nomadreader

The backstory: Lucy Knisley is one of my favorite comics artists. My reviews of her earlier books: French Milk , Relish , An Age of License , and Displacement . The basics:  "DIY maven Lucy Knisley was fascinated by American wedding culture . . . but also sort of horrified by it. So she set out to plan and execute the adorable DIY wedding to end all adorable DIY weddings. And she succeeded."--publisher My thoughts: Lucy Knisley and I share a love of food and travel. After reading Something New , it's clear we also share complicated views about weddings and the associated traditions. I still love to talk about my wedding. I still think fondly of my wedding. And I loved revisiting so many of the conversations I had about my wedding while reading about Knisley's. At the time, it felt like I was constantly justifying and defending my decisions (no engagement ring, matching simple wedding bands, not wearing white, walking down the aisle with Mike, etc.) But this r...

The backstory: The Last Good Girl  is the fifth title in Allison Leotta's mystery series featuring D.C. D.A. Anna Curtis. This series is one of my favorites: starting with her debut mystery  Law of Attraction , continuing with the e-short story  Ten Rules for a Call Girl ,  and the novels  Discretion ,   Speak of the Devil , and A Good Killing . The basics:  "Emily, a [first-year student] at a Michigan university, has gone missing. She was last seen leaving a bar near Sigma Pi, the prestigious and secretive fraternity known on campus as “the rape factory.” The main suspect is Dylan Brooks, the son of one of the most powerful politicians in the state. But so far the only clues are pieced-together surveillance footage of Emily leaving the bar that night…and Dylan running down the street after her." My thoughts: Leotta jumps into the campus sexual assault crisis in a major way with The Last Good Girl. If you've read Missoula  ( my review ) or ...

The backstory: Curtis Sittenfeld is one of my favorite authors. I've thoroughly enjoyed all her novels, Prep,  The Man of My Dreams , Sisterland  and my all-time favorite novel, American Wife .  The basics: Eligible  is a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice. It's set in contemporary Cincinnati. My thoughts: I begin this review with a confession: I have never read Pride and Prejudice . Unless you count the BabyLit version , which I have read to Hawthorne more times than I can count. Despite never having read it (or seen any of the film adaptations), I am quite familiar with the plot. I debated whether or not to read Pride and Prejudice  before or after Eligible. I spent months, in fact, with a copy of Eligible  on my Kindle debating. So I finally read it, and I'm glad I didn't read Pride and Prejudice  first. Sittenfeld writes in a way that is thoroughly modern and authentic, but I was able to guess the actual events of Pride and Prejudice ...

narrated by Nancy Wu The backstory: A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding was longlisted for the 2016 Baileys Prize . The basics:  "When Amaterasu Takahashi opens the door of her Philadelphia home to a badly scarred man claiming to be her grandson, she doesn’t believe him. Her grandson and her daughter, Yuko, perished nearly forty years ago during the bombing of Nagasaki. But the man carries with him a collection of sealed private letters that open a Pandora’s Box of family secrets Ama had sworn to leave behind when she fled Japan."--publisher My thoughts: I started this book on audio but switched to print about half way through.The reader, Nancy Wu, was good, and I appreciated her pronunciations of the Japanese names and words, but she read relatively slowly. The book is less than 300 pages, but the audio is over 11 hours. I reached a point where I wanted to finish more quickly than the audio would allow. It's rare for me to listen to half of a book and read the o...

narrated by Graham Halstead and Julia Whelan The basics:  The first in a new young adult trilogy, A Study in Charlotte  follows Charlotte Holmes, a descendant of Sherlock Holmes, and Jamie Watson, a descendant of Dr. Watson, as students at a Connecticut boarding school. My thoughts: I typically file Sherlock Holmes under the "things I simply don't really like--but people with similar taste always seem to love." And I haven't read a young adult novel in several years. So what made me pick up a young adult Sherlock Holmes-inspired mystery? Brittany Cavallaro's Twitter bio . Despite not really caring for most adaptations or appropriations of Sherlock Holmes I've encountered, I really like the smart ways Cavallaro uses Holmes. Most importantly, she makes Holmes and Watson real people. Sometimes I have to remind myself my favorite characters aren't real people, and after so many years and iterations, doesn't it seem like Holmes and Watson were  real? ...

The basics: NPR edited together stories about first ladies over the years, including interviews with the more modern ones. My thoughts: American Wife , a fictionalization of Laura Bush's life, is my favorite novel, and I'm fascinated by the unlikely journeys we take in life. I think the journey to first lady (or first gentleman, one day) is one of those that is the biggest leap, and is the most fascinating. When I saw this one available at my library, I eagerly downloaded it. It wasn't quite what I expected, but I enjoyed it. For such a short audiobook, I feel as though I learned a lot, but it was somewhat uneven. I wished for more first ladies to be featured, but because NPR was pulling from their archives, they're somewhat limited. The early first ladies were featured in interviews with their biographers, and I was eagerly adding to my TBR as I listened. As we move through history, I was glad I opted for audio, as some news stories featured historic recordings of ...

The backstory:  I started reading the Maisie Dobbs series in 2010 (it began in 2003), and it's one of my favorite mystery series. The last title,  A Dangerous Place , was a bit of a departure for the series, and it my least favorite in the series, so I approached  Journey to Munich  with cautious optimism it would delight me. My reviews of other Jacqueline Winspear novels:  Maisie Dobbs ,  Birds of a Feather ,  Pardonable Lies ,  Messenger of Truth ,  An Incomplete Revenge ,  Among the Mad ,  The Mapping of Love and Death ,  A Lesson in Secrets ,  Elegy for Eddie ,  Leaving Everything Most Loved ,  The Care and Management of Lies ,  and  A Dangerous Place . The basics:  It's 1938, and the German government is willing to release a particularly valuable British prisoner to a family member only. Coincidentally, the prisoner's daughter looks a lot like Maisie, so she's enlisted to travel to Munich ...