Episode 314 || March Reading Recap

This week Annie recaps and reviews her March reads.

The books mentioned in this week’s episode can be purchased from The Bookshelf:

March Reads:

Other books mentioned:

From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com. 

A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.

Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations. 

This week, Annie is reading 145th Street by Walter Dean Myers.

If you liked what you heard on today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on iTunes. Or, if you’re so inclined, support us on Patreon, where you can hear our staff’s weekly New Release Tuesday conversations, read full book reviews in our monthly Shelf Life newsletter, follow along as Hunter and I conquer a classic, and receive free media mail shipping on all your online book orders. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.

We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.

Episode Transcript

Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.

“It’s much easier to break a thing that has already been broken once. Mending rarely makes it stronger.”

- Stacey Swann, Olympus, Texas

I’m Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and today, I’m recapping the books I read in March.

 

 I read a lot of books. I did not realize how many books I read this month. In part, you will discover that I read a lot of books in [00:01:00] preparation for our spring literary lunch. So if you missed that event, this is a seasonal event we host at the Bookshelf. We used to host it in person, now we host it virtually. I'm hoping this fall, we can do both, but this is a virtual event where I discuss my favorite upcoming titles of the necessary season or the appropriate season.

So this past, I guess two weeks ago, we had a conversation about my favorite spring titles. So a lot of the reading I did in March was in preparation for that event. If you missed it, you can actually still buy tickets and all it means is that you're watching a pre-recorded video rather than life, but it's still, I hope valuable information. And if you are just dying to know what books our staff is looking forward to in the next couple of months, basically it covers March to may. Uh, I would encourage you to snag tickets on the website so that you can get access to that video.

Otherwise I'll be talking about some of the titles that I read in [00:02:00] preparation for that event on today's episode. So I really feel like I should just go ahead and dive in because I read 12 books this month, which means we've got a lot of territory to cover.

So without further ado, the first book that I read, and honestly I finished this one late February, but it was too late to feature on last month's reading recap. So I technically finished it in February, but we're going to count it for March

Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny. I love this book. I love Katherine Heiny. You know what I really, her name may be Katherine Heiney. I am not a hundred percent sure, which is a shame because I have been reading her books a long time.

I first read her short story collections, Single, Carefree and Mellow which I loved. If you're a short story fan, I highly recommend that collection. Then I read her book called Standard Deviation, which is still a backlist title. I recommend particularly if you're one of those readers who liked Where'd You Go Bernadette or something like that. Like if you need some quirky, dysfunctional [00:03:00] family Lit, uh, Amy Popel readers, I think would really like Katherine Heiny.

This one is her latest. It is called Early Morning Riser and it releases on, I wrote this all down for you this time, I thought I would become better prepared, is she, uh, is releasing this book on April 13th. So you've got a little while, but I highly recommend pre-ordering it because I think this is the feel good novel everyone reads. Everyone, everyone needs right now. I highly recommend this if you enjoyed Amy Popel's Musical Chairs, which I recommended last summer.

 In this book, Katherine Heiny's protagonist, Jane is looking for love and she winds up falling for Duncan. She and Duncan embark on this relationship, but he is hesitant to remarry. He has a first wife whose name is Aggie and her husband, Gary, and they play an immense role in Duncan's life. And so Jane soon realizes that not only is she in a relationship with [00:04:00] Duncan, she's in a relationship with all the people he knows and loves.

This has a great small town setting where Jane, again, realizes that she is in relationship and in almost a familial relationship with more people than she ever intended to be. I appreciated this book because, so although it is not short chapters, which you, I think the pandemic has made me appreciate even more. This is divided up into sections and each section is a different year.

 I adored this format where every few years I would get a glimpse at these people. And we kind of followed Jane through her relationship with Duncan, then their breakup, then her relationship with someone else. And we follow that kind of every, I don't know, five or six years or so.

I loved that part of the book. I fell in love with every single character, even the ones that you're really probably not supposed to love. Gary in particular is hard and yet delightful.

[00:05:00] I other than Amy Popel is the only one I can think of. But other than Amy Popel, there are not very many authors right now where I feel like they're consistently putting out books that I just enjoy. Like, I read them with a smile on my face and where I really liked the people because. I am someone who can read books about unlikable characters. Like I don't need my characters to be likable. And yet when I do like them, I really fall hard for them. And that is how I felt about every last character in Early Morning Riser.

 I read this book just with a giant grin on my face. I finished it on a Sunday afternoon outside, like ideal reading setup and I just can't recommend it enough. It releases on April 30th and that gives you both time to pre-order or to get on the list at your local library. And to check out Katherine's other works so highly recommend Early Morning Riser. Five star book from me, uh, April 13th.

`Next I read Crying in H Mart [00:06:00] by Michelle Zauner. If you've been listening to the podcast for a few months, you may have heard me mention this book because it is one that I picked up probably oh, I don't know four or five months ago. And I read about half of it and loved it and just put it down. And then I picked it back up because I'm not even sure why I put it down, except it is a book about grief and grieving and a mother daughter relationship.

And during the last year it has been, I've had to be in the right frame of mind to read a book about grief. So I read half of this one then picked it back up and I've got to tell you it is so good. My favorite books about grief are A Grief Observed by CS Lewis and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. Those are my two favorite grief books.

This is going to go on that list. Crying in H Mart is Michelle's memoir about the death of her mother. She actually wrote a piece for the New Yorker by the same name, crying in H Mart. I'm going to [00:07:00] see if Michelle can put it in the show notes for you, because if you like that New Yorker piece, which I suspect that you will, then you will immediately want to buy Michelle's book of the same name.

So Crying in H Mart is Michelle's story of losing her mother to cancer and so it is a deeply tragic and sad, and I felt a lot of things that is Michelle reflecting on her relationship with her mother as a teen and things she wished she had done differently. It is also about Michelle's honors reckoning with her heritage.

So the book is a lot about Michelle Zauner's Korean upbringing and how she was born in South Korea, but then her family immigrated to America and kind of what it was like to grow up the daughter of immigrant children and to be an immigrant herself. So if you have liked books, like Frankly in Love that are dealing with what it's like to be almost um, maybe like a second generation American or a first generation, because [00:08:00] Michelle's Zwas born in South Korea, but they immigrated when she was younger. And so it's kind of generational differences dealing with the immigrant experience and how her parents handled it versus how she handled it.

Her father is white and her mother is Korean and so there is a lot about that in the book as well. So lots about identity and if you can't tell by the title, it is a lot about food. And so there's a lot happening in this book that I love. So it's not just a book about grief. It's not just a book about Michelle's relationship with her mother. It's also about coming to terms with her own identity and coming to terms with being an adult and her relationship to Korean cuisine.

 I love those parts of the book. I thought the food writing was outstanding. Like my mouth is watering just thinking about it, just thinking about the descriptions. I love food books. I am not much of a cook, but I really do love food writing. And this book really has that. So there's a lot to love about Crying in H Mart. So glad I read it. I highly [00:09:00] recommend it. It's four and a half or five star book. I really liked it. It releases on April 20th.

Next, I read Love Like That. This is a short story collection by Emma Duffy-Comparone. I know I mentioned the Katherine Heiny collection, Single, Carefree and Mellow. It has been a long time since I read a short story collection that I really enjoyed. Now, I like short stories, but it is rare that like I pick up a collection and just read it. I will often read it one story at a time, but it has been just a long time since I've picked one up. I just don't think that's where my head was at in the last 12 months. So it's been at least a year since I had read a really compelling, short story collection.

And then I picked this one up intending to maybe read a couple of short stories so that I could talk about it at the literary lunch and instead I just kind of snuggled onto my couch and finished the whole thing. I loved it. You could certainly read these stories one at a time, but I wound up just kind of devouring it. [00:10:00] Each protagonist in each of the stories is a woman and is dealing with various aspects of what it's like to be a woman.

And so that means there are some sexual encounters. There are some violent moments. There are some really poignant moments. I think my favorite story in the collection, it's hard to say because there are a lot of good ones, but the title story Love Like That is about a brother sister relationship that I found really moving and touching. So again, what I love about a short story collection is you don't have to love all the stories. Although I really did love all the stories, but if you are like, Oh, this one's a little intense because there were a couple of stories where I'm like, Oh, this is intense, but then I would read another one and be just deeply moved.

So there's a lot to explore here about womanhood. If you liked the book that I have referenced a lot called 40 Rooms, this book I think is doing similar work and I just really. I don't know. I can't recommend it [00:11:00] enough. I really liked it, especially if you are a short story reader, but perhaps more importantly, if you are maybe not always a short story reader, but you like literary fiction, maybe you like the work.

I think the blurb on the front is actually pretty accurate. It is by Jennifer Close. And if you like Jennifer Close's short story work, then I think you would really like Emma Duffy-Comparone's. So this book is called Love Like That. It is out now, and the cover is great.

So this would be a great one to pick up if you were trying to introduce a new genre into your diet, or if you are doing a reading challenge this year, and one of the challenges is to read a short story collection. I really liked this one and I highly recommend it. And it's out now.

Next up, I read, It’s Kind of a Cheesy Love Story by Lauren Morrill . This is a wonderful, funny, laugh out loud, young adult novel. Lauren Morrill is a Georgia author and so we were lucky enough to get to host her for a virtual author [00:12:00] event. Many of you, pre-ordered this book through us and we are so grateful this book released earlier this month and I, I just loved it so much.

So the premise is simple. Young Beck is about to have her 16th birthday and she was born 16 years ago in the bathroom of a Hot and Crusty pizza. So that is the name of the pizza joint, the hot and crusty pizza place. And she was born in the bathroom there. And so of course her birth kind of, sort of went old-school viral and she has become kind of famous in her small town for being born in this pizza place.

The owner of the pizza place loves her. They celebrate her birthday there every year. And because she was born there, they have offered her a job when she turned 16. So on her 16th birthday, her parents convinced her that taking a job at the hot and crusty pizza place is the right decision. And what I really liked about this book is even though it is called, It’s Kind of a [00:13:00] Cheesy Love Story, and there is a love story here. A really cute one.

This book is also just about Beck, figuring out who she is, and it's about first jobs. And I get very nostalgic about the jobs that I have held and the jobs that I held as a teenager and as a young adult and this took me kind of right back to what it was like to have my first job, to discover friends and relationships outside maybe school or in my case church.

So I just really, I really loved those aspects of the book. The love story is fun. And if you are, um, a Jess Marianna fan from Gilmore girls, then I think you'll especially appreciate this love interest. But it's about figuring out who you are and being confident in your decisions and I think the teenagers in this book are portrayed so realistically, admittedly, I am well beyond my teenage years, but I just felt like they were [00:14:00] all nuance and complicated and interesting. They were not one note. There was not one of the lovely things about this book was there was not kind of a straight up villain.

Everybody had a little bit of nuance to them, and I love that in books. And so, and I find it rare sometimes in young adult or children's literature. So I really liked this one and it would be fun to read as an adult person. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I also highly recommend it for teens. So it is called, It’s Kind of a Cheesy Love Story by Lauren Morrill.

 And then as a bonus, I think, let's see, you'll be listening to this later, but if you have been following along with our new event series Well Read and Sandwich Bread, which is basically just me and my dad doing a cooking show about sandwiches. If you have any interest in that at all, the second sandwich that we make is the hot and crusty pizza sandwich. And so you can access that by going to our events portion of the website and purchasing a ticket and you can watch my dad and I make a pizza sandwich and talk [00:15:00] about our first jobs and it was very fun. So thank you Lauren, for inspiring our latest, uh, sandwich making.

Then I read, actually listened to You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey. This is a book by comedian, Amber Ruffin and her sister, Lacey Lamar. I love Amber Ruffin on the Seth Meyers show late the late show with Seth meyers. I really like her a lot. I think she's really funny. And now my understanding is she has her own show, I think on peacock, I have not watched it yet, but I sometimes watch clips online and I just think her sense of humor is so biting and funny.

This is her new book she did with her sister. I had heard an excerpt somewhere and picked it up at the Bookshelf and kind of flipped through it and was like, yes, I'm interested in this. But I'd like to try it as an audio book. I was, I was interestingly, I was doing Bookshelf deliveries. Caroline was gone for the weekend and so I was responsible for our deliveries and I wanted a book to listen to, but I didn't want a book that was going to be like a nine hour [00:16:00] or nine hours or longer. I really needed a book that was going to be three or five because deliveries don't take that long, but I wanted to be a completionist and finish this relatively quickly.

So You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey is a pretty short volume. I highly recommend the audio book because I love Amber's voice and she and her sister both narrate it. However, there are pictures and graphs and things that they like verbally tell you about when you're listening to the audio book. But I think you would really, probably love to see those things in the physical book itself. So I think you could go either way on this one, but I really did enjoy my audio book experience. I obviously got it through Libro FM.

Here's what it's about. Lacey. So Amber is a comedian living in New York. Lacey is a, an HR rep person and she still lives in their hometown in Nebraska and all of these stories. I mean, it's horrifying and hilarious. All of these stories [00:17:00] are what has, what Lacey has experienced as a black woman living in Nebraska. She keeps journals. She takes notes of all of her experiences, and now she's compiled them in this book with her sister.

Again, the narration is great because it's two sisters basically talking back and forth. As a white woman living in the South, this was an incredibly eye-opening book to me. Uh, my mom and I a couple of weeks ago.Talk a little bit about the Austin Channing Brown book Im Still Here. I think this would make an interesting companion piece to that in particular, because you're kind of seeing perhaps for the first time, I hope not for the first time, but maybe for the first time by reading these books, it's kind of opening your eyes as a reader, to what people who mightlook or believe differently from you, what they might be experiencing and the America that they might be experiencing.

 So Lacey's experiences at work are drastically different from what my experiences were in corporate America and I [00:18:00] appreciate them being told with humor. It doesn't detract from the fact that the stories are at their root racist and horrible. Like these are horrible stories, but again, It also opened my eyes to maybe my own biases and my own microaggressions that maybe I've been practicing. Like it just, when you hear them from a black woman's perspective and you're realizing, Oh no, have I asked that question before? Or have I said something similar to that before?

So I think it's a real gut check at the same time while being told by two very funny women. So I highly recommend the audio book, but I think the physical book would be fun too, because again, you've got some pictures and graphs and things like that. I highly recommend checking out Amber Ruffin when she appears, she's a writer, I believe for Seth Myers but she appears frequently on the show and you can just Google around for those. I really think she's very funny and I would not be surprised if we get another book out of her, but I think this was a really interesting [00:19:00] route to go to kind of co-write it with her sister and to share her sister's experiences and even to offer her own experiences.

Amber has her own stories to share, but acknowledging that her sister who lives in a predominantly white space or who at least works in a predominantly white space has very different experiences from Ambers own. So I really liked this one. I highly recommend the audio book, which you can of course get from Libro FM.

Next up this month, Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swann. I love this book so much. I really appreciated this book a lot. It comes out on May 4th, so you've got some time, but I think we might be hearing a lot about this. It wouldn't shock me if it was picked for like a, you know, a good morning america pick or a Jenna Bush Hager pick. I don't. I have no. I don't. I have no weigh in on that. Like, nobody asks my opinion on that, but it wouldn't shock me if you see this book, a lot of places.

 It is about [00:20:00] the Briscoe family. They are a sprawling, Texas family with lots of different people, lots of different personalities. What I think sets this book apart is the fact that Stacy Swan, the author not only has told the story about this dysfunctional family living in Texas, but she has also employed and incorporated Greek myths in with her storytelling.

 Now, look, I do not know a lot about Greek myths. Okay. Like that is not something I was ever interested in, not even as a kid. I didn't do a lot of reading of Greek myths really, except my freshman year of college. So that is not something I totally picked up on. And yet, even with my very basic elementary knowledge of Greek myths, I did pick up on those elements. I suspect if you are into Greek myths and if you really liked Greek myth as a kid, then you will, your reading experience will only be enhanced by that. Like I give this five stars with a very primitive [00:21:00] understanding of Greek mythology. If you love Greek myth, I think it will just, again, enhance your reading even further.

 At the heart of the book are this matriarch and patriarch and then their sons and daughters who, I mean, we're talking, it's hard to even explain without feeling overwhelmed and in fact, I think I was a little hesitant to start this one because my publisher rep had said like, there's so much drama and intrigue. Like one of the brothers sleeps with another brother's wife and chaos ensues, and then somebody moves back home and there's an there's this. Oh, gosh guys, there is this turning point in the middle of the book that is mindblowing and just so well handled. I can't get over it.

But my point being when my sales rep was selling it to me, I was a little bit like, Oh, this sounds like a lot. Like, it sounds like a lot is happening here. And I was worried I was going to get overwhelmed or like, I wasn't going to be able to follow it. The writing in this debut novel is so [00:22:00] good. It's so good. And the way she tells this family story is so powerful. So interesting. It's a, I'm using air quotes. You can't see me, but I'm using air quotes. It's a sweeping novel. Like it is set in Texas. You feel like you're there. You feel like you're right alongside this family kind of watching this story unfold.

And yet it's a sweeping novel without being 600 pages, which I just think is a real gift and a rarity. Oh gosh, the cover is gorgeous. This book, it comes in at like 300 pages. It's tight. Like the storytelling is so tight and so good. I cannot recommend this enough. I loved it. It's hard to tell you what my favorite book this month was because I really did read a lot of good books, but this would certainly be up there.

So it is called Olympus, Texas. And this was just if you love darker dysfunctional storytelling. So like if Early Morning Riser was light fun, dysfunctional family in the, in the tone [00:23:00] and reminiscent of Amy Popel, then Olympus, Texas is dark dysfunctional family storytelling. It Is so good. I highly, highly, I recommend it.

 Still dysfunctional family lit, but kind of back in the lighter realm is the book, Good Company by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney. I really liked the book, The Nest. That was like a big deal when I very, I want to say when I very first became a book seller, so it released a few years ago. Maybe you remember it because it had this gorgeous cover. Amy Poehler blurbed it. So like it was everywhere there for awhile. I really liked the Nest. I thought it was a great book. I didn't love it, but I really liked it. Like maybe three and a half or four stars.

 I, when I say like, I love a book, like love, love, love it so much. It's between four and five for me, if I liked the book it's between three and a half and four still really enjoyable, just not like my top 10 books of the year.

Okay, so Good Company [00:24:00] I was interested to see because the Nest came out, it feels like a while ago and so I was interested to see where, uh, Cynthia Sweeney went next. I love this book and I think it is better. I honestly think it's better than The Nest.

 So Flora Manzini is a mom living in California. She and her husband are former theater kids. They met in New York and there is a lot of love for theater in this book so maybe that's part of the reason I was so drawn to it. But when they were very first married, her husband and his business partner started this kind of theater troupe out in upstate New York.

I was very, okay. This book reminded me a lot of Strangers and Cousins, which was a book I loved a few years ago. I sent it out as a shelf subscription. So they started this theater troupe that was in upstate New York and the descriptions of this theater company and the things they accomplished. They're just utterly [00:25:00] delightful. But one summer while they were there, her husband lost his wedding ring and we fast forward. There's a lot of back and forth in this book, but not in a way that is ever distracting in my opinion, but the, but our main character Flora is doing some cleaning. Her daughter is preparing for her graduation from high school.

And Flora finds this wedding ring that her husband was supposed to have lost in the bottom of the Lake decades ago and so of course she must now figure out what happened. Why did her husband's lie about losing his ring? We can, of course, guess as the reader, why he might've done that. But instead of maybe getting bogged down in that mystery, although, because again, I think as a reader, you might be able to Intuit where that particular storyline is going, really, this is a look at married life through the years and how people meet and [00:26:00] fall in love and then how they stay in love and how they can stay in relationship.

 It's about Parenthood and raising kids. In fact, if you like the show Parenthood, I think this would be a really good recommendation. If we're like pairing TV shows to books, I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this. If you like the early works of Liane Moriarty, because I think her last couple have been in my opinion, kind of hit or miss. I think they've just taken a different tone. And so you may really be into that, but my favorites of hers are the earlier works. Like What Alice Forgot. And this to me, Good Company certainly falls in that category.

I wound up, uh, much like Early Morning Riser, really falling in love with these characters. Even the ones that maybe were less than lovable or the ones who had made mistakes. There's a lot of redemption in this book. I actually want, as I've already passed this one, along to my cousin, I think my mom would like it. So if you're a Susie reader, I think good company would be for you as well. I [00:27:00] just really liked it. It's out on April 6th. I liked the Nest. I loved Good Company. I don't know what critics will say. It'll be interesting to see what their preference is, but for me as a reader and maybe just for where my head is at right now, I found the characters in Good Company to be a lot more likable maybe than the characters at the heart of the nest and I was rooting for them and cheering them on.

 Gosh, I keep thinking of things that this book reminded me of. So Strangers and Cousins, Parenthood, Liane Moriarty, and in the book or the movie, I'm sorry, Crazy, Stupid love. Like. The marriage, Steve Carrell's marriage to Julianne Moore. That marriage to me is reminiscent of some of the marriages we get to look at in this book. There is also let me be clear. There's a marriage at the heart of this novel. There's also a really lovely kind of lifelong friendship that is also at the heart of the book. And that plays a really big role in why I loved Good Company, because it's really about this friend group and [00:28:00] how they met and then who they became.

One of them obviously is flora. And then one of them is her best friend who is almost like a Grey's anatomy, like Meredith Gray type character. Like as in she plays a character like Meredith gray, because all these people are into theater and acting and they live in Hollywood. And so that is at all of interest to you, which it very much is to me. I think you would really like this book I could go on and on, but I, I just really thoroughly enjoyed it. I, I don't, there's not much more to add other than I really liked it.

Okay. Then I wanted to try something light and quick. And so I picked up the book,The Summer Job, which comes out on May 18th. I know some of you are listening to this and you're like, all of these books come out later. I tried to include some that are out now. You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey is out. Now the short story collection Love Like That is out now, but admittedly, a lot of these, I was reading for spring lit lunch. And so the release dates are later and I apologize for that, but it gives you some things to pre-order or some things to put on your radar.

So The Summer [00:29:00] Job is one of those kinds of paperback, original romcoms. It is British and so it very much falls into like the flat share category. This was a sound three to three and a half stars for me. I liked it. Think it would be a great beach book, really loved the setting, which was at this like exclusive, Scottish resort. I know like you'll want to go to the Scottish resort. I think you'll really like this book, if you love or are interested in wine.

I, as most of you know, am not interested in it. However this book made it interesting. And I, my Jordan and I have watched documentaries about sommeliers and, Oh, there's a really great movie we watched last summer called Uncorked. So, so it's not like I'm a total novice going into that, but. This book is about a young woman named Birdie, whose best friend is a sommelier but who has gotten this kind of dream job opportunity, but she winds up not wanting to take it. And she kind of [00:30:00] backs out. And she's not sure uh, she, she wants to take it anymore. So she tells Birdie to call the place and, and turn down the job on her behalf.

Her friend Helen wants to go kind of live her own summer adventure. And so she tells Birdie, will you call them for me? I'm kind of chicken. Like, I don't want to do it. So Birdie is supposed to call and kind of give her friends condolences to this resort. And instead through like a series of very comedic, very kind of Netflix comedy series of events, Birdie, winds up taking the job and pretending to be a sommelier. Chaos obviously ensues. BIrdie is not capable at first of being a sommelier and at first I think Bernie might have been my hardest, she might be the hardest sell.

 The setting in this book is great. The minor characters in this book are lovely and you can very much picture them in your mind. Like you will become attached to these side characters. Birdie was harder for me. [00:31:00] Uh, she was a protagonist who I struggled with a little bit. I kind of struggled for her motivations. They become clearer as the book goes on. And there is a love story here, but much like It's Kind of a Cheesy Love Story, which I'm sorry. I literally just paused because I was thought, wait, It's Kind of a Cheesy Love Story is a young adult novel about love, but it's really about a job. That's really what it's about. And the Summer Job is a grown-up romcom that is really about a job. So these would actually pair really well together.

 So the Summer Job, because birdie is maybe a harder to love protagonist. I think it took me a minute, but I think this would make great beach side reading. In fact, that's wh`at I did with mine. Like I threw my copy in my beach bag and headed to St. George Island and, and devoured it. It's a little slapstick and it's humor because again, This young woman is not at all qualified to be a sommelier, but she spends her entire summer pretending to be one. So it's almost [00:32:00] like an, I love Lucy episode. I just feel like birdie is this character who gets in over her head pretty easily.

By the end, though, you do understand her motivations a bit more. You understand her relationship with her friend, Helen, a little bit more. So I think this would be a fun one to try, especially if you just are looking for maybe good spring break reading or summer reading later this year. So it releases on May 18th. It's a paperback original. It's called The Summer Job by Lizzy Dent.

Then I picked up the book, With Teeth. This is by Kristen Arnett who many of you might recognize from her book, it had a very striking cover called Mostly Dead Things. This is a book that I meant to read and then never did. Released, I think I want to say last year, maybe two years ago at the most. And so when I got an arc of her latest book I decided to give it a try.

So this book comes out on June 1st. It's called With Teeth. It is about a woman named Sammy. She and her wife have a son named [00:33:00] Samson. If you liked The Push, here's like another version and I don't mean that they're totally similar or that these authors are doing the same thing. I'm just saying for companion pieces, I think I've found your companion piece. So if you liked the Push and you enjoyed feeling unsettled, and if you enjoyed a complicated mother-child relationship, we'll here you go. I found another one that I think you will like, just as much.

So With Teeth is certainly a work of literary fiction. Sammy and Sammy is an unreliable narrator. You can't quite figure out is Sammy the problem or is Samson her son the problem. It's probably both. It's probably both. I also loved that this had a florida setting that actually felt like somebody who has been to or lived in Florida and I Googled, and Kristen Arnett has lived in Florida. She's actually an FSU grad. So shoutout so the Seminoles, and I definitely [00:34:00] could feel this while reading this book because often I will read a book set in Florida and I will be like, this person has never been to Florida.

And this book is set mostly in Orlando so in central Florida, and it is a very realistic portrayal of that area. And again, if you were compelled by the Push, I think you will also be compelled by this story. Sammy and her son have a very complicated relationship. Her wife is more of the work outside the home parent and is kind of in Sammy's opinion, more lax on the rules and she kind of keeps telling Sammy to just lighten up, like Samson is going to turn out fine. We need to take it easy on him. Not everything is such a big deal.

And Sammy is the parent who stays home with Samson the most. She is at home the most, and she thinks he needs to be disciplined more often. She's worried about his behavior. [00:35:00] And so the dynamic between the two women, I think is really interesting and the two different versions of parenting that they're trying to do, I think is fascinating.

Sammy's relationship with Samson will like rip your heart out. I want to be clear, in The Push, you're constantly wondering, like who's reliable here. Like, can we trust this narrator? In With Teeth, Sammy clearly has some things that she is dealing with and struggling with that are affecting how she relates to her son.

And so it's less of like this thriller suspense, which I think the Push kind of feels like, and it's more an inside look like taking a microscope or a magnifying glass to this mother, son relationship and investigating what happens here. The book gets its title from the fact that Samson is a biter and [00:36:00] he gets in trouble for biting one of his fellow classmates. Samson though, is not a young toddler when this happens, he's older.

And so there is just a lot of, there are multiple scenes where I gasped aloud. And one of the things I love about how Kristen Arnett wrote this book, the writing is outstanding and stellar. This is my first work by Kristen Arnett but now I think I will try most of what she writes because the writing was so good. What I really liked about this is this is by far Sammy's story. We are seeing her relationship with her son through her eyes, but every chapter or so we get a new perspective from a total outsider.

So there's like a scene at the swimming pool where Samson takes swimming lessons and we get a scene briefly, like just a couple of paragraphs or a page about another parent who's like sitting on the sidelines at the swim meet. We get the perspective of [00:37:00] Samson's therapist. We get the perspective of a person outside of grocery store like, and I thought that was so brilliant and creative and interesting. So there's a lot happening here, but I really, really liked it.

I don't know, I, I finished it and immediately sent it to Hunter because I was like, I've got to talk to somebody about this. So it'll be that kind of book where you finish it and you're going to be like, wait, what? Wait, what? So I really liked this one. It is called With Teeth and it's by Kristen Arnett. Out on June 1st, it also has a really striking cover. I won't lie to you. All of these covers really great, like really good covers.

Then I read The Turnout. This was one I purely picked up for my own enjoyment. It releases on July 6th. All of these books I have, let me be clear. I have enjoyed truly, this was a great reading month for me, but the Turnout I did not pick for literary lunch or shelf subscription. Like this was just because I'm interested. So I love Megan Abbott. That is one of the first authors Hunter, and I kind of bonded over and [00:38:00] I love books about dance.

This is interesting because I cannot under any circumstances and in any way, shape or form dance, I did not take dance lessons as a child. I have no rhythm whatsoever, not an ounce of it, not any bit of it and yet I love dance movies. I love dance books. Like I am fascinated by it. Fun fact about our staff. Olivia is like a legitimate ballet dancer, like a legitimate went to New York city, went to college for dance, ballet dancer. Erin, our new online sales associate, she, former dancer, went to college for dance. Like I did not and none of those things are true about me. However, loved dance books.

This book, the Turnout is a thriller suspense. That's what Megan Abbott does. One of my favorite books she did was Dare Me, which is like Cheerleading gone wrong. This is dance gone wrong, which, which I was very much interested in. That's why I picked it up. But upon [00:39:00] reading it, I discovered it was less about the dance class and more about the dance instructors.

So this is a book about the Durant's sisters. This is fiction about the Durant sisters. They own a dance studio alongside one of the sisters husbands. So the three of them have owned the studio since the death of the Durant's sisters parents. I, this book is bonkers. There is no, I have already told Olivia, not only do I need her to read it so that she can tell me if the dance stuff is accurate.

It is, I mean, this book is dark. This book is dark. This book gets so dark. And I totally agree. I was like, I need you to read this because it's not what I was expecting. I was expecting Dare Me by Megan Abbott was cheerleading gone wrong. I think she even did one on gymnastics. Maybe I'm not sure. So I kind of thought this was going to be in that same vein.

 Instead, this is about three, three adult people who probably all joking aside, probably have PTSD. They have survived trauma [00:40:00] and it is the aftereffects of trauma. That's really what I was reading about and how it affected their work and their romantic lives. And it is dark. And the setting is at this dance studio right before the Nutcracker, which Olivia was graciously telling me, which I kind of guessed, but like she confirmed it. That's like the most stressful time at a dance studio, like prepping for the Nutcracker.

So I really liked this book a lot, but it is just not at all what I was expecting. I was expecting almost a campy thriller. And instead what I got was what happens when you experience a traumatic event as a child, and how does it affect you as an adult person? And so if that is for you, then this book will be for you. If that is not for you, this book will not be for you.

 This book, I just have so many thoughts. I like, I don't want to spoil it. And so I'm going to save my thoughts, but if you decide to read it, come July, you know where to find me. [00:41:00] And you can message me or DM or email me and tell me, Annie. I read The Turnout and I have questions because so do I, I have questions. So this book releases on July six, if you are at all interested in dance books, I do think this would be interesting for you as well.

 Okay. Two more. We're going over on time, but I've got two more books and I'm going to try to wrap it up quickly.

The next book that I finished was The Second Season. This is by Emily Adrian. You may have heard me read from this book at the top of the March madness episode. This was an arc we got in the mail. It was perfect timing about Ruth Devin. This is fiction about a woman named Ruth Devin, who is a sports caster. She's a news sports news journalist, and she is trying desperately to get in the booth to call NBA games, to be like a play-by-play caller for an NBA game.

 Right now she's a sideline reporter and I wish this book was out now because it is the perfect book to accompany [00:42:00] March madness. Alas. It comes out in August or close to August. It comes out July 27th, which is very far away. I know that. I'm so sorry about it, but I really liked this book a lot and I'm so glad I got to read it now, which just terrible sounding for you. Um, but I thought it was perfect to be reading with basketball, playing in the background. It was like ideal.

 This book really is probably even more serious than I'm giving it credit for. It is about a woman sports journalist, but really about the price women have to pay when they choose to pursue uh, ambition and they choose like high powered, high profile jobs. So the role of a sideline reporter or an NBA reporter is not for the faint of heart. Uh, I, I think about the women we watch on the sidelines of [00:43:00] basketball games or football games and how often women are having to choose and we all know this, right? Like the idea that you can have, it all is not true. Like we've been talking about that for decades until we all want to roll our eyes about it.

But I really thought this book without making me roll my eyes address that in, if not a new way, at least an interesting way where Ruth is a mom and her daughter is about to graduate from high school. And Ruth is kind of examining, did I make the right decision? Like by choosing to be a sideline reporter and by rarely being home with my kid, was that okay? And did I make good decisions? And what decision would I, would I do that decision differently? All while the NBA finals are happening.

 And so each chapter or each section of the book is a game in the NBA finals. The sports writing is great. I don't know if Emily Adrian is just a sports fan or if she has a background in sports writing, but I thought the [00:44:00] action in this book was fantastic and just really interesting look at women in sports that is, I don't know that we're fully talking all the time about the misogyny that exists, uh, for women in sports. Both if you're an athlete. Uh, the NCAA women's basketball locker room, anyone, their weight lifting, guys that situation is bad. And so, you know that, but also sports writing sports, journalism, and what battles women face in those arenas. So really like that all while just being a really compulsively, readable, interesting book. So this is called The Second Season. It is by Emily, Adrian, and it is out on July 27th.

My last book of the month, at least at this recording is The Final Girl Support Group. This is by Grady Hendrix. You will recognize that name because Grady Hendrix is the author of The Southern Book Clubs Guide to Slaying Vampires, which is a mouthful, but it is a book that I think three or four of our staffers read and loved last year we [00:45:00] really did. And we teased because I think it was me, Olivia and Caroline, who all read it and loved it. And it was outside genre or at least, you know, there were parts of it that were outside genre for most of us. And yet we all devoured and loved it.

We have no idea if that is because of pandemic brain or because that was just a really good book, but it was in my top 10 of the year. I really liked it. So of course we were all anxious to see what Grady Hendricks was going to do next. Grady Hendricks is no stranger to horror. Horror stories and, and horror fiction. The Southern Book Clubs Guide to Slaying Vampires was not his debut novel. He has written other things that was just the first book that our staff really encountered.

So now we all were very anxious for this one. So it isThe Final Girl Support Group. I read it over the weekend. I really liked it. I did not love it as much as I loved Southern Book Clubs Guide, partly because I am a Riley Sager fan. And if you are too, then you know that he already wrote a book called Final Girls, which is about f, if you're not familiar, final girls are [00:46:00] like the last girl or woman standing in horror films and horror movies. Like there's always right.

Jamie Lee Curtis at the end of Halloween is a final girl. And because I'd already read that I was a little hesitant about this, but I do think it is a spin on that. Like, even if you have already read the Riley Saker book, I do think Grady Hendrix is doing something different. The book is worth reading because of Grady Hendricks. Author note alone, like his author note almost moved me to tears and just kind of why he enjoys horror movies and horror literature and kind of where that interest came from.

So his author note is really great. And I'm glad I don't know what it will look like in the final book, the final edition, but in this arc, it's at the front, which I feel like so often authors notes are stuck in the back when really, I would love to know those things before you know, before I even started the book. So I liked the, he had an origin at the front that kind of set the tone for why he's writing this book. Why now, he acknowledges that other people have already tackled the subject of final girls. He's certainly not the first, [00:47:00] but this book is about a true support group. Like they meet in therapy every week.

All of these women who have been final girls, and what's interesting is these final girls all survived, violent attacks or incidences in the eighties and nineties and now it's in the book, it's set in 2010. So these are like, in some cases, aging, final girls kind of looking back on their lives. I thought this was going to be where they like all sat in therapy and we got to see their therapy sessions every week. That's not what this is, because again, this is a Grady Hendricks book.

So, and so this is a horror book and instead during their very like the meeting that kind of launches the book they're sitting around in their C shape, not a circle, cause nobody's back can be faced to the door. They are sitting in their C shape and they're talking with one another and then one of the girls doesn't one of the women does not show up to therapy, to support group. And so true utter chaos ensues. And I do mean chaos.

[00:48:00] There are parts of this book that feels so frenetic to me, which admittedly is how a four movie can play out. And so that's why I'm really, I don't know that Southern book clubs guide did this as much, but this certainly was reminiscent of a Riley Sager book where it's definitely paying homage to horror movies and classic horror film tropes and the speed and the pace of this book is frenetic. Like a lot is happening. And I kept thinking this would make a great movie. As a book I'm having a hard time, like what's happening in the action, like which of the final girls is this? Like, it took me a minute to kind of figure out who's who. There's a pretty wide cast of characters.

So a large number of characters and trying to figure out who's who and what they had already survived and, and now what they're being asked to survive again, I do think it's really clever. I think it's smart. I certainly think it's worth your time or I wouldn't, I wouldn't be talking about it here. All of the books we've talked about today. Even the ones, maybe that for [00:49:00] me are like three and a half stars. I still recommend them. Like these are all books I stand by. I finished them all. If I didn't finish a book, you don't hear me talk about it.

So. I really liked this one and I think it would be fun to pick up over the summer. It is violent. It is gory. And therefore, I just want to warn you, if you, if those are triggers for you, then this is for sure, not for you. Like, I just need you to know, even I am not a super sensitive or cautious reader. But there were a couple of scenes and maybe it's because of some things happening in our world as of this recording, but there were a couple of scenes that were troubling to me in the moment because, because maybe they were also things happening on the news.

And so I was like, Oh, this is, I'm not sure I want to be reading this right now, but Grady Hendrixs does handle them well and I think, I think it is an enjoyable and he's doing a new thing. So as much as I'm comparing him to Riley Sager, this book is different from Riley [00:50:00] Sager's, Final Girls and I do think there is something new being set here. So I do think it would be worth your time. I really liked it. I've already passed it on to Olivia because I'm anxious to see what she thinks as well.

 So this is the final girl support group by Grady Hendrix. It is out on July 13th. And again, let me assure you, you will fly through this book. Like I read it in a couple of days. I could not for, for all of the, maybe qualms I had occasionally with it, I also could not put it down. Like I stayed up late and woke up early to finish it. So for what that's worth out on July 13th, and that is what I read in March.

This episode went longer because I read so many books, but I hope you had a wonderful reading month as well. We would love it on Instagram if you would comment with your own books that you read in March. We love compiling lists for our customers and readers. So if you had some books that you loved in March, we'd love to hear about them. You can go to our Instagram at BookshelfTville and leave us the books that you read March as well

From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.

A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at www.fromthefrontporchpodcast.com.

Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.

This week, I’m reading 145th Street by Walter Dean Myers.

If you liked what you heard on today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on iTunes. Or, if you’re so inclined, support us on Patreon, where you can hear our staff’s weekly New Release Tuesday conversations, read full book reviews in our monthly Shelf Life newsletter, follow along as Hunter and I conquer a classic, and receive free media mail shipping on all your online book orders. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.

We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.

episodes, reading recapAnnie Jones

a weekly conversational podcast on books, small business, and life in the South