Book Review, Memoir, Nonfiction

Semi-Well Adjusted Despite Literally Everything by Alyson Stoner ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Memoir

What a powerful memoir. In Semi-Well Adjusted Despite Literally Everything, Alyson Stoner recollects their experience growing up in the limelight of Hollywood. From the time they were six, they were attending auditions and competing endlessly for roles that so often seemed just out of reach.

Alyson’s voice throughout this narrative especially stood out to me. They tell their story in such a straightforward way, which made it really impactful to see how they’d normalized very not-normal things they experienced during their unusual childhood and adolescence.

From being promised roles that never came to fruition to battling an eating disorder, to weighing the merit of kidnapping threats, Alyson illustrates their strength and perseverance over and over again.

In addition to the pressures of being on set and on screen, they also found themselves deeply involved with a religious community only to later realize that the beliefs of that community made it hard for Alyson to actually be true to who they are.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Alyson, and highly recommend it.

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Book Review, Fiction

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

I’ve seen this book around forever and I don’t know why it took me so long to pick it up. Now that I’ve finished it, I keep kind of getting it mixed up with I Hope This Finds You Well, which I read earlier this year and is also primarily a workplace focused story about someone who doesn’t quite fit in with her colleagues around her.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine did an exceptional job at getting inside of Eleanor’s head and showing the reader how she came to the conclusions she did and why other people might find her thought processes odd. She strikes up an unexpected friendship with the IT guy at work, Raymond, and it was really heartwarming to watch them open up to each other. I really appreciated seeing her realize that maybe the things she believed about herself and her future were not all true.

Eleanor has frequent phone calls with her ‘Mummy’ and we slowly learn about the abuse she suffered as a child. There was a lot more to this part of the story than I was expecting and it helps to inform Eleanor’s actions in the present-day narrative.

This was a surprising and unusual book where not all that much happens plot-wise, but the main character is interesting enough that I stayed invested and a whole lot happens in terms of her growth.

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Book Review, Fiction

Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

It’s hard to write a review of Finding Grace without giving away a major twist in the book – but don’t worry, it happens very early on. The story is told from the perspective of Honor, who has a daughter named Chloe, and a husband, Tom, but longs for another child. She is so close to getting what she wants until suddenly, the unthinkable happens and the entire story is flipped on its head.

The rest of the book is kind of a weird twisted, suspenseful romance. I was so shocked by the initial twist in this book and completely sucked in by Tom’s compulsive behavior. This was the kind of book where you feel utterly sickened by characters’ actions, so much so that you can’t look away.

I will say, toward the end of the book I was completely fed up with Tom and felt like his behavior had gone off the tracks to the point where it wasn’t really enjoyable to read about. But overall, a suspenseful and unexpected story start to finish.

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Buy Finding Grace at an indie bookstore near you|
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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Maine Characters by Hannah Orenstein ~ Book Review

Morgan


My Rating: 🍪🍪.5
Genre: Romance

The first time I tried to read this book I couldn’t get into it at all, but I decided to revisit it during the summer since it has a lake house setting. Marginally helpful. Vivian’s dad never told her she had a half sister, so after he dies, she is shocked to find Lucy at her dad’s lake house. The two of them are forced to grapple not only with the grief of losing their father, but also the reality of coexisting.

I really enjoyed the Maine setting and the descriptions of life on the lake. It was atmospheric and realistic and fun to hear about during the summer, particularly since I live in New England. That was the main (get it) redeeming quality of the book for me. Both sisters were incredibly annoying. There was too much emphasis on one being really not well-off and the other being an uppity city girl. I did not care about their romances whatsoever A. because they were making bad choices and B. because I did not care about them.

People keep comparing this one to The Parent Trap and I personally find that insulting.

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Book Review, Fiction, mystery

With a Vengeance by Riley Sager ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪
Genre: Mystery

A locked-door mystery set on a train, With a Vengeance is the story of Anna Matherson getting revenge on those who destroyed her family a decade prior. After successfully luring (almost) all of them onto a train with no stops until its destination, things start to go awry as passengers die off one by one.

This style of mystery has been done so well so many times that this book did not stand a chance. The characters were flat and unlikeable and the narrative got incredibly convoluted, which is almost impressive given that there was only one setting for the whole book. I couldn’t keep track of everyone and they kept going over and over the same possible scenarios.

I enjoyed the fancy old setting and the race against time aspect of the story, but nothing else worked for me.

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Book Review, Fiction

The Matchmaker by Elin Hilderbrand ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

Dabney has successfully predicted the happy relationships of over 40 couples. The only couple she was ever wrong about was herself and Clendenine who left the country decades ago to become a journalist. When he returns unexpectedly, Dabney is forced to revisit her past and figure out what it means for her future.

My favorite part of the book was the storyline surrounding Dabney’s daughter, Agnes, who is engaged to a man who is clearly wrong for her. It’s a heavy plot, but I liked watching her blossom on Nantucket and meet side characters who added a lot to her life and to the overall book.

I found Dabney to be unrealistic and kind of insufferable. She is dealing with a tragedy and I think part of the point of the book was to highlight how it made her act uncharacteristically, but it was hard for me to get on board with.

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Buy The Matchmaker at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction

The Island by Elin Hilderbrand ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Fiction

When Chess abruptly calls off her wedding, her mom, Birdie, summons her sister and her youngest daughter to join them on remote Tuckernuck Island for the summer. Trapped together with no phone service or television, the women alternately turn to and turn on one another.

Because the setting was so singular, there are not a ton of characters in this book which meant we focused deeply on the four women and the few visitors who came over to see them. I enjoyed being stuck on Tuckernuck with them. Hilderbrand allowed me to perfectly visualize their home there and the sprawling beauty of the island.

We get some variety with flashbacks from Chess of her romance gone wrong. These bring us to the city and allow us to slowly see how her relationship unfolded and what led to its dramatic end. I really liked the way these excerpts contrasted with the present-day part of the book.

I found Chess’s younger sister Tate to be pretty annoying. I’m sure we’re supposed to be rooting for her romance to work out, but she was too ‘woe is me’ for me to respect her. None of the romance actually felt that central to the book for me, I cared much more about the familial relationships and found them more compelling (at least out of everything happening in the present-day part of the story).

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Book Review, Fiction

Summerland by Elin Hilderbrand ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

I’ve been on a big Elin Hilderbrand kick this summer and Summerland is definitely one of her less compelling books for me because I didn’t have anyone to root for. As per her usual, the book is told from alternating viewpoints from a number of characters. The central plot point is a car accident in which Penny drives herself, her twin brother, her boyfriend, and a friend off a cliff and dies. The rest of the story attempts to uncover what might have caused her to do such a thing.

The high schoolers who narrate are just that. They’re young and their choices are irrational and annoying. This makes for good drama, but kind of annoying storytelling. The adults in the book were primarily the parents of the kids and I liked getting to see how the two generations’ perspectives differed and how the parents misinterpreted their kids’ actions, and vice versa. It was interesting to approach a small set of circumstances from these different people, who each added some sort of context. That said, I didn’t find any of the parents particularly memorable.

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Book Review, Fiction, mystery

Heartwood by Amity Gaige ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Mystery

When Valerie goes missing on the Appalachian Trail, Beverly is tasked with tracking her down. The story oscillates between Valerie’s perspective as she writes letters to her mother while she’s lost and Beverly’s as she runs the search. The third perspective comes from Lena, a woman living in a retirement community who begins to believe she knows something about the disappearance hundreds of miles away.

I really enjoyed the structure of this book and particularly the audio version. It includes interviews with people Valerie met along the trail and listening made it seem like sitting in on actual police interviews. I was also so curious to see how Lena fit into Valerie’s story. I liked getting to escape to her bubble at the retirement community and learn about her life there. 

As more details emerge about the circumstances surrounding where and when Valerie went missing, I was gearing up for some sort of crazy twist or reveal. As this was somewhat of a police procedural, I was expecting a big discovery toward the end of the book. Instead, I felt like the ending was pretty random and unsatisfying. Although the story itself was interesting, it all kind of fell flat when there wasn’t something wild or compelling to wrap it all up.

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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Sounds Like Love by Ashley Poston ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Romance

If you know my reading preferences at all, you know that I LOVE a fictional world where everything is normal except for one thing. Ashley Poston is one of my favorite authors for this kind of story so I was so excited for Sounds Like Love. Joni, a celebrated songwriter finds herself haunted by a melody after weeks of writer’s block. And she’s not the only one. A musician across the country has the same melody in his head and they soon come to find out that they can also hear each other. So begins a quest to free themselves of the inexplicable connection.

Joni leaves L.A. to visit her hometown in North Carolina. There, her mother is rapidly losing her memory and she struggles with the new reality of her family’s situation. This felt like a bit of an unnecessary layer to me, as the way it was addressed was largely surface-level and repetitive.

I did really enjoy the weird connection between Joni and the mystery man and seeing how it brought them together. I loved the element of both of them desperately trying to find a way out of each other’s heads but then slowly wondering if that actually was what they wanted. The romance was really lovely. Having flirty banter inside their own heads was fun for these two.

Also, I loved that the chapter titles were song lyrics. It was a cool addition and they always matched the storyline so well.

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Buy Sounds Like Love at an indie bookstore near you
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