True Biz ~ Sara Novic Charlie is a new student at River Valley School for the Deaf, where she is playing catch-up to the other students, who all know American Sign Language. Charlie has a cochlear implant, which has never really worked, and she is far behind her peers in language skills because of this. February is the dean of the school, a hearing woman with deaf parents, who understands the issues involved, and fights hard for civil rights for her students, and for her school. Austin is the son of a deaf mother and a hearing father, whose parents are well known in the local deaf community, and is…

Sandwich ~ Catherine Newman Rachel “Rocky” and her husband go on an annual vacation to Cape Cod with their 20-something children Jamie and Willa, along with Jamie’s girlfriend. Rocky’s parents visit. A vacation is had. A lot of sandwiches are eaten. Secrets are revealed. Rocky is in what is called the Sandwich generation, between her elderly parents and her adult children. Knowing this, I expected the story to be a bit less about the children and a bit more about the parents, and was slightly disappointed about that. That is likely my only complaint about the book. I really enjoyed the meandering way the story unfolded, I liked Rocky and…

After Annie ~ Anna Quindlan Annie Brown, wife, friend, and mother of three, has died in her late 30s, collapsing on the floor of her kitchen after suffering a brain aneurysm. She leaves behind husband Bill, children Ali, Ant, Benjy, and Jamie, and best friend Annemarie. All are lost without the spoke that held their wheel together. After Annie tells the story of the year following her death, and how her loved ones are able to come to terms with the vacuum left in her wake. This was a character driven novel, and not a LOT happened, though there were some disturbing revelations about side characters. What really struck me…

None of This is True ~ Lisa Jewel Josie and her (much older) husband are celebrating her 40th birthday at a local restaurant, when Josie spies a group of celebrants coming in to celebrate another woman’s 40th birthday, and discovers that a local podcaster, Alix, was born on the same day in the same hospital. They are birthday twins! Based on this, Josie approaches Alix to feature Josie in her podcast, as she is making large changes in her life. Alix is looking for a new subject, having wrapped up a recent series, so she agrees. This was a gripping read, a psychological thriller. It is told from several points…

The Berry Pickers ~ Amanda Peters In 1962, a Native family comes to Maine from Nova Scotia to pick blueberries, as they do every year. A few weeks in, the four year old daughter, Ruthie, disappears. The last person to see her before she vanishes is her 6 year old brother, Joe, who feels responsible for her loss. Norma is a young girl growing up in Maine to an overprotective mother and a distant father. She has dreams that feel like memories, but they are elusive and unsubstantial. This was a heartbreaking tale of a stolen child, and the repercussions on both the family that lost her and the family…

The Wedding People ~ Alison Espach A suicidal woman (Phoebe) checks in to a lovely resort hotel determined to have a wonderful meal in the beautiful dress she bought but has never had occasion to wear, before ODing on feline pain medication. She is mistaken for a wedding guest at a destination wedding, a wedding that is going to take a week and has booked the rest of the hotel. She ends up talking to the bride (Lila), who asks her which family she is with, and Phoebe tells Lila that no, she is not here for the wedding. She is here to kill herself. I found this book to…

Here One Moment ~ Liane Moriarty On a crowded flight from Tasmania to Sydney in Australia, a mysterious woman stands up and starts walking down the aisle. As she does so, she points at each passenger and states how and at what age they will die. The passengers are pretty shaken by this, especially those whose deaths are seemingly imminent. When, a few months later, the first prediction comes true, followed by two others, the world begins to take notice. The book is written in chapters that skip from person to person, including one of the crew members, the mysterious sooth sayer, and several of the passengers who were told…

Absolution ~ Alice McDermott Tricia and Charlotte are military wives in Saigon in 1963. Tricia is shy and has just arrived there. Charlotte is a ‘queen bee’ type, and bullies others to do her will. Charlotte’s will is to improve the lives of the Vietnamese people. She enlists a local seamstress to help her make costumes for Barbie dolls, which she sells in order to raise money to buy candies and toys to cheer children in local hospitals. This book is told in the form of letters from Tricia to Charlotte’s daughter many years later. Tricia is telling Charlotte’s daughter about this and other charitable endeavors, some of which are…

Terrace Story ~ Hilary Leichter Terrace Story is a collection of linked short stories. In the first story, Terrace, Annie, Edward, and their new baby, Rose live in a cramped city apartment. Annie feels that this tiny apartment is proof of her failures in life, because they cannot afford a bigger apartment. When Annie goes back to work after maternity leave, she meets up with co-worker Stephanie, who took care of Annie’s clients while she was out. Annie invites Stephanie over for dinner. While there, Stephanie opens a closet, which inexplicably opens onto a lovely terrace, complete with outdoor furniture and a view that does not match the reality (it…

Come and Get It ~ Kiley Reid Come and Get It follows three characters at the University of Arkansas: Agatha, Millie, and Kennedy. Agatha is a visiting professor, doing social research on young women and their relationship with money. Millie is a 24 year old black R.A., a senior who is older than her classmates because she took time off to care for her sick mother. Kennedy is a transfer student who is one of Millie’s charges, and one of Agatha’s students. This book was so well written, and examines the relationships between power and money. Agatha has both, as a professor who is well enough off. Millie is searching…

Adelaide ~ Genevieve Wheeler Adelaide Williams is an American living and working in London. As the book opens, she admits herself to the hospital after attempting suicide. She has good friends who support her in her recovery and her recollections on the why behind her suicide attempt. Adelaide had fallen for a dashing Englishman, Rory Hughes. Adelaide’s mental health spirals over the course of their relationship, as he vacillates between being loving and fun to being distant and withholding. Can she learn to love herself and break the unhealthy cycle she is in with Rory? Here’s where writing a review months after listening to it is an issue. I remember…

Amazing Grace Adams ~ Fran Littlewood Grace is having a crappy day. She is rushing to pick up a cake for her daughter’s 16th birthday party, desperate to connect and make up after a horrible fight. She is stuck in stalled traffic on a very hot day, and gets more and more upset, and decides to desert her car in the middle of the street, and walk to the bakery, and then to the party at her estranged husband’s house. Amazing Grace Adams follows Grace across town in her desperate journey, and along the way we learn of her past life, like when she and her husband, Ben, met at…

North Woods ~ Daniel Mason A yellow house in the woods of western Massachusetts is the setting for 12 connected stories. Mason tells of the inhabitants of the house, beginning with a couple of Puritan lovers and ending 400 years later. North Woods tells of these lovers, then an apple farmer, twin spinsters, a naturalist painter, a young black woman fleeing slavery and bounty hunters, a schizophrenic, a reporter of true crimes, a history buff, a beetle, and a mountain lion. The writing is so inventive and engrossing. Now, in the place that was once the belly of the man who offered the apple to the woman, one of the…

The Vaster Wilds ~ Lauren Groff Lauren Groff reread two classics to her kids, Julie of the Wolves and My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George. Reading them as an adult gave her a new perspective, and instead of seeing them as adventure stories, she saw them as chilling stories of loneliness and danger. (Side note – Has anyone read the Hatchet YA books, by Gary Paulsen? I really liked those when I read them years ago. This book is 10x better.) The Vaster Wilds is a survival story placed during the Starving Time of the Jamestown colony in 1609. The unnamed protagonist is a teenaged servant girl…

Mika in Real Life ~ Emiko Jean 35 year old Mika feels like a failure. She’s recently been fired from a dead-end job, her most recent relationship ended badly, and she doesn’t know what to do with her life. When she receives a phone call from Penny, the daughter she gave up for adoption 16 years ago, she very much wants to have a relationship with her, but doesn’t want to admit her life has turned out this way. She wants to appear successful to Penny. So she makes up a more glamorous life, with a career as an artist and a hot boyfriend. All is well so long as…