The electrifying number-one New York Times best-selling authors of The Wife Between Us and An Anonymous Girl return with a brand new novel of psychological suspense.
Shay Miller wants to find love, but it eludes her. She wants to be fulfilled, but her job is a dead end. She wants to belong, but her life is increasingly lonely.
Until Shay meets the Moore sisters. Cassandra and Jane live a life of glamorous perfection, and always get what they desire. When they invite Shay into their circle, everything seems to get better. Shay would die for them to like her. She may have to.
Publication Date:
March 3rd, 2020
Genre:
Domestic Thriller/Psychological Thriller
My Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️
My Review:
You Are Not Alone started off on a great note for me as far as thrillers go. The first scene totally grabbed my attention and immediately made me want to know more. I appreciated that the book summary was pretty undescriptive, which helped me not make any assumptions about the plotline.
Unfortunately, it just went a little downhill for me after that and I found keeping up with all the characters tedious, especially with the jumping between past and present. I didn’t find any of them particularly likable and some of their choices just made me think “huh?!”.
The pace did pick up at the end but it just felt a little too unbelievable for me at that point. Without a strong connection to the characters, the ending wrapped up too quickly. I think this just might be my own reading taste but endings out of nowhere just don’t work for me, especially when I haven’t been given anything that helps me feel super invested with the main characters.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase, I receive a small commission that helps support this blog at no cost to you. Thank you!
If you have been around here for a while, you probably have seen these gorgeous booksleeves in part of many of my book photos…
I like to take my books everywhere and often times I am just tossing them into whatever bag I have with me. That’s where booksleeves come in! They are the perfect way to protect your books when you are on the go.
Booksleeves are like a cozy little home for your books that keep them from getting banged around. While I have no problem letting my books get out of the house and live a little, I do like that they now have a safer way to travel.
The Perfect Size for Any Book!
The booksleeves come in three different sizes. The small size (navy floral pattern above) is perfect for a small paperback or your e-reader like a Kindle! The medium size (fruit pattern) is great for a “regular” sized book, either a larger paperback or a 300-page hardcover book. The large size (stripes & hearts pattern) is perfect for your bigger 500-page hardcover books.
More about Tancy from BeyondBooked…
Tancy and I first met on #bookstagram last year and quickly bonded over having a love for the non-fiction book genre. This past December she shared her reading list and book recommendations as a What’s On Your Nightstand? Guest Poster HERE.
What started as a hobby has now become a side business for her and her BeyondBooked Booksleeves Etsy Shop was created! I was immediately drawn in by her wide range of floral prints (I am a sucker for anything floral!) but was even more impressed by her amazing attention to quality and detail and wonderful customer service.
BeyondBooked Rep!
So when Tancy did a Rep Search a few weeks ago I couldn’t apply fast enough! I have accumulated quite the collection of booksleeves since she opened her shop and there is nothing I love more than sharing about things that I already use and love!
As a BeyondBooked Rep, I now get to share an ongoing discount code for my readers! If you are interested in checking out her booksleeves you can use the code: GENTHEBOOKWORM10 at her Etsy shop HERE…
Restocking Updates…
Tancy restocks her shop frequently as patterns and sleeves sell out quickly! I recommend following along on her Instagram page @beyondbooked so you can know when she restocks or add new patterns to her site!
Booksleeve Giveaway!
In addition to sharing this exciting news, I am also so happy to be hosting a BeyondBooked booksleeve GIVEAWAY over on Instagram today!
Welcome to another edition of my reading list and book recommendations guest post series. I have a great lineup of reading friends and book professionals sharing their current reads the next few weeks and I couldn’t be more thrilled!
Katie and I are #bookstagram buddies and you might know her by book tree she featured this past holiday season that went totally viral in the online book community!
Katie posts daily book content which I am always super impressed by and loves so many of the same genres as me so she is always a go-to for me if I needing some book feedback or inspiration.
Katie is not afraid to share her honest thoughts on the reads she reads which I always appreciate and is just so much fun (except when she gives me grief about not reading Harry Potter yet!!)
I am actually meeting up with her and two of my other reading friends Kristina and Stephanie this spring at the 2020 Book Expo in NYC and I can’t even wait! I hope you enjoy learning more about Katie today.
Nightstand Series Introduction:
Hey everyone! My name is Katie (aka @katieneedsabiggerbookshelf) and I am a born and raised Jersey Girl! I spent my college years in Savannah, GA which is where the “y’alls” come in that I sometimes throw out!
I currently live in Delaware with my boyfriend Dave, my cat Brody, and his dog Courtney. They love each other deep down, they just never show it!
When I’m not reading, (aka when they force me to do that thing called work) I sell yearbooks for Walsworth yearbooks. I just started this job in May and am loving it so far!
I spent five years doing sales for Pepsi so when this opportunity came along to do sales but also get to add in my love of photography and graphic design I had to jump at the chance! I love getting to work with the students, and help them get creative with their book! I also love to crochet, knit, paint, photograph, sew, and really just do anything crafty!
What Kind of Reader Are You?
One of my favorite stories is that I had trouble learning to read. When I was in first grade, I could fly through the math worksheets, but reading gave me a ton of trouble. I went to extra help for it and it was game over from there.
My math skills quickly disappeared once subtraction was introduced, and soon you couldn’t find me without a book in my hand. My reading tastes are really all over the map, especially since I started my #bookstagram. I read pretty much anything except I don’t do a ton of fantasy, and I really only read sci-fi if it’s by Blake Crouch.
What Time of Day do You do Most of Your Reading?
I read any time of day! I don’t really read in the morning because I am NOT a morning person. I am a roll out of bed, get dressed and brush my teeth, grab a bite to eat and my coffee on the way out the door!
I will read if I get to an appointment early and have a few minutes in the car alone, and always on my lunch break (when I take them.) Since I spend all day in the car, I always have an audiobook or a podcast going! In terms of sitting down to crack a book, I am mostly a nighttime reader though.
This is a really tough one! There are so many I have loved recently. I am going to give my three 5-star reads from January though! A Sky Painted Gold, Hum If You Don’t Know The Words, and Catch and Kill. All were amazing reads that I couldn’t put down!
What books are you looking forward to reading?
There are so many great sounding books coming out I don’t even know where to start! Some I am excited about include Truths I Never Told You, He Started It, Night Swim, andBeach Read! They are all repeat authors for me (except Truths I Never Told You-which I need to read her first one ASAP! It’s on my backlist shortlist!) And I can’t wait to see what they have come up with for their next read!
Any books were hoping to love but didn’t??
I was hoping to love Normal People, Three Women, and Saint X. But they just didn’t do it for me. The first two I did finish and was mad I bothered, and the third I DNF’d.
My nightstand is pretty boring. I have my books (bottom is my next read, the middle is my current physical book read, and the top is my kindle.) I generally read my kindle in bed because I’m a side sleeper and its easier to read a kindle on my side than a physical book! So I almost always have three books going at once!
Then I, of course, have my phone and apple watch chargers, water, chapstick, and the tv remote to turn it off once Dave falls asleep! My favorite part isn’t my nightstand, but my amazing floating shelves above my nightstand! They make me so happy and contain some of my TBR, minus my superwoman one that has my lady power books!
Our room doesn’t have a lot of room for bookshelves, but I did just add these gems upstairs in the office. Since I had to put all my book tree books away it made for a good time to organize the shelves a bit better! And I see some blank spaces waiting to be filled! I have several bookshelves throughout the house, but this one looks the prettiest!
Thank you so much for sharing today, Katie. I loved hearing all about your recent reads and I now need floating bookshelves ASAP!
Disclosure: Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase, I receive a small commission that helps support this blog at no cost to you. Thank you!
Hello! I have been planning on doing this post for weeks and I am so happy to finally be sharing it today. For some reason, figuring out which books would make this list was much harder than I initially anticipated. I think this is partly because I read so many amazing books last year that it was just hard to narrow it down, which is NOT a bad problem to have.
Tracking My Reading:
After overthinking it for weeks, I decided I was going to look back at all the books I read and then decide which ones were the most memorable. Does anyone else have a hard time remembering exactly what happened in a book? I am always super impressed when someone tells me in detail about a book they read many books ago..While I can remember basic things, mostly I remember how they made me feel. All the books that I picked for this list were ones that stuck with me long after I finished them.
I am not a super-organized person and I definitely don’t have one of those cute reading tracker journals (but how amazing are the ones pictured above?!) or an excel spreadsheet of all my books.
I would love to be one of those people but at this stage of my life, I am just not. For me, if tracking my reading doesn’t happen pretty much automatically, it probably is not going to happen! Enter Goodreads!
Goodreads Year in Books!
Goodreads has been a savior for me and helps keep track of all the books I read whether they are hard copies, ebooks or audiobooks. It’s what I use when I do my monthly reading recaps and it also makes it easy to look back and sort by date or rating.
Picking My Favorite Books of 2019…
In July I recapped my favorite books from 2019 (so far!) and it was interesting to see how everything stacked up six months later. You can read that blog post HERE.
2019 was a GREAT year of reading which made making this final decision not easy! While some of these books remained on my favorites list I read a lot of amazing books in the second half. When I reflected on my “favorite” books of the year, the ones that came up are the ones I still think about today, even if I read them many months ago.
I kept seeing The Most Fun We Ever Had on #Bookstagram and I put it on my TBR list but I wasn’t sure if summer was the time to read it. I was a little nervous about the length and I didn’t know if I was in the mood for a family saga piece of writing during this more hectic time of the year. After seeing yet another raving review I decided to read it on a whim and boy was I wrong!
When you are reading a 500+ page book it is a real commitment. Your reading experience is more like a marathon and just not a sprint to the finish. Author Claire Lombardo pulled me right into the lives of the members of the Sorrenson family and I had a hard time putting this one down. The writing was both captivating and completely absorbing. I ended up going back and forth between both reading the hard copy and listening to this on audio. This made it an absolutely amazing and engrossing reading experience and was perfect for this style of writing.
While there were a lot of well-developed characters and the narration jumps back and forth from present (2016) to the past I never felt confused or that it was hard to keep track of it all. This is all such a testament to Lombardo’s skilled writing ability.
The story was compelling and the characters were both raw and relatable. I loved that their relationships with each other and themselves showed the intricacies of both families and just being human. The nuanced history and complexities of relationships that have spanned decades were presented in such a completely compelling manner. There were humorous parts and so many memorable quotes that I will never forget.
When I wasn’t reading or listening to this book I was thinking about it. It was difficult to leave this fictional family at the end of my reading journey, which for me, makes this truly a remarkable read. I highly recommend this debut(!!) novel and I can’t wait to read what Lombardo shares next.
You can read my full review of The Most Fun We Ever HadHERE.
I wasn’t sure what book should follow The Most Fun We Ever Had but I knew I wanted to read another family saga. The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall fit into this category so I decided to give it a go.
Wall introduces us to two couples, Charles and Lily and James and Nan. The beginning of the book gives us a rich background for each character starting from their childhoods through early adulthood. These couples lives then become intertwined when Charles and James become pastors at a New York City Presbyterian church. Over the years we see them struggle with their faith, beliefs, marriage, parenthood, and friendships.
This book is a deep dive into these four characters, who navigate many joys and heartaches over the decades we follow along with them. I loved seeing their evolving relationships with both themselves and one another and having the rich backstory to these multi-dimensional characters made this storyline even more rewarding.
While there are religious themes in The Dearly Beloved, Wall presents them without judgment or bias toward any belief system and the writing never feels preachy. I appreciated that it showed the struggles of all four characters at some point within their own belief systems.
You can read my full review for The Dearly BelovedHERE.
While I knew she was a great writer from reading her victim impact statement (you can read it on Buzzfeed HERE) when she was known for so many years as “Emily Doe”, I was blown away by Know My Name by Chanel Miller. Her voice is strong and her writing is filled with details, reflection, humility, and even hope. I listened to this one on audio but I also purchased a hardcopy because I knew it was one that I needed to have in my own collection.
I loved how poignantly Chanel Miller shared what it is like to deal with very private grief while at the same time needing and move forward with daily life…I loved learning about her amazingly supportive family unit and her ability to see the good in people, like the men who stepped in to help the night of her attack. While she only speaks for herself, she really is speaking for a generation and I can’t recommend this one enough.
“We don’t fight for our own happy endings. We fight to say you can’t. We fight for accountability. We fight to establish a precedent. We fight because we pray we’ll be the last ones to feel this kind of pain.”
I followed Know My Name with She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey and the timing couldn’t have been more timely for me. She Said is a fascinating and powerful look at what it means to bring a story of this magnitude and sensitivity to life through journalism.
Told step by step, She Said shares what journalists Kantor and Twohey learned, uncovered, and reported on in the early stages of the Weinstein investigation.
I was greatly impacted by the power of women coming together and sharing their stories and this book is one that I just cannot stop thinking about. It was absolutely my favorite audiobook of 2019 and I highly recommend it.
I love Vanderkam’s nonfiction books about time management and this is her first novella. In Juliet’s School of Possibilities, Vanderkam incorporates her knowledge and expertise into a short fable about a woman named Riley who is “spread too thin”. I wasn’t sure how this would work but I was definitely intrigued and it ended up being a small book that packed a big punch.
In a society where “busy” reigns supreme, Vanderkam’s books are a wonderful reminder about how we get to choose how we spend our time and energy and this book is such a fun spin-off. We meet Juliet who shares profound wisdom and helps Riley rethink this balance.
“I don’t have time’ means ‘It’s not a priority.’ We always have time for what matters to us.”
This book is a quick read but it one that I think back to all the time. I love the idea that we are in control of our time and we choose what we prioritize and how we react to the chaos life can sometimes throw at us.
When I am having one of those days where I feel I am feeling rushed and stressed, I think back to Juliet and how she would react. I love how much this quick read has really stuck with me in my day to day life and I highly recommend it!
“Expectations are infinite. Time is finite. You are always choosing. Choose well.”
You can read my full review of Juliet’s School of PossibilitiesHERE.
Beyond the Point is narrated by three women who come to West Point to play basketball. We follow Dani, Hannah, and Avery over the course of seven years through their introduction into West Point and as they navigate early adulthood. The writing is beautiful and makes you just want to keep reading and I was fully immersed in the lives of these three women.
The aspects of military life were powerful and a great reminder for me as a civilian about the sacrifices so many thousands of women and men make that serve our country every single day. While this was a powerful piece of this book the story really is about their interpersonal lives. The characters were flawed and real. Gibson did an amazing job speaking to their strengths and resilience as individuals and also weaving their stories together. I loved learning about their pasts and how they played a part in who they are and who are yet to become.
The story is a journey of their relationships both with themselves and with each other. There are aspects of love, loss, discomfort, growth, and forgiveness. As someone who does not know a lot about military life, I learned so much about cadet life in an academy.
I also connected personally with their three women. As someone who started adulthood around the same time as they did, I love the flashbacks to life in the early 2000s. The references to technology and how different life was not even 20 years ago was spot on. There were some Christian themes but it felt natural and worked for me as a reader. Faith was a part of the storyline for one of these characters in particular and I thought it added another thoughtful dimension to this writing.
You can read my full review of Beyond The PointHERE.
While I am lucky to have had many conversations with the people in my personal life, never have I read something that explains the complexities of motherhood and marriage in such a profound manner until I read this book. The highs and lows of parenthood, the immense love and also the intense quest to reclaim ourselves as women and partners when our lives will never be the same are so real and valid.
To Have and to Hold spoke to me on so many levels. Millwood’s ability to write with both her voice as a professional and her voice as a mother was a perfect balance. This book was a favorite by so many that we picked it for our first Better Together Book Club selection this past fall.
It was the perfect book to start off our book club that focuses on motherhood. While we are all in very different stages of parenthood (from babies and toddlers to college-aged children), we could all relate back to the adjustment of new motherhood. And not only did we get to discuss the book with each other but we also had the most wonderful guest, author Molly Millwood herself!
This book was the last book I started in 2019 and was the perfect way to welcome not only a new year but a new decade. After seeing Atomic Habits recommended by some of my nonfiction loving book friends, I knew I had to pick this one up. This book does an amazing job of explaining the framework for how habits are formed.
Clear’s writing is relatable and accessible and in this genre of writing, this is definitely not always the case. He provides insightful feedback and approachable and practical steps towards making a new habit or breaking an old one. So much of this book spoke to me but I especially appreciated his sections discussing compound effects and how small changes over time can have a very big impact and how the best make to make a change is to make the habit part of your identity.
Atomic Habits was helpful to me both personally and professionally and I can’t recommend it enough!
I enjoy the historical fiction genre but it can be a hard one to really wow me as a reader. This book ending up checking all the boxes of a memorable historical fiction reading experience. Told in a dual narrative format, we meet Alina, a girl who is growing up in Poland during World War II and Alice, a mom who lives in present-day Florida with her husband and two children. We quickly realized that these two storylines are connected and the story unfolds beautifully over these 400+ pages.
“Not for the first time, I wish just once when I asked my grandmother about the war, instead of her telling me “that was a terrible time, I don’t want to talk about it,” she’d been able to say something more. Anything more. Maybe if she could have shared some of her story, I could have learned from it, I could have taught my children from it—we could have built a better world from the hard lessons she surely learned.”
This was my first book by Kelly Rimmer and I was blown away by her ability to share multi-faceted characters that felt so real and raw while also diving into a heartbreaking part of our not so distant history. I love the dual storylines and how they wove together and kept me guessing until the end. Rimmer captured the power of sharing our stories while also reminding us that so many people have a history we might know nothing about.
As well as being completely enthralled by Alina’s harrowing and heartbreaking time in Poland, I connected so much with present-day Alice and her struggles to find herself amidst the daily challenges of family life.
“I can’t wait to tell him how much of a revelation it has been to do something like this – standing on a mountaintop for no reason other than the sake of the experience. This moment is an investment in myself. I’m giving myself permission to make a memory that benefits no one but me. I love being a mother, and I love being a wife. I even love being a daughter and a granddaughter. But as I stand here on the mountaintop, I’m not any of those things. I am simply Alice, and for one breathtaking moment, I’m completely present.”
This book captures heartbreak, resilience, persistence and the power for standing up for what is right, not only for yourself but for those around you.
Sometimes a book comes along at just the right time and this was the case for me and The Things We Cannot Say. Not only did I read a book that I connected with so deeply but I also found a new author to follow along with. Her April 2020 book release Truths I Never Told You was another 5-star read for me and I am excited to dive into her backlist now!
I hope you enjoyed seeing my favorite books of 2019. I would love to hear which books made your list! <3
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase, I receive a small commission that helps support this blog at no cost to you. Thank you!
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase, I receive a small commission that helps support this blog at no cost to you. Thank you!
From the author of Truth Be Told (formerly titled Are You Sleeping)—now an Apple TV series of the same name—comes a cautionary tale of oversharing in the social media age for fans of Jessica Knoll and Caroline Kepnes’s You.
Everyone wants new followers…until they follow you home.
Audrey Miller has an enviable new job at the Smithsonian, a body by reformer Pilates, an apartment door with a broken lock, and hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers to bear witness to it all. Having just moved to Washington, DC, Audrey busies herself impressing her new boss, interacting with her online fan base, and staving off a creepy upstairs neighbor with the help of the only two people she knows in town: an ex-boyfriend she can’t stay away from and a sorority sister with a high-powered job and a mysterious past.
But Audrey’s faulty door may be the least of her security concerns. Unbeknownst to her, her move has brought her within striking distance of someone who’s obsessively followed her social media presence for years—from her first WordPress blog to her most recent Instagram Story. No longer content to simply follow her carefully curated life from a distance, he consults the dark web for advice on how to make Audrey his and his alone. In his quest to win her heart, nothing is off-limits—and nothing is private.
With “compelling, suspenseful” (Liz Nugent) prose, Kathleen Barber’s electrifying new thriller will have you scrambling to cover your webcam and digital footprints.
Publication Date:
February 25th, 2020
Genre:
Domestic Thriller/Psychological Thriller
My Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My Review:
Follow Me(you can pre-order a copy with my affiliate link HERE)
Follow Me is a psychological thriller full of twists and turns and kept me captivated until the end. I loved that the storyline was based around social media and the idea that nothing is ever as shiny or perfect as it may appear online.
This page-turner is shared in alternating chapters between the main character Audrey, her best friend Cat and a third narrator who is only known by the reader as “him.” I thought this was such a clever way to have the story unfold and I loved that it kept me guessing.
Audrey isn’t very likable and I think that is the author’s point. She may have over two million followers online, but she lives for the posts and likes while her “real life” is quite dull and lonely. Her best friend Cat is the complete opposite and I enjoyed the polarization between these two characters that ended up adding a lot of dimension to this storyline.
Follow Mewas creepy but light enough for a weekend or beach read which was exactly what I was looking for.
Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for an advanced copy.
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase, I receive a small commission that helps support this blog at no cost to you. Thank you!
From the author of Jar of Hearts, a mother driven to the edge by the disappearance of her son learns her husband is having an affair with the woman who might have kidnapped him.
Four hundred and eighty seconds. That’s how long it took for someone to steal Marin Machado’s four-year-old son.
Marin had the perfect life. Married to her college sweetheart, she owns a chain of upscale hair salons, and Derek runs his own company. They’re admired in their community and are a loving family. Up until the day Sebastian is taken.
A year later, Marin is a shadow of herself. The FBI search has gone cold. The publicity has faded. She and her husband rarely speak. The only thing keeping her going is the unlikely chance that one day Sebastian reappears. She hires a P.I. to pick up where the police left off, but instead of finding him, she discovers that Derek is having an affair with a younger woman.
Kenzie Li is an artist and grad student—Instagram famous—and up to her eyeballs in debt. She knows Derek is married. She also knows he’s rich, and dating him comes with perks: help with bills, trips away, expensive gifts. He isn’t her first rich boyfriend, but she finds herself hoping he’ll be the last. She’s falling for him—and that was never part of the plan.
Discovery of the affair sparks Marin back to life. She’s lost her son; she’s not about to lose her husband, too. Kenzie is an enemy with a face, which means this is a problem Marin can fix. But as she sets a plan in motion, another revelation surfaces. Derek’s lover might know what happened to their son. And so might Derek.
Little Secrets (you can pre-order using my affiliate link HERE.)
Mood Reading…
My reading choices tend to be very cyclical as I am primarily a mood reader. I go in waves and sometimes I am into drawn-out character-driven family sagas, other times I am looking for a lighter read.
When I am reading to escape, thrillers, suspense and mysteries are my kinds of books. They are entertaining, face paced and super engrossing which is great for when you have a million other things running through your head.
Last week was one of those times and after seeing my friend Kristina raving about Little Secretson #bookstagram, I couldn’t wait to read it myself. I try to read books by their release dates so I can stay more on top of things, but it doesn’t always happen! I am currently reading an August 2020 advanced reader copy so yeah, I don’t do all that well with this, ha!
More About Little Secrets:
So Little Secrets ended up being just what I needed. It was engaging from the very first page and I just love Jennifer Hillier’s writing style so much. Her characters are multifaceted and the plot has enough twists and turns to keep me guessing but not so much that they just felt like they came out of nowhere.
I love a book where things look a little too perfect on the outside to be true and this book has all of that and more. It does involve the kidnapping of a small child but it has so many other elements that made it rise above this common thriller plotline. I so enjoy a good domestic thriller and this one is a roller coaster of suspense with a super satisfying ending.
I loved it so much that I am now listening to Hillier’s 2018 release Jar of Hearts on audio. It’s just the best when you read a book you don’t know a lot about beforehand and then leave with a new author to follow along with.
Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an unbiased review.
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase, I receive a small commission that helps support this blog at no cost to you. Thank you!
American Dirt is a rare exploration into the inner hearts of people willing to sacrifice everything for a glimmer of hope.
Lydia Quixano Perez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable.
Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with four books he would like to buy–two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.
American Dirt will leave readers utterly changed. It is a page-turner; it is a literary achievement; it is filled with poignancy, drama, and humanity on every page. It is one of the most important books for our times.
Publication Date:
January 21st, 2020
Genre:
Hispanic American Literature & Fiction
My Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My Review:
*You can order a copy of American Dirt using my affiliate link HERE.
My Reading Experience with American Dirt
If you follow along about books online you most likely know that American Dirt is entering the world today with much acclaim and also a lot of questioning. I am one of the lucky ones when it comes to my reading experience of this book. One of the best parts about reviewing books is that I often get to experience a book before there becomes a lot of hype, whether it is positive or negative.
I read American Dirt this past fall, thanks to a friend who passed along her advanced reading copy. This meant I read it before there was a lot of fanfare which in turn, allowed me to take it in for what it was in that moment of time. American Dirt is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. Never before have I read a book that was as heartbreaking and fasted paced about such an important and timely subject.
While I wanted to know what happened, I also felt fully immersed in the journey of these fictional characters. It opened my eyes and humanized something that often feels so very far away from our life here.
So that brings me to who am I?
For those of you that might be newer around here, I am white women, born and raised in New England. We live in Vermont which borders with Canada and obviously, my experiences with immigration issues are few and far between. I am also the perfect person to read this, and maybe so are you.
Everyone has a different perspective which I think is what makes reading so wonderful. We can all read the same exact words and have a very different reading experience. This book was engrossing and also illuminating for me, and what it did for me is what I think the point was, it opened my eyes to issues that don’t enter my mind as frequently as they probably should.
Books like this are like are a starting point for many readers and if they can get people thinking about topics they weren’t before, I think they have succeeded.
“What led Jeanine Cummins to finally decide to write “American Dirt” was her desire to change the public discourse around immigration in the United States — though, from the beginning, she wondered whether she could.
“I wished someone slightly browner than me would write it,” she wrote in an unusually long author’s note at the end of the novel. “But then I thought if you’re a person who has the capacity to be a bridge, why not be a bridge? So I began.”
(***updated on 1/23/20), I have received many messages about this part of my post so I thought I would post an update from another article from USA Today below…As always, I am open to dialogue and feedback and I appreciate those who took the time to respectfully share their feelings, even if they were very different from my own. Thank you.
“Lots of someones “slightly browner” than Cummins did write it. Just last year, Mexican writer Valeria Luiselli published the searingly smart “Lost Children Archive.” In 2018, there was the beautifully written “Fruit of the Drunken Tree” by Colombian writer Ingrid Rojas Contreras. Or there’s even 2004’s Pulitzer Prize finalist “The Devil’s Highway” by Mexican writer Luis Alberto Urrea.”***)
…Some have praised Cummins for humanizing the migrant tale, and for sending a timely and important message to the world about the United States’ failing immigration policies. Others have said the book is riddled with stereotypes and clichés, that it’s inaccurate and an act of appropriation. (In The Times, Rigoberto Gonzalez falls somewhere in between.) In sum, the book has raised divisive questions about censorship, representation, and the politics of fiction, homing in on a single dilemma: Who has the right to tell certain stories?
…For some critics of American Dirt, the problem is Cummins herself. Born in Spain and raised in a working-class family in Maryland, Cummins is not a Mexican national. She’s of mixed ethnicity and has family roots in Puerto Rico; she identifies as Latina and white. Critics have questioned whether she was able to accurately convey the experience of Mexican migrants”
Cummins has not lived the life of the story she is telling, and many people take issue with that. This pushback has brought up the idea of Own Voices, in which stories are told by the people who have lived it.
Reading this feedback a few months after finishing American Dirt myself was an interesting experience and as a white woman, I appreciated the opportunity to listen to the voices who HAVE experienced this journey. I don’t think I am the perfect person to review this book because I don’t have a lot of knowledge in this specific area, but I also wanted to share the WHY behind my positive reading experience a few months ago.
Helpful Resource & Own Voices Author Recommendation:
Los Angeles Times Article:
To read the entire LA Times article written by Dorany Pineda you can click on the link below…
Signs Preceding the End of the World is one of the most arresting novels to be published in Spanish in the last ten years. Yuri Herrera does not simply write about the border between Mexico and the United States and those who cross it. He explores the crossings and translations people make in their minds and language as they move from one country to another, especially when there’s no going back.
Traversing this lonely territory is Makina, a young woman who knows only too well how to survive in a violent, macho world. Leaving behind her life in Mexico to search for her brother, she is smuggled into the USA carrying a pair of secret messages – one from her mother and one from the Mexican underworld.
My Final Thoughts…
While the online discourse was eye-opening and important in many ways, it does not change my opinion that this is an important and timely book. I do hope it increases awareness for those who need it (and there are many if you look at the current political climate of our country) and helps open the door to more immigrant voices becoming mainstream moving forward. I think you can read this book AND also look into the many other books on this important topic. I think getting this book into the hands of people who really need it will be invaluable. It might not be THE story, but it is a fiction story, that could be a wonderful entry point for so many.
I have seen and been a part of so many powerful conversations that have stemmed from this book which is probably the best takeaway there can be. Talking and connecting, even if our viewpoints are very different can and do make a difference. I know it did for me.
I would love to know your thoughts on this book and thank you for taking the time to read this review.
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase, I receive a small commission that helps support this blog at no cost to you. Thank you!
I am excited to offer an advanced reader copy of Chris Bohjalian’s 2020 book release, The Red Lotus, to one of YOU!
I read The Red Lotus this past fall and I am excited that we are getting closer to its publication date (March 17th, 2020!)
Bohjalian is known for his character-driven novels full of suspense and intrigue. This one was a page-turner and while it was a topic I would never have predicted I would be into, I had a hard time putting it down.
“Set amidst the adrenaline-fueled world of the emergency room, The Red Lotus is a global thriller about those who dedicate their lives to saving people, and those who peddle death to the highest bidder.”
His books are such a big part of my reading memories and I especially loved Midwives and The Double Bind.
Here’s How To Enter…
To enter this GIVEAWAY please make sure to LIKE my Gen The Bookworm Facebook Page and comment below, tagging a friend who you think might like to enter this giveaway too.
Each friend you tag will count as an additional entry, up to FIVE entries.
The winner will be chosen on Tuesday, January 21st at 8pm EST. U.S. Residents ONLY due to shipping.
*This Contest is NOT affiliated with Facebook.
Good luck!!
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase, I receive a small commission that helps support this blog at no cost to you. Thank you!
From the bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say comes a poignant post-WWII novel that explores the expectations society places on women set within an engrossing family mystery that may unravel everything once believed to be true.
With her father recently moved to a care facility, Beth Walsh volunteers to clear out the family home and is surprised to discover the door to her childhood playroom padlocked. She’s even more shocked at what’s behind it—a hoarder’s mess of her father’s paintings, mounds of discarded papers and miscellaneous junk in the otherwise fastidiously tidy house.
As she picks through the clutter, she finds a loose journal entry in what appears to be her late mother’s handwriting. Beth and her siblings grew up believing their mother died in a car accident when they were little more than toddlers, but this note suggests something much darker.
Beth soon pieces together a disturbing portrait of a woman suffering from postpartum depression and a husband who bears little resemblance to the loving father Beth and her siblings know. With a newborn of her own and struggling with motherhood, Beth finds there may be more tying her and her mother together than she ever suspected.
Last year I was introduced to author Kelly Rimmer by one of my book reviewing friends. I devoured The Things We Cannot Say and was blown away by Rimmer’ ability to share multi-faceted characters that felt so real and raw while also diving into a heartbreaking part of our not so distant history.
The Things We Cannot Say…
I loved the dual storylines and how they wove together and kept me guessing until the end. Rimmer captured the power of sharing our stories while also reminding us that many people have a history we might know nothing about.
Truths I Never Told You
When I saw that Rimmer was publishing a new book in 2020 I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Truths I Never Told You captivated me from the very beginning. The topics in this book were something I could personally relate to. While this might not be the case for all readers, I think this is a powerful and important read either way. In the age of new parenthood being portrayed in such a polished (and often super unrelatable or not totally honest manner) on social media, this book was just so spot-on and important.
Timely & Important Issues
I was super impressed with Rimmer’s ability to write about the struggles of new motherhood when dealing with some of the mental health issues and general ambivalence that can arise and are often not talked about. This is something that is starting to be more common in nonfiction writing about motherhood but not in such a readable fiction format.
Truths I Never Told You alternates between Beth, a new mother in the mid-1990s and her mother Grace who was struggling immensely in the 1950s with raising her four young children. Just like in The Things We Cannot Say, there is a family mystery element that keeps us guessing until the very end. This part of the book is woven so beautifully between the layers of family dynamics and the important complexities of her carefully crafted and multifaceted characters.
Thought-Provoking & SO Readable
Rimmer is absolutely amazing at writing stories that are both compelling and nuanced. She doesn’t shy away from interweaving thought-provoking and sometimes very challenging topics while also being absolute page-turners.
I am struggling to write this review without giving away any of the important elements of this powerful story, but I will just say that is is a must-read and if you haven’t really any of Rimmer’s writing yet, you need to ASAP!
I can’t wait to share more about this book when it is published this spring and I already know it will be one of my top books of 2020.
Thank you to HarperCollins and Graydon House Books for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase, I receive a small commission that helps support this blog at no cost to you. Thank you!