April Reading Recap: The Highs and The Low Lows
+ the best $5 pick-me-up gift out there
Happy May friends! There was a moment there in April when I felt it was going to be the first month in a very long time that I will read (or rather finish) absolutely nothing. Now, I have written about the absolute and total okay-ness of not finishing anything you don’t actually enjoy, and I stick by that sentiment, but there was something sort of heartbreaking about the books I picked up and left behind in early April, because I know I would have loved them under standard reading circumstances. This included on the more literary side the amazing sounding “The Stoneyard Devotional” and “Liars” (too slow, and too fast, a case of reading Goldilocks) and on the genre corner “A Step Past Darkness”, Vera Kurian’s sophomore effort after the extremely, extremely delicious “Never Saw Me Coming”, which was as refreshing a thriller debut as I’ve read until, well, this month.
But then, I hit a little bit of a stride (shout out to
for recommending a romance I actually enjoyed, another superlative offering from her best-of-2024 round-up, and also the (actual thriller) authors of whose monthly round-up resulted in the latest extremely refreshing thriller debut on my reading list (and one that fell a little short, but was still very finishable). If you love a thriller, I highly recommend subscribing - their May picks for new releases are freshly out.Anyway, enough of the thank yous and the preambles: APRIL READING RECAP - and away we go:
The Good & Greats (Not arranged in order of quality)
Back After This - Linda Holmes - I LOOOOOOOOOVE Linda Holmes - as a journalist AND as a novelist. “Evvie Drake Starts Over” and “Flying Solo” are like complete balms for the soul (and have prompted unnatural pride in living in a town with a minor baseball league team), and while I hope she comes back to the tiny Maine town of Calcassett, I also welcomed the latest rom com, set in the podcasting world AND in D.C., two things Holmes knows all about, and made me feel very hometown proud (plus, a D.C. rom com that has zero to do with politics - FINALLY!). Anyway, Cecily is a podcast producer who gets emotionally blackmailed by her boss to serve as both producer AND subject in an influencer’s upcoming dating coaching podcast, and proceeds to go on 20 blind dates with eligible, professional men (boooooring), all the while steadily running into a cute waiter/photographer after helping him wrangle a Great Dane rescue (anyway!). Smart and charming and just frustrating enough to be relatable/believable to anyone who has tried to date in D.C. in their 30s.
Killer Potential - Hannah Deitch - OK, LETS THROW THIS BOOK A PARTY. This is the aforementioned extremely refreshing thriller debut. It has been described as “Thelma & Louise for our times” (front of jacket blurb by Paula Hawkins, #1 internationally bestselling author) but that actually feels a little reductive, because it is a murder mystery but also a road movie but also a meditation on success and ambition and the gig economy and a love story and a psycho drama, and had me thinking about both the most stressful episode of Law & Order: SVU which I saw 25 years a go and which still haunts me, as well as an Academy Award winning movie that is not “Thelma & Louise” which I am not going to mention because it may count as a spoiler. Add to that that the writing is fresh and funny and very self-knowing, and that the twist(s?) never feels cheap or staged, and you got yourself a corker. I want this made into a movie STAT, though a TV show by Nanchatka Kahn will do, I guess.
Worry - Alexandra Tanner - Oddly a perfect companion to the cusp-between-Gen-Z-and-Millennial ennui of “Killer Potential”. This book is about two sisters, each with a host of anxieties, phychosomatic physical ailments, trying to navigate that weird 26-29 year old era in NYC. It is not a book about anything happening, but it is a book about everything happening. It is also WILDLY funny (there is a 3-legged rescue dog called Amy Klobuchar, for one & truly one of the most dysfunctional Thanksgiving meals you’ve ever attended, for other), and many other devastating, relatable moments. Highly recommended. It did make me feel deeply and wildly how being this age right now must feel incredibly different than when I was this age.
Deep Cuts - Hannah Brickley - Speaking of - I read this in a swift 2 days and need every person that was friends with me between 2005-2010 to read it immediately so we can text about it. This book is about that era in all of our lives, when, in the immortal words of
, when what reeeeeally matters is what you like, not what you’re like. Percy & Joe are music nerds: she has opinions and not a ton of practical talent (or so she thinks), he has star quality and a young guy brain, meaning he could use some constructive criticism. They meet at 20 in 2000 in Berkeley, and the story follows them as they graduate, collaborate, will-they-won’t-they hook-up, and ends right after the first Obama election, all tinged with music and feelings that will feel very relatable to people who at any point wanted to write and dance about life and romanticized the creative output, more than actually LIVING life. It is incredibly frustrating at times, and you can’t help but think about all the music NOT mentioned (“There is no way none of these people are not obsessed with Mountain Goats” a friend I’ve already thrust this upon texted me), but it also hits all the right notes often enough and scratches that itch of reading something by (dare I say it?) a voice very specific to your generation. There is a cool accompanying playlist too + A24 is in the process of making a movie about it already with Soiarse and Austin Butler, and directed by Sean Durkin. I cannot wait for the bang-cutting scene, for one (obviously there is a bang-cutting scene).Under The Whispering Door - TJ Klune - This was our neighborhood book club pick, and my first TJ Klune. The story centers around inhabitants and visitors of a cozy tea house that also happens to be a rest stop between life and (whatever comes after) death. It is maybe best described as a “cozy, queer fantasy” which after last month’s “Secret Society of Highly Irregular Witches” success is maybe a genre I love now? This one has a little more soul-searching chatting and A LOT more existential dread, but I loved it.
The Not Great & The Straight-Up Bad
I won’t waste too many words on the books I didn’t enjoy, I still finished them, so that’s saying something. Also, I go into every book I pick wanting to love it, so - if these sound like they may scratch an itch of yours - truly, more power to you.
Count My Lies - Sophie Stava - This is a GMA book club pick and set for an adaptation by the “This Is Us” showrunners and is supposed to star the Lohan, which are both good cultural cues (and not necessarily one I can’t get behind) so maybe I should have just embraced the overall basicness of the characters, but I just couldn’t. And it is one of those books that are so twisty you get a little whiplash-y at the end and is very easy to pitch but needs some more nuance in execution. Think “A Simple Favor” meets “The Last Mrs Parish” meets “Single White Female” meets “The Hand That Rocks The Cradle” meets “Gone Girl”.
The Boyfriend - Freida McFadden - My first McFadden. I knew it was not going to be literature, but I don’t know, I was hopeful? I love a thriller sensation and I always want to cheer for an incredibly prolific author. I was maybe hoping for some hints of Mary Higgins Clark (QUEEN)? Or at least minor character development? But it was an extremely paint-by-the-numbers story of a single gal in her 30s, dating in NY, with a new, hot Dr. Boyfriend who maybe also is the hot Dr. Boyfriend her neighbor had and they never met but who also MAYBE killed said neighbor. Oh, and her ex boyfriend is the investigating Detective, and the super in her building is creepy, and there is a lot of going to yoga classes. Anyway, there IS a twist or three, but I have satisfied my curiosity and don’t need to ready any more.
Beautiful Ugly - Alice Feeney - This one hurts a little because I really liked Feeney’s early work (especially “Sometimes I Lie”) but this continues her thumbs down streak for me, after the disappointment of “Daisy Darker”. This has kind of a “Shining/Misery/Secret Window” Stephen King amalgam meets “The Wicker Man” meets “Hot Fuzz” (yes, that ridiculous), and I was over it before the big reveal, which was, frankly, a little lame too. I am “this close” to putting Finney in my Riley Seger compartment: enjoy the early stuff, don’t bother with the new.
I should also note that all three of these thrillers used the “name switcheroo” gimme twist and if there is one trope that needs to retire in this genre - it is revealing that someone’s name is not their actual name as a way to pivot the plot. It is lazy and annoying. Sorry.
Also, now that you’ve made it to the bottom of this post - your reward. The aforementioned $5 pick me up, and just what your weekend cocktail hour was missing decor wise:
BONUS LINKS TO CATCH UP ON:
All of this year’s monthly book recaps so far: Jan, Feb, March
What I read in April last year, which had some strong winners.
DEEP CUTS FOREVER!