American Dirt

Fiction by Jeanine Cummins

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

I read a lot of good things about this book before I got a hold of it. Everyone was talking about this novel. It’s even an Oprah’s book club selection, which I didn’t realize was still a thing. (Who knew Oprah still had a book club? Didn’t that disappear in like 1999?)

Anyways my point is that this book had a lot of hype to live up to, and I doubted it would be THAT good. But good news! I was wrong.

I knew the story was about immigration, and quite honestly I prepared myself to be preached to. But fortunately, it was a STORY first and foremost. 

The novel follows a Mexican woman and her son who are escaping serious trouble in Acapulco and hope to get to El Norte, which is what they call the USA. (Incidentally I think “El Norte” would have been a better title, but what do I know?)

This was a great story!

Girl in the Song

Subtitled: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Lost Her Way and the Miracle That Led Her Home

Nonfiction by Chrissy Cymbalta Toledo

https://www.amazon.com

This is a memoir about a pastor's daughter who strayed from her father's church and into the arms of a man who was no good for her. I had never really thought about a bad relationship as being an "addiction to a person," but that seems to be what she is describing here.

It was a good story and a quick read, although I wonder how honest she is being about her relationship with her parents. They come across as awfully perfecty-perfect.

Twice in a Blue Moon

Fiction by Christina Lauren.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In this story a girl called Tate goes on a dream vacation for her 18th birthday and finds true love... or maybe not.

This was a nice straight romance; I usually don't care for a story where the love story is pretty much the only plot, but the characters were good enough here. It's not funny like The UnHoneymooners (also by this author) though. Sadly....

Snowbound

Fiction by Blake Crouch

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was an exciting thriller about an abducted woman. I really enjoyed it and was captivated to the last page. It's pretty dark, though; the author does not skim over unpleasant details.

The only problem I had was with the title; there was no snow until the end of the book. That's obviously a trivial concern, however.

I also read recently by this author: Abandon

The Revolution of Every Day

Fiction by Cari Luna. 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In the mid nineties, a group of people who have been living in (and taking good care of) abandoned buildings in New York City try to defend their “squatters’ rights” to hold on to the homes they’ve been in for many years.  The city wants to tear the buildings down for “development,” but the squatters try to take both a legal and physical stand against the "establishment." (I'm using a lot of quote marks here. I think the weirdly pretentious air of the book affected me. These people were kind of self-righteous for a bunch of homeless hippies. Still, they were interesting.)

This was a strange story. I liked the characters and wanted to know what happened to them, but ended up rather disappointed. 

Giver of Stars

Fiction by JoJo Moyes.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story follows an English girl who marries a rich American man to escape her stifling family. Then he takes her to a backwoods town in Depression-era Kentucky instead of the exciting American city she had envisioned, and turns out to be just as repressive as her parents in his own way. 

I enjoyed this story and the characters a lot. 

I also read recently by this author: After You

Sold on a Monday

Fiction by Kristina McMorris.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story was inspired by a real picture, apparently from the Great Depression, of a family of children sitting on a porch with a "Children For Sale" sign.

image from https://rarehistoricalphotos.com

This is an intriguing idea, but this story is not about this photograph. For one thing, the picture in question is dated 1948 and not from the Great Depression at all. And the real kids in this photo did not come to happy ends.

Instead the author begins with a fictionalized version of the picture and moves the setting to 1931. The story centers on the reporter who took the picture instead of the family, and the reader can expect a positive ending. That's the beauty of fiction!

The end result is a good-enough story, but not quite what I expected from the title and the cover. It took me a bit to get interested in, but the ending was good.

Andrea Vernon and the Corporation for Ultrahuman Protection

Fiction by Alexander C. Kane.

An Audible Original

https://www.audible.com/

This was a super fun little story that made me laugh out loud several times.

Andrea Vernon is a New Yorker who answers a vaguely-worded advertisement and applies for a job at The Corporation for Ultrahuman Protection (also known as CUP). What she doesn't realize is that CUP is an office that manages superheroes!

Now, you have to willingly suspend your disbelief on this one and immerse yourself in a fictional world where superheroes are just another part of life, but I've never had a problem with living in pretend land. I really enjoyed this story.

I also listened to recently by Audible Originals: How to Defeat the Demon King

The Whisper Man

Fiction by Alex North

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was an exciting and terrifying story about child abduction. At the beginning, there is Neil Spencer, a six-year-old boy who should not be walking home alone at his age. After Neil's disappearance, DI Pete Willis discovers a link one of his old cases. Twenty years ago, DI Willis arrested Frank Carter, a child killer that the press nicknamed "The Whisper Man," because of his habit of whispering to the kids through their windows at night before abducting them. But Frank Carter is still behind bars.

And then there is little Jake Kennedy, who lives alone with his dad after the untimely death of his mother. He's been talking to an imaginary friend... or is he too hearing whispers through his window at night?

This one seriously gave me the creeps but I couldn't put it down.

The Last Thing She Ever Did

Fiction by Gregg Olsen

https://www.amazon.com

I got this book for free on kindle from amazon.com. I haven't joined their kindle unlimited club thing, because I don't really like e-books unless I'm desperate. This is one of my desperation reads. Apparently I have only "borrowed" it, but I don't know how to give it back. I guess next time I'm desperate (i.e. I want to read and have no physical book with me), then I'll try to return it and borrow another book.

But I digress.

At the beginning of this story, the main character Liz makes a huge mistake and spends the rest of the book trying to cover it up, or recover from it. It gave me "Oh-No-I-Can't-Look-Syndrome"** so badly I couldn't finish it for a long time.

I'm glad I did finish the book, because it had a surprise at the end. 

**Oh-No-I-Can't-Look Syndrome

(See also The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager)

That's when you know a main character is making a major error in judgement that's going to have huge and terrible consequences.

Abandon

Fiction by Blake Crouch

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

Abandon is an Old West ghost town in Colorado with a mystery attached: Where did all the town's inhabitants go? The town was found empty just after Christmas 1893 and no one has ever figured out what happened to the people.

In 2009, reporter Abigail decides to take on the story by heading into the area with a pair of ghost hunters and a history professor who happens to be her estranged father. What they find is a real surprise.

The book jumps between the original story in 1893 and the mystery seekers in 2009 with a rapidity that keeps the reader on the edge of her seat, and the conclusion is amazing. I love that a fiction author can answer all of your questions in a way that real life never would.

I also read recently by this author: Run

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Fiction by Taylor Jenkins Reid

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was a fun story about a fictional version of Old Hollywood.

Evelyn Hugo is a Liz-Taylor-esque star famous not only for her beauty, but also for her many affairs and her refusal to dish about them. In this book, she finally agrees, at age 79, to speak to one specific reporter, Monique Grant, a little-known woman recently hired at a fashion magazine after a long spate of freelance and weblog writing.

Will Evelyn really tell everything? And why has she chosen Monique to talk to? This story was fascinating and surprising.

I also read recently by this author: Daisy Jones and the Six