Review: "Loveable" by Amber Rae

Loveable by Amber Rae
Published August 2025 via St. Martin's Essentials
★★★

From the outside, Rae's marriage was idyllic. From the inside, it was looking emptier and emptier—and then she met someone else, and within a matter of weeks her marriage was over. This is partly a story of finding that someone else (and thus the catalyst to leave a marriage that wasn't working for Rae), partly a story of what came after, and partly a look into the parts of her past that kept her stuck in patterns that weren't serving her.

I appreciate that Rae delves into the "after"—an instant connection being a starting point but not enough to carry a relationship in and of itself, not without work. This would probably be a good read for fans of Glennon Doyle. It turned out to not be a great fit for me—no shade to anyone who is into soulmates and signs, visions and symbolism, but that's not really me. I'm somewhere between skeptical and cynical (or, if I'm being kinder to myself, perhaps it's accurate to say that I'm just terminally practical), and I tend to be in memoir more for the storytelling and the vicarious experience and less for the life lessons.

Loveable makes for a very quick read (I read the bulk of it on a couple of mid-length train rides and still had time to finish two other books), and I expect it'll find an enthusiastic audience. I didn't look up Rae's other books before picking this one up, and in retrospect I probably should have; if her previous books look like up your alley, this might also be a better fit for you than it was for me.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Sample-Chapter Showdown: Young Adult II

Kill Her Twice by Stacey Lee (Penguin Young Readers Group)
Of Flame and Fury by Mikayla Bridge (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
The Dead of Summer by Ryan La Sala (PUSH)

It's time for a sample-chapter showdown! This edition features YA books with three very different settings—one historical, one fantasy, and one contemporary...with a twist.

Kill Her Twice
It's the 1930s in LA, and times are tough: May and Gemma are struggling to keep their family afloat while their father recovers from illness, a task made that much harder by the country's economic slump...and harder still when racism limits their opportunities. Then Lulu Wong, the shining star of Chinatown—who has found mainstream success—is found dead, perhaps murdered, and one thing is certain: the police cannot be trusted to handle this case on their own.

It's been a while since I read one of Lee's books, but if I remember correctly, this is true to form—rich in detail and bringing history to life. This isn't a time or place (LA generally, Chinatown more specifically) about which I know all that much, but I came out of these sample chapters thinking that Lee has done her homework. The plot moves pretty quickly, with a body discovered and a possible love interest introduced and a possible arranged marriage discussed before the end of the sample. I'm not entirely sure where all of this will go (although I can make a few educated guesses), but, well, I think we can safely say that I'm invested now.

Of Flame and Fury
In a world where phoenix racing can bring fame and, critically, fortune, Kel is desperate to win to stave off financial ruin. But even with a star phoenix, that's not an easy task, and she's left with the question: how far is she willing to go?

I read a ten-chapter sampler of the book, which is more than enough to introduce Kel and her teammates and to get a sense of the perils of the world she lives in. Kel and team are all teenagers, operating more or less without adult oversight in a wildly dangerous sport—phoenix racing is not just a matter of speed and skill but one of dodging obstacles designed to kill. Kel says that pheonixes are "godly creatures meant to be feared and protected" (loc. 135*) but also that because they are "continually captured for [racing] and killed on tracks, their population was dwindling" (loc. 662); I'm not sure how these two things are balanced—how widely phoenixes are viewed as godly—but I hope this dichotomy of Kel caring so deeply for her phoenix but also being heavily involved in a sport designed to kill both humans and phoenixes is explored in depth as the book goes on.

This is very very clearly set up as an enemies-to-lovers story—Kel knows Coup from the racing circuit, and she can't stand him (mostly, I think, because he's willing to take bigger risks than she is, and is more likely to win). I've never been one much for enemies-to-lovers stories (give me mutual respect and cooperation!), but I imagine that this will go over very well with readers who are fans of I-can't-stand-him-so-why-do-I-want-to-kiss-him YA romance.

The Dead of Summer
Ollie's return to Anchor's Mercy is a homecoming—and perhaps something much, much worse.

I could have sworn that I'd read something by La Sala before, but...well, I checked, and to the best of my knowledge I haven't. So this was an intriguing first look: a few quick chapters at what promises to be a twisty story, with elements of horror and queer love and perhaps a bit of science fiction. (I'm reminded somewhat of Wilder Girls and am curious whether that sense holds throughout the book.)

The book opens into a standard YA love story, but it quickly becomes something much darker: it is clear that all is not well in Anchor's Mercy; it is clear that all has been not well in Anchor's Mercy for quite some time. But what that means, exactly, remains to be seen in the rest of the book. I'm guessing that this will be a fast-moving one, and if I was only neutrally interested by the thought of another YA summer island romance, I'm very intrigued by whatever experiments are going on in the rest of the book. Likely one for those who enjoy a bit of weird in their reading, a bit of twist, a world off its kilter.

The verdict: While Of Flame and Fury feels like a good fit for an audience looking for energetic, speculative YA, I'm a lot pickier about speculative fiction (and YA in general) than I used to be, so I'll likely hold off on this one. Kill Her Twice and The Dead of Summer both intrigue me, for different reasons: from the former, I know I can expect a well-written, well-researched story about a time and place and community that doesn't get enough literary love; from the latter, I'd anticipate something twisty and weird. So I'll just have to see what I end up in the mood for first!

Thanks to the authors and publishers for providing these previews through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC sample and may not be final.

Review: "Slip" by Mallary Tenore Tarpley

Slip by Mallary Tenore Tarpley
Published August 2025 via Simon Element
★★★★

When Tarpley was eleven, her mother died—and Tarpley spiralled. What started as an effort to stop time turned into a long slog through anorexia, and even when she was well, "well" often felt tenuous.

My recovery has been messy and maddening, and it is not redemptive in the ways our society hopes illness narratives will be. On one end of the spectrum of how we talk about this disease, there is sickness. On the other, full recovery. I live my life in the in-between, in what I've come to call the middle place. It's the liminal space that many of us inhabit as we work our way toward wellness. And it's an alternative to black-and-white thinking that bifurcates the world into two halves without exploring the beautify in between. In the middle place, hope and hardship coexist, slips are expected, and progress is possible. (loc. 67*)

Tarpley is a journalist, and here she blends her own story with research into eating disorders, recovery, and that slippery and little-studied middle place. I'd hazard a non-scientific guess that a significant majority of people with eating disorders end up in this middle place, sometimes (often?) for years if not decades: well enough to function; well enough to "pass"; knowing at the same time that a small slip could send it all tumbling back down. Or it might not, and there's no real way to know ahead of time.

I'm here for the mix. As much as I love memoir, there's a depth here that would be hard to achieve from a single person's story. Tarpley is good about avoiding problematic details, but more to the point, she highlights places where research and treatment are just...lacking. In the eating-disorder field, there seem to be as many definitions of "full recovery" as there are studies about it. [...] Recovery rates, for instance, are shown to be anywhere from 57 to 94 percent for anorexia and 13 to 74 percent for bulimia. (Yes, you read that right.) (loc. 2426) There are a number of reasons for this, but if with just inconsistent definitions of recovery and wildly different study periods (can someone really be considered to have recovered from an eating disorder after just six months?), you lose the ability to effectively compare studies and treatments. Or consider this: When Dr. Maine was doing her dissertation on anorexia in the 1980s, she said there were three comically shortsighted criteria for recovery: weight restoration, return of menstruation, and (believe it or not) marriage. (loc. 3132) We've come a long way, but there's a ways yet to go.

A thoughtful and incisive look, and an excellent addition to the genre.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Memoirs of an Ex-Nun" by Josephine Latorilla

Memoirs of an Ex-Nun by Josephine Latorilla
Published September 2009
★★

Latorilla entered a convent in 1983, flying from her home in the Philippines to Italy to start her journey. In 1993, having reached the sixth year of her temporary vows (nuns typically take a series of steps, including temporary vows, before their final and permanent vows), she exited the religious life and began a layperson's life.

I love this line: I would always tell myself that as long as there are different flowers in the garden so there are different forms of life, and it is a grace to appreciate the others who are not and who must not be the same as me. (loc. 220)

But on the whole I found the book to be a bit hard to follow. Part of this may be a language barrier; English is not Latorilla's first language, and since finishing her time as a nun she has lived in places where English is not the first language spoken. No criticism there, of course! I read the book partly because I was curious about a nun's experience somewhere other than the US or UK, though, and even after reading I'm not sure whether she did the initial steps of her novitiate in Italy or in the Philippines (and if the former, as I suspect, what the circumstances surrounding that were). I'm left wondering whether there was some broader call for would-be nuns from abroad to fill slots in Italy, or something else; at least some of her fellow initiates were also from the Philippines, and I'd have loved to hear a little about them and how they found integration into Italian religious life.

Midway through the book, Latorilla describes leaving the order, again with very little explanation—only that she is finding it harder to obey. It's not clear whether that's something she'd struggled with for, say, eight of the ten years she'd been a nun, or for two; it's not clear what that struggle meant to her, only that it was enough that she left. So I can't really recommend the book (just too unclear), but I bet Latorilla has interesting stories to tell in person.

Children's books: Multicultural: "Twist, Tumble, Triumph", "Why We Eat Fried Peanuts", and "The Black Mambas"

Twist, Tumble, Triumph by Deborah Bodin Cohen and Kerry Olitzky, illustrated by Martina Peluso (Kar-Ben Publishing)
Why We Eat Fried Peanuts by Zed Zha, illustrated by Sian James (becker&mayer! kids)
The Black Mambas by Kelly Crull (Millbrook Press)

Diving back into the world of picture books—multicultural edition!

As a champion gymnast, Ágnes Keleti was used to being upside down—but she wasn't used to the ways in which war turned her entire world upside down. Twist, Tumble, Triumph tells a young-reader version of her story of survival as a Jewish girl in 1940s Hungary—and her later success, when it was safe for her to compete again.

Keleti had quite the life; the book notes at the end that with the 1952 Olympics "she was just getting started", but her trials weren't over yet either; she later claimed asylum in Australia to avoid a life under the USSR and only moved back to Budapest in 2015.

The art is a little simpler than is my preference, but it's clean and gets the job done. A lot of detail is left out in the book, of course, because of the target age range, but adult readers will pick up on some of the things left unsaid or unexplored. It makes for a nice combination of history and sports book for young readers.

"Dad, why do we eat fried peanuts every New Year?" Mèng asks—and so we get a story about culture and family and history and language and, yes, fried peanuts, all in this short children's book. Why We Eat Fried Peanuts introduces young readers to a Chinese tradition, all wrapped in a story that also teaches them something about the past and about the hardships their forebears may have faced.

This makes for a charming and thoughtful read, with full-color illustrations to bring the story to life. I love that Mèng's father acknowledges that women have often been forgotten in history (Mèng's great grandmother is known only as tài nǎi nai, or "great grandmother", because her name has been lost to history) but that their stories should not be forgotten. I might have liked to see a bit more detail about the woman we see at the end of the story—she is even more lost to history, and her story is much sadder—but I might be asking a bit much out of a 32-page picture book that is already doing so much!

All in all, a solid addition to any young reader's shelves. I wouldn't mind reading some variation on this story written for adults, either. (Oh, and there's a recipe for fried peanuts at the end—too close to deep-frying for me, but if I were comfortable deep-frying at home I'd absolutely make them!)

And finally, The Black Mambas tells the story of an all-woman anti-poaching unit in South Africa. Told from the perspective of the women, readers are taken through their daily work and the importance of protecting the animals in the reserve.

I recently went on a tour in a tiger reserve in India, and our naturalist was one of only three woman naturalists in the reserve (3 women and 31 men). The naturalists were are from the local community, and their training was really just about how to present their knowledge—because they'd grown up in villages in the area and already knew how to track animals and what to look for. (I'm not sure whether there was an anti-poaching element—my partner was translating, and the naturalist was definitely most comfortable with animal questions, so there was a limit to how much I could ask.) And so of course I'm reminded of that in reading this book: of women stepping up to roles traditionally denied to them and doing fascinating and important work.

Most of the pictures in The Black Mambas are photographs, with the occasional fun activity for kids—guessing animal footprints, thinking through what route to take through the park under the given circumstances, etc. It's a really compassionate book, both celebrating the women doing this work (and the animals they're protecting) and noting that many poachers are just trying to feed their families and don't understand the broader implications of their actions.

I hope one (or more!) of these women eventually writes a full-length memoir, because the work they're doing is so interesting...but in the meantime, this makes for a great way to get kids curious about and interested in conservation work.

Thanks to the authors and publishers for providing review copies through NetGalley.

Review: "The Nun Diaries" by Annie Kontor

The Nun Diaries by Annie Kontor
Published May 2015 via Indigo Prairie Press
★★★

In her mid-twenties, after college and graduate school and time spent abroad and in the workforce, Kontor took a leap she'd been thinking about for more than half her life: she joined a convent, expecting to remain a part of it for the rest of her life. And a little less than a year later, she left the convent for good.

Now, I've read my fair share of nun and (especially) ex-nun memoirs. I am not Catholic and there was never any fear that I would become a nun (or, you know, become Catholic), but I'm perennially interested in memoirs about the experience. It's so removed from my own life, sometimes literally, and it's also an experience that has obviously called to so many over centuries—and also that so many have left. Kontor was clear, when she looked into the religious life, on what she wanted: a liberal, community-focused order; plenty of social justice; street clothing, not habits; other nuns in her general age range; definitely no cloistered life.

She found that and more (think: visiting a house full of nuns who had bought a house in all its 70s swinger glory and left the décor intact because they found it funny), and yet. Communal life rankled. Even with the freedoms of a liberal order (everyone was expected to work outside the convent—choosing their own jobs—could spend their free time as they pleased, including out dancing with non-religious friends, and chose a church to pray at as they pleased), Kontor notes that since I had never dated any one person for more than three months, I had no clue how the give-and-take in relationships worked (29). She was also struggling with depression and the effects of childhood trauma, and the resources the church could and would provide were not enough to make a difference.

Sister Janice had once said if the community brought out our best self, it was a good sign we were in the right vocation. But if it zapped strength we didn't have, it may not be worth it. (43)

Every time I read an ex-nun memoir, but especially ones where someone went in with a long-standing dream but ultimately realized that it was not what they had imagined, I think that the church is doing it wrong by having postulants go in with a permanent commitment. I mean, I get it: a nun is supposed to be marrying Jesus, and even though it's a bigamous relationship a marriage is (in the eyes of the Catholic church) a permanent/forever/un-undoable thing. But I think about the way that in some religions it's much more normalized to step into the religious life for a while, and then step back out as planned (e.g., see A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants), and I have to wonder whether the church would do better to present that as an option to young women—spend a predetermined amount of time in some form of monastic life, have a chance to see whether it's something they feel called for for the longer term. Note that there are emergency exits for would-be nuns—it varies by order and probably location and so on and so forth, but would-be nuns spend a while as postulants, and then as novices, before taking temporary and then permanent vows. So there is a discernment period (Kontor didn't get far enough into it to take permanent vows), but it's one where the goal is always to take those permanent vows rather than one that is more flexible or open-ended; I'm not sure I've ever read a memoir by a former nun in which she didn't feel, on some level, as though she'd failed.

So The Nun Diaries is fascinating for its look at a liberal order and a more contemporary time frame—I'm not sure of the exact years, but Kontor mentions that she was not allowed to have a cell phone as a nun, so relatively recent. The only other memoir I've read by someone in a more liberal order is The Wheel of Rocks, and that's by someone who is happy in her vocation. It did feel in places as though Kontor was still bitter about her experience, and while that's perfectly valid, I wished she'd interrogated that bitterness a bit more. She talks quite a lot about things that annoyed her about communal living but struggles, in the writing, to step back and ask what might have underpinned the annoyance and what she might have done differently, given hindsight. (This is not to suggest blame, just that I think there's a lot left unexplored.)

I'm now curious to read memoirs by nuns in other settings—not the US or UK—to see how that compares, and perhaps an ex-monk memoir or two, if I can find those. One thing Kontor talks about (which she didn't expect going in) is just how often other nuns in the community passed away, simply because it was an ageing community; I'm guessing the experience is rather different in places (southern Africa, Latin America) with younger religious populations.

Review: "I Witnessed" by Jeramey Kraatz and Crystal Jayme

I Witnessed by Jeramey Kraatz and Crystal Jayme
Published March 2025 via HarperAlley
★★★

If you grew up in the US, you probably know the story: once upon a time, a woman did (or didn't) pick up an axe and hack her father and stepmother to death. She was arrested, she was put on trial—and she was found not guilty. She lived the rest of her life in relative obscurity, and to this day nobody knows who committed the murders.

I learned about the Lizzie Borden case when I was in grade six, and it has stayed with me ever since. I'm not really sure why—I mean, yeah, I like reading true crime as much as the next person, but there's unsolved case upon unsolved case out there, and this should be no different. And yet...it's one of those things where, when a new book comes out, off I go to the library to seek it out.

Here, the story is told from the perspective of Lizzie Borden's next-door-neighbour, a boy who existed in real life but about whom little is known. A bit player at best in the real-life story but the main character here, Charlie is in the thick of it: he sees violence through his window and tracks a possible murderer through the woods; he tries to convince the police that he has something important to say; he eavesdrops on conversations and is the recipient of various oblique, confession-like comments from various characters. It's safe to say that Charlie is invested.

This is middle grade, so I'm not the target audience, and this is one where I can't really gauge how it would go over with kids. From my adult perspective, this fell a little flat—though the art was nice enough, I often struggled to distinguish between the various characters (especially Lizzie, her sister Emma, their maid Bridget, and Charlie's mother), and I guess I was just hoping that this would add something new to the books I've already read. I suppose that a tween would enjoy imagining themselves in the thick of it, not at risk but feeling as though they had a stake in the matter, but I think if this were going to be a fictionalization anyway, I'd have preferred it to twist things a little further rather than shoehorning in a character who knows more than the police do. But again: not the target audience! Perhaps someday there'll be another graphic novelization of the Borden murders that suits me better...and until then, I think I should probably go read The Lizzie Borden Trial again and see if my impressions have changed since I was a tween myself.

Review: "Fearless" by Alison Monda

Fearless by Alison Monda
Published October 2024
★★★★

I am a stubborn barnacle. I could avoid most of the problems in my life if not for this personality trait. However, I have also achieved the best things in my life because of it. (66)

Hello, unexpected delight. As the title promises, this is Monda's chaotic and funny tale of life spent as much in the woods as possible...and, yeah, sometimes creating chaos and hilarity along the way. I'm not a laugh-out-loud-while-reading kind of person, but I definitely snickered a time or two, and even that is not my norm. Fearless charges up and down mountains (and sometimes in and out of emergency rooms), and it is a ride.

When not in the woods, Monda is a firefighter. She talks about it only briefly here, but I'm hoping against hope that eventually she'll also write a book about that experience.

Review: "Hunting in America" by Tehila Hakimi

Hunting in America by Tehila Hakimi, translated by Joanna Chen
Published July 2025 via Penguin Books
★★★★

A woman moves to an unnamed place in the US, and she is invited to go hunting—a first for her, but not her first time with a gun. And the invitation to hunt is a welcoming gesture, but it comes with a layer of subtext. It's a test and it's a beginning and perhaps it's an end, all rolled into one.

The invitation to hunt isn't the only thing in Hunting in America that is rife with subtext. Layers upon layers of it: the narrator holds her thoughts close to her chest and her history closer, but there's potential for double meanings in huge swathes of what she chooses to tell the reader and how.

In voice I'm reminded in places of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, though I found this rather easier to read. It's the sense of a protagonist on the verge of self-destruction, I think; the protagonist here is detached even as she makes decisions based more on emotion and instinct than on calculation.

I read this quickly—meant to read it in a couple of days but shot through in one. Going in, I was a little uncertain about the focus on hunting (I'm a near lifelong vegetarian who has never touched a gun, and I'd like to keep both of those things as they are), but for all that so much of the book is about hunting, hunting is almost beside the point; so much of the story is behind the hunting blind, behind the sentences on the page. Not uplifting, but lots to parse, to think about after the fact.

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to read a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Disappear" by Chelsie Robb

Disappear by Chelsie Robb
Published July 2023
★★★

I am just a number. / My entire life is numbers. I've never / been good at math. (11)

Not sure how best to describe this, but I guess a chapbook? A mix of poetry and prose or prose poetry. I prefer the prose parts, which will never be a surprise to me, but they're well done here. The later poetry lean a little rhyme-heavy, but overall there's a good sense of variation and growth throughout the short book.

I don't know how to talk about the grave I dug myself into so long ago without inviting you to start digging too. (14)

I'll leave it there—short book, short review?—but this one worked better for me than I expected.

Review: "Making the Cut" by Sophie Wiggins

Making the Cut by Sophie Wiggins
Published July 2025 via The Book Guild
★★

The moment Lydia's daughter Annie sets foot in a ballet class, she's hooked—and Lydia knows she'll do anything in her power to keep Annie happy and dancing.

Content warnings in a footnote because they're somewhat spoilery*

What worked well for me:
I love a ballet book, so I was eager to pick this one up. It's interesting to get a small peek into competitive dance, too—Annie eventually wants to dance professionally, but a lot of her classes end up being about other types of dance, like acro, and about preparing for competitions. And...to an extent I appreciate that Lydia is making calculated decisions throughout the book: she's constantly weighing her reservations about the ballet studio against Annie's happiness, and everything she does is in pursuit of that happiness. She's very much a dance mom, and she may have lost touch with what is healthy, but what she does not do is push Annie to do anything she doesn't want to.

What worked less well for me:
First, the stress about money is real in this book, from almost the very beginning. Lydia throws financial caution to the wind in pursuit of Annie's dance education. Aside from wishing the studio's vulture aspect had been more gradually introduced, I just find reading that kind of financial imprudence really stressful to read about. Personal preference, but it honestly stressed me out to read about it.

Second, although Lydia does try not to be that kind of dance mom...in her head, she's every bit as bad as the others. The word "bitch" appeared at least 19 times, and almost every one of those instances is in Lydia's thoughts—mostly referring to either the other dance moms or to their daughters, whether the daughter is 7 or 17. It's not great. The main portion of the book spans about fifteen years, from when Annie is two to when she's a teenager, but Lydia never really grows; she neither has nor wants any kind of life outside Annie's dance. It never occurs to her that there is any kind of middle ground; e.g., that she could look for a different studio for her daughter. And...although she says she does everything for her daughter, she's incredibly passive, to the point that when her daughter faces something that Lydia knows from personal experience can be deadly, she continues to do nothing...and then eventually blames the studio for not telling her their suspicions sooner, even though she'd known about (and done nothing) for months as well. Maybe some of this is supposed to be explained by Lydia's past, but I wanted her to take some kind of normal step to set them on a different path, and she never did.

And third—this is the biggest point—I think the book has been mismarketed. At the time that I picked it up, it was labelled "entertainment & pop culture," "general fiction (adult)," and "women's fiction." And...to an extent that's true. But there are periodically chapters set in Lydia's own teenaged years, and in the middle of the book, things take a very dark, violent, and graphic turn. Once we're in there, the book refuses to back off, going in directions that take this to...well, a genre that is way more violent and graphic than I'd expect from something labelled "entertainment & pop culture" and "women's fiction." Then again, if this had been a thriller, I'd have gone in a bit more prepared...but I'd still have been unpleasantly surprised by some of the violence here.

I imagine this one will find its readers, but it was not for me. I wish I'd had a better idea, going in, of what to expect; this took my expectations and bashed them against the wall until they were bruised and bloody.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Content warnings: eating disorder; graphic depictions of multiple-assailant sexual assault; graphic depiction of nonsexual violence

Review: "Twins" by Caroline B. Cooney

Twins by Caroline B. Cooney
Published 1994
★★★

I was a huge Cooney fan as a pre-teen—I read every one of her books that I could get my bands on. This was one of my favourites, and I can't tell you how many times I reread it but it was many. I'm pretty sure that once upon a time when I played the Sims (that would be the Sims 1, back before the Sims had numbers) I had sims named Mary Lee and Madrigal.

The premise here, if you've never read the book: Mary Lee and Madrigal are identical twins, and their lives are completely entwined...until Mary Lee is sent, alone, to boarding school. She's devastated—and then she's devastated again when Madrigal comes to visit and Mary Lee realizes that Madrigal is thriving without her, and that perhaps it's not so much that they are reflections of each other as that Mary Lee is a reflection of Madrigal. And then, finally, she's devastated once more when she finds herself stepping into Madrigal's life...and realizes just what that life is.

For nostalgia factor, this gets nearly full stars. Cooney is brilliant at the little details; I still remember the way Mary Lee thinks about her hair, and the hair clip she bought once upon a time, and the way she talks about ski clothing:

Madrigal's ski outfit was stunning.

Jacket and pants looked as if they had begun life as a taffeta Christmas ball gown: darkly striking crimson and green, plaid with black velvet trim and black boots. Madrigal was no oddity, but a trendsetter. Every other girl on the slopes was now out of date.

Including Madrigal's twin.

For Mary Lee wore the same neon solids everyone else had that winter. Hers was turquoise. The color, which had seemed so splendid, which would hold its own against the lemon-yellow and hot-orange and lime-green of other skiers, was now pathetically out of style.

She was ashamed of her turquoise. She felt obvious. She felt loud and lacking in taste. (loc. 262)

Maybe it's just the nostalgia speaking, but I still feel that viscerally: how new and stylish the neon turquoise must have felt, and how immediately out-of-date it felt against Madrigal's Christmas taffeta.

Of course, there are some other things that don't really hold up. There's a whole plot point with the "bad part" of town, where apparently rats run rampant and the thought of being left alone there makes teenagers go mad. Cooney's books aren't exactly diverse to begin with (as far as I can remember nearly all of them feature thin, straight, well-off white girls with thin, straight, well-off white friends), and although the residents of this "bad part" of town aren't described, I don't think I'm wrong to be reading racial implications into the story. Separate from that, I question the way Mary Lee's parents handle things, including (spoiler alert!) having all of her things disposed of even though they know that it's Madrigal, not Mary Lee, who has died.

And: This time around I am left wondering about Madrigal, and wondering about the way things went down on the ski slopes. We're told what Madrigal intended...but how things go so terribly wrong for her? Makes me question whether there's supposed to be some level of redemption for her, as though at the end she couldn't go through with it. That's probably giving Madrigal too much credit, but I wonder.

Oh. Did I mention Madrigal's boyfriend? His name is Jon Pear. Never Jon, always John Pear. Do we think this is a play on the name Jean-Pierre? (But why?) I've concocted a whole long backstory about how the first time Cooney heard the name Jean-Pierre she thought that was the spelling, but of course that's just me cheerfully making things up.

At any rate, it did its nostalgia job. I'm glad so many books from my childhood have been digitized and are available at libraries again—makes it easier to go down certain kinds of memory lane.

Review: "Hope, Faith & Destiny" by Laxmidas A. Sawkar

Hope, Faith & Destiny by Laxmidas A. Sawkar
Published June 2024
★★★

These are the memoirs of a doctor who was born and raised in India and eventually specialized in oncology. I'm a fan of both memoir and medical books—not to mention books that take place in cultures that are not my own—so naturally I was curious. (Also, I read The Reluctant Doctor a while back and wanted to know how the experiences might differ! Quite a lot, as it happens, for any number of reasons, but let's call it another data point on the map.)

Hope, Faith & Destiny was written with Dr. Sawkar's grandchildren in mind, and it's the sort of thing that I wish more older adults would do. He's not a trained writer, of course, but these are stories that would otherwise someday be lost to time. I would have loved some more details of time and place (what did Dr. Sawkar's childhood home look like? Did he have a school uniform? What were the medical school facilities like, and how did they differ from the facilities when he moved to the US? Other than food and family, what about India did he find himself missing?), because that sort of thing is always fascinating to me, but his voice is clear throughout the book. I also would have loved more patient stories, but they aren't really the focus of the book.

All in all, an interesting and quick read, and a good use...for once...of my temporary Kindle Unlimited affliction.

Review (Deutsch): "Elf Zahlen" von Lee Child

Elf Zahlen von Lee Child (übersetzt von Kerstin Fricke)
Herausgegeben von Amazon Original Stories

Ein Job für einen amerikanischen Mathematiker—wie gefährlich kann das sein?

Naja, wenn der Job in Moskau ist...

Ich habe diese Geschichte zuerst auf Englisch gelesen, und es freut mich immer, Geschichten auf Deutsch zu lesen, wenn ich die Geschichte schon verstehe. Es gibt immer noch Spannung: Obwohl ich das Ende schon gekannt habe, war es eine Überraschung zu sehen, wie spät in der Geschichte die Handlungswendungen kommen.

Elf Zahlen ist eine Geschichte zum Thema Mathematik, aber nicht wirklich—Mathematik ist hier wichtig (und, vielleicht, Musik), aber eigentlich geht es um Politik und Macht, Gefängnis und Ehrlichkeit. Ich will nicht zu viel sagen (es ist eine Kurzegeschichte! Keine Spoiler!), aber auf Englisch war es ein Tapetenwechsel, und auf Deutsch auch. Ich hoffe, dass Elf Zahlen nur das Erste von vielen Kurzegeschichte-Übersetzungen ist.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley. Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache, und alle Fehler sind meine eigenen.

Review (Deutsch): "Mein größtes Geschenk—meine Essstörung" von Jackie Freitag

Mein größtes Geschenk – meine Essstörung von Jackie Freitag
Herausgegeben von KVM – Der Medizinverlag, Januar 2024
★★★

Ich war bereit, alles zu geben, um mein Ziel zu erreichen. Mein Leben wurde zu einem riesengroßen Kampf. (loc. 742)

Für Freitag war etwas klar: Schule war nicht ihr Ding, aber Gewichtsverlust war es...Gewichtsverlust, und Fitness, und andere Dinge, die gesund sein können—oder die sehr ungesund sein können.

Natürlich war ich einverstanden und meldete mich direkt für die Trainerlizenz an. Alles, was ich dort lernen sollte, kannte ich bereits und es machte mir große Freude zu sehen, dass ich endlich etwas lernte, was mir leichtfiel, und dass ich dabei war, die Beste in diesem Bereich zu werden. (loc. 2168)

Ich fand es ganz interessant, wie Fitness beide so ungesund und so gesund für Freitag war. Zuerst eine Erleichterung: etwas, das für Freitag endlich einfach war. Und danach etwas wie ein schmutziges Geheimnis:

Mein Coach gab mir Tabletten zum Entwässern und zusätzlich noch irgendetwas, das ich nicht kannte. Aber das war mir egal. Meine Gesundheit war mir eh immer schon unwichtiger gewesen als meine optischen Ziele. (loc. 2231)

Durch meine Fitnesskollegen bekam ich mit, dass es in der Szene normal war, sich nach dem Wettkampf mit Essen vollzustopfen. (loc. 2209)

...und schließlich etwas mit Gleichgewicht.

Ich hatte nie gelernt, mit meinem Körper zusammenzuarbeiten und auf meine Bedürfnisse zu hören. Es fühlte sich so an, als würde ich eine neue Sprache erlernen. (loc. 3009)

Die Idee, dass eine Essstörung ein Geschenk sein kann...das ist nicht neu, aber es ist nicht genau meine Lieblingsidee. Nett, ja, eine Erfahrung zu haben, damit man etwas nützlich tun kann...aber netter, ich denke, einen anderen (glücklicher, gesunder, nicht so kompliziert) Weg zu finden, damit man etwas auch nützlich tun kann. Naja—es ist Freitags Erfahrung und Meinung; das kann ich nicht kritisieren. Ein gutes Buch für Leser/innen, die etwas neues über Sport und Essstörungen lernen wollen.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley. Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final. Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache, und alle Fehler sind meine eigenen.

Neue Wörter:
der Schimmel: the mold
zittrig: shaky
Fressanfall: binge eating
prägnante: concise
die Sackgasse: the dead end
picobello: spotless
dämmrig: dim
hundeelend: miserable
ich traute mich ja nicht: I didn't dare
das Mobbing: the bullying
Schockstarre: shock
Rindertatar: beef tartare
Blähbauch: bloated stomach

Review: "Jo of the Chalet School" by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

Jo of the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Published 1926
★★★

Book 2! In which the Chalet School has grown exponentially (conveniently, every time the school grows another chalet, perfect for their needs, becomes available to let), the Middles battle the prefects about slang (and go full Elizabethan English as a result), the girls have a new singing teacher but manage not to fall in love with him, and there's a flood. Probably some other things, but I'm writing this a week after finishing it, so, you know. Some things have been lost to time.

Oh, this is also the book in which Robin shows up, and everyone immediately falls in love. Madge does collect the strays, doesn't she? In book 1, Juliet was abandoned to the care of Madge and the Chalet School; now it's Robin, who is not abandoned but is given over to the total care of Madge. I guess Brent-Dyer wanted a little sister for Joey. And of course Madge gets engaged, though with a promise that she'll be Head for some time yet.

It is all predictably Sweet and Good (any of these girls can be reformed by a good scolding) but compulsively readable nonetheless. In this one Joey makes an effort to write an Elsie Dinsmore book, and I'm almost tempted to go reread one myself—we'll see. Will definitely be rereading more of the Chalet School books, though—how could I resist?

Counts:
Pretty: 38+ (the pretty pale-green curtains, her pretty French, your pretty Christian name... count does not include "prettiest", "prettily-embroidered", etc.)
Fresh: 4 (looking very fresh and pretty, looking fresh and dainty, looked fresh and trim... count does not include "fresh wind", etc.)
Honest injun: 2. Neither of which anyone objects to, despite the injunction against slang.
Little: 255 (gregarious little soul, the little white steamer, a dear little girl, a quiet little mouse, a little sallow face—includes "little sister" and "a little freedom" and the like, but dear god)
Dainty: 5 (its dainty yellow curtains, neat and dainty, a dainty little collar)
Delicate: 6 (the delicate face, her delicate face, delicate fingers)

Review: "Because I Knew You" by Robert Macauley

Because I Knew You by Robert Macauley
Published June 2025 via Chehalem Press
★★★★

When Macauley found pediatric palliative care, it felt like a calling. Not his only calling, as it happens; he's also ordained in the Episcopal church, is a medical ethicist (which has a lot of practical overlap with palliative care, but it sounds like also a lot of tensions between the two fields), and has an MFA and a whole host of certifications. You might call him an overachiever. (I wonder whether he and Tori Murden McClure would get on?)

This is some of that story, told largely through the contexts of a handful of the pediatric patients Macauley worked with. Pediatric palliative care is a hard, hard thing; in adult palliative care, too, you know you will be working with people who have serious illnesses—and the expectation is that many or most of them will die sooner rather than later—but, as Macauley says again and again, kids aren't supposed to die. And yet for so many of his patients, there just wasn't another viable option, and the best-case scenario was for the patients and/or their families to find some beauty among the wreckage.

This is one of those bright spots. Because I Knew You distills years of clinical practice—and personal experiences—into a thoughtful, sometimes painful look at what goes into helping children (and their families) through things nobody should have to imagine. I can imagine it making a particularly difficult read for people with children, but it's worth the read anyway; palliative care (and medical ethics) is something we should all be at least conversant in, for the simple reason that chances are high that at some point you will find yourself making decisions about yourself or a loved one, and those decisions will hopefully include palliative care.

A quick note: Macauley touches on but does not, I think, explicitly define the difference between palliative care and hospice care. They so often go hand in hand that people tend to conflate the two, and it's worth mentioning that palliative care is not only for the terminally ill; the point is quality of life (and often pain control) in any severe illness, whether or not death is expected in the near future. Just noting this because my non-medical self has had to explain this difference to too many very smart people! If you or a loved one is going through major medical things, it can be incredibly valuable to inquire about palliative care options.

Anyway—overall an excellent look at something that doesn't get quite enough attention. Would absolutely read more along these lines.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "The Chancellor's Mansion" by Jamie Arty

The Chancellor's Mansion by Jamie Arty
Published July 2025 via Andscape Digital
★★★★

With a toddler and brand-new twins, Arty's family was bursting out of their house. She and her husband were desperate for space, somewhere their kids could be kids, maybe somewhere big enough to fit Arty's in-laws instead. They weren't really looking for a project—but oh boy did a project find them.

Every room was strange and unpredictable. And precarious! Among the nine bathrooms we found, one large bath had clearly once been elegant, with a marble fireplace, hand-painted tiles in a shell motif, and 1940s-era wallpaper covered in swooping swallows, kingfishers, and lily pads. Another bathroom, narrow and tight, had a cast-iron clawfoot tub, but also wall-to-wall newspaper covering an enormous hole in the floor. It was like an Indiana Jones movie, some places in that house, where any step you took could make something fall on you, or swing something at you, or drop you into somewhere else. (loc. 576*)

Imagine buying a house without any real way of knowing ahead of time how many bathrooms it had, let alone how many rooms total. (The answer to the latter part of that equation: 32.) I mean, also imagine calling the 2,200-square-foot place next door a "small cottage"—while I have zero doubt that that space felt small when seven people were living there, the house I grew up in was about 1,400 square feet for five people, so I did have to laugh. If 2,200 square feet is a "small cottage", did I grow up in a shack? Or is "small cottage" only relative to 32 rooms?

But I digress. As a house renovation story (one of my favourite memoir subgenres, and yes, I know that's weird), this is charming and also a great vicarious experience. Arty's voice is strong—she worked with a ghostwriter, but this feels genuine—and she takes a balanced perspective on the desire to restore vs. the need to bring things into the modern age.

The real bonus here, though, is that Arty is also interested in the history of the house, and more generally of Black people in the area. One of the reasons she and her husband ended up with this particular house—which they stumbled across on their own—was that more than one realtor tried to limit them to less desirable houses in less desirable neighbourhoods (never mind what they could afford); she talks openly about the experience of navigating real estate while Black and then dives deep into what it would have been like to be Black in that area in the past. I'm ashamed to say that I'd either forgotten or didn't know in the first place how long it took for the "free" states to be actually free; I knew, of course, that the Fugitive Slave Act (among other things) could effectively turn free states into slave states, but not that it took New York and New Jersey about as long as the South to abolish slavery.

All of this is relevant to the book—Arty traces the history of the people who owned the house before her family, and the history of some of the people who worked there, and the slave trade is, ah, very relevant. I love that this house is in new hands, and that Arty and her family can make something new of it—preserve what should be preserved, make note of what no longer needs to be there, memorialize the people who would otherwise be forgotten, and bring new life into the house.

One thing that is missing for me, though: what do you do with 32 rooms? How do you even begin to fill that much space? And good golly, how do you even begin to keep it clean? I like dreaming of big houses (I live in a one-bedroom apartment), but when I think of ways to use that space that I would actually use, I kind of run out of ideas after "home library" and "home gym". (Maybe "second home library"...) And then I think about the fact that I need to dust my small apartment, and I get overwhelmed even by that. I guess it's just as well that I'm only living vicariously through house-restoration memoirs...

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: Short story: "Abscond" by Abraham Verghese

Abscond by Abraham Verghese
Published July 2025 via Amazon Original Stories

Grief tears us apart, and if we're lucky, it brings us closer together—something the protagonist of this short story has to learn at far too young an age.

This is the first time I've read any of Verghese's work, though of course some of his books (Cutting for Stone, My Own Country) have long been on my radar. I'm intrigued by the timing here, and by the cultural nuance: This is set in 1960s New Jersey, but other than a lack of cell phones the setting wasn't really something that I noticed until after the fact. In retrospect, though, it adds some depth to Ravi's interactions with some of his neighbors and friends.

Without spoilers, I'll say that I'm cautious about books about this kind of grief these days, but a short story was about what I can sit with. But what I like best is the observations about the ways in which so many people do not know what to do with that grief, and it's sometimes the least likely people you'd expect who know how and when to lean in.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Bloody Mary" by Kristina Gehrmann

Bloody Mary by Kristina Gehrmann
English edition published July 2025 via Andrews McMeel
★★★★

You know the story. A princess is born—but because she's not a prince, she's not worth all that much, and neither is her mother. This is a graphic biography-come-novel about Mary I, which is to say that it's based in fact but throws in plenty of dialogue and thoughts and so on that can't be known.

This is a delight as a reading experience—doesn't shy away from the grimmer parts of life in the royal court in the 1500s (plenty of beheadings to go around), but the art is great, and Mary gets to be quite the complex character. I remember that when I read about Mary when I was a child, it was sort of in the context of Elizabeth, which is to say that Elizabeth was treated as the heroine, and Mary as a villain. I guess it was easier to distill that down for children's books. But here, neither Elizabeth nor Mary nor Edward is a villain: Mary resents that she is so easily displaced, but she does view her siblings as siblings, and they are so much younger than she is (Mary was seventeen when Elizabeth was born, and twenty-one when Edward was born) that she has a role in raising them. Here, Mary wants her due as a princess, but she means more to stay in the line of succession than to force her siblings out of it.

Then, too, there is the question of religion. Henry VIII split from the Catholic church, spawning the English Reformation; books in which Elizabeth is the (Protestant) heroine sometimes paint Mary as, you know, one of those backward Catholics, I guess because it's backward to not want your mother to be divorced and basically banished and yourself to be disinherited so that your dad can go chasing after the next hot young thing...? And of course in real life Mary's approach to religion was to burn a whole lot of "heretics", so it's impossible to be all that much of a Mary fan, but it's worth noting that a whole lot of royal life in the 1500s seems to have been about basic survival and ensuring your future.

How much of this is true to life is of course something we cannot really know. The book portrays Mary as smart and determined, with an incredibly strong (if sometimes misguided) moral compass—but also an intense and warring survival instinct. That's probably as fair an assessment as any, though gosh I wouldn't have wanted to be in Mary's crosshairs. This is probably one for teenagers and beyond (mostly because of violence, though there are also plenty of allusions to sex), but it's a good one.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Skinny" by L.K. Maddox

Skinny by L.K. Maddox
Published July 2024
★★

A quick collection of poetry. This is part of what I think of as a subgenre of catharsis poetry—written with a lot of emotion but not necessarily much to underpin it. I'm all for people writing their angst-heavy poetry, but I struggled to distinguish between most of the poems here (until the end, when there's a shift to talking about recovery). Lots of rhyme, but without a consistent rhyme scheme; personal preference, of course, but I found a lot of the rhymes a bit forced (wording and directional choices based on what would rhyme or come close to rhyming rather than what would move the poem along) and would have preferred fewer attempts at rhyme and more imagery, metaphor, pieces to pick apart.

So nothing wrong with what's here, but not something that will stick with me.

Review: "Mailman" by Stephen Starring Grant

Mailman by Stephen Starring Grant
Published July 2025 via Simon & Schuster
★★★

In 2020, the world turned upside-down, and Grant was laid off. This was a problem, because Grant was the breadwinner at home; it was a second problem, because most health insurance in the US is tied to employment, and Grant had health concerns that meant that health insurance was a need-to-have, not a nice-to-have. And because it was 2020, his regular avenues of work had dried up...and the place he could get hired, right away, with health insurance also right away, was the postal service.

I have a thing about books about Jobs I Never Knew I Didn't Want. Don't want to do the job, but read about it? Yes please. Grant found that there were things he loved about the job and things that were interminable; I expect I would enjoy a lot of the same things and, well, be frustrated by a lot of the same things. (I don't drive, so the mail service would be a doubly unlikely job for me...but I do think I'd really, really enjoy the sort of non-rural route that involves a lot of walking. Well, I'd enjoy it once all the mail was sorted and I was out delivering it.)

A lot of your enjoyment of this book will probably depend on how well you connect with the voice and the worldview. This one wasn't really for me—too much enthusiasm about guns and hoo-rah attitude towards the US. There's quite a lot of "look at this great thing that the US does!" that is nice and all but is outdated even before the book is published because there's been a regime change between the writing of the book and the publication of the book, and, well. Not to get political in a book review, but whether the mail service is in the Constitution or not probably doesn't mean much to the current government. (And when Grant tells us earnestly that in 1776 it was hard to be represented by the government, I have to think that he means that it's gotten better for white men? There are plenty of citizens whose right to vote the government actively works to suppress, and Grant is very optimistic at times at how well his overtly racist colleagues got on with his POC colleagues.) Also rather wish he'd edited himself when he took pains to clarify that his once-upon-a-time-yoga-instructor-therapist's PhD was not one he respected (surely it would have been easier to just not mention the PhD?).

So...some hits and some misses. Again, I really enjoyed the part of the book that was, you know, about delivering the mail. (Side note: Cancer gets top billing in the book description, but it is a footnote in the book. There are good reasons for its footnote status, so that part's fine, but it probably shouldn't have made it into the book description either. Grant probably wasn't the one who wrote the copy, but just something to note!) I've never thought about rural vs. city routes before, or thought much about the work that goes into delivering the mail between the point when it arrives at the post office and the point when postal workers drive out in their loaded-up trucks (or, as it happens, personal cars—did not know that was a requirement for some of the roles). Grant ended up on a less rural route than he (or I) necessarily expected, thanks to the growing sprawl of suburbia, and while I was a bit sorry that there wasn't a bit more rural to it, that's obviously not something within his control for the book. Nice to read about something that is so far outside my wheelhouse, anyway.

Perhaps this isn't quite one for my hypothetical Jobs I Never Knew I Didn't Want list...but at least one for an (equally hypothetical) list of Jobs That Probably Aren't for Me but Isn't It Fun to Dream.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Blue Helmet" by Edward H. Carpenter

Blue Helmet by Edward H. Carpenter
Published March 2025 via Potomac Books
★★★

In 2019, facing the end of his military career, Carpenter took the opportunity for a new challenge—a yearlong posting as a peacekeeper in South Sudan. He was optimistic: about what the UN was doing, about what he could do within his role, about the shape of South Sudan and the world more generally when he left again. And then he got there.

It was one of the many quiet, dirty truths of South Sudan, but it wasn't a dirty secret. The UN knew about it, and the U.S. government knew about it too. At least until now, no one had done anything substantive to resolve the matter. But I was new and genuinely believed that this forum could make a difference. (loc. 924*)

It becomes rapidly clear in Blue Helmet—if you don't already have an inkling—that the UN's mission there was not what Carpenter had dreamed about. Officially, the mandate was clear: protect civilians, protect human rights, and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid (loc. 507). And officially, the UN did just that. On paper, the peacekeepers did nothing but send out patrols and facilitate talks and protect lives and deliver supplies. On paper.

We came to these places and asked the local leaders what they needed, but we didn't really listen to what they told us. They asked us to provide security and to protect civilians, but we simply told them "not [to] kill each other." It hadn't exactly been working out very well so far; we were again doing the exact same thing and expecting to achieve different results—insane. (loc. 3065; brackets in book)

Carpenter can write about all of this because he is now retired from the military—no more deeply hierarchical structure to exist in or (as I understand it, not specific to Blue Helmet) retribution to fear from speaking out. And what he describes from his time in South Sudan is effort after effort to speak out, albeit within the confines of his role and that hierarchical structure; report after report, and memo after memo, and conversation after conversation that all fell on plugged ears.

It's a damning indictment—not of the "blue helmet" soldiers, but of the way the UN (and the broader world) treat conflict in countries like South Sudan (read: underdeveloped countries, financially poor countries, countries with nonwhite populations). The overall sense is that the UN would send soldiers in, yes, but the soldiers would have no directive and no permission to do anything that would directly prevent violence. They'd have resources but not be allowed to use them; they'd have intelligence that violence was brewing and then do everything possible to stay away from that violence; they'd let children be slaughtered and then ignore those children in their reports because not all deaths and abductions and injuries counted. Not all children counted.

As a book, I found this fairly slow going. I got about halfway through fairly quickly and then lost momentum, and it took me a while to finish. I think this is partly because it's a very information-heavy book, with lots of reproduced memos and extracts from reports and an alphabet soup of acronyms. There's also very limited character development for other characters—Carpenter is a decent writer, and his points come across crisply, but I could have used some more recurring characters throughout, and more information and scenes. I think this is supposed to be partly made up for by various mini romances throughout the book, but I'd have gotten more out of a couple of well-developed platonic work relationships or friendships rather than semi-oblique references to, e.g., hookups while on trips out of the country.

With that in mind: I was reading this out of general interest in reading about humanitarian work, an equally general curiosity about books that take place in places I've never been, and a love of memoir. I was a bit let down by the memoir side of things, but I'd highly recommend this to those researching peacekeeping operations and (more generally) the effects of humanitarian (and other) interventions.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Fast Boys and Pretty Girls" by Lo Patrick

Fast Boys and Pretty Girls by Lo Patrick
Published July 2025 via Sourcebooks Landmark
★★★

Then, Danielle was fresh out of Georgia, a teenage model in New York. Not a star, but successful enough to have money in her pocket and an apartment of her own. Never mind that her family doesn't think she's made for a life outside of Georgia; never mind that she's fallen for a boy back home who never wants to leave the South; never mind that modeling has put a hold on the things she always thought she'd do, like go to college.

A girl should never be told she's pretty—so pretty it's going to pay the bills. (loc. 2678*)

Now, Danielle is back in Georgia, living in the decaying old house that her parents passed down to her. Her marriage works because her ideal is to stay home with her four daughters and her husband's ideal is to be gone for work for days at a time.

She keeps Then separate from Now—until the girls find skeletal remains in the woods behind the house, and Then comes crashing in. Because Danielle knows whose bones they must be.

Something about Southern fiction calls to me sometimes—that smell of hot humid air, I think, and in this case the combination of rural poverty and deeply entrenched pride. Danielle's mother in particular is an intriguing character; she reminds me of certain women I know (from various backgrounds) for whom life as not been easy and who were (for various reasons) dissuaded from pursuing their dreams.

The balance between Then and Now doesn't always align for me. Most of the story takes place in Danielle's modeling days, when she is young and bratty and determined to feel superior to her family and friends in Georgia. I actually love how low-key unlikeable Danielle is at that point—she's full of it, but she's written to be full of it, and she doesn't have the sophistication or finesse to, well, brag in a way that achieves the desired effect. It's way more interesting than Danielle being sweet and naive and perpetually hard-working.

I would have liked to see more of the Now, though, more of what's going on with the bones and how Danielle is processing it. We really don't see much of her world as an adult: not the ways the town has changed, not her husband and daughters, not the few other people she interacts with, not even her house. We also see very little from the police (or really anyone else) regarding the body—this isn't a mystery, and possibly the author wanted to steer clear of any whiff of mystery or police procedural, but I guess I expected more questions in the Now. The earlier timeline ends up feeling far more fleshed out than the later timeline, to the extent that I might have preferred the story to just...stay in the Then.

In the end this satisfied my occasional thirst for a certain stripe of Southern literature but didn't quite have the depth of plot and character development I was hoping for. Not a standout, but an interesting read.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "You Wanna Be on Top?" by Sarah Hartshorne

You Wanna Be on Top? by Sarah Hartshorne
Published July 2025 via Crown
★★★★

I don't usually do one-liners (or one-ish-liners), but this calls for one: If you watched ANTM back in the day and still think about it sometimes, read this book. Skip the reviews and go straight for the book. Just do it.

Oh gosh. This book. This show. America's Next Top Model is possibly the first show of which I watched entire seasons—it was the mid-2000s, I was in boarding school, and there was a television in the hall lounge. (Television wasn't a thing at home, hence not really having watched most other shows.) ANTM was still new (cycle 2 when I entered boarding school), and my dorm was obsessed. The contestants seemed so glamorous, and at that point Tyra Banks still seemed mostly sane. We were young and we were dumb—like, really nerdy and book-smart, but also really dumb—and for a while when cycle 3 or 4 was airing we tried to talk the tallest, thinnest girl on hall into sending in an audition tape. (She was also possibly the shyest girl on hall, so fortunately she sensibly ignored us.)

Hartshorne's season (cycle 9) aired when I was in college, and I know I was still watching—I know I watched the entirety of her season—though I can't remember if it was a watch-on-the-dorm-TV thing or a watch-on-my-laptop thing. It's been years since I've been able to stomach even a snippet of Tyra Banks talking, and all of the seasons blend together, and when I looked up Hartshorne and the various other contestants she mentions I went "oh yeah, I remember her", and then I had to look them all up again repeatedly because really, I watched a lot of ANTM and it was a long time ago.

I didn't know that this was the ANTM book I've been waiting for since high school, but this is just about everything I could have hoped for in an ANTM memoir. I had to force myself not to read the entire thing in a day; instead I read the entire thing in a day and a half. Hartshorne is writing from enough distance to have eyes wide open, and better than that, she's funny (which maybe you should expect from a comedian! But again, I have followed exactly none of the contestant's careers, so what do I know).

"What's everybody's schtick?" asked one girl.
"I was just wondering that!" I said. "I think I'd be the ditzy one."
"That's so silly!" said a girl with piercing blue eyes. "I'd be the beautiful one," she added, flipping her long blond hair over her shoulder.
Maybe, I thought, I will be the second-most ditzy one. (loc. 298*)

And later:

After a while, one of the girls whispered, "I think they're taking us to meet with a therapist."
[...]
"My parents will be so mad if they find out I talked to a therapist."
"So will my boyfriend!"
My eyes bugged out of my head. I wanted to tell them those were actually both great reasons to see a therapist. (loc. 623)

But it's also really, really thoughtful. If any of the girls mentioned above made it to the actual show—the first quote is from the open call Hartshorne went to; the second is from the pre-show chaos in Puerto Rico, when they were down to 50-odd girls but the eventual cast had yet to be finalized—we never find out, and they can't be identified from that info alone; later, although Hartshorne is biting about some of the people involved in the production of the show (certain personalities Do Not Come Off Well, to say the least), she says this about conversations with the other contestants: We talked about everything: ambitions, creative desires, sex. And since I would never share any of their stories, I can only tell you my own contributions (loc. 1745). Though the other contestants show up repeatedly, as well they should, Hartshorne writes of them with nothing but respect—if this is a tell-all, they are not the people who need to be told on.

Reality TV is manufactured reality, of course; by now most of us know this. But as the book goes on, it becomes clearer and clearer just how much the show prioritized the show (and their own paychecks—the contestants, of course, were not being paid beyond a not-guaranteed food stipend) over reality or over the contestants' well-being. I'll leave most of the stories to Hartshorne's telling (did I not tell you to skip the reviews and go read the book already?), but I do want to talk about the completely bonkers scenario of being a plus-sized model on this show.

Of course, I was also looking at everyone's physical size and comparing it with mine. I wondered if they could all instantly tell that I was the plus-size contestant. (loc. 1215)

I'm not here to discuss Hartshorne's body or size (or the bodies or sizes of any of the other contestants), but it is absolutely batshit that—on ANTM, but also in the modelling industry more generally—the size window for "straight size" models is so narrow that it might not be immediately clear who is classed as "plus size". I mean, the entire sizing thing is batshit, but it feels like an extra kind of fucked up to bring on someone barely larger than the "straight size" contestants and make a big deal about how she's bigger. (There's also the part where pretty much everything ANTM did for the plus-sized contestants had nothing to do with industry reality? Like, cutting off all of Hartshorne's hair and thus making her unbookable at agencies that hired plus-sized models; handing out a one-size-fits-all prize contract with an agency that did not work with plus-sized models...)

But more than that, it was immediately clear to Hartshorne that the show had a specific storyline for her, and that story was Sad Fat Girl:

And now, as I looked around at all these achingly thin girls, it was starting to hit me that every challenge, every panel, every conversation going forward, was going to be about my weight. That was going to be My Thing, no matter what else I did. (loc. 583)

"Do you think it [a near-collision] was because you're plus-size, because you took up more of the runway?" (loc. 1885)

I didn't want to do a naked photo shoot. It wasn't the actual being naked I was dreading. I'd run around the house naked. I was dreading the interview that would inevitably follow. (loc. 2334)

They kept pressuring me to say that I hated my outfit, that I hated my body, that I was uncomfortable. And I just wouldn't. [...] while I didn't like my body, I wasn't going to say it. I was holding on to my dignity by a thread, but goddamn it, I wasn't going to let go. When the episode aired, they showed me saying things they took completely out of context—"That makes me super uncomfortable" and "I don't like it"—and made it seem like I was talking about my outfit. (loc. 2998)

Hartshorne was aware enough of what the show wanted from her that she developed a strategy (an excellent strategy, I must say) of trotting out whale facts instead of sound bites, but the whole thing is just...telling. Not surprising, but telling.

I don't know whether we've seen so few ANTM memoirs because of the dire warnings the producers gave the contestants about NDAs and so on (the gist of which: we own your life story now, and we can say whatever we want but you can't say anything at all or we will bankrupt you and your children and your children's children), but I am over here praying that this releases the floodgates—and that, in the meantime, Hartshorne makes some serious bank on it. Why are you still reading this review? Go read the book instead.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.