I mentioned in my January round up that my daughter is following my Goodreads now, and I am starting to borrow her books! They Both Die at the End might be having a viral moment, and I was also curious enough to steal it from her shelves because there are many glowing reviews from people I follow.
It sounds ridiculously obvious, but this book was so sad! I thought it would be tempered a bit since we know how it ends, and perhaps be unexpectedly uplifting. No. It was really depressing.
I think the idea of knowing when you die is a trope that gets explored often, and it definitely makes for excellent discussion. I admired Silvera’s world building creativity with the commodification of what that might look like in the future or in an alternate universe: central to the story is an app created to meet ‘last day friends’ - yet there are many other thought provoking economical, political and spiritual ideas to ponder.
I felt like it sagged us a little bit in the middle, but the themes and story were so well done, excellent YA fare.
“Maybe it’s better to have gotten it right and been happy for one day instead of living a lifetime of wrongs.”

Listening to a Michelle Obama pep talk will never be a bad experience. But, I felt as if this one was filled with platitudes. I guess it’s just that I am not into the self-help genre, or I’d rather get my information about such topics from journalism.

I am a big fan of Moyes’ contemporary fiction, and it sounded like a fun ‘Trading Places’ premise and I was so glad that my digital hold arrived within days after its release.
This story is an absolute romp, veering dangerously close to being ridiculous at times, but not quite. Her characters make me laugh out loud, empathetic toward their plight, and filled with righteous anger on their behalf (oh man, Sam’s boss is THE WORST).
This was thoughtful in so many ways about women’s struggles and how we can lift each other up. Very similar thematically to The Change, but the twists, turns, and heart of this book were so much more appealing. Recommend!

We All Want Impossible Things was a tough book to review. Having just done the hospice song and dance with my late mother this fall, it was a pretty brutal read, but so needed. I was so clueless about how that stuff works, and yet it’s something that almost every single person will have to deal with at some point. It makes me furious how we don’t give the option for people to choose how they would like to shuffle off this mortal coil: the fiscal and emotional cost that goes into palliative care is just beyond wasteful and cruel in prolonging the inevitable, in my opinion.
I am grateful for a book that sheds some light on end of life care, the writing was lovely, the banter was witty, the characters felt real and pulled at my heartstrings as fellow gen-xers (the current sandwich generation). If those things appeal definitely pick up this slim volume.
Alas, I felt cringey about the logistical house of cards that Newman lays out for Edi to go to hospice too far for her only child to visit, and for Ash to become the primary caretaker in lieu of Edi’s husband. Yes, one can have hugely important relationships other than a spouse in life, but there’s at least one or two scenes where Edi asks after her son, or is thinking about her husband, and I felt like there should’ve been a background assumption that eventually she would be brought closer to her family. At the very least, have them talk on the phone more. At one point, Ash lies to Edi about texting with her child! It left such a horrible taste in my mouth. Also, speaking of children, Ash’s daughter seems to have dropped out of school and… no one cares? Not even the school? I dunno. There was a lot of suspension of disbelief.
Clearly, the author has first-hand experience with this stuff, and it shows. I wonder if it would’ve been better served as a memoir, which is already in her wheelhouse. 
“Everyone dies, and yet it’s unendurable. There is so much love inside of us. How do we become worthy of it? And, then, where does it go? A worldwide crescendo of grief, sustained a day after day, and only one tiny note of it is mine.”

This was so cringe inducing, beginning with how she is objectified as a pretty young girl, her interactions with her mother, and learning of all the disgusting things professional models deal with in their work. Though I don’t know if there were any big takeaways, it was a fascinating bit of food for thought on how society is built to objectify women.

Of the many glowing reviews and accolades for this National Book Award winner, the description of interconnected stories was what made me buy The Rabbit Hutch: a cast of characters living in one apartment building (nicknamed the rabbit hutch) wherein a girl is stabbed and the details leading up to it are laid out.
As I began reading, it definitely fell into the category I was hoping, which is very similar to Jennifer Egan‘s novels The Goon Squad and The Candy House. I loved the repeating words peppered into different stories, the different storylines tantalizingly woven together. Gunty’s narrative was MUCH easier to follow than those aforementioned, and there is a true main character in the unforgettable Blandine. I was fully invested and anxious to know how her story would play out. EVERY character is so brutally, and weirdly complex: a mother suffering from postpartum depression and is afraid to look her baby in the eye, a man who likes to paint himself with glow stick liquid and frighten people, or a woman who shuts her self off from the world and treats herself to maraschino cherries in bed at the end of the day are just a few examples. The fictional Vacca Vale is also vividly rendered as a recognizably dying Midwestern town, with once beautiful parks besieged by floods and left to ruin, or gentrification. 
The way the story eventually comes together is completely bananas and I loved it. My only critique was that Blandine‘s character relied heavily on dialogue about philosophy and isms - so much Hildegard! I felt as if I was missing some themes because I don’t know a lot about female religious mystics, like the book was too smart for me. But, even not fully going on philosophical deep dive, it was still a fantastic read and an impressive debut.

“But mostly, the violence was administered by the attention, which was the wrong kind of light – a radiation that burned her, gave her melanoma of the spirit.”

I snuck this haunting, dreamlike and provocative graphic novel off my daughter’s library returns pile. The kind of story that takes awhile to click into place, and makes you want to reread.

 I thought the world building and themes of colonialism were so creatively expressed in the magic Kuang created. But I had to force myself to finish: too dense and exhausting. So. Many. Footnotes.

Just as impactful as the first book, and heartbreaking in a completely new way, this book clearly illustrates how the author’s relationship with his father is so strained. Because of the deep trauma of his Holocaust experience, Art’s father has so many ingrained idiosyncrasies that Art will never be able to understand and causes such a rift.

This was absolutely riveting, heartbreaking, and I was wincing with terror nearly the whole time I listened to Stephanie Foo’s memoir. If you thought ‘I’m Glad my Mom Died’ by Jennette McCurdy was triggering, this is WAY beyond in level of abuse.
The trauma that people pass on to their children is very real and Foo brings the reader along in such an engaging way on her journey to learn about her complex trauma. From visiting her old high school teachers and friends, to working with multiple therapists (she even shares recordings from her sessions on the audiobook), she helps uncover the chemistry and psychology of complex PTSD, as well as generational trauma (especially that of Asian Americans).
I highly recommend Oprah and Bruce Perry’s ‘What Happened to You?’ as a companion read this book. All very difficult and heavy reading, but so insightful and so needed.

“Over and over, the answer is the same, isn’t it? Love, love, love. The salve and the cure. In order to become a better person, I had to do something utterly unintuitive. I had to reject the idea that punishing myself would solve the problem. I had to find the love.”