Treat Your S[h]elf

Scribner
Release Date: May 28, 2019
Genre: Fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

Ask Again, Yes was a very real book. It explored heavy topics, like, shooting your neighbor heavy, and I was not prepared. The story opens with the courtship of Francis and Lena, leading to them getting married and buying their first home. This segment was artful and descriptive and sucked me right in, but was not representative of the majority of the book (which is fine). The couple settles into their new home, and begins to have children, while a new couple, the Stanhopes, moves into the house next door. Brian, the husband, works with Francis on the police force, but his wife Anne, seems distant, rude, even troubled, despite Lena’s many efforts to be friendly.

Once the Stanhopes have a child of their own, Peter, he quickly befriends Francis and Lena’s daughter Kate, who is close to him in age. As neighbors, it is easy for them to see each other often. Their childhood friendship seemed predictable based on proximity alone. As they get older, a hint of romance worms its way into their relationship. One night, they plan to sneak out at midnight together. The idea is nothing beyond the innocent, just two teenagers bending a few rules, but the results of the outing are catastrophic, and catalyze the Stanhope’s moving away. Peter goes to New York City with his dad, and he and Kate fall out of touch.

The rest of the book follows Kate and Peter’s respective lives as they grow up. Kate’s family struggles with the aftermath of the trauma inflicted by Anne Stanhope, while Peter’s reality revolves around trying to visit his mother in a home he is repeatedly turned away from. His father eventually moves away and leaves Peter to live with his uncle.

As Kate and Peter went off to college and explored the possibility of other relationships, I couldn’t help but wonder what would bring them back together. I loved the details of Peter’s life, his financial struggles in the face of college, his interest in running, and his indecision surrounding his future career. 

This book covered a tremendous amount of time. Not only did Peter and Kate reconnect, we see them through their marriage, growing family, and many, many struggles. As Peter works through career changes and addiction, Kate tries to figure out how to reintroduce Peter’s mother into their lives.

The raw, real way that Keane writes about life hit home. Kate and Peter deal with, I’d say, a bit more in the way of hardships for a couple, but much of their story reflects what most people go through. Kean’s storytelling kept the twists and turns of their lives compelling. I’m not quite sure what genre I would put this book in, because it’s truly just the story of two lives that are inextricably intertwined. If you’re not afraid of facing all of life’s difficulties (times two) in less than 400 pages, pick up Ask Again, Yes, you won’t be disappointed. 

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
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Ballantine Books
Release Date: March 5, 2019
Genre: Fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

I saw a lot of hype surrounding this book prior to reading it, and that, along with having recently read (and loved!) The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (also by Taylor Jenkins Reid), prompted me to seek out Daisy Jones & The Six from my local library. The extended list of people on hold for it ahead of me only increased my expectations. That being said, I didn’t really take the time to look up what the story was about before I cracked it open for the first time.

I’d never read a book in the format of Daisy Jones & The Six before: purely made up of an extended series of (fictional) interviews, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it when I started. Since each person’s comments in the interviews were brief, the the book flew by– there was a lot of blank space on each page. Despite that, the book covered a lot as it explored the rise in popularity of Daisy, and The Six, respectively, and then how they came together. As a collective whole, the members of the band, and their extended circle dealt with a lot: from drug and alcohol addiction to love, marriage, cheating, rising to fame, and heartbreak. 

The stories of Billy, the lead singer, and Daisy, were most central to the book, and I felt their characters were explored much more thoroughly than the others. The tension that existed between them was well depicted, but not predictable. Their struggles with learning to coexist, were believable and heart wrenching, especially the narrative surrounding Billy’s struggle to remain sober in the presence of Daisy’s addiction, and her misunderstanding of his actions. 

It was harder for me to care about the other members of the band. I enjoyed Karen and Graham’s storyline, but the others all paled in comparison to Daisy and Billy, and I found it a little hard to distinguish between them. Eddie’s role especially seemed unnecessary. There was a lot of focus on his discontent without any actual conclusion. I wasn’t sure why this focus was necessary. I also thought it was a little random to reveal that the fictional author of this biography of the band was actually Billy’s daughter. This didn’t add anything to the story for me, and felt like a non-crucial moment that took away from the narrative.

Overall, the rise and fall of this band was engaging, believable, and easy to read. Although I admit that I didn’t take the time to read them, I thought it was a nice touch for Reid to include the lyrics to the band’s songs at the end of the book. I paired this read with a batch of M&M cookies, as varied and colorful as each of the seven members of Daisy Jones & The Six.

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My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪