THE THIRD LOVE – Hiromi Kawakami

“Long ago. Saying those words puts me in a strong mood. Long ago – what does that mean? I’m not all that young, but I’m not that old either.”

I’ve been meaning to read more works in translations outside of my read the world challenge, and Hiromi Kawakami’s The Third Love (translated from the Japanese by Ted Gooseen) (Soft Skull Press 2025) fit that bill. (A huge thanks to the publisher for the finished copy!)

I’m not the biggest fan of time-bending/time travel novels, but the dream travel utilized here works extremely well.

Riko, a modern woman, fell in love with the man she’d marry when she was a toddler. She ultimately married him, but all that glittered wasn’t exactly gold; the marriage is marked by infidelity that he is not even ashamed of. When she reconnects with the janitor for her elementary school, Riko learns magic. She escapes her modern life and unhappy marriage by traveling back in time – first, she finds herself as a high-ranking courtesan in the seventeenth century and then as a serving lady to a princess in the Middle Ages. The different lives and worlds she finds herself center heavily on traditional Japanese literature and legend. While I wish I had a stronger foundation (I have The Tale of Genji, but I’ve never read it), such background isn’t necessary to enjoy the worlds Kawakami has given the reader.

As Riko dream travels, she is able to draw parallels between the lives she’s joined, Japanese literature, and her present life and relationships. The novel takes an open look at the role of women across centuries, especially as related to sex, child-rearing, motherhood, and love in general.

It’s certainly worth adding to your stacks.

JAX FREEMAN AND THE PHANTOM SHRIEK – Kwame Mbalia

“It’s been seven hours and nineteen minutes since I, Jackson Freeman, turned twelve, moved across the country into a house of doom, and abandoned everything I ever knew and loved, only to be accused of tomfoolery. Me!  Tomfoolery!”

I do love a well-done middle grade novel, and I adore Kwame Mbalia. (You may recall how much I love the Tristan Strong series.) It doesn’t hurt that Mbalia is an NC author, and I love to support NC creatives. Mbalia’s characters are so full of voice and life, and Jackson “Jax” Freeman is no different. I might still be partial to Tristan, but I am quite fond of Jax.

Comparing Jax Freeman and the Phantom Shriek to Harry Potter cheapens what Mbalia is doing, but the comparison is right there – a boy who doesn’t know he is magic, magic classes, a group of kids who have to save the world – but this isn’t Harry Potter. Mbalia magic relies heavily on root magic, the role of ancestors, and rich cultures that embraced oral storytelling traditions. He sets his novels in America, this time Chicago, with a history that is not ignored. Mbalia’s novels are magic, yes, but part of that magic is the sheer heart and history behind them.

Jax is sent to Chicago to live with relatives after a scandal in Raleigh. He’s immediately accosted at the train station and inanimate objects begin talking to him. A food vendor blows some type of dust in his face, and a conductor tries to steal his skin. It’s an interesting first day in Chicago. Jax soon learns that he is a summoner and comes from a longline of talented Freemans, talented but unliked. With a new group of friends, Jax sets out to clear his great great grandfather’s name and his own.

If you need a palate cleanser or a book to read along with your littles, this is it.  (And the Tristan Strong trilogy of course!)

THE SILVER BOOK – Olivia Laing

“It’s not a story you can kiss better, but he kisses him all the same, wrapping both arms around his slender waist.”

I’ve mentioned before that my ten before the end was derailed by library holds – the most recent was Olivia Laing’s The Silver Book ( Farrar, Straus and Giroux  2025). The slender volume has whispers of Booker-type, blending fact and fiction in 1970s Italian cinema in a way that is at times both opulent and scarce.  Unfortunately, the novel never reached its full potential for this reader.

Dubbed a queer love story with a noirish quality, the novel is set in the months leading up to the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1975.  The story alternates POVs between Nicholas / Nico (a young English artist on the run) and Danilo Donati / Dani (the renowned Italian custom and set designer). Danilo is a real figure; Nico and his relationship with the designer is fiction.   Dani takes Nico under his wing, as both a lover and an apprentice.  Nico draws buildings and images that Dani will in turn work his magic on for the set.  Their relationship is built on questionable grounds with significant power imbalance, but I will concede there is a love story here between the tortured young artist and the older man.

Dani and Nico are working on Pasolini’s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, young Nico wholly unaware and naïve as to the dangers, even after Pasolini is severely beaten. Nico’s flight from England following the death of a lover is likely where the novel gets the noirish label, and Laing does initially feed that by giving hints that Nico was involved in the man’s death. Is he running because he killed a man or is he running from grief or is he running from a ghost? I thought Alan’s death would factor in a bit more, but it was a bit of a bust. Other than making Nico a bit morose and random hints at a haunting, Alan seems a crutch to prop Nico up and a bridge to a relationship with Pasolini. Nico is not a well-developed character even though there are numerous opportunities to add a wee bit of flesh. Any spark of interest about him is quickly dimmed – even at the end when he becomes unwittingly involved in a series of events that will have Pasolini murdered.

Liang does a way with words, and they clearly did their research into the time period, the theories surrounding Pasolini and the film, and the other larger than life characters.  Their reliance on the pretty flat Nico to propel the story forward kept the novel from reaching its full potential.

PALAVER – Bryan Washington

My ten before the end got hijacked by library holds, so who knows what the last few days of 2025 will bring reading wise. I just finished another National Book Award finalist – Bryan Washington’s Palaver (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2025).  This is my first Washington;  Memorial  has been on my “to be put on my to be read” stack for a while, but it never happened. I really enjoyed Palaver.

The novel centers around “the son”  and “the mother.”  The son is an English tutor in Tokyo and his chosen family, which includes a complex cast of characters and relationships, including one with a married man.  The son is estranged from his mother and homophobic brother. He drinks a lot and has panic attacks and suicidal ideation. The “mother” is Jamaican and works at a dentist office in Texas. When the “son” calls her after years of silence, she immediately makes arrangements to go to him believing something is wrong.  (It was.) Once she is Tokyo, they work at rebuilding their relationship while also dealing independently with the past and choices made. While the son is the main character, I think the mother took center stage.  Her memories of her brother and best friend are caked in such emotion.

The novel is tender and hilarious, full of an intimate charm that brings you in as a welcomed part of the lives of the mother and son. There aren’t easy answers or ready forgiveness, but there’s growth and an understanding of the scar tissue each carry.  It’s such a well-done novel full of heart while not holding back any punches. (and the sections are split up with gorgeous photography)

THE ELEVENTH HOUR – Salman Rushdie

“If old age was thought of as an evening, ending in midnight oblivion, they were well within the eleventh hour.”

That quote from the first story in Salman Rushdie’s new collection, The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories (Random House 2025), pretty much sums up the work as a whole; in these five stories, falling somewhere between short and novella length, Rushdie tackles growing old and death, particularly as it relates to those who tell stories.  The collection ends with “The Old Man in the Piazza,” closing with “our words fail us.”

Rushdie is a masterful storyteller whose words never fail. I don’t think it surprises anyone that I positively love the way he tells a story. The writing is always witty and sharp, distinctively Rushie; I just adore his chatty, narrative voice.  My favorite of the five is likely “Late,” which is a ghost story about an author whose secrets must be revealed before he can cross into the afterlife.   The longest of the collection is “The Musician of Kahani,” which highlights perfectly how Rushdie plays with words and the satirical wit he’s known for.  (The musician’s father abandons the family to make soup for the “Man in the Moon” – a fanatical cult leader. The musician calls him home with her playing. Upon realizing the magical powers of her sitar playing, she sets out on revenge.  Rushdie uses “best eaten cold” instead of “best served cold,” which admittedly threw me off; however, while “served” is more common, “eaten” came first, and I am going to overthink his use for days. ha)

It’s a great collection. My favorite Rushdie is The Moor’s Last Sigh, but this is the first Rushdie I’ve read in at least a decade, and it did not disappoint.

THE TRAVELERS – Regina Porter

“So, I followed her cue and became Guildenstern. I didn’t need to look at the lines to play the part. None of us did, except maybe Mom, who never learned the words ‘cause someone in the family had to be a spectator in the madness.”

It’s fitting that I picked up Regina Porter’s The Travelers (Hogarth 2019) when I did because Tom Stoppard just passed away on 11/29. What does Stoppard have to do with the novel? Everything. And nothing.  Stoppard’s play Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead features prominently in this fragmented novel of intersecting lives of two families, becoming almost a breathing entity for the reader as much as for Eddie (and his wife and children). Stoppard’s play, if you’re not familiar, tells the story of Hamlet from the POV of two minor characters who are awaiting their deaths.  The Travelers breathes main character energy into what most would consider minor characters, and I loved every minute of it.

James Samuel Vincent is an affluent big city attorney who can’t keep it in his pants. His relationship with his son, Rufus, becomes even more complicated when Rufus marries an African American woman, Claudia Christie. Claudie Christie’s mother, Agnes, married Eddie after a devastating racially charged encounter in Georgia. Eddie fought in Vietnam and has his own skeletons.  Other characters include Eloise, Agnes’s first love, Agnes’s firstborn, Adele, James Samuel Vincent’s second wife, and cousins and secret sons and neighbors. The lives of these two families, including extended family members, weave in and out of each other as we travel from the mid-fifties to the first year of Obama’s first term.

Porter is a playwright, and that’s apparent in this novel. The hints of that format are what make the final product so well done. I can understand why some people would say it’s too much – too many characters, too many plots, etc – but I found it genius and one of the best books I’ve read this year.

DAYS COME & GO – Hemley Boum

I took a “traveling” break for Booker season, but we’re back to “Tommi Reads the World” – we’re still in the C’s!!!

Country: Cameroon
Title: Days Come & Go
Author: Hemley Boum
Language: French
Translator: Nchanji Njamnsi
Publisher: Agence littéraire Astier-Pécher (2020), Two Lines Press (2022)


I was a bit bummed when my copy of Hemley Boum’s Days Come & Go arrived because while it was advertised as used, it was not advertised as an advanced reader’s copy. I can’t say if the book I read is how the translation was ultimately published, so I will not be sharing any quotes.

I initially thought this book would be about mothers and daughters – namely Anna and Abi. It opens with Anna dying of cancer and her daughter caring for her.  In hospice, Anna has decided to tell her story. She talks to the nurses, to her daughter, to the walls. The majority of the novel is that – Anna’s recollections of a history so tied to Cameroon that the country itself is a character even though Anna is breathing her last in Paris.  I was a bit surprised when the novel switched to Tina’s POV.  After Abi had left home for France, Anna ended up taking in Jenny, the daughter of her housekeeper. Jenny was the same age as Abi’s son, Max, and when he visited his grandmother, he became part of a group of friends that consisted of Jenny, Tina, and Ismael.  While Max is back home in France, Jenny, Tina and Ishmael join a militant terrorist faction. Under that regime, they end up at the Boko Haram camps, and none of their lives would ever be the same.  Tina tells their story.

All three women struggle with identity and belonging in a country that is rapidly changing. Anna struggles early on with wanting to be Anna instead of Bouissi. She straddles two worlds her entire life. Her daughter, Abi leaves Cameroon the moment she can, marrying a white man and making a home in France.  (Cameroon obtained its independence from France in 1960). And Tina ends up the third wife of one of the most powerful and dangerous leaders at a Boko Haram camp. 

I don’t want to ruin the novel, but trust me that it does all come together. While the storytelling becomes disjointed with Tina and the framework seems a bit forced toward the end, this was a captivating novel of a nation in turmoil and three generations of women who call it home.

MIGRATIONS – Charlotte McConaghy

“Sometimes I dream of them waiting in that tree for a girl who would never come, bringing gift after precious gift to lie unloved in the grass.”

Migrations (Flatiron Books 2020) was Charlotte McConaghy’s US debut, and it’s been on my shelf for years.  I read Once There Were Wolves and Wild Dark Shore before Migrations, and I was a bit surprised to see echoes of both in the debut work.  It’s not just the ecological thriller formula; the lighthouse and the wolves in Migration evolved into the subsequent works. Migrations is my least favorite of the three, but I’m not sure if it’s because she’s improving on that formula or you just remember the first time you see it and that novel holds a special place for you.

While not my favorite, that formula is a proven one, and I enjoy how she’s used it in three very different novels that are somehow still the same. Hard women with complicated relationships with mothers and/or motherhood and at least one dark secret. Harsh and wild climates. Environmental destruction and species loss. Violence on women perpetrated by men. Isolation. And they all end with a hint of hope.  These are extremely palatable and quick reads – perfect for book clubs.

Migrations sees Franny Stone tagging three Artic terns with trackers and convincing a rough and ready boat captain and his crew to take her aboard their fishing boat – they’ll follow the terns on what may very well be their final migration and the fishermen will be rewarded because the terns will lead them to the fish.  It’s a desperate journey for all aboard. As the boat follows the birds, Franny’s tortured personal history unfolds – a personal history that has driven her frantic efforts to find and follow the terns.

Much like the other two novels I’ve read, I enjoyed Migrations.  And yes, the thought of her crows waiting for her to come back had me beside myself.

TO THE MOON AND BACK – Eliana Ramage

“I wanted, more than anything, to be gone.”

When I read the synopsis of Eliana Ramage’s debut, To the Moon and Back (Avid Reader Press 2025), I was immediately sold.  A young woman, exploring her sexuality and identity, embarks on a three-decade long quest to become the first Native American female astronaut. (As a note – the first Indigenous woman to travel to space was Nicole Aunapu Mann in 2022.)  The novel centers primarily on Steph Harper from 1987 to 2017 (with an epilogue that jumps to 2027), but it does deviate into other women in her life.  The deviations into Della and eventually Kayla are ultimately why I think this novel is not as successful as it could be – it’s a bit of a chaotic jumbled mess.  If the focus had been on Steph, without POV switching, it would have been better structured and significantly stronger.  This may be my top disappointment of 2025.

When Steph is a child, her mother flees an abusive husband and settles in Cherokee Nation, hoping to reclaim a part of her identity. Whereas Steph’s younger sister, Kayla, readily adapts, Steph maintains an arm’s length approach to this part of her identity; the disconnect will trail behind her for decades.  Steph’s singular goal is to become an astronaut, and everything and everyone else comes second to that goal.

While in college, as far from Oklahoma as she could get, Steph meets Della. Della is a bit of a celebrity due to a legal battle as a child involving the Indian Welfare Act.  She is raised by her Mormon adoptive parents with one day a year spent with her father in Oklahoma.  She also sought to get as far away as she could so that she could more openly embrace an indigenous culture she’d been denied as a child.

Both Steph and Della struggle with their sexual identity and ultimately end up in a relationship that is marked by secrets.  Ramage gives Della a lot of page space in the novel before abruptly removing her – sending her on a journey we don’t see and only get a few sentences about toward the end.  It was jarring that a novel seemingly set up to be about two women, both with struggles surrounding parents and identity, suddenly becomes entirely about Steph’s singular journey and the overlap with her sister’s activism.

The novel is great in concept but fails in execution because it’s doing too much and not enough all at the same time.

BIG KISS, BYE-BYE – Claire-Louise Bennett

“And the days, I write the days in green, and the things I need, the things I need – I write those in green too.”

As I prepare for next year’s Booker season, let me go ahead and say that Claire-Louise Bennett’s Big Kiss, Bye-Bye (Riverhead 2025) stands alone at this point in time on my “want to see this listed” list.  I’ve never read Bennett before, but it reminded me of the things I like about Patricia Lockwood – a modern madness of storytelling that also seems kissed with Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

The ”story” is one of memories – of past loves and past moments.  Sometimes the novel is in first person, but sometimes our unnamed narrator, an author, switches to third, viewing a situation from a protective distance. It jumps and hiccups and skips and cries, looping back and over itself, moments repeated (though memory may have changed by the subsequent retelling).

It’s framed with a relationship with an older man, Xavier, but it’s laced with the relationship with a different older man when she’s much younger.  A minor. An English professor.   A man who shows back up to be remembered in the life of someone with a bit of fame and renown now. The hold these men still have over her – the ways they’ve marked her life – carries the pages forward.  (The serial killer is a flash in the pan, a memory of panic.)

As for me, I don’t think this is a “break up” novel.  Perhaps I’m a bit morose today, but I think it’s a dying woman counting her days by remembering her past and needing more time, more green, while waiting for that last kiss goodbye.