The People We Keep by Allison Larkin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What an absolute joy of a book to read. This is the story of April Sawicki who finally manages to run away from her hometown where she lives practically alone in a motorhome as her dad moves in with his new wife.

She gets on the road with a car, a few trash bags of belongings and a little money. Her journey is hard, long, harrowing, uplifting, and joyous in parts. Each time she meets people and gets attached, she ends up feeling like she has to move on for one reason or another.

She’s always on the run, always untrusting, never wanting to let her guard down. But along the way, she can’t help but collect some people who love her for exactly who she is.

This is a wonderful story of friendship, the families we make and the people we keep. I’ve enjoyed every single minute I spent with it.

with gratitude to edelweiss and Gallery books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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If Only by Angela Marsons
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I usually try to be generous and honest with my book reviews. I understand that writing a book is a huge commitment and often an effort that takes years and years. And I can tell many others loved this book.

Alas, I did not.

A book like this (where each of the three main characters is going through a journey where they realize what they think they want isn’t really what they truly want and what’s good for them) requires the reader to root for the main characters. It requires the reader to care about their dreams, to cheer for them when they win and want to hold their hand when they struggle.

The characters in this book all made me cringe. One woman wants to date her good looking senior boss even though it’s super clear he’s a total jerk, but she can’t see beyond his looks. Another woman wants to lure the man she’s having an affair with by secretly getting pregnant. Even though this man is married and has a child. And yet a third woman hates her mother in law who was almost comically annoying in the book.

All of these characters are petty, superficial and just annoying. Even though they each come to their senses in some ways, they behave abhorrently in most of the book and with the exception of a few select scenes (mostly with cher) I found myself getting more and more annoyed with them.

This was not the book for me.

with gratitude to netgalley and Bookouture for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily R. Austin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars.

This book is a lot darker and drearier than the blurb would have you believe. Dry humor isn’t usually my thing which is maybe why I didn’t find it hilarious at all. For most of the story, Gilda is depressed and not feeling her feelings which makes it hard for the reader to feel any feelings.

Despite all that, I read this book in one sitting and enjoyed each of the characters. I think this book was actually an accurate representation of what it might feel like if the main character is depressed. Most of the books make that feel like there are big negative feelings, even though it’s usually an absence of feelings. It’s just that reading a book with the main character in that state is hard to enjoy.

with gratitude to netgalley and Artia books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Easy Crafts for the Insane: A Mostly Funny Memoir of Mental Illness and Making Things by Kelly Williams Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“It is following good mental health hygiene—which is the real self-care, although it’s so, so boring! It is cultivating contentment rather than chasing happiness.”

I have never heard of Kelly Williams Brown before this book. I have not read her previous books and I think I was drawn to this book because it mentioned crafts. As a crafty person, I have to say that most of the crafts in this story are simple and not anything to write home about. But I still read them all because Kelly’s humor is all over them and it’s fabulous.

I loved her voice throughout this whole book. The way she talks about her life and her mistakes and things that happen to her and the way she describes the people in her life (even those who abandon her or whom she abandons) is magical. She clearly is a person full of life and joy.

“The guy tells me what he says he tells everyone he transports in my current circumstances: he hopes that I take this as an opportunity to rest, to reset, to try again. That it is never too late for anyone, and if I’m still here, there’s a reason. He guesses everyone needs a break every now and again. I should take the break and make the most of it. I should take it and use it to figure out what it is I’m still here to do.”

I kept cringing for most of this book because she makes one mistake after another and really pushes her life into places where you want to shout “no, don’t do that!” and it’s like watching a car accident. but you also can’t help but be in love with her and root for her and want to wish her the very best.

“I hadn’t realized how very dark and small my world had become. I’d dropped each joy, one by one, not noticing they were gone or really remembering I’d had them at all. I stopped listening to music, stopped dancing, stopped going on country drives. I stopped enjoying food, found no pleasure in good company, but instead a temporary lessening of misery, which made me a super-fun presence. Depression is so talented at turning you from a foodie into someone who wishes they could just eat a compressed nutrition bar every day, except about everything.”

Because her personality is so colorful, her vitality is so obvious that you can’t help but wish well for her. And there’s so much emotion and truth in her words. There’s so much wisdom in the lessons she learns as a result of ongoing insanity that has become her life for a while.

“So perhaps here is the point of it all, my precious plums: bad things happen for good reasons or bad reasons or no reasons at all, to all of us. There is nothing to be done about it except perhaps breathe, abide, and hold on to the faith that no matter how awful today was, you never have to live it again.”

And in the end there’s so much peace and grace and self-compassion that you are left with nothing but hope for her and her life. I enjoyed every moment i spent with this story. I will say the chapters around suicide are hard to get through and can definitely trigger folk.

with gratitude to netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Together We Will Go by J. Michael Straczynski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

““The reason they’re morons is they spend years, decades, hell, their whole lives regretting or apologizing for things nobody else even remembers. They carry those things around like bags of sand that keep them from going to all the places they could’ve gone and would’ve gone if they hadn’t been so busy thinking about the goddamn sand.”

This is a unique book. The blurb mentions “Silver Linings Playbook” and “The Breakfast Club” and in fairness, I do see elements of both of them though thinking about either of them too much might take away from enjoying this book itself. I read the whole book in a single sitting. I loved the way it was diary entries mixed with dialogue and narration.

“Soldier didn’t need to show me all the time that he loved me. He knew it and I knew it and that’s that. What he was doing was giving me a safe place to put my own love. It’s like he was saying, I’m never going to leave you. I’ll wait for you. I want you to know that I’ll always wait for you, that it’s safe to love me, that you have a place to put all the feelings you can’t give to anybody else because it’s too dangerous, because you’re worried they won’t understand, and they won’t wait for you. I’m here. I love you. And I will wait for you. I’m not going anywhere.”

I loved each of the characters and I loved their unique perspective of life and why they had decided to be where they were and what they were grappling with. I loved that most of them seemed real to me and I loved how they were thrown together and the one thing they had in common was enough to bind them.

“And if you’re wondering why no always trumps yes, it’s because when you’re married it takes two to say yes but only one to say no. Besides, there’s no risk in saying no. No means everything stays the same, you’re in control, and you don’t feel like you’ve lost out on anything.”

This is a great story with some profound insight about life, how painful it can be and what it means to respect each others’ choices and what it means to love each other (and ourselves) just the way we are, with pain and all.

with gratitude to netgalley and Gallery Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

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Morningside Heights by Joshua Henkin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a real and touching story about a well-loved Shakespeare teacher a Columbia who gets early onset Alzheimers. It’s also a story about a complicated family with ex-wives and step-children and abandonment and love and belonging. It’s also a love letter to New York City and its people.

I’ve lived in New York for all of my twenties and the characters in this story jump off the paper and are real and textured. They try, they fail, and they try again. They let each other down, they love each other fiercely. They take care of each other. They stand by each other. They show up for each other.

Each character in this book is unique and familiar and it’s not possible not to fall in love with them.

with gratitude to netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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