bethreadsandnaps's reviews
2525 reviews

I don’t think anyone who picks this up is expecting high literature. The reader does come away knowing more of Tom Segura’s backstory, his start in comedy, how he runs into “famous” people and takes selfies with them, and funny stories about his parents. I liked the Mike Tyson chapter, but the other celebrity chapters felt like lots of needless name dropping. You met Jill Scott and Serena Williams on a plane. Okay? 

This was pretty much what I expected although I thought his wife (who is a fellow comedian) would be in it more. 

Lynda Cohen Loigman's THE LOVE ELIXIR OF AUGUST STERN (publishing October 8, 2024) was a disappointment after truly enjoying THE TWO-FAMILY HOUSE. 

In this novel, the author introduces us to Augusta Stern, whose diabetic mother passes away just months before insulin comes on the market. This ignites her passion in pharmacology on top of her father being a well-respected pharmacist in 1920s Brooklyn. 

After a very long career, Augusta is being forced out of her current job in 1987. Her niece Jackie recommends a retirement community in Floria, and there Augusta runs into her old flame Irving from the 1920s, who ended up fleeing her and marrying another woman a week later.  This dual timeline novel rotates between the 1920s and 1987. Parts of the 1987 storyline were interesting (a love triangle with people in their 80s!), but soon it got tedious. The 1920s storyline was more compelling, but it had it owns issues. 

Things that I had problems with:
* The 1987 storyline felt very modern. If you're going to intentionally set a story in 1987, make it feel like 1987 and not 2024 without technology. 
* Inconsistencies in character - At one point Augusta at 80 years old is admiring herself in the mirror in a bathing suit. In a different scene, she's afraid to look at herself in the mirror in a dress. 
* Characters. Augusta as a young person had such a personality. In the 1980s she didn't have much of a personality. Esther had such hope for being an interesting character, but she ended up always being in the kitchen in a scarf mixing up a potion with a pithy saying here or there. At one point, we're teased that she's going to reveal her backstory, and it ends up only being a paragraph or two! The men (Irving and Nathaniel) dressed differently in 1987, but seemed very similar in personality.  The winner of this book is Jackie. 
* The plot has very uneven pacing. It's very slow for most of the book. The reader is then given the missing puzzle pieces in the last chapter.
* Very minor, but I wasn't a fan of naming a couple Bess and George. I constantly thought of Nancy Drew!  

I think this will best work for a reader who is looking for a book with an older protagonist who reunites with their first love. 

I came away learning a lot from this novel. I honestly didn't know that much about Eleanor Roosevelt (I didn't even know she was Teddy Roosevelt's niece and Roosevelt was her maiden name and Franklin was her 5th cousin once removed) and nothing about Mary Bethune before I read this historical fiction novel. While both of these women is interesting independently, their shared history is fascinating as is the marriage between Franklin and Eleanor.

I thought these coauthors merged their parts seamlessly because I couldn't tell any difference in the writing from one chapter to another. 

I found one of the most compelling chapters about how not speaking out against racial injustice only perpetuates the injustice. 

What comes across is that these two didn't spend a lot of time together, so these authors had to zoom in on what was likely an acquaintance that became a light friendship over 15ish years. I understand what they were trying to do, and it does have a great author's note from each of the coauthors. 

The writing, as I said before, is similar throughout, but it's trying to thread a story over thinnish history. Some of the exposition I appreciated, but sometimes it got pretty boring. And then sometimes the authors would do a TON of dialogue that was basically a different version of the same exposition. Often I would forget whose perspective the reader was in during these dialogue-heavy chapters because you couldn't easily tell based on how the dialogue was written.

Again, I learned a lot about these two women (some it is a bit juicy!!), and I always appreciate learning more anti-racism. 

This cover seems like a mismatch with the actual book, in my opinion. Yes, the main character Bob is a librarian. But the vast majority of the book is about this librarian's backstory, which has little to do with books or libraries. Yes, Bob has retreated into a world of books when he finds his world doesn't make sense. Unlike many books in this found family late in life genre, this novel doesn't unfold in that way. While both of my expectations for what this would be weren't met (because, honestly, the found family late in life trope is getting a little overdone and saccharine to me), I still didn't really like this novel as much as I wanted to. 

Retired librarian Bob finds a confused woman in the grocery store and brings her back to the retirement home. He starts volunteering there to bring books to the residents, but they aren't really into that since most have some form of dementia. He pivots and does regular volunteering, and then he's prompted to delve into his past after the reader learns that his new wife left him for his best friend in his 20s, and he never recovered. 

The second part of the novel is his wife and the best friend back in his 20s. While I didn't mind reading it, it's pretty much easily summarized by what the reader already knew - his wife left him for his best friend.

The third part of the novel is rather strange. It goes even farther into Bob's past when he ran away and met two traveling thespians and their dogs as a tween. Hijinks ensue. I am not a fan of traveling hijinks. I'm sure there's a greater message (and I even caught a morsel of it), but I was wholly uninterested in this & then I was confused why we didn't learn about it BEFORE the story of his wife. 

There are good morsels in this novel, and a few good quotations, but I didn't enjoy it that much. 

I was lukewarm on Janice Hallett's THE EXAMINER (publishes September 10, 2024). I do think Janice Hallett's structure of correspondence, usually emails or texts or write-ups of some kind, telling the story is unique, but at the same time it's repetitive FROM HER. I thought I would really take to her format in a college. I did like some parts, but others just didn't work for me. 

Six students are in a Royal Hastings mixed media art master's degree program, and two of the students disappear before their big project.  

PROs
1. As always with Hallett's writing, there are a lot of layers, and I like looking through the various layers with this unique structure. As a reader, you can be as invested as you want to be and really dive in. 
2. There was something about Jem's character that I didn't pick up on although I noticed the ambiguity. I just didn't get all the way there, so I appreciated what the author did there. 

CONS
1. The premise of this very unique master's program that seemed to be in its own universe didn't ring true. I didn't fully buy into it. 
2. The pacing seemed very slow for the first 2/3. I was enjoying digging into the layers, but then it really ramps up and...
3. It gets zany. Occasionally I can do zany, but it didn't feel the first 2/3 supported the veering. 

While I left unsatisfied by this novel, you might enjoy it if you like Hallett's previous works and can tolerate zaniness.

4.25 stars

This is a much deeper story than I expected. After Dixon narrowly misses making it into the Olympics as a runner (very coincidental that I read this during the 2024 Olympics), he settles down into a more typical life as a school psychologist. 

When his older brother Nate wants to be the first black brothers who summit Mount Everest, Dixon resurrects his athletic determination. 

The novel does time jump, and the “present” (after he gets back from Everest) storyline involves two boys he worked with prior to leaving for Everest. 

I thought the author asked intriguing questions about forgiveness and guilt in both storylines. I left wanting a bit more, and I think that came down to the POV. I wanted to know more about Dixon, including his inner thoughts, than the reader received. 

4.5 stars 

I had such a good time with HERE ONE Moment by Liane Moriarty, and it publishes September 10, 2024.  This novel has the vibes of Moriarty's WHAT ALICE FORGOT in the sense that there's no murder or big mystery, but the topic is more related to THE MEASURE. 

On a flight from Hobart to Sydney, an older woman passenger gives people her prediction for their cause and age of death. The novel follows several of the characters who received near death dates as well as one whose baby received a death sentence at age 7. 

The author created some fantastic characters! I found each of the passengers and the one flight attendant so interesting, and I particularly enjoyed how carefully she crafted the Paula character post plane flight. I could definitely see myself reacting how Paula did. 

The structure of the novel switches between 5-7 characters, but at a certain point every other chapter becomes the "Death Lady's" (Cherry's) POV. She is a quirky, socially awkward woman who is the daughter of a psychic. While I was entertained by her POV some of the time, it's definitely a chunk of this novel. Moriarty gives her a large dose of wry humor and keen observations, but I do think her story could have been cut down a bit. I actually would have appreciated more pages devoted to the other passengers' stories (it felt like some of their stories might have been cut instead of Cherry's).

I felt the big question of whether destiny or fate can be circumvented, as evidenced by how the passengers react to Cherry's predictions, was a thought-provoking question to take on in this novel. I think this would be a good book club book. 

Lucy has been invited to Prince Edward Island every summer for the past five years by her best friend Bridget. The first time Lucy hooked up with Bridget's brother Felix before she knew he was Bridget's brother, and they have had casual hookups in the summers since. 

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THIS NOVEL:
- I liked that three distinct aspects of Lucy that are explored: Her personal growth (including her career path), her friendship with Bridget, and her situationship with Felix. While the steam of Felix is highlighted here, you can see the two other aspects quite well. 

- In many novels, the best friend has been around since the main character was young. I like the "newer" (7ish years) friendship explored. 

WHAT I THOUGHT COULD BE IMPROVED:
- We don't get much of Bridget. I would have liked to see her on the page more and their friendship evolution. 

This isn't a groundbreaking book, but it's a fun summer read.  

I have tried two previous Lauren Groff novels and wasn't that impressed. So I went into this one with pretty low expectations. I decided to listen to this one, and maybe that is a better way FOR ME to take in Groff's writing.

In this novel, Lamentations (aka "the girl"), who is a servant, flees the settlement in the middle of winter. This is part adventure story - part meditation. And I did enjoy this novel a whole lot more than her other novels. Again, I think the listening experience was a great way to take in Groff's beautiful writing that I might not have as much patience for in print. 

I was invested in the girl's story as well as willing to go wherever Groff's writing took the reader. Toward the end, the tedium did start to set in, but it's a short novel. Did this blow my mind? Not really, but it is very strong writing with a compelling premise. 

4.5 stars

I have really enjoyed Strout's books, and in this pinnacle work, she puts our favorite characters from series past into the same novel. 

The premise is that Lucy Barton is visiting Olive Kitteridge at her assisted living facility to talk about unrecorded lives - those small (and big, disguised as small) moments of people's lives and stories they want to memorialize. Bob Burgess from the Burgess Boys, who wasn't my favorite Strout character before but moved up high in my rankings in this one, features prominently here when a local man Matt Beach is suspected of killing his mother. Bob is such a good man who is dealing with his feelings for Lucy Barton while taking on the case. Don't go thinking that this turns into a murder mystery because it does firmly stay in the literary fiction lane throughout.

Like much of Strout's works, her vignettes can be small, sometimes no longer than a short paragraph. There is so much vivid humanity in this novel. And what I really appreciate about Strout's writing is that she explores fraught parent/child relationships and also unexpected friendships. 

While it's been a while since I've been in Strout's world, I could easily sink back into being with these characters. A couple times when new families (or maybe they were very minor characters from previous books) were introduced, it got a little overwhelming to keep everyone figured out. So it might be good to take some notes.  

If you are a fan of Strout's past series, then do check this one out! I don't feel that this is a good novel to start with Strout if you haven't already read her. This won't be as meaningful, in my opinion.