What I've Heard- Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Well! After that last audiobook, I really needed something funny that would lighten the mood a little. Or a lot. 

Jenny Lawson was the obvious and perfect choice. Let's Pretend This Never Happened is one of those books that I always recommend to people and for a darn good reason- it. is. hilarious!

I wax rhapsodic plenty in my print review (see the link above) so I won't go on and on about it again here, but I do want to say how wonderfully Jenny reads this book. Is there anything better than a memoir read by the author? Except that Jenny doesn't just read this book. She sings it, she laughs along with you, she adds so much more value than even the print book can provide.

I love Jenny Lawson. I wish we were best friends. Read or listen to this now. You don't even know how much you need this in your life. So, so much.

What I've Heard- Station Eleven

I read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel nearly four years ago and I loved it! A flu pandemic has swept the planet leaving more that 99% of people dead. People panic, the economy and infrastructure collapse, there is almost nothing of civilization left. And I had the thought- what better time to revisit this great read than during the Covid-19 Pandemic?

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Actually, this book is very good and, as I said in my review of the print book, one of my favorite aspects is that it mostly focuses on the time long after the flu has remade the humanity. This book is so much more character driven that one might expect and I really enjoyed getting to know each of them.

If you are really worried right not, maybe wait a little while. Or if you are one of those both-feet-in, theatre-of-the-macabre kind of people, this is the perfect book for you! 

Odette by Jessica Duchen

I try not to read too much of a synopsis about a book before I crack the cover because I don't want to have the plot spoiled. I prefer to allow the story to unfold as the writer intended. Sometimes that means I'm confused for a bit, but I find having a little faith and turning the pages will get me there before long. That was how I approached Odette by Jessica Duchen. I knew it was some sort of modern fairy tale, but that was it. I won't share too much and ruin it for you, but I want to pique your interest.

Mitzi is a struggling freelance reporter, living in a tiny apartment in London, when a swan comes crashing through her front window during a bizarre and unprecedented storm. Mitzi cares for the swan as best she can and is shocked when at sunset the swan turns into a beautiful young woman named Odette. Mitzi does what she can to help Odette, letting her stay with her and becoming her friend, but the one thing Odette can't escape is the curse that turns her into a bird every morning at dawn.

Maybe this already sounds familiar to you, but whether it does or doesn't, this book is worth reading. It was beautifully written with charming characters and plenty of magic, both the fairy tale kind and the friendship kind. I was a little saddened that the ending flew up so quickly, leaving me wanting more, but maybe that's a good thing. I think fairy tales are a wonderful distraction from the real world so I hope you'll give this one a try.

*This Advanced Reader Copy was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for and honest review.*

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett reveals the secret of the year all young women must experience when they turn sixteen. No one who hasn't yet experienced their Grace Year knows what it holds. No one who returns ever speaks of it again. The only thing anyone knows is that it is the only way for young women to diffuse the magic inside them and be "pure". Once they return, if they return, they are married off to the men who have chosen them. If they aren't chosen, they are sent to the work houses, or worse, to the outskirts to try to survive on their own. Tierney is determined she will make it back, though she prefers an assignment to the fields rather than marriage. There are plenty of obstacles to that desire, but the biggest is the year standing before her. She will have to find a way to sustain herself on the island to which she and the other girls are banished. If she can avoid the poachers, men who hope to capture and dismember the girls, and keep warm and fed she might have a chance. It is only once they begin their journey that she realizes that it will be the other girls who may be her biggest hurdle.

A little too much like a female version of The Lord of the Flies, this book means to be a feminist dystopian novel, but it just didn't seem to shake out that way. Hoping to examine the way women and girls play into the misogyny of men who take their power, it looks too much like Mean Girls on steroids (and maybe a little acid). The pacing is also very odd. It moves slowly, slowly and then suddenly it slaps the reader with a huge scene with tons of information as if the author knew where she wanted to go, but not always how to get there.

I will say that by the time I was about two-thirds of the way through the book I was enjoying it more, but it wasn't my favorite. It was dark in ways I didn't enjoy and without enough light to redeem it. The ending was abrupt without being satisfying. There is a little hope, but it is too far down the road to be comforting. 

*This Advanced Reader Copy was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for and honest review.*

Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

A normal, happy couple are in the end stages of planning their wedding and honeymoon when life starts to fall apart a little. Erin and Mark have been together for a couple of years and are finally tying the knot, but when Mark loses his job as an investment banker, tensions in their relationship begin to arise. Erin, a documentary film maker in the midst of her first major project, hopes that their honeymoon will be the escape they need to already repair their brand new marriage. Even though she is terrified of diving, Erin agrees to an underwater excursion to please Mark. When they discover something much more than fish and coral below the surface, everything changes.

This book was absolutely fantastic! It was fast-paced and kept me turning the pages. The first chapter sucks the reader right in and doesn't let go. Perhaps a slightly unreliable narrator, Erin flashes back and forth between the present and back to when she and Mark met, telling us about their relationship and how they got to where they are. What does she know that she isn't telling? What does she not understand about who she can and can't trust? I have been recommending this book like crazy and I hope you'll pick up a copy, too. This book was so fun!

*This Advanced Reader Copy was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for and honest review.*