for fun — do her to-do list items in random order. Asa is the free-spirited, blue-haired, tattooed jack-of-all trades who seemingly does a little of everything at Cold World, has no interest in moving up to a management position, and is ardently devoted to hosting Secret Santa exchanges every year.

Asa also seems to take an odd pleasure in teasingly calling Lauren a robot and trying to wind her up, which she SO doesn’t appreciate. And Lauren fears that she’s made a lifelong enemy due to a gaffe at her very first company holiday part, during which she suggested that Secret Santa was ultimately a waste of money (gasp!).

When Lauren and Asa are tasked by Cold World’s owner to come up with ideas for how to reenergize Cold World and increase revenues, they initially focus on competition rather than collaboration, but as circumstances force them together over and over, their enemy status shows signs of thawing and turning into something more.

There’s really a lot to enjoy about With Love, From Cold World. For starters, Cold World itself! The idea of a Florida attraction where visitors get to ice skate and play in the snow (in summer!) really does sound delightful.

Lauren and Asa themselves are both deeper than they initially appear to be. At first glance, they seem to fit very specific romance tropes — she’s the nerdy, uptight woman hiding her inner fire (and who’s much more beautiful than she realizes); he’s the daring, unconstrained artistic sort who believes in taking chances. They unlock something in each other and reveal their true selves…

And yes, that’s true here, but there’s more going on as well. Lauren was raised in the foster care system from a young age, and while she lucked out in having a kinder foster parent than many others she knew, she still grew up without the support or love of a family. She finds security in her orderly life, and is deeply afraid of opening herself up to rejection if she dares to start truly connecting with others.

Asa was kicked out of his family home after a parishioner sent his pastor father a photo of Asa kissing a boy. At age eighteen, Asa was on his own, cut off from family and support, but found a place to belong at Cold World. No wonder he’s still there ten years later — this is a place where he’s found acceptance, feels valued, and has created a found family for himself.

Lauren and Asa are a slow burn, and they constantly get in their own way when it comes to recognizing their connection and pursuing a relationship. Lauren in particular has a hard time communicating, and her difficulty with trust and defensiveness, creating barriers rather than risking being hurt, threatens to sink their relationship before it really has a chance to develop.

I enjoyed seeing each of them work through the obstacles keeping them apart and start to think about how to take the next steps in their own lives, as well as together. The Cold World setting is quite fun (if a little corny), and the dynamic of the larger friend group is really entertaining as well.

With Love, From Cold World is the second novel by Alicia Thompson, following last year’s Love in the Time of Serial Killers. After enjoying both of these books, I’m eager to see what she writes next!

28Jul2023

Book Review: The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Cabin at the End of the World
Author: Paul Tremblay
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Publication date: June 26, 2018
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin in northern New Hampshire. Far removed from the bustle of city life, they are cut off from the urgent hum of cell phones and the internet. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles away in either direction.

On a summer day, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen, but he is friendly, with a warm smile that wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen continue to talk and play, until three more strangers, two women and a man, all dressed like Leonard in jeans and button-down shirts, come down the road carrying strange, menacing objects.

In a panic, Wen tells Leonard that she must go back inside the cabin. But before she goes, her new friend tells her, “None of what’s going to happen is your fault. You haven’t done anything wrong, but the three of you will have to make some tough decisions. I wish with all my broken heart you didn’t have to.” As Wen sprints away to warn her parents, Leonard calls out, “Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world.”

The Cabin at the End of the World is a terrifying tale of the impending apocalypse… or of a group delusion… or of evil masquerading as people with a mission. What’s actually happening here is open to interpretation, but no matter the truth, it’s scary, violent, and claustrophobic.

We open with a lovely little family — 8-year-old Wen and her dads Eric and Andrew — enjoying a peaceful country vacation. The pretty cabin they’ve rented is remote but comfortable, a landline and a large flatscreen television the only devices to connect with the outside world. All is well, until a huge stranger appears from out of the woods and talks to Wen while she’s outside.

Leonard seems kind and Wen — even though she knows she’s not supposed to talk to strangers — is oddly drawn to his open manner — until three more people begin walking up the driveway, all dressed similarly to Leonard and carrying scary-looking implements. She doesn’t know it, but by the time she runs to the house and urges her dads to lock the doors, it’s already too late. The strangers start by knocking, but it’s clear that they’re coming in, no matter what.

Even once the cabin’s haven has been invaded, Leonard’s kindness, overlaid with deep sadness, persists. He won’t hurt the family. None of them will. But Eric, Andrew, and Wen must make a choice. The apocalypse is coming, and only they can stop it… by choosing one of their own to sacrifice. Eric, Andrew, and Wen must willingly choose which of them will die, and then carry out their decision by killing their sacrifice. Otherwise, billions of people will die and the world will be left a wasteland.

Does this make sense? Of course not. Eric and Andrew fight as much as they can. But the crazy people stay, and have the family at their mercy, and they are fanatically determined to see their mission through.

Why these four people are involved, who they are, and how they ended up at this cabin in New Hampshire is revealed over time. The events they foretell seem to be backed up by the momentary glimpses of news events when they occasionally turn on the TV. But are these real, or pre-recorded programming? Is any of this really happening? Even if it were, how could this one family in any way have anything to do with the outcome?

Horror stories set in isolated cabins have a certain vibe all their own — the helplessness, the idea of a beautiful escape from the world turning into a hellish trap, the lack of resources and impossibility of rescue. Here, the elements add up to a riveting story that features bursts of terrible violence, with a psychological tension that never lets up.

The story does not provide succinct answers, and even at its end, there’s a huge amount of ambiguity about what actually happened. And while that frustrated me in some ways (because apparently I need clear answers), it also makes the book especially haunting. I haven’t been able to shake if off since reading the final pages, and keep turning it over and over in my mind.

This is my first book by this author, but I’ll certainly be seeking out more… once I recover from this one!

The Cabin at the End of the World was adapted into a movie, A Knock at the Cabin, which was released earlier in 2023. I’ve seen very mixed reviews, but plan to watch it in the next week or so. Based on the trailer, it looks terrifying.

26Jul2023

Book Review: Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Legends & Lattes
Author: Travis Baldree
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: February 22, 2022
Length: 294 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

A NOVEL OF HIGH FANTASY AND LOW STAKES

After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time.

The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success—not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is.

If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won’t be able to go it alone.

But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.

After hearing raves about Legends & Lattes ever since its release, I finally gave it a try… and absolutely loved it. What a treat!

Viv is an orc who’s ready to put down her sword, leave behind her life of violence, and try something completely new — opening a coffee shop in the city of Thune, where no one has ever even heard of coffee. With the earnings from her sword-for-hire work saved up over her lifetime, she buys a run-down property, enlists the help of a talented builder, and hires a barista (after explaining what a barista is).

She sat back on the flagstones and rolled the bean between her thumb and forefinger. “I told you I came across it in Azimuth, and I remember following the smell to the shop. They called it a café. People just sat around drinking it from these little ceramic cups, and I had to try it, and … it was like drinking the feeling of being peaceful. Being peaceful in your mind. Well, not if you have too much, then it’s something else.”

The people of Thune don’t know how badly they need coffee in their lives… but with the help of clever marketing (free samples!) and the addition of freshly-baked cinnamon rolls, soon the line is out the door and the cafe’s business is booming.

I absolutely adored this book, from the wonderful main characters to the clever nods to coffee culture (such as the introduction of lattes, iced coffee, and to-go cups, as well as open mic events and the annoyance of a customer who comes to study all day but never buys anything).

Of course, there are conflicts too, as when a former colleague of Viv’s suspects that she’s hidden an object of great magical power from the rest of their crew, and is willing to take dire steps to take it from her.

I’m keeping this review short, because there’s so much pleasure to be had in discovering the joys of Legends & Lattes without expecting anything ahead of time. This is a gentle, lovely fantasy tale (with coffee!!), and while there are moments of danger and despair, the overarching themes of friendship and support are what make this book shine.

Don’t miss it!

23Jul2023

Audiobook Review: The Summer Skies by Jenny Colgan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Summer Skies
Author: Jenny Colgan
Narrator: Eilidh Beaton
Publisher: Avon
Publication date: July 11, 2023
Print length: 352 pages
Audio length: 11 hours, 11 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased (audiobook); E-book ARC from the publisher/NetGalley
Rating:

New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan takes us to the gloriously windswept islands of northern Scotland, where we meet young Morag MacIntyre, who runs the puddle-jumper flights that serve the islands’ tiny but proudly feisty population.

Morag MacIntyre is a Scottish lass from the remote islands that make up the northernmost reaches of the UK. She’s also a third-generation pilot, the heir apparent to an island plane service she runs with her grandfather. The islands–over 500 dots of windswept land that reach almost to Norway–rely on their one hardworking prop plane to deliver mail, packages, tourists, medicine, and the occasional sheep. As the keeper of this vital lifeline, Morag is used to landing on pale golden beaches and tiny grass airstrips, whether during great storms or on bright endless summer nights. Up in the blue sky, Morag feels at one with the elements.

Down on the ground is a different matter, though. Her grandfather is considering retiring and Morag wonders if she truly wants to spend the rest of her life in the islands. Her boyfriend Hayden, from flight school, wants Morag to move to Dubai with him, where they’ll fly A380s and say goodbye to Scotland’s dark winters.

Morag is on the verge of making a huge life change when an unusually bumpy landing during a storm finds her marooned on Inchborn island. Inchborn is gloriously off-grid, home only to an ancient ruined abbey, a bird-watching station, and a population of one: Gregor, a visiting ornithologist from Glasgow who might have just the right perspective to help Morag pilot her course.

Jenny Colgan’s books never fail to delight, and with Eilidh Beaton as narrator, the audiobook of The Summer Skies is a total treat.

In this new release, pilot Morag MacIntyre is the youngest in a chain of several generations of pilots in the MacIntyre family. While her grandfather maintains the single-plane airline that flies in short hops between the island of the Scottish archipelago, Morag flies in and out of Heathrow as co-pilot on airbuses, working toward the day she’ll move into the captain’s seat.

After a near miss in the air, Morag’s confidence is shaken, and while she’s working toward returning to the skies, she tells no one how bad her fears have become. Meanwhile, after the incident, she meets a lovely guy named Hayden, an airline HR consultant, who seems like all she’d want in a long-term partner. They talk of moving to Dubai for the next steps in their careers… if only she can get back in the air.

When she receives a call that her grandfather is ill and unable to fly, and she’s needed back home to fill in for him on the island runs, she returns with caution. She still has time before her final simulator to get cleared to qualify for the Dubai job, and if her grandfather needs her, she goes. Still, Morag insists on sitting in the co-pilot chair, even though she’s been qualified as captain on the family’s 16-seater plane since her late teens.

When a medical crisis forces Morag to do an emergency landing on the isolated island of Inchborn during a wild storm, she’s left there for days, with only the island’s caretaker for company. Gregor is a taciturn loner, an ornithologist who really just wants to enjoy his solitude. But forced into one another’s company while they’re cut off from the outside world, the two eventually connect, and the time away from her high-octane life gives Morag the space she needs to think about what truly makes her happy.

The Summer Skies is a quiet book, with at least half of it focused on Morag’s few short days on Inchborn. And yet, it manages to pack in quite a bit of emotion, personal growth, and even humor. Jenny Colgan creates funny, memorable characters and dialogue that can bite, and Morag is such fun to be around. I enjoyed the dynamics between Morag and Gregor (not to mention Morag’s deepening connections to Barbara the chicken and Frances the goat). While there are many thoughtful moments in which Morag contemplates her life and the reasons she flies, there are also some sharp, dramatic action scenes (remind me not to get into a small plane when there’s a storm brewing… or really, ever).

As I mentioned, the narrator is wonderful. I’ve listened to her narration of several other Jenny Colgan audiobooks, and always love her delivery. She makes the characters come alive, and hearing the Scottish accents is lovely.

The Summer Skies is sweet and funny, a terrific choice for upbeat escapist listening and reading. The gentle storyline, flawed but relatable characters, and sweet romance were exactly what I wanted in a summer read this month.