Where has this year gone? There’s snow on the ground, tomorrow is December and I’m only one (!!!) book away from reaching my goal of 50 books this year!
Plus- it’s Goodreads Choice Awards season! The final round is open now and winners will be announced in a week. I haven’t read too many 2023 releases, but I’ll definitely use the results to guide next year’s reading choices.
(As a reminder: I always track my reading both on Goodreads and via Instagram stories.)
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“ATOMIC ANNA” BY RACHEL BARENBAUM
It’s 1986, and renowned Soviet nuclear scientist Anna Berkova, living in Pripyat, accidentally travels through time as Chornobyl’s reactor fails. When she lands, she’s in 1992 – and she witnesses her estranged daughter Molly bleeding to death. Molly begs Anna to go back in time and save Molly’s daughter (and Anna’s granddaughter) Raisa. Can Anna work to both save her daughter’s life and stop the Chornobyl disaster?
I absolutely loved this book. Of course, after living in Ukraine, I am biased toward anything that has to do with Soviet history and culture, so take my review with a grain of salt. But, I found myself loving how much time was spent telling the story of Anna, Molly and Raisa, even if the pacing did feel a little slow at times. Barenbaum dedicated so much time to developing each character and giving all three a good amount of focus, and I was really impressed at how easy the plot was to follow along with, given that the novel’s timeline jumped all over the place. I also wasn’t sure how the story was going to end — would Barenbaum rewrite history and erase Chornobyl? How would that work? — but it ended in an incredibly satisfying way.
“NONE OF THIS IS TRUE” BY LISA JEWELL
Josie Fair celebrates her 45th birthday at a trendy restaurant with her much older husband, Walter Fair. At that restaurant, Josie notices the glamorous podcaster Alix Summer, who coincidentally enough is also celebrating her 45th birthday. Josie seeks out Alix over the coming days, and convinces Alix to create a podcast episode about her life. But, when Josie disappears after leaving a trail of bodies in her wake, Alix is left to wonder how much of Josie’s story is true.
This book had a pretty great reception for a thriller so I had high hopes, but I was left disappointed. All the main characters — a sociopath, a trophy wife, an alcoholic, a pedophile — were unlikeable, and I didn’t really love the way the story was told, which was a few chapters of narration followed by a chapter that described a Netflix special in verbal detail. I have aphantasia so I can’t visualize things, which might be why the storytelling format fell flat, but I just didn’t really love this book.
“DELTA COUNTY” BY J.L. HYDE
Heather Matthews knows tragedy. During her last days of high school in Escanaba, Mich., her parents were killed in a hit-and-run — which was ruled as a homicide when the mother of Heather’s best friend, Kelly, came forward to admit guilt. A decade later, Heather has returned to Escanaba with her high school sweetheart-turned-husband, where she encounters Kelly at a bar. After reconnecting with Kelly — where Heather is forced to admit that there are still too many unanswered questions regarding the death of her parents — tragedy once again strikes in Escanaba. Heather can’t run away again, and she sets out to find some answers.
This book was self-published so it contained a few grammatical errors and typos, but for the most part, I loved it! The author is from Michigan’s upper peninsula and went to college at my alma mater (Central Michigan University) around the same time as me, so this book contained so much nostalgia! There were a ton of references to Michigan culture and I absolutely loved it. It was so fun to read. With that said: The main characters felt a little too peaked-in-high-school and the plot meandered quite a bit until it ended really quickly and abruptly. However, I still absolutely loved it and would recommend it — especially if you’re a Chippewa! There’s an entire chapter set in Mount Pleasant, Mich., and it unlocked so many core memories.
“SUMMER OF ’99” BY J.L. HYDE
Quinn Harstead’s best childhood memories were made at Camp Shady Oaks, an annual two-week summer camp set in Michigan’s upper peninsula. But, after tragedy strikes in 1999, Shady Oaks is forced to close. Decades after the camp’s closure, Quinn has made her living as a successful author, having written about the unsolved tragedy. However, when the camp is set to reopen and all the campers are invited for a reunion event, 23 years later, will Quinn finally get answers as to what happened during that summer?
I loved “Delta County” so much that I went out to read the second book from Hyde, “Summer of ’99,” so I could read “Midnight in Delta County.” “Summer of ’99” isn’t a sequel to “Delta County,” exactly, but “Midnight in Delta County” links both “Delta County” and “Summer of ’99,” so I had to read it. And I’m glad I did! It was another quick read set in one of Michigan’s national forests. (Obviously, I am the target audience.) The plot felt a little more focused than the plot of “Delta County,” and I wasn’t quite as annoyed with the characters. This book had another abrupt ending that left me wanting more, so I’m hoping “Midnight in Delta County” will resolve that issue for me!
“MIDNIGHT IN DELTA COUNTY”
The tragic events of Delta County have brought true crime novelist Quinn Harstead and Escanaba, Mich., native Heather Matthews together. As Heather continues to build following several unexpected life changes, a series of murders seems to frame both Heather and Quinn. All the victims are figures in Heather’s life, and the murders seem to draw inspiration from Quinn’s latest fictional novel. Can Heather and Quinn find the murderer and clear their names?
Like I mentioned above, “Midnight in Delta County” is the sequel to both “Delta County” and “Summer of ’99.” This book moved with the same fast pace as its predecessors and ended with the same abrupt ending that left me wanting more. The ending was completely unexpected and left me wanting an explanation… so I hope Hyde has yet another installment in this series planned!
“LOOKING FOR JANE” BY HEATHER MITCHELL
In 1971, a teenaged Evelyn Taylor is sent to a home where she’s forced to give up her baby for adoption. In 1980, Nancy Mitchell discovers a shocking secret about her family history. And in 2017, Angela Creighton discovers a misplaced letter that contains an undelivered family confession. As all three women search for answers, their narratives collide, and expose some of the trauma caused by the forced adoption scandal and full abortion ban of the late 20th century.
I LOVED this historical fiction. It reminded be a bit of “House of Eve,” but with a focus on both the “homes for wayward girls” AND the Jane Collective. I loved all the strong women in the novel and their storylines. The timelines were a little hard to follow along with at points, and one of the storylines did feel a bit unfinished at the end, but overall, I would definitely recommend this book to everyone.
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I haven’t started on my next book yet, so I’m not sure what book no. 50 for the year will be, but hopefully it’s a good one.
See ya next month, bookworms!
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