I didn’t love The Editor by Steven Rowley. The premise was a good one – a writer is surprised that after years of trying to make it in the book work that his editor is Jackie Kennedy – but the book didn’t really capture my interest and I didn’t really like the characters or find their dramas interesting. I’d give this one a pass if I were you.

I enjoyed Beyond the Point by Claire Gibson more than I thought I would for the first half. We know right from the beginning that one of three West Point friends’ husbands has died. But the story spends most of its time introducing us to the three woman who play basketball at West Point and taking them through their college and post college lives. Their stories were interesting (and a little predictable), but the last 100 pages were the ones that made the book better. I will admit, I was even brought to tears a few times. It’s a long read, but worth it – a good one to add to your beach bag.

The River by Peter Heller was a short and quick read that was both edge-of-seat riveting and also left me with questions. So, while mid-way through I might have given it a five-star rating, by the abrupt ending, I demoted it to four stars. The River is a story of two friends who set off to canoe a Northern Canadian river together. Mid-way through the journey, a wildfire quickens their pace, they hear a man and woman arguing through the fog, and then the man turns up on his own. What follows is a survival novel. A good one, but not as great as it was set up to be.

The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner is a WWII book that isn’t mired in Europe. Elise’s story begins at the end of her life as she starts to suffer from Alzheimer’s and she wishes to find a friend she met in childhood. Then we jump to Elise as a teenager. Her father is arrested and accused of being a Nazi sympathizer and her family is sent to an internment camp, where she meets Mariko whose family has been sent because they are Japanese. The girls form a friendship and promise to meet in New York once they turn eighteen. Of course, the story doesn’t take that course and we learn of the different trajectories, mostly focused on Elise. It was an enjoyable read and moved along at a good clip. I usually like Susan Meissner’s books and this one was no exception.

I didn’t much enjoy The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray and had to push myself to finish it from about a third of the way through. I did finish because I had read such good reviews, it was short, and I kept thinking it would pick up, but I can’t say I would do it again. It’s the story of an extended family and how they cope when one couple is jailed for embezzling money. You never really get to the bottom of their rationale and that bothered me as the crime was so central to the story. I’d pass on this one, if I were you.

To me, Maid by Stephanie Land, is the Educated of 2019. I couldn’t put this memoir down and I wanted to know more when I was finished reading. Maid is Stephanie’s story of single motherhood, working as a maid while trying to finish college and stay out of homeless shelters. It began with a reporter’s tone and short, non-complex sentences, but Stephanie grew as a writer as the tale unfolded. I expect there will be a sequel in the works, as there was a long article in the NY Review of Books which covered a lot of the topics I wanted to know more about. She has enough material to keep her audience happy with another book. Grab it – it’s hard not to want to read it all in one sitting.

Grace After Henry by Eithne Shortall was a nice way to spend a gorgeous Saturday, but there wasn’t much to it. It’s ostensibly a love story with an ending I didn’t love. Grace is reeling after her boyfriend Henry’s death. She moves into the house they were about to buy and tries to put her life back together. Nothing is very fleshed out in this story, but it’s a quick and mindless read, which is sometimes nice. I’d grab it if you are looking for something light and Jojo Moyes-like.

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides was another decent thriller, thought not as good as some. The story is about Alicia, a famous painter married to a photographer, Gabriel. One evening, Gabriel arrives home late and Alicia shoots him and then goes mute. Her therapist, Theo, attempts to get to the bottom of her story and subsequently to get her to speak again. It’s an interesting story and one that drives you to the surprise ending, but I had inklings along the way of how things were going to turn out, so it was not as suspenseful as it could have been. Overall, though, it was a good and creative story.