Everyday I Write the Book - It'll help you figure out what to read.

A GORGEOUS EXCITEMENT by Cynthia Weiner

Hi! I’m back! Thanks for your patience as I spent the last few months opening Wonderland Books. It has been an exhilarating, intense, rewarding and exhausting stretch, but I am finally getting my footing. Ironically, I haven’t had much time for reading, but I have read a few books over the last two months or so, and I am going to try to get back to reviewing them here. I’ll start with A Gorgeous Excitement by Cynthia Weiner, a coming-of-age novel that takes place over the summer of 1986 in New York City. Nina Jacobs has just graduated high school

A GORGEOUS EXCITEMENT by Cynthia Weiner

LIKE MOTHER LIKE MOTHER by Susan Rieger

I am having a hard time focusing on books these days – ironic – as the bookstore opening is just a few days away. I keep picking up books and putting them down. One that I did manage to finish last month was Like Mother Like Mother by Susan Rieger. It’s about three generations of women/mothers – Zelda, an abused wife living in Detroit; Lila, her very successful daughter who is an editor at a

SHOW DON’T TELL by Curtis Sittenfeld

A new book from Curtis Sittenfeld is always a cause for celebration for me, and her upcoming collection of stories (due out February 25th) didn’t disappoint. Show Don’t Tell‘s protagonists are mostly middle aged women at moments of introspection about their relationships, their careers and their futures. I love Sittenfeld’s characters because they are so relatable – I feel sometimes like she is in my head taking notes on my own thoughts. Her writing goes

BE READY WHEN THE LUCK HAPPENS by Ina Garten

I’m not much of a foodie, and other than owning a few Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, I didn’t know much about Ina Garten before reading her new memoir, Be Ready When The Luck Happens. But it was our book club’s latest pick, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Garten is a really interesting woman who overcame a difficult childhood to become an extremely successful cookbook author and TV personality. Be Ready

HERE ONE MOMENT by Liane Moriarty

I haven’t read anything by Liane Moriarty in a long time, but I was in the mood for something that would grab me, so I picked up her latest novel, Here One Moment. It opens on a plane ride from Hobart to Sydney. The short flight has been delayed, and shortly after takeoff, an older woman starts walking up and down the aisle telling strangers when they will die, and how. These unsolicited announcements understandably

A FORTY YEAR KISS by Nickolas Butler

A Forty Year Kiss is a second chance love story about Charlie and Vivian, a couple in their sixties who were married for only four years in their twenties. After many years of being single, Charlie has returned to the small town in Wisconsin where he and Vivian once lived, in order to win her back. Vivian has had trials of her own since their brief marriage, and she is reluctant to trust the man

LITTLE MONSTERS by Adrienne Brodeur

Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur is a dysfunctional family drama about the Gardners, father Adam and kids Ken and Abby (their mother died in childbirth with Abby). They live in Cape Cod, where Adam is set to retire from a distinguished career as an oceanographer and is going off his meds for bipolar disorder. Ken is a successful real estate developer harboring anger and resentment toward his sister, an artist living a bohemian life and

SANDWICH by Catherine Newman

Sandwich by Catherine Newman perfectly captures the place in life where I am RIGHT NOW. It’s about Rocky, a middle-aged mom of two grown kids, who is on her annual weeklong beach vacation at a rental house in Cape Cod. Her older son is there with his girlfriend, her parents arrive for their usual two-night stay, and they do all the things they always do when they go to the beach. That’s all that happens.

THE WEDDING PEOPLE by Alison Espach

The Wedding People by Alison Espach is about Phoebe, a woman who has hit rock bottom and leaves her life in St. Louis behind to go to her dream hotel in Newport RI to kill herself. When she gets there, she discovers that she is the only hotel guest there who is not part of an extravagant weeklong wedding planned by bridezilla Lila. When Lila figures out why Phoebe is there, she inserts herself into

MIDDLETIDE by Sarah Crouch

Middletide by Sarah Crouch was a BOTM pick earlier this year, and it’s not my usual fare but I was looking for something that would draw me in. It’s a mystery that takes place in a small town in Washington, among a fictional indigenous tribe. Elijah has returned home to his family’s empty, isolated home on a lake after giving up on his dream of becoming a writer. He tries to rekindle his relationship with

WE ARE TOO MANY by Hannah Pittard

We Are Too Many by Hannah Pittard is a memoir about the breakup of the author’s marriage after her husband has an affair with her best friend. Pittard jumps back and forth in time, examining her relationship with both of the betraying parties and trying to understand her own role in what went wrong. The format is interesting – some chapters are short vignettes, some are more traditional retellings of episodes throughout the marriage, and

THE WORLD AFTER ALICE by Lauren Aliza Green

I’ve gotten behind on posts again – damn this pesky bookstore! – but I am determined to catch up. The obvious solution is to write shorter posts. This doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’m gonna try. The World After Alice by Lauren Aliza Green is a character-driven drama about two families tied together by Alice – who jumped from a bridge her senior year of high school. Twelve years have passed, and her best

CHARM CITY ROCKS by Matthew Norman

I can’t remember where I learned about Charm City Rocks by Matthew Norman, but I liked the plot and have read two other Norman novels (Domestic Violets and All Together Now), so I added it to my library list. It was the right book at the right time a few weeks ago, and I got my hands on the audio as well, so off I went. Charm City Rocks takes place in Baltimore (duh). It’s

MARGO’S GOT MONEY TROUBLES by Rufi Thorpe

It has been a long time since I was here to post reviews. Opening the bookstore has really taken over my life! I am not reading nearly as much as I used to, and most of my waking hours are now spent doing store-related things. I am not complaining – I have zero regrets and am enjoying every stage of the process. It has just changed my life a lot. Here’s a bookstore update. Demo

THE CARETAKER by Ron Rash

Years ago, I read Ron Rash’s novel The Risen, about the complicated relationship between two brothers and a young woman who comes to their small Appalachian town, driving a wedge between them that survives into adulthood. I was taken by the quietness of Rash’s writing, and the deceptive simplicity of his story. I’ve always wanted to pick up another Rash book, so this spring I bought The Caretaker, his newest novel, on one of my