“Irrevocably dispersed throughout the land he abandoned, the land where he belonged.” Until page 150, I thought Jemimah Wei’s The Original Daughter (Doubleday 2025) was easily going to be a 4-star read. I enjoyed the storytelling style and, more importantly for me, I enjoyed the story. At page 150, there is a marked shift inContinue reading “THE ORIGINAL DAUGHTER – Jemimah Wei”
Tag Archives: Aardvark Book Club
THE PRETENDER – Jo Harkin
“Lambert isn’t sure if he’d remember to answer to the name Lambert, but he does, every time. What kind of soul does he have, that can tip itself out of a John Collan cup into a Lambert Simons cup, without spilling a drop.” In 1487, Lambert Simnel, a boy raised in obscurity and believed toContinue reading “THE PRETENDER – Jo Harkin”
ANY TROPE BUT YOU – Victoria Lavine
I wanted a cute, candy read. A Hallmark movie in book form. Set in the remote wilderness of Alaska with a romance author from California and the hunky lumberjack son of the proprietor of the resort she’s staying at? That sounds like a delicious candy book. And Victoria Lavine’s Any Trope But You (Atria 2025)Continue reading “ANY TROPE BUT YOU – Victoria Lavine”
THE RESURRECTIONIST – A. Rae Dunlap
“… he was my North Star whenever the darkness of doubt threatened to envelop me. When I could not tell my dreams from wakefulness, he remained my touchstone and my Truth; a glimmer in his eye and a quirk of his lips were are that it took to make me feel manifest, whole, and worthy.”Continue reading “THE RESURRECTIONIST – A. Rae Dunlap”
WANDERING STARS – Tommy Orange
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. I could have done it if you hadn’t come. We’ve just been the feather. We used to be the whole bird. We used to believe and we were the whole bird.” Next up on my Booker journey is Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars (Knopf 2024). Wandering Stars is a bookendContinue reading “WANDERING STARS – Tommy Orange”
THE LONG GAME – Elena Armas
Small North Carolina town. Girls little league soccer team. Goats. Cute cover. Slow burn of an “enemies to lovers” between two out of towners tasked with saving the soccer team. I thought The Long Game by Elena Armas (Atria 2023) would be the perfect candy book. If you’ve been here any amount of time, youContinue reading “THE LONG GAME – Elena Armas”
STARTER VILLAIN – John Scalzi
Sometimes you buy a book strictly because of its cover. This is one of those times. Admittedly the cover should have an orange and white kitty on it, and this annoys me, but how fun is this? I’ve never read John Scalzi before, but his brand of quirky SF is exactly the kind of candyContinue reading “STARTER VILLAIN – John Scalzi”
CALIFORNIA GOLDEN – Melanie Benjamin
“Now you’re nothing but tinsel. Flimsy tinsel, here one day, in the garbage can the next.” Set primarily under the Californian sun and spanning 1955-1980, Melanie Benjamin’s historical California Golden (Delacorte Press 2023) is an easy read full of sunshine, salt water and grit. While I wish it had gone a bit deeper, it wasContinue reading “CALIFORNIA GOLDEN – Melanie Benjamin”
HOW TO TURN INTO A BIRD – María José Ferrada
“One side of love, an undervalued one, has to do with letting the other person walk their own path.” María José Ferrada’s How to Turn into a Bird (translated by Elizabeth Bryer, Tin House 2022) echoes with the same tender ache of growing up as Le Petit Prince and Peter Pan, and it has justContinue reading “HOW TO TURN INTO A BIRD – María José Ferrada”
THE MEMORY OF ANIMALS – Claire Fuller
“This is grief, Neffy… It is awful and terrible, and it will never truly leave, but you will learn to live with it, and you have to let me help you.” I didn’t anticipate having a pandemic book framed by a woman’s teetering-into-inappropriate relationship with an octopus as one of my top reads of theContinue reading “THE MEMORY OF ANIMALS – Claire Fuller”
A Girl Named Tommi 