Everyday I Write the Book - It'll help you figure out what to read.

LEAVING by Roxana Robinson

Leaving by Roxana Robinson is a wrenching novel about a couple in their 60s who reconnect after having been involved in college. Sarah and Warren, who dated in their early 20s, broke up over what was basically a misunderstanding. They each married and had families, and decades passed. Forty years later, they cross paths at the opera and discover that they still have a connection. Leaving is about the rekindling of that connection and the ramifications it brings. Why I picked it up: I read Robinson’s equally wrenching novel about addiction, Cost, many years ago (2009), and really liked it.

SPEECH TEAM by Tim Murphy

Speech Team by Tim Murphy is about five people who were members of a speech team at a public high school in Massachusetts in the 1980s. In 2019, one of the members has committed suicide and left a goodbye post on Facebook in which he called out their speech coach for saying something awful to him in high school that he carried through his life. The suicide causes the remaining four members to get back

TALKING AT NIGHT by Claire Daverley

Vacation read #2 was Talking At Night by Claire Daverly. I had seen this book out and about and was intrigued by its premise: a couple meets in high school and experience an intense chemistry that leads them on a windy and often tortured path for years to come. It was compared to Normal People (reviewed here), which I loved, so this was a no-brainer for me. Why I picked it up: Once I read

MAD HONEY by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Up until now, I had never read anything by Jodi Picoult. A friend of mine recommended her most recent book. Mad Honey, and walking out of of the library earlier this month, I spied it on the shelf and impulsively grabbed it without even reading what it was about. I started it on audio and finished it in print as my first vacation read this summer. This is one of those books that’s best to

GAMES AND RITUALS by Katherine Heiny

Games And Rituals is a collection of short stories by Katherine Heiny, an author I like quite a bit. I am not always a big fan of short stories, but if she’s the author, I’m in. Heiny has a unique gift for coming up with totally original settings and situations, and then delving in quickly so that you feel totally immersed in the characters and invested in the outcome. Why I picked it up: I

BUSINESS OR PLEASURE by Rachel Lynn Solomon

A few weeks ago, I was feeling a bit weighted down by a series of heavy, serious reads. In need of a palate cleanser, I reached for two light books – The Wife App (reviewed here) and Business Or Pleasure, a romance by Rachel Lynn Solomon. It’s about Chandler, a ghostwriter living in Seattle who has a one night stand with a cute man she meets in a bar. Well, it turns out that the

THE WIFE APP by Carolyn Mackler

In Carolyn Mackler’s The Wife App, three divorced single mothers in New York City create an app called the Wife App, which allows men (or women) to pay hired hands to cover the time-consuming, uncompensated mental load chores that usually fall to wives: school forms, birthday gifts, travel arrangements, medical appointments, etc. The goal is to show that this work is valuable and that the women doing it deserve to be paid – and to

PAGEBOY by Elliot Page

Whether you will like actor Elliot Page’s memoir, Pageboy, may depend on what you expect from memoirs. If you like linear, start-from-childhood memoirs that cover all the grounds and answer all of your burning questions, then Pageboy might not be for you. But if you can tolerate memoirs that jump around in time, skip big swaths, and keep a lot of things private, then give this one a try. Why I picked it up: My

ALL THAT IS MINE I CARRY WITH ME by William Landay

All That Is Mine I Carry With Me by William Landay is a character-driven mystery about Jane Larkin, a wife and mother of three who disappears in the 1970s. Her husband Dan becomes the prime suspect, but the detectives cannot make a strong enough case to bring charges. Many years later, the case is reexamined when a novelist, friend to one of the kids, revisits the facts surrounding Jane’s disappearance. All That Is Mine I

YOU WERE ALWAYS MINE by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

The writing team of Christine Pride and Jo Piazza is back with another book about race, this time in the context of transracial adoption, in You Were Always Mine. Cinnamon, a married Black woman who spent a chaotic childhood bouncing among foster homes, befriends Daisy, a young white woman who meets her at the park every Friday. One week, Cinnamon shows up for their usual lunch, but instead of Daisy, Cinnamon finds a newborn baby

YELLOWFACE by R. F. Kuang

If you like books about writing, publishing and the question of who owns a story, then you’ll like Yellowface, the latest novel from R. F. Kuang (and one of the hot books this summer). Athena Liu and June Hayward are college classmates and fellow novelists, though Athena has has had a lot more success than her friend. A charismatic, stylish Asian-American writer with several successful novels under her belt, Athena is about to finish her

THE FAKE by Zoe Whittall

The Fake by Zoe Whittall is about a con artist who insinuates herself into the lives of two lonely, vulnerable people, testing them to see how much they will trust and sacrifice for her. Ultimately, it’s about how people project what they need onto others and ignore signs that they don’t want to see. Why I picked it up: I don’t remember where I read about The Fake. I read Whittall’s earlier book, The Best

HELLO BEAUTIFUL by Ann Napolitano

**I have been traveling for the last week and have gotten very behind on reading and reviews, so this will be a short one!** After a few false starts, I finally got to Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano’s juggernaut 2023 novel about four sisters which is loosely modeled after Little Women. It is a character-driven family saga that tracks several decades in the life of one Chicago family and its four daughters, as they navigate love,

THE TEACHERS by Alexandra Robbins

The Teachers by Alexandra Robbins follows three public school teachers – a special ed teacher in CA, a middle school math teacher in the south, and an elementary school teacher on the east coast – over the course of an academic year, to paint a picture of the challenges they face, especially post-covid. This is a disturbing, frustrating, but very important book about one of our most undervalued professions and the devotion and sacrifices of

YOU COULD MAKE THIS PLACE BEAUTIFUL by Maggie Smith

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith is a poignant, poetic account of the breakdown of the author’s marriage and her subsequent divorce. This is not a new story, but in Smith’s hands, it felt fresh and raw and compulsively readable. I had a really hard time putting this one down. Why I picked it up: I haven’t read any of Smith’s poetry, but this book got a lot of buzz when it

I COULD LIVE HERE FOREVER by Hanna Halperin

I Could Live Here Forever by Hanna Halperin is a sad but gripping novel about a tough relationship. Leah is a creative writing MFA student in Madison, WI who gets involved with Charlie, a man she meets in line at the grocery store. She falls hard for him, only to learn that he is a recovering heroin addict. I Could Live Here Forever chronicles the year they spent together – the ups and downs, the