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Three Days in June, Anne Tyler (pub date March 2025, Knopf)
This lovely little novel centers around Gail Blaine — mother, ex-wife, suddenly unemployed educator — and three days surrounding her daughter’s (Debbie) wedding. And her ex, Max, who shows up unannounced for said wedding, expecting to stay at Gail’s house. With a cat. Not his, he claims, but a foster; does Gail mind that the cat is staying too? The cat clearly has her own mind made up; she settles right in on Gail’s pillow. Gail is unimpressed, however, by the entire circumstance. And then there’s her daughter’s wedding to worry about.
Humor shines throughout the book in a terrific balance of slight snide asides and funny descriptions of events and people, and yet the book is serious as well, with love and relationships as a centerpiece.
The day before, the day of the wedding, and the day after cover the entirety of this short novel, in a charming way, paced perfectly — not too frantic, not too slow, but rather leisurely despite the antics of the wedding and Max’s stay with Gail. Perhaps leisurely sounds too slow for this book, which is rather paced perfectly. Perfectly for three days in June.
I don’t usually read authors like Anne Tyler, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish. I listened to the #LibroFM audio of this instead of reading, which is quite different for me. The actress reading it was a perfect fit; she hit the “he saids/she saids” in a tone that made them disappear into the background, as they should on the page. Her characterizations of voice were subtle yet distinct for the characters. All in all, a perfect audiobook experience.
I’m going to go back and read the book in paper as soon as possible.
Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine Books, Pub date June 3, 2025 350pp.
The writer of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones and the Six has done it again! Atmosphere is so well done, it’s a gorgeous portrait of NASA’s space shuttle program in the 80s that manages to be entertaining, emotional, and downright gorgeous. The story was told in a creative and captivating way, the love in this is intimate and real, and the characters are relatable and well-developed. Atmosphere will have you laughing and crying at the same time. Thank you Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this ARC. I have no doubts that this book will be just as successful and popular as Reid’s other books
HarperCollins/Quill Tree Books, Pub Date April 1, 2025, 208pp.
Tova Friedman here recounts her own story as one of the youngest children to survive Auschwitz’s during the Holocaust, framed as a retelling to a friend she has met and trusts in New York, after World War II.
The book is an ostensibly middle reader version of Friedman’s adult book of the same, told from Tola’s (Friedman’s original name) point of view, first-person narrative, during the events of her life starting before the war. However, I had a hard time believing this is actually written for middle readers, not because of the content of the book itself (which is graphic and doesn’t hold back on the details of what Tola experiences before and during her stay at the death camp), but because of the language itself.
I worked at Houghton Mifflin as a line editor and developer in middle reader English textbooks as my first job in publishing and learned a great deal about language levels for reading comprehension for different age groups of children and how word charts are applied to text for children’s books. This book constantly uses words that are far beyond middle readers and brought me out of the story over and over again.
I must say that as a bookstore owner now, I can’t recommend this book for middle readers; young adults, yes, but middle readers, no. And that’s a shame, because it’s about Tova/Tola, told from her point of view, detail by detail about the death camp, Auschwitz, about her daily experiences with the guards, with others in the camp, with her mother, with the deprivations, starvation, cruelty, murder, and psychological torture the Nazis subjected both adults and young children to on a daily basis. The surety Tova/Tola had every day, ingrained into her as “normal,” that she would die at any moment. And the terrible normality for such a young child that this was her entire life: death all around her, death for herself.
And yet, the target audience will have a hard time reading this because of the actual language used. I hate circling around to that again, but there it is: it’s all about language with middle readers books. If a child can’t understand the words, they will put the book down. Not all: I was one of those children that lived with a dictionary at my elbow, even as a middle reader. But I was also neurodivergent, reading way above my level and a definite book geek.
I wish this book were written at middle reader level; I’d recommend it in a heartbeat. It’s such an important story; every child (every person!) should know about the Holocaust, and I feel the details in this books are necessary for the impact of the narrative. Some parents won’t want their children exposed to the fact that children were killed, that adults as well as children were shot, naked, starved, and thrown into pits like firewood. And yet it must never happen again, and to know that fact everyone, including children, need to know exactly what the Nazis did to Jews and marginalized people.
Though written for middle readers (despite the language level problems), I’d recommend this book to upper middle readers who are verging on young adult, as well as young adults. Tova’s story needs to be heard by this generation.
I need to make this announcement, apparently, because it’s already started:
We are not a dumping ground for your now-unwanted Neil Gaiman books and graphic novels. We have no access to the dumpster — you can go to the Transfer Station more easily than we can, in fact.
I know far more about this news than most of you, and we will not be carrying Neil’s books in the store after we’ve sold through the few new books we have of his. We will not accept used books of his from you.
Never Gamble Your Heart (Forever (Grand Central Publishing), pub date Feb 4, 2025, 384pp, $17.99)
Genre: Romance with mystery.
A charming Victorian romance, updated for modern values regarding women’s independence, but quite lovely, well-told, and eminently readable. I tore through it (even while taking notes!).
I read an ARC of this (Advanced Reading Copy) because I’m a bookseller and it’s one of my perks. You’ll see me making some references to confusing continuity I found — I am hoping this was found by the copyeditor and author, but the version I read had a thanks to the copyeditor in the back, and that means continuity errors may still occur in it. They didn’t detract from the enjoyment of the book, however, even though I was a copyeditor for decades for the major publishers and I have a magpie’s brain for this sort of stuff.
That said, the book entails a Victorian governess on her first job, which is also her first job for the Dove, a shadowy woman who helps women in need by using an organization she trains of young unmarried women to go into wealthy homes to solve problems, most likely mysteries. She is there to solve the mystery of the men without huge fortunes who are marrying well-endowed women and the women then disappear from society. Her sister is one of them and she’s determined to discover the ringleader of this group, as well as the men who are participating. Hijinks ensue, of course, and in this case a love match is formed, with a rake who owns the most infamous (and biggest) gambling hell in London.
I must note that the scandal and mystery of twenty (with one additional ringleader) lords who sit in the House of Lords and their votes, garnered by the ringleader marrying them off to richly dowried young women (who are also troublesome, apparently), becomes a problem with continuity in the ARC. Only the Dove knows the identity of the lords in question, and in fact she only knows they *are* lords, not their names. And yet a turning point in the mystery is that knowledge, complete with names, being known by the heroine and her fiance — without that information, the plot doesn’t work. I hope this is fixed before publication.
I highly recommend this book otherwise, and look forward to more in this series. I was alerted to this by a review in Publisher’s Weekly; their praise was certainly appropriate.
(please excuse typos in this — unforgivable for a former copyeditor, but I have Covid and am running a high fever. Yes, this is what booksellers do when they’re home sick; they still work.)
AFTER LIFE, Gayle Forman, Quill Tree Books (Harper Collins), ISBN 978-0-0633-4614-7, January 2025, $19.99, 272pp.
After Life is a fine example of my long-held belief that one is never too old for a “Young Adult” book. The story begins with a lyrical description of a young woman riding her bicycle home, and expressing the pleasures of that kind of homeward journey. Once there she is confused by some things that seem out of place, but then she hears her mother pulling into the garage, and when she goes out to say hello, her mother begins to scream….
Amber, who had been thinking about her upcoming Senior Prom and graduation, finds out that she had died seven years previously in a hit-and-run accident. Her little sister is now the age she had been, and many of the fundamental relationships that we expect in our lives had changed. The story unfolds as a series of short chapters, alternating between her experiences, and providing the stories of people around her, spread over many years, but creating a tapestry view of the life she had lived. She tries to respond to the new world of her hometown, with mixed results.
The interweaving threads of her life, family, friends, and acquaintances slowly come together to create a new view of all these lives. The story is beautifully told, with great emotional depth, and I hope readers will enjoy it as much as I did.
MEET ME AT BLUE HOUR, by Sarah Suk. Quill Tree Books (HarperCollins), trade paperback, 288pp. Price $19.99. Pub date: April 1, 2025.
This young adult book (13 and up) is set primarily in South Korea, centered around one of the protagonist’s mother’s clinic, Sori of Us Clinic (Sori Clinic run by Dr. Bae), a memory removal center. When Yena Bae, Dr. Bae’s daughter, comes to the clinic to work for the summer from her home with her dad in Canada, she is troubled by memories herself; memories mostly of her best friend and possibly first love, Lucas, who seemingly dumped her and disappeared when he moved to another province of Canada. All attempts at contact were met with silence. Years later she still remembers Lucas, and working in her mother’s “mixtape archive” in the clinic, runs across a mix of sounds that remind her exactly of her times with Lucas. Could it be a coincidence? The tape turns out to be his. How could he have possibly wanted to remove all memories of her? Why?
When she meets Lucas by accident outside the clinic, the mystery deepens, as do her memories of their time together and her longing to have him as her best friend again. Perhaps more than a friend…. Lucas remembers nothing of her existence. Can she remind him? What would happen to him?
And what about Lucas’s grandfather, whom Lucas wants to participate in the clinic’s new retrieval of memories study they are proposing to do. Can Lucas get his grandfather into the already booked-up study before he has to go back to Canada? Yena wants to help but can’t reveal herself as knowing the family previously.
In getting to know Lucas, Yena learns more about herself, her own memories, and what the Sori Clinic is really doing and has done in the past.
Sprinkled with chapters told from the point of view of the memory soundscape tapes themselves (a popcorn machine, a film projector, an ice cream truck, etc.), chapters alternate between Yena and Lucas. The mechanism of memory being tied to sounds isn’t a new one in neuroscience, it’s used to good purpose here and is easily accessible to younger readers. The twist in the book isn’t what you think it will be, and the characters are well drawn. Altogether an engaging read, a quick read, and a satisfying book. I would recommend this to any young adult interested in stories about relationships (both romantic and friendship), Korean culture and food (which is used lightly but to very good effect), and what makes us us — our memories.
Content warnings: Emotional abuse, domestic violence, racism and sexual harassment
Midnights With You is a young adult coming-of-age novel that follows Deedee, a seventeen-year-old who has a struggling relationship with her mother. Deedee’s family, friendships, and romantic relationships felt realistic and relatable. The story reminded me of Greta Gerwig’s Ladybird, or Real Women Have Curves. Generational trauma is a big theme and Clare Osongco explored it thoughtfully. Dee Dee’s mother, although cruel and even emotionally abusive to her daughter at times is not painted as an evil villain, she is a nuanced and flawed character who also has redeemable qualities and does love her daughter. One way Dee Dee’s mom is able to express her love indirectly is by sharing ghost stories from her culture. This inclusion of different Filipino folklore was a very enjoyable aspect of the story. This book kind of felt like a warm hug and wrapped up beautifully, I can definitely recommend it, especially for high schoolers.
Such a bad influence is a thriller that follows Hazel, the older sister of prominent social media influencer Evie Davis. The book begins with Evie disappearing on a live stream. We follow Hazel as she tries to connect the pieces of her sister’s disappearance while simultaneously confronting the complicated relationship with her mom, sister, and the people in Evie’s life.
I really enjoyed this book. It was an overall fast-paced read, with a few slower spots throughout. I’d say this is common with most thrillers. The reader gets to delve into the action, and then relax a little as the story continues to build.
The story gives lots of insights into the inner workings of social media. With fictional threads from different social media platforms. The realistic comments from Evie’s fans really pulled me in, to the point I forgot she wasn’t a real person. “Do I miss hating her now? Yes.” (Muenter, 222) This quote perfectly captures the relationship so many people have with influencers. It’s clear the author did her research, or, if she’s like me, spends a lot of time on the internet.
I appreciated the spotlight on common criticisms of children on social media. Things like predators, exposure to the harmful expectations of internet beauty standards, and the financial burden on kids too young to be worrying about it. This has been a hot topic on the internet the past few years, especially with TikTok becoming a huge platform for child influencers.
As I was reading, I found myself drawing a lot of connections to Sharp Objects by the popular thriller writer Gillian Flynn. Both books center the eldest daughter returning to their dysfunctional home, while struggling to unravel a series of mysteries. This comparison is a compliment to both writers, as I loved the themes and topics throughout.
I did only give this book a four out of five stars for one reason. The ending is not super clear, and leaves a lot up to the reader’s imagination. For some, this may be their favorite part, others may end up throwing it across the room. I’m somewhere in the middle, I didn’t hate the ending, but I also wanted more, and so my rating reflects that.
Otherwise, the writing was quite good, so was character development. For someone who wants to curl up with an intriguing page turner, I’d most definitely recommend this. This book was Olivia Muenter’s debut and I cannot wait to see what else she writes!
Work Cited Muenter, Olivia. Such a Bad Influence. Quirk Books, 2024.
