Nonfiction Review: Janesville

My mistake has been proven again! As is often the case, one of my bookstores took a book that I had no interest in reading, but once I started, I really liked it. This time, the book is Janesville .

Janesville is an active and prosperous city in rural Wisconsin. GM opened the plant in February 1923 and the assembly plant has been in operation for more than 80 years. It grew to 4.8 million square feet and employed more than 7,000 people. And on December 23, 2008, the last car left the assembly line. This book covers a little bit of the history of the Geneva plant and the city, but it is mostly about what happened after the closure of the GM factory. The author tells this story through a series of locals, many of whom have worked in the factory for years and are suddenly unemployed, but who are trying to help the GMMs. The characters in this story are all different. Some have found other jobs, although in recent years GM has been a major part of the economy, and companies that supply other goods or services to factories have had to be fired or laid off. Some return to local colleges for re-training with support and other resources. Others could not accept a sudden pay cut and agreed to move to another GM factory, which meant only working days and very long trips to see their families on weekends. For the first time in their lives, many families benefit from charitable and food aid. The effects of factory closures are widespread and long-lasting, and the authors examine why cities have not been able to survive such disruptive changes. He saw not only the economic situation but also the political and social situation and he felt sorry for the real people involved in this tragedy.

Despite my doubts and hopes for a dry future, I was immediately drawn to this fascinating and heartbreaking story. The author has done a lot of research and talked not only with his staff but also with other members of the community, including bankers, local college leaders, politicians and others. It shows the complexity and complexity of these people and systems in the city in a very effective way and explains that there are no easy answers. And by focusing on real individuals and families (not only staff but also spouses and children) it understands the deepest emotions and limited and tragic options for results. At the end of the book, five years after the factory closed, some people have recovered or found new ways for themselves, but many have not. According to the translation, this is not just about the history of a special city, but about the history of cities and similar situations in the United States. This book is well written and insightful and has been the subject of much discussion in our book group.

297 pages Simon and Schuster

Reading Challenge፡ Amy Goldstown Janville Addresses

January Reasons (for my new author)

J. Letter Soup Test

For the first time, my novel is a test for non-fiction readers, ED in the Economics category.

The problem of diversity

In the Wisconsin Literature Run

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Fiction Review: Harlem Shuffle

When I decided to read it for Black History Month, the first book I chose was Colson Whitehead’s “ Harlem Shuffle ,” a Christmas present for my husband. The Whitehead Underground (my opinion in the link) surprised me, and I couldn’t wait to read its latest version, which takes place in Harlem in the early 1960s.

Ray Carney has come a long way after a difficult childhood with a notorious alcoholic father and criminal. Ray runs a decent business, a furniture store on 125th Street in Harlem, with his name on display in gold letters, and is married to Elizabeth, whose parents live under the pseudonym Striver’s Row. Ray and his apartment look like the subway, but Ray dreams of a nice apartment on Riverside Drive overlooking the park. In 1959, their daughter Mae was born, and Elizabeth was pregnant with her second child. Ray’s business is going pretty well, but he feels constant pressure to pay all the bills, keep the business in the dark, so many people pay membership fees and want a better life for Elizabeth and her children. He grew up the brother of his brother Freddie, as his father often left him for a long time and remained with his aunt. He and Freddie are still close, although Freddie followed in Ray’s father’s footsteps and lived as a criminal. However, these are mostly small items, and when he occasionally offers Ray to sell “used TVs” at his store, Ray allows him to add them to legitimate used stocks and looks the other way. However, this time Freddie falls in love with the evil villains and attracts Ray, who offers his services as a barrier. The plans are to rob a luxury hotel in Harlem, and, as usual, the robbery is not going as planned. Everything happens, and Ray suddenly gets on the police radar and gets nervous because of a new criminal client ... but he makes more money. As he progresses, Ray rises in the world when he finds more and more problems in his beloved cousin. Ray is constantly moving between legal and criminal business, one foot in every world.

As always, Whitehead has a tremendous talent for attracting people to the site, place and time. In this case, the Harlem of the 1960s is so vivid and realistic that one can almost hear the sounds, smells, and fear and rage of racial riots. It penetrates all aspects of the scene and time, making you feel almost at home, and at the same time offers criminals and future black Harlem entrepreneurs (who are sometimes equally perverted). Ray is a complex and intriguing character who is trapped between two worlds, wanting to win the road in the real world and wanting to prove that he has nothing to do with his father, because he is attracted to such an attractive world of underground criminals. potential. This novel is successful on many levels: as a family drama, as a thrilling crime thriller, as a historical tale of an era of open racial conflict and a love letter to Harlem. I really enjoyed making this trip with Ray and his family.

318 pages, Double Day

This book addresses the challenges of reading in 2022 :

Pass the TBR call

Diversity Challenge (and February Mini Challenge - black)

New York (probably the first of many!) In the Literary Escape Challenge

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Memoir Review: Black Boy

When I decided to focus my February reading on Black History Month, I went through a lot of audio books and found it very convenient. Richard Wright's Black Channel, originally published in 1945, is a reminder of a boy's difficult childhood and youth in rural Mississippi and his adult life in Chicago in the first half of the 20th century. The life of a young man in a constant struggle and the author is a compelling, compelling (and sometimes scary) story with a lot of interest in himself, family and other people of color.

Richard begins his memories of his four-year-old son, Nachz, Mississippi, living with his parents and brother. Shortly thereafter, his mother began a relentless struggle to care for her young children and support them financially. Ricardi studies a lot, but once the opportunity arises, he tries to make money to help his family, initially by doing work and doing odd jobs, even in a local bar to get customers a coin or nickel from books. . (And he drank his first drink as a child). To help the family he dropped out of eighth grade. They move to earn a living, sometimes moving with their families or occasionally living in small, dilapidated apartments. Richard's grandfather had a nice house and lived there for a while, but it was very religious with very strong ideas of how Richard should be, and in that life he did not feel comfortable with Richard and his mother ( although they had to were patient for a while). As he grew and began to read more and learn more about the world around him, Richard began to notice the stark contrast between blacks and whites in the South. As an intelligent and educated young man, he could not understand why things were happening and why people tolerated such disgusting treatment. Eventually, Richard escaped to North Chicago and was able to transfer his mother and brother there, although life was not easy. Richard was surprised to find that whites (usually Jews or other foreigners) treated him with kindness and justice, even though the majority of the population was anti-apartheid, even in the northern highlands. He withdrew from the Communist Party for his speech on equality and the presence of other educated blacks, but he was quickly upset by their quarrels and other issues.

Richard's life story is fascinating, both with its extraordinary age and with a fascinating look at Jim Crow South and the experiences of blacks in the early 1900s. Originally published in 1945, the narrator is not actually an author, but Peter Francis James has done an amazing job of fully capturing the voice of the child and the person, so you feel like telling the story directly ( audio example here ). While the discrimination and abuse he faces in Richard and his family is often disturbing, there are also funny moments when Richard remembers his childhood flourishing. The first half of the book, set in Mississippi, was a little more interesting to me than the subsequent episodes of Richard's involvement with communism, but I was still immersed in his powerful and compelling story from beginning to end.

Old classic

Harper Audio

This book is suitable for the following 2022 reading activities:

Back to Classics Probationary non-fiction classics

Non-fiction test (# 3) - in the social history category.

Diversity test

Call for Literary Travel - Mississippi

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Fiction Review: Kindred

For years I had heard nothing but great reviews about Octavia Butler's Kindred and wanted to read it. So when I saw that my local independent bookstore had chosen it for their monthly Black Book of the Month review panel, I signed up. Fabulous. Not good. This touching story of a contemporary black woman who travels through time on a southern plantation in 1815 amazed me. It is a fascinating, compelling and very powerful story that has generated a lot of discussion.

Dana is a black woman who lived in California with her white husband Kevin in 1976. Both are writers and Dana works part-time to get around. On her 26th birthday, Dana suddenly disappears from their living room as she and Kevin unload the boxes of their latest move. It is located near a river in the countryside surrounded by trees. See a child drown in a river and act on instinct, jump into the water and swim to save him. You drag it ashore, but it doesn't breathe, so you start to breathe mouth-to-mouth. She was shocked when her mom arrived on the scene and started punching Dana in the back. The boy, Rufus, started breathing again, but his father appeared and pointed the gun at Dana. She disappears from the scene and reappears in her living room wet, dirty and out of breath. She tells Kevin what happened, and while it's hard to believe, it's impossible to ignore the physical evidence Dana carries: river water, dirt, and bruises on her back. It soon happened again and Dana learned that her maiden voyage was in 1815 and that Rufus lived on a farm in Maryland. She seems to have the ability to somehow relate to him when his life is in danger, which often happens as he gets older. Whenever Dana is taken back in time, she stays around longer; He suddenly returns to his time when his life is in danger. While on the plantation, Dana has to live and work with slaves, often gets into trouble, remembers to speak up, and behaves submissively towards Rufus' often abusive parents. Dana tells her true story to Rufus, who sees her appear and disappear, and even though these two become a little intimate, their relationship is still strained, as Rufus discovers that blacks are less human, almost animal. What makes things even more difficult is that Dana's family history is in jeopardy due to what's going on on this farm.

did i say wow ?? Regular readers of my blog know that I love time travel novels, especially those that include historical stories like Connie Willis' TheDoomsday Book and Eclipse and Everything is Obvious . But this historical time travel novel was incredibly powerful. We had a lot to discuss in the reading group. We all agreed that Dana, who had experienced slavery on a southern plantation, was stronger because she was a modern woman, and the contrast with her modern life only accentuated the horrors of slavery. The comings and goings between periods influenced Dana and Kevin, who one day drifted a lot with her. With the views of black and white slaves of the time, as well as the growing conflict between the admiration and respect of Rufus and Dana and the views he grew up on, the novel covers many aspects of this period in depth. Dana faces impossible choices and makes very difficult decisions as she tries to balance the needs of time - and the people she's starting to care for - with her modern life and family. It's a compelling and powerful portrait of a terrifying time and place in our story, told in a truly unique way. I want to go back and reread the whole novel. I'm sure someday.

note that. When you get back to the end of the novel, be sure to go back and read the introduction again!

264 pages, Bacon Press

Registered books

This book is suitable for the following 2022 reading assignments :

TBR fitting test

Idea of ​​the Month - Girl Power (No female character is more ferocious than Dana!)

Alphabet soup challenge - K for the family

Challenge to diversity

Literary Escape Call - North Carolina

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Middle-Grade Review: Ruby Lee and Me

Last month, while waiting for my book group selection to become available, I needed a quick book to weave between books and wanted to stay on my story month theme. I've found the perfect choice on my TBR shelves (since 2016!): Ruby Lee and Me, a temporary novel by Shannon Hitchcock. It's a rich and warm story that blends the family drama, friendship and racial tensions of 1960s Southern integration.

Sarah, 12, is assigned to take care of her younger sister Robin on a summer's day in North Carolina in 1969, but becomes distracted by the book she is reading. Robin runs down the street and gets hit by a car. She was badly injured and Sara and her family were devastated. Sara goes to her grandparents' farm while her parents spend every day in the hospital with Robin. No one knows that Sarah blames herself and is overcome with guilt for what happened. But living on the farm with her grandparents in the summer is always comforting to her, and she's particularly excited to see her friend Rubin, a black girl who lives with her grandmother next door to the farm. Sarah notes that while her grandmothers are good friends at home, they rarely talk to each other when they're in town. Now, the big news in town is that Sarah School will be onboarded for the first time this fall, with its first African American teacher. Sarah is nervous about going to a new school, but reassures her friend Ruby will be around her... until Ruby tells her they can't be friends at school, only at home, like hers Grandmother tired. Their different attitudes create a rift between the two girls and Sarah's summer is only made worse as she worries about Robin and doesn't even have a boyfriend to talk to anymore.

I loved this sweet story with so much emotional complexity intertwined in it. Poor Sara has so many worries about a little girl, and the novel shows how much she (and consequently the other children) thinks about these difficult subjects that many adults would not bother. The author describes a beautiful picture of farm life, unlike anything that went wrong that summer. He explains in an author's note that Sarah's experiences are based on her childhood in North Carolina in 1967, when her sister was injured and schools were integrated, although she was younger than Sarah at the time. Also includes some of her photos on the back. Maybe that's why this story is so touching and authentic, with characters that really feel it. I was really having a great time with Sarah and Rubin and I was looking for them (and the town) to calm things down.

207 pages, scholastic

This book is part of the following Reading Challenges 2022 :

Mount TBR Challenge (Bonus points since this has sat on my shelf for 6 years?)

The Challenge of Reading the Alphabet - R

The Challenge of Reading Diversity

The Challenge of Literary Escape - North Carolina

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YA Review: Kent State

Last month, while I was looking for an audiobook to listen to, I spotted Deborah Wiles, a Kent State historical novel, in my audio backlog. I liked part of his 1960s middle-class trilogy , Wiles' Revolution , and I mistakenly thought it might be part of this series. However, focusing more on teenagers and young adults, the book tells the story of four American college students who were shot dead by members of the National Guard while protesting the Vietnam War in the state of Kent. It's not just a historical redirect, but a powerful first-person narrative, told from multiple angles, that was even more impressive on audio. I will not forget

Most people in the United States know the basics of this horrifying historical event, but nothing more than popular music and culture. On May 4, 1970, members of the United States National Guard were called to the Kent State University campus in Ohio to quell student protests against the Vietnam War. Protests were common at the time, but this time the situation got worse when the National Guard opened fire on the students, killing four people. The event made national news and inspired a now famous song by Neil Young ( Four Dead in Ohio ), but Wiles presented it in a whole new light. His book is narrated entirely in first person from various angles, as attendees recall the events of that week leading up to the shooting. The narrative shifts to the stories of Kent State students who knew about the murdered students, Kent City residents who feared escalating violence from this week's student protests, a black student in Ohio state, where protests were taking place the like and also a national security guard. . Who was there? The book is designed in such a way that all of these people were in the same room, each remembering events in their own way and telling their own stories. The result is an underlying narrative from multiple perspectives that provides a detailed and concise account of what happened together. The audio production features different narrators for each different character, each speaking from a first-person perspective, then each telling their own story.

The results, especially in the audio, are impressive, moving and very powerful. I was absolutely mesmerized by these 2 hours of audio production and felt like I heard these stories firsthand. I learned a lot about the specific history of this event, but I also learned a lot about what happened in the United States, in colleges across the country, and after the shooting. The author also added references to songs and other pop cultures that came out of them. I was not at all surprised to see this audio where ALA won the 2021 Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audio Production, that award because it was an audio experience that blew me away. The author's notes at the end give an idea of ​​the depth of Wiles' research by combining these first-person accounts and multiple perspectives. Fifty years later, this event is still relevant and contains lessons that we can and must learn from today. Hearing this description firsthand from many different sources is a powerful way to learn about the past.

144 pages, educational

school audio

This book corresponds to the following 2022 reading challenges :

Challenges of diversity

Literary Escape Challenge - Ohio

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Middle-Grade Review: Set Me Free

For the middle-class redemption of March, I saw an immersive audio recording of a middle-class orphan novel (for the most challenging of all). Orphans are not as common as children's books, but I received more than orphans gave me. A unique and wonderful story about two deaf children in the early nineteenth century who had a different experience, told by Anne Claire Lisot .

Mary was born deaf at the age of 14 and deaf people were often abused. But Mary was born in Martha's vineyard to many deaf (which is historically true), so she was raised in a loving family, surrounded by a supportive community, and everyone spoke a unique sign language. Mary's friend Nora, who works for a wealthy family in Boston, asks Mary for help, a deaf eight-year-old girl in the house where Nora works. Mary works as a babysitter for her daughter away from home, and is known to the family as "The Girl". She wants to be a teacher for deaf children but is worried - is it possible to teach someone who doesn't speak the language at this age? When Mary arrived, she saw the girl sitting in a horrible state, behaving like an animal, and frightening her from the harsh wine she had left in her family's absence. Mary began trying to identify him and research his background, but the waiter did not want to interfere with him. Can he find his daughter and know enough about her management to save her?

It's a very interesting story in many ways! There is a lot of suspicion and excitement when Mary tries to help her daughter against her parents' wishes and when she leaves the house and stays with people who can't speak sign language. The story itself is original and compelling, and I was amazed by the incredible melody described by Nora Hunter, Mary's character's first voice. All of this is credited to the deaf community on Martha's Vineyard and Native Americans who have fascinating historical backgrounds on the island and the mainland. The author provided additional information about all of this and much more in the author notes at the end of the book, which is perfect because I explained some of the things mentioned in the book. The plot, the interesting mix of characters, and the impressive plot make for a great reading/listening experience.

Note: This is actually Lazo 's first novel about Marie.

288 pages, Grammy Press

Scientific sound

This book fits the following reading challenges for 2022 :

Diversity test

Literature Escape Test - Other Massachusetts

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Fiction Review: Country of Origin

My next month’s reading will focus primarily on preparing for Booktopia 2022 (click Events and scroll down for more), my mom and I regularly visit an annual bookstore in Manchester, Virginia for our annual book weekend . Northern countries . This is a weekend for readers and authors to spend time together, chat with authors, have dinner, get recommendations from book sellers and have more fun with books. The bookstore selects 8-10 authors with new titles and clients often read the books in advance (so it's like a great book discussion over the weekend!). My first reading for Booktopia 2022 was Dahlia Azim's Country of Origin on April 12, and I really enjoyed this original multi-generational story about family and immigration. Northshire staff always chooses great books!

When the novel begins in Cairo in 1952, 14-year-old Halah flees, as she often does, to the roof of her family home. Young women in her community are tightly controlled and protected, and Halah rarely leaves her home, except when her father's manager is taking her to a private British school. This time, however, Halah sees fires burning across the city on the roof. This is the beginning of the Egyptian revolution to gain independence from Britain. As the violence escalates, Hala is expelled from school and her isolation is further aggravated, as is the annoyance of being tied to her home. His father is in the army and takes part in the revolution and on Friday night is visited by other loyal soldiers. One night on the roof, Hala meets a young attractive soldier named Khalil. There they often begin to meet, talk and get to know each other. Everyone dreams of going to America: Halil to avoid war and halah to gain some freedom. When she turns seventeen, they fulfill their dream and flee to New York, where they get married and settle in a small apartment while Khalili studies medicine. Halah still feels isolated and upset despite having more freedom. After all, they have a friend they call Amena. Occasionally visit Egypt and Amena grows. The novel contains parts from different perspectives of Khalil and Amena, both in adolescence and adulthood, paving their way into the world.

This novel succeeds on many levels. Yet Amena is a two-edged tale for adults about the turbulent journey that women strive to create and their own identity. It is a multi-generational family story that captures the love and challenges of Hala's relationship with her parents, husband and daughters, and Amen's relationship with her parents. It is a story about immigration and it is about the challenges faced by two different generations to find and find their place. It is a love story, romantic love and love between parent and child. And it is a fascinating historical fiction, set in a place and time of which I knew little. The emotional depth of the novel is augmented by the variety of perspectives, as the reader sees the world from all the protagonist’s perspectives. From the very first pages, I was completely immersed in the intricate and wonderful story, complex emotions and beautiful text. I never wanted to finish reading it and almost a month later I was still thinking about the book and its characters. I loved this place, my family, and this powerful and touching story that reflects my feelings and actions from generation to generation. I look forward to meeting the author!

320 pages, rare object

Date of publication: 12 April 2022

This book is suitable for the following 2022 reading assignments :

The challenge of diversity

Travel the World in Challenge Books - Egypt

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Fiction Review: This Tender Land

I've heard wonderful things about William Kent Krueger's novels over the years, but haven't read them. So I was very excited when our library system chose This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger as our territorial reading option for this spring. Her neighborhood book team then chose the novel as our April book. I was fascinated by this fascinating, moving and thrilling historical novel. I loved every minute and never wanted to finish it. Although I missed our discussion, I think my reading team agreed that this novel received one of our highest marks (8.4 out of 10).

It was 1932 and a group of orphans were living near the Gilead River at the Lincoln Indian Training School in southern Minnesota. Although most of the school's neighbors are American children (orphans or well-meaning parents or sent to school), two white siblings live there after their parents died four years ago. Odie O'Banio was twelve in 1932 and his older brother Albert was sixteen. Although Albert is an exemplary citizen, Odie still has a problem. But despite his behavior, Lincoln School is a scary and dangerous place to grow up. Director of the Ikastola. Brickman, who is commonly known to students as the Dark Wizard, is ruthless, and some of the adults he hires are even worse. He threatens to send her to Hate Reform School, so the brothers know they have to leave soon. When disaster strikes and things get more dangerous for the boys, they canoe their best friend to Moses. Moses is an Indian boy of Albert's age, who was found in a ditch next to his dead mother. As he grew older, he could no longer speak because his tongue was cut off. The school administration named him Musa because he was dropped out. One of the reasons he was so close to the O'Banion boys was that he learned sign language because what he learned as a child was deaf to his biological mother, which made him opened up his world. When the three boys go canoeing, a little girl arrives, promising to protect them. The four children descended, knowing that the river would cross the Minnesota River and finally the Mississippi River. They hoped to reach Saint Petersburg. Louis. Louis' aunts, Odie and Albert barely remember where they are. Along the way, they will meet very nice people, but also very dangerous people. Despite all this, Brickman's Law seeks them out, and the four children want one home and a place to live.

Their journey starts at 90 pages, and the length of the novel is around 450 pages, but I wanted to avoid the pleasures of summarizing the argument above (as usual), focusing on the background. But their journey is an epic journey of months and miles, and there are many lessons to be learned. There is a lot of tension here because the children face one problem after another: the risk of being arrested at some point, the risk of one life being ahead of another, the fear of being taken and return to existence, etc. . It is also a very thoughtful novel as each child grapples with personal, family and destiny issues. We know Odien well as the novel's narrator, and he struggles with questions about God, as if feeling God as a destructive force after his life. Here, a farmer they meet on the road shares his opinion of God (here Buck is nicknamed Odie):

"It's hard work, Bak. Don't change your mind, life will definitely kill you. I, this people, like to work. I've never been to church. God has everything." Down? I know, don't think about it. Ask me, God is there. Rain on the ground, in the sky, trees, apples, stars in the cotton trees. You and me. That's it" and that's it for God. It's hard work for sure, but it's good work because it's part of what connects us to this land. It's a beautiful land and delicate."

In this section, Krueger's beautiful writing and compelling reflections stand out throughout the novel. Although the children see many new things on their journeys along the river and overcome many difficulties, this is not just an adventure story. It is also an interesting historical fiction that recreates the difficult years of depression and how it affects different people. Krueger also weaves elements of fairy tales and myths throughout the story. First of all, this novel is nauseating and sincere. These poor kids have endured and struggled a lot, but eventually they find they are family to each other, and the stories come to a good conclusion, even if they aren't very surprising until the plot never turns! All in all, it's a perfect novel, so the vote for my group of books is a perfect 10. I would like to join our discussion; I always try to tell someone! I can't wait to read more Krueger novels because I know what I'm missing.

444 pages, Atria paper booklet

This 2022 workbook addresses the following issues :

TBR mountain challenge

Alphabet Soup Challenge - T

The challenge of diversity

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Fiction Review: The Violin Conspiracy

I'm reading books for next Booktopia weekend (my CV is for 2019 at the link; information about Booktopia 2022 here: click and browse to the event), and they're as wonderful as ever. Northshire Bookstore bookstores always select exceptional books and authors. Reading my latest biography Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocombo has probably been my favorite in the pile so far! It starts as a mystery, but turns into so much more: family drama, history, racism, romance, and more. It was so addictive that I could barely get up!

Ray Macmillan is a rising star in the classical violin world, but for one simple reason he is often not recognized: he is black. But Ray fought his entire life against racism and ultimately proved his worth; He sings alone with the best orchestra and will compete in the Shaikovsky Competition, the Classical Music Olympics. When he left New York one day for his home in North Carolina, his world collapsed. His favorite violin, a $ 10 million Stradivarius, was stolen. This violin is not only a big part of what helped him to guess others, but also a great personal value to him, given to him by his beloved grandmother. That violin is like its own members and its absence is incredibly painful. Given his costs, an entire team is investigating his disappearance: the New York City police, the FBI criminal department and the chief investigator of his insurance company (who lost $ 10 million). As the investigation continues with some good consequences, the story goes back in time to show how Ray came to this extraordinary life. We learn about his very needy family, his loving grandmother, the history of his family, and the wonderful story of a violin dating back to the days of slavery. Along the way, we also saw Ray rise to fame, from a poor kid to amazing international fame with a cheap violin from school to where he is now the best violinist. Oh yes, and we finally find out what happened to the missing violin, but not before the big surprises.

This is an unusual novel that has so much depth and so many layers. This is a twisted mystery, especially at the beginning and end. Of these, however, the main story fascinates me with its fascinating family history, the views's horrific racist experience (based on the author's experience as a black musician), his rich reputation and even his love story. With all this, the author retains the unwavering excitement that kept me behind the book because I had to stay up late every night because I just had to figure out what was going to happen next. This novel itself mixes complexity and emotion in quality acting that made me guess and make me look amazing. Can't wait to meet the author next week at Booktopia!

337 pages, Anchor Book

This book meets the following 2022 reading goals :

Soup Alphabet Challenge - B

diversity issues

Book World Travel - Russia

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Listen to a sample audiobook here and / or download it from Audible. The narrator, JD Jackson, sounds great!

 

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