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BECOMING DUCHESS GOLDBLATT by Anonymous

I just finished an interesting memoir called Becoming Duchess Goldblatt, which was penned by an anonymous author. It’s about a woman who, facing a divorce, single parenthood and the loss of her father, decided on a whim to launch a Twitter account under the name of an alter ego: Duchess Goldblatt. She started posting smart, wry tweets that address the bittersweet nature of life, and slowly but surely amassed a devoted following. (Her account now has almost 50,000 followers). Becoming Duchess Goldblatt is the story of how she created the account and the community that has sprung up around her.

OONA OUT OF ORDER by Margarita Montimore

Have you ever fantasized about going back in time to a younger version of yourself and giving yourself some advice? Or about jumping ahead in time to help guide you through an important fork in the road? In Oona Out Of Order by Margarita Montimore, at the stroke of midnight on her 19th birthday – New Year’s Eve – Oona Lockhart jumps ahead to another year of her life. At 11:59PM on New Year’s Eve

THE EXILES by Christina Baker Kline

This is a good year to be reading historical fiction, right? What’s better than transporting yourself OUT of 2020 to another time? Christina Baker Kline’s The Exiles takes you to 1840s Australia (though I am not sure it’s all that much better than 2020). The Exiles is about three women: Evangeline, a woman wrongly convicted of theft and sentenced to prison and then exile to Australia; Hazel, an Irish girl also convicted of theft and

ALONE TOGETHER: LOVE, GRIEF AND COMFORT IN THE TIME OF COVID-19 by Jennifer Haupt

This year has been something, right? I am constantly reminded that we are all going through the same experience. While some people have clearly been more negatively impacted by the pandemic than others, and some deal with it more close up than others, we are all dealing with some variation of the same stress and anxiety. And we’re dealing with it in isolation. But one way of connecting, of course, is through art, and it’s

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES by L. M. Montgomery

Anne Shirley of L. M. Montgomery’s Anne Of Green Gables is an iconic character from children’s literature, like Ramona or Eloise or Harriet. She’s an orphan living on Prince Edward Island in the 1870s who is adopted by middle-aged siblings, Marilla and Matthew, who thought they were getting a boy to help on their farm when they reached out to the orphanage. Instead, they get a dreamy, chatty redheaded girl who gets herself into no

GOOD TALK by Mira Jacob

Books about race got a lot of attention this year, but one that deserves to be included as recommended reading on the topic actually came out in 2018: Mira Jacob’s Good Talk: A Memoir In Conversations. Good Talk, a graphic memoir about conversations Jacob had with her young son about his identity as the son of an Indian mother and Jewish father, packs a lot in. Set in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election,

BIG GIRL, SMALL TOWN by Michelle Gallen

A few months ago, I was invited to join a blog tour for an upcoming debut novel, Big Girl, Small Town, by Irish author Michelle Gallen. It was pitched as a “bleakly and uproariously funny” book about a young woman living in Northern Ireland with a dead-end job in a fish-and-chips takeout restaurant, a newly-murdered grandmother, an alcoholic mother and a missing father. She’s also most likely autistic. Uproariously funny? Um, no. But still a

HEATING AND COOLING by Beth Ann Fennelly

Beth Ann Fennelly’s moving Heating and Cooling, a collection of “52 micro memoirs”, gives readers little glimpses into the author’s life that, when taken collectively, yield a rich picture of her relationships with her husband and family. The chapters are short – some as short as a few sentences – but each one packs a punch. Fennelly, a poet, conveys deep emotion and meaning in just a few words, making you want to reread each

28 SUMMERS by Elin Hilderbrand

I’d never read anything by Elin Hilderbrand before this month. I’ve seen her books all over the place, with gauzy, breezy covers suggesting beachy summer reads about sisters and lost loves, and I never really had any interest. (Clearly I was needlessly dismissive.) This all changed when I read the plot of 28 Summers – two people have a “Same Time, Next Year” relationship that stretches over 28 summers on Nantucket – and decided I

THE WORKS: ANATOMY OF A CITY by Kate Ascher

I always have what I call a “blowdry book” going – same as what other people might call a “slow and steady read”. It’s a book that you read a few pages of a day and stretch out over a month or so, rather than one you read in chunks in a week. I read my blowdry book when I am styling my hair in the morning, and it’s usually about 8-10 minutes of (generally)

THE GIVER OF STARS by Jojo Moyes

Ok, I finished Jojo Moyes’ The Giver Of Stars about a week and a half ago and I am just now getting to review it. November has been crazy. Between the election and work and a rambunctious, distracting foster dog who’s been with us the last four days, my reading and blogging have ground to a halt. So much for my strong year-end reading pace. Hopefully December won’t be so busy. But on to the

THE BOYS’ CLUB by Erica Katz

So, I used to be a lawyer. I was once a first-year associate at a big law firm, wearing a suit, trying to learn a whole new language, putting in long hours and feeling insecure about where I stood among the other associates. That was a lifetime ago – I left law 16 years ago and have been happily employed ever since in jobs that are a better fit. But I do remember those days.

October Blog Updates

Hi Everyday I Write The Book Blog fans! Thank you for reading my blog and being part of the EDIWTB community of book lovers! A few updates from me: I changed over to a new service for email subscriptions. If you’d like to get an email whenever I post a new review, please use the link at the top right of the blog (“Subscribe to this blog!”) and enter your name and email. You will

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND by Rumaan Alam

Leave The World Behind is a buzzy book this fall, helped by the fact that it’s apocalyptic, like the time we’re living through, and tense, fitting for October. The reviews I’ve read have definitely been divided, though. Some people think it’s one of the best books they’ve read in 2020, while others were disappointed by the ending and/or and didn’t understand the hype. I am not squarely in either camp – I liked it, even

SAVING RUBY KING by Catherine Adel West

Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West is a novel about how abuse, secrets and violence pervade and repeat through three generations of African-American Chicagoans living on the South Side. Told through five perspectives – two fathers, their daughters, and the church they attend – Saving Ruby King opens with a murder and ratchets up the tension throughout the book as truths come out and characters try to resolve their troubled relationships. Why I picked

THE SHAME by Makenna Goodman

Sometimes I like the idea of a book more than the book itself. That happened to me with The Shame by Makenna Goodman, a novel about a mother of two in a small town in Vermont who is so conflicted about her life that she gets in the car and drives away from her family, pursuing an ideal that may not even exist. While Goodman’s writing is at times brilliant, the book overall was a