Episode 322 || May Reading Recap

This week Annie recaps her May reads.

The books mentioned on today’s episode are available at The Bookshelf:

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 Finding Freedom by Erin French.

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. 

“Long ago, she’d learned that life could be bitterly disappointing if allowed. There were blows and stumbles, but your job was to stay interested in the world.” 

- Tia Williams, Seven Days in June 


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 May.  

This was kind of a different reading month for me. It feels like I was definitely reading a [00:01:00] lot for work, for summer reading guide, for literary lunch for shelf subscriptions and so my reading was definitely influenced by that. I was able to sneak in one really great children's chapter book and Jordan and I are also doing some reading aloud in the evenings. That's kind of part of our summer routine so there's some other fun things going on, but it was a reading month that was definitely inspired and influenced by my life at the Bookshelf and by the work that I do so a lot of books that I was reading so that I could talk about them and so that I could talk well about them. 

The first book I read in May, and it did take me a little while to finish, it was The Final Revival of Opal & Nev. This is by Dawnie Walton and it has been very popular, both on our shelves, but also I feel like on the internet. I've seen it a lot online and actually part of the reason I was inspired to pick it up, it is out now. I was inspired to pick it up [00:02:00] by our former bookseller Kate. Kate Storehoff is now, we've talked about her before, she is now a manager up at bookmarks in North Carolina. But when she worked at the Bookshelf, she and I often had some overlapping tastes and when she kind of raved about this one, especially because she is a musicologist and a musicology expert, I was intrigued.

So The Final Revival of Opal and Nev is a fictional oral history. It is really being billed as you might guess as kind of the next Daisy Jones and the Six but I want to push back on that a little bit. Um, and I loved Daisy Jones in the Six, and I love an oral history. The Final Revival of Opal and Nev is dealing with so many different issues and subjects then Daisy Jones was and so that is part of the reason I think it took me a little bit to finish this one was because there are serious issues being tackled here. So Opal is a [00:03:00] Black woman, kind of glamorous and eccentric. I'm thinking ethereal is kind of the word I keep coming back to and Nev is this white, British, kind of folk singer is what I pictured in my head like Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran, but in the seventies or something, not that Ed Sheeran is folk, but Nev in this book is, is a red-headed guy and so that's kind of what I was picturing. 

So Opal and Nev join forces and create this rock duo in the seventies and they kind of have a hard time catching on, but eventually they released the record and then they wind up doing this showcase with several other musicians and bands from their record label and this is all fictional. Kind of this really, really well created and well-crafted fictional world, much like I can see where the Daisy Jones comparison come in because when I read Daisy Jones for the first time I immediately was like, is this a real band? Like I [00:04:00] had to Google and Opal and Nev story is very similar in that I thought it was real, like the world is so well-crafted and the oral history is so well done that you do think, wait a minute, is this, is this something that really happened? And I just am ignorant.

 But because of their interracial relationship and just the fact that she is Black and he is white and he is from England and she is from America, there's a lot of tension and there, especially during the seventies, and really it felt extremely timely, there is a lot in the book about racism and allyship and false allyship, and those parts are really interesting, but I think the Daisy Jones, the way that it's being marketed might be hurting it a little bit, just because I think it requires much deeper reading than that Daisy Jones comparison really gives it credit for.

 The entire book, kind of builds up and around this [00:05:00] music showcase and during this showcase a riot breaks out. There is this just absolute clash of cultures and someone winds up dead and I won't spoil it. It's not spoilers. You kind of find out a lot of this right from the first page, but I'd really rather you go in without too much of my storytelling and instead, let Dawnie Walton kind of take you on the ride I think she is very capable of taking you on.

 So basically I really did like this book. I thought it was so well written and well crafted. I don't like how it was marketed to me and so I hope I'm marketing it a little bit differently. Certainly the oral history is reminiscent of Daisy Jones, but it is very much its own work, dealing a lot with race and racism and allyship and for that reasons, I think it deserves some different comps. I also really loved as [00:06:00] much as I appreciated the voices of Opal and Nev and their wide range of musician friends, and family. I loved all of those kind of fictional interviews. My favorite character was Virgil, and I think you will fall in love with him too. He was just my favorite voice in the novel, and I really liked hearing from him. So go, I suppose, for Opal and Nev, but stay for Virgil.

 And again much, like, I totally understand where the, these Daisy Jones comparisons are coming from because much like Daisy Jones, I do desperately want an adaptation of this because I want to know Opal and Nez musical style and I want to hear their come alive. Like Dawnie Walton did a really great job, much like Taylor Jenkins Reid of creating these beautiful melodies and these beautiful songs that I would really love to get to hear. So there's a lot to really like about this book. And I think if you go into it, knowing that you are getting a really, [00:07:00] I think because it is fiction, you get almost a more, in-depth look at racism and white allyship and what that should and could look like and, and what damage can even be done um, by performative allyship.

I really, I thought those parts were handled really well and again, require me to think a little deeper about what comps I would list for The Final Revival of Opal and Nev. Maybe more a book like Such a Fun Age or something like that, where it's dealing with these issues that I think when handled in a fictional world are so much more accessible to the lay reader. So anyway, I really liked this one. I think it is worth your time. It is called The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton. 

Next up, I read The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller. This is a book coming out on July sixth, you don't have too terribly long to wait. [00:08:00] I pick this one up for two basic reasons. The first is wait till you see the cover. It is gorgeous. And the second is in my heart of hearts, I have always wanted like a family home in a remote kind of new England setting and that is not the story I get to live. That is a desire of my heart, but it is not one that I think I will probably ever have, but I do love reading about families who like have inhabited a place for generations or who have kept coming back to a place for generations. And so The Paper Palace is the name given in this novel to a kind of family compound and a place this family kind of constantly retreats to, uh, in, in kind of the new England coast and the setting and the nature writing in this book, I found to be really beautiful and that's why I picked this book up.

 However, this book is so good. It is not going to be for every [00:09:00] reader, but it was definitely for me. Our main character is a 50ish year old woman named Elle. She has been coming to The Paper Palace for decades. She grew up kind of coming here in the summer. She is there with her husbands and their children and her mom and you know, immediately, I mean, like immediately that she has slept with her childhood best friend and she has just kind of woken up and is dealing with the repercussions and the fallout from that.

 So the book opens with an act of infidelity or at least kind of looking back on this act of infidelity and I know for some readers, I just know some member or two of my book club, like some people I know that will just be a no-go and I totally understand that and I get that. I would like to say that, although the book opens and you see this kind of middle-aged woman grappling with the decision she made the night before, the novel, then becomes this [00:10:00] really fascinating character study on who Elle is and why she would have made a decision like this so you get to know her intimately. You understand who her husband is, who her childhood friend is, who she now is adult friends with. He also comes to The Paper Palace and comes and spends time with her family. They are friends in adulthood. Their spouses are friends with one another and so the more you learn, the more the infidelity makes sense. And the less, the infidelity makes sense. 

There are, I don't, I'm not a highly sensitive reader, so I don't often give kind of triggers, but certainly the book opens with this act of infidelity and there are for me anyway, fairly explicit sex scenes and there are some scenes of sexual assault. So I, again, I am not a highly sensitive reader, but they did kind of stick out to me and so I did want to make readers aware of that. [00:11:00] That being said, this book is a beautifully written. I absolutely devoured it. Like I have not done a ton of devouring of books in 2021. I am sorry to say that my bandwidth and my attention span are not quite what they were even in 2020. It actually feels like it actually feels like for me, my attention span has been worse this year than last year, but I curled up outside on our little patio couch and absolutely devoured this book because Elle kept making decisions that did not make sense to me and yet, as I got to know her, I felt true empathy for her as a reader and I really loved getting to know her better and the book just unfolds at a really beautiful pace. 

The book itself takes place over. Just if I recall like a weekend, but it goes back in time and that's how you're kind of able to get to know the history of the place, you're able to get to know the history of the people and [00:12:00] in that way, it's really just a well-told story. It's um, the setting and the pacing are really beautifully done. So I really liked this book. I know it will not be for everyone for the reasons I've already mentioned, but for me, I don't know where to land him, like my top 10 of the year, but certainly so far, one of my favorite books of the summer, I really loved this book a lot. So that is The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller, out on July sixth. 

I took a turn after reading The Paper Palace. I loved it, but certainly as you might guess, some intense moments and the same was true of The Revival of Opal and Nev, like there were kind of intense things being dealt with in both of those books, very different, but, but very intense and so I picked up on the recommendation of one of my favorite Instagram follows my favorite Instagram friends, Marcy.

 Marcy is a big fan of Morgan Matson and, thanks to her so am I and Morgan Matson has a new young adult novel out called Take Me Home Tonight. [00:13:00] Yes please sing along. Like, I'm not going to sing for you, but inevitably this song has been stuck in my head so much since picking up this book. I I do. I just love this book. Morgan Matson and also has some playlists on Spotify based on her books. I know at least Save the Day, which I read a couple of years ago and this one. So you can definitely check that out. Take Me Home Tonight is included on that playlist.

 Um, but the premise of this one is really fun and it's especially fun if you grew up loving theater or if you were like me, I'm in what I call a theater adjacent role. I was never going to act in plays, but I certainly love attending them and I was known to like paint a set or two. So Take Me Home Tonight is about Kat and Stevie. They are best friends at a Connecticut high school. They're in the theater program and they decide through kind of a series of unfortunate events to go into the city for the evening and to kind of have this really fantastic night together. [00:14:00] Chaos obviously ensues. There is so much fun to be had in this book.

 It is set in today's times, I mean, pre pandemic times, but like modern the modern era and yet I immediately thought of Adventures in Babysitting. I immediately thought of just, it filled me with a lot of nostalgia for whatever reason, and because I have not been to New York post pandemic, it was also really nice to kind of sit back and enjoy a pre pandemic world or a world in which the pandemic didn't even happen, maybe and Kat and Stevie are very convincing as best friends who are seniors in high school, trying to figure out what they're going to do next. 

I feel like sometimes I'll read books with young adult characters and the not, the angst isn't missing. That's not what I mean because a lot of young adult novels are great with the angst, but the kind of decision fatigue that I feel like you have by the [00:15:00] time you're a senior. Sometimes I don't get that out of young adult novels, but this one I did these two teenagers are trying to figure out who they are and what they're going to do next and I really liked that part of the book. Their friendship is very fun. There's a third friend whose story you also get a glimpse that, and it is delightful. There's just a lot of fun here. And so if you were just looking for a fun. Escapist book. And maybe you want to take a mental imaginary trip to New York this summer, I think Take Me Home Tonight is a delight. I think it's very enjoyable and I think you'll like it too. That's out already. It's called Take Me Home Tonight by Morgan Matson.

And then peer pressured by Olivia in total love, I picked up The Best Babysitters Ever. This is the start of a series by Caroline Cala and we talked about this on the new release Tuesday podcast, but Olivia had stocked these books kind of solely because of our obsession last year with the Babysitters Club. I had so much fun with this book so The Best Babysitters Ever again [00:16:00] is the start of a series. I think it will be great for, in my mind now, look, it's been a long time since I was a middle grade reader, but I think 10 or 11 and up, because some of what the characters are dealing with in my mind, skew a little older but very fun. If you or your kids are fans of the Babysitters Club.

This is about a group of girls who they pick up The Babysitter's Club books by Ann M. Martin and they are inspired to start their own babysitter's club, but they are terrible babysitters. The cover of the book, I've had trouble with the title of this book, because the cover of it bad is like scratched out and best is replaced. These are like the best bad babysitters ever and there are three young women at the heart of the book, much like babysitter's club, you wind up finding one to whom you really identify or with whom you really identify. 

I immediately identified most with Dot, but you might be a Malia or a Brie. All of them are delightful and very fun [00:17:00] and the hijinks that take place are very inline with the hi-jinks that ensue over the course of the Babysitters Club. Of course, these young women are very different and I really liked that that Caroline Cala is certainly paying homage to the characters that Ann M. Martin created, but she's also very much crafted her own characters who I think kids will identify with. It's just modern enough. Like you still, I think because of the ties into the Kristy Thomas era, you still get kind of the, the nostalgic feeling that maybe you would get from rereading the Babysitters Club, but definitely brought into the modern era with these three girls and they're all the problems that the three of them are dealing with.

I thought this was super fun. It would not shock me if I pick up the rest of the series but if you are a mom of a middle grade reader, or if you're listening to this and you're a middle grade reader, or if you're like me and you just like reading kidlets, sometimes I think this is very fun and enjoyable, and I'm really [00:18:00] glad Olivia stocked them and I'm very glad she accidentally peer pressured me into reading it. So that is The Best Babysitters Ever, the first in the series by Caroline Cala.

 I then picked up a book called Home Stretch. This is by Graham Norton. It is out on June 22nd. So again, you don't have too terribly long to wait. I love this book and yes, it is that Graham Norton. I had to like Google. I did not realize Graham Norton, the host of the British TV show is also a writer. He's written several books. This, I think might be his third novel, but I picked it up because yeah, I thought the premise was so intriguing and certainly sounded like one I would be drawn to anyway. 

So the book takes place in a small village in Ireland. The book opens with this horrific kind of car accident happening and you immediately know some people have died, but the driver has lived [00:19:00] and you are left following the driver Connor into maybe the repercussions of that, that tragic event. So it's not just Connor's story. It's also the story of the small village that he calls home. So Connor winds up leaving. He goes to London and he winds up in New York and so you follow Connor through the decades and again, kind of watch as his reaction to the trauma unfolds, but it's also what happens to Connor's family, what happens to the village and all the people in it and the people who lost their kids in the car accident and things like that.

I know it sounds heavy. It's not particularly heavy. Honestly, I feel like I'm doing it a disservice. It's not heavy. It's really a story about a small town and what it's like to grow up in a small town and then figure out who you are. And to do that all while the specter of tragedy kind of [00:20:00] lays over the town. So I really fell in love with these characters. I fell in love with Connor and his sister. The characters I think will just stick with me awhile and the setting obviously will. Um, you get both the small little village in Ireland. You also get London and New York and so the book covers a few different places, but I fell in love with obviously the small Irish town the most.

 I really liked this book. I think it covers a lot of territory applicable to today, to what the things that are happening in our world. Quiet is the word that keeps coming to mind. I believe bittersweet or poignant, those are other words that I think might also apply to this book. I really did love it. It is very readable. Like I did not really want to put it down. It's not a bombastic novel, like there's not one event happening after another, like I've just told you the inciting [00:21:00] incident. So it's not it's to me, it's very much a book of the UK. Like it is not loud and brash and American. It is kind of just this quiet story of this town and this family and the son and I really, really liked it. Um, I don't know if I would like Graham Norton's other books, but I'm definitely intrigued. This one, I believe has been out in the UK a little while, but it is now being printed in America. It is called Home Stretch by Graham Norton, out in the U S on June 22nd.

 Then I picked up Palm Beach. This is the new novel by Mary Adkins. I had read Mary Atkins, other books. I think she's written to others. I'd read the, her first one called When You Read This, it was actually, if I'm not mistaken, it was one of my shelf subscriptions and not so long ago or maybe very long ago. Actually, actually, maybe that was a long time ago. Anyway, Mary Adkins is somebody I was familiar with, but I picked up Palm Beach because the cover looked good. I do tend to judge books by [00:22:00] covers, as you probably know and so I picked this one up thinking it looked kind of like a fun beach read. The premise is really interesting. 

So the main characters are Rebecca and Mickey. They are a young couple living in New York. They have a new young son, but Mickey has been working as a Broadway singer and dancer and actor, and he has lost his voice and Mickey actually is a really great character just in general. I really, I really loved kind of getting to know him throughout the book, but through a series of events, Mickey's kind of backup job. Uh, he has always been an actor, but during his downtime, he has been a caterer and he kind of has moved his way up the ranks of New York catering and he winds up getting the attention of like this kind of billionaire democratic donor and the donor offers him job taking care of his house in Palm Beach.

So Mickey and Rebecca pick up their young son and they all moved to Palm Beach. So that in and of itself, I thought it was just really interesting to kind of [00:23:00] compare and contrast living in New York city versus living in Palm Beach and like how far your money goes and the role that privilege and money play and then Mickey is doing such a great job, kind of taking care of this guy's house that he immediately attracts attention of what they call a vulture capitalist. This kind of multi-billionaire Mo I don't even know. Is that the right? That's the phrase. I don't deal with that much money, so I'm struggling, but I think it's a multi-billionaire and Mickey winds up taking a new job and taking care of his house and there's a lot of conflict here because all the while Rebecca is a freelance journalist who talks about wealth inequality, and here they are kind of working and sustaining their own lives and livelihoods by working for this vulture capitalist.

There is so much goodness here about class and wealth and privilege. I loved that. It reminded me a lot of a backlist book, I [00:24:00] think I've talked about on the podcast many times that I really liked called Everybody Rise. It's been such a long time since that book came out, but it's well worth your time. If you can find it it's by Stephanie Clifford and in that book, the main character just makes decisions that again, kind of left me often left me, scratching my head but most of her decisions were influenced by this desire to kind of climb the metaphorical social ladder and Mickey and Rebecca are constantly having to ask themselves, you know, how far are they going to go? How enmeshed with this billionaire and his wife, are they going to become?

 So much happens in this book and I do not want to spoil it for you because, so I read this book in one day and it was one of those books, a little bit like Paper Palace, but it was one of those books where I just wanted to read any chance I got so like Jordan and I drove to dinner in a neighboring town and I read the book on our way to dinner. I took myself out to lunch by myself and read the book while I was out to lunch, like I did not want to stop reading this book until I was done [00:25:00] because so much is happening. So I think I've talked a lot today about some quiet books and books where not too much happens, lots of character study. Look, you know, I love those kinds of books, but Palm Beach is not that.

 Like, you definitely get to know Rebecca and Mickey and you definitely get to know their characters and who they are, but there is a lot of plot here. So if you are a plot driven person, I think you will also enjoy Palm Beach. It manages to marry pretty well plot and character driven into one really compulsively, um, fun, but also thought provoking book for the summer. So this is Palm Beach by Mary Adkins. I'm so sorry. It's not out until August 3rd. Okay.

Then I read Seven Days in June by Tia Williams. Actually had started this one a couple months ago and simply put it down to read something else but I finished it this month and I loved it. Let me tell you something, this is a romance novel, for sure. So if we're talking spoons, if we're talking steam level, this is very, [00:26:00] very steamy, like very steamy. Like I skimmed a lot, uh, in the romantic passages because they were a lot for my little prudish soul to take. We're probably talking four, four ish spins, uh, four or more spoons. If you're familiar with our spoon spoon rating, if you're not, then please disregard.

 To me the entire time I was reading this book, I thought, okay, how will I sell this to people? Because admittedly, it is, it is very steamy. It is TV MA. It is R rated. However, there is so much happening here about author culture, about writing about the publishing world, about the Black publishing world. I love those parts of the book and I loved the character so much and I think a lot of other readers who are steamier readers than I are going to love this book. It is a great summer read. It is set [00:27:00] over literally seven days in june. There are a couple of flashbacks here and there, but it is mostly set over seven days in June, which I think lends itself to compulsive readability because, you know, you're kind of inching toward the end. 

I felt the same way about Olympus, Texas, right? It's like set over a certain period of time and so, you know, a lot is going to happen and kind of seven day period. So our main characters are Eva, who has basically written like this sexy, kind of 50 shades of gray fantasy novels. She's like a fantasy writer. She became kind of this publishing wonder candidate at the age of 19 and she's been publishing this series of beloved kind of fantasy romance novels. Then there's Shane, who is a darling of the literary world. He writes literary fiction and he also has never written anything sober and you don't know how Eva and Shane are going to connect and in fact, the first little bit [00:28:00] of the book is really Eva's story with her daughter, definite Lorelei, Rory vibes here.

And so the first couple of chapters Shane does not really even get involved. It's really, Tia Williams really sets the tone that this story belongs to Eva and her daughter, which I really liked and her daughter is a fantastic character. All these characters are really great. Eva is also dealing with serious debilitating migraines and that is another thing I really appreciated about this book is I was able to see what it might be like to live life with really these painful, this painful kind of chronic illness and how it affects not only Eva's writing, but just how she moves in the world and how she mothers and I did not expect to get that out of this book because I definitely just thought, oh, this is a romance book, but no, this book is dealing with so much stuff.

 It's dealing with Eva's migraines and her chronic illness. It's dealing with Eva's relationship with her daughter. [00:29:00] It's dealing with Eva and Shane's path because maybe they know each other and then it's dealing with Eva and Shane's present and how they deal with the, I think trauma is the right word to use the trauma of their childhoods and it's also really snarky and funny look at the publishing world. I love this book. I thought it was so great and I suspect they're going to be a lot of readers who love it even more than I do because the romance is so great. 

I am not typically a romance reader. I think we've discussed this. Like I'm a romcom reader. Uh, that is a very different genre. That being said, there are some laugh out loud, funny moments in this book. I think the way to know if this book is going to be for you is to read the first, I kid you not it's like two pages and if those two pages kind of make you squirm, then this might not be for you. But if you laugh out loud and cackle like I did, then I think you will really enjoy this book. It is called Seven Days in June by Tia Williams. It is out on June 1st. So you don't have to wait very [00:30:00] long at all for this one and I think you will really enjoy it. 

Olivia came through with another recommendation that I picked up this month, that is Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby. This is coming out on July 6th. I had not read essay S.A. Cosby's previous work, but I really liked Razorblade Tears. It is dark and gritty. Like. Uh, almost reads a little bit like an old fashioned Western it's because it's certainly this tale of vengeance. I kept thinking the Cohen brothers should do something with this movie or with this book.

So Razorblade Tears is the story of two dads whose sons are married to each other and they are murdered and that happens almost immediately and so you get these two very different fathers, a white dad who, kind of wrong side of the tracks, lives in a trailer park and this Black dad who has made something of himself, kind of [00:31:00] started his own small business. Neither dad was approving really of their son's relationship and now they are dealing with the fallout of that after their sons have died and their sons were murdered, but the police have kind of washed their hands to the investigation so they're not pursuing any leads and so these very different dads who don't have much in common at all, except for the fact that they both, at one point in time or another spent time in prison and so they joined forces to solve their son's murder. 

So I think the premise is really great and I was expecting, maybe it's a feel almost buddy cop vibe, like these two kind of this odd couple pairing, right? Like these two dads are going to join forces and it is that, but it is not particularly funny. Like that's why I keep thinking maybe of the Cohen brothers or somebody like Barry Jenkins, who would really explore the depths of these dads and their pain and where their pain comes from and their relationships with their [00:32:00] sons and how they are processing their grief. It is very dark and gritty and I really liked it.

So this is called Razorblade Tears. Again, weirdly, if you were in the mood for a Western or kind of a revenge story, I, I just think this one is so good and I, I really wish somebody would adapt it because I think it would make a great TV mini series or adaptation because the characters are so rich and interesting, and they're clearly processing some, some really horrific feelings and some things that they have kind of buried deep in their past. So this is called Razorblade Tears by S a Cosby, and it is out on July 6th.

 Next up is another quiet novel. So, All the Water I’ve Seen Is Running. Isn't that a great title. I'm going to say it again. All the Water I’ve Seen Is Running by Elia Rodriques. I pick this book up and picked it up because I thought the cover was [00:33:00] great, because it's pretty thin, you know, pretty short number of pages, going back to my waning attention span and kind of was just quietly swept away in this story and the setting. So there are a lot of things I really like about this book, but probably the very first number one thing is how Elia Rodriques writes about Florida. So I have said before that, I think so many Florida writers get it, or so many writers get Florida wrong. Actually think Florida writers typically get it right. 

But so many writers get Florida wrong, or you can, you can tell that they've never really been here or they don't really know what they're talking about and here I don't even live in Florida anymore, but I grew up in Florida and in the, in an, uh, near the panhandle and so I am always intrigued with how writers tackle Florida, and really just places in general, I'm just familiar with Florida and with the south and so it's always interesting to see how writers portray those areas. Elia Rodriques is writing beautifully about the nature of Florida and the [00:34:00] water and the shore and I just really loved how he wrote about that. 

The novel is about Daniel. He's a mixed race son of Jamaican immigrants. He grew up in north Florida and quickly kind of removed herself from that culture. So graduated high school and moved to New York and, and crafted this new life for himself where he's able to live as a gay man and kind of accept his own queerness and then he finds out that his high school girlfriend friend has died. So he returns to his home or his once home in north Florida to kind of uncover not only what happened to Aubrey in her death, but how they parted ways post high school and how he kind of left his high school classmates behind and, and how he even struggles with how he was friends with them in the first place, which I think.

This maybe even if you are, if you don't [00:35:00] identify as queer or if you don't, if you are not mixed race, I still think you will appreciate this kind of figuring out your identity and, and figuring out your past identity. So that's one of the things I really liked about this book was Daniel is trying to reconcile who he has become in New York with who he was in Florida and how was he friends with these people? And I think, I do think that it's something that is very relatable. Uh, no matter how you identify yourself, I think those are themes that are applicable to all of us. Like I think a lot of us can look back and be like, how'd that happen? How was I friends with that person?

And so Daniel is doing that just on a larger scale and he's grappling with it all under the guise of kind of investigating or looking into his high school classmates death and this is not a murder mystery. That that is not what this is. This is just a, almost a belated coming of age or coming into yourself or figuring out who you are. The book that it is [00:36:00] most like of the titles I've talked about today is Home Stretch by Graham Norton. There's actually some really similar themes there. And I appreciated getting to read both and just how geography too kind of plays a part in storytelling. So I really liked this book. It is another quiet novel. This is not something that's kind of bombastic, it's quiet and literary, and just really beautifully written. It is called All the Water I’ve Seen Is Running by Elia Rodriques.

 And then last up, I'm only going to mention it briefly because there is no need to blur a bit, but something fun Jordan and I are doing this summer is we are reading aloud together the Harry Potter books. I do not know how far we will get this summer, but it is certainly our goal to ultimately read them all. I don't think we're going to read all seven this summer, but Jordan has only read like four, I think is what he's read through book four and I love these as a kid. I grew up quite literally with Harry Potter, like each book came out, like I aged with harry, I guess that's what I'm saying. Like, I was about 11 when the first book came out [00:37:00] and so I got to age with Harry and it has been a long time since I've revisited these books, like I don't know if I've ever re-read them, to be honest.

I know some people who reread them every year. I may have re-read the first one, a time or two, and maybe the third one, because third one's my favorite but anyway, it has been such a joy to read this together in the evening. So we kind of take turns, reading out loud, Jordan, mostly reads aloud and I don't often, I'm not often in the position to listen to someone read to me and it has been such a gift so far this summer we're early in we're about halfway through Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, but I just wanted to throw it out there as something that has become a really fun evening tradition that we look forward to. We kind of know that every night, give or take when we can at 8:30, like we're going to sit and read a chapter or two from Harry Potter and I haven't done something like that in a long time. So that's proving to be really fun and I think obviously you could do this with whatever books you wanted. Um, but it had been awhile since I had revisited these and he's never finished them. So we thought we'd give it a try. So we are reading out loud together, Harry Potter [00:38:00] and the Sorcerer's Stone.

And those are the books I read in May. I love sharing these with you every month, but I also am always curious what you are reading so if you will find us on Instagram at BookshelfTville, you can tell us what you read in the month of May.

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 Finding Freedom by Erin French. 

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