A fast read about important topics that will resonate if you are a middle aged woman living in her “sandwich” era - balancing growing and grown kids with aging and aged parents, all while being in a long loving and long suffering marriage. It will also resonate if your family is lucky enough to have a happy place where it vacations and where you’ve watched your kids grow. I don’t often seek out books that hold up an uncomfortable mirror to whatever I’m experiencing at the time, but Newman’s prose is so funny, so wry, and so moving,
I made the exception and was glad I did.

This book is 10 out of 10. Moore does her magic with a multi perspective multi decade story of two disappearances separated by about 10 years, the first in the 1960s and the second in the 1970s. Saying anything more about the story gives it away. Best to enter this one cold and let it sweep you away till the well thought out and moving denouement.

Compulsive. Funny. Profound. As our world gets more divisive, not less, it is critical to read memoirs that offer windows into worlds not our own. Sure Kiser shows us how the ultra ultra wealthy live in NYC as she nannies, with all its liberal values, absurdities and glam. But she also lays bare the hard and hidden parts of her life growing up in a Republican, working class, complicated family and what it means - and doesn’t mean - to try to want a different life than the one you come from.

Every now and then a book comes along that is so good that it is also so hard to read. This is one of those books. This book has possibly the best propulsive opening scene I have ever read, followed by one of the hardest chapters dealing with sexual transgressions and drug use that I could barely stomach. Then we veered back into a chapter that was so funny that I actually laughed and laughed.

Brodesser-Akner is a gifted writer. I enjoyed Fleishmann is in Trouble, but perhaps not as much as my peers. But her NYT article on attending a Taylor Swift concert was one of the best pieces of non-fiction narrative writing I have read. This book contains multitudes. The kidnapping of a family patriarch based on a similar incident of someone Brodesser-Akner knew when she was a child. The story of Jews in America - how they got there, what they did when they arrived, and where they are now. The story of unlikable adult siblings managing their scarred and traumatic upbringing. And bigger questions - about how money corrupts and soothes, how generations evolve and adapt, and more.

The Sequel is as much fun for voracious readers as The Plot. Sprinkled throughout a solid mystery thriller, Hanff Korelitz slyly winks to the peculiarities of the book business. She saves her sharpest knives for book signings, the idea of sequels, agents and editors, book festivals, and those deluded souls who read the Goldfinch and decided they too can write a novel about a boy who was in a museum explosion and hung onto a priceless painting. But this is only back drop to the real mystery - which is how is Anna, the widow of author Jacob Finch Bonner, going to extricate herself from clutches of someone (or someones) who know her real identify and deepest darkest secrets.

Remarkably, Hanff Korelitz (sort of) makes you root for Anna, despite the body count piling up in this novel. This is not a spoiler. If you read The Sequel as a sequel to The Plot, you know you are in for some dastardly and unexpected twists and turns. The Sequel does not necessarily have to be read after The Plot because Hanff Korelitz gives us lots of sign posts and information and reminders about how Anna has found herself the widow of a famous author in the first place, but it is a much better book read as a sequel.

I am not usually one for office novels (maybe my time as an office drone is so far in the past and so poorly remembered that I don't want to revisit it?) but Natalie Sue takes the office novel to remarkably compelling and captivating new heights. The premise is simple - unhappy office worker Jolene, stuck in a terrible job, hiding from her parents, running from her past, gets in trouble with HR for improper use of email. But through a tech mistake, rather than have her email restricted, she unexpectedly gets access to all her co-workers emails and messages. What ensues is anything but simple however - Jolene comes to understand that she is not the only one hiding her misery behind her keyboard and she also recognizes the work she will need to do to overcome her past hurts and fully embrace the world around her. A cute HR professional assigned to her case adds some spice, as does a fellow Iranian-Canadian co-worker. Highly recommend.

Abi Maxwell's memoir tells of the heartbreaking experiences of her family in a small town in New Hampshire who were vilified and and ostracized when her daughter transitioned socially to her new name, new pronouns and new identity at a very young age. Maxwell's language is poetic and heart rending, as she takes us through the years leading up to Greta's new identity and the aftermath. Maxell allows us to understand completely what is means to fight your child at all costs and the toll it takes on a parent mentally and physically to constantly keep the monsters at bay. Highly recommended for readers of memoirs relating to parenting, strong women, transgender equality, and American politics.

The Cohen family is unlikable - Frieda is a difficult, and often cruel, mother to her daughters Nancy (the pretty one) and Shelley (the smart one). Neither daughter cares much for their mother, and all can go months without speaking. And yet. Attenberg skillfully builds their world and has us rooting for this multi-generational family of strong, confident and damaged women over the many decades of their lives. Indeed, we finish the book wanting more. Attenberg is so good at storytelling that our time with the Cohen women feels too short. She is such a good storyteller that we are immersed in their complicated, damaged and damaging interactions. She is so good that this book is bingeable and compulsively readable. Highly recommend.

There is no other way to say it - I simply adored this book. It hit all my sweet spots - a mother daughter dilemma (several!), a mystery at the novel's core, strong Jewish characters (and how they interact with characters of several different faiths in this fraught and polarized world of ours), an inside look at the newspaper profession, and I could go on and on. I adored Rieger's two previous novels (The Heirs, and The Divorce Papers) but this is now officially my favourite. Come for the family drama, stay for the humor, wry social commentary, and satisfying conclusion. Highly recommend. Thank you Random House and NetGalley for the ARC.

Every now and then a book comes along that is so good that it is also so hard to read. This is one of those books. This book has possibly the best propulsive opening scene I have ever read, followed by one of the hardest chapters dealing with sexual transgressions and drug use that I could barely stomach. Then we veered back into a chapter that was so funny that I actually laughed and laughed.

Brodesser-Akner is a gifted writer. I enjoyed Fleishmann is in Trouble, but perhaps not as much as my peers. But her NYT article on attending a Taylor Swift concert was one of the best pieces of non-fiction narrative writing I have read. This book contains multitudes. The kidnapping of a family patriarch based on a similar incident of someone Brodesser-Akner knew when she was a child. The story of Jews in America - how they got there, what they did when they arrived, and where they are now. The story of unlikable adult siblings managing their scarred and traumatic upbringing. And bigger questions - about how money corrupts and soothes, how generations evolve and adapt, and more. Highly recommend.