In looking at the assortment of books I’m reviewing today, I couldn’t help but notice some interesting connections—so many, in fact, that I’ve decided to organize these reviews by their weird relationships, from the obvious to the unexpected. Let’s get right to ’em!
NONFICTION
Sweet Sleep: Nighttime and Naptime Strategies for the Breastfeeding Family, by Dianne Wiessinger and Diana West: When it comes to parenting challenges, sleep ranks right up at the top—or at least it has for me, even with my fourth child. We never really mastered the sleeping situation with Charleston when he was young, and though we successfully slept trained the twins, I wanted to take the same natural approach with Nico that we took with Charleston (but hopefully with less stress). So when Nico began having increased problems with sleep around the five-month mark, I knew I needed some help, and a book intended for a breastfeeding, bed-sharing family seemed like the best fit.
The book is well-researched, providing plenty of scientific evidence alongside parent testimonials to make the case that a parent’s bed is the safest and most practical place for a baby to sleep, especially for families hoping to encourage breastfeeding and family bonding. The writing is conversational and often humorous, and it is a beautiful celebration of natural motherhood and the unique bond between mothers and their babies. The guide is also very thorough, with more than five hundred pages addressing nearly every aspect of childhood sleep, from naptime and nighttime strategies to sleep-training concerns, sleep needs and expectations at every age, bed-sharing logistics and potential concerns, and even baby personalities and how those play into a baby’s specific sleep challenges. (I can’t begin to tell you what a relief it was to learn that Nico is a “Sparkler,” which explains SO MUCH about why we’ve been having difficulties.)
This book will not be for every family, as it takes a very strong stance in favor of exclusive bedsharing, breastfeeding, and attachment-parenting while discrediting nearly all other sleep options (including sleep aids and sleep training of any kind). I struggled with this singular messaging, especially because the authors repeatedly encourage mothers to follow their instincts regarding baby sleep without acknowledging some mothers may have an instinct NOT to bedshare or breastfeed.
That said, we were already on board with this approach long before picking up this book, so I appreciated the validation and encouragement to keep doing what we were already doing (especially regarding naps in a baby-carrier; it was nice to hear this isn’t just acceptable but perhaps preferable, and it was nice to know our instincts with this weren’t too far off). I loved learning more about the research behind sleep and breastfeeding, and was tickled to see how the science aligns with much of what I’ve done instinctually with all four of my babies. And while I wish the authors did more to acknowledge the challenges of having your baby on you body at all times, I felt empowered by the casual assumption that moms WILL be able to do this and have, in fact, always done so.
If you are a mom of multiples or a working mom, or if you know that you are not a candidate for bedsharing or breastfeeding, this book and its messaging may not be a good fit for you. But if you are a new parent (or new-again parent) interested in bedsharing and/or exclusive breastfeeding and want a detailed guide for your naptime and nighttime pursuits, this book is a must-read. And if you are already a happily bedsharing and breastfeeding mama like me, I think you’ll enjoy the solidarity and affirmations in your securely-attached mothering journey.
My Rating: 4 Stars // Book Format: Audiobook
Sweet Sleep & Good Lookin’ Cookin’ Connection: “Niche” books.
Good Lookin’ Cookin’, by Dolly Parton and Rachel Parton George: As a newlywed, I used cookbooks to teach myself to cook, and I still love cooking from my (now large) cookbook collection. I also enjoy reading cookbooks cover-to-cover, just for fun, and have begun checking cookbooks out from the library for this purpose (taking photos of any recipes I’d like to try). And as a lifelong Dolly Parton fan, I was drawn to this one the moment I spotted it on the library endcap. Cowritten with her younger sister Rachel, Dolly’s cookbook is divided into twelve month-themed sections with seasonal multi-course menus (“Opening Act” appetizer, beverage, main course, sides, and “Encore” dessert). Many of the recipes come from their mother’s kitchen, most are southern (with classics like fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, coleslaw, and banana pudding), and all are accompanied by brief notes and reminiscences from the sisters.
This book is beautiful to look at. Each recipe is accompanied by a lovely photo, and adorable photographs of Dolly and Rachel appear at the start of each section, with the sisters posing in (impossibly glamorous) seasonal garb. For visuals, this one is 5+ stars and would work well as a coffee table book. But the notes could have been more extensive and insightful (I wanted a lot more stories!), and the recipes are lacking. Though simple and easy to follow, they are unoriginal and repetitive (four mashed potato recipes was a little much), with some so basic as to not be recipes at all. (One recipe is literally a beer bucket—as in, Step One: Fill a bucket with ice. Step Two: Add bottles of your favorite beer.) And few of the recipes are ones I’m likely to make, with many involving fried foods, a lot of meat, and huge amounts of mayo and other unhealthy ingredients. Since I won’t be cooking from this, I don’t feel the need to add it to my personal collection, but it was a fun library read and will be loved by Dolly fans and those interested in learning to cook southern comfort food.
My Rating: 3.5 Stars (Rounded to 4 stars on Goodreads) // Book Format: Print
Good Lookin’ Cookin’ and Be Ready When the Luck Happens Connection: Fame and cooking united in book format; older female celebrities without kids, reflecting on their youth.
Be Ready When the Luck Happens, by Ina Garten: In keeping with my tendency to listen to memoirs by celebrities I know nothing about, here is the life story of Ina Garten—a celebrity chef whose cookbooks I’ve never read and whose show I’ve never watched, but who (according to many of my favorite book reviewers) wrote a memoir that was not to be missed. And they were right! Ina offers an honest and insightful look at her full and successful life—from her difficult childhood to early marriage, her short-lived career as a D.C. bureaucrat, her foray into the restaurant business, and eventually her start as a cookbook author and tv personality.
I enjoyed the book’s warm, conversational tone as well as Ina’s straightforward discussion of her marriage to Jeffry (including some pretty rocky times) and the challenges of being a working woman in the 1960s (she was certainly defying the gender stereotypes of her time), and her ability to acknowledge the hard work that has gone into her career while also expressing gratitude for all she’s accomplished. Ina is a shrewd businesswoman and I admire her business acumen, her willingness to buck trends in pursuit of authenticity, and her approach to cooking and presentation that suits the true needs of her audience. Hearing about her meticulous approach to recipe creation was especially interesting, and I loved the behind the scenes details about her cooking show. Ina is a staunch feminist and I have a feeling she and I hold very different world views, but she is confident yet kind in how she presents her ideas and opinions. And she’s generous in sharing her many life lessons without implying a superiority of her own life choices.
I’d never quite understood the allure of Ina Garten, but after reading this book I think I get it. She’s great at what she does, and manages to be both aspirational and approachable. I’m eager to pick up one of her cookbooks, and familiarity with her story will give me an even greater appreciation for the hard work and attention to detail that has gone into each recipe.
My Rating: 4 Stars // Book Format: Audiobook
Be Ready When the Luck Happens & Dinner for Vampires Connection: Celebrity memoirs about individuals I knew almost nothing about.
Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!), by Bethany Joy Lenz: I’ve never seen an episode of One Tree Hill (I’m not sure I even really know what it was about), and I don’t have much interest in cults, but a number of glowing reviews from trusted book sources, along with this interview with Bethany Joy Lenz, led me to pick up this audiobook, and I have to agree with the other reviewers: it was riveting.
In the early 2000s, Bethany Joy Lenz was a successful actress starring as a lead on the hit drama One Tree Hill. What none of her fans or even costars knew was that in addition to being part of a cult TV show, Joy was living a double life as part of a religious cult. As an only child from a broken home who had always longed for a place to belong, Joy had been thrilled to find a new “family” upon arriving in Hollywood and being welcomed into an intimate Bible study group. Her faith background made her receptive to many of the group’s messages, and her youth and innocence kept her from sensing the group’s sinister undercurrents of manipulation and abuse.
Before long, Joy had “willingly” alienated her family and friends in order to stay part of the group, even relocating to the family’s compound in the Pacific Northwest, donating most of her money, and marrying the son of the group’s leader. But as the abuse intensified and Joy lost more and more control over her life, she began to sense that something was amiss. For the sake of her infant daughter, she needed to leave. . . but it wouldn’t be easy.
This book is heart-breaking yet eye-opening, offering a powerful glimpse into the inner workings of a religious cult and the ways that a smart, successful individual could get swept up into such a group. I would have liked to see a more clear differentiation between the cultish beliefs Joy was subjected to and the Biblical Christianity she grew up in (those distinctions are not spelled out in the book, which might be misleading for non-Christian readers who could assume ALL Christianity follows this cultic behavior), and I’m curious about where she stands with God now.
Another minor quibble is with the book’s sheen of unbelievability—not because I think the memoir is untrue (I don’t) but because all names and distinguishing details were altered. The reasons for this are entirely understandable, but the fact that the various individuals are given vampire-themed names made it hard to remember that I was reading memoir and not fiction.
Bethany Joy Lenz is a sympathetic and even humorous narrator, and the book does a good job of providing some backstory while letting the cult component of her life take center stage. Fans of One Tree Hill will be disappointed that the show only receives occasional mentions throughout the book, but as a story of what could be going on behind the cameras, it shines.
My Rating: 4 Stars // Book Format: Audiobook (Lenz reads this herself, and her narration is excellent.)
FICTION
Dinner for Vampires & I Hope This Finds You Well Connection: Similar book cover color-schemes; books featuring vulnerable young women in search of belonging.
I Hope This Finds You Well, by Natalie Sue: Office life at Supershops, Inc., isn’t great for thirty-three-year old Jolene Smith. She feels alienated from her unkind and incompetent coworkers and quietly retaliates by ending each of her emails with petty grievances written in a white font so they remain unseen. That works to release some steam until one of her secret messages is exposed, and Jolene is assigned to sensitivity training with Cliff, the new HR guy who is a rare bright light in an office of associates who range from annoying to loathsome.
When an IT mixup grants Jolene access to the entire department’s private emails and messages, Jolene keeps this new hack to herself and begins spying on her officemates with hopes that she can use the info to gain her boss’s favor and save her job. At first, this new window into the true thoughts, motives, and personal lives of her coworkers makes Jolene feel even MORE ostracized than before, but as she becomes privy to secret trials and pains, she realizes that she might not be the only employee whose job is in the balance and whose personal life is a mess. Jolene must decide whether she will use this information to save herself, even if it means turning into yet another conniving backstabber in an office of disreputables.
Though the premise is excellent, I was slow to warm to this office comedy, with its biting humor and (at times) unnecessary crassness. I didn’t know what to make of Jolene’s harsh demeanor and sociopathic tendencies, and I struggled to keep the various side characters straight. Slowly, Jolene grew on me, as did her officemates. Their various backstories earned my sympathy and provided an interesting exploration of surprisingly deep themes including loneliness, bullying, workplace etiquette and ethics, the long-term effects of trauma, the dichotomy between our inner selves and the ways we are perceived in the world, and the delicate balance between work and personal life.
This was very much a “window book” for me, offering a glimpse into some areas I know little or nothing about including Persian culture (Jolene is Persian and struggles to get along with her overbearing Persian mother) and office life (I’ve never worked in a corporate setting). These insights, combined with the redemptive character development, earnest tone, and heartfelt storylines, made this a book that ultimately did find me very well. This would be a great fit for those who enjoyed The Wedding People: the stories are different, but the themes and tone are quite similar.
My Rating: 4 Stars // Book Format: Kindle
I Hope This Finds You Well & The Love of My Afterlife Connection: Awkward, lonely young protagonists.
The Love of My Afterlife, by Kirsty Greenwood: Delphie is a perennial Lone Wolf, whose world consists of work at a small pharmacy, binge-watching shows in her apartment, and quiet breakfasts with her nonspeaking elderly neighbor, Mr. Yoon. It’s not much of a life, but she’s not ready for it to end; after all, she’s not yet thirty. So when Delphie dies by choking on a microwaveable burger and wakes up in an unusual afterlife, she can’t believe her terrible luck. But then she finds herself face-to-face with the most attractive man she’s ever met, and wonders if the afterlife might not be so bad after all.
Unfortunately, the man’s death was a mistake and he is promptly sent back down to Earth before she can even learn his full name. When Delphie is offered a deal in which she can return to Earth to find the stranger she believes to be her soul mate, she jumps at the opportunity. The only catch? She must find the mysterious man and get him to kiss her before ten days are up; her second chance at life on Earth literally depends on it. Delphie sets off in search of her soul mate, but while he remains elusive, the life of friendship and excitement she’d always avoided is more accessible than she’d ever allowed herself to imagine.
Well, this is definitely not my typical read! The wacky romp is cheeky and totally over-the-top, from the outlandish premise to the ridiculous comedic bits. I didn’t particularly care for the character of Delphie (I don’t always need characters to be likable, but it’s a must for me in Romance), and while I enjoyed the banter, the casual profanity and the steam were too much for me (it’s only slightly open-door, but I’m pretty sensitive when it comes to on-page sexy time). I also REALLY struggled to buy into the smallness of Delphie’s life—and I recognize that this was probably one of the MORE plausible aspects of the book, but for some reason it was one area where I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief.
Despite these many hangups, I did find it to be an enjoyable read with unexpected depth (thanks to themes of bullying, loneliness, and grief), fun side characters, a few surprising plot twists, clever mashup of many romance tropes, and a sweet found-family story. Fans of romantic comedies who want to introduce some magical realism into their reading are sure to love this. The premise and tone reminded me quite a bit of the show The Good Place, which makes me think this would make a great sitcom.
My Rating: 3.5 Stars (Rounded to 4 Stars on Goodreads) // Book Format: Kindle
The Love of My Afterlife & A Sea of Unspoken Things Connection: Artistic protagonists; characters who are boy/girl twins, one of whom has died.
A Sea of Unspoken Things, by Adrienne Young: At eighteen, James Golden left her secluded home town of Six Rivers, California, and never looked back. In the twenty intervening years, she’s lost most contact with her twin brother, Johnny, but an invisible thread has always connected the once-inseparable twins, so she’s sad but not surprised to receive a call that her brother was killed in a tragic accident—her body had told her the minute he’d taken his last breath.
When James returns to the town to help get Johnny’s affairs in order, she begins to wonder if his death was truly an accident or something more nefarious. But investigating Johnny’s death will require her to open up past wounds and fears surrounding a long-ago tragedy. And exploring both tragedies forces her to answer a question she’d never considered: was Johnny really the man she thought she knew?
I LOVED Adrienne Young’s The Unmaking of June Farrow and assumed after reading that book that I’d discovered a new favorite author. But her previous book, Spells for Forgetting, was a disappointment and sadly this was too. Though the writing is good (evocative prose, strong sense of place, subtle magical realism), the plot is SO SLOW. I was a full 50% into the book before I began to feel any interest in the story, and while the mystery did pick up, the story ended abruptly without ever fully capturing my attention. Another frustration was that the book (setting, premise, themes) was too similar to Spells for Forgetting and I found myself confusing the novels despite having read that one almost a year earlier. I thought I’d enjoy the boy/girl twin element because of my personal connection, but this proved to be a mark against the book for me because of the soured nature of Johnny and James’s relationship, something I don’t even want to consider happening with my own twins. (I did enjoy learning that Young has a twin brother, and the tribute to him in her Acknowledgements was quite sweet.)
If you enjoy VERY slow-burn, atmospheric mysteries involving complicated family dynamics, mysterious backstories, and gentle romance, you may enjoy this one. But it wasn’t for me, and I’m hesitant to continue reading everything Adrienne Young writes.
My Rating: 3 Stars // Book Format: Kindle
A Sea of Unspoken Things & How to Solve Your Own Murder Connection: Backstories involving the mysterious disappearance of a teenager.
How to Solve Your Own Murder, by Kristen Perrin: In 1965, sixteen-year-old Frances Adams received a prediction from a fortune-teller that would shape the course of her life: according to the fortune, Frances would one day be murdered, and Frances spent her lifetime attempting to solve the foreshadowed crime. Now, nearly sixty years later, Frances HAS been murdered, just as she always knew she would be. Determined to see her killer brought to justice, Frances preemptively saw to it that her death would be investigated via a competition among her potential heirs, with the successful sleuth set to receive her inheritance. It is this challenge that has brought young mystery writer Annie Adams to her great aunt’s sprawling estate in country village of Castle Knoll. Using Frances’s old journals and meticulous files on each of the village’s inhabitants, Annie sets out to catch Frances’s killer and possibly even the killer behind another crime that took place not long after Frances first received that fated fortune.
This is a book with a fantastic premise, great setting, and double timelines that play nicely together. It’s not a perfect mystery: I struggled to keep track of the extensive cast of (fairly flat) characters, and there are quite a few ridiculous plot points. But I enjoyed the puzzle(s) at the book’s center and was kept guessing right up to the end. I see that there is a sequel in the works, and I’m excited to see what is ahead for Annie and the village of Castle Knoll.
I read this as we were reading The Westing Game as a family, and I couldn’t help but notice the many similarities. I’m curious if that children’s classic influenced the premise here.
My Rating: 4 Stars // Book Format: Kindle
MIDDLE GRADE
How to Solve Your Own Murder & The Westing Game Connection: Many suspects gather to solve the murder of a potential benefactor.
The Westing Game, by Ellin Raskin: A book review written with my kids (the words all come from Charleston, who was really into writing this one!) after reading this book aloud: A lost life. A cryptic will. A game of riddles and mysteries. What could be a better read? Sixteen fortunate people of all ages and walks of life discover they have been named lucky heirs of Samuel W. Westing, famous multimillionaire and owner of Westing Paper Co. There’s only one catch: they must win Westing’s mysterious game by figuring who murdered Westing and where the murderer can be found. Winner inherits it all, so all sixteen guests scramble to piece together their few clues and arrive at the solution. Bombs explode, pearls are lost, and it’s apparent that nobody can be trusted as false identities are revealed.
Charleston rated this book 4 stars; it would have been 4.5 starts except the characters were hard to keep track. He liked the ending and would suggest bringing a box of tissues for that last chapter.
Kali rated this book 3 stars because she liked the braid-wearing, shin-kicking character named Turtle but she didn’t like the mystery that was hard to understand.
Sully rated this book 2 stars because it was a good book, but it was confusing and he didn’t like that people died.
Mom read this book a few years ago and remembered enjoying it much more than she liked it with this read. She found the many characters and convoluted plot too hard to follow as a read-aloud (though the excellent ending made up for some of the earlier shortfalls).
We’d recommend this book for anyone who likes mysteries and doesn’t easily get frustrated by complicated story lines.
Kendra’s Rating: 3.5 Stars (Rounded to 3 stars on Goodreads) // Charleston’s Rating: 4 Stars // Kali’s Rating: 3 // Sully’s Rating: 2 Stars // Book Format: Print
Have you read any of these books? If you’ve read more than one of them, do you notice any unique connections I might have missed? And of course I want to know what YOU’VE been reading and loving (or hating) lately!