Author: rar986

TSM Book Club Book #21: Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev

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Started: May 22nd
Finished: May 31st
TSM Rating: 4.5/5

It is only by pure coincidence that the last two books I picked up to the end of May featured protagonists struggling with mental health issues with varying degrees of severity. Both deal with heavy topics of suicide, depression, loss, drug abuse, and parental abandonment.

First up is Recipe for Persuasion, whose lead, Ashna Raje, spends her whole life doing what she can to make her father happy much to her own detriment. She also spends most of her life angry with her mother for abandoning her time after time.

On the brink of losing her restaurant, typically reserved Ashna, through some coaxing by her best friend and cousin, ends up a chef competing on a celebrity cooking show in order to win the money to save it. The show’s premise is to pair a professional chef with a celebrity, and much to her surprise, Ashna is paired with her high school sweetheart turned professional soccer player Rico Silva. For his part, Rico has his own struggles as he never really got over Ashna and the abrupt ending to their relationship. When we meet him, he has reached the point where he has to confront his past in order to move forward.

On top of all this, Ashna’s whirly-gig of a mother, Shobi has chosen this moment in Ashna’s life to come back and try to fix things with her. Ashna has spent her life building walls to protect herself from her mother bouncing in and out of her life. To protect herself from her parents’ fighting. Even when her father commits suicide, she builds walls around herself to keep herself protected from disappointment and disappointing.

Throughout the book, we see her struggle to maintain control over her life and struggle as she tries to be a stronger version of herself. She needs to be that version of herself as she confronts the past with Shobi and Rico.

Recipe… epitomizes the phrase, “Sometimes you have to go back to move forward.”

I loved it for how it examined mother-daughter relationships and even what it means to be a mother. Shobi’s struggle to find work-life balance and to reconcile her own feelings about being a mother and wife and what she was forced to give up to reclaim her independence.

This was the problem with motherhood, the part Shobhan didn’t understand — why did it have to be an all-or-nothing game? Weren’t mothers human?

Recipe for Persuasion, pg. 269-270

I also loved the depth of love Ashna and Rico have for each other, even after twelve years apart. Love, real love, can stand the test of time and distance. The word Dev uses over and over to describe how Ashna and Rico feel about each other is essential. I loved how perfectly and succinctly it sums up what they are to each other.

Sometimes when people leave you, you get so caught up in trying to convince yourself that you can cut them out of your life that you think you’ve actually figured it out. You keep moving. You ignore the feeling of being chased, even as you can’t stop running and running to get away. But then you realize that you haven’t moved on at all. Those who are essential to you have always been an absence. Even when you refused to acknowledge it, their void was always there.

Rico, Recipe for Persuasion, page 344

This was such a good read. Even with some of the darker themes, there was a lot of hope and love infused into the story. It should be noted that this is the second book in a series. I didn’t realize it until I started this one, but the stories are stand-alone. I’ve already added Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (the books are Sonali Dev’s reimagining of Jane Austen classics).

TSM Book Club Book #20: The Ones We Fight For by Katie Golightly

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Started: May 6th
Finished: May 21st
TSM Rating 4/5

This was my first time reading a book on Kindle. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s convenient to have a book at the tip of my fingers and the highlighting on demands clutch. On the other hand, it’s more time on my phone, and the page numbering is a little weird.

That being said, I really enjoyed this book. It was a slow-burn, friends-to-lovers story about two imperfect people — Walker Hartrick and Talia Cohen — doing their best to survive after their worlds are flipped upside down. Walker has just lost his brother and sister-in-law in a drunk driving accident. This leaves him as the guardian of his five nieces and nephews.

For Talia, she is dealing with the one-two punch of finding out that she is infertile and her engagement ending. On top of that, her estranged father was responsible for Walker’s loss.

The beauty of this story is how believable and relatable both their journeys are. In some ways, Walker is the poster child of toxic masculinity’s belief that seeking help is a sign of weakness and the only way he can be any good to his family is to be “strong.” Even as his body is physically breaking down with panic attacks, he continues pushing to be there for his family.

In her own way, Talia is white-knuckling life as well. She comes to town to take over her father’s grocery store and throws herself into work. She also leans into being good to everyone else, including Walker and his family. Leaning into it helped her rediscover her self-worth and slowly heal from all that was ailing her.

When Talia and Walker come together, magic happens. They learn from each other. Give each other support and lift each other up. They help each other through, and both come out stronger on the other side.

I like that Golightly takes her time with the story and doesn’t rush through their progression, notably Walker’s. There are a lot of conclusions that he has to come to on his own. He wasn’t going to take specific steps until he was ready.

This book is filled with lots of little nuggets of wisdom. My favorite is this one:

Her mother always said “time is the wisest counselor of all.”

The Ones We Fight For, Chapter 23, page 198 (Kindle)

It’s a nice story, but be warned, it covers many heavy topics, including death, alcoholism, and infertility, all of which can be triggering for some.

TSM Book Club Book #19: The Verifiers by Jane Pek

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Started: May 2nd
Finished: May 13th
TSM Rating: 3/5

The Verifiers was an interesting read. It’s a niche organization that specializes in tracking online dating matches. It follows the story of Claudia Lin, who works for a mysterious agency of private investigators on steroids.

The story begins with a client, Iris Lettriste, who comes to the agency to discover the truth about a man she has matched with. As Claudia and her colleagues, Komla and Becks, look into this mystery man, Irs shows up dead. Thus begins Claudia’s spiral into a world of mystery and intrigue like the detective novels that she loves so much.

At the core of this story is human connection and relations. How do we see ourselves? How do we see each other? Which version of ourselves is true: the version we show the world or the version we keep to ourselves? In all of that, how does this affect our ability to find true love?

Claudia’s interest n working for Veracity is purely for the investigation aspect of the job. She has no interest in finding a relationship for herself, nor does she really foster her relationships with her friends and family. That’s not to say that she doesn’t love them and appreciate their place in her life, but, as is brought up by both her brother and her sister, she takes a lot for granted. Granted, she does some of that because she doesn’t seek the attention given to her, i.e., her mother constantly tries to set her up with a nice Chinese boy (Claudia is a lesbian), and her brother tries to find her a perfect corporate job.

As she goes down the rabbit hole to discover what really happened to Iris Lettriste, Claudia finds that everyone is hiding something, even from the people who are supposed to know us best. Her investigation also raises the question of how far we are willing to go to protect the people that we love and who claim to love us back.

It’s a fun, if not at times frustrating, mystery as Claudia always seems to be behind the proverbial eight ball, even when it seems like she’s figured everything out. My favorite part of the book was the subplot of Claudia looking into her sister, Coraline’s boyfriend, and the discoveries she makes about trust, truth, and how far some are willing to go in their own selfish pursuits of success.

TSM Book Club Book #18: Well Played by Jen DeLuca

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Started: April 26th
Finished: May 1st
TSM Rating: 3/5

So this was the second book in the Well Met series. I wanted to like it, but I didn’t love our heroine, Stacey. She is the stereotype of a ‘basic white girl,’ and I’m not here for it. Much of the book felt like it was trying hard to give her more depth while playing up her love of pumpkin spice lattes and her obsession with social media.

While her email exchange with Daniel is so sweet and creates a better slow burn than Well Met did, but it all falls apart because of the compounding lies. By the big grand gesture moment, I was checked out. Daniel isn’t a great leading man. He’s a liar, insecure and has no backbone. There are two instance where he is given the opportunity to stand up and fight for her and he doesn’t take them. He shuts down. Is that really what we want to see from the person we love and who is supposed to love us?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for girls executing the grand gesture instead of being on the receiving end of it, but in this case, it wasn’t deserved or earned.

Read this one because we get a healthy dose of Emily and Simon mixed it, but Stacey and Daniel are not the couple for me.🙅🏽‍♀️

Tiiiiiiiiiimmmmeee ISN’T On My Side, No It Isn’t

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What is free time? I have no idea anymore. At any point during the day when I’m not working, cooking, or cleaning, my time is occupied by the boys. I don’t know why I thought about this the other day, but I don’t think I ever really appreciated all the free time I had when I was single.

I’ve always been a homebody, no question, but there were times when I would get the itch to grab my camera and explore the world around me. When I lived in New York, I’d hop on the train and get off at a random stop and walk around. Take in the sights, smells, and sounds.

When I moved back Boston, I’d hop on my bike and ride down all the streets I grew up just passing by and really saw the city where I lived.

When I was single, I read all the time too. I finished the first book in the Game of Thrones series in ONE DAY. Now it takes me five days to complete books that are a third of the length. I miss being able to move about the world on my own without having to make sure the diaper bag is stocked and negotiating behavior before going into a store. I miss being able to spend all day reading if I want to.

I haven’t explored the world with my camera in a long time, but I do take pictures of my boys almost every day. I get to see our little bubble world through their eyes, and it’s just as cool. Some days, a little bit cooler than people-watching in Central Park.

As for reading — and writing these blog posts — I do them in what I call the “in-between times.” In between arriving at an OT appointment and leaving or swim lessons. While I watch them in the bathtub, while I’m waiting for a pan to warm up. Those are the little moments I take for myself. It’s not a lot, but time isn’t on my side.

Not a lot of time for myself. Not a lot of time to run errands. Not a lot of time to kiss their chubby little feet before they become massive sweaty feet.

I think we could all use a little bit more time.

TSM Book Club Book #17: When In Rome by Sarah Adams

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Started: April 20th
Finished: April 25th
TSM Rating: 4/5

This was so cute. From Amelia and Noah’s meet-cute to their many attempts to keep their hands off each other to Amelia’s ongoing struggle to make the perfect pancake, I enjoyed When In Rome so much.

Sometimes romance novels can be a bit cringey with how the main characters behave. The sunshine character always comes off like an airhead who needs to be rescued. While Amelia did need rescuing initially, it was out of her control. When it comes to her relationship with Noah, she makes mature, adult decisions at every turn, making her one of the most relatable heroines that I’ve come across in a long while.

For his part as the grump, Noah fits the trope. Though, I would say he is more cautious and guarded than grumpy. He’s been burned by love before. He chose poorly in the past and is overcompensating by taking himself out of the game, even though he really, really wants to play.

I loved the dynamic between Noah and his sisters — Annie, Madison, and Emily. He is basically a lamb to the slaughter any time the four of them are together. They rule the Walker family, but you get the vibe that he would do anything for them. Practice Makes Perfect, the next book in the series, comes out next week, and I can’t wait to read Annie’s story and spend more time with the Walker clan.

TSM Book Club Book #16: The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

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Started: April 14th
Finished: April 19th
TSM Rating: 3/5

The Unhoneymooners follows Ethan and Olive as they travel to Maui on his brother and her twin sister’s honeymoon after the entire wedding party is infected with an awful case of food poisoning from seafood Olive and Ethan opted out of.

This was fun and frustrating all at once. Olive and Ethan are such a fun couple. Their banter is fun and sexy. It makes you wonder why they aren’t together in the first place, then you realize that through manipulation they’ve been kept apart.

While their banter is fun, their relationship frustrated the hell out of me. When push comes to shove, he doesn’t support her. He basically calls her a liar, while also making her complicit in his brother’s lies to her sister.

I’m all for flawed characters, but Ethan is so obtuse that he’s unwilling to trust Olive’s instincts about his brother and what she knows to be true about her sister. He isn’t even open to the possibility. Instead he calls her a liar and accuses her of being jealous.

*****SPOILER ALERT****

Then all of a sudden he fixes it with a public apology in front of her family that she doesn’t really had a choice but to accept. I felt uncomfortable reading her put on the spot like that. I’m not a fan of the public grand gesture.🤷🏽‍♀️

Overall, I liked the book. It wasn’t Love and Other Words, but it was a fun read. Christina Lauren wrote an audio original as a follow-up called The Honeymoon Crashers on August 1st, which I’ll listen to just because I want Ami — who was also a bit of an ass to Olive, although that is typical sibling behavior — to have her happy ending after her awful, short-lived marriage with Dane.😖

TSM Book Club Book #15: What You Wish For by Katherine Center

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Started: April 5th
Finished: April 14th
TSM Rating: 5/5

A couple years back while perusing the fiction section of my favorite used book store, I came across three Katherine Center novels. I’d never heard of her, but the book covers were beautiful and the the blurbs on the back were interesting so I picked them up. They sat in my TBR pile until last September when I devoured all three of them in about a week and a half.

What You Wish For falls into the same category. The beautiful cover matches the beautiful story. Center has this way of building these characters with major tragic trauma and leading them down this path to joy. She understands that coming out on the other side is a constant journey and a choice. She conveys life in all its three dimensional complexities.

What You… tells Sam and Duncan’s story of finding their way back to joy and love after very different traumatic experiences. They both respond by trying to exercise as much control over themselves and the world around them as they could. Even Sam, who had learned to look for and live in joy as much as she can, still holds herself from the one thing she truly wants — Duncan.

For his part, Duncan lived through one of the most traumatic experiences in the America. He locks away all the joy and fun that is so innate to his being that he becomes a completely different person.

Their journey to joy is filled with bumps, but Center guides them through with the help of a few friends and meddling family members. If you didn’t know, What You Wish For is connected to Happiness for Beginners. Duncan is the younger brother of Helen for Happiness.

Read them both, then read all of Katherine Center’s other books because no writer leaves me feeling a little more hopeful at the end of her books than her.

Clean and Clean, then Clean Some More

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I used to like cleaning. My bedroom was always neat and tidy as a kid. I folded and put my clothes away immediately. I dusted my dresser, my CDs, and my stereo. I ran the vacuum cleaner. I liked my space in order.

On Sundays, I would do my chores, dust the living room, and take turns with my older brother to clean the bathroom we shared. Even as I went through college, and moved into my own apartment, I reserved Sundays for major cleaning.

Now cleaning is the bane of my existence. It’s become an every day necessity that never brings the same satisfaction that it used to. Before I could clean a room, walk out of it and come back an hour later and every thing would be exactly as I left it. Now, though, I know that as soon as I turn my back the beautiful little creatures that I carried and squeezed out of my body will have dumped over a bucket of recently collected toys to create a new mess.

Sometimes, they truly suck.

I love my kids, but my house hasn’t been spotless in five years. I know it’s a little cold-hearted to blame a newborn for making a mess. They can’t control whether or not they pee as soon as the diaper comes down. Both my boys were “happy spitters” so that meant a lot of spit up covers burp clothes, bibs, onesies, and shirts.

As they get older, the toys — and their corresponding parts — get smaller and the mess gets bigger.

There are days when I’m so over picking things up, I don’t. Some days, I’ll walk by the playroom or our living room and I avert my eyes and keep it moving. Because sometimes I get to the point where if I pick up the same dinosaur or Paw Patrol pup again, I will throw it away. And if I start throwing things away, they won’t have any toys left.

Instead, I let the mess go until I can’t anymore (i.e. when people are coming over in the case of this weekend). Then I scrub, reorganize and do my best to keep the place tidy until the company arrives. After that, I give up on any pretense that my house is always neat and orderly. I sigh and mentally prepare myself for the major clean up that will happen after everyone leaves.

I write this on the cusp of having fifty people in my house for a birthday party on Saturday. Thankfully, my mother will be hosting Easter this year. Who said small miracles don’t exist?

TSM Book Club Book #14: Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler

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Started: March 21st
Finished: April 5th
TSM Rating: -/5

So this took a while.😅

I full intended to finish this book before the end of March, but it took a while for me to really get into…like over one hundred pages. After finishing it, I’m left with mixed feelings. On one hand, it was well written. On the other it was repetitive.

I was left feeling that, though they ran in very cerebral circles, rubbing elbows with some of the greatest writers and artists of the 20th century, their life lack a lot of substance, although they both seemed to be striving for meaning and value.

This is a fictionalized version of the Fitzgerald marriage as seen through Zelda Fitzgerald’s eyes. Through her view, you see a woman who longs for independence, a little self-worth, and also to be seen as someone of worth by her husband and the world. Through her view, F. Scott Fitzgerald is an emotional, abusive, narcissistic, possibly homosexual, alcoholic who spends beyond his means and can’t get out of his own way.

In reading the acknowledgements at the end, Fowler said that in researching for the book biographers for both were either Team Zelda or Team Scott in the matter of who ruined whom. While reading, I did stop to peruse both their Wiki pages (I know, not always the most reliable source), but it was clear that whomever wrote Scott’s page was Team Scott.

Again, this book is a work of fiction but if I had to choose, I would say neither and both. I think they may both have needed up the way they did anyway. Early in the book, Zelda’s father observes Scott’s excessive drinking and tries to warn his daughter. A warning she doesn’t heed and it comes back to hahbtbher as Scott’s drinking is a point of contention in their marriage. Drinking was always going to be a hindrance for him whether he was married to Zelda or someone else.

As for Zelda, clearly their is a history of mental illness in her family, as he brother also had severe issues with his mental capacity. She continually runs up against the brick wall that is her husband. Who’s to say that a different husband wouldn’t have done the same?

On the flip side, Scott used Zelda as his muse for many of his stories. He took her letters, her life, their life together and turned it into fiction to win himself literary acclaim. For Zelda, she traveled the world and was able to explore her creativity. She learned from literal masters of their craft she likely never would’ve been exposed to had it not been for her marriage to Scott.

I don’t know if it’s our place to take sides in their marriage. Clearly all that mattered to the two of them is that they loved each other enough once not to completely abandon each other, no matter how many slights and hurtful words they said to each other. It seems they hung onto each other because of the deep love they had for each other once. It’s not our place to judge.

Because of that, I don’t have a rating for this book. If you’re interested in a fictional take on the adult life and times of Zelda Fitzgerald, give it a read.