Long Bright River by Liz Moore

This is a 450 (ish) pages long book that is a mix of a thriller and a family drama. But hang in there – it is worth every page.

Meet Mickey and Kacey, sisters living very different lives. The only thing they have in common is a toxic childhood, growing up with their cold and distant grandmother after the premature death of their young mother and their abandonment by their father  who was thrown out by the grandmother. 

Now in their 20s, Mickey is a police officer patrolling the streets of Kensington, Philadelphia, looking out for Kacey, who has taken up their mother’s drug habit, and is living on the street, picking up men to finance the addiction. 

The book shifts between now and then, and tells the inside story of the sisters’ life. Once close, things change dramatically in high school, and they both carry a very heavy burden. In the “Now-side” of the story a serial killer is targeting young women living on the street, and Mickey is desperate to find Kacey. 

It sounds like a tragic and sad story, and it is full of broken people, but it is also full of hope, of how to deal with your destiny, of what addiction does to a family and to a city, and how broken hearts can help propel you forward in life.

Long Bright River is well-written and Mickey’s feelings of being torn between being a cop, which is her success in life, and also being a caring sister to Kacey is at the heart of the story, and it will keep you turning the pages in suspense.

Happy reading!

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF Long Bright River by Liz Moore

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

Only after I had finished this book did I discover that it was inspired by a true story. In 2010 a plane crashed in Libya and the sole survivor was a 9 year old Dutch boy, who lost his parents and older brother. Napolitano couldn’t stop wondering what happened to the boy, so she decided to write ‘Dear Edward’. 

In this fictionalized version of the events, Edward is a 12 year old boy boarding a plane from NY to LA with his parents and older brother, Jordan. The plane crashes in Colorado and Edward, the sole survivor, moves in with his aunt and uncle – who are already struggling with their own pain of childlessness. 

The book is split in two stories. One story takes us on the doomed plane where we get to meet some of the passengers. What are they running from? Who are they running towards? Are they in love? It is all about relationships and how we connect with each other, and especially how we connect with each other while being ‘trapped’ on a plane. 

The second part of the story follows Edward as he lives with his aunt and uncle. Luckily Shay, a 12 year old girl living next door, is open to a friendship with Edward and they are able to heal each other in the time that follows the crash. 

Edward is experiencing the kind of fame you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy, and it adds an extra perspective when he comes across a bag with letters from the relatives of the other passengers. The letters wish for Edward to carry the dreams of those passengers. The reader cannot help but ask at what point does the burden of it all become too heavy for a 12 year old…

‘Dear Edward’ is a very emotional book that shows the ripple effects of our actions. How we connect and how we leave impressions upon each other. Healing is hard, but it also contains love and hope, and the book leaves you wishing Edward all the best in the world. 

Pick it up if you liked…Where the Crawdads Sing.

Happy reading!

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Ms. Brodesser-Akner is a well-known writer for NYTimes, GQ, NYMagazine, but this is her first novel. And what a début!

Meet Toby, a 40 something newly divorced doctor; short (emphasized in the book), a good dad and living in New York. His ex-wife Rachel, a highly successful actor-agent is constantly reaching for the perfect life for herself and her family. Toby and Rachel have two ‘tweens’, who find themselves are thrown in at the deep end of the divorce, but both kids love their parents very much. 

Then – with a hint of ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘Where’d you go Bernadette’ – Rachel disappears. She doesn’t return calls, she doesn’t go to work – she simply disappears. Toby has no idea what’s going on. He flips between being mad at her for not showing up, picking up the kids etc AND messing up his new dating life on multiple media platforms and believing that Rachel has died and worrying how her disappearance will effect their kids and their childhood.

It’s not a crime like Gone Girl, but much more in the league of novels by Maria Semple and Nicole Krauss, with a mix of tragic and comic. It is a very readable début about marriage at midlife, and how difficult it can be to live a modern life – even on New York’s Upper East Side with private schools and wealthy social circles. The seemingly perfect life is not always a happy life.

The book has three main narrators. It is mostly Toby’s story but we also hear from Libby, an old friend of Toby’s, who also struggles with modern life and marriage. The novel also reaches back into Toby and Libby’s college years. 

While Rachel’s disappearance is more of a ‘character’ than Rachel herself, she does get her say at the end of the book, showing once again that there are, of course, always, two sides to every story. Rachel’s story actually nailed the book for me. Her reflections on the complexities of her life and their family life, and of how we as human beings have a need to feel a sense of belonging are very on point, and will bring Brodesser-Akner across the Atlantic as a writer. 

Pick it up if you liked…’Where’d you go Bernadette’ by Maria Semple.

Happy reading!

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

I promise you that this is not like anything else you will read in 2020, and this book might also go straight into your Top 10 reads of 2020. 

This book is raw, real, disturbing, controversial and a powerhouse of its own. It is a debut from Kate Elizabeth Russell, and she will probably be asked a billion times if it is her own story.

There are two timelines in the books. We first meet Vanessa aged 15 and in love with her English high school teacher, and then we meet her again at age 32, struggling to get her life together. 

Vanessa starts a sexual relationship with her English teacher, Jacob Strand, 45, at her boarding school when she is 15. But is it love or is it abuse? Vanessa is clearly vulnerable and at the same time starts to get an understanding of the power that the relationship gives her. There is no sugarcoating this relationship, but the writing is just so good, that you will find yourself turning pages. 

Somehow, while Vanessa changes school, the rumor is already ahead of her, and she is defined as the girl who might have had a sexual relationship with a teacher. You can feel the teenage hormones and girltalk in the pages. 

The second timeline is when a former student from the boarding high school comes forward, and accuses Jacob Strand for sexual abuse. A true #metoo campaign is gathering, and Vanessa is contacted by a journalist covering the case. However, Vanessa is still in touch with Jacob, but no longer in an intimate relationship with him (and she asks herself, as does the reader, is that because she is too old now for him? At the age of 32?)

This is a debut, and a mind-blowing one. The story feels personal and I found myself wanting to shake Vanessa up, I felt angry at her mother, and imagined what it would feel like if this were to happen to my own daughter. I got engaged in the book.

What is also interesting, is that there is no real victimization of Vanessa. She is there, and it is heavy material, but it is her life. 

The book has already been sold to a Swedish publisher, and it will probably be a bestseller worldwide and a book that everyone will have a strong opinion about. Read it! Also if you follow Kate Elizabeth Russel on Instagram, you will find her funny and talented. 

Reviewed by Lotte Bastholm

Happy reading!

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell