This is a story of mothers and daughters, estrangement and healing. The story centers around Jessica Russo who is called to Miami to meet her maternal grandmother, whom she has never met and her mother has kept this side of her family very private. Curious to learn more about her mother's side of the family, Jessica travels to Miami and bonds with her grandmother, Carmen and her maternal family. She learns a little about her Cuban heritage and the reason for the family estrangement. Jessica returns home to Brooklyn and shares her experiences with her parents. Eventually, this estranged family will reunite and there is a happy ending, one focused on leaving the past in the past, forgiveness, and moving forward. I requested this book from Net Galley as I really enjoy historical fiction. I was actually disappointed to not learn more about Jessica's Cuban heritage. The story really focuses more on the relationships between mothers and daughters, which was not badly done but it wa...

"The world was filled with ghosts. We were a haunted country in a haunted world." "You can't get over things you did to other people as easily as the things they did to you." This is (so far) my favorite book by Louise Erdrich. The story centers around Tookie, a bookstore clerk, that is being haunted by a former customer, Flora. Throughout the story, Tookie tries to solve the mystery of the haunting (which is a fascinating and intricate story) while dealing with the horrible events of 2020. The Sentence is a poignant title as it refers to the sentence that Tookie serves in prison, sentences that we place upon ourselves, and the sentences imprinted in the books, which were a saving grace for Tookie.   I loved the character building, the relationships between the characters, and the insight into indigenous history. This is one of those novels that one should revisit as a reference to the 2020s and how the period impacted society, especially the indigenous people ...

Watching Trevor Noah on The Daily Show and IG, led me to his memoir, which does not disappoint. Trevor Noah's memoir dives into his life, his family life, and the atmosphere and culture pre and post apartheid. All these shaped who he is today and his mother was a strong influence on the man he would become. He's blatantly honest about his life choices and I thought he did an exceptional job describing his life in the hood. I listened on audio, he narrates, and this was also well done (couldn't imagine someone else narrating it really!). Overall, I enjoyed his blunt honesty and insight into his life. Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ More on Trevor Noah: https://www.trevornoah.com/

Frida is a 39-year-old mother who had a "very bad day," she left her toddler alone for over two hours. The state places Harriet, her daughter, into the full custody of her father and his new girlfriend, a Pilates instructor. Frida is shipped off to a school for parents that need to learn to be better parents. The mantra we hear again and again is "I am a bad mother, but I'm learning to be good." While at the school, the reader learns of the struggles of each mother. The reader observes how the women can be supportive or judgmental (catty, really) towards one another. The reader learns about how the system is more lenient towards fathers. What the reader doesn't know... Why does this system exist? What led to this society (a social worker state)? Should the reader feel empathy for Frida because there is a lot of self pity, and I mean a lot! After reading this book, and I finished because I wanted to know the outcome, I thought the book had promise but it lack...

  I chose to read Funny Farm: My Unexpected Life with 600 Rescue Animals  because I do love animals so very much. What I hoped to take away from the book was to learn about how Laurie Zaleski set up her farm and a bit about the animals that she has dedicated her life to rescuing. I was not disappointed in this regard, any reader will learn about the origins of Funny Farm , the struggles of operating the animal rescue, and a few stories about the animals at the farm. What I was not expecting was to read about the harsh experiences of Laurie's childhood but it really was an important element of the book. Laurie's family, her mother and siblings, were all survivors, much like the animals they saved. One does not miss the impact of this in her memoir. I experienced a range of emotions while reading from laughing to crying to cringing to anger. Would love to visit her animal rescue at some point but am content with following Funny Farm on social media. Thank you NetGalley for this ...

Another cute Nancy Drew caper! Nancy and her friends, Bess & George, aka the Clue Crew are rehearsing for the ballet, Cinderella. The girls are super excited about the ballet but there has been a bit of drama at the rehearsal between practical jokes and tears of envy. In the midst of this drama, a beautiful pair of ballet slippers adorned with tiny rhinestones, have gone missing. The Clue Crew rushes to save the day and the ballet by finding the slippers and the culprit behind the mystery. Adorable illustrations, cute chapter titles, and creative activities at the end of the book make this a win for young readers. 🩰🩰🩰🩰  

This is such a fun site, if you're a geek like me and love pie charts and graphs! I thought I'd share a few of the graphs from my January 2022 reading so you can check it out. And, if you like it, it's available for free. There is a Plus version for $4.99/month. Not sure if it's worth it or not... I'm including a review from a site that I follow THE STORYGRAPH REVIEW: IS IT WORTH REPLACING GOODREADS?   Personally, I like having both GoodReads and The Story Graph for different reasons. I do agree with Chris Arnone that Goodreads is better for the community and The Story Graph is better for (IMHO) the tracking abilities. So, yeah, I would stick with both and I really don't know if I think the Story Graph Plus is worth it, doesn't seem to be, again IMHO. Would love to hear your thoughts... Cool Features: The Story Graph

I love joining book clubs albeit I don't participate in a lot of them, I think (actually I know) I join far too many.  I run my own group, Retro Chapter Chicks on Goodreads, we focus primarily on historical fiction but read other genres and we're a very small group.  We have a preference for active participation v. lurkers, so that's why we're a small group.  Last year, I joined  The Enchanted Book Club  (it has a monthly fee) and the organizer does a great job at setting up virtual events with authors, producers, and the like that relate the monthly book. It's mostly classics or related to classics, so if you enjoy that genre of books and don't mind a small fee, then it's worth it. In the past few months, I found  The Uncorked Librarian  and I have really enjoyed the reading challenges and the lists created by the organizer, a former librarian. I didn't pay a fee for this one and they also have several social media accounts (check out their site for ...

  “I wish someone had told me this simple but confusing truth: Even when everything’s going your way you can still be sad. Or anxious. Or uncomfortably numb. Because you can’t always control your brain or your emotions even when things are perfect.” “Don't compare your insides with someone else's outsides.” Jenny Lawson, again, did not disappoint with this humorous and honest look at mental health and well being. The author provides glimpses of her life, some of the weirdly wonderful and wacky stories are so relatable! I love that she's not all about the picture perfect fantasies that one finds on social media and reminds us not to compare our insides to their outsides. We never really know what is going on in these picture perfect images. I'll definitely continue reading Jenny Lawson's books and her blog. I find her so relatable and love her frankness and her quirky sense of humor. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ More on Jenny Lawson

“For kindness begins where necessity ends.” This is the third work that I've read by Towles and I did enjoy, however I did not love it.  In this story, the reader will find rich character development and beautiful writing. The plot involves 4 major characters that plan a journey across country to start a new life. However, events take a slightly different turn when one character, Duchess, decides he has unfinished business on the east coast. This leads to a bit of a chase, where Emmett and Billy (two brothers and I love Billy), try to get their plan back on course by catching up with Duchess and Woolly. The story is told through the lens of each main player including Ulysses and Sally, minor characters, but important to the storytelling. So, why did I not love this work, I thought the story was lacking in originality and it reminded me of so many other books I've read (e.g.,  Of Mice and Men ,  This Tender Land ). I also questioned the ending for Duchess...   Bi...

  “...story is more than just a discarded by-product if your bare experience. Story is its own bare experience. Fish swim in water, unaware that it is water. Birds fly in air, unaware that it is air. Story is the air that you people breathe, the ocean you swim in, and we books are the rocks along the shoreline that channel your currents and contain your tides. Books will always have the last word, even if nobody is around to read them.” “Every person is trapped in their own particular bubble of delusion, and it's every person's task in life to break free. Books can help. We can make the past into the present, take you back in time and help you remember. We can show you things, shift your realities and widen your world, but the work of waking up is up to you.” What is emptiness? In this book, Ruth Ozeki's creative imagination shines thru as she writes about loss/grief and the emptiness that ensues upon losing a loved one. Benny Oh and Annabelle Oh are the main characters of ...

This is a lovely story of friendship that I read via NetGalley in exchange for a review. Immy, a 60ish year young woman writes a column for her local paper. Joan, a 27 year woman, also a writer, writes a fan letter to Immy, and thus it begins, a beautiful friendship between two women. Immy and Joan exchange letters about their life and their loves, their hopes and their sorrows. They learn from one another and live through each others' experiences. The novel is written in epistolary form, a format that I greatly enjoy and I thought the character development was well executed through the main characters' letters to one another. Reading the book, I felt that I truly got to know these two women and I loved reading about their love for food and the support they give one another. I felt so attached to Joan and Immy that I teared up a few times. A great book, definitely enjoyed.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ More on the novel: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58284121-love-saffron

I've seen this book all over IG and I have enjoyed the books that I've read set in NYC during the Gilded Age, so I decided to give this one a go. In this story, we follow the life of Lillian Carter (based on the real life of Audrey Marie Munson--must read this one at a later time- The Curse of Beauty: The Scandalous & Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America's First Supermodel ) and the Frick family, also a real family. The Frick family have an obscene amount of wealth and several members of the family leave a lot to be desired in social skills. The main plot of the story centers around betrayal, murder, and the theft of a pink diamond. It was an intriguing plot and I loved following Lillian's relationship with the Fricks. The artwork and architecture were beautifully described in the novel, another highlight, felt like I was in NYC. I enjoyed all the nods to historical events including the Johnstown Flood (another interesting book on the topic- The Johnstown Flood ). ...

  “Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.” “The time your friends need you is when they’re wrong, Jean Louise. They don’t need you when they’re right” I took my time to read the book that was a buzz when it was first published 7 years ago. This procrastination on my part was because I didn't want to diminish my love for To Kill a Mockingbird. I will say that my love for TKM was not lost in Go Set a Watchman. In fact, I greatly enjoyed Ms. Lee's novel. Go Set a Watchman tells the story of Jean Louise (Scout)'s life as an adult. She travels on her annual sojourn to Alabama to visit her family and friends. On this most recent visit, I will say that a lot of veils drop and Jean Louise learns that her father is not the infallible man that she has placed on a pedestal for her entire life. As another reviewer mentioned, Jean Louise is a watchman of her town in this book, recognizing and calling out the prejudic...

I lived in Florida quite close to USF, when the discovery of the horrors at Dozier were unearthed. So, I was quite interested in reading Colson Whitehead's fictionalized account of Dozier. I must agree that most of what I read in the papers about Dozier were accounts from the white survivors. I had not read a great deal about young black males that were incarcerated at Dozier. The story follows a young man, Elwood Curtis, who always did the right thing and believed in the Civil Rights Movement and the words of MLK Jr., but made a poor decision and ended up at Dozier. While at Dozier, we learn of the brutality and the downright depravity of these so-called educators. I had such a difficult time stomaching what I was reading, it is not for the faint of heart, but I do believe that if we do not know this history and learn from it, we can and do repeat such atrocities. Since this is a fictionalized account, I will at some point read a few non fiction accounts of Dozier and other 's...

Goodreads Synopsis The St. Bernard women have lived in Morne Marie, the house on top of a hill outside Port Angeles, for generations. Built from the ashes of a plantation that enslaved their ancestors, it has come to shelter a lineage that is bonded by much more than blood. One woman in each generation of St. Bernards is responsible for the passage of the city's souls into the afterlife. But Yejide's relationship with her mother, Petronella, has always been contorted by anger and neglect, which Petronella stubbornly carries to her death bed, leaving Yejide unprepared to fulfill her destiny. Raised in the countryside by a devout Rastafarian mother, Darwin has always abided by the religious commandment not to interact with death. He has never been to a funeral, much less seen a dead body. But when his ailing mother can no longer work and the only job he can find is grave digging, he must betray the life she built for him in order to provide for them both. Newly shorn of his dread...

  “It’s weird because we often try to present our fake, shiny, happy selves to others and make sure we’re not wearing too-obvious pajamas at the grocery store, but really, who wants to see that level of fraud? No one. What we really want is to know we’re not alone in our terribleness. We want to appreciate the failure that makes us perfectly us and wonderfully relatable to every other person out there who is also pretending that they have their shit together and didn’t just eat that onion ring that fell on the floor. Human foibles are what make us us, and the art of mortification is what brings us all together.” I absolutely loved this book, it's the first I've read by Jenny Lawson and I will definitely read more. I can relate so well to her life and love her sense of humor. She is so real and her quirky and weird sense of humor appeal to me so much, laughed out loud quite often while reading. Definitely would recommend to my friends that want a great laugh. PS The cover illust...

  This is a story about civil rights, discrimination, voter right suppression, young 'forbidden' love, and dark family secrets. Kayla is a young widowed mother that moves into a home built and designed by her and her late spouse. In her time line, this is a dual time line story, she learns of the dark secrets buried on her land that relate to Ellie's storyline. Ellie, a young white woman living in North Caroline in the 1960's, joins the work of SCOPE project in memory of her late aunt. SCOPE is a civil rights group working to educate and encourage voter registration in North Carolina. Ellie was a wonderful character full of strength and courage. I enjoyed reading about Ellie's blossoming relationship with Win and was deeply saddened by it's outcome. I was also deeply saddened by Ellie's family and friends, I won't say more (spoilers). My criticism, the dual stories were not equal in measure or development, Kayla's story was more of a vehicle to Ellie...

    Goodreads' Synopsis Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life will be marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses all and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling. . . . She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of both poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life will be shaped by some of the most important events of hi...

Stanley Tucci definitely speaks his food in his autobiography. This book left me salivating, dying to try the dishes that are so beautifully described. Readers will learn about Tucci's life through food, including the childhood dishes his mother made to the dishes he tried while filming abroad. Now I will admit, some of these foods I would not try based on my dietary restrictions, but it's amazing to read about. I loved learning about the differences in food stores in the UK v. the US and how much a difference that can make with the foods one can purchase and the relationships that can be forged with the shopkeepers. It's a shame he doesn't like sweets, but there are a few recipes mentioned that are deliziosa! What I really liked about this book is that Tucci wrote about these foods with such love, such memories! He didn't merely list ingredients, he wrote about them with such passion! It was like reading a Julia Child book! Thank you for your gift of words and your...

I read so many good books in January 2022!  Here is a list of the books that I recommend from January, check out individual posts for the specific reviews. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ⭐⭐⭐⭐  

Good morning and welcome to my blog! I have been an avid reader for decades, my mom and grandmother were determined that I would be a reader and that is where my journey began. I actually had a difficult time learning to read, at that time schools were teaching rote memory and it never worked for me. My mom with the help of my grandma, taught me to read phonetically and thus it began, my life with books. Many of my fond memories have involved either books, libraries, or bookstores. I remember going to this great library near where I grew up in the DC Metro area.  Here's a pic, such a cool building! Another favorite bookish memory from my childhood is going to the book mobile every Thursday afternoon. It had loads of books and air conditioning! Personally, I think that these should be reinstated but I know so much is available electronically these days. The pic below is similar to the bookmobile I would visit as a kid. As I got older, whenever I travel, I always go out of my way to ...