Mini Reviews: Complicated Family

I’m really doing it, I’m catching up on reviews!

Today’s group were some interesting reads and while they cover a wide range of genres, they each deal with some traumatic family moments. So let’s get into these complicated families!

All the Things We Don’t Talk About by Amy Feltman
Genre: Fiction
CWs: attempted school shooting, addiction, alcohol and drug abuse, ableism, transphobia, car crash, internet harassment

Morgan Flowers just wants to hide. Raised by their neurodivergent father, Morgan has grown up haunted by the absence of their mysterious mother Zoe, especially now, as they navigate their gender identity and the turmoil of first love. Their father Julian has raised Morgan with care, but he can’t quite fill the gap left by the dazzling and destructive Zoe, who fled to Europe on Morgan’s first birthday. And when Zoe is dumped by her girlfriend Brigid, she suddenly comes crashing back into Morgan and Julian’s lives, poised to disrupt the fragile peace they have so carefully cultivated.

This was a slow-moving book but by the end I loved it! It wasn’t the perfect read but there was something so gripping about these characters that I couldn’t look away and was so invested in their lives.

It really does get better as you read. I couldn’t figure out what this book was really about at first but it ends up being about all these little things that come back as reminders and themes in such subtle ways. A quiet but stunning read for me. Thanks to Grand Central Publishing for an ARC to review!

Top Ten Tuesday: More Recent Additions to My Book Collection

Today’s post is a call-out for my recent book buying habits.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl, and each week there’s a prompt for you to use in building your own bookish top ten list.

I’m building off of last week’s prompt, TTT Rewind, where we can choose any topic that’s previously been done. I thought I’d do the recent additions prompt again because: I bought more books!

Last time I did this prompt, I wrote about ten books I’d acquired all year-long. This time, I’m only a couple months into the new year and already have enough to almost fill a list. So today I’m showing off those books, plus it’s a bit of public accountability that I’m not allowed to buy any more books until I’ve read at least one of these.

I also try to track wishlist books for books I’d like to buy after reading a library or advanced copy, so check some of these out below too!

More Recent Additions to My Book Collection

Review: All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle

Title: All the Lonely People
Author: Mike Gayle
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication date: August 2, 2022
Format / source: Hardcover / ARC from publisher
Purchase: IndieBound
Content warnings: racism, grief, death, addiction
Rating: ★★★★★

Another book that has been waiting so long for a review. This one is beautiful and heartbreaking, and a lovely portrait of a senior man finding new love for life. Thanks to Grand Central Publishing for a copy to review!

In weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia, widower Hubert Birdpaints a picture of the perfect retirement, packed with fun, friendship, and fulfillment. But it’s a lie. In reality, Hubert’s days are all the same, dragging on without him seeing a single soul.

Until he receives some good news — good news that in one way turns out to be the worst news ever, news that will force him out again, into a world he has long since turned his back on. The news that his daughter is coming for a visit.

Now Hubert faces a seemingly impossible task: to make his real life resemble his fake life before the truth comes out.
Along the way Hubert stumbles across a second chance at love, renews a cherished friendship, and finds himself roped into an audacious community scheme that seeks to end loneliness once and for all . . .

Life is certainly beginning to happen to Hubert Bird. But with the origin of his earlier isolation always lurking in the shadows, will he ever get to live the life he’s pretended to have for so long?