Episode 319 || April Reading Recap

This week Annie recaps and reviews her April reads.

The books mentioned in this week’s episode can be purchased from 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 The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton.

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.

“For it turned out that Ramesh Uncle was right. We live alongside the past. It’s our neighbor. We bump into it in the checkout line, at the Laundromat, on the street.” 

- Sanjena Sathian, Gold Diggers 

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 April. So many books, and I am not a huge [00:01:00] fan of April of whatever month that was we just, we just lived through. There were some real high points, um, but in general it was also a month that was really full with challenges and hardships and yet, somehow I managed to read a lot of books. 


So the first couple of books you're going to hear, I actually finished at the tail end of March, but I didn't want to leave them out because they were really good books and then I will let you know, when I start the books I actually finished in April. So these first couple of titles I finished at the tail end of March after recording our March reading recap episodes. So I'm playing a little bit of catch-up.

 The first is 145th Street by Walter Dean Myers. We read this, I read this as part of our, I Want It That YA Book Club that we've been doing every month. We are gathering virtually the last Friday of every month to talk through these kind of young adult classic works of YA literature and it's supposed to kind of fill the void the Baby-Sitters club left in all of our lives and I think it's doing the [00:02:00] trick because I loved 145th Street. I'm a little frustrated actually that I had never read it before and that teachers did not really introduced Walter Dean Myers to me.

 I feel very behind and a little bit frustrated with my educators who I love and adore, but who left Walter Dean Myers out of my reading life and so thrilled to be introduced to him as an adult, just feel slightly behind. 145th Street If you are not familiar, is a collection of short stories about a neighborhood in Harlem. I love this format. It reminded me why I like short stories. These short stories in particular were all connected. So it almost reminded me of Olive Kittridge or of the Wendell Berry stories. Just all of these kinds of people living, doing life together, working alongside one another, all these different personalities that work in this one neighborhood.

 I in particular loved, gosh, so many of these stories, but one that I just feel like should be included in required reading, especially someone [00:03:00] in our book clubs said instead of Gift of the Magi. Although, look, I really appreciate Gift of the Magi. I just think the story "Christmas Story" in the 145th Street collection would be great to include amongst your holiday reading and I realize we are in May, but I just want to go ahead and put a bug in your ear to have that on your list for some of your holiday Christmas reading. 

I just think it's a great short story. There is so much to love about this book. I am so glad I read it. I wish again, that it had been required reading for me, but I'm really glad I met Walter Dean Myers and his characters as an adult and I really loved reading about life in this neighborhood. Highly, highly recommend. It is a little difficult for us to find like we managed to find it to stock for our book club, but we're trying, we're working on getting copies back at the Bookshelf because it's a little bit hard to find despite it having an anniversary last year so just kind of, one of the struggles with stocking back lists right now is just how publishers are a little [00:04:00] bit behind in printing and things and 145th Street, I think is among kind of the casualties of that. But I have no doubt it will be back in print and available. In your local bookstores, you may have it at your local bookstore. We've just had trouble stocking it at the bookshelf, but highly recommend 145th Street by Walter Dean Myers.

Also at the end of March and actually the day of my second COVID vaccine, I read Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I again, did not want to leave this out and I had missed it during the March recap, but certainly wanted to include it here. I know a lot of people who maybe came to Taylor Jenkins Reid, thanks to Daisy Jones and the Six. I know you're highly anticipating this one and I have to tell you, I do not think you will be disappointed. I love this book, solid four stars for me. It's held my attention. I read it in one afternoon before, before the side effects of the vaccine finally began to get to me and I loved it.

 It's about the Rivas family, set kind of during the 1970s. [00:05:00] California coast life, kind of this hippie vibe, surfer vibe. I really love the setting a lot, but I also love this family a lot. So the Rivas siblings host this big party every year at their giant home on the coast. They are famous because of surfing and because of their famous dad and again, a lot, like Daisy Jones and The Six, you will think these people are real like you will find yourself Googling because Taylor Jenkins read does a good job of incorporating actual real life people into her work, particularly in this book and in Daisy Jones in the Six. That's, that's really what I'm thinking of, her other works less so.

 But I like them all to be clear. I really like I've read almost everything Taylor Jenkins Reid has written, I think, and I really have enjoyed them all this one. If you are a fan of Daisy Jones and the Six, this will be kind of right up your alley. It's not an oral history, but it is or fictional oral history, but it is very much about his family and it takes place over one night. So one night [00:06:00] where they throw this really amazing party that they throw every year and there are some flashbacks and things, but it mostly takes place over the course of one evening, which I love. I love books that do that. I feel like they're so tight and the plot is so carefully wrought.

I just really, I really loved the setting of this one. Highly recommended really fun book that I thoroughly enjoyed. Also for fans of Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. So if you liked Little Fires Everywhere, if you liked Daisy Jones and the Six, Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid will be for you. As of this recording, it is going to be published on May 25th. So perfect for your beach reading,.

Next up, also at the tail end of March was the book Competitive Grieving by Nora Zelevansky. You may have heard me reference this on other podcasts episodes, but I looked and I could not find an actual recap of it so I did not want to leave it off. This book is so great because it is this really [00:07:00] beautiful bittersweet book about the loss of a friend, about grieving the loss of a peer and a loved one, but it's also got like a sneaky good rom com in the middle of it. So I really liked this book a lot. 

The main character is Wren. Wren has just found out that her best childhood friend and somebody who she kept in touch with through adulthood, Stewart, has died and she has to kind of process her feelings about losing this friend of hers, their last interaction, their last kind of texting interaction was not maybe what she really wanted to be her last exchange with her dear friend. So it's about Wren and her feelings of loss and grief and then she also encounters George, who is Stewart's lawyer, and he's kind of working on Stewart's will and kind of enacting what Stewart's wishes were for his kind of final wishes.

And so Wren and George obviously meet there is some chemistry there. The, again, the romcom it's kind of sneaky, good, [00:08:00] like sneaked in there. Like it's not really the propulsive force behind the book but you do wind up really becoming invested in Wren and George and in particular, the book begins as really Wren and Stewart story and again, this kind of loss of a loved one, this loss of a really dear friend, and then moves into Wren's story with George. I love that format. I also really liked Wren as a character. So ran throughout the book, every time she meets someone, she kind of envisions what their funeral will be like.

 Like she's having a hard time, even without the loss of Stewart and now that she has lost him, she's kind of coping, I think, mentally and emotionally by taking part in this thought exercise. I thought that was a really quirky touch. I just fell in love with a lot of the people in this book but if you are a plot driven, rather than character driven reader, I still think this one will work for you. I have read so many really beautiful books about grief in the last few months, and I think I'm drawn to them because of the [00:09:00] collective grief we're experiencing as a culture, both of the loss of literal life and then the loss of figurative life. 

I also think I am drawn to these stories because we are not really being able to experience our traditional outlets for grief and so I am then therefore pouring myself into literature that allows me to grieve and I liked Competitive Grieving because one minute I was really sad and kind of distraught and maybe reliving and rethinking my own grief, but then also laughing out loud. Like there are some really funny parts of this book. She really, Nora Zelevansky does a great job of kind of setting the tone with even the quotes she begins the novel with. Just kind of, they're kind of snarky looks at grief and death and that to me, one minute I was, I feel almost in the depths of despair and then the next moment I am laughing out loud and I'm falling in love with these characters and their love story.

So I highly recommend this book. It kind of [00:10:00] encompasses everything. If you are a fan of Rabbit Cake, which is a book I read years ago and loved. Goodbye, Vitamin, this is kind of in that same vein. I also had the opportunity to interview Nora Zelevansky because I really love this book so much and that interview will be posted on Patreon. I may post it to the regular feed. It depends on how we get that editing done, but it is a great interview. I really enjoy talking to her and that is a great book. Competitive Grieving is out on May 11th and thus concludes my March reading.

 I finished the month, obviously really strong, then moved into April and needed something pretty different and so I was at the Bookshelf looking at our stack of new releases and I saw this book that I thought either would be really cute or really not for me and the book was Kisses & Croissants by Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau. I wound up loving this book. I thought it was adorable. If you are looking for a true young adult novel that features young adults like high school students and one that you can safely maybe gift to the high [00:11:00] school student in your life, I highly recommend Kisses and Croissants. 

If you watched Emily in Paris last year, was it last year? Whenever that show came out and maybe you loved it, or maybe you're like me and you didn't, you didn't love it, but you kept watching it because it was something to do, this I think is better than Emily in Paris, but definitely still sticks true to this beautiful Parisian story. This very fun like escapist story. So if you are desperate for vacation, like I am read Kisses and Croissants. I felt like I was in France. I felt like I was in Paris. Plus the book isn't just kind of in this beautiful setting, although I really did love where this book was located, where this book takes, took place and that's really why I picked it up. 

I also fell in love with Mia. Mia is the protagonist of the novel. She is a ballerina and has moved to Paris for the summer to do like this summer intensive ballet training. She desperately wants to be accepted into the [00:12:00] New York city ballet, but it looks like, that's not going to be the trajectory from her and so she's kind of dealing with some disappointment and dealing with maybe always being second, like always playing second fiddle to this other dancer she knows. And so the book is all about the summer intensive, if you love the movie Center Stage we'll then boy, this is it's Center Stage meets Emily in Paris and I just really loved it.

I was reminded Olivia, Olivia was telling me, of course you love this book. You like sports books and it did not occur to me yeah ballet is a sport and so of course I loved this book where there's some competition. There's this competitive nature between these two characters in the book and there's also, they're building up to like a final performance of Swan Lake and you can just kind of feel the book kind of become even more intense. Look, this book is also called Kisses and Croissants. So it's not just about ballet or Paris, it is also a sweet little love story that I really [00:13:00] did enjoy, like I enjoyed that part of the book as well, but to me, the ballet storyline, and then the setting are what made this one. I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Highly recommend for your escapist reading. 

Okay. Then I moved on to a book called Revival Season by Monica West. This book releases on June 1st. I'm very excited about this book because there are so many things about it that are right in line with books that I love. So our main character is Miriam Horton. She's the daughter of a Black evangelical preacher and they travel. She and her dad and her siblings and her mom, they all travel as a family on this kind of tent preaching circuit around the South and Miriam kind of watches as her dad does these healings. 

So he's kind of this Pentecostal evangelical preacher and he does these tent revivals and he performs healings and Miriam has watched over the years, but then she also has watched as her father's [00:14:00] healings become less impactful. And she begins to grapple with her own faith and doubt of what her dad is doing. She also witnesses her dad in an act of violence. There's no spoilers here, but an act of violence that makes her wonder is he really healing people. And not only is he really healing people, but what, how has a minister of God supposed to behave? And what is, uh, what does a minister of God look like? 

And so there is a lot happening here in terms of family dynamics. There's a lot happening here in terms of feminism. There are no spoilers. I'm not going to do spoilers here, but I will just tell you that Miriam grappled with her own spiritual giftings and the role her femininity plays in those giftings and how the church perceives her there is, Oh gosh, there's just a lot of dysfunctional family drama here and a lot of coming of age.

So yeah. Miriam is this character who I do think will kind of stick with you. There's also a lot in here for a pretty short book. [00:15:00] Like this is the kind of thing where I feel like under a different author's hand or in a different maybe genre, it would be like expanded on and like, Kind of debated ad nauseum and instead I really love how Monica West just gave us almost a glimpse at this family and at Miriam. We get a real portrait of her at a certain age. We don't follow Miriam into adulthood. Instead, this is just a young teenager looking at her dad, grappling with the reality of imperfect parents and also grappling with doubt and belief and, and her own spiritual awakening. 

I love this book so much, and it's so much, um, I think maybe even quieter than I'm giving it credit for. This is not a bombastic novel and it sounds like right. That it could be, um, because there's a lot going on, but again, the way Monica [00:16:00] West tells this story, I feel like under a different author's hand is, could have been a very different book, not necessarily a bad book, just a very different book. This instead it's really kind of demure like if that makes sense, that's really quiet, understated look at Miriam's coming of age, not only literally, but like coming of age and coming into herself and into her own spirituality. I really liked this book a lot. 

There's a lot going on here that I think would be worth discussing in a book club and again, we are going to do a podcast episode in a week or two, I think about faith books and what that looks like and what that means. Like, what does that term mean? This book is dealing with the Christian faith and it's dealing with Black evangelical culture, but I think it certainly falls into that category of faith book I really like. Not every book I read about faith do I enjoy but this one I really did because it's not afraid to kind of touch tender spots if that makes sense. It's not afraid to kind of push against the bruise. I [00:17:00] really, I really liked this one. Quiet, understated, but like really well handled. So it is called Revival Season by Monica West out on June 1st. Great cover too. 

Okay, then I switched again. You're going to see, I feel like just even looking at this list, I really went down a lot of winding roads in April in terms of my reading and really kind of just, I'm always picturing like a race car, like jutting. I feel like I really took some hard left and right turns at various points in my reading life this .

So next I read The Girls Are All So Nice Here. That title has slipped me up a lot this past month. The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn. She is typically a young adult writer and, or she has written young adult books previously and you can kind of tell it, I think. I think The Girls Are All So Nice Here has some YA tendencies. It is a fast paced suspenseful thriller. Olivia read this one first and immediately was like, you need to read this book so we can talk about it. So I did. That's one of the things beauties of working at the Bookshelf is we do get to talk [00:18:00] about books all day. And so I read the girls are all so nice here over a weekend and it was so glad I had been forced to read it by Olivia more or less, because I really did like it. 

If you are a fan of The Herd, which released last year, I think this one will be for you. There were some things about this book that made me a little bit, um, Not eye rolly, but just the character names, the character names were so distinct and very much set the tone for this book. So I don't mean that they were eyerolly in a bad way. I just meant just the character names kind of set the tone for this the, where you are going to spend your time in this book. 

So the main character's name is Ambrosia shortened to Amb. And Ambrosia is at Wesley college. She is kind of, I'm not sure she belongs there, right? Like she arrives and she's not sure she belongs. She meets this young woman named Sloan, but of course we're going to call her Sully. And so Amb and Sully become great friends, but Sully is complicated and is kind of a mean girl, but to be quite frank [00:19:00] and then Ambs roommate is Flora. So Amb, Flora and Sully, there's just a lot going on.

 But the book is not just that at Wesley. What it really is, is Amb in adulthood, headed toward her college reunion and she knows that once she's there, she's going to have to kind of come face to face with things she did, decisions she made and maybe a traumatic event she experienced. And so Amb is headed with her husband to her college reunion and that's where much of the book takes place. It goes back and forth between Ambs college, years, and then her college reunion. 

I thought that was handled pretty well. I liked that kind of back and forth. I was invested in both stories. Olivia is often making the point that sometimes when a book goes back and forth, you're frustrated as the reader because you really want to be in one timeframe and the author keeps kind of taking you back, but we both agreed that this one was handled well. Like we were really invested in both college age Amb and what she is doing, and then Amb in [00:20:00] adulthood. I will say she's making terrible decisions at every turn and so if, if books about complicated people making poor choices are not for you, then The Girls Are All So Nice Here, will not be for you.

Like Amb is consistently making just horrific decisions. And the whole time I was reading, I was like, Amb, do better. Like there's a better way to handle every single situation being presented to you, but it made for very entertaining reading and very quick weekend reading, which I do think is something I'm drawn to, and I've been drawn to really, since the start of the pandemic is just these books that kind of, I could fly through and think about in the moment while I'm reading them and then not really think too much about again then. And I mean that in a good way, like just a book that I can devour and enjoy in the moment and then move on to whatever comes next. 

So anyway, I think if you like thrillers and thrillers, that maybe even have a young adult, almost vibe to them where they're fast paced and they're just really quick reads, I think you'll like this one. So it's, The [00:21:00] Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn. 

Next up was Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian. I loved this book so much. You have probably already heard about it. I feel like it was everywhere on Bookstagram Instagram for a while. Jamie B. Golden, if you listen to the podcast, it was her greenlight. Mindy Kaling has already bought the rights. So like this one has kind of made its way. I mean, it became really immediately popular and for good reason.

So I featured this one in our spring literary guide, but had not had a chance to read it myself and finally had the opportunity to interview Sanjena for an upcoming Patreon episode, which you're going to be hearing soon. So, had the opportunity to interview her so I desperately wanted to read the book so that I would be able to talk with her about this wonderful book that she'd written and I loved it. I love the characters. So our narrator protagonist is Neil. Neil is coming of age in suburban [00:22:00] Atlanta in the nineties. So there's certainly a nostalgia factor for me here. I also love that this book takes place in the suburbs and Sanjena talks about why that is. 

She wanted these people to really be from air quotes, nowhere, and understand that people from nowhere still have stories, like stories are still being told in these settings that we might not often think about. Like we think of New York or Atlanta proper or San Francisco or something like that. Instead, this is just kind of a suburb in Georgia and these kids are kind of second generation like their parents have moved over from India and they are having to now grapple with, what does it mean to be an immigrant in America? Does it have to mean anything? We're also just teenagers and kids.

 So our main character is Neil. His next door neighbor is Anita. He loves Anita. You can know kind of this unrequited teenage love and then there's this element that could have really turned me off from the story, because I'm obviously here for nostalgia, [00:23:00] for unrequited love, for growing up in the suburbs for 1990s, Georgia, like I'm here for all of these things, but I was worried that this next part was going to kind of throw me off and really mean that Gold Diggers wouldn't be for me.

 So Neil and Anita are, Anita especially in particular is kind of high achieving. They're trying to figure out how to get out right of these, of the suburbs and graduate. And when they do kind of, where will they go? And instead of maybe going the traditional route, what Anita's mom winds up doing is creating gold and kind of drinking this gold potion, drinking gold to almost soak up the ambitions of other people and they do this by stealing gold jewelry from people they really respect or admire and then, um, kind of melting it down and then turning it into this lemonade drink and then drinking it.

 It [00:24:00] sounds so weird, but I love this and it, again, it was it's kind of this magical realism element that I just wasn't sure. I, as a reader would be here for like, it could be for other people, but wouldn't be for me but instead, because the book is rooted in Neil's story, it feels very rooted and it feels very grounded and so I was able to believe, Oh yeah, like these they're basically like bootleggers. Like they're like, they're like making moonshine and their base medics if they're not making moonshine at all, they're making gold and they're drinking gold. I told Sanjena, when I was able to speak with her, that it almost had like this breaking bad element. Like I felt like I was reading, breaking bad and then the book moves forward to Anita and Neil and adulthood, and they kind of have to face the consequences of their drinking gold and what that decision, what that choice meant for the rest of their lives. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I really liked it. I [00:25:00] cannot believe it's the debut. I cannot believe all the things she was able to weave in here. It's a coming of age. It's Southern wit. It's a story about immigrant kids. It's. A love story. It's historical fiction. It's magical realism. Like I cannot believe all the things Sanjena was able to incorporate here and get the story never falls flat. Like there's never like a weak point where you think, Oh, well this could have been left out or this could have been edited out. I really did love the whole thing and it all worked together so beautifully. It is called Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian and it is out now. 

I next turned my attention to a suspense thriller that everybody was talking about. This is When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain. Paual McLain, you will recognize for her historical fiction. That's kind of how she rose to prominence. She wrote a book about Ernest Hemingway's wife and so When the Stars Go Dark, which is this kind of detective suspense, thriller, when this is just a total departure for [00:26:00] her. When the Stars Go Dark is just very different for her. And I was intrigued and a lot of people I knew were reading it and liking it. Customers also follow book podcastor, Sarah's Bookshelves. She and I have typically pretty similar tastes in books and so she was reading it and really liked it. 

So I decided to pick it up and I, there were parts of this book I loved. So in particular, I think I've been talking about setting a lot and maybe that's because I just need to feel transported. I definitely felt transported by When the Stars Go Dark. So this is set during, uh, in California during the nineties, really at if this makes sense, like at peak nineties, true crime, like girls have gone missing. And Paula McLain true to perhaps for historical fiction roots, she incorporates some of these real life figures into her work. So I came across the name, Jaycee Dugard and Polly Klass  and these names that I was familiar with from being, you know, vaguely interested in true crime.

And so those names kind of pop up because the novel [00:27:00] is about Ann. She works as a detective, as an investigator, kind of helping find missing children, but something horrible has happened. We don't know what it is as the reader like, we don't know what has happened, but she she's kind of fleeing and needs needs a respite. And so she leaves her home and heads to Mendocino, which is she, uh, Ann grew up in foster care, but she considers Mendocino home and so there are parts, there are a couple of characters from her Mendocino life that I really fell in love with particularly Hap, who was her foster dad and so we learn a little bit about them. I love those parts of books. I love the setting of the book, loved this kind of wild outdoor, California, just forest. 

I just felt like I was there. I very much felt like I was there almost like Pacific Northwest kind of thing. Yeah. The detective story itself kind of fell flat for me. So Paula McLain's character Ann, like I [00:28:00] said, is an investigator. She kind of helps find kidnapped and missing children and she goes to Mendocino to like escape her, her reality and, and again, as the reader, you don't quite know what's happened, but she stumbled upon another missing girl, another missing girl's case while living in Mendocino and like, while trying to mind her own business but of course she can't mind her own business. Right? She's a, she's a former investigator. She's a detective like she can't turn those instincts off. 

So she kind of pairs up with this guy she knows from high school, who's the, now the town sheriff and she agrees to help him find this missing girl. I think again, I loved so much about this book in particular. There are parts of this book that are dealing pretty explicitly with trauma and abuse and I thought that was all handled really well and there's in particularly kind of this author's note at the end, that kind of explains where Paula McLain is coming from and kind of where she got this idea and I really appreciated those parts of [00:29:00] the book. Those felt very realistic. They felt very well handled and well told. So I liked those parts.

 The part that fell flat for me was the detective story itself. So the story of this missing girl and, Ann's kind of deep seated desire and instinct to find her to help find this missing girl. Olivia and I talk cause Olivia reads a lot of suspense, thrillers, and she read this one after I did and we were talking about how one thing that we don't love in literature is this trope of like the female detective who doesn't do her job well. And it feels like it comes up in pop culture a lot, like not just in books, but in TV shows or movies like this, that these, I mean, it's not even female detectives. Maybe it's just detectives in general, who like don't do their job well, or they mess up or they make a mistake. 

And there were parts of this book where I felt like, wait a minute, a detective or an investigator would definitely investigate this. A detective or investigator would never go alone to this. Like, do you know what I mean? Like these kind of parts and so that's what [00:30:00] I struggled with a little bit. And When the Stars Go Dark, but you cannot beat the setting. I've handsell a lot of these because I think the story is well-told and fast paced and I know my suspense and thriller loving customers. I'm thinking of my aunt. I'm thinking of Star if you're listening to this, like I can name people who I know will love this book. I think how Paul McLain handles the subjects of abuse and trauma is so beautifully done and crafted and so I love that part. 

Is this like Tana French level and to me, Tana French is like the epitome that she's like this really great detective story writer. Is it Tana French level? I don't think so. However, this is also departure for Paul McLean, so it wouldn't surprise me if we see more of this out of Paul McLain and maybe she's headed in this trajectory and if so, I, I would, I would try another one of hers. I really would. This one in parts fall flat, but other parts of it were really [00:31:00] great. I think the consensus is, I mean, people love this book and, and reviewers love this book too. Critics love this book too. So When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain. It is out now.

Again, big departure. Then I picked up The Trouble with Hating You. This is by Sajni Patel. I read this as part of my local book club. It is my first book club book to read and finish in I think six months. I think the last book club book I read and finished in time to talk about it with my book club was Saturday Night Ghost Club, which was in October. So, so here we are in April slash mate and my book club chose The Trouble with Hating You. This is a romcom, but, and I think this was interesting to actually to read right after When the Stars Go Dark. When the Stars Go Dark was like this suspense, thrillers that also wound up dealing with really heavy topics. The Trouble with Hating You is this rom com dealing with really heavy topics like sexual assault, like child abuse and so it took me a minute to kind of get my bearings [00:32:00] in The Trouble with Hating You. 

The Love story is fun. It definitely has almost like, you know, pride and prejudice vibes, like somebody, you know, the two love interests meet and they hate each other. And the love interest in this book are Liya and Jay. Liya is this kind of high powered executive and she's working her way up the ladder. They live in Texas. Jay is this attorney. He comes on board to help her company and their parents are trying to arrange a marriage. Um, and so trying to arrange them to, to meet one another. The book goes back and forth between Liya's perspective and Jay's, I really liked that. I really loved Jay. It took me a minute to fall for Liya and I think that is exactly how the author meant for it to be. 

I wasn't sure I liked this book until I went to book club and then I loved talking about it and I love hearing other things women's perspectives, women who have experienced different things for me and who had a lot to say about Liya, the character  and also Liya and Jay's love story and their familial relationships. My reading was only [00:33:00] enhanced as, as usual right? My reading was only enhanced by discussing this with other people and by the time we were done with book club, I was like, Oh yeah, I did like this book because I think around com that deals with heavier things is something I'm very much interested in and talk about setting.

 We've still got this really rich sense of place. The book is set in Texas and it's rooted in Indian culture and there are some really memorable scenes that take parts during, um, kind of religious ceremonies and there's a wedding. And so there's a lot, there's a lot to unpack here and I really did wind up liking it. It's very cute paperback original. Our staffer, Laura also read this one and really liked it. So this is The Trouble with Hating You by Sajni Patel. I will also say that there are already more books planned because one of the best parts to me about this book and our book club agreed was the friendships. So our main character, Liya, one of our main characters is really just has this beautiful group of friends that surround her and [00:34:00] help her and they are there for each other, like very much kind of sex in the city vibes. And I love those friends so much, and we are now going to get some sequels that deal with other friends in Liya's friend group and I really do like that. And so I will be picking up the sequel, which I think releases later this fall. So The Trouble with Hating You by Sajni Patel.

 Then I picked up What Comes After. This is debut novel by  JoAnne Tompkins. You have probably seen it places. It's got one of those really striking Riverhead covers. I really liked this book a lot and we talked about Tana French earlier in regards to Paula McLain. I definitely think  JoAnne Tompkins has Tana French vibes here and, uh, I had the opportunity to actually, as I'm talking a lot, I realized I interviewed a lot of authors this month, which I don't normally do, but I interviewed  JoAnne Tompkins, the author of What Comes After. I interviewed her for a Patreon episode.

And JoAnne is a former mediator, former attorney and I think there's something about, [00:35:00] and she, and I talked about this a little bit when I interviewed her, there is something about attorneys and their writing style and I think, I don't know, maybe it's because I'm married to one and maybe because I used to work among attorneys but there is something about an attorney where their brain is almost trained. I think to see things from all different sides and angles. And I think that comes out in the books that they write. And so what comes after is a really interesting book set in the Pacific Northwest. So this would actually pair really well with When the Stars Go Dark. You could do both of these, I think can really be pleased with your reading experience.

 What Comes After is set in the Pacific Northwest. There are two young men and you know this from the beginning two young men who have been killed. So one friend has murdered his friend and then killed himself and so there are, you know, consider those your kind of your content warnings. However, that takes place essentially off page and we as the reader kind of are trying to figure out why this has [00:36:00] happened alongside these kids' parents and this community, we're trying to figure out why this happened. So that kind of takes place off page. 

And then what unfolds is the story of Isaac, who's the father of the murdered son, Lorrie, the mother of the son who committed the crime and then committed suicide and then Evangeline, and who's this young woman who kind of shows up out of nowhere, almost like this kind of truant character and we don't know why she's here. And the book kind of, kind of takes all of these different perspectives and somehow manages to weave them together without being confusing or confounding.

I really did love how JoAnne Tompkins told this story. It could have gone wrong so easily, but it didn't. Instead it was handled really well. And you get all these different kind of perspectives and personalities and I really liked that part about the book. One of the questions we get asked the Bookshelf all the time is, what can I read if I liked Where the Crawdads Sing? And I don't know if that's because [00:37:00] Delia Owens is from Thomasville. I don't know if that's because Where the Crawdads Sing had the power to make readers out of non-readers. I saw that a lot in our customer base, but we just get this question a lot.

 Like, what can I read if I liked Where the Crawdads Sing? What should I read next? And that's always kind of a tough question for me, because I feel likeWhere the Crawdads Sing is all these different genres at once, right? Like I liked Where the Crawdads Sing for the nature writing, but some people liked it for the love story. Some people liked it for the courtroom drama. Some people liked it for the suspense and so there's, there's something for everybody, but very rarely do we have books that kind of incorporate all of the above. 

I think, and I'm very pleased to say that, I think What Comes After is perfect reading. If you were a fan of Where the Crawdads Sing. It, it has the same compulsive readability. It's got beautiful nature writing, just in a different part of the country. Um, we really get a lot about the Pacific Northwest. That's why I think you'd like it.If you like the Paula McLain book. There is a suspense here. There's a mystery unfolding, right because we're trying to [00:38:00] find out what happened to these two teenagers and why. We're also trying to figure out who Evangelina is and why she is here.

 And then there's really, and I don't think Crawdads have this. There's this really interesting look at religion, in particular at Quakers and so Isaac is a devout Quaker and his spirituality plays a really big part in the book and in how he responds to his son's killing and I was enamored with those parts of the book. There is also a dog in this book that you were going to love. So like I became very attached to, to all of these characters. Isaac is a very memorable character to me, but there's a dog and he really holds your attention as well. Your heart kind of goes out to him. I really liked this book. There's a lot happening and again, in the hands of a different writer, I think it could've gone a different direction, but instead I think it was handled really well. And all of it is told pretty masterfully, I think. So it is called What Comes After by JoAnne Tompkins.

 It's um, I was almost [00:39:00] deterred by this one because of how long it is and my I'm very sorry to say my head is just not in the right space for a really lengthy works of literature, but I think this is an exception and you kind of fly through it. So, um, What Comes After by JoAnne Tompkins.

 Then I had the opportunity to go with my parents, to the beach for a couple of days, and I chose to read a little bit differently. So I'm not a huge re-reader, but I wanted a book that would make me feel like myself. I've been struggling a little bit with burnout. I am certainly languishing as Adam Krantz said in the New York times, I'm definitely languishing and I just wanted to feel like myself. So I took Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. We're going to talk about this really in more detail, I think in our upcoming episode about faith books, but if you've never read Gilead, just allow me to replug it here. I didn't know if I would feel the same way I felt about it when I [00:40:00] first read it in 2009, but I loved it and it reminded me of what I love about literature, what I love about books, what I love and the comfort I personally find in spirituality and in religion.

I, I Marilynne Robinson is just a stunning writer. There's no other way to put it. The way the story is told us so beautifully written. If you're not familiar, it is the story of John Ames and he is essentially on his death bed writing a letter to his son. There is so much here, even if you were not comforted by religion or spirituality, there's just a lot here about humaness and humanity and personhood that I think is really important and would particularly be interesting to read after the year we've all had. And there's like a brief reference to the 1918 flu. And I you know, in 2009, when I read this book that didn't, I didn't find that interesting, or I didn't find that memorable at all and then when I read it this time, I was like underlining and I just really I'm so [00:41:00] glad I re-read, this one. 

I found it just as comforting and just as beautiful as they did the first time I read it. Highly recommend Gilead by Marilynne Robinson and now I am eager to finish the quartet. I'm going to reread Home and then I'm going to read Laila and Jack for the first time. So I'm going to try to do those if not in the next whole month, by the end of the year, I hope to read the whole quartet. 

Lastly, in April, I finished, Are you there? God, it's me Margaret, by Judy Blume. Again, this was part of our kind of book, my reading was kind of book-ended by these YA  books that we're reading as part of our, I want It That YA book club. So many people love this book. I realized I had never read this book. I've read a lot of Judy Blume and I thought, for sure, I had read this and then I picked it up and had no recollection. None of it was familiar to me and so I suspect that this is the first time I've read it. And here's what I loved about it. 

Shocked to no one, I love the parts where Margaret is grappling with her religion and her religious experience. She is trying to [00:42:00] decide if she should be Christian or if she should be Jewish and she's visiting different churches and synagogues and temples and she's trying to really figure out who she is and she talks to God, but she's not really even sure who God is and what, what he is. I love those parts. I will tell you probably the reason I did not read this as a 12 or 13 year old, is it because I hate talking and reading about puberty. 

I have a lot of work to do on myself before I become a mother of a teenager or a preteen, because I hate talking about that stuff and I as a kid would not have liked this book at all. I would not have liked this book because I was a very late bloomer. I wanted to be a kid forever, and I did not want to talk about bras or periods or deodorant, didn't want to talk about any of that and Margaret loves talking about those things with her friends and desperately aches and wants to have her period, to get a bra [00:43:00] and so, I mean, so much of that would have been uncomfortable to me as a 12 year old. 

And wasn't uncomfortable to me as an adult, but was just like, Oh, there's a reason I didn't read this as a kid and it's because this was not for me. However Margaret is charming and what we talked, we talked about a lot of things in our book club, and this is why I love book clubs and why I think they're important. I love hearing how important this book was, was to so many women in the book club that we're in. I loved hearing about the mark Judy Blume made on so many of our lives in different ways, in different books, through different characters and I did fall in love with Margaret and just how precocious she is and how charming she is.

And we agreed that Mr. Benedict, you know, is kind of this young teacher and we had fun talking about his character. We agreed that the grandparent character, we saw the grandmother in different, through a different lens maybe than we would have as a kid, because maybe there's some boundary issues there. It's interesting to read these books as adults and [00:44:00] I liked this book. I totally understand why it is a classic. It. It was fun to read it for the first time. And it was fun to read it alongside people who really loved it and who really treasure it. And, um, yeah, that it was a really fun reading experience. It's part of the reason I love this little book club that we're in. So that is how I wound up the month. Are you there? God, it's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. 

Wow. That was a lot of books. I feel like I did that on like speed dial like I did that really fast. Um, but we still, this was a, still a long episode, so I hope you had a wonderful reading month. Please go to Instagram at BookshelfTville. Find the post where we're talking about the books we read in April. I would love to hear what you read, what your favorite was. 

I had a couple of favorites this month and I hope I'm sure you could tell by what I was talking about, but I cannot wait to hear from you and to hear  what you loved and to know maybe if some of these books that I love you didn't like, or if I maybe didn't like a book, you loved it because I think that's, what's important to remember is that we are all approaching books from all different angles and so some of us are going to [00:45:00] love some things and hate others and that's okay and I, I think that's important for us to remembe as we share so much of our reading life online or in podcast form or in newsletters or whatever, it's important to remember, Oh, like somebody might love this book and this is why book clubs are so important because The Trouble with Hating You is an example of a book that I just liked. I thought it was fine and then I went to book club and realized how meaningful it was to some people. And so I think that is what is so important about realizing and understanding why people love the books that they do and why people hate the books that they do. So, anyway, cannot wait to hear what you read in April. I will see you then next week.

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 The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton. 

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