Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson 
196 pages

What’s it about?
This book begins in 2001 as Melody is turning 16.  Melody's grandparents are hosting a coming out party for her at their Brooklyn home.  The story goes back and forth in time to tell the story of Melody, her parents, and her grandparents.  
 
What did it make me think about?
What didn't this novel make me think about?   I came away wondering if people are more different or more the same- no matter what culture they come from.

Should I read it?
One of my favorites from 2019. Of course I would read anything Jacqueline Woodson wrote...

Quote-
​"He knew what she wasn't saying. That the house felt small with him and Melody in it.  Wrong.  That she didn't want to live with him.  Didn't want to raise anybody's child.  Pregnancy was one thing, but being someone's mom was another. "

If you liked this try-
Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson
Ruby by Cynthia Bond
The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
​Lazaretto by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

9 stars

What’s it about?
This story is set in Philadelphia and flashes back and forth in time from the late 1940's through present day.  Danny and Maeve are two children that have it all, and then lose it all.  They are siblings that grow up privileged  when their world is suddenly turned around.  This book is part fairly tale and part a story of redemption.  
 
What did it make me think about?
For some reason this book just felt nostalgic to me.  It took me back to why I fell in love with reading years ago.  Danny is a wonderful narrator and both he and Maeve are both such well drawn characters.  Ann Patchett is just a gifted writer- one of my favorites in fact.

Should I read it?
This is a great book to curl up with on a cold autumn day.  I highly recommend this one!

Quote-
​"We had made a fetish out of our misfortune, fallen in love with it  I was sickened to realize we'd kept it going for so long, not that we had decided to stop."

If you liked this try-
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
​The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman
Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
Driftless by David Rhodes

9 stars

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
257 pages

What’s it about?
 This novel is written in three distinct parts.  The first part of the novel is set in a performing arts school in the early 1980's. Mr. Kingsley is the head of the drama department and the students all revolve around him and his "trust exercises". I won't say more about the plot as it would give too much away.  

What did it make me think about?
 This ambitious novel made me think of another book I read earlier this summer- Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday.  Both books are written in three parts.  Both novels contain a story within a story and both are very smart novels.  However, I enjoyed Asymmetry and I did not enjoy Trust Exercise.  I just could not muster much interest in the characters...  

Should I read it?
 ​I would say this book is an intellectual trust exercise in itself.  It would be a good book to read as a class or in a group as it has so many themes to discuss.  However, I did not enjoy reading it at all.   So for me- the book was just tedious.  That is not to say that it is not a well-written, thought provoking book.  All the critics loved it- so maybe you will love it as well.  It just missed the mark for me.... 

Quote-
"Remember the impossible eventfulness of time, transformation and emotion packed liked gunpowder into the barrel.  Remember the dilation and diffusion, the years within days."

"All of us , I think it is fair to say, fixate on things from our past, maybe wanting to change them."

"Because we're none of us alone in this world.  We injure each other.  
Why should another be injured by choices I made for my Self?
You're choosing for another when you make choices.  We overlap.  We get tangled.  You can't help but hurt."

If you liked this try-
​Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon
The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes
Driftless by David Rhodes

5 stars

The Gone Dead by Chantelle Benz
293 pages

What’s it about?
Billie James is in her early thirties when she inherits a shack from her grandmother in the Mississippi Delta.  Thirty years earlier Billie had been staying with her father at the shack when he died of an apparent accident.    Billie comes back to Mississippi and soon begins to question exactly how her dad died.  How much does she remember of that night?  What really happened?

What did it make me think about?
This was just a good mystery set in the Mississippi Delta.  Who did it? 

Should I read it?
I enjoyed this book.  Lots of style and grit to the writing and a pretty good plot too. 

Quote-
“They still thought that they would be rich when they grew up and buy their momma a big house, and that the Lord’s love would save them from a world that might find them too dangerous to live”.  

If you liked this try-
The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney
My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

8 stars

 The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste 
424 pages

What’s it about?
 This novel begins and ends in Ethiopia in 1974, but the majority of the  story takes place in 1935 as Italy invades Ethiopia.  The novel centers around Hirut.  Hirut is a newly orphaned servant girl living in the home of aristocrats Kidane and Aster. She is taken in as a servant after her parents are killed. Her relationship with each of her employers will shift and change throughout the novel.   Another central character is Ettore.  He is an Italian photographer who happens to be Jewish.  He is tasked with documenting the war in Ethiopia for the Italian citizens.  His participation in the war adds another layer to the novel. 

What did it make me think about?
 This book is about war but is also about the role of women in society and how that changes as war comes to a country.   As Hirut observes part way through the story,  “she is no longer afraid of what men can do to women like her."  ​In many ways this is a story of women.

Should I read it?
This work of historical fiction was beautifully written and very interesting.  I knew so little of the colonization of Africa and the lasting effects on Africa.  Ethiopia was originally colonized by Italy and when Mussolini decided to invade in 1935 it was a long and brutal war.  This story is set in that time period.   Not only was i drawn into Hirut's story, but I learned a lot as well.  I highly recommend this one to any fan of historical fiction! 

Quotes-
“Ettore turns away: He has never looked directly at these prisoners. He has seen them only through the lens, and only for the purposes of arranging them in perfect light: their worth measurable in the balance of shadow and sharpness. He has found ways not to hear there pleas and curses as they pivot, poised like a dancer, on the edge of the cliff for that last picture, the final image very likely the only one they have ever taken in their life. Every photograph has become a broken oath with himself, a breach in the defenses he set up to ignore what he really is: an archivist of obscenities, a collector of terror, a witness to all that breaks skin and punctures resolve and leaves human beings dead.”


"Across the country, guerrilla fighters have ambushed at night and walked peacefully through streets during the day, waving at Italian merchants and shopkeepers. The patriots have learned to attack in in expected places: officers’ clubs in the early morning, in brothels reserved for Italians, in hotel rooms used by high-ranking officers. They have crept behind dozing guards and sleepy administrators and left nothing but slumped figures. They are everywhere and nowhere, men and women of a shadow world where a different King rules.”

If you liked this try-
A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon by Anthony Marra
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Girl At War by Sara Novic
​Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji

9 stars

What’s it about?
 This memoir tackles some tough subject matter.  Saeed Jones is a gay, African-American man who was raised in Texas by a single mother.  Mr. Jones memoir is an honest, frank look back at his life.  He does not sugar coat his story- so be ready when you pick up his book.

What did it make me think about?
 I have often thought that this may be the best time in history to come out as a gay man.  However, after reading this book, I am not saying that anymore.  Saeed Jones makes you understand how truly difficult it is to be black and gay in America- even today.  ​"You never forget your first "faggot'.  Because the memory, in its way, makes you.  It becomes the spine for the body of anxieties and insecurities that will follow, something to hang all that meat on.  Before you were scrawny; now you're scrawny because you're a faggot.  Before you were just bookish; now you're bookish because you're a faggot.
   Soon, bullies won't even have to say the word.  Nor will friends, as they start to sit at different lunch tables without explanation.  There will already be a voice in your head whispering 'faggot' for them."

Should I read it?
 Saeed Jones is an award winning poet and the way he uses language is just beautiful.  ​"Just as some cultures have a hundred words for 'snow', there should be a hundred words in our language for all the ways a black boy can lie awake at night."  I found this one of the most compelling memoirs I have ever read.  It is raw, honest, and sometimes more graphic than readers might be comfortable with.  I urge you to read this book anyway.  Maybe it will change the way you look at someone that is different from yourself.

Quote-
​"However many masks we invent and deploy, in the end, we cannot control what other people see when they look at us."

If you liked this try-
​On Earth We're Breifly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
​My Brother Moochie by Issac J. Bailey
All Over But the Shouting by Rick Bragg
​Fire Shut up In My Bones by Charles M. Blow

9 1/2 stars

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
341 pages

What's it about?
This novel is about a decades long friendship between two couples- the Langs and the Morgans.  They meet in Madison at the beginning of their careers and immediately become friends.  

What did it make me think about?
This is one of my favorite books of all time.  I try to re-read it every few years.  It is a story of friendship, of rescue, and of the passage of time.  

Should I read it?
This is a book not to be missed.  My review is short because how can I do this novel justice?  I highly recommend this one.  

Quote-
"Is that the basis of friendship?  Is it as reactive as that? Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?.. Do we all buzz or ring or light up when people press our vanity buttons, and only then?  Can I think of anyone in my whole life whom I have liked without his first showing signs of liking me?"

If you like this try-
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
A Place For Us by Fatima Farheer Mirza
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

9 1/2 stars

Fleishman is in Trouble by  Taffy Brodesser-Akner
373 pages

What’s it about?
 Toby Fleishman has been married to Rachel for fifteen years- some of them happy.  When he finally asks Rachel for a divorce, he thinks he knows what to expect.  He is sorely mistaken.  From dating apps, to custody of the children- nothing goes as planned.

What did it make me think about?
Anyone who reads this will think about marriage, child care issues. and the role of women in the workplace. I was so impressed with how Ms. Brodesser-Akner was able to turn the "main child care giver" on its head by making the man (Toby) have that role in this story.  Toby shoulders most of the childcare responsibilities and this allows the author more freedom to explore the complicated issues of two working parents.  Also, she was able to look at the role of women  in todays' marriages.  She does have a few things to say about working outside the home versus not working outside the home.  "No one had to tell me it was harder to have a job and be a mother.  It was obvious. It was two full-time occupations.  It's just math. Because having a job made you no less of a mother; you still had to do all that shit, too.  Keeping track of your kids from afar isn't easier.  Entrusting them to a stranger who was available for babysitting by virtue of the fact that she was incapable of doing anything else is not something that fills a person with faith and relaxation.  Now that I have worked and stayed home I can confirm all this.  Now that I stay home I can say it out loud.  But now that I don't work, no one is listening."  So maybe Ms. Brodesser-Akner has a strong perspective.  I did not always agree with her but it sure makes you think.

Should I read it?
 This is a gem!  If you can take reading explicit sex scenes then you will really enjoy this novel.   It has a lot to say  about marriage and the changing (or not changing) role of women in our society.  Don't you just love a book that keeps you turning the pages and then at the end you realize that the novel actually had a lot to say?  Be patient with this one- especially when the narrator changes in a trance way.  It took me a few pages to get into it  but this is a good book!
​
Quote-
"It was all such an insult, the Hamptons.  It was an insult to economic disparity.  It was an insult to leading a good life and asking hard questions about what one should sacrifice in the name of decency.  It was an insult to having enough- to knowing that there was such a thing as enough."  

"But also, divorce is about forgetfulness- a decision to stop remembering the moment before all the chaos- the moment they fell in love, the moment they knew they were more special together than apart.  Marriage lives in service to those moments. "

If you liked this try-
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
​Here I Am by Jonathan Safron Foer
A Place For Us by Fatima Farheer Mirza
We  Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

9 stars