Puck by Samantha Allen

Reviewed by Kristin 

Puck is a queer non-binary thirty-year-old who has made great strides in their career as the producer of “Homewreckers.” Puck is good at their job, and that includes being able to manipulate people. A reality dating show wouldn’t be nearly as much entertainment if the contestants were allowed to find and stay with their true loves, right? Enter the exes, ideally placed to disrupt and blow up relationships. 

Taking a rare break from the show, Puck is attending the wedding of their old best friend and roommate, Mia, to another of their college friend group, Damon. But Mia used to date Zander, Damon’s best friend, and Lena used to have a huge crush on Damon, and Puck takes it upon themself to stop Mia and Damon’s wedding, thus saving Mia from a lifetime of misery. As mentioned before, Puck likes pulling the marionette strings and interfering in others’ lives. 

Impeding Puck’s theatrics is Robyn, the rigidly scheduled maid of honor who is absolutely determined that this wedding will happen. Puck is intrigued by Robyn, despite the obvious problems the attraction creates. 

I absolutely loved this new release from the author of Patricia Wants to Cuddle  and Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet. The characters feel like real people who are trying to find their place in the adult world with relationships, careers, and societal expectations. Mia is trying to fit into Damon’s family’s wealth and status. Zander is newly sober, and making a name for himself as a chef. Puck is Puck, with all the Shakespearean drama their chosen name evokes. 

Puck may start out as a planner and master manipulator, but they learn much during the course of this episode, I mean, book. They grow as a person, and as they say, all’s well that ends well. 

A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer by Maxie Dara

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Kathy Valance’s father told her she had the Sadim touch.  That’s Midas spelled backwards.  He meant that everything she touched went bad and some days Kathy believes he might be right. She had thought things were looking up.  She’d finally found a job she loved and one she was good at—or had been good at until tonight.  As an employee for Secure Collection, Yielding, and Transportation of Human Essences (S.C.Y.T.H.E.), her job is to collect souls of the newly deceased and send them on their way before they turn into ghosts.  The problem is that while she has a body lying on a kitchen floor, the essence of that body is nowhere to be found. 

This is a problem. A big problem.

When she finally tracks him down in a meadow, she finds an angry teenager named Connor who refuses to leave.  He also insists he was murdered.

Murder victims are not Kathy’s department.  She’s Natural Causes.  And if she can’t get Connor to move on, she’ll lose her job, the one thing she feels good about in her life. So she has to find out if Connor was murdered and by who, and she has to do it before he turns into a ghost and is stuck here permanently.

Oh, and Kathy was in the process of divorcing Simon, the husband she really loved because she can’t talk about her job AND because she’s afraid of losing him. As the comedian says, “It makes sense if you don’t think about it.”

She’s also pregnant by Simon.  Her life can’t possibly get more messed up.

Oh, yes it can.

I found this to be one funny and delightful romp.  It as if Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan took a job as a soul collector.  Kathy’s observations are a delight—a teen’s wispy mustache is “the male equivalent of a training bra”—and I loved all the characters I was supposed to love.  Kathy is a funny, compassionate, and open-hearted.  Simon is no GQ model but he adores Kathy and is willing to do anything for her.  Kathy’s friend Jo is funny, sarcastic, and resourceful.  And Connor—Connor is a surly teen, angry at being dead, but underneath it all he’s a sweet kid and a literal lost soul.

There is a second book coming out in a few months, and I’ll be looking forward to it.

The Butterfly Trap by Clea Simon

Reviewed by Jeanne

 

Greg is an ambitious young doctor who should have it all.  He’s not like his friend Pete, who’s out for a good time and who changes girlfriends like he changes his shirts.  Greg wants a wife, the house, the kids, the whole domestic scene.  While acting as reluctant wingman for Peter, Greg meets Anya at a party and is instantly smitten.  When Anya cuts her foot on a broken bottle, Greg is able to come to her rescue and bandage her wound like the gallant knight he wants to be.  Soon they’re dating and Greg is determined to give Anya everything she could ever want, even if he has to change his life to make his butterfly happy.

Anya is an artist, working part time at a gallery while she paints.  She’s struggling, not only financially, but in seeking her own style and a breakthrough in the arts scene.  When she meets Greg, she likes that he seems sweet and more of a gentleman than some men she’s dated.  It’s obvious that he doesn’t understand her art (or really, any art) but he’s supportive in his own way.

Is this a romance for the ages—or a disaster waiting to happen?

The Butterfly Trap is one story, told from two different points of view.  The first half of the book is Greg’s story; the second half is Anya’s, and while they are describing the same events, their perceptions are quite different.  The reader may spot red flags that the characters are oblivious to, ratcheting up the tension as the story plays out.

This is a bit of a departure for Simon, who has written a number of cozy mystery series as well as some grittier standalone novels such as Bad Boy Beat.  I found it most readable, and was reluctant to put it down.  When the story comes to a climax just a few pages from the end, it’s both expected and shocking at the same time. 

While this isn’t my usual cozy or classic mystery, I certainly enjoyed it and found it memorable.  The characters are well-developed, and the setting is vivid, especially the peek inside the serious art scene of galleries and exhibitions.  It’s not a finger-pointing type of book:  one character isn’t totally right and the other totally wrong, but two people who misread each other.  Greg especially tends to project his ideals onto Anya, but Anya fails to see how deeply invested Greg is in the relationship.  The pacing is very good; the story never dragged for me.

Recommended for anyone who likes relationship suspense with strong characters and a good sense of place.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

 

Reviewed by Kristin

Sam and Sadie met in a children’s hospital in California. Sam was a patient; Sadie wasn’t. Sadie was just there to visit her sister Alice, who had the fortunate misfortune of having childhood cancer, but a cancer that was almost always curable. Sam had been in a horrendous car accident which crushed his foot and thus he required many surgeries to try to fix it. Also, Sam wasn’t talking. Until Sadie.

Sam and Sadie spend hundreds of hours playing video games together in the game room of the hospital. Sam begins to recover, although his foot will never be the same as before the accident. Sam and Sadie become the best of friends, until they aren’t.

Several years later, Sam is a junior at Harvard when he runs into Sadie in Boston. She is a student at MIT learning how to program video games. The two begin a collaboration which will make them famous as developers of the worldwide sensation Ichigo. The title character is a young Japanese child swept out to sea who must make their way back to land and their family through a series of challenges and decision-making.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow takes Sam and Sadie from childhood to adulthood with all the expected fumbling and pains along the way. Sam has to deal with an ongoing disability due to the damage his foot sustained in that long ago accident, as well as his social awkwardness. He is half-Korean, half-Jewish, raised by his mother’s Korean parents. Sadie has grown up in privileged circumstances in her Jewish household. She is also one of a scarce handful of women in her advanced programming classes. Both are obviously brilliant (having landed at Harvard and MIT respectively) and care deeply for one another.

Gabrielle Zevin’s writing is compulsively readable, and I could barely pause while reading. She builds three-dimensional characters beautifully, making me want to immerse myself in their world just a little bit longer. Drawing from mythology and the woodblock print “The Great Wave at Kanagawa”, the game Ichigo reflects many aspects of Japanese culture. Even looking at the cover of this book, you can see the iconic waves drawn by Kokusai in 1829. Add in the video game style lettering with multiple trailing shadows, and I find this to be a cover worthy of the book within.

As soon as I finished this title, I began another of Zevin’s works: All These Things I’ve Done. This one is more of a young adult story and the first of a trilogy, but I am enjoying it as well. Zevin has written several other well-known novels including Elsewhere and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. By discovering this author, I definitely have added quite a few more books to my wishlist.

The Big Box Door Prize by M. O. Walsh

 

 

Reviewed by Laura

            Douglas Hubbard and his wife, Cherilyn, are well-loved by the people of Deerfield, Louisiana. Douglas teaches history at the local high school and Cherilyn, though unable to have children, is always busy with crafts and odd jobs around town. Their relationship is the envy of many, but most especially Deuce Newman, a former high school football star turned town photographer, who has pined for Cherilyn since their high school days. With the town's bicentennial coming up, Deuce is in great demand taking pictures of all the townspeople to use in a mosaic to be displayed for the occasion. Needless to say, avoiding him will be an impossible task for the Hubbards.

            Everything goes along pretty smoothly in this small town until a new machine appears at the local grocery store. For $2.00 and a Q-tip swap of your DNA, the DNAMIX will tell you your greatest potential and calling. The machine turns out to be wildly popular as residents stand in line to discover what their talent really is and what they should do for the rest of their lives. Sounds like a fun way to spend the afternoon and have a chuckle about “what might have been”, but unfortunately, most of the townspeople take the printouts as gospel. Before long, all around town, you might see someone doing magic tricks in their front yard, spending their retirement money on expensive bicycles and hitting the road, or a myriad of other activities. Even the mayor appears to be transitioning into a cowboy! Douglas has avoided the craziness thus far, but then Cherilyn discovers she was meant for royalty and things go downhill from there.

            While the book’s main characters are Douglas and Cherilyn, the book also follows some of the town’s other residents, including a darker subplot relating to some of Douglas’ colleagues and students from the high school. Though the book is definitely not a mystery in the normal sense of the word, there were several twists and turns that I certainly never saw coming. This is a wonderfully told story of intertwining relationships and the curves life throws at us along the way. It wasn’t the type of book that I couldn’t put down, but rather more like a comfortable robe that I wanted to ease into at the end of the day. Comforting and heartwarming…just the thing I need right now.  I highly recommend it.

The Majesties by Tiffany Tsao

Reviewed by Christy

            Estella and Gwendolyn are part of a very large and very rich Chinese-Indonesian family. The two sisters have always been close and each other’s best friends. So when Gwendolyn finds herself in a coma, unable to regain consciousness but still fully aware, she is devastated and confused. She is the only survivor of Estella’s poisoning of their entire family (as well as a significant number of family friends) at their grandfather’s birthday celebration.

            The entire novel consists of Gwendolyn rifling through her memories and trying to figure out what could push Estella so far over the edge. Tsao writes a compelling narrative. Gwendolyn jumps around in time quite a bit, and it can be disorienting. But I think it works well with a mystery as she slowly reveals more information. It also seemed realistic given her circumstances. The story of the family’s climb to power and wealth is rich and layered, as are Estella and Gwendolyn as characters. Tsao’s writing is mostly straight forward with poetic dashes thrown in here and there. I enjoyed my time reading her book – for the most part.

            The ending, however, is where it almost all collapses for me. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone but it includes a trope that is, in my opinion, very overdone and one of my least favorites. It’s particularly disappointing because I do think the story is strong and with a few tweaks of the ending, it would be a solid 4 or 5 star read. There didn’t need to be a gimmick. As it is, it was only an unexceptional 3 star read for me. If you’re a reader who doesn’t let an unsatisfying ending negatively influence your reading experience, you might like it more.

** I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. **

Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott

Reviewed by Christy H.

            Kit has worked tirelessly in her postgrad years to reach the success she’s achieved – working in a lab run by respected scientist Dr. Severin. When Dr. Severin announces the lab has received funding to study premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and that only three positions will be available, Kit hopes, but isn’t certain, that she’ll win one of the prestigious spots. When the doctor announces a new hire at the same time, Kit’s hopes are dashed, especially when she discovers the new hire is Diane, her close friend and competitor in high school. Though Kit was always smart, Diane was the one who unintentionally lit a fire under Kit, getting her to put more effort into her schoolwork instead of just coasting. The results were a college scholarship and a career in STEM. Despite this bond, Kit and Diane drifted apart after high school, after Diane revealed her darkest secret.

            With Diane back in her life, Kit, who has always felt insecure about her capabilities, is certain she will lose the position to her. She drowns her sorrows in Long Island Iced Teas and lets the long held secret slip to one of her colleagues – further complicating things.

            Like other Abbott books, this one is quick and readable and I did like it, especially the look behind the scenes for women in STEM research. But I also found it lacking something, although I can’t quite articulate what that is. I’m not sure if I felt a disconnect from the characters or if it was the mystery that didn’t grab me. I was curious how everything would turn out but I wasn’t quite as invested as I have been with some of her other novels. So it may not be my new favorite Megan Abbott novel but it’s still a good time and worth a read.