Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan GHM Rating: 5 of 5 stars It’s Downton Abbey crossed with Meangirls swathed in couture on an exotic cerulean sea that is unzipped just enough to peak into a world we have never seen…unless maybe you are reading this from your 140 million dollar yacht. Crazy Rich Asians by Houston-transplant, Kevin Kwan, is fun and predictable in all the right ways!  Rachel and Nick are professors in New York.  When he invites her to travel with him on their summer break to his homeland of Singapore she wonders if this is the type of trip that leads to a march downRead More →

Sometimes I Lie

Sometimes I Lie, by Alice Feeney GHM Rating: 5 of 5 stars Overall, I really like this book and could easily recommend it. It’s a solid four stars but could be a five if you were in the right mood – and, I was! It follows Amber as she “wakes” up and realizes she’s in a coma. The narrative changes from her cognizant but fading state trying to remember what happened, to scenes from the previous month to excerpts from childhood diaries. Each point of view slowly adds more to the story. First we come to suspect Amber is probably a bit depressed, certainly dealsRead More →

The Hazel Wood

The Hazel Wood: A Novel, by Melissa Albert GHM Rating: 3 of 5 stars I was going to post The Hazel Wood as my next “to read”…but I read it. #thatescalatedquickly. I mean, that cover! How could you not!? The Hazel Wood is a modern-day fairy tale following that begins when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood. Upon her death, her mother is abducted by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother’s stories are set. Alice’s only lead is the message her mother left behind:Read More →

How to be Married

How to Be Married, by Jo Piazza GHM Rating: 4 of 5 stars In ‘How to be Married: What I Learned from Real Women on Five Continents about Surviving My First (Really Hard) Year of Marriage‘ Jo Piazza looks into marriages around the world whole embarking on her own adventure – becoming a newlywed. She manages to tell her own story while gleaning information from the men and women she met. From a jungle sweat lodge to to the top of a mountain if anyone can say they’ve gone to the ends of the Earth for marriage it is she – and we, thankfully, got toRead More →

“I’ll Gather My Geese,” by Hallie Stillwell Always marry a woman from Texas. No matter how tough things get, she’s seen tougher.”  Dan Rather A Must Read for Anyone Traveling to Out West For each seasonal list, we include a nonfiction pick, the autobiography, “I’ll Gather My Geese,” was part of the winter list and after reading it I’m inclined to include more Texas women on our book lists! Hallie Stillwell was the embodiment of everything a non-Texan think a Texan is (even today).  She was bold and a bit daring. A woman who did what needed to be done even if she had to figure out exactlyRead More →

“The Perfect Nanny” “The baby is dead. It only took a few seconds. The doctor said he didn’t suffer.”  The Perfect Nanny, by Leila Slimani, begins with this bold statement and from there delves into a literary study of mothers, fathers, guilt, happiness, class, and racism. I made the horrible mistake of reading Shutter Island one month post-partum with my second child.  The horror of that story waited until the last pages to unleash its emotional fury on my new-mommy brain.  For years after my children’s births, I avoided Dateline-esque shows involving the awful things done to children.  It just isn’t something I could stomach.  And now,Read More →

A List of Things that Didn’t Kill Me

A List of Things That Didn’t Kill Me  “I want to be Han Solo.”   “Han – what about Luke?” John asked.   Luke…never seemed to have much of a choice…Han Solo made choices, and most of them were pretyy self-serving…But when the chips were down, he made a choice to come back and join the fight….I wanted to be the guy not to fuck with, who comes through at the last minute…I wanted to be loyal and brave.   — Jason Schmidt, A List of Things That Didn’t Kill Me  A List of Things That Didn’t Kill Me, by Jason Schmidt is the gritty memoirRead More →

Girl in White on the Beach

Fates and Furies – A modern twist on the Greek Tragedy …or Comedy, they were basically the same “Storytelling is a landscape, and tragedy is comedy is drama. It simply depends on how you frame what you’re seeing.” — Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies Everyone has a story and Fates and Furies proves that true. The baristas serving your morning coffee, the people you pass on the street, a woman so old her age is indeterminate they all are living their own stories.  What choices, events, coincidences bring people to the exact moment in time that you encounter them.  We are all living our stories and itRead More →

Happy Woman

For When You Want Your Relevant Societal Topics Funnier They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” -Andy Warhol Phoebe Robinson has written the book non-people of color need to read.  Her memoir You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain approaches the issue of race in America in an affable, humorous, pop culture-laden style.  She is not preachy, often self-deprecating, and always funny. Throughout Robinson’s book, she refers to non-white people as people of color (POC) as a more inclusive catchall since, even though she is writing from a black person’s perspective, she recognizes aRead More →