Tag Archives: contemporary fiction

Book Review: The Celebrants by Steven Rowley

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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:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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.

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

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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:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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!

Audiobook Review: The Summer Skies by Jenny Colgan

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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:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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.

Book Review: The Hookup Plan (The Boyfriend Project, #3) by Farrah Rochon

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Title: The Hookup Plan
Series: The Boyfriend Project, #3
Author: Farrah Rochon
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: August 2, 2022
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Strong female friendships and a snappy enemies-to-lovers theme take center stage in this highly anticipated romantic comedy from the USA Today bestselling author of The Dating Playbook.

Successful pediatric surgeon London Kelley just needs to find some balance and de-stress. According to her friends Samiah and Taylor, what London really needs is a casual hookup. A night of fun with no strings. But no one—least of all London—expected it to go down at her high school reunion with Drew Sullivan, millionaire, owner of delicious abs, and oh yes, her archnemesis.

Now London is certain the road to hell is paved with good sex. Because she’s found out the real reason Drew’s back in Austin: to decide whether her beloved hospital remains open. Worse, Drew is doing everything he can to show her that he’s a decent guy who actually cares. But London’s not falling for it. Because while sleeping with the enemy is one thing, falling for him is definitely not part of the plan.

The Hookup Plan is the 3rd book in a trilogy about a trio of women who meet by discovering that they’re all dating the same cheating conman, and rather than turning on each other, they connect and become best friends. And while these books are romances, the women’s friendship is the true highlight of the overarching story.

In The Hookup Plan, pediatric surgeon London Kelley is the main character. She works long, stressful days at her underfunded public hospital, and always puts her patients first. She’s kind, caring, and supportive when it comes to the children in her care, but hard as nails and not afraid to take a stand when it comes to the hospital administration.

London has had a long, dry spell when it comes to men. First of all, who has time for dating? And secondly, after the disastrous attempt at dating that led to her meeting Samiah and Taylor, London has mainly given up hope — although the three made a pact early on to eventually find boyfriends by bettering themselves. It’s worked for Samiah and Taylor — both are happily in love. For London, her “boyfriend project” goal is to find a hobby, and while she’s gotten very into crocheting, that’s not exactly improving her love life.

At her 15th high school reunion. London is annoyed to encounter Drew Sullivan, her archnemesis from way back when. She’d been clearly and comfortably #1 in her class until his arrival junior year, but from then on, the two battled for first place and ended up as co-valedictorians. For a girl whose father only paid attention when she won something big enough for him to brag about, “co”-anything just wasn’t good enough. No wonder London resented and loathed Drew as much as she did.

But, adult Drew is charming and very hot (and very rich, although London doesn’t care about that). They have a no-strings one-night-stand after the reunion, which turns into a two-night-stand… until London discovers Monday morning that Drew is also heading up the team set to audit her hospital and recommend whether or not to sell it to a private company.

As the two continue their supposedly sex-only encounters at night and interact professionally during the day, they can’t escape one another’s company, and London eventually has to admit that maybe there’s more to their connection than just the (incredibly smoking) physical relationship. Meanwhile, her hospital’s fate rests in Drew’s hands, and she has big decisions to make about her professional future as well.

I enjoyed London and Drew’s chemistry, but other pieces of the plot felt underbaked to me. Drew is a former hedge fund manager who’s worth hundreds of millions (there’s an ongoing joke about how his fancy New York apartment even has views of Central Park from the bathroom), so why is he doing hands-on work at a county hospital in Texas? His new company and his role don’t make a ton of sense to me.

As with the other books in the series, the plot points regarding the workplace and the complications there hang too heavily over the romantic elements. It’s good to see London in her element as a doctor and a leader, but certain situations (such as struggles with the hospital administration) are left hanging, or are set up but then resolved off the page.

I wished for more time with Samiah and Taylor in this book. While the women’s friendship is still the underpinning of the story, it felt as though we saw less of them in this book than in the previous two. (By the end, it’s clear that they’re both doing well, experiencing great success with the professional goals they set for themselves, and are happily in love!).

London and Drew clearly have great physical chemistry, and even though it takes a while for them to acknowledge that they’ve caught feelings too, their progression from enemies-with-benefits to true partnership and romance is well described and seems well-earned. London’s family situation gets addressed as well, and I appreciated seeing how seriously she takes her role as an older sister and her commitment to making sure her father’s young children don’t have the same sorts of trauma she’s carried with her for so long.

As a whole, I’ve really enjoyed the Boyfriend Project trilogy, and The Hookup Plan works well as a grand finale. The women’s friendship is what really makes these books special, above and beyond the fun romantic entanglements.

Interested? Check out my reviews of the previous two books in the series:

The Boyfriend Project

The Dating Playbook

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Book Review: The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

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Title: The Seven Year Slip
Author: Ashley Poston
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: June 27. 2023
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction/romance
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.

So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: stay busy, work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.

And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.

Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.

Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.

After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.

An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

It’s been a while since I’ve read a really satisfying time slip novel… and The Seven Year Slip absolutely delivers.

Clementine works as a book publicist, and has plans worked out for every aspect of her life. Her aunt Analea — vibrant, spontaneous, vivacious, always provided the spark in Clementine’s life, whisking her away for world travels, ready to explore, to taste, to try, to experience. But after Analea’s death, the joy has leached out of Clementine’s life, and moving into the apartment bequeathed to her by her aunt just drives home how much she’s lost.

Until she returns home one day, not to her stacks of unpacked boxes, but to the apartment as it was during Analea’s lifetime… and with a very cute guy zipping around the place, offering to make her dinner. Iwan informs Clementine that his mother is a friend of her aunt’s, and her aunt has offered to sublet the apartment to him for the summer while she’s off on a journey with her niece — a journey which Clementine and Analea took seven years in the past.

Clementine finds herself reeling — but not entirely unprepared. After all, all her life, her aunt has insisted that the apartment is magic, and even told of her own seven-year-slip romance at a younger age. Clementine never truly believed the stories, of course, but now, the proof is right there in front of her eyes.

She and Iwan connect over food, family, and dreams, and they enjoy each other’s company immensely. Still, she knows that once she leaves the apartment, she’ll be back to her regular life, and who knows if the magic will work more than once?

The plot of The Seven Year Slip unfolds deliciously, with clues and interludes and interactions woven together to form a wonderful, romantic, hopeful whole. For Clementine, so immersed in grief and loss, meeting Iwan is the spark she needs to rediscover her creative side once again and rethink her true sources of happiness. We see the story through her POV, but Iwan is a lovely character and we get hints of what his side of this magical yet strange experience must have been.

The Seven Year Slip is best experienced without too many expectations or foreknowledge. The book zips by, and the plot threads come together in such a rich and unexpected way. The characters are engaging, and getting to see them as different versions of themselves is really a treat.

This story exists in the same world as the author’s previous novel, The Dead Romantics, but it’s not a sequel — there’s a nod to some of the people from that book, but if you haven’t read that one yet, it won’t take away from The Seven Year Slip at all. (Although, it is VERY good, so check that one out too!)

I really enjoyed The Seven Year Slip, and recommend it highly! It’s a perfect summer read, full of hope and love, friendship, family, and romance. After reading this author’s YA Once Upon a Con trilogy and now two of her adult novels, I can definitely say that Ashley Poston’s books are must-reads!

Book Review: The Dating Playbook (The Boyfriend Project, #2) by Farrah Rochon

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Title: The Dating Playbook
Series: The Boyfriend Project, #2
Author: Farrah Rochon
Publisher: Forever
Publication date: August 17, 2021
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

When a personal trainer agrees to fake date her client, all rules are out the window in this delightful romantic comedy from the USA Today bestselling author of The Boyfriend Project!

When it comes to personal training, Taylor Powell kicks serious butt. Unfortunately, her bills are piling up, rent is due, and the money situation is dire. Taylor needs more than the support of her new best friends, Samiah and London. She needs a miracle.

And Jamar Dixon might just be it. The oh-so-fine former footballer wants back into the NFL, and he wants Taylor to train him. There’s just one catch — no one can know what they’re doing. But when they’re accidentally outed as a couple, Taylor’s game plan is turned completely upside down. Is Jamar just playing to win . . . or is he playing for keeps?

What a fun bit of escapism! In The Dating Playbook (the 2nd book in a trilogy), Taylor Powell is thousands of dollar in debt, is trying to resuscitate a floundering fitness business, and can’t seem to find a way to dig her way out of her problems. Sure, her best friends Samiah and London are supportive and more than willing to help, but Taylor wants to do it on her own… somehow.

And then Jamar Dixon shows up at her pop-up fitness class. Jamar is a former NFL player whose promising career was cut short in his first season after a devastating injury on the field. Jamar approaches Taylor with a proposition: He’s seen her YouTube videos, and is impressed with her approach to training. She’s also off the grid as far as the NFL is concerned, which is perfect for him. His goal is to work himself back into playing shape with the help of a private trainer, but keep it top-secret to avoid media scrutiny until he’s ready. He offers Taylor the job, and a hefty paycheck to go with it.

The catch? She has to agree to keep it completely secret. The payoff? In addition to earning enough to get herself out of her financial mess, Jamar will also reveal her as his trainer once he goes public and will endorse her fitness business, Taylor’d Conditioning.

When the two are spotted together and Jamar is questioned about whether Taylor is his trainer, she invents a lie on the spot — she’s not training him, she’s dating him. Despite her personal commitment to never date a client, she decides to see this fake relationship through. It’s better for Jamar this way, and she’ll still get the endorsement in the end when the truth is revealed. Meanwhile, she and Jamar put together a “dating playbook” — a way to convincingly act as a couple while secretly continuing the plan to get Jamar back to football-playing fitness levels.

The fake relationship trope doesn’t always work for me, but it’s done so well here that I was willing to buy it. There are solid enough reasons established to allow me to cheer for the ruse while also waiting for the fake-to-real transition to take place. Taylor and Jamar have oodles of chemistry, the sparks fly right from the start, and it’s only a matter of time before they give in to their feelings and mutual attraction.

One of the things I really appreciate about this trilogy (The Boyfriend Project) is how important the core friendship between Taylor, Samiah, and London is. The first book was Samiah’s story, and the third will be London’s, but in each book, all three women get together to support one another, share their joys and worries, and laugh together whenever possible. Too often, the best friend role in contemporary romance novels is tucked away in the background, but in these books, the friendship between the three women is really central to the storylines and the romantic relationships. It’s wonderful to see strong, smart women who are truly there for one another (and I can’t wait to see what happens with London in the next book).

The Dating Playbook spends maybe a bit too much time describing workouts and food planning for me, but that’s a minor complaint. I really enjoyed the main couple’s dynamics, and I appreciated the depth and seriousness applied to the central conflicts in both Taylor and Jamar’s lives.

Taylor’s situation is particularly well told. She thinks of herself as the black sheep of her high-achieving family, the disappointing child who doesn’t have the impressive careers and credentials of her siblings. As she realizes that a lack of a degree is hurting her professionally, Taylor is forced to finally consider why she hated school so much, including acknowledging that she may have an undiagnosed learning challenge at the root of her struggles.

Yes, I still find the sex scenes in this series to be a bit cringey, but there aren’t all that many, so I can abide getting through those in order to enjoy the rest of the story.

The Dating Playbook is a fun 2nd book in an upbeat series, and I look forward to finishing up with book #3, The Hookup Plan.

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Book Review: Hello Stranger by Katherine Center

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Title: Hello Stranger
Author: Katherine Center
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: July 11. 2023
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction/romance
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Love isn’t blind, it’s just little blurry.

Sadie Montgomery never saw what was coming . . . Literally! One minute she’s celebrating the biggest achievement of her life—placing as a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition—the next, she’s lying in a hospital bed diagnosed with a “probably temporary” condition known as face blindness. She can see, but every face she looks at is now a jumbled puzzle of disconnected features. Imagine trying to read a book upside down and in another language. This is Sadie’s new reality with every face she sees.

But, as she struggles to cope, hang on to her artistic dream, work through major family issues, and take care of her beloved dog, Peanut, she falls into—love? Lust? A temporary obsession to distract from the real problems in her life?—with not one man but two very different ones. The timing couldn’t be worse.

If only her life were a little more in focus, Sadie might be able to find her way. But perceiving anything clearly right now seems impossible. Even though there are things we can only find when we aren’t looking. And there are people who show up when we least expect them. And there are always, always other ways of seeing.

Hello Stranger has one of the most instantly interesting set-ups I’ve read recently. Sadie, a portrait artist, is diagnosed with a problematic brain vessel that requires immediate surgery. But when she wakes in the hospital post-surgery, the world looks very, very different.

Sadie has a condition called acquired prosopagnosia, otherwise known as “face blindness”. There’s nothing wrong with her eyes — it’s her brain that can’t make sense of the faces around her. The surgery has left her with swelling near the brain center that processes faces, and there’s no telling whether this is a permanent or temporary condition. For anyone, this would be distressing. For a portrait artist, this is also potentially career-ending — not that Sadie’s career was going all that well. In fact, right before the surgery, Sadie learned that she was a finalist in a competition that could finally give her her big breakthrough — but if she can’t see faces, how can she paint them?

Sadie’s life was already messy before the surgery — barely making ends meet through her Etsy shop, estranged from her father, stepmother, and truly evil stepsister, living in a rooftop shed that she officially is only supposed to use as a studio.

Now, with face blindness, the entire world has changed for Sadie. She literally cannot understand faces — she sees basically pixelated messes. Sure, she can focus in and see an eye or a mouth, individual features, but she has no ability to make sense of the whole. She can’t recognize people by face at all, and has to rely on hair, clothing, and other cues to figure out who she’s talking to. When dealing with kind people, that can still be okay, but not everyone around Sadie is kind (I did mention the evil stepsister, right?), and the cruelty of some of these encounters is pretty astonishing.

Without going further into the plot, I’ll just say that Sadie’s situation is both fascinating and incredibly difficult to comprehend. I fell down quite the Google rabbit-hole searching for examples of face blindness and how it’s experienced, and learned that there’s a difference between hereditary prosopagnosia (where people have it all their lives, and often don’t even realize it, since that’s how they’ve always experienced the world) and acquired prosopagnosia, usually an aftereffect of traumatic brain injury or illness. After reading stories of people who walk right by their own children without recognizing them or wonder why a strange woman is staring at them before realizing it’s themselves in a mirror, I gained a better understanding of Sadie’s new world too.

Another fascinating element here is Sadie’s conversations with her neuropsychologist about confirmation bias:

Dr. Nicole paused for a good definition. “It means that we tend to think what we think we’re going to think.”

I added all those words up. “So… if you expect to think a thing is true, you’re more likely to think it’s true?”

As Dr. Nicole goes on to explain:

“Basically we tend to decide on what the world is and who people are and how things are — and then we look for evidence that supports what we’ve already decided. And we ignore everything that doesn’t fit.”

As Sadie fits back into her life and tries to find a new approach to understanding the world around her, her assumptions and facts are repeatedly challenged by the need to rethink what she sees and question whether what she understands is true.

Hello Stranger is also a romance, and yes, the romantic plotlines are very good — but for me, it was Sadie’s unique situation and how it impacts every aspect of her life that made this book so compelling to read.

The backstory around Sadie’s family life is the hardest part of the book to accept, because it’s awful and tragic (and yet another great example of confirmation bias and its consequences). I felt so angry on Sadie’s behalf, yet by the end, could kind of see how the situation unfolded from the different characters’ differing experiences of the same events.

The book does explain that face blindness doesn’t necessarily mean the inability to understand expression (which is apparently handled by a different brain area), yet occasionally there’d be lines like:

The smug look had most definitely faded from her face

… that made me question whether this was something that Sadie could actually see or process, or if this was a glitch in the writing continuity.

I’m always fascinated by stories about unusual neurological conditions (such as the novel Left Neglected by Lisa Genova, or any of the writings of Dr. Oliver Sacks, who himself suffered from hereditary prosopagnosia) — but this is my first time reading such a tale in the context of romance.

Sadie’s story is fascinating, and the romance elements add welcome joy and hope to a story that also includes loss and dislocation. Sadie’s romantic escapades can be quite silly, but she’s such a great character that we can’t help but cheer for her. I don’t think I’ve ever read a romance novel quite like Hello Stranger, but it absolutely works.

Book Review: The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren

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Title: The True Love Experiment
Author: Christina Lauren
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication date: May 16. 2023
Length: 416 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction/romance
Source: Library
Rating:

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Sparks fly when a romance novelist and a documentary filmmaker join forces to craft the perfect Hollywood love story and take both of their careers to the next level—but only if they can keep the chemistry between them from taking the whole thing off script.

Felicity “Fizzy” Chen is lost. Sure, she’s got an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with a slew of bestsellers under her belt, but when she’s asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn’t been practicing what she’s preached.

Fizzy hasn’t ever really been in love. Lust? Definitely. But that swoon-worthy, can’t-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. Nothing. What happens when the optimism she’s spent her career encouraging in readers starts to feel like a lie?

Connor Prince, documentary filmmaker and single father, loves his work in large part because it allows him to live near his daughter. But when his profit-minded boss orders him to create a reality TV show, putting his job on the line, Connor is out of his element. Desperate to find his romantic lead, a chance run-in with an exasperated Fizzy offers Connor the perfect solution. What if he could show the queen of romance herself falling head-over-heels for all the world to see? Fizzy gives him a hard pass—unless he agrees to her list of demands. When he says yes, and production on The True Love Experiment begins, Connor wonders if that perfect match will ever be in the cue cards for him, too.

The True Love Experiment is the book fans have been waiting for ever since Fizzy’s debut in The Soulmate Equation. But when the lights come on and all eyes are on her, it turns out the happily ever after Fizzy had all but given up on might lie just behind the camera.

Christina Lauren books can be counted on to deliver zippy dialogue, great chemistry, entertaining characters, and unexpected plot points… and The True Love Experiment exceeds expectations with all of these! In fact, The True Love Experiment might just be my favorite Christina Lauren book yet.

Fizzy Chen is a character we’ve met before — she’s the main character’s zany best friend in The Soulmate Equation. Apparently, fans have been clamoring for more Fizzy ever since the earlier book, and now she gets her own chance to shine!

Fizzy is a very successful romance author in her late 30s, who’s reveled throughout her adulthood in her casual, open-to-anything approach to sex and dating. But as The True Love Experiment opens, she’s realizing that she may finally have just plain run out. She’s never been in love, and (in a very funny scene) she explains to best friend Jess that she may in fact have now dated every single man in San Diego. With these eye-opening revelations, Fizzy hits a major writer’s block — how can she write compelling romance when she’s not sure she actually believes in it anymore?

We also meet Connor, a gorgeous guy (whom Fizzy initially categorizes as romance tropes Hot Millionaire Executive, Hot Brit, and DILF) who’s a completely devoted divorced dad and the producer of environmentally-conscious documentaries. When his boss gives him an ultimatum — produce a money-making new dating show to save the production company, or be out of a job — Connor has to weigh his professional integrity against the reality that if he loses this job, he’ll have to move to LA to find work, which means giving up his role in his daughter’s daily life. Reluctantly, he commits to the dating show concept.

When Fizzy and Connor meet, they initially rub each other the wrong way… but we know that won’t last, because there are instant sparks amidst the bickering and button-pushing. Between them, almost as a dare to see who can come up with the craziest concept, they develop a framework for the new show: Fizzy will be the star, and the show will cast “heroes” who fit into defined romance archtypes — the bad boy, the hot nerd, the cinnamon roll, the one who got away. Fizzy will date each of them, the audience will vote on her true soulmate each week and determine who gets eliminated, and in the end, the audience will select a winner who’ll receive a cash prize. But there’s another twist: Fizzy and all contestants will also take the DNADuo test (see The Soulmate Equation for more info), a genetic screening test that identifies relationship compatability and defines matches on a scale (Base, Silver, Gold, Diamond, etc). At the show’s finale, the DNADuo match results between Fizzy and the finalists will be revealed, and then Fizzy will get to decide who she truly wants to be with.

As you might expect, all does not go according to plan. How is Fizzy supposed to fall in love with one of the show’s heroes when she’s distractingly attracted to Connor? The more time they spend together, the clearer it becomes that this isn’t just a matter of physical connection — but falling in love isn’t an option when (among other reasons) it would breach her contract with the show.

Okay, that’s the basic plot outline. What that doesn’t tell you is the insanely great connection between Fizzy and Connor, the absolutely hilarious dialogues that occur throughout the book, Fizzy’s amazingness as a person, and how utterly loving Connor is, as a dad, a friend, and a person who’s mad for Fizzy.

The book is told through both Fizzy and Connor’s POVs, so we know what’s going on inside and out. There’s the obligatory big obstacle that seems to tear the two apart late in the book, and I was very frustrated at first — but getting to hear from both characters why the incident blew up the way it did, how it triggered them and what past issues it brought up, and how internally conflicted they were in the aftermath helped me accept what had happened, even if I disagreed with how both of them behaved in the moment.

The show itself is lots of fun, although I question whether a show like this would be as successful in real life as it is in the story. The show starts with eight heroes and unfolds over just six episodes — is that really enough time to find true love? (OK, I need to admit here that I have never watched a single episode of The Bachelor or other dating shows, so I take anything of this sort with heaps of grains of salt).

I listened the audiobook, which has different narrators for Fizzy and Connor, and they were both wonderful! The downside of listening to the audiobook is not being able to highlight the parts that made me laugh out loud (there were plenty!) and share them here.

The True Love Experiment is so engaging, charming, and funny. I love that the characters are clearly amazing people, and that we get to see them in other roles (parent, aunt, best friend, daughter) to get a view of their lives outside the relationship as well. Fizzy and Connor are each fantastic on their own, and their connection together is not only full of physical chemistry but also based on emotional honesty and empathy.

Overall, The True Love Experiment is a joyful, entertaining read, with plenty of humor but also sincerity and intelligence. Highly recommended!

Book Review: Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

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Title: Dear Edward
Author: Ann Napolitano
Publisher: The Dial Press
Publication date: January 6, 2020
Length: 340 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them is a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured vet returning from Afghanistan, a septuagenarian business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. And then, tragically, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor.

Edward’s story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place for himself in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a piece of him has been left in the sky, forever tied to the plane and all of his fellow passengers. But then he makes an unexpected discovery–one that will lead him to the answers of some of life’s most profound questions: When you’ve lost everything, how do find yourself? How do you discover your purpose? What does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live?

After hearing so much about this book, I finally decided to give it a try. And once I started, I simply could not put it down.

Dear Edward is a powerful, sad, emotionally gripping story about unimaginable loss and how to rebuild a life. It’s the story of Edward Adler, who at age 12 is the sole survivor of a terrible plane crash, in which he loses his parents and older brother.

Edward is immediately adopted by his aunt and uncle and brought to live with them in their New Jersey home. He recovers from his physical injuries, but the damage to his heart and mind seems insurmountable. He’s lost everything and everyone, and while surrounded by kindness and support, has to figure out how to live the rest of his life when he’s completely lost and without direction.

It doesn’t help that people around the world have fixated on him as a “miracle boy”. He’s famous, but the attention can feel toxic, and certainly isn’t good for his fragile state. Fortunately, the 12-year-old girl next door, Shay, sees him merely as a boy and a curiosity, and becomes a key to his daily struggle to survive.

In interludes between chapters, we also see the events on the flight that fateful day as, hour by hour, the people onboard move closer to their deaths. We get to know individuals, their hopes, fears, and dreams, and each time these flight scenes come up, the looming disaster feels even more tragic and inevitable.

Without saying too much about the plot itself, I’ll just say that this book is so gripping that I read it pretty much straight through. I had to know what would happen next for Edward, and on top of that, the structure of the book means that we see snippets of the flight throughout, but don’t get to the awful end of it until close to the end of the book. And while we know that the plane will in fact crash, by giving us a close-up connection to so many of the passengers, when the end comes, it hits very hard and feels like a huge blow.

The writing is sensitive and well-structured, and the weaving together of the two main story elements keeps both moving forward with intensity. I came to love Edward as a character, as well as the wonderful people who come into his life at key moments and become central to his survival.

Dear Edward is an absorbing, emotional read with a strong plot and memorable characters. Highly recommended.

Book Review: Lion’s Legacy by L. C. Rosen

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Title: Lion’s Legacy
Author: L. C. Rosen
Series: Tennessee Russo, #1
Publisher: Union Square Co.
Publication date: May 2, 2023
Length: 304 pages
Genre: Young adult
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher
Rating:

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Seventeen-year-old Tennessee Russo’s life is imploding. His boyfriend has been cheating on him, and all his friends know about it. Worse, they expect him to just accept his ex’s new relationship and make nice. So when his father, a famous archaeologist and reality show celebrity whom he hasn’t seen in two years, shows up unexpectedly and offers to take him on an adventure, Tennessee only has a few choices:
  1. Stay, mope, regret it forever.
2. Go, try to reconcile with Dad, become his sidekick again.
3. Go, but make it his adventure, and Dad will be the sidekick.
The object of his father’s latest quest, the Rings of the Sacred Band of Thebes, is too enticing to say no to. Finding artifacts related to the troop of ancient Greek soldiers, composed of one-hundred-and-fifty gay couples, means navigating ruins, deciphering ancient mysteries, and maybe meeting a cute boy.

But will his dad let Tennessee do the right thing with the rings if they find them? And what is the right thing? Who does queer history belong to?

Against the backdrop of a sunlit Greek landscape, author L. C. Rosen masterfully weaves together adventure, romance, and magic in a celebration of the power of claiming your queer legacy.

If you read the synopsis above and thought “gay teen Indiana Jones”… you wouldn’t be far off! Lion’s Legacy is full of daring adventures, death-defying traps, and mind-boggling puzzles… all wrapped up in a story about finding community and reclaiming queer history.

Tennessee Russo (who goes by Ten) is the 17-year-old son of a high-profile reality TV star and archaeologist. Each season of the show focuses on Ten’s dad going off on a danger-filled quest to retrieve an ancient artifact. For two of the show’s most successful seasons, Ten accompanied his dad as his sidekick and cameraman, but he walked away from his dad and the show after a heated argument over the fate of the recovered relics.

Now, after a two-year absence, Ten’s dad is back to entice him into one more adventure, but Ten’s really not sure that he trusts his dad or wants to spend time with him. However, the timing is great — after getting cheated on and then dumped by his boyfriend, he’s ready to get away and get immersed in a new quest, and his dad couldn’t have picked a better one: They’re going off in search of the Sacred Band of Thebes.

Legend has it that this band of warriors was composed of 150 pairs of bonded/married gay lovers, who pledged themselves to one another in a sacred ceremony. Some say that the rings the pairs wore — the sacred bands — were more than just symbolic, and that they imparted magical strength and fighting abilities to the men who wore them. Of course, the naysayers say that the warriors were committed as a platonic band of brothers — no gay subtext here! — but Ten is convinced that the Sacred Band of Thebes represents a crucial piece of queer history, and he’s determined to bring it to light.

Author L. C. Rosen (who also writes as Lev AC Rosen, and is the author of such fantastic books as Depth and Lavender House) creates an adventure tale with heart in Lion’s Legacy. The quest itself is lots of fun, full of deadly arrows, rickety plane rides, narrow cliffs, and spurting bursts of fire (plus a very cute local boy to act as translator). But what really makes this book stand out is the emphasis on reclaiming queer history, and how that shared history creates community and connection. The messaging is positive and lovely, and I really enjoyed how deeply Ten thinks about these things and expresses what it all means to him.

There’s also serious consideration given to issues around artifacts and where they belong — whether treasure hunters like Ten’s dad are committing thievery by finding these relics and selling them to the highest bidder… or whether such pieces should go to high-paying museums because they’re the ones most likely to keep them both safeguarded and available to the public, rather than hidden away in someone’s storage room forever. Through Ten, we’re shown the different sides of the issues, and also through Ten, are shown how someone committed to doing the right thing can also come up with creative and meaningful solutions.

Overall, Lion’s Legacy is a terrific adventure story with strong messages and very positive queer representation, and would make a great and very welcome addition to any young adult library shelf. This book is apparently the first in a series, and I look forward to seeing where Ten’s adventures take him next.

Highly recommended.

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