Book Review: He Gets That From Me by Jacqueline Friedland

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: He Gets That From Me
Author: Jacqueline Friedland
Publisher: SparkPress
Publication date: September 7, 2021
Length: 295 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

As a young mother with a toddler and a live-in boyfriend, Maggie Fisher’s job at a checkout counter in downtown Phoenix doesn’t afford her much financial flexibility. She dreams of going to college and becoming a teacher, options she squandered when she fled her family home as a teenager. When Maggie stumbles onto an ad offering thousands of dollars to women who are willing to gestate other people’s babies, she at first finds the concept laughable. Before long, however, she’s been seduced by all the ways the extra money could improve her life. Once she decides to go for it, it’s only a matter of months before she’s chosen as a gestational carrier by Chip and Donovan Rigsdale, a married couple from New York.

After delivering twin babies and proudly handing them off to the Rigsdales, Maggie finally gets her life on a positive trajectory: she earns her degree, lands a great job, and builds a family of her own. She can’t fathom why, ten years after the fact, the fertility clinic is calling to ask for a follow-up DNA test.

I bought this e-book on a whim (it was 99 cents!), interested to see where the story would go. And while it definitely held my attention, I would describe He Gets That From Me as only partially successful.

As the story opens, we meet Maggie, who loves her baby Wyatt and her boyfriend Nick, but struggles to make ends meet. She regrets walking away from the college education her well-off parents were providing, a decision made after a teen-age trauma that made her flee parental control and judgment. When she sees an ad for gestational carriers, i.e., women to act as surrogates for those who cannot have children on their own, she doesn’t take it particularly seriously… but she can’t stop thinking about it, especially how the money could get her life back on track and allow her to finally pursue the education she gave up on.

We also meet Donovan, a New York real estate broker in a happy marriage with his husband Chip. They’re well-off and well-established, but desperately want a family together. As they enter the surrogacy process, they’re oh-so-careful at every step, making sure they’ll be legally protected and being very cautious in choosing their potential gestational carriers.

In the early chapters of the book, we jump backward and forward in time, and so we learn that Donovan has had himself, Chip, and their twin 10-year-old boys tested through an at-home DNA testing kit to help the boys with a class genealogy project. Donovan and Chip each provided sperm to use with their egg donor’s eggs, and based on the boys’ physical traits, they’ve long assume that Teddy is biologically Chip’s and Kai is biologically Donovan’s. Until the test results come back — and show that Kai isn’t biologically related to either of his dads.

As Donovan essentially freaks out and looks for answers, the couple assume a screw-up at the fertility lab. Perhaps their embryos were switched with someone else’s? Donovan even investigates whether babies could have been switched at birth. But no — all options are a dead-end until Maggie’s DNA testing confirms the obvious answer. Kai is biologically her son. How is this even possible?

Superfetation. Per healthline.com, “Superfetation is when a second, new pregnancy occurs during an initial pregnancy. Another ovum (egg) is fertilized by sperm and implanted in the womb days or weeks later than the first one. ” Oh, dear. So while two embryos from the donor eggs and Chip and Donovan’s sperm were transferred to Maggie, only one took… and then she and Nick conceived another fetus naturally, ending up pregnant with two unrelated fetuses.

Maggie, of course, is horrified. She and Nick tried for years to have more children, but whether from carrying twins or from a subsequent car accident, she ended up with uterine scarring that affected her fertility. She’s wracked by guilt: She agreed to carry someone else’s children, not to give away her own child.

An inevitable showdown between the two families quickly comes into play. After meeting Kai briefly, Maggie is convinced that he belongs with his biological family, and she and Nick sue for custody. Meanwhile, Chip and Donovan are desperate to keep their family intact and to protect Kai from being uprooted from the only life he’s ever know.

While the set-up is really engaging, I had some issues with the execution. For starters, I don’t truly believe that Maggie could think for one moment that removing Kai from his home would be in his best interest. They got from zero to one hundred in the blink of an eye. What about visiting and getting to know one another? What about simply spending some time together, finding a way to be in each others’ lives? Nope, it’s full custody as the first and only option.

Some ugliness comes into play that seems out of character for Maggie. While Nick expressed some hesitation about becoming a surrogate for a gay couple when the option first was under discussion, Maggie was adamantly opposed to Nick’s homophobia and in fact broke up with him for a while over it. She cared deeply for Chip and Donovan and was committed to helping them create their family. Yet in the court filings, one of the arguments for claiming custody of Kai was that it would be in his best interest to be raised by a “traditional” family. Where did this come from? That was never Maggie’s belief.

I was left very unsatisfied by the end of the book. Certain twists are revealed in the epilogue that I found hard to believe, and the outcome of the custody case (trying to avoid spoilers here) was again a very black and white, all or nothing situation. I couldn’t help feeling that in real life, good lawyers and therapists would have encourage compromise and exploration of the true best interests of the child, rather than moving forward with a winner-takes-all lawsuit as the only possible answer.

At under 300 pages, He Gets That From Me is a quick read. While the premise is certainly interesting, I was too often frustrated by inconsistent or illogical actions and decisions to give this more than a 3-star rating. I could see this book generating good book club arguments for sure!

17Nov2022

Book Review: Ship Wrecked (Spoiler Alert, #3) by Olivia Dade

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Ship Wrecked
Series: Spoiler Alert, #3
Author: Olivia Dade
Publisher: Avon
Publication date: November 15, 2020
Length: 400 pages
Genre: Romance
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley

After All the Feels and Spoiler Alert, Olivia Dade once again delivers a warm and wonderful romantic comedy about two co-stars who once had an incredible one-night stand—and after years of filming on the same remote island, are finally ready to yield to temptation again…

Maria’s one-night-stand—the thick-thighed, sexy Viking of a man she left without a word or a note—just reappeared. Apparently, Peter’s her surly Gods of the Gates co-star, and they’re about to spend the next six years filming on a desolate Irish island together. She still wants him…but he now wants nothing to do with her.

Peter knows this role could finally transform him from a forgettable character actor into a leading man. He also knows a failed relationship with Maria could poison the set, and he won’t sabotage his career for a woman who’s already walked away from him once. Given time, maybe they can be cooperative colleagues or friends—possibly even best friends—but not lovers again. No matter how much he aches for her.

For years, they don’t touch off-camera. But on their last night of filming, their mutual restraint finally shatters, and all their pent-up desire explodes into renewed passion. Too bad they still don’t have a future together, since Peter’s going back to Hollywood, while Maria’s returning to her native Sweden. She thinks she needs more than he can give her, but he’s determined to change her mind, and he’s spent the last six years waiting. Watching. Wanting.

His shipwrecked Swede doesn’t stand a chance.

Ship Wrecked is the 3rd book in Olivia Dade’s romance series centered around the fictional TV series Gods of the Gates, a not-at-all-veiled reference to Game of Thrones. Gods of the Gates is one of the biggest television phenomena ever, but once the show moves past its book source material, the showrunners manage to complete derail the storylines and character arcs.

Ship Wrecked‘s story overlaps time-wise with the first two books in the series. Here, we meet new characters who join the show for its second season — Cyprian and Cassia, shipwrecked enemies who spend years learning to work together in order to survive on a deserted, treacherous island, and who naturally fall madly in love.

Peter Reedton, a character actor with a respected but not-flashy career up to this point, knows that his shot at Cyprian could finally show that he has what it takes to be a lead actor. But when he auditions against an unknown, inexperienced Swedish actress, he worries that she may drag him down and ruin his chances.

But that’s not really why he’s upset… The night before the audition, Peter has an amazing one-night stand with an incredible woman named Maria, who then disappears in the morning without leaving a note, contact information, or even her full name. And of course, the Swedish actress he meets the next day turns out to be Maria, and Peter’s anger is really all about his feelings of abandonment.

Still, the two have amazing chemistry on camera, and before they know it, they’re off to a remote Irish island to start what will be years of filming together. They soon discover that they like each other and work well together, but Peter is determined that, for the sake of the production, they should not get romantically involved.

Ship Wrecked continues the entertaining behind-the-scenes look at a huge TV production introduced in the first two books, and introduces two compelling new characters, Peter and Maria, who are easy to love and to root for. Their personality and culture clashes are funny, and I really liked their dynamic together.

The overall plot is perhaps a bit less engaging than the other books, as we see less of the rest of the cast — but when we do get snippets of the cast text threads or quick appearances, they’re always good for a laugh.

Maria and Peter’s relationship, when they finally get there, is steamy as well as rooted in true caring and affection. I didn’t quite buy the tropey breakup required in all romances before the big reunion and romantic finish — their relationship troubles didn’t seem as dire as they presented them to be, and reasonable adults should have been able to work through their issues without torpedoing the relationship.

In terms of steam factor, this book definitely falls on the graphic end of the scale. Sex scenes are explicit, no filmy curtains or fade to black. In fact, the very first paragraph of the very first chapter should give you a good idea about the content of the rest of the book:

When Maria’s hazy brown eyes blinked back open after her orgasm, Peter held her gaze for another dozen thrusts. Then, braced on his forearms, fingers tangled in her hair, he pushed deep one last time and groaned into her mouth.

If you find that completely off-putting, then this may not be a great reading choice for you. I don’t usually go for graphic in my romance reading, but these books are just so much fun that I didn’t mind the occasional cringing brought on by the more detailed scenes.

Ship Wrecked has great characters, plenty of laughs, and is decidedly fat-positive and body-positive, which is refreshing and (sadly) still not all that common. Peter and Maria are both great characters, and I love how the author depicts them as both fat and sexy.

I’ve seen other readers refer to Ship Wrecked as the final book in the series, and I don’t actually know if that’s correct or not. The world of Gods of the Gates is just so much fun — I’d gladly read more about these and other characters.

If you’re interested in Ship Wrecked, I’d really recommend starting from the beginning and reading Spoiler Alert and All the Feels first. Ship Wrecked could work on its own, I suppose, but then you’d miss out on the deliciously ridiculous bigger picture of Gods of the Gates, and really, that would be a shame.

17Nov2022

Book Review: Even Though I Knew the End by C. L. Polk

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Even Though I Knew the End
Author: C. L. Polk
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: November 8, 2022
Length: 136 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago’s divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above.

An exiled augur who sold her soul to save her brother’s life is offered one last job before serving an eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can’t resist―the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves.

To succeed, she is given three days to track down the White City Vampire, Chicago’s most notorious serial killer. If she fails, only hell and heartbreak await.

In this noir-ish novella, Helen Brandt is a private investigator who specializes in occult-related crime scenes. She’s also a woman who, years earlier, sold her soul in exchange for her mortally-wounded brother’s life.

With only days left before her bargain comes due, all Helen wants is private time with the woman she loves. But when a particularly gruesome murder takes place, she’s pulled into a battle between demonic forces, powerful magicians, and fallen angels.

As a novella, the action by necessity is fast-paced, and the storytelling moves quickly from one set-piece to another. I’m not that big a fan of stories about bargains with the devil or battles between angels and demons, but what really sucked me in was the love story and the desperate need for just a bit more time.

The title comes from Helen’s thoughts about The Great Gatsby, and the essence of love and hope:

Jay Gatsby knew a lot about hope. Hope felt a little painful, on account of it not being a sure thing. In fact, there was almost no hope for him, which made that tiny flashing light all the more precious. I’d read this book a dozen times, two dozen. I always held my breath, waiting for Daisy to come to him. Jay hoped every single time, and I hoped right along with him, even though I knew the end.

A week after finishing this short but powerful story, I couldn’t tell you the specifics about the outcome of the murder plot… but I absolutely remember how Helen and Edith’s love story made me feel. Even when the end is inevitable, even when a deal with the devil is coming due, Helen will savor every moment, because every moment with the woman she loves is worth much more than the pain of thinking about losing it.

They love, even though they know the end.

16Nov2022

Book Review: Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Ocean’s Echo
Author: Everina Maxwell
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: November 1, 2022
Length: 484 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Ocean’s Echo is a stand-alone space adventure about a bond that will change the fate of worlds, set in the same universe as Everina Maxwell’s hit debut, Winter’s Orbit.

Rich socialite, inveterate flirt, and walking disaster Tennalhin Halkana can read minds. Tennal, like all neuromodified “readers,” is a security threat on his own. But when controlled, readers are a rare asset. Not only can they read minds, but they can navigate chaotic space, the maelstroms surrounding the gateway to the wider universe.

Conscripted into the military under dubious circumstances, Tennal is placed into the care of Lieutenant Surit Yeni, a duty-bound soldier, principled leader, and the son of a notorious traitor general. Whereas Tennal can read minds, Surit can influence them. Like all other neuromodified “architects,” he can impose his will onto others, and he’s under orders to control Tennal by merging their minds.

Surit accepted a suspicious promotion-track request out of desperation, but he refuses to go through with his illegal orders to sync and control an unconsenting Tennal. So they lie: They fake a sync bond and plan Tennal’s escape.

Their best chance arrives with a salvage-retrieval mission into chaotic space—to the very neuromodiifcation lab that Surit’s traitor mother destroyed twenty years ago. And among the rubble is a treasure both terrible and unimaginably powerful, one that upends a decades-old power struggle, and begins a war.

Tennal and Surit can no longer abandon their unit or their world. The only way to avoid life under full military control is to complete the very sync they’ve been faking.

Can two unwilling weapons of war bring about peace?

Once I started reading Winter’s Orbit last year, I basically couldn’t put it down — so I was very excited to get my hands on a copy of Everina Maxwell’s follow-up novel, Ocean’s Echo. Ocean’s Echo is a stand-alone, but it is set in the same universe as Winter’s Orbit. There are no cross-over characters, but the basics of the galactic system and some key political and scientific aspects connect the two books.

In Ocean’s Echo, Tennal is about age 20, from a powerful family (his aunt is the head of government of the Orshan planets), and is incapable of (and has no interest in) staying out of trouble. After one scandal too many, his aunt orders his conscription into the army. As if that’s not bad enough, she’s also ordered him to be synced. Tennal is a talented reader — he can read other people’s thoughts — but readers are both rare and considered very dangerous if left uncontrolled. Control is exactly what his aunt wants, and so Tennal will be forced into a sync, where an architect — someone who can telepathically influence others’ minds — will force a sort of mind-meld with Tennal. From that point on, the architect will be able to control Tennal’s actions. Worst of all, the sync is permanent — a broken sync results in death for both reader and architect.

Needless to say, Tennal is not at all happy about his fate, but he truly has no choice. He’s surprised, therefore, when he meets Surit, a young lieutenant with strong architect abilities and an even stronger moral compass. Despite orders, he knows deep down that a forced sync is wrong, and he suggests that he and Tennal fake it. They’re successful in their deception at first, until they are pulled further and further into an impending civil war where their own survival and the fate of their world is at stake.

Tennal and Surit are both terrific characters, with very distinct characters and personality traits. While the chapters alternate between their perspectives, there’s never any confusion about whose point of view we’re getting. They are definitely a case of opposites attracting, and while the intricacies of the reader-architect dynamic are the main focus, there’s a romantic chemistry as well that keeps bubbling to the surface.

The world-building is very detailed, but occasionally confusing. While Ocean’s Echo is a stand-alone, I think it would be somewhat baffling for a reader who hasn’t first read Winter’s Orbit. Without a basic understanding of the books’ universe, I’m not sure that talk of the Resolution, the Link, and remnants, among other concepts, would make a whole lot of sense. As is, even having read the first book, some of the high-concept military and scientific scenarios went over my head. That’s okay, though — I didn’t have to fully grasp every single detail in order to appreciate the characters, their connection, and the big picture stakes of the storyline.

Overall, I really enjoyed Ocean’s Echo. The writing pulled me in, and even when concepts such as chaotic space started boggling my mind, some nifty turns of phrase would get me back on track and impress me with the author’s creativity and descriptive skill.

Since the moment they’d synced, the sea had come in roaring, a glorious, terrible torrent. Where there had been ordinary rooms and cabinets and stairs in Surit’s neat mental house, there was now a tumult of swirling water, deep-sea caverns instead of foundations, whirlpools instead of floors.

You need to have an appreciation for space battles and sci-fi drama and high stakes military adventures to truly love this book, I think… but if you do, then don’t miss out on this book (and check out Winter’s Orbit too!).

3Nov2022

Book Review: When Franny Stands Up by Eden Robins

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: When Franny Stands Up
Author: Eden Robins
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication date: November 1, 2022
Length: 400 pages
Genre: Historical/speculative fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Nothing is more dangerous than a woman with a showstopping joke.

Franny Steinberg knows there’s powerful magic in laughter. She’s witnessed it. With the men of Chicago off fighting WWII on distant shores, Franny has watched the women of the city taking charge of the war effort. But amidst the war bond sales and factory shifts, something surprising has emerged, something Franny could never have expected. A new marvel that has women flocking to comedy clubs across the nation: the Showstopper.

When Franny steps into Chicago’s Blue Moon comedy club, she realizes the power of a Showstopper—that specific magic sparked when an audience laughs so hard, they are momentarily transformed. And while each comedian’s Showstopper is different, they all have one thing in common: they only work on women.

After a traumatic flashback propels her onstage in a torn bridesmaid dress, Franny discovers her own Showstopper is something new. And suddenly she has the power to change everything…for herself, for her audience, and for the people who may need it most.

I first became aware of When Franny Stands Up when an author I love recommended it. I’ve since read a couple of stellar reviews. And all this leaves me wondering — what did I miss?

In When Franny Stands Up, women’s comedy clubs are struggling to survive in the 1950s, after male comedians become popular on TV and grab all the attention. But women know a secret: in the live stand-up shows for women only, certain talented comedians have Showstoppers — moments of magic where the performer induces certain special effects on the women in the audience as they laugh.

For Franny, she first encounters a Showstopper years earlier, sneaking away from her protective parents’ home in a Chicago suburb to see the famous Boopsie Baxter perform. But Franny is not at all prepared for her powerful reaction to Boopsie’s Showstopper, and runs back home in shame and fear, only to discover that her soldier brother has gone missing in action in Europe. For Franny, these two events become very much linked, and she determines to be good and give up her interest in comedy forever.

But as the main part of the story opens, 23-year-old Franny is burdened by her daily life, her worries over her brother, now home but suffering from PTSD, and her alienation from her former best friend, who’s about to get married, and whose family is responsible for one of Franny’s worst memories. When events at the wedding go badly, Franny runs off yet again, and finds herself at the Blue Moon club, where a whole new world awaits.

Sadly, so much of this story simply didn’t make sense to me. Franny’s interest in comedy, especially in becoming a stand-up comedian, seems to come out of nowhere, and isn’t well explained. And why the club owner and other performers take an interest in Franny or immediately sense her potential talent — well, I have no idea.

There are many interesting concepts scattered throughout the story, but whether it’s the writing itself or the approach to the plot, it never particularly gelled for me. I found the writing style choppy, with descriptions and plot actions not quite making sense to me. As new occurrences and situations popped up, I often felt like I must have accidentally skipped some pages — just how did we get from point A to point B? Some characters as well just never made sense — I can think of one in particular who, by the end of the story, I still didn’t know if she was supposed to be sympathetic or an antagonist, and that definitely did not seem like an intentional construction of a morally gray characters. Instead, it was just another example of a writing approach that didn’t work for me.

The idea of the Showstopper concept is pretty cool, absolutely — but the plot, inconsistent character depictions, dropped or under-developed storylines, and unclear character motivation all got in the way of my enjoyment of When Franny Stands Up. There are some interesting ideas here, but sadly, the book as a whole just didn’t work for me.

30Oct2022

Book sampling: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Sentence
Author: Louise Erdrich
Publisher: Harper
Publication date: November 9, 2021
Length: 387 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

The Sentence asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book.

A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store’s most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls’ Day, but she simply won’t leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls’ Day 2019 and ends on All Souls’ Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.

The main character of The Sentence is Tookie, a Native American woman who is sentenced to sixty years in prison after a misadventure involving a corpse — a crime that we hear about in the opening chapter, presented in a practically comic manner. Her sentence is eventually commuted, but only after she serves many years. Prison changes Tookie, but one of the most lasting effects is that she becomes a voracious reader during that time. It’s only natural that she ends up working in a bookstore — Birchbark Books in Minneapolis, owned by a novelist named Louise. (And yes, Louise Erdrich does actually own Birchbark Books in Minneapolis in real life).

The book follows Tookie’s life as a bookseller, as a woman married to her longtime love Pollux, and as a survivor and a witness. She’s also a woman who’s haunted, literally — an annoying bookstore customer named Flora continues to visit the store even after her death, and Tookie becomes consumed by a need to understand the ghost’s motivations and how to be rid of her.

The Sentence was my book group’s pick for October, and reactions were decidedly mixed. While many appreciated the author’s magnificent way with words, the general sentiment was that the story itself was overly complicated and uneven in tone. Midway through, we’re in 2020, and the narrative becomes heavily focused on both COVID and the impact of George Floyd’s murder, so much so that it often feels more like narrative non-fiction.

I was very absorbed while reading the book, but in the end, I didn’t quite know what to make of it all. The story veers in all sorts of directions, and I’m not sure that the overall themes and messages hit home.

That said, the writing is amazing, so rather than attempting to write a thorough review, I thought I’d just share some favorite lines and passages:

I’m still not strictly rational. How could I be? I sell books.

Delight seems insubstantial; happiness feels more grounded; ecstasy is what I shoot for; satisfaction is hardest to attain.

Pen had started working here because she developed obsessions with female authors, alive and dead, and was having a May-December romance with Isak Dinesen’s stories.

When I creep into our bed, there is the joy and relief of a person entering a secret dimension. Here, I shall be useless. The world can go on without me. Here I shall be held by love.

Sometimes Jackie resented a perfectly good book because it ‘forced’ her to stay up all night.

I put my hand on my chest and closed my eyes. I have a dinosaur heart, cold, massive, indestructible, a thick meaty red. And I have a glass heart, tiny and pink, that can be shattered.

As it turned out, books were important, like food, fuel, heat, garbage collection, snow shoveling, and booze.

I stare at my husband’s face, the new cheekbones of a skinny man, his surprising beauty, and I decided to live for love again and take the change of another lifetime.

Beyond the terrific writing, I loved all the references to favorite books, so I was absolutely delighted to see that the book includes a section called Totally Biased List of Tookie’s Favorite Books at the end, with sections called things like “Ghost-Managing Book List”, “Short Perfect Novels”, “Sublime Books”, and more. I will definitely be returning to these reading lists for future inspiration!

Wrapping it all up — there were elements of The Sentence that I loved, and I’m happy to have read it, but I’m still not quite sure that it worked for me completely. I’m really curious to hear how others felt about this book. Have you read The Sentence? If so, please share your reaction!

29Oct2022

Silly romance two-fer: A pair of mini-reviews

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

While traveling for a few days this past week, I read two romances that were very silly — one silly but entertaining, and one silly and annoying. Which is which? Read on…

Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Q. Sutanto: This is the silly and entertaining one! Four Aunties and a Wedding, the follow-up to Dial A for Aunties, continues the hilariously ridiculous adventures of Meddy, a wedding photographer, and the four aunties who dominate her Chinese-Indonesian family. In this sequel, Meddy is finally about to marry the man of her dreams, but when she overhears her own wedding photographer plotting a murder and realizes that there’s going to be a mafia hit on her big day, she and the aunties spring into action to foil the evil plans. Shenanigans ensue — kidnappings, spontaneous Tai Chi, komodo dragon fascinators, and marijuana-laced cocktails, to name but a few of the outrageous obstacles that interfere with Meddy’s dream destination wedding.

This is a light, fast read, and I enjoyed it overall, but did find myself getting annoyed eventually by just how over-the-top the plot became, how the aunties and Meddy jumped to one false conclusion after another, and how these ridiculous circumstances completely ruined the wedding day. Fortunately, Meddy’s groom is far more understanding and loving and, well, just plain perfect than any ordinary man might be, so the couple gets their happy ending… and so what if zipties, druggings, and assassination attempts get in the way?

Rating:

Definitely Not Mr. Darcy by Karen Doornebos: Obviously, that leaves this book as the silly and annoying one! This Austen-inspired romance centers on a 39-year-old single mother whose business is failing. In desperation, she makes the obvious choice — to go to England and participate in what she thinks will be a documentary about Regency life, but turns out to be (drumroll, please…) a Regency-themed reality dating show. The prize is marriage to a wealthy British hottie (and $100,000), and Chloe is determined to win. To get to the prize, though, she must live in total Regency style, meaning chamber pots, no technology, food-based cosmetics, and constant chaperonage. This book was published in 2012, and feels a lot like an Austenland retread — and also feels pretty dated, in terms of attitudes toward relationships and female competition.

The plot really doesn’t make sense, the Regency affectations are applied inconsistently and weirdly (for example, the woman playing the role of Chloe’s chaperone is very pregnant, and has agreed to give birth Regency-style… WHY?). There are slapsticky misadventures, mistaken identity, and plain old nonsensical decisions. I finished the book, and I suppose it held my attention enough to make me want to see how it turned out, but I can’t say I recommend this one.

Rating:

And there you have it! Fun romance, not-so-fun super annoying romance… and now I’d better switch up my reading for a bit and tackle something with a bit more there there.

Save

28Oct2022

Book Review: Honor by Thrity Umrigar

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Honor
Author: Thrity Umrigar
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Publication date: January 4, 2022
Length: 326 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

In this riveting and immersive novel, bestselling author Thrity Umrigar tells the story of two couples and the sometimes dangerous and heartbreaking challenges of love across a cultural divide.

Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena—a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man—Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment. But the dual love stories of Honor are as different as the cultures of Meena and Smita themselves: Smita realizes she has the freedom to enter into a casual affair, knowing she can decide later how much it means to her.

In this tender and evocative novel about love, hope, familial devotion, betrayal, and sacrifice, Thrity Umrigar shows us two courageous women trying to navigate how to be true to their homelands and themselves at the same time.

Honor is a powerful, painful book — it’s impossible to put down, and yet left me feeling practically bruised by the trauma experienced by its characters.

In Honor, expat Smita returns to India after 20 years abroad to fill in for her best friend and fellow journalist while she recovers from an injury. Smita’s friend was covering a sensational trial: A Hindu woman, Meena, horribly disfigured by the fire that killed her Muslim husband, is suing her two brothers, the men responsible for the horrendous attack. If she wins, they could face life imprisonment — but even if she does win, Meena can never get back what she lost.

Meena’s story of life in a small village stuck in old oppressive traditions and belief systems is counter-balanced by Smita’s own experiences and memories, which unfold slowly over the course of the novel. Smita and her family relocated to the US when she was a teen, but we don’t learn the circumstances until late in the book. Still, we know that something bad happened, enough for Smita to have sworn never to return to her homeland, instead living an austere, independent life, traveling the globe to report on gender issues worldwide. Meena’s case is perhaps too close and personal for Smita. She’s outraged and furious, struggling to maintain her journalistic distance, all the while becoming more invested in Meena’s life and in her own growing connection to Mohan, the man who acts as her travel companion and protector as she journeys to Meena’s village.

The interviews with the men of the village are simply terrible to read — the bigotry, sexism, and cruelty is impossible to fully express. Meena, now living in her husband’s village with her mother-in-law, fares no better there. She’s blamed for her husband’s death, considered a burden and a curse, and lives a life of pain and suffering, brightened only by her young daughter, the only remnant of her dream of a life with her beloved husband.

Through flashback scenes, we see Meena’s quiet bravery as she defies her brother’s control to first take a factory job (thereby supporting her brothers), then falling in love with someone she never should have met. The story of Meena and Abdul’s romance is sweet but piercing — we know already that tragedy awaits the couple, and that love can’t save them.

By the end of this tragic novel, Smita comes to understand more about herself, her childhood, and her country, and also finds a new sense of purpose in the aftermath of the trial. The ending is as uplifting as such an awful story can be, but there is hope left, even after all the terrible events and experiences.

Meena’s story is haunting and makes the bigger impression, but Smita’s personal journey is inspiring and moving as well.

All in all, Honor is a deeply moving and upsetting look at the concept of honor, both in a more modern society and in a tradition-bound, repressive community. I can see why it was chosen as a Hello, Sunshine pick earlier this year — it would make a great book group book, with plenty to discuss and ponder.

For more on Honor, see:

NPR (review)
Kirkus Reviews
Los Angeles Times
Hopewell’s Public Library of Life

27Oct2022

Book Review: The Stand-Up Groomsman by Jackie Lau

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Stand-Up Groomsman
Author: Jackie Lau
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: October 25, 2022
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A bridesmaid and groomsman put their differences aside to get their friends down the aisle in this opposites-attract steamy romantic comedy.

They say to never meet your heroes, but when Vivian Liao’s roommate gets engaged to her favorite actor’s costar, she has no choice but to come face-to-face with Melvin Lee again. He’s just as funny and handsome as he is on-screen…but thinks she is a snob and a sellout. It’s none of his business how she chooses to live her life, no matter how charismatic he is.

Mel is used to charming audiences as an actor and stand-up comedian but can’t connect to Vivian. She’s a smart, talented artist–which is why he thinks she’s wasting her life as a corporate finance drone. The only thing uniting them is their goal for the wedding to go off without a hitch.

As they collaborate on wedding cake and karaoke parties, Mel realizes he might have seriously misjudged this bridesmaid, while Vivian discovers the best man might just be as dazzling off-screen as he is on. With the wedding underway, maybe more than one happily ever after is in the future.

In this follow-up to Donut Fall In Love, a self-contained finance professional falls for a loud, outrageous stand-up comedian, and sparks fly — despite the fact that on the surface, at least, they’re complete opposites, and what’s worse, had an awful first meeting.

When Vivian meets Mel, she’s thrilled to be meeting the star of one of her favorite sitcoms. I mean, she’s done fan art about him! But he makes the mistake of assuming she’s like he used to be — someone pursuing a corporate paycheck rather than taking a chance and following their muse. Vivian is furious and would be happy to never see him again. Unfortunately for her, they’re going to be forced together over the coming year, as her roommate Lindsay has just become engaged to his best friend Ryan, and they’re both going to be in the wedding party.

As the wedding events seem designed to throw Vivian and Mel together, they form a tentative sort of connection, realizing that their outward differences mask some life experiences and personality quirks that make them more alike than they realized. Of course, the more time they spend together, they more their chemistry heats up, and it’s only for so long that they can deny that they’re better off as lovers than as enemies (or even frenemies).

The Stand-Up Groomsman is lots of fun, with tons of cute flirting, silly gift-giving, and shedding of inhibitions and defense mechanisms. I was impressed with the author’s ability to peel back the outer layers of the characters to show us how they’ve ended up where they are. Vivian confused me for much of the story — why was she so closed off? Why did she seem so unable to make connections or get involved with other people? But eventually, we learn more about her childhood and her parents’ expectations of her, and it finally all clicks and makes sense.

Melvin himself is all sorts of adorable. He and Vivian are both bisexual, and their frank conversations about sexuality are very refreshing — I haven’t come across all that many contemporary romance tales with such positive bi representation. (Mel’s bi identity is one of the many pieces of himself that becomes fodder for his stand-up routines, and it’s both sweet and funny to see how he works it into his set).

As the title indicates, Mel is a stand-up comedian as well as being a comedic actor. We see his stand-up shows throughout the book, and while some bits are quite funny, this is actually one part of the novel that perhaps didn’t work all that well for me. Reading a stand-up routine as part of a book’s narrative is just not the same as seeing a stand-up performance — and without the personality and physical presence, I just didn’t feel like the comedy translated all that well to the printed page.

That’s really just a minor quibble. Overall, The Stand-Up Groomsman is silly, sweet, and romantic, with some sexytimes in the mix too. (In terms of just how sexy, I’d rank this one as somewhere between steamy and graphic on my non-scientific, inexact ratings scale — it’s detailed and shows everything, but doesn’t cross into downright overly anatomical descriptions, if that makes any sense.)

On Goodreads, The Stand-Up Groomsman is listed as Donut Fall In Love, #2 — and yes, it is a sequel, but if you’re interested in this book, no need to get too hung up on reading the first book first. The couple from the first book are the wedding couple in this one, but really, you can read The Stand-Up Groomsman as a stand-alone and it’ll work just fine. (That said, Donut Fall In Love is super enjoyable, so why not read both?)

I’d definitely recommend The Stand-Up Groomsman for anyone looking for a light, contemporary romance with unusual characters and a sense of whimsy. Really a fun read!

20Oct2022

Audiobook Review: Rules at the School by the Sea (Maggie Adair, #2) by Jenny Colgan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Rules at the School by the Sea
Series: Maggie Adair / Little School by the Sea
Author: Jenny Colgan
Narrator: Jilly Bond
Publisher: Avon
Publication date: Originally published 2010; reissued 2022
Print length: 288 pages
Audio length: 7 hours, 32 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

It’s summer, but school is in session in the delightful second book of New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan’s utterly charming School by the Sea series, set at a girls’ boarding school in Cornwall.

For the second year at Downey House, it’s getting harder and harder to stick to the rules . . .

Maggie Adair’s first year as a teacher at Downey House was a surprising success. After making the leap from an inner-city school in Glasgow, she’s learned to appreciate the mellower pace of the girls’ boarding school by the sea.

Now engaged to her longtime boyfriend, sweet and steady Stan, Maggie’s just got to stop thinking about David McDonald, her colleague at the boys’ school down the road. Well, hasn’t she? Can Maggie take a leaf out of the Well Behaved Teacher’s exercise book and stick to her plan for a small but elegant wedding and settled life of matrimony?

Even as Maggie tries to stay within the lines, rules are being broken all around her. Maggie’s boss, headmistress Veronica Deveral, has more to lose than anyone. When Daniel Stapleton joins the faculty, Veronica finds herself forced to confront a scandalous secret she thought she’d carefully buried forever. How long will she be able to keep her past under wraps?

What does a new year of classes, rules, and camaraderie hold for the students and faculty at Downey House?

After listening to the first book in the Little School series, Welcome to the School by the Sea, I thought I’d wait a bit and enjoy the anticipation before listening to the second… but in the end, I just had to see what happens next!

In Rules at the School by the Sea, we start a new school year alongside teacher Maggie, headmistress Veronica, and the rambunctious group of girls — Simone, Fliss, and Alice — we got to know in the first book.

Maggie is much more settled into her life at Downey House. She’s more confident in her teaching abilities, and plans to grab her girls’ attention by focusing on romantic poetry from the World War I era during English lessons. Maggie and her long-time boyfriend Stan have recently become engaged, but Maggie seems to be in a bit of denial: She doesn’t really have any interest in wedding plans, and despite Stan’s urging, really doesn’t want to leave Downey House and look for a teaching job in Glasgow.

For Veronica, she’s both thrilled to have her biological son teaching at the nearby boys’ school, but also worried about whether news of her having once given up a baby for adoption will create a scandal among her staff and the parents. Meanwhile, she and Daniel are cautiously beginning to get to know one another, but Veronica is finding it almost impossible to balance her growing love for her son and his family with her deeply ingrained need for privacy.

And the girls — well, what can we say about a bunch of 14 (almost 15) -year-old girls in all their glorious confusion of hormones and growing up and still being so very young in so many ways? A new girl, Zelda — the daughter of a US army officer temporarily stationed in the UK — shakes up the group of friends with her brashness and American approach to school, while Fliss and Alice fall out over a boy and Simone takes Zelda up on her offer of a total image makeover. There are arguments and rule-breaking and hilarity, and it’s quite fun to see the girls’ petty squabbles as well as their friendship and commitment to one another.

Rules is quite a lot of fun, capturing the excitement of the school year from the perspective of the students as well as that of the teachers. Overall, I quite enjoyed this 2nd book, but I did feel particularly frustrated by Maggie’s romance story line.

Maggie has been with Stan for ages and cares for him, but she’s so clearly in love with (and better suited for) David, the English teacher from the boys’ school. Maggie spends the entire book trying to convince herself that her crush on David is just a passing phase, and that she really does want to marry Stan — but it’s entirely obvious that she and Stan have grown apart and want very different things out of their lives. It seemed as though there were plenty of opportunities for Maggie to face the truth and take responsibility for breaking off the engagement with Stan, but each time, she backtracks and recommits, even though she isn’t actually happy.

I know this back-and-forth love triangle stuff is supposed to add drama and tension, but after a while, it just makes it seem as though Maggie is emotionally unaware, and that doesn’t feel true to her character. There’s a bit of a cliffhanger ending in the final chapter, but it does appear that Maggie has finally had an epiphany and is on the verge of taking action… and I hope that’s really the case! (This is why I’ll probably grab the 3rd book the very first second that I can — I need to know what happens next!!)

On a more serious note, the problematic focus on Simone’s weight from book #1 continues here. Again, there’s nothing wrong with Simone making an effort to adopt healthy eating habits if that’s what feels right to her, but the over-emphasis on being slim in order to gain popularity and attract boys leads to an eating disorder for another of the girls in the group. On the one hand, I’m glad that the darker aspects of this focus on dieting are shown, but there’s still something very uncomfortable about how much weight and appearance matter in the girls’ lives. (Perhaps this is an aftereffect of the fact that this book was originally published in 2010 — if it were written today, I’d hope that the fat-shaming and focus on a specific standard for acceptable bodies would be addressed or eliminated altogether).

My frustration with the romance and the weight/dieting storylines aside, I did find Rules a sweet, entertaining, engaging read. I love how the storyline bounces between the adults and students, and how we get to see each sides’ attitudes and perceptions about the other. The characters are all quite endearing — even the obnoxious spoiled girls have something going for them — and the story as a whole is just such a yummy treat in the way it presents a somewhat idealized yet still modern-day version of life at a lovely boarding school.

This is the 2nd book in a series that was originally published over 10 years ago under a pseudonym, now being reissued with spiffed-up covers, titles, and the actual author’s name! The third reissue, Lessons at the School by the Sea, will be released in March 2023 — although since I have a paperback of the original version, I may have to read it much sooner. (Apparently, I am terrible at waiting.)

The audiobook is very enjoyable — I really liked the narrator’s approach to voicing the different characters. She does a very good job of capturing their personalities, although I found her version of an American/Texan accent for Zelda incredibly grating and overdone. Otherwise, though, it’s a charming listening experience.

And finally, one lovely bit is that the audiobook ends with a collection of Maggie’s poems — the poetry she teaches her class over the course of the school year. It was a sweet treat to get to hear all of these after the main story had concluded, and even though pieces of some of these are included earlier in the story, it was lovely to get to listen to them in their entirety. (My favorite of these is Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou — see the full text here).

Another nice little bit at the end — after finishing the audiobook, I picked up my paperback edition and discovered that the final piece included is step-by-step instructions for some of the dances that the girls learn, including The Dashing White Sergeant, Strip the Willow, and Eightsome Reel. (I can’t actually visualize the dances from reading the instructions, but seeing these pages is motivating me to go look for dance videos online.)

Wrapping it all up…

I love when a first book’s promise is delivered on in the second book, and that’s definitely the case with Rules at the School by the Sea. There’s much still unresolved plot-wise, but it’s wonderful to see these likable characters continue to learn and grow, and I can’t wait to see what’s next for all of them!