I don’t know what it is, but this is another book I’ve had lying in my book stack for little over a year and never truly felt like picking it up. Until now. I was actually looking for an item that fit any of the remaining items of the reading challenge list, but go figure, this one spoke to me. I sat down, opened the book and before I knew it I was halfway through.
This book is everything main character Sally wants romantic comedies to be: smart, sharp, and funny, with imperfect main characters. It’s a bit meta but it works. Obviously, The Night Owls sketch comedy show that Sally is a writer for, is based on Saturday Night Live. The workplace descriptions were a lot, but because the work is intense and the only thing in Sally’s life, along with her best friends being on the show as well, it makes sense. And this isn’t a normal job; it requires less pages to describe a generic Human Resources department or law firm than it is the behind-the-scenes of a sketch show.
Sally’s sketches and her sense of humor are really good, and the fact that she of all people, falls head over heals in love with the host-of-the-week hottie singer, Noah Webster, is ironic and funny. (There was still the expected cliché of the handsome singer being alone and sad in his cage of gold and admiration, but, to stick with the story, Noah plays it off well.)
Noah is instantly attracted to Sally, and vice versa, but because Sally is a “normal” woman and not a twenty-two-year old model, she considers Noah out of her reach and focuses on a professional relationship instead. Noah decides to talk to her about her prejudice after the show has wrapped, and shocked to be confronted this way with her own behavior, Sally lashes out at him and they don’t see each other anymore after that.
Then the pandemic hits and Sally receives an email from Noah. Being stuck home alone in his mansion he’s had time to reflect and wonders if they should talk things out.
Sally, who has moved home to Kansas City after feeling claustrophobic in her New York City apartment, welcomes the email with surprise and is happy with the distraction from lockdown life. (Living with her senior citizen stepfather Jerry, life has been focused on chair yoga, walking the dog, and early dinners.)
They talk things out over email, and the email correspondence is fun to read. It’s an easy way to have Sally and Noah explain their behavior and their past, without having them to go into long, winding speeches. Then Noah asks her if she wants to visit him in California and because she doesn’t dare to ask what his intensions are, she drives to California without knowing if it’s going to be a platonic stay or something more.
It quickly becomes clear that a platonic relationship is not what Noah has in mind, and their “pod” becomes a love bubble.
One day during a hike they are pulled out of the bubble by paparazzi waiting for them in the car park. Noah’s reaction is to let go of Sally’s hand and encouraging her to hurry to the safety of his car. Sally misreading the reaction nearly blows up the relationship but they manage to talk it out and even prepare a statement for their agents to publish.
The reactions to the pictures on social media play on Sally’s insecurities, and confirm to her that the relationship makes no sense. So, she takes a break and moves into a hotel for some distance, and to clear her head.
A few days into her pout-and-run she gets a call that Jerry hasn’t been seen in two days, and her aunt fears he’s been struck down by Covid. Because the aunt’s husband is in a high-risk category and they’ve basically been in strict quarantine since the outbreak of the pandemic, Sally gets over herself and calls Noah to let him know she needs to travel home. They put aside their differences and Noah not only arranges a private jet for her, but travels along with her and they become full-time carers for Jerry and dog Sugar, and stay until Jerry is fully recovered.

The book is divided in to two parts (2018 and 2020), with an epilogue (2023).
For anyone eager never to think back to pandemic times, better ignore this book, because it plays at the height of the lockdowns, that first summer when nobody was going anywhere and if you had to, it seemed like the apocalypse had happened with the empty streets and the masks and gloves, and not allowed to stay anywhere inside.
This is, of course, as the title says, a romantic comedy. It’s an easy breezy read and if you like anything based on Pride & Prejudice, you’ll like this.
There is a meet-cute in a meeting room (ha), conflict, and a misunderstanding. There is an invite to stay at a mansion (it’s not Pemberley but still), and there is even a big romantic gesture at the end. Also, a feisty but insecure heroine, and a romantic non-player hero, that you’ll be rooting for by the end of the first chapter.

Alice Kelly is eight years old when she comes home from school and finds her mother at home, completely blue. In a panic, she calls in the emergency services, who find that her mother is merely asleep. Confused, Alice checks again: her mother is still blue. But the color isn’t just on her, it’s around her, like a veil trailing behind her.
This is the first time Alice sees colors but from that moment on, it doesn’t go away; it only ever grows. She starts seeing the colors of other people, first her brothers, then the children and teachers in school as well. It scares her because she can see the effect of colors on the people around them and is afraid to get other people’s colors on her. She starts wearing sunglasses because the intensity of the colors gives her headaches.
Alice grows up in a dysfunctional home: her father has walked out and her mother can’t handle herself, much less her three children. When Alice speaks out about seeing colors and thinks she should see a doctor, Lily (Alice refuses to call her mom because she never acts like one), and younger brother Ollie don’t believe her and make fun of her. Older brother Hugh does believe her, and tries to help her to find out what is causing it. Hugh’s colors are pink and when Lily’s dark and angry colors try to get to him, they are deflected off him. It mesmerizes Alice. Lily’s colors do find an eager recipient in Ollie, who soaks them up and takes them on. This terrifies Alice.
The story follows Alice as she navigates through life, seeing colors but not always understanding what they mean: there are new colors, or unique colors. She sees colors of plants and trees as well and goes to parks to breathe in the calm colors of nature to escape the chaotic people colors. Her brother Hugh calls her skill a talent, but Alice calls it a curse.
When Alice starts to abuse her skills in a career in sales, it comes at a price and she crashes hard.
After this, she needs to re-learn, find a healthier way to deal with the skill, and slowly readjusts. It’s the beginning of something different and although Alice is still being pulled back to her old life by her mother, she is able to distance herself from that as well, moving forward and focusing on her own development.
And then one day she is startled to find a man who has no colors. This man becomes an obsession because she doesn’t know what it means. She is hopeful it’s only a good sign, but whatever it means, she won’t know for sure until she sees the man again. So she travels the train over and over, until she meets him there again, still without color. This time, she decides to follow him, to find out what it means.

This book had been lying in my tbr cabinet for a year. It was part of the big “spending spree of the summer of twenty-three” and I was disappointed in myself every time I picked it up and moved it aside to take out another book; I’ve loved books by this author without a fail (which was why I hadn’t hesitated buying this title) yet I couldn’t bring myself to start this one. I guess it’s down to the sixth sense of a bookworm, that tells us when it’s the right moment for a read. And thankfully I never force myself into reading anything, because the right moment was simply not until now, and I got to enjoy it oh so much.
The book is divided into sections named after colors and halfway through they start to mean more so you sense what is going to happen and I braced myself when I read “white”. (I went back to check on the earlier section colors because at the time they hadn’t meant as much.)
Alice is a great character and interesting to follow through life: she’s flawed, confused, and scared. She learns and grows and wants to be loved.
The story goes back and forth between past and present, but it’s easy to keep track.
The book is so nicely written, and pulled me in from the first page. It has the same feel as the other books I’ve read by this author: it’s warm, it’s slightly magical, and it’s real at the same time. If that’s something you like to read, please add this to your tbr. And read it whenever you feel the time is right.

This turned out to be one of those books that made me forget about the plenty of other books I have lying around yet to be read: it arrived, curiously I opened it on the first page, and next thing I knew, I’d read 70 odd pages. I was hooked from the beginning and loved it.
And I don’t care if this makes me appear shallow, but I also loved the cover art, with the optical illusion of the almost-3d spoon.

Black Cake is a family drama slash family mystery.
It starts with estranged brother and sister Byron and Benny meeting again for the first time in years. It’s a forced reunion, brought on by the death of their mother, Eleanor.
Eleanor has left them two things: a Caribbean black cake, and a recording of her life story.
As the story unravels, it turns out that their mother’s life was not quite what they thought it was.
Not only are the siblings grieving the loss of their last parent, but they are struggling with each other’s company and have to deal with the resentment and confusion that simmers underneath the surface.
It’s difficult to divulge further without giving away spoilers, so all I’ll say is that the story involves island life, swimming, murder, and perseverance. Also in the mix are colonialism, being different, and outsiders. Add love, and loyalty. Dust with a sprinkling of identity, finding yourself and staying true to yourself. Serve with acceptance and forgiveness.

There is a lot of story and there are a lot of characters to keep track of, but it’s never too much. It’s well written, and the chapters are (at times very) short and that makes it easy to forget about the real world, and just keep reading. One more chapter, one more, one more. If you can afford to lose time like that, I strongly recommend diving into this story.

Note the 1st : no apology for the abundant use of puns should be expected.
Note the 2nd: I do want to acknowledge that the book was turned into a series (streaming on Disney+ in the NL; check for your own location if not here) which seems to have good reviews. I cannot confirm nor deny that as the book was just too good for me to get into the series.

Meet Miriam Price. Forty-something doctor, unhappy wife, slightly unpleasant woman. Dead.
The police have ruled her death accidental but Miriam knows it was not because she was there. Also, she’s still there, stuck in Limbo and not allowed to move on to the afterlife until she either reaches her death date, or solves the mystery of her murder. Because there’s no way Miriam is going to hang around in orange dungarees for the next fifty years, she sets about to solving her murder. But it’s not easy figuring things out when you’re a lowest-level ghostly figure, so she needs outside help. The only person who can see and hear her, is her elderly neighbour Winnie. The problem with that is that the two can’t stand each other and that asking for help from the person she sent an envelope filled with glitter as recently as the day before her death, is not easy. The good news though, is that Winnie is an amateur sleuth and up for the adventure, if only to get rid of her annoying neighbour for good.
Throughout the story you learn more about the antics the women have been up to and it’s hilarious. Winnie and Miriam are nothing alike but driven by the same moral standards, which makes them the perfect odd couple detective team.

Like in a lot of ghost stories, Miriam gets to stalk her friends and family and glance behind the curtain of the people in her life, and of course, she learns that not all is what it seemed: her lover, her best friend, her brother, they all have a reason for their behaviour in relation to her, and despite her self-awareness this still catches her by surprise. That felt a bit too much of a cliché to me.
Everything else though, is really well done. Miriam is grouchy and sarcastic and her commentary is sharp as spikes. Her brother (“more woke than a shop full of alarm clocks”), Millennial medical students (“snowflakes” she refers to as No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3) and Diagnosis Murder especially, bring out the worst (and best) in her.

This book had me snorting and laughing out loud and Miriam and Winnie’s exchanges were the biggest contributors to this. The book is a breezy read, doesn’t get scary, and although I could predict the ending by the time I reached the second chapter, I enjoyed this book a lot.
This very fun read was exactly what I needed after the slightly more angsty books I’ve been reading of late; it was the perfect palate cleanser.

I absolutely loved the out-thereness of deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers, French Exit, and Undermajordomo Minor. With bonus points for cover art. Although the cover art is easily as wonderful, The Librarianist has a very different feel to it, as this story is less out-there and more barely-there.

The story is about Bob, the retired librarian(ist) from the title. Bob lived his life according to a strict schedule which existed of work, mainly, and not much of a personal life otherwise. Bob is the ultimate loner, spending his entire life in the same house. Routine is everything to him.
Then, on his daily one-mile walk, he finds an elderly woman lost, staring into the freezer of a corner shop. She is wearing a badge, so he returns her to the assisted-living home where she is registered, and this leads to Bob becoming a volunteer there.
The people at the home are quite the characters, which Bob isn’t, and they aren’t interested in him nor what he has to offer (book readings, starting with the great Russians).
Slowly but surely Bob’s past is revealed and it turns out that his loner-ship is a natural state of being. Bob was an only child, he didn’t know his father, and never had any friends.
That is, until he starts working at the local public library where he meets Ethan. Ethan is everything Bob is not: charismatic, dashing and outgoing.
The library is also where he meets his wife Connie. She is pretty and sociable; the yin to Bob’s yang. Bob grounds both Ethan and Connie, but their personalities need to fly and it’s not a spoiler to say that it doesn’t take long before Bob is a loner once again.
The things that happen to Bob, truly happen to him and he is never really active in anything. He’s the ultimate stoic: whatever happens, he just shrugs and trudges on.
The two exceptions to this are his decision to become a volunteer at the assisted-living home, and the time when as a kid he ran away from home. He got onto a bus and a train, heading for the Oregon coast. Halfway through the train trip, two traveling performers join him on the journey and accept him as a stowaway, but from then on out, he loses his momentum and decision-making skills: the ladies invite him to come along with them and he does. He doesn’t really make any choices any more, he just goes along with everything. If ever there was a follower, it was Bob. That his only real decisions took place at the beginning and near-end of his life are like bookends to the story of Bob, and totally fitting.

The beginning and end were the stronger parts for me, as I found the middle part a bit slow. I think if I re-read this, I might feel different about it, as it was mostly because I kept waiting for the part where things took a turn and went wild. And they just never did.
That’s not to say this isn’t a good story. It really is. It’s also funny, in a very dry way. It’s just very normal compared to the other work I’d read by this author, and I guess I wasn’t prepared for that. So let this be a warning for others: do not expect this book to be outrageous. This book is as calm and solid as its protagonist.

This book is about Sophie, the self-proclaimed weirdo of the title.
I didn’t think Sophie is actually that weird, mainly she is just stuck and doesn’t quite know how to get herself moving on.
Sophie is thirty-two and stuck in a job that is not the worst job ever (she escaped that one already), but far away from her dream job. She doesn’t know what that dream job is, she just wants to be famous, and has a habit of narrating the things that happen to her as if she were the guest of a talk show.
She’s not just stuck in her career, but also in a relationship. She’s living with Ian because he is the easy option, while Chris is the one that got away. Literally: she even chased him to Australia at one point, but by the time she found him there, he was already in a relationship with someone else. Then there’s James, the man she left at the time to chase after Chris: she only informed him that she was traveling when she touched down in Sydney. By then she’d also created a stink of her finances and spent all the money she’d borrowed. She’s been paying back her debts slowly and not so-surely, and now Chris is back in town and his arrival has her all confused and interested again.
James in the meantime, started a relationship with Sophie’s sister, so now she’s still faced with him whenever there’s a family gathering.

All in all, Sophie was more a mess than she was weird to me. She’s floating through life, and accepts the crappy jobs and the crappy men as if she has no other choice, but if she put in a little bit of effort and believe in herself, she could take control and do much better on both fronts. It takes 320 pages for Sophie to come to that conclusion and that was a bit on the long side. Sophie did feel very real though, her problems and feelings are genuine, and her observations are at times sharp, dark, and funny. They reveal the person she could be if only she gave things a decent try.
The story is interrupted by letters and notifications through which you learn more about her life. It’s a concept that’s nothing new but does manage to lift the story up at times because it can feel dragged down a bit. The letters from and concerning Sophie’s sister are the most outrageous ones and confirmed what I already knew: Sophie might be lacking a bit of spirit and self-belief but she’s not the weirdest person out there.

Overall this book is solid but middle-of-the-pack, and scores an “okay” for me.
If you like your main character to be plucky with a can-do attitude, leave this book be. If you like your main character to be a bit different / an odd-ball, this will be a good read.