Staff Choices

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore is an utterly charming and surprising book. I expected a quick, easy chick-lit/women’s fiction book and ended with exactly that but also some valuable messages about life and how to live it.

Beginning when she’s nineteen years old, every year at the stroke of midnight on her birthday, Oona travels through time, only to land in the body of her older or younger self. She starts each year not knowing where she is in time (and often, in space), yet she must live that year until her next birthday when the whole process will start all over again.

Each year, Oona would find herself at an older age, always in the future, yet moving forwards and backwards. The insight she garnered through these generation gaps was insightful and often hysterical. Each decade brought its own hair styles, fads, bands and of course, information about the stock market. The book starts in 1982, so after Oona’s first jump to the age of 51, several decades later, she has absolutely no clue about the internet, a tablet or a laptop. It’s quite comical when she goes back in time and suddenly has to live without those luxuries.

Oona starts the book with a serious boyfriend, her one true love. Her mind is torn on whether she should stay with him and their band or go to London to study economics. This decision is what seemingly prompts her time warp. If you’re looking for a light humorous read that will make you think about the importance of every day because you’ll never get that day back, then you’ll really enjoy Oona Out of Order. Happy reading!

Mother vs Daughter

Crazy vs Insane

Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel is a “ripped from the headlines” debut that explores a mother-daughter relationship that has gone very wrong. The story chronicles the aftermath of a fascinating (and disturbing) syndrome Munchausen by proxy.

Darling Rose Gold has all the trimmings of a great domestic thriller.

This is a must read for fans of Hulu’s The Act or the books Sharp Objects and My Lovely Wife. Make sure you put this one on your quarantine TBR list. Available as an ebook or eaudiobook on Cloud Library.

Valentine is a haunting debut novel by Elizabeth Wetmore, set during the Vietnam war era in the unforgiving landscape of the Texas oil country. The story follows the interconnected lives of five female characters after one of them survives a brutal rape. This is a dark read for dark times. Wetmore gives an unflinching look at the rampant racism and misogyny in Odessa, as prevalent as the dust that blankets the bleak countryside. But readers will be touched by the humanity and resilient spirit of these girls and women, especially motherless child Debra Ann and rape victim Glory Ramirez. 

If the tv shows Desperate Housewives and True Blood could give birth to a book, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires would be it. This horror story by Grady Hendrix also has a good bit of humor and domestic drama thrown in. Definitely not for the squeamish (ironically, I count myself in those numbers)...there is plenty of gore, killer rats, sexual violence. But all of this is balanced by the female friendships of the protagonists, who go from secretly reading true crime classics in their book club, to being immersed in investigating the  terrible deaths of young children from the "wrong side" of their sleepy, genteel Carolina town. Patricia Cambell, a former nurse who is now stay at home mom, knows that the evil all stems from a handsome stranger who has moved into his dead aunt's house down the block, but getting everyone to believe her is another matter. Dark but campy good fun, this book hooked me from the start.

Math + family who moves to NY + bad behavior + more bad behavior + strained relationships + life + coming of age = Divide Me By Zero.

This is not a happy book that Lara Vapnyar has written but it does have humorous viewpoints in situations we all recognize and heartening moments. Told with un-sugarcoated honesty from a first-person point of view and interspersed with real photos to illustrate a point - this book made me wonder if it is fiction or an autobiography or a talented novelist toying with me, the reader. I am always impressed with authors from another culture grasping the nuances and vocabulary of the English language so thoroughly and so much better than I ever can. Readers who enjoy Gary Shteyngart's works may also enjoy Divide Me By Zero.

In Malcolm Gladwell's Talking To Strangers, he cites examples of government spies, law enforcement officials, wrongful incarceration, the college campus culture of drinking and date rape, Ponzi schemes and political enemies – real life stories that have been in the news and in history books. How is it that we can be so deceived and for so long that, in hindsight, it defies reason?  Gladwell refers to a theory called "default to truth" which prevents most of us from being able to readily detect deception. People are inherently very trusting. We may have doubts about a person or a situation, but we do not have enough doubts to make us change our opinion to outright suspicion and then action, for example, Bernie Madoff.

While the book does not have definite resolutions or a recipe to follow, it does provide something to seriously consider, reminding us to be cautious, even vigilant, while crossing the divide of talking to strangers but retaining our humanity.

Listening to the audiobook version enhanced the book for me. When available, Gladwell includes audio from actual interviews with key players or has actors reading testimony from transcripts.

Janelle Monae's "Hell You Talmbout" soundtrack often plays in background - a song I had to locate, listen and watch it performed – very memorable.

This is a hybrid of a novel, part murder mystery, part family drama. A young police woman, Mickey, becomes involved in the hunt for a serial killer, while meantime patrolling a neighborhood in Philadelphia that is all but destroyed by drugs. Sadly, her sister Kacey is one among many that have fallen prey to addiction. While I felt the story may have gotten a bit bogged down in the hunt for the killer, the rest of this novel soars... brutal in its depiction of the impact of the Opioid crisis on families and once vibrant neighborhoods. There is also gentle beauty in the relationships between sisters and mother/child. Not to mention a kicker of a plot twist that I truly didn't see coming. This one is worth the buzz..highly recommend.

You Were There Too, by Colleen Oakley is a masterfully composed novel that included a heart-pounding ending with flawless precision. 

Mia loves her husband Harrison. However, she has recurring dreams of another man...one that she has never met.

Until, one day, when she comes face to face with the stranger in her dreams and discovers that his name is Oliver, and more importantly, he has been dreaming about her too.

How can this be? What does this mean? Why have they finally met?

I am not a strong believer of psychic premonitions or interpretation of dreams, but the joy of a well-written novel allows me to suspend disbelief and enables the story to takes me beyond my beliefs.

This engrossing story is a reflection on marriage, grief and fate.  Do not expect a seamlessly arranged ending tied up with a bow. This original and very moving novel should be on your must-read list.

May Attaway is turning 40 and has realized her life might be lacking. As a gardener at a local university, she finds herself more comfortable with trees than people. Living with her father in her childhood home, May starts to wonder how she got to such a place of separateness. “I don’t have a daughter and I don’t know if I ever will. But if I do we will not carry this sadness forward. I’m tired of holding it.”

An unexpected reward of time off has May deciding she will spend the time reconnecting with those who knew her at a different time as she begins to cobble together the pieces. Thinking about a reverse Odyssey “What if Penelope had left?” or a friendless Beowulf, May packs Emily Post’s book on etiquette, a suitcase she has named Grendel and heads out. Each visit reflects on her past, as well as the observation that life is generally complicated.

In Rules for Visiting, Jessica Francis Kane gives us a thoughtful and touching story, and a character you will find yourself rooting for.

Jac Jemc’s latest work, False Bingo, is an unnerving collection of stories where the mundane and ordinary ride upon a wave of anxiety.  Building on the hallucinatory strangeness of her previous novel, The Grip of It, Jemc’s writing is spare and beautiful.  There are elements of Shirley Jackson in this volume, but Jemc’s voice is unique and original.

Creepiness pervades stories like “Hunt and Catch” where a woman commuting home from work believes a garbage truck driver is following her.  In the story “Don’t Lets,” a woman recovering from an abusive relationship vacations at a southern plantation and is visited by a boo hag, a creature from folklore that steals the breath of its victims.

Despite these themes, False Bingo is not merely a collection of horror stories.  The psychological tension Jemc evokes takes the reader into the realm of dread, suspense, and the absurd; demonstrating that it is undeniably creepier to wonder than it is to know.