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[84] The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Fiction / Contemporary Women, loved Daisy Jones and the Six and a lot of people recommended this book of hers!

Synopsis: At age seventy-nine, renowned and retired actress Evelyn Hugo decides to tell her entire life story holding nothing back, including what really happened in all seven of her marriages, and who her true love was. She selects unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant to write it, but will not tell her why.

Review: I enjoyed reading this so much. Jenkins Reid is a brilliant writer and I’ll read anything she writes (I feel the same way with Liz Moore, but they have very different tones!). We get Hugo’s life story from the time she leaves New York to go to California at the age of fifteen in the 1950s, to current day. We also get Grant’s story in 2017 as well – she’s recently separated from her husband and eager to do something meaningful with her writing career, so the chance to write Hugo’s biography seems like a dream come true. Grant finds herself connecting with Hugo and learning a lot from how passionate, driven, and ruthless she was. If you read the front flap of the book you get a hint there is a reason Hugo requested Grant, and that Grant is NOT going to be happy when she finds out what it is, and I was just DYING to know what the reason was, and continually guessing as I read the book! This was one I did not want to put down!

Recommend? Yes!

[85] We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry
Fiction / Coming Of Age, Sarah’s Bookshelves Live Episode 67 “Libraries and COVID-19 (and YA Books) with Kelly Jensen”

Synopsis: The 1989 Danvers women’s field hockey seniors make a pact with dark forces so they’ll have a successful final season.

Review: I was lead to this book under false pretenses (of my own accord?). For some reason, I thought this story was a mix of the 1989 setting, and a mix of current day, but it’s mostly 1989. Which is fine (I enjoy reading about the 80s) but, meh, I wasn’t that in to it. It’s a character driven novel, with each chapter telling the whole story while also highlighting a specific player. The writing is great, but dense, with lots of smart people words I had to look up. It’s told by a knowledgeable collective we narrator who has some foresight in the to future, but since that future (of them as adults) took forever to be shared, and felt rushed when it was, it felt like a lot of reading for nothing, to me. Like I kept waiting for something interesting to happen and… yup, nothing. Mostly boring.

Recommend? No

[86] The Bright Side of Going Dark by Kelly Harms
Fiction / Family Life, saw in Bookbub email / liked her book The Overdue Life of Amy Byler

Trigger warnings: suicide attempt, death of a sibling, death of a pet

Synopsis: Mia Bell is a top influencer on the social media platform Pictey, but things aren’t what they seem – her fiancé just told her he won’t be coming to their Pictey-live wedding, two days before the nuptials. Mia decides it’s time for a social media break. Paige Miller works for Pictey and does her job and goes home, not paying much attention to accounts like Mia’s, until her sister makes a cry for help on one of Mia’s posts. Paige takes leave to attend to her sister and begins to intertwine with Mia’s social media more and more.

Review: What a fun quick read! The chapters alternate between Mia and Paige. At first I liked Paige’s character better – as she seemed more real and grounded, but as the story went on, it switched to Mia – for the same reasons! The commentary on screen addiction is timely and it was fun seeing both sides of the social media world – the big influencer, and the person who works at the social media company (Pictey). I loved seeing the journey and change in the main characters, and them realizing they had support from family and friends.

Recommend? Yes!