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I’LL NEVER CALL HIM DAD AGAIN by Caroline Darian

Caroline Darian is the daughter of Gisele Pelicot, the French woman whose husband drugged her night after night and let men sexually assault her while she slept. Her father’s trial attracted international attention and highlighted her mother’s bravery, as she opted for an open courtroom.  Darian’s memoir, I’ll Never Call Him Dad Again, was written before the trial and focuses on her relationship with her mother after learning about the assaults, as well as her anger at her father for abusing his wife and destroying his family’s lives. Darian has also become a vocal advocate for women who have experienced

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2023 Reading Year In Review

Another reading year in the books. This was my lowest number of books read in recent memory. I lost my job at the end of 2022, and while I thought I’d have a lot of time to read, I ended up spending all my time at my desk looking for a job and feeling guilty when I wasn’t. And now I am back at work with more to do than hours in the day, so

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BOOKENDS by Zibby Owens

Zibby Owens is a juggernaut in the publishing world. She is the host of the Moms Don’t Have Time To Read Books podcast, the founder and CEO of Zibby Books, and the owner of a bookstore in Santa Monica, Zibby’s Bookshop (among many other bookish things). She is also a published author, with a memoir called Bookends and a novel on the way. I greatly admire Owens and all that she has accomplished and done

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DELE WEDS DESTINY by Tomi Obaro

Dele Weds Destiny is one of those friends-from-college-reuniting-as-adults books that I usually like. Funmi, Zainab and Enitan were best friends in school in Nigeria, but have since headed in different directions. Funmi married a wealthy man and lives an opulent life in Lagos. Zainab lives a few hours away and cares for her husband, who has suffered from a stroke and can no longer provide for his family. And Enitan married an American ex-pat and

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Favorite Books of 2023

Here are my favorite books of 2023! These are the ones that stayed with me over the months, that said something important or moving or memorable. 7 fiction, 1 non-fiction, and mostly sad/depressing (what else is new?). In no particular order: Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld: A completely realistic, relatable story of an unlikely pair who reconnects during the pandemic. I adored this book. The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton: Dystopian cli-fi about the demise

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HOT SPRINGS DRIVE by Lindsay Hunter

I’ve been in a major reading rut the last two months, too distracted to focus, so I keep starting books and reading 20 pages and then stopping. I thought I might get out of the rut with Hot Springs Drive by Lindsay Hunter, a book I had heard compared to Gone Girl. It’s about Jackie and Theresa, next door neighbors who become best friends and then decide to lose weight together. Their physical transformations change

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TANGERINE by Christine Mangan

I just finished up the last few categories of the 2023 EDIWTB Reading Challenge. My final three unread books were all from the same category – Book From My Bookshelf – one that I love because I get to pick a random book from my unread shelves, no matter how old. #1 was Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin and #2 was Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler. #3 was Tangerine by Catherine Mangan, a 2018 debut

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ADELAIDE by Genevieve Wheeler

Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler is a debut novel about a bad but completely relatable relationship. Adelaide is an American twentysomething living in London. She meets Rory, a handsome young English man, and they start dating. She falls quickly and hard for him, but he’s not quite the boyfriend she wants him to be. He’s maddeningly elusive, inconsistently attentive and doesn’t see a future with her. And yet she keeps giving him more and more, hoping

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YOUNG JANE YOUNG by Gabrielle Zevin

Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin tells a familiar story through the eyes of three women: Rachel Grossman, a woman in her 60s in Florida whose daughter Aviva has had an affair with a congressman while working in his office as an intern; Jane Young, an event planner in Maine and Aviva’s new identity; and Ruby Young, Jane’s adolescent daughter. Even though the intern-politician story was trampled to death in the late 90s, it feels

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NOTHING GOOD CAN COME FROM THIS and EXIT INTERVIEW by Kristi Coulter

I read two memoirs by Kristi Coulter in October – Nothing Good Can Come From This, about her experience with alcoholism and sobriety, and Exit Interview, about her decade working at Amazon. This is the first time I’ve ever combined two reviews into one post, but these books are basically about the same thing: Coulter coming to the realization that after many years of doing something ultimately detrimental to her health – drinking and working

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THE GUEST by Emma Cline

Two months ago, it seemed like The Guest by Emma Cline was everywhere and everyone I know was reading it. Thankfully, that resulted in me getting a copy from my friend (thanks, TB!). I had read and liked, but not loved, Cline’s debut novel The Girls, and was a little iffy on the premise of The Guest, but when people told me they couldn’t put it down, I decided to give it a try. It’s

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PETE AND ALICE IN MAINE by Caitlin Shetterly

I think readers fall into two camps: those who enjoy pandemic novels that bring back all the stress and angst of 2020 Covid, and those who do not enjoy pandemic novels that bring back all the stress and angst of 2020 Covid. I am one of the readers who enjoys those novels, and the most recent one I read was Pete And Alice In Maine by Caitlin Shetterly. It’s about a married couple with two

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THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND by Andrew Leland

Another short review because I am so behind! The Country Of The Blind: A Memoir At The Edge Of Sight by Andrew Leland is about the author’s experience losing his sight due to retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that causes the gradual loss of vision over decades. At times it is intensely personal, while at others it is an almost academic treatise on blindness through history and the organizations and institutions devoted to representing and advocating

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THE ROAD TO DALTON by Shannon Bowring

I am waaaay behind on reviews, so the next few are going to be short. If you like books of interconnected stories about small towns, I have a five-star read for you: The Road To Dalton by Shannon Bowring, a character-driven debut novel about several people living in a small remote town in northern Maine. It’s an ordinary cast of characters – a doctor, his wife the librarian. a woman who works at a nursing

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WHO WE ARE NOW by Lauryn Chamberlain

I am a sucker for books about post-college groups of friends. That rootless, confusing time of life, when you’ve left the college cocoon and have to figure out what you want to do and who you want to be, lends itself so well to fiction. And groups of people with changing – often conflicting – goals and desires can make for a compelling story. That’s why I picked up Lauryn Chamberlain’s novel Who We Are

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END CREDITS by Patty Lin

I am naturally drawn to the microgenre of memoirs about people’s jobs/careers – I love digging in on the challenges and joys of what people do for a living, whether it’s acting, working in tech, medicine, or finance. Patty Lin’s memoir End Credits is about her almost two decades spent as a TV screenwriter, taking readers through how she got into the industry and why she eventually left. Like many of the memoirs I’ve read

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