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What do you do when your mother keeps nagging you about grandchildren, but your social skills are not the best and you struggle to get involved in a serious relationship? You hire a male escort, of course. At least, that’s how Stella Lang understands it in Helen Hoang’s The Kiss Quotient. Living with ASD, Stella has trouble making intimate connections, often misunderstanding social cues and struggling to communicate her needs. In her adult life, Stella has never been able to find a man that woul...

Over and over, and in ways that she could never have anticipated, he had made her feel unjudged. Less alone. — Ali Hazelwood, The Love Hypothesis In Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis, all Olive is after, when she abruptly asks Dr. Adam Carlsen in the hallways of Stanford University if she can kiss him, is to give her friend Anh a chance at a happy ending. After going out on a lackluster date with Jeremy, the guy Anh likes, Anh is convinced that Olive must be in love with him and wishes to st...

The first time I heard about Jojo Moyes‘ Me Before You was when I saw the trailer for the movie online. It was no more than a thumbnail pic of Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin that called my attention, but all my fangirl alarms went off. I instantly knew that I was going to be deeply involved with whatever was beyond that thumbnail link. I would also be lying if I pretended like Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin weren’t the reason I eventually bought the book with the movie cover rather than the origin...

When J.K. Rowling announced the release of her first adult novel, I told myself to not have any expectations (obviously, there was no doubt in my mind that I would read it). I told myself to keep an open mind, not to expect any wizards or magic. I was certain that I was prepared, that the day my book arrived my mind would be a blank canvas waiting for J.K. Rowling to paint her new images on. Still, I got off to a shaky start. I felt drawn to the book, but I had a hard time getting into it. I cou...

Right off the bat, I’m going to go ahead and say that Rebecca Serle’s In Five Years is written with a very particular type of reader in mind. That reader, unfortunately, is not me. Victim of my own circumstance for thinking any book with the New York skyline on its cover is bound to be interesting, I spent six hours of my life waiting for this story to end. Dannie WhateverHerLastNameIs TheyOnlyMentionedItLikeOnce, is a Type A, overachieving 28-year-old woman living in New York in the year 2020....

But there was a freedom in making mistakes, feeling broken, falling into the void, and then climbing out. A freedom in letting go, setting aside, moving on.” — Margarita Montimore, Oona Out of Order Margarita Montimore’s Oona Out of Order is not your typical time travel story. Instead of physically traveling through time, Oona inhabits her body at different points in her life—completely out of order. Oona is at a New Year’s Eve party, in her boyfriend Dale’s basement, right as she’s about to...

People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is ‘you’re safe with me’- that’s intimacy. — Taylor Jenkins Reid Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husband’s of Evelyn Hugo grants us center stage view into the life of the fictional Evelyn Hugo, a movie star who rose from nothing to eventually rank among some of Hollywood’s greatest nam...

Most people go through their whole lives, without ever really feeling that close with anyone. — Sally Rooney In Sally Rooney’s Normal People we enter a plane in which the two main characters nor anything that happens to them is extraordinary, and yet they experience the most special connection of all, the kind of connection that we all dream about. Marianne’s family is wealthy and her temperament is of someone who cares very little and is unamused by the type of lives her peers at school lead....

Kate Elizabeth Russell does away with taboo in her debut, My Dark Vanessa. Many will likely label it “controversial.” But there are many reasons why everyone should read Russell’s novel depicting child abuse and pedophilia. When My Dark Vanessa begins, the year is 2017 and Vanessa Wyes is 32 years old. She’s obsessively checking a Facebook post where someone has come out denouncing Jacob Strane as a child molester — the same man that just over 15 years ago preyed on Vanessa when she attended Bro...

Some children grow stronger in the broken places, like bones; others grow sadder. I did both. — Laura Zigman, Separation Anxiety When we begin Laura Zigman’s latest novel, Judy’s life is falling apart. She’s is 50 years old and living with her husband, Gary, even though they’re separated, because they can’t afford a divorce. He also struggles with debilitating anxiety which he treats with copious amounts of cannabis — more than he likely needs. Her 13-year-old son, Teddy, is pulling away from...

He hated himself for how she pulled his intention. For years, everything had been tugged in the direction of God and duty and church. Now, it was only Sasha. He worshipped at the altar of the dimple in her left cheek, prayed novenas to the curve of her mouth. Her angelic visage was his North Star, and frankly, it was fucked up.” — Andie J. Christopher, Hot Under His Collar Two things helped me decide I wanted to read Andie J. Christopher’s latest book when I saw it sitting there in all its bla...

Jane was no longer aware of what her hands were doing, but somehow they kept playing. The song filled the room like water, suspending them, weightless, as they watched each other. Jane knew the moment the music ended, gravity would return.” — Emma Brodie, Songs in Ursa Major When Jane Quinn steps on the stage at the Bayleen Island Folk Fest to fill in for the missing, yet clamored music sensation Jessie Reid, she has no idea that her whole life is about to change. From here on, Emma Brodie’s S...

Alexandra Christo taps into the darkness of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic ‘The Little Mermaid’ in her own retelling, ‘To Kill a Kingdom.’ If there’s one thing a Little Mermaid fans know, it’s that the writers behind Disney’s script took many creative liberties with their own retelling. If you’ve read the original story by Hans Christian Andersen, you know The Little Mermaid is quite a dark and grim story. True to tradition, Alexandra Christo taps into that same realm of darkness with her own...

Alice C. Early takes us into the very heart of the Caribbean with her spring debut, The Moon Always Rising. Her protagonist, Eleanor “Els” Gordon has taken a beating emotionally and professionally. After the loss of her fiancé, her beloved nanny, her beloved father and a falling out with fellow colleagues at her banking job, Els, who hails from Scotland, decides to escape from her life and flies off to the island of Nevis in the Caribbean. Hoping for a new start, Els decides to make Nevis her ne...

In Andrew David MacDonald’s When We Were Vikings, we step inside the mind of Zelda, a 21-year-old woman struggling to gain independence, especially from her older brother, Gert. Most older brothers are overprotective, but Zelda is a slightly different case as her mother’s continuing alcoholism through her pregnancy affected Zelda’s development causing her to be diagnosed with FASD at birth. However, she’s defied the odds since day one and becomes quite bright and independent in spite of her disa...

For more than a century the Moore and the Pogociello families have been at war. A chicken war. Chicken Mimi’s and Chicken Frannie’s are two similar fried chicken eateries set up by sisters in the late 19th century in the small town of Merinac, Kansas. In KJ Dell’Antonia’s The Chicken Sisters, this long-held rivalry, passed down through generations, will be played out on the television show Food Wars for everyone to see, now that Amanda, a descendant of Mimi’s, has signed both restaurants up for...

When we first meet Rachel in Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed, she’s counting calories with fussy meticulosity. She follows a strict food regimen to maintain what she considers her perfect weight and perfect look. If she goes over her allotted calorie count, she’ll have to run extra hard on the elliptical machine or limit herself to a couple of power bars for lunch and maybe a piece of nicotine gum for dessert. Rachel can’t help it, though. She’s the product of her overbearing mother’s conditioning, a...

In Michelle Major’s Wildflower Season, a spin-off of her Magnolia Sisters series, Emma Cantrell lands in Magnolia, North Carolina hoping for a fresh start after a nasty divorce and hoping to cut the strings attached to her overbearing mother. She buys an old mansion that’s seen better days, now dealing with damage from the storm that recently ravaged Magnolia. Her vision is to open an inn; however, financially cut off by her mother and having lost all her money in the divorce, Emma is hoping for...

It’s a question that’s been asked since the debate for and against abortion came into existence: Would you give birth to your rapist’s baby? This is the exact inquiry Alison McGhee raises in her latest novel, The Opposite of Fate. However, McGhee shifts her scenario with a wild card: What if you were in a coma and couldn’t make the decision yourself? This is what happens to Mallie Williams in McGhee’s new novel. She’s a 23-year-old woman who is sexually assaulted one night and left for dead. Wit...

In Becky Mandelbaum’s The Bright Side Sanctuary for Animals, we’re introduced to Mona who runs The Bright Side, an animal sanctuary that’s seen better days, and her daughter Ariel, who, wanting more than just a farm life, ran away from it all six years ago, moving from St. Clare to Lawrence in Kansas. Mona and Ariel have been estranged for the entirety of those six years until a fire at The Bright Side — a hate crime committed by an old friend of Ariel’s — shows up in the news, and Ariel decides...

In City of Girls, Elizabeth Gilbert takes us back to the year 1940, introducing us to Vivian Morris, a girl whom most judgmental minds would find easy to label an airhead and a tramp. Vivian starts out with very little direction in her life. At the age of 19 she’s been kicked out of college for slacking and her days at home are mostly limited to bouncing a tennis ball against the walls of her parents’ house. Thus, fearing she will be lost forever, they send her off to Manhattan to live with her...

Miranda is a drama professor attempting to direct a production of All’s Well That Ends Well in Mona Awad’s latest novel, All’s Well. An acting instructor whose own acting career was cut short by a crippling fall from a stage, Miranda lives stewing in bitterness. She’s in constant pain due to a bad hip surgery from her fall and bad subsequent therapy. She’s been to several different doctors and therapists and none have helped — some actually worsened her pain. To make matters worse, the kids in h...

In All The Ways We Said Goodbye, Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White team up to bring us an epic tale of three women connected through time, love, heartbreak and war with the Ritz Paris as their silent witness. We meet the three main characters of this novel by moving swiftly back and forth through time, from 1914 at the brink of WWI, to 1942 at the heart of WWII and finally, to 1964, a liberal turning point for humanity as the world rebelled against war and the societal constraints...

Caitlin Mullen’s Please See Us paints a grim image of the struggles of Atlantic City, especially after Hurricane Sandy. In her new novel, she focuses particularly on the struggle of women trying to make a living within it. Clara is a 16-year-old, high-school-drop out. She lives with her aunt Des, who took her in after her mother left for California, abandoning her. Neither of them has any special skills except for pickpocketing and scamming customers. They run a small store on the boardwalk wher...

When we begin Cambria Gordon’s The Poetry of Secrets, the year is 1481, and Isabel is the oldest daughter of the Perez family, which consists of her two parents, grandmother and her sister, Beatriz. They reside in Trujillo, Spain where they’re known as conversos, meaning “converted ones,” one of the more civilized terms for Spanish Muslims and Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. At this time, there’s only one option for Jews who refuses to...

What is a body without a soul? In The Will and the Wilds, Charlie N. Holmberg attempts to answer that question by means of a fantasy-filled tale. She introduces us to Enna, a young woman residing in the small village of Fendell with her father whom she looks after. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been in full possession of his faculties since descending to the monster realm to acquire a stone they both refer to as the Telling Stone. After a battle in which the creatures from the monster realm — otherwi...

Mike DeCapite’s Jacket Weather begins one day in NYC when Mike runs into his old flame, June. Twice divorced and looking to start life over again, June doesn’t want to become seriously involved with Mike but pursues the friendship nonetheless. A few dates in and June and Mike are back on in a relationship that remains undefined to them but visibly committed to the reader. Unfortunately, this novel was not for me. I found it hard to connect with the style of writing and, as such, hard to connect...

If I had no idea who Sally Rooney was and you told me that she’s published two best-selling novels and can now add an adapted series to her resume, I’m not gonna lie, I’d be salty AF. If you added that she’s not even thirty yet, I might actually slap you and tell you to stop lying. Then I’d walk away crying. This isn’t an alternate universe, though. I know perfectly well who Rooney is, having devoured her two novels, Normal People and Conversations with Friends, within a week of each other, earl...

There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job, Kikuko Tsumura’s latest novel, translated by Polly Barton, follows a nameless protagonist, who, in the wake of burnout from a job she’s worked at for 14 years, decides to quit. Her new mission is to find a job that “requires no reading, no writing, and ideally, very little thinking.” Throughout the course of the novel, spanning a time period of one year, our protagonist will traverse through five different jobs, each one as mundane and as odd as the next one...

Shelley Blanton-Stroud’s debut, Copy Boy stirs images of old Film Noir mysteries. Though its plot moves like a classic mystery thriller, we soon come to see all the deeper themes coursing through its pages. We first meet Jane Hopper in the 1930s depression era. She and her family are struggling, not just to survive hunger and homelessness but each other. Her father and her mother are trapped in a loveless marriage where they’re both having affairs but staying together out of necessity, as well a...