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Back to topTerry's 2023 Recommendations
2023 is a great year for new books!
I wasn’t even 10 pages into this novel new novel by Anna Napolitano when I realized that this might in fact be my favorite book of the year. And I was right! This novel of family, friendship, love, and life is not to be missed. It is so full of heart that you will want to hug every page and savor every line.
This is a book filled with the love and growth of two families bound together by the daughter they both share, told against the backdrop of WWII and into the 1960s, a journey readers will savor and remember.
This love story to books, authors, publishing, and the power of the written word is a not-to-be-missed novel for every serious reader. Bauermeister has created a journey of one book told through the stories of its readers. The magic of books and the worlds they create is special to all of us and No Two Persons brings it all together. I can’t wait for my book group to read this gorgeous book.
In her adult debut, Sloan has created a compulsive read and a beautiful portrait of a family in the midst of grief and change. I am completely charmed by the four narrators, and this family adventure /reinvention as they move from Oregon to Hawaii to build a new life as proprietors Oceanside motel. The motel is in as much need of repairs as is each member of this family following the death of their father / husband.
Sena is a the youngest of the siblings, smart beyond her years, and her delight in life (and animals of any kind) jumps off the page. Carlos is the middle sibling, the optimist and maybe the one with the most secrets as he starts middle school in their new hometown. Olivia is the oldest, a teenager and about to start high school with no tools at her disposal to deal with this new period in her life. Sloan is experienced at writing from a kid’s point of view and she does another admirable job here. But it is their mom, Lindsey, that we sympathize with most as she deals with life as a single parent trying to be all things as she works to make her purchase a thriving business and carve out a new life for herself.
Professional hotel cleaner, Noelle seems to be on a mission. In each hotel where she works as a maid it is her goal to steal small items from the hotel guests, something that gives her great pleasure and a release from her self-isolated life. In fact, she moves from hotel to hotel until there is even the remote possibility that she will be caught. Then she moves on to the next job. We meet her in Hotel 21 and her backstory comes to life and her life begins to change as she embarks on new friendships and relationships she did not expect. Our suspicions that her background must have created her current obsession and lifestyle are confirmed slowly and Noelle becomes not only sympathetic, but somewhat heroic in her role in her own survival.
From an extremely tragic start, comes a heroine to root for. We know where this is going, but we are constantly as surprised as Jodie Boyd, who believes she is the opposite of her beautiful, adventurous, social media savvy sister, takes on the remaining items on her sister’s bucket list. Though the second two thirds of the book are funny and hopeful, Matthews does not shirk from the honesty of dealing with a dying sibling, grief, and the effect of Bree Boyd’s premature death on her family and friends. I could not put this book down … and I highly recommend it.
To say that this is an amazing debut is a huge understatement. The writing is gorgeous, Victoria Nash is a protagonist that is independent, hard working and resilient. In 1940x Colorado, she survives the unthinkable and and then becomes the hero of her own story. Read's attention to historical detail and the beauty of the natural world is unsurpassed. Read this book.
This book is as devastating as it is difficult to put down. I had no idea when I first met Frida and Kirby Lowe during an incoming hurricane in Rudder, Florida that I would be reading a book about the future of our climate crisis and its destructive realities. Given the hurricanes in that area currently taking place, the possibility of this future seems increasingly likely.
This book is important on so many levels; Brooks-Dalton’s ability to draw characters that are believable and admirable; move us in directions we cannot conceive on our own; make the reader afraid of a future that is not impossible to believe.
The light pirate is Wanda, the daughter of Frida and Kirby’s, named because of the storm during which she was born and a prophesy of her resilience. She is the product of her environment, one that is falling apart as she grows up, teaching her how to change and prepare for survival and loss. Wanda also has a special gift, one that allows her to make her way through the darkest of times. Read this book so that this is not our future.
What I love about Meyerson’s books is that the story she starts with is not the story she tells. She wraps you up in a world, introduces you to complex and interesting characters, draws you in, and then takes you in a direction you don’t expect. Taylor has been retreating from love ever since her father died many years ago. She sabotages her relationships when they begin to feel serious, so no one is more surprised that she when inspiration strikes one day leading her to write a story that leads to love for her best friend, Gabby. What happens next is pure magic … for others, for Taylor … and for us.
Walls has done it again with a heroine worth rooting for and plot that assures that readers will be quickly turning the pages for the next adventure and plot twist.