Lessons in Chemistry

In Lessons in Chemistry, we meet Elizabeth Zott, a chemist, a mother, a cooking show host. Bonnie Garmus shows how horrible the sexism was in the sciences in the 1960’s by how Zott is treated and how much she’s denied due to her gender. She meets and falls in love with another scientist but when that ends, she’s left with even less options.

There’s so much in this book that was historically interesting and frustratingly sexist. This was so well written with such creative characters. Highly recommend.

Read February 2024

None of This is True

None of This is True, by Lisa Jewell, sets up the story in the title. None of this is true…or is it?

A chance meeting of two women on their 45th birthday leads to a bizarre friendship. Alix, is a successful podcaster, married to a troubled alcoholic but overall loving man. Josie is, well, different. Married to a man over 20 years her senior, that she met when she was 15. Two troubled daughters- one runaway, the other locked in her ever smelling room. Its unclear what part Josie plays in her daughter’s dysfunction. Her husband seems to steer clear of her, but they’ve been married for 20+ years.

Interspersed into the narrative, a Netflix special based on the recordings that we are hearing. The stories are dark and disturbing and the twists keep coming.

Gripping, fast paced read. Recommend.

Read December 2023

Zero Days

Ruth Ware’s Zero Days kept me riveted. Jack, “Jacintha Cross”, and her husband Gabe break into facilities/offices to find any flaws in their security system. Gabe is all things tech and the voice in her ear as Jack breaks in. Their last job goes well and they find the flaws they were looking for when Jack gets stopped by the police. When she finally makes it home, Gabe has been brutally murdered. She cooperates with the investigators until she becomes the main suspect. Knowing no one will look for the real murderer if they think she’s the one, she plans on finding out who killed Gabe on her own.

This novel kept me reading to make sure that Jack escaped from all the messes she ended up in. Gread read, recommend.

Read December 2023

Happiness Falls

Happiness Falls, by Angie Kim, is set at the height of the COVID lockdowns. In the Park family, new routines were established to help Eugene maintain as much normalcy as possible. Which is why when Mia heard someone walk by, she assumed it was her father. Mia rationalized later that her father should have been with Eugene. The realization that Mia’s dad is missing takes too long to come and by then it looks very suspicious. Mia tells the story, with some fun side journeys, in to what led up to Eugene returning by himself and where their father is. Along the way, there’s information about new ways to talk to non-speaking kids with Autism and mosaic Angelmann’s syndrome.

The Park family are biracial, Korean Americans, which forms the backbone of Mia’s identity and adds to some of the complexity within the story.

Great read, recommend.

Read November 2023

Pineapple Street

Jenny Jackson’s Pineapple Street shows an interesting side of wealthy New Yorkers. I read this a month ago, so I don’t remember names, but one woman married into a very wealthy NYC family, one woman is a member of that family who wants things to stay the way it is, and one is a young member of the family who’s starting to realize the inequality of a system that made her a multi-millionaire without having actually done anything.

Power dynamics are at play in all the relationships in ways that those who came from money don’t recognize and feel compelled to brush aside. Its a really great look into how people who have money live beyond normal life and cannot comprehend the everyday realities of most New Yorkers, or most people in general.

Great read, highly recommend.

Read October 2023

Homecoming

Kate Morton’s Homecoming tells the story of the Turner Family in Australia. The youngest member Jess, who has lived abroad in London for almost 20 years, must return home when her grandmother Nora is hospitalized. While trying to figure out why her grandmother would climb the stairs to the attic, something she never allowed Jess to do as a child, she comes across the Turner family tragedy of 1959. How could events from so long ago have anything to do with Nora’s injury? Jess, being a reported, spends her time in Australia digging into her family’s past, not expecting to learn that many of her memories have been distorted over time.

Great read, highly recommend.

Read September 2023

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid was a page turner. We follow Evelyn Hugo, a huge old hollywood star through multiple husbands, some of whom she actually loved, and her female love of her life. At the end of her life, Evelyn decides to do a tell-all novel to Monique, a small time journalist that’s been personally hand-picked. The stories are glamourous and cruel. Full of love and hate. And the twist is enough for most people to hate her.

This was a great, captivating read! Highly recommend.

Read July 2023

The Radcliffe Ladies’ Reading Club

Julia Bryan Thomas’s The Radcliffe Ladies’ Reading Club tells the story of a group of women feeling independence for the first time. Its 1955, women are not admitted to Harvard, but they can attend Radcliffe. We meet Tess, Caroline, Evie, and Merritt, all from different backgrounds and different expectations for their future. Still confined by society’s standards, these young women are getting an education when most of their classmates will end up dropping out after meeting their soon-to-be husband.

The four women bond early in the term and join a reading club at the local bookstore, run by a single woman, Alice. Alice picks books and asks questions that make the quartet question their own values and judgments that they’re making.

This was a good look into how different women form their ideas on what is an acceptable woman in the 1950’s. How much must remain hidden and what they should expect from the world around them. Sometimes heartfelt, sometimes heartbreaking. Recommended read.

Read July 2023

What My Bones Know

Stephanie Foo’s What My Bones Know- A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma, we follow Stephanie on her journey to heal herself through a variety of mental health techniques to find what works for her. While successful on paper, Stephanie knows somethings wrong and one day her therapist of 10+ years finally tells her that she has Complex PTSD, different than regular PTSD (which seems to be much better studied) because it is based on continual or repeated trauma vs a one-time trauma. Child abuse/neglect fits right into that and Stephanie puts her childhood out there. She also tells of her journey through many therapists, and teachers, and meditation, and yoga to try to heal her anxiety, depression, anger, etc.

This is a raw, honest look at how someone can fall through so many systems due to looking ok. She dives deep into some of the racism that allowed that to happen, and the cultural expectations of first generation Americans. She talks about it from her perspective and culture, but from a different culture but also a first generation America, I could connect to many aspects of needing to do well, keep the grades up, etc.

This was a tough read, but so funny and well written. I was either crying or laughing. It also shows the power of friendship and making your own family.

Read July 2023

A Little Life

Hanya Yanahihara’s A Little Life. My friend loaned it to me when I needed something to read, almost taking it back saying this novel was too “brutal” to share. Being on a lake vacation, maybe reading something brutal wasn’t something I should be going for, but I did. This novel, about 4 friends who meet in college, but mostly about one of them who comes into their world possessing none of their humanity and sees them as something to aspire to or at least mimic. We follow these friends, plus many others in their orbit from 16-18 years old until most of their deaths. This novel is about how low society/man can go and oppositely how wonderful friends can be. The depth of this book and the characters are heartbreaking and unreadable in parts.

I cannot say more. I just finished this novel and even thinking about it brings tears to my eyes. Both for lovely, beautiful reasons and also for terrible, horrifying ones.

Highly recommended, but not for the lay reader. This is a serious novel, 816 pages, filled with brutality and love.

Read July 2023