Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson

 

Reviewed by Kristin

Madeline Hill (Mad) and her mom have a farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. When a man pulls up to their farm stand one day, Mad assumes he’s just a last minute customer hoping for some produce. But no, Reuben Hill (Rube) tells her that he believes they are half siblings, and that their serial monogamist father may have left a trail of other children across the country from Massachusetts to California. And, oh yeah, would she like to drive across the country with him in a rented PT Cruiser to find the others?

The elder Mr. Hill left Rube’s mother thirty years ago, and Mad’s mother twenty years ago, so it appears that he had a habit of reinventing himself. Was he a writer, a farmer, a soccer coach, or something else entirely? Like a chameleon, he appeared to change professions, wives/partners, and geography whenever he felt the need.

Mad and Rube begin a journey of self-exploration that does much more than take them across state lines. In an attempt to find the answers they seek, they discover more family while uncovering a family history they never knew.

Author Kevin Wilson is the master of crazy happenings; two of his previous characters burst into flames with strong emotions in Nothing to See Here. His humor and wit are biting as well as entertaining. I also enjoyed Now Is Not the Time to Panic where a homemade poster causes ripples of paranoia across the country.

If you’re looking for more road trip fiction, I suggest He Started It by Samantha Downing, The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, or Mrs. Nash’s Ashes by Sarah Adler. (Okay, I admit I’m just about to read that last one, but it certainly sounds good. If you get to it before me, let me know!)

Sleepytime by Joe Brumm

Reviewed by Kristin

Or, a love letter to the creators of Bluey books and episodes, from Kristin

In case you haven’t heard of Bluey, she is a cartoon dog. She has a little sister named Bingo, and they live in Australia with Mum and Dad. The show has attracted worldwide attention and is now showing on Disney Plus. The shows and the books can be viewed and read on many different levels, which seems to be why adults like Bluey as much as their kids.

Bluey and Bingo love to play. You won’t find any alphabet songs, number games, or learning to go potty here. They learn through play with their friends and their parents. They go with Mum and/or Dad to the creek, the beach, or the playground. They have cookouts and picnics with family friends. There is much laughter, silliness, and love. The background music is often classical, and the theme song is an earworm.

I have found that some of the paperback books published are a little stilted, as if someone decided to take a show script and copy and paste it into a book. That’s not entirely a bad thing, as adults may want to avoid screens with their young children, whether at bedtime or not.

Sleepytime, however, is another story (no pun intended). Both the episode and the book are beautifully presented. Little sister Bingo is the focus of this story, as she decides that she wants to do a “Big Girl sleep” and wake up in her own bed. Mum has read Bingo a bedtime story or two, tucks her in, and says, “Remember, I’m always here if you need me.”

Bingo drifts off to sleep and begins to dream of floating through the universe. Her bunny Floppy floats along with her, swooping past suns and planets. It’s about this point that I realized Bingo’s dreams are actually related to her sleepwalking into a variety of other beds. As she finds a really big planet and decides it’s fun to jump on, Bluey joins in (as they both kick Dad, aka the big planet).

As Bingo continues to travel the universe (and her blanket slips off) she becomes cold, and is drawn to an approaching warm sphere of light, which of course, is Mum. Mum tucks Bingo in again, and says, “Remember, I’ll always be here for you. Even if you can’t see me. Because I love you.” (Cue the tears from the adults…)

I highly recommend this as a peaceful bedtime story for toddlers and pre-schoolers.

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Reviewed by Kristin

Nina Riva has taken care of her younger siblings for years. Their father is actor Mick Riva, still turning heads after decades on the screen. Mick has always been full of big promises but short on follow throughs. His wife June did what she could when Mick abandoned her with four children, but Nina was truly the one making sure everyone got to school and had something to eat.

Now a world famous model and surfer, Nina has been the only true parent of Jay, Hud, and Kit. She is the one who cared for her siblings, forged their permission slips, and helped them grow up into successful adults. Jay is a professional surfer winning competitions around the world. The quiet one—Hud—is an amazing photographer, following his brother and becoming known. Kit is the baby of the family, also a surfer, and is working hard on figuring out exactly who she is and what she wants to do with her life.

The main action of Malibu Rising takes place in the 24 hours following 7:00 am, August 27, 1983. The famous Riva party is that night, and all characters come together in this time period with varying motivations and agendas. This annual end of summer bash has grown over the years from more humble beginnings to this star studded gathering where the famous are rubbing shoulders (or doing lines of coke) with working class locals. There are no official invitations. If you know where the party is, you are invited.

Flashbacks take the reader backwards from 1983 to 1956 and many points in between. The tension remains high as the history of various characters is revealed, all while leading inexorably forward to a fiery conclusion.

Reid is brilliant in drawing dozens of little plot lines going all directions, and then pulling them taut. The author has created this world of the 1970s and 1980s in a way that made me think she was older, but I checked—she is only 38. Her other novels usually have some characters in common, but just as a tiny strand to connect her landscapes. Mick Riva played a large part here, but he was just a small part as the third husband in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Mick also made a brief showing in Daisy Jones & The Six. A few musicians from Daisy even make their way to Nina’s party, giving just a hint of the great fictional world Reid has created.

This book kept me wanting more, and it’s good to know that Reid is still creating and developing tangential characters, and that we might even see a few old favorites in passing in her future works. Tennis pro Carrie Soto comes up in the first few pages of Malibu, as the “other woman” Nina’s husband has taken up with. Carrie Soto is Back is Reid’s newest book, and I’m on the waiting list.

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

 

Reviewed by Abby

Camino and Yahaira are only two months apart in age but lead very different lives in two different countries.  In the Dominican Republic, Camino does healing work with her mother and swims in the ocean in her free time. She is only able to afford school with the money her father leaves her family but dreams of going to medical school in the United States one day.  Meanwhile, in New York Yahaira has a caring girlfriend and loves to play chess competitively. She never has to worry about money.  Camino and Yahaira do have one thing in common, though:  they each love their papi, their father, very very much.

And it’s the same papi.  Yes, he has two families, but neither daughter knows. Other family members do know, but they had decided not to tell the girls to avoid having them view their papi in a negative light. 

Then Papi dies in a plane crash on his way from New York to the Dominican Republic to visit Camino’s family. First there is the shock of losing their beloved papi, followed by the shock of learning about his double life.  The girls feel confused and betrayed by their families for hiding such a huge secret. They are also jealous of each other and begin to question why papi chose to travel so often. Who did he really love more?

Clap When You Land showcases the development of grief and familial bonds. Acevedo’s powerful way with words has resulted in a beautifully narrated Young Adult novel that will appeal to adult readers as well. Acevedo was a slam poet before she began writing books. She chose to write this novel in poetic free verse, which makes for a lighter read. It is astonishing to me how she was able to capture the emotions within this story so easily with her use of poetry. I finished it quickly even with its 432 page count!

(Not so fun) fact: This plane crash was actually based on a true event. On November 12, 2001, American Airlines Flight 587 was set to travel from New York to the Dominican Republic. The plane ended up crashing before it departed the city and left no survivors. This was a significant date in Dominican and American history that was unfortunately overshadowed by the events of 9/11 once people learned it was not caused by a terrorist attack.

I would highly recommend this book, especially because of its tie in with the true historical event. I had not heard about the Flight 587 plane crash until after reading Clap When You Land, even though it was a truly monumental incident in U.S. history.

Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella

 

Reviewed by Kristin

Cady Archer arrives at Harvard with mild trepidation, but optimistic that the prestigious university is where she is supposed to be. Her mother definitely disagrees, having lost Cady’s older brother Eric to suicide on the revered campus just a year earlier. Eric had a history of mental illness threaded through his brilliance, and something just pushed him over the edge, perhaps literally as well as figuratively.

As Cady deals with the pressure of being a freshman at such a challenging university, she struggles with the idea that she could have done something to help Eric. Surely there were clues pointing to his desperation, or other indications that his family should have noticed. As she begins to cross paths with his classmates, his competitors for the Bauer award, and his professors, Cady begins to question whether something much more sinister than stress or schizophrenia drove her brother to take his own life.

Cue the “ghosts of Harvard” as Cady begins to hear voices in her head. Decades or centuries have passed since Whit, Robert, and Bilhah walked the paths now occupied by Cady and her fellow students. But Cady can hear them as clearly as if they were beside her in the present day. They become as real to her as the living, breathing humans around her, but are they really speaking to her from the past or is Cady slipping into mental illness just like Eric?

This highly anticipated debut novel from Francesca Serritella did meet my expectations. I have read Serritella’s non-fiction compilations with her mother Lisa Scottoline and found them funny, insightful, and a bit poignant as they cover topics of family, growing up Italian, men, friendship, and animals, among many, many other things. This work of fiction definitely did feel like a first as the author found her narrative voice, but she accomplished this well. As a graduate of Harvard, she obviously knows her setting well and utilizes her experiences there to paint the background vividly.

I will admit that this took me some time to read, but I blame that more on the COVID-19 pandemic and my own scattered-ness in 2020, rather than on any faults with the writing. I look forward to more from this promising young author in the future.