This Story Will Change by Elizabeth Crane is a memoir of a marriage taught in VERY short bursts. Sometimes a chapter is only a paragraph. So, it moves very quickly. Amazon: “One minute Elizabeth Crane and her husband of fifteen years are fixing up their old house in Upstate New York, finally setting down roots after stints in Chicago, Texas, and Brooklyn, when his unexpected admission—I’m not happy—changes everything. Suddenly she finds herself separated and in couples therapy, living in an apartment in the city with an old friend and his kid. It’s understood that the apartment and bonus family are temporary, but the situation brings unexpected comfort and much-needed healing for wounds even older than her marriage. Crafting the story as the very events chronicled are unfolding, Crane writes from a place of guarded possibility, capturing through vignettes and collected moments a semblance of the real-time practice of healing. At turns funny and dark, with moments of poignancy, This Story Will Change is an unexpected and moving portrait of a woman in transformation, a chronicle of how even the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are bound to change.” I enjoyed this read. Quick and interesting.

Romance is not my usual genre. In fact, I am not sure how or why The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston landed on my TBR list, but I am glad it did. “Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it. So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it. And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again. Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future. Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.” (Amazon) Despite myself and my dislike of magical realism, I liked this book. A rainy weekend helped make it a solid choice for me. Nothing deep here, but a good read for me.

I feel like Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur had been on my TBR list for a while, but it only came out this summer, so I must have read about it and added it pre-publication. It has such a beautiful cover. Amazon: “Ken and Abby Gardner lost their mother when they were small and they have been haunted by her absence ever since. Their father, Adam, a brilliant oceanographer, raised them mostly on his own in his remote home on Cape Cod, where the attachment between Ken and Abby deepened into something complicated—and as adults their relationship is strained. Now, years later, the siblings’ lives are still deeply entwined. Ken is a successful businessman with political ambitions and a picture-perfect family and Abby is a talented visual artist who depends on her brother’s goodwill, in part because he owns the studio where she lives and works. As the novel opens, Adam is approaching his seventieth birthday, staring down his mortality and fading relevance. He has always managed his bipolar disorder with medication, but he’s determined to make one last scientific breakthrough and so he has secretly stopped taking his pills, which he knows will infuriate his children. Meanwhile, Abby and Ken are both harboring secrets of their own, and there is a new person on the periphery of the family—Steph, who doesn’t make her connection known. As Adam grows more attuned to the frequencies of the deep sea and less so to the people around him, Ken and Abby each plan the elaborate gifts they will present to their father on his birthday, jostling for primacy in this small family unit. Set in the fraught summer of 2016, and drawing on the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, Little Monsters is an absorbing, sharply observed family story by a writer who knows Cape Cod inside and out—its Edenic lushness and its snakes.” Overall, I enjoyed this read, though it felt too slow in parts. Family story and the beach, though, made it a solid choice, though not a favorite (were there ANY this year?).

Alias Emma by Ava Glass was an audiobook recommended by one of my favorite book bloggers, Anne Bogel. And, it was available from the library – the best! “Nothing about Emma Makepeace is real. Not even her name. A newly minted secret agent, Emma’s barely graduated from basic training when she gets the call for her first major assignment. Eager to serve her country and prove her worth, she dives in headfirst. Emma must covertly travel across one of the world’s most watched cities to bring the reluctant—and handsome—son of Russian dissidents into protective custody, so long as the assassins from the Motherland don’t find him first. With London’s famous Ring of Steel hacked by the Russian government, the two must cross the city without being seen by the hundreds of thousands of CCTV cameras that document every inch of the city’s streets, alleys, and gutters. Buses, subways, cars, and trains are out of the question. Traveling on foot, and operating without phones or bank cards that could reveal their location or identity, they have twelve hours to make it to safety. This will take all of Emma’s skills of disguise and subterfuge. But when Emma’s handler goes dark, there’s no one left to trust. And just one wrong move will get them both killed.” (Amazon) This was a good listen. Not amazing, but entertaining enough.

I have no idea (as is typical) how We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian landed on my list. I ought to keep better track. “Nick Russo has worked his way from a rough Brooklyn neighborhood to a reporting job at one of the city’s biggest newspapers. But the late 1950s are a hostile time for gay men, and Nick knows that he can’t let anyone into his life. He just never counted on meeting someone as impossible to say no to as Andy. Andy Fleming’s newspaper-tycoon father wants him to take over the family business. Andy, though, has no intention of running the paper. He’s barely able to run his life—he’s never paid a bill on time, routinely gets lost on the way to work, and would rather gouge out his own eyes than deal with office politics. Andy agrees to work for a year in the newsroom, knowing he’ll make an ass of himself and hate every second of it. Except, Nick Russo keeps rescuing Andy: showing him the ropes, tracking down his keys, freeing his tie when it gets stuck in the ancient filing cabinets. Their unlikely friendship soon sharpens into feelings they can’t deny. But what feels possible in secret—this fragile, tender thing between them—seems doomed in the light of day. Now Nick and Andy have to decide if, for the first time, they’re willing to fight.” (Amazon) I throughly enjoyed this romance, but didn’t LOVE it. Sometimes the near-misses over and over are too annoying. It was good, not great.

All That is Mine I Carry With Me by William Landay was a recommendation from the Everyday I Write the Book blog. I liked it, but after All The Sinners Bleed, it was a bit of a letdown. I also hated that there weren’t any quotation marks in the book – it just makes the reading more challenging for me. Amazon: “One afternoon in November 1975, ten-year-old Miranda Larkin comes home from school to find her house eerily quiet. Her mother is missing. Nothing else is out of place. There is no sign of struggle. Her mom’s pocketbook remains in the front hall, in its usual spot. So begins a mystery that will span a lifetime. What happened to Jane Larkin? Investigators suspect Jane’s husband. A criminal defense attorney, Dan Larkin would surely be an expert in outfoxing the police. But no evidence is found linking him to a crime, and the case fades from the public’s memory, a simmering, unresolved riddle. Jane’s three children—Alex, Jeff, and Miranda—are left to be raised by the man who may have murdered their mother. Two decades later, the remains of Jane Larkin are found. The investigation is awakened. The children, now grown, are forced to choose sides. With their father or against him? Guilty or innocent? And what happens if they are wrong? A tale about family—family secrets and vengeance, but also family love—All That Is Mine I Carry With Me masterfully grapples with a primal question: When does loyalty reach its limit?”

All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby was recommended by a colleague and I am so appreciative of that recommendation. I devoured this book. It’s a tough read in many ways, but so engrossing. Amazon: “Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history. Charon is Titus’s home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.” This is a great read unless you have a weak stomach. My only gripe (as usual) was that it was a smidge too long. Some of the backstory for some of the characters wasn’t altogether necessary.

Before We Were Strangers by Renee Carlino was another audiobook that was available when I was looking for one. It was decent, but not amazing…a good enough listen if you are searching for something available. Amazon: “To the Green-Eyed Lovebird:  We met 15 years ago, almost to the day, when I moved my stuff into the NYU dorm room next to yours at Senior House.  You called us fast friends. I like to think it was more. We lived on nothing but the excitement of finding ourselves through music (you were obsessed with Jeff Buckley), photography (I couldn’t stop taking pictures of you), hanging out in Washington Square Park, and all the weird things we did to make money. I learned more about myself that year than any other. Yet, somehow, it all fell apart. We lost touch the summer after graduation when I went to South America to work for National Geographic. When I came back, you were gone. A part of me still wonders if I pushed you too hard after the wedding….”

I LOVE Ann Patchett. I love her so much that it’s astonishing that I waited as long as I did to read her latest, Tom Lake. “In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew. Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.” (Amazon) I wish I could say I loved this book. I liked the story and the idea of the story, but I didn’t love the pace. It picked up at the end, but I was disappointed overall.

Happy Labor Day – the weekend I publish my summer reading reviews. This summer, I held myself accountable to my summer reading list (published here). As usual, I kept a printout of the covers above my desk for reference and checked off each as I completed it.

So, now for the overall reviews and recommendations from those I had chosen for the summer:

The Wager – 4.5 stars
The House is on Fire – 4.5 stars
Small Mercies – 4 stars
Happy Place – 4 stars
Romantic Comedy – 4 stars
Did You Hear about Kitty Karr? – 4 stars
The Soulmate – 3.5 stars
Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club – 3.5 stars
All My Knotted Up Life – 3 stars
Babel – Abandoned (magical realism)

I also read a bunch of books “off the list” with NO 5-stars. Bummer summer.
I’m always in need of good recommendations, so if you read anything amazing this summer, let me know! Happy school year!