Review: Asking for a Friend

I’ve read all of Kerry Clare’s novels and I’m always blown away by how great her writing is and how she tells a story. What’s tough is when I don’t particularly like the story. Then I’m left wondering: is it me? Is the book? Is it the way the book was marketed? These were questions I asked myself when I was reading Asking for a Friend, Clare’s latest which was published in September.

Here’s the book’s description:

The bottom of Jess’s world is falling out. Cocooned in her dorm in the winter of 1998, she’s reeling, and wants to be left alone. But a chance encounter with the older, otherworldly, elusive Clara has Jess awestruck. Clara, newly returned from a two-year trek drifting around the world, is taking a stab at normalcy for once, and the place she starts is university, where she struggles to fit in. Upon meeting Jess, though, Clara feels an instant connection, and everything seems brighter. Soon, the two are inseparable, undeniable necessities in each other’s lives. But when tragedy strikes, they are unceremoniously torn apart, sent tumbling down different paths. And with each passing day, their unbreakable bond is tested more and more.
As they endure love and heartbreak, marriage, anxiety and isolation, and the complicated existence of motherhood, Jess and Clara must learn how to love each other through it all—and whether growing up inevitably means growing apart.
Spanning two decades, Asking for a Friend follows the tempestuous journey of female friendship, exploring whether its fundamentals—history, familiarity, loyalty—are enough to make the relationship everlasting.

It took me a realllllly long time to finish this book. September was a hard month for me and nothing held my interest. That could be part of why this book didn’t thrill me. Another part may have been friends of mine who read it were not fans and weren’t quiet about it. But maybe I just straight up didn’t enjoy the book because it wasn’t the right fit for me.

I do believe the marketing department of the publishing house can shoulder some of the blame for how this book has been received. Because I’m not the only one who expected this book to be…different. We were told we’d get a novel about friendship. And we did but…it was an incredibly toxic friendship. Was it sometimes accurate when it addressed how friendships evolve over twenty years? Absolutely. But if Jess and Clara’s relationship was a romantic one, you can bet everyone would have been saying they needed to break up because their relationship was not at all healthy. Plus, the cover seems so celebratory and I didn’t find a whole lot of celebrating going on in the story.

I think this wasn’t a book for me, personally, because of how much of the story seemed to focus on the journey towards motherhood and raising children. I am not a mother. I do not want to be a mother. I know there needs to be procreation to have a civilization but I honestly sometimes wonder why anyone would give up their freedom to have kids. So, I just wasn’t expecting how much of the story would revolve around pregnancies, miscarriages, infertility, more pregnancies, more miscarriages, births, raising children, and yet more pregnancies. Important topics for some but not what I, personally, want to be reading in my novels.

I really, really wanted to love Asking for a Friend. I think Kerry Clare is so talented but this novel fell so short for me and I’m really sad about that. I know we can’t love every book we read but not loving this book really hurts.

*A finished copy of this novel was provided by Penguin Canada as part of their Penguin Reads program in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: The Winners

I was kind of late to the Beartown game. I knew about the book but wasn't entirely sure I'd enjoy it. My book club decided to read it in the summer of 2018 and then I finally understood what people were talking about. It was incredible and I immediately put the second book, Us Against You, on hold at the library (I loved it too). I was so grateful and excited to receive an ARC of book three, The Winners, (seriously - there was squealing when I opened the envelope). This book. Oh, my heart. It is everything.

Here's the book's description:

Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this place that prevents it. The residents continue to grapple with life’s big questions: What is a family? What is a community? And what, if anything, are we willing to sacrifice in order to protect them?
As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.
So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?
Everything.

This book is massive. It’s a chunky, hefty tome that clocks in at roughly 680 pages. On the one hand, I’m not sure why it had to be that long. On the other, well, I’m so so so very glad it was. I didn’t want the story to be over so I was thankful to have so many pages of this book to read. This is a story that you don’t want to see the end of.

I’ve only read this series from Backman so I don’t know how he writes his other books. This series though? I can’t properly explain how perfectly he’s written this story. It’s not written like most other books I’ve read. There’s a third person omniscient narrator who knows everything that’s happening or has happened in the story. They even know what will happen even if they don’t always tell us (that first chapter though…). It’s the perfect way to tell a story with a bajillion characters who all need to be featured. And if that sounds confusing, it’s totally not. This series works because it’s telling the story of a community, not just one or two characters (even if there are a few who shine brighter than others).

I’m a pretty emotional person who cries more at books than movies or TV but doesn’t always cry at scenes you’d expect. And sometimes it seems like I have an empty space in place of a heart when gut-punch scenes don’t affect me at all. *shrugs* I went in prepared to have All The Feels with this book thought and, friends, it got me. It did take longer than I expected for the tears to come but I had to fight not to sob when I was getting to the end (maybe don’t read this book in the lunchroom at work?) EVEN THOUGH I knew what was going to happen. Backman dropped hints throughout but, my god, it still hurt when you were actually reading it.

If you haven’t yet experienced the magic that is Beartown, you absolutely must read this series. The Winners is a perfect conclusion to a series I never wanted to see end. As much as it broke my heart, it couldn’t have ended any other way. Fredrik Backman is a writing wizard and I’m so very glad I’ve been able to get lost in this series.

*An ARC of this novel was provided by the publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Review: The Honeybee Emeralds

I have to give a huge shoutout to my friend Heather from The Maritime Reader for putting The Honeybee Emeralds on my radar. I had been struggling with picking a new audiobook and she let me know that an advanced listening copy of Amy Tector’s novel was available to request on NetGalley. I am so, so, so glad she did because I loved this book. It had everything I like all rolled into one amazing package. Gah, so good!

Here’s the book’s description:

Alice Ahmadi has never been certain of where she belongs. When she discovers a famed emerald necklace while interning at a struggling Parisian magazine, she is plunged into a glittering world of diamonds and emeralds, courtesans and spies, and the long-buried secrets surrounding the necklace and its glamorous former owners.
When Alice realizes the mysterious Honeybee Emeralds could be her chance to save the magazine, she recruits her friends Lily and Daphne to form the “Fellowship of the Necklace.” Together, they set out to uncover the romantic history of the gems. Through diaries, letters, and investigations through the winding streets and iconic historic landmarks of Paris, the trio begins to unravel more than just the secrets of the necklace’s obsolete past. Along the way, Lily and Daphne’s relationships are challenged, tempered, and changed. Lily faces her long-standing attraction to a friend, who has achieved the writing success that eluded her. Daphne confronts her failing relationship with her husband, while also facing simmering problems in her friendship with Lily. And, at last, Alice finds her place in the world—although one mystery still remains: how did the Honeybee Emeralds go from the neck of American singer Josephine Baker during the Roaring Twenties to the basement of a Parisian magazine?

I mentioned at the top that this story had everything I like. There was a mystery, a historical element, and a hint of romance. And the fact that the mystery surrounded a piece of artwork (because, yes, the craftsmanship of the necklace made it a work of art)? Oh, yes. I was into it. And even with all of that going on, the story worked! I felt that Tector handled each thread masterfully and I never felt like there was too much stuffed into one story.

The story is told from multiple perspectives, which I loved. Alice, Lily, and Daphne all have chapters of their own. There are a few historical sections as well that help explain the necklace’s background without giving too much away too soon. And sometimes the reader gets in the head of the magazine’s long time office manager, too. (I can’t, for the life of me, remember her name and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to spell it properly anyway. *face palm*) Each woman is so very different but they manage to connect with each other and learn from one another.

The narrator, Lameece Issaq, was great. I was a bit put off by some of her accents but eventually I got over it (and it’s possible that some of the issues were because I was listening to this audiobook at 2x speed which can distort things a little). There was the odd time I felt like she hadn’t quite come out of one accent before going into another when characters were speaking to each other. But there were a lot of accents to master – Alice was from Yorkshire, Daphne, Lily, and Jacob were American (thankfully without strong accents), Luc and the office manager were French, and Alexander was Icelandic. But Issaq’s voice while reading the rest of the story, dialogue aside, was a delight and I probably could have listened to her all day.

Both Heather and I love reading Canadian authors so that’s part of what drew us to this book. The story may not be set in our fine country but I’m here for supporting Canadian authors, especially ones I may not have heard of before. And now that I have read Tector’s work? I cannot wait for her next book.

I wouldn’t really know where to begin if asked to describe The Honeybee Emeralds. But I would say that I highly recommend Amy Tector’s novel. I enjoyed every second of it and it is, so far, on my list of top three favourite books of 2022!

*An advanced audio listening copy was provided by the publisher, Dreamscape Media, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.* 

Review: Ghosts

I love to read romances, rom coms, historical fiction, and the odd mystery. But sometimes, I want a real just... life kind of novel. Ghosts delivered. Dolly Alderton's debut novel has a healthy dose of relationships but that's not all it was and the Happily Ever After we get isn't typical but it was so real and refreshing. All those elements made for a really good read.

Here's the book's description:

Nina Dean is not especially bothered that she's single. She owns her own apartment, she's about to publish her second book, she has a great relationship with her ex-boyfriend and enough friends to keep her social calendar full and her hangovers plentiful. And when she downloads a dating app, she does the seemingly impossible: she meets a great guy on her first date. Max is handsome and built like a lumberjack, he has floppy blond hair and is a financially successful accountant. But more surprising than anything else, Nina and Max have chemistry. Their conversations are witty and ironic, they both hate sports, they dance together like fools, they happily dig deep into the nuances of crappy music, and they create an entire universe of private jokes and chemical bliss.
But when Max ghosts her, Nina is forced to deal with everything she's been trying so hard to ignore: her father's Alzheimer's is getting worse, and so is her mother's denial of it; her editor hates her new book idea; and her best friend from childhood is icing her out. Funny, tender and eminently, movingly relatable, Ghosts is a whip-smart tale of relationships and modern life.

I have to admit that I think I read this book at the wrong time. I wanted to love it but I couldn't quite get there and I think that's all on me. So if you think this review is a little, meh, but you're still intrigued? Read the book. Then come back and tell me what my recent crummy mood made me miss! 

As I said at the top, I love rom coms. I've heard Ghosts described as such (even the back cover copy calls it one). Uh. It's not. I allow rom coms to have a lot of leeway and don't mind in the least that some of the recent offerings in the genre are a bit heavier than people expect. However. I require my rom com to have romance, comedy/cleverness, and a romantic Happily Ever After. There are relationships in this book, as much as you would expect in the life of a 32 year old female. Nina wants to date, like most of your friends would, and therefore she does. But, my friends, (and this is a slight spoiler, I guess), she doesn't end up in a relationship at the end of this novel. And that means, to me, that this is not a rom com. This is simply a funny and clever contemporary fiction novel that speaks about the modern world of a thirtysomething woman. If this was a man and written by a man, we would not be having this discussion. It would be fiction, end of story. (Why, yes, you have found a soapbox I love to get on - how could you tell?) I mention all of this because it (rom com just because it's by a woman, etc.) frustrates me and I know it frustrates others when they go into a book expecting one kind of story and they get something else. I don't want you to be disappointed in this novel because it is really good!

I was literally laughing out loud at so many parts in this novel. It was fucking funny. Part of my enjoyment came from the fact that it's British humour, which I absolutely adore. It's not for everyone but it's part of what drew me to the novel to begin with. There were a couple of pages I had to snap pictures of because I was so amused. One being when Nina says that all tall people (including her best friend Katherine) are smug about their height. I don't know if that's true of all tall people but I know that I, at 6' tall, definitely have moments when I am quite proud to be a giantess. 

Nina is a year older than I am but the book was set in the Before Times (August 3, 2018-August 3, 2019) so she's 32 through the course of the novel, which is younger than I am right now. (Got all that?) My point: I was thrilled that she was my age as I totally related to so much of what she was going through. I have friends who have kids of all ages and, yeah, that changes things. I completely identified with how she was feeling with Katherine - that just because Nina didn't have kids didn't make her life any less difficult (to my close friends with kiddos reading this: you don't do this. It's acquaintances or strangers who do this). No, Nina doesn't have a toddler to raise while being pregnant with another kid. But she does have a father with Alzheimer's and that is difficult too and I wanted her friends to realize that. I also laughed when she talked about how much she had learned about pregnancy, birth, and babies just from being friends with women who have had kids. So much truth.

Ghosts is about so much more than being ghosted in a relationship (though that does happen). It's about facing the ghosts of who you were, who your friends were, who your parents were, and how you've all changed - whether you want to or not. Dolly Alderton's novel is clever, observant, and funny with maybe a touch of...melancholy? It has a little bit of everything and I can't wait to read what she writes next.

*A copy of this novel was provided by the publisher, Doubleday Canada (Penguin Random House Canada), in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Blog Tour: The Summer Seekers

During a year (plus) when travel is not a thing we Canadians can safely do, reading about a couple of characters taking a roadtrip across America was a delight. Sarah Morgan's The Summer Seekers is full of characters who will stick with you - all of whom are struggling with finding their place in life. The fun is reading as they find that place in the most unlikely of ways.

Here's the book's description:

Kathleen is eighty years old. After she has a run-in with an intruder, her daughter wants her to move into a residential home. But she’s not having any of it. What she craves—what she needs—is adventure.
Liza is drowning in the daily stress of family life. The last thing she needs is her mother jetting off on a wild holiday, making Liza long for a solo summer of her own.
Martha is having a quarter-life crisis. Unemployed, unloved and uninspired, she just can’t get her life together. But she knows something has to change.
When Martha sees Kathleen’s advertisement for a driver and companion to share an epic road trip across America with, she decides this job might be the answer to her prayers. She's not the world's best driver, but anything has to be better than living with her parents. And traveling with a stranger? No problem. Anyway, how much trouble can one eighty-year-old woman be?
As these women embark on the journey of a lifetime, they all discover it's never too late to start over…

Each woman in the story was struggling with their current life situation for various reasons. Kathleen is getting older and a recent break in to her house has her a bit rattled. Liza is worried about her mom (no matter that she fended off the intruder with a skillet. Frying pans, who knew?) and her family, her mom excluded, is taking her for granted. Martha is stuck living at home and is feeling unmoored and not sure what she should be doing with her life. The three come together, Martha being a total stranger but totally right for what Kathleen needed, and they help each other get to where they need to be. Literally, in the case of Martha driving Kathleen along Route 66!

I absolutely loved that Kathleen had been a presenter for a travel show in her youth. And not even her youth as you'd typically expect - she was still jetting off for the show when Liza was young and Kathleen was well into her 40s. She seemed to be so great and so magnetic and it would have been really cool to watch her show. It was also so unique and I definitely have not read about a former travel show presenter before!

I think this book was a wee bit too long. There were some repetitious scenes and phrases and I found myself just wishing they'd get on with it. I know I was reading an egalley but those types of things aren't normally changed in the final edition. It might be different if there was a ton of action but this was a very character driven (ha...no pun intended) story so reading the same type of scenes over and over again got kinda boring.

I always have such a fun time reading Morgan's novels but I've found that since she's moved from romance to contemporary fiction, a lot of her stories feel...the same. So many focus on mothers and daughters along with multiple viewpoints and I think I'm kind of over that. I don't want to be reading the same thing over and over again. There can only be so many family problems in this format and I feel like Morgan's written them all a couple of times over. It doesn't mean this story is bad. It's not. It's fun and the relationships are so lovely and you can't help but fall in love with everyone. But I expect more from Morgan and if her next Christmas read doesn't thrill me? I might need to take a break. 

The Summer Seekers was a lovely read featuring three engaging characters on emotional journeys, even while two of them are on physical journeys across America. Relationships of all manners are explored in Sarah Morgan's latest novel and you can't help but root for everyone throughout the story.

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About the Author
USA Today bestselling author Sarah Morgan writes hot, happy, contemporary romance and women’s fiction, and her trademark humor and sensuality have gained her fans across the globe. Described as “a magician with words” by RT Book Reviews, she has sold more than eleven million copies of her books. She was nominated three years in succession for the prestigious RITA® Award from the Romance Writers of America and won the award three times: once in 2012 for Doukakis’s Apprentice, in 2013 for A Night of No Return and in 2017 for Miracle on 5th Avenue. She also won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award in 2012 and has made numerous appearances in their Top Pick slot. As a child, Sarah dreamed of being a writer, and although she took a few interesting detours along the way, she is now living that dream. Sarah lives near London, England, with her husband and children, and when she isn’t reading or writing, she loves being outdoors, preferably on vacation so she can forget the house needs tidying.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Harlequin, via NetGalley in exchange for a review for the purpose of a blog tour. All opinions are honest and my own*