When I became a Children’s Librarian, I was more exposed to juvenile books than ever before. Some were happy, some were sad, and some could be scary. It’s perfectly alright to have the latter kinds of books for kids as long as they know what they’re getting into. In fact, I found a graphic novel that might frighten some young readers, but it’s still a worthy read. What’s the name of the book? Well reader, it’s called The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi.
The Stonekeeper is the first book in the Amulet series. After the death of their father, Emily and Navin with their mother move to their deceased great-grandfather’s home. However, the house proves to be strange and dangerous. Before long, a sinister creature lures their mom into the basement. Desperate not to lose her, Emily and Navin follow her into another world that’s full of demons, robots, and talking animals. Eventually, they enlist the help of a mechanical rabbit named Miskit. Together, they face the most dangerous monster of all, and Emily has the chance to save someone she loves.
To show one how frightening it can be, I will let you know that the first few pages depict the horrific car accident that kills Emily and Navin’s father. It’s kind of gruesome for a kids’ book, especially with the blood. Luckily, the rest of the graphic novel is less intense, but still ominous.
At the same time, that opening scene not only establishes the motivations of the main character Emily, but also it sets up the tone of the graphic novel effectively. Throughout the book, there’s plenty of action that is reminiscent of a manga and a video game. These flow very well as if one is flipping through a drawing in the corner pages. There’s also plenty of places where Emily and Navin have near-death experiences. I bet once all of this is over, both will scoff at the phrase “stranger things have happened.”
Another thing that reminded me of those mangas is the artwork. Its illustrations often rely on blacks, dark blues, golds, browns, and reds with bits of pink, purple, and white thrown in there to contrast the darker elements. The manga-like quality is also shown in how the characters are drawn. This is most apparent in how Kibuishi draws their eyes with how expressive they can be. The characters go through a range of emotions like anger, confusion, and determination. They made me think of the characters that have similar styles and expressions in various mangas and animes.
I also like the world that Emily and Navin encounter. It contains steampunk and fantasy elements. It’s full of robots, elves, goblins, and octopus-like creatures called the rakers. This definitely makes the book stand out from other stories that involve children discovering a new world in an old run-down family estate (Spiderwick Chronicles anyone?).
From what I’ve read, this is the first of eight books in the series, so it primarily focuses on exposition, establishing characters and motivations, worldbuilding, and the core plot. I’d love to see where it goes from here, especially how the amulet helps or even hinders the main characters’ goals.
The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi is a great beginning for the Amulet series. The illustrations are gorgeous to look at and move the story fluidly. It’s not for every kid or adult, but if one likes darker or scarier elements in juvenile books, then this one will be up one’s alley. I would also recommend it to those who like reading stories about exploring new worlds that inhabit family estates (again Spiderwick Chronicles) as well as the more fantasy-filled and action-packed mangas.
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In September 2024, it was announced that Emerald Fennell was going to adapt Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. In addition, she had cast Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff and Margot Robbie as Catherine. Both announcements received negative attention from literary and film circles for a variety of reasons. Since that movie is going to be released in February 2026, I figured it would be a good time to read the 1847 book and watch several available adaptations. It’s a good novel if you know what you’re getting into.
Wuthering Heights is about trauma and its lasting legacy. Mr. Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire Moors has to seek shelter at Wuthering Heights – the place where his landlord lives at. The longtime maid Nelly tells him of the history of the violent events that took place years before; of the intense relationship between foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw; and how Catherine was forced to choose between her love for the passionate, tortured Heathcliff and her to need to fulfill societal expectations by marrying the gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton. As Heathcliff’s bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.
Now, before I go into my feelings about the classic, I want to get some things off my chest. First off, like many people who come across the novel, I initially thought it was about a romance between two doomed lovers who were driven apart. When I was younger, I saw bits of pieces of the 1939 movie version, which certainly played up the love story aspect. However, when I worked at my first librarian job, I had a conversation with a fellow coworker about the books we hated the most. I had said The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke, and she said Wuthering Heights. For her, it was because she thought it was going to be a romance, but in reality, it was about a toxic relationship. She even claimed that the famous line from the book “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same” was trying to justify being together with a destructible person. It’s been a few years since that talk, and I wanted to read Wuthering Heights with fresh eyes. This meant reading nothing about it beforehand. In addition, this wasn’t my first experience with a book written by a Brontë sister. I voluntarily read Jane Eyre by Emily’s sister Charlotte in college, and I loved that one.
There are two things that readers have to understand before they go into it. The first involves our leading man Heathcliff. His backstory prior to coming to live with the Earnshaws is ambiguous. The characters nor the readers never know where he came from or what race or nationality he is. However, Emily Brontë makes it clear that he is NOT WHITE. She includes several physical descriptions of him with black hair, dark skin, and possibly being a Romani. This explains why people like Hindley are cruel to him. Even at one point early in the book, Heathcliff states that he wishes that he had fairer eyes and skin. He doesn’t deserve this treatment, and how he deals with it is fascinating even if it’s not what people should do. I bring this up because several adaptations cast a white guy in the role. Only ONE version included a non-white actor in the part. Why? YouTuber Princess Weekes has an entire video on that subject that I recommend watching. The point is that people have to keep in mind that he receives poor treatment from others because of the way he looks.
The other aspect readers have to know before reading Wuthering Heights is it isn’t a romance. Sure, there are romantic elements like the core relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff, but that only plays one part of the story. The entire novel is literally the servant telling the new tenant why Heathcliff is a horrible human being. In fact, there are a lot of horror elements like him killing Isabella’s dog and locking his niece up in his home to force her to marry his son. Additionally, people often say that everybody is terrible in Wuthering Heights. While that’s true to some extent (Hindley especially), it’s more accurate to say that all of the characters are flawed. Edgar is the most morally upright, yet he doesn’t understand how Catherine feels, and he can be a snob. Isabella is stupid. Catherine is a stubborn spoiled brat. Hindley treats everyone around him cruelly, including Heathcliff and his own son Hareton. Even the children in the second half of the novel aren’t exactly angels either. This makes them all the more compelling, and it was fun to read about what they were going to do. Even though Nelly narrates the book, I wondered how objective she truly was, especially when she spends plenty of time describing Heathcliff’s appearance.
Emily Brontë knew exactly what she was doing when she wrote Wuthering Heights nearly 200 years ago. Every character is unsympathetic to various degrees and goes to great lengths to try and achieve what they want. I’ve never read anything like it before. Its unvarnished nature is why it has endured as a classic. People may try to tame it, yet it can never be done. I would recommend it to readers who are looking to read more unconventional classic novels.
As mentioned earlier, I plan on watching every available Wuthering Heights adaptation one month at a time. This consists of 6 film versions, 1 television movie, 2 teleplays, and 2 series. Next month, I will look at the 1939 Oscar-winning movie version starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Stay tuned for my film review of that and of the other adaptations (that I got my husband Carl to watch)!
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As mentioned in my Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Panreview, I loved watching Peter Pan while growing up. However, I recognize the problematic elements of the story like the depiction of the native people and the title character being awful. There have been retellings that have tried to reconcile those aspects. The most successful ones acknowledge the problematic parts while truly understanding what made the tale special in the first place. The aforementioned Darling Girl is one of those stories that does it right, and another is today’s subject Sisters of the Neversea by Cynthia Leitich Smith.
Sisters of the Neversea is another modern retelling of Peter Pan. Instead of focusing on the boy who never grew up, it tells the story of Native American girl Lily and her British stepsister Wendy. Lily and Wendy have been best friends since they became stepsisters. However, their parents plan to spend the summer apart, which puts the family as well as the sisters’ relationship in limbo. One night, a boy comes through the window and intends to take them away along with their brother Michael from their home to a place called Neverland. Will Lily and Wendy find a way to get back to the family they love?
This is the third novel that I’ve read from Cynthia Leitich Smith. The other two were Rain is Not My Indian NameandHearts Unbroken. Sisters of the Neversea the first one that I’ve read since starting this series. By having a native author, the book confronts an aspect of the Peter Pan story that is easily the most problematic: the portrayal of the indigenous people. In the original story by J.M. Barrie and in subsequent adaptations, they play a small role with Peter saving Tiger Lily from Captain Hook and the peace scene afterwards (which sometimes results in a racist song). Then, they disappear from the rest of the plot. Because of the focus on the native characters, the novel isn’t able to follow the original J.M. Barrie tale exactly, but it still covers the basics.
Sisters of the Neversea effectively brings that aspect to the forefront not only with including multiple native children from various tribes on Neverland, but also with Lily being indigenous herself (she is from the Muscogee Creek Nation). Each of the indigenous kids on Neverland also have distinct personalities, and one of them is even a two spirit. In addition, Lily was always suspicious of Peter, and she’s afraid of flying. Her initial fear gets her left behind Wendy and Michael, but once she thinks happy thoughts, she flies to Neverland in order to rescue them.
I also like Lily and Wendy as individual characters as well as their relationship as stepsisters. Smith portrays them in a way that many fairy tales do: as opposite as possible. Lily is the one who likes facts, but she can be too serious at times. Meanwhile, Wendy is the storyteller and loves using her imagination, but doesn’t always use her common sense. Instead of pitting them against each other, the author continuously acknowledges their strengths and their flaws by emphasizing how they complement each other. Lily learns to let go and enjoy things around her, especially when she’s flying, and Wendy utilizes the trivia that she heard from her stepsister. Plus, they work together to rescue Michael and to confront Peter about his shortcomings.
Another character that I liked in this retelling is Belle aka Tinkerbell. She is a sassy and glamorous fairy, who is often annoyed with Peter. Over the course of the book, she realizes that her enabling allowed Peter to destroy the island in a variety of ways, including endangering animals, even though all she meant to do was to protect him. I especially like how the novel handles the famous “I believe in fairies” bit when Belle is at her lowest.
The portrayal of Peter Pan here is not much different from the one in Darling Girl. He’s controlling, manipulative, sexist, and racist. Both Lily and Wendy express concern over this, and yet, under his “spell,” they fly away to Neverland. At the same time, readers get to see what made him think that way, especially the books that he possesses. He’s also able to have a character arc, in which he realizes that he’s the source of Neverland’s problems. After that, he at least attempts to become a better person.
In addition, I like how the book expresses the logic of Neverland and its byproducts. Along with thinking happy thoughts, the more dust one is given, the more one is able to fly and their personality gets magnified. So if one is naturally prideful, they get even more so with that magic. In this way, whoever gets the dust doesn’t feel like themselves when they fly, hence the reason why Peter Pan is able to convince many to join him in Neverland.
Furthermore, I love the worldbuilding in the novel. In previous adaptations, Neverland is an island containing a variety of groups like pirates, mermaids (merfolk in this book), and the aforementioned native people, and it looks like paradise. In Sisters of the Neversea, the island functions on its own time, as in minutes can literally be hours and vice versa. It can also stretch itself, so a 5-minute walk to the Home Under the Ground can be miles. In the meantime, the book also explains why there’s no adults, and the reason makes Peter all the more evil.
The only thing that I have to nitpick is how the narrator goes “You may be wondering…” or “In case you’re wondering…” on various occasions. Initially, I rolled my eyes over those parts because it felt condescending. But then again, from what I understand, it’s from the original Peter Pan book Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie. It’s the kind of narration that’s not used much anymore in today’s books. When I realized that, I became more used to that omnipresent third-person style. Also, I would love to see the narrators from this novel and Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng interact sometime.
Sisters of the Neversea by Cynthia Leitich Smith is the best book that I’ve read from this author so far. It’s a great retelling of a classic story that’s in serious need of an update. I would recommend to those who love Peter Pan in any iteration, middle-grade fantasy novels, works by indigenous authors, and reworkings of famous tales. Like Darling Girl, Sisters of the Neversea passes with flying colors!
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Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by Books Forward in exchange for an honest review.
Content warning: this review briefly mentions depression and suicide.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to two Ireland study abroad reunion events hosted by my college. It was a lot of fun. While I was there, I reminisced about my time there back in 2014 with other alumni. I also happened to be reading the memoir Getting Lost on My Way: Self-Discovery on Ireland’s Backroads by Diane Hartman at the same time. Not only did it put me in the best nostalgic mode ever, I was completely invested in the story of one woman’s journey towards acceptance.
Getting Lost on My Way: Self-Discovery on Ireland’s Backroads is about a woman’s solo adventures of self-discovery on Ireland’s backroads following a painful divorce. When an introverted, divorced, middle-aged mother and school librarian from the Midwest decides to travel to Ireland by herself, her desire to fulfill her dreams outweighs her fear as she dives deep into what would become an adventure of courage and self-discovery. Diane loves Irish music and Celtic spirituality, and she wants to find healing from her depression and divorce. On top of that, she had been obsessed with going to the Emerald Isle for years. Once she arrives in that country, her romantic perceptions are quickly dashed as she faces many obstacles like driving the narrow, ill-marked roads throughout the countryside. Nonetheless, her solo trip leads to three more over the next six years. Diane encounters some fascinating characters like members of an Irish rock band, a hermit nun, and her favorite Irish musician. Not only does she learn to navigate the backroads, but also her own personal and spiritual roads towards self-discovery and acceptance.
I knew I was going to enjoy this book the moment I heard about it. When I was a junior in college, I studied abroad in Ireland for four months in a village called Tully Cross. When my group wasn’t attending classes or performing internships, we went on excursions around the island, including to Derry (or Londonderry) and Belfast in Northern Ireland, Giant’s Causeway, Dublin, various monasteries and castles, W.B. Yeats’s grave, and the Cliffs of Moher. It was a blast.
Diane goes to a lot of places in Ireland like the Cliffs of Moher and W.B. Yeats’s grave, but most of them I’ve never been to before. She travels to Tuam in County Galway – the hometown of the Irish rock band The Saw Doctors – and Cong in County Mayo – the village in which a good chunk of The Quiet Man was filmed. The way she describes them sounds as luscious as the lands I saw in western Ireland. They make me want to go to those places whenever I have the chance to travel to that country again.
In addition, I enjoyed reading about Hartman’s physical and emotional journey. This memoir exemplifies the importance of an adventure and how authors shouldn’t shortcut it. The prologue begins with the author describing her depression, which she named the Black Dog, and how hers was result of her father’s suicide and an unhappy marriage she ended. While these are mentioned throughout the travelogue, the biggest emphasis was on the trips she made to Ireland and how they transformed her into a more independent and confident woman. The way Hartman shows this is how she navigates the Irish backroads. When she gets there initially, she struggles with driving on the left side, the roundabouts, and how narrow the streets are. It reminded me of how my mom had trouble while doing similar things when she visited me on my spring break. Hartman gains more confidence at tackling those roads during each subsequent trip in the same way she develops more faith in herself as she meets various characters and has a variety of experiences.
The best part of this memoir is Hartman’s voice. The creative writing fellowship that allowed her to write stories while in the Emerald Isle during her fourth trip paid off because her voice comes through strongly. She was funny, especially when describing her encounter with the hermit “nun,” anxious while driving on the roads and battling on when to let go of her past, and sincere when developing friendships with the sisters of her favorite musician. I felt every bit of it.
Getting Lost on My Way: Self-Discovery on Ireland’s Backroads by Diane Hartman is a wonderful memoir. Even if I hadn’t traveled to the Emerald Isle before, I would still have enjoyed it. Hartman does a fantastic job with describing her experiences in Ireland and her journey of self-discovery. Her voice is strong, and the experiences with getting lost on the Irish backroads provides the best metaphor to her solo adventure. I would recommend it to those who’ve been to Ireland or want to go, love memoirs involving self-discoveries, and enjoy or want to do some solo traveling. Getting Lost on My Way: Self-Discovery on Ireland’s Backroads is out now, so grab it wherever you get your books.
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The latest episode of the Adapt Me Podcast is up right now. In it, guest and co-host of the Women InSession Podcast Kristin Battestella and I discuss how we would adapt The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe as a movie/mini-series. We talk about how it influenced several authors and how it’s a product of its time. We also discuss how it needs the right people to do the novel justice and minimize its flaws. Check it out at this link!
In the meantime, I have a review of the book itself, so check that out too!
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Full disclosure: The author of the book that I am about to review is a patron at a library that I work at. All of the opinions stated in this review are solely mine.
I’ve read plenty of memoirs in the past from both celebrities and ordinary people. A lot of these people tend to write about their life when they’re of old age. This makes sense as one gets older, they usually spend time looking back on their life. Only a chunk of them have the urge to write it down and share it with others. Some might even write multiple memoirs like author Robert C. Jones. His book A Palindrome: A Universal Theme of Life, Growth, Maturity, and Agedness is the subject of our review.. It’s a nice autobiography, but I found it to be less interesting and more confusing than A Life Well Bred, A Life Well Led.
A Palindrome: A Universal Theme of Life, Growth, Maturity, and Agedness sums up what the reader needs to know about this book. It’s a memoir, in which Jones looks back on this life through the 4 themes mentioned in the title. He also ties the blandness of his name Bob to how he made an impact on the people around him.
Here’s what I like about the memoir. Majority of it covers his childhood, which is only a sliver of A Life Well Bred, A Life Well Led. I enjoyed reading the stories involving Jones’s time up north. I really got a sense of the environment and the loving and eccentric people around him. I also liked the tales he tells about his friendship with the elderly Lebanese neighbor Grace. She seems like she would be a wonderful person to talk to. I felt for him when he discussed his feelings when she passed away. In addition, I like how Jones gives even more details about stories he first covered in A Life Well Bred, A Life Well Led. For example, he first mentions the story about being hit by a car while on his way for his first day of school in A Life Well Bred, A Life Well Led, yet it’s only briefly mentioned. In A Palindrome, he elaborates on that experience a little more. It was nice to hear more about what happened.
Outside of childhood, I liked Jones’s ode to social distancing. That phrase usually has negative connotations (especially within the last 5 years), but he puts a nice spin on it in his poem “On Social Distancing.” He’s more than happy to do that when he’s dealing with people he doesn’t like. He’s perfectly fine with being alone.
However, I didn’t find it as interesting as A Life Well Bred, A Life Well Led. This is mainly so because it was less cohesive. There was a framing device of the averageness of the name Bob and every Bob is unique, yet outside of the introduction and a few lines dispersed throughout the book, it’s not very consistent. While I was reading it, there were times that I forgot about the whole Bob name thing. Say what you want about A Life Well Bred, A Life Well Led, at least it had an interesting framing device that was clear and present. I only wish the one for A Palindrome was just as precise. In addition, A Palindrome had some of the same poems that I first read in A Life Well Bred, A Life Well Led. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jones included those again because he didn’t have enough pages.
Finally, I was confused at one section of the book. At one point, Jones discusses the funeral he went to as a child. Then suddenly, he goes into another funeral with four old men that are supposed to be Jones’s childhood friends, and they watch a video of the dead guy talking to them. I had a lot of questions during that section. Is the dead guy supposed to be Jones himself? Is this supposed to be how he wants his funeral to be? Was this a deleted scene from one of the Richville books? I wish that there was a better transition and a clearer reason to why he had it in there.
A Palindrome: A Universal Theme of Life, Growth, Maturity, and Agedness by Robert C. Jones is a fine memoir. It’s got some nice stories of him growing up and fun poems. However, it’s not as interesting nor cohesive as his previous one, for its framing device is not as developed as it should be. It doesn’t help that it has sections, in which I was baffled as to why they were there in the first place. Like I said in the A Life Well Bred, A Life Well Led, I would only recommend it to those who love reading materials from local authors.
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There are plenty of books that have been cited as an influence to other works. However, what people don’t realize is that any material can inspire other stories, regardless of how good or bad it is. An example of this is Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket published in 1838.I can see its influence on several nineteenth-century writers, and it works well as an adventure tale, but its ramblings bring it down.
Normally, this is where I would give my summary of the novel, but it actually does that with its full title. Here it goes: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Comprising the Details of a Mutiny and Atrocious Butchery on Board the American Brig Grampus, on her way to the South Seas, in the month of June 1827 – with an account of the Recapture of the Vessel by the Survivers; Their Shipwreck and Subsequent Horrible Sufferings From Famine; Their Deliverance by Means of the British Schooner Jane Guy; Their Brief Cruise of this Latter Vessel in the Antarctic Ocean; Her Capture, and the Massacre of Her Crew among a Group of Islands in the Eighty-Fourth Parallel of Southern Latitude; together with the Incredible Adventures and Discoveries still farther South to which that Distressing Calamity gave Rise. Thanks, Edgar!
While Poe was better known for his poems and short stories, this novel has had an impact on writers. The scenes involving the fantasy island with the natives are so racist that they would have been in H.P. Lovecraft’s fantasies. The adventures the main characters go on are similar to those found in Jules Verne novels like Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In fact, Verne actually wrote a sequel to Poe’s novel in 1897 titled An Antarctic Mystery. Finally, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym shares some similarities with Herman Melville’s 1851 classic novel Moby Dick, especially with how both take place on the high seas and involve isolation. Even their opening lines are almost identical. The former begins with, “My name is Arthur Gordon Pym.”
Call me crazy (as well as Ishamel)! At the same time, just because authors have cited it as an influence on their work doesn’t make it any better than it is. It’s filled with lots of ramblings. These include how certain ships operate, penguins (though I love those animals), and how black the natives were. At one point, the book brings up that even their teeth are that color. Poe keeps the ramblings to a minimum in the first half, but once the remaining crew members get on the Jane Guy, this rears its ugly head to the point that the novel loses momentum. I understand that it was published in a newspaper in two parts in 1837, which certainly explains how Poe fell into the trap of many nineteenth-century authors by writing like they’re getting paid by the word. And the irony to all of this is that the book itself is less than 200 pages.
Reading this novel reminded me of my experience with Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl. I wondered why both existed to begin with, and there was plenty of racism. At the same time, while those two are products of their time in many ways, I still enjoyed the rides I went on.
With The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, I liked the adventures the main character went on, the macabre tone, and the ambiguity regarding how real it is. It was interesting to see how Arthur and his friends dealt with a mutiny, famine, and a massacre because he wanted to be on the high seas. I also found it fascinating that he went through all those ordeals, and he remained positive. He even hid in the brig for a long time. Arthur and the title character from Candide by Voltaire should get together and share stories sometime. In addition, there’s a scene in which the men on the Grampus see a ghost ship. It was written in a way that one would expect from Poe. Moreover, I liked the overall framework of this supposedly being a true story told by Pym to Poe himself. Readers are never really clear if it’s authentic because the supernatural elements are combined with a lot of nautical knowledge. On top of that, the novel ends abruptly, so one does wonder, “What was the point?”
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe certainly exists. While I’m still not sure what the point was, I appreciate how it includes so many genres all in one story. I enjoyed the adventures and the supernatural parts. And of course, I can see how it influenced the tales to come. However, it would have worked better if it rambled less. I would only recommend it to diehard Poe, Lovecraft, Verne, and Melville fans. It truly proves that a story can be impactful despite its flaws.
Before I go, I want to let everyone know that I recorded the latest episode of the Adapt Me Podcast recently. Kristin Battestella – co-host of the Women InSession Podcast – and I will talk about how we would adapt this novel. Keep an eye out for the link.
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Full disclosure: I was given an advanced reader’s copy of this book from SparkPoint Studio in exchange for an honest review.
Grief memoirs can go many ways. It can help people overcome sadness from the tragedy that occurred. It also creates windows for readers to see what it’s like for those going through a certain type of event. However, some can be sensationalized and can only work for so long. Luckily, today’s book The Road to Yesterday: A Memoir by Maryellen Donovan does the former two. It’s a realistic look at one woman’s journey to overcoming grief after losing her husband in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
As told to Gina Frangello and Emily Rapp Black, The Road to Yesterday: A Memoir is about a 9/11 widow who rediscovers joy and finds love again after the violent loss of her husband. On a sunny Tuesday morning, Maryellen’s husband Steve Cherry lost his life in the 9/11 attacks, rocking her to her core and forever changing her family. Her life and love for Steve was all she could ever hope for. In the wake of his death, she was inconsolable. Ultimately, she decided that she had to stay strong for her two young sons. Even when she was in the grip of hopeless despair, she found solace in deep faith and the belief that, with the support from her family and friends, she can find happiness once again. Her journey to a happy ending had a variety of obstacles like cancer, family conflict, and even more loss, yet she found a way forward despite all of the setbacks she encountered.
For those expecting an account of 9/11 from the eyes of a widow, it’s not that. Maryellen talks a bit about it, especially her thoughts and feelings at the moment she found out about her husband’s death. Instead, the focus is how she moved past the tragedy and began to experience joy and live life again.
With that being said, it will certainly resonate more with people who remember when the 9/11 attacks occurred, especially if they lost someone to that event. My only experience with it was 8-year-old me watching the aftermath of the one plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. My mom immediately turned off the television to prevent me from seeing more of the horrors of that day. I eventually found out what happened.
Getting back to the memoir itself, I felt for Maryellen. She found the love of her life when she was 25 and lost him nearly 10 years later. It could have been a book about how she wallowed in grief and then found happiness, but she balances out the sadness with joy. After Steve dies, she discusses how she met him and how he made her feel in spite of the fact that he was (unhappily) married at the time they met. Once they were wed, he showered a lot of love and affection for her, especially when he recorded a batch of songs that were about her shortly before his passing. This packs a punch once the timeline shifts back to after his death. Even though I knew no one that lost their life in that terrorist attack, I was invested in seeing how things would turn out for her.
The toughest part for me to get through was her account of her second marriage. About a year after Steve’s death, Maryellen marries his stepbrother Russ. They connected soon after 9/11, but it was only hindsight that made her realize that they went too fast, and their relationship wasn’t going to work out. Even though Russ was a nice and friendly man, he was dealing with his own trauma as quietly as possible, and she needed the love that she got from Steve. I wanted her to have the happiness she deserved, but it was clear that it was never going to be from his stepbrother. Even one of her sons remarked years later that she and her second husband felt like roommates. Luckily, she was able to come to terms with Russ, but at the cost of another tragedy.
The best part of this memoir is how much self-awareness and hindsight Donovan possesses. I knew that she came out on the other side because it was clear that she spent plenty of time exploring and reflecting on the actions taken after Steve’s death. There were parts where she compares what happens in a movie to what actually occurred in real life. She uses these kinds of examples when she’s describing her honeymoon with Russ and when her eldest son Brett got married. They say it’s a great time to write down your story when you can look back at it objectively, and that’s what Maryellen did.
The Road to Yesterday: A Memoir by Maryellen Donovan is the kind of grief memoir that people can get invested in even if they barely have any experiences with 9/11. What the author went through was horrible, but I’m glad that she had the support she needed to find joy and happiness again even if it wasn’t entirely obvious. In addition, I love how she’s realistic about what she did, both good and not-so-good, in order to find the will to live again. I would recommend this to anyone who’s lost a loved one and is looking for outlets to express their grief with. The Road to Yesterday: A Memoir is out now, so grab it wherever you get your books.
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*I know that some are adaptations and original movies, but that’s besides the point.
Wow! I’m now approaching my 250th review. I’ve been grateful to have this website and to review books and movies of many kinds. I plan on continuing to post reviews as long as possible.
Just like before, I will rate each of the 249 books that I have reviewed on this site. These are based on the ratings that I gave them on Goodreads, Letterboxd, and IMDb, but some have changed since their initial postings.
Here is the chart that I used to rate^ them:
* = Bad
** = Meh
*** = Decent
**** = Good
***** = Great
^Note: The books within each rating are only in alphabetical order.
Join me as I post my 250th review next week! It’s a memoir about a woman who lost her husband in the 9/11 attacks and how she found joy and happiness again.
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We have something special for you all on Book Reviews by a Chick Who Reads Everything today. We have award-winning author Patricia Leavy on today. She is the author of the new bookCinematic Destinies. You can see my interview with her down below.
Emily: What inspired the “Red Carpet Romance” series?
Patricia: It started during the pandemic when we were in lockdown. Like so many others, I was bored at home, binge watching movies, double fisting potato chips, and filled with existential doom. I’ve always turned to creative writing in difficult times, so I decided to write a romance novel. I wanted to escape to someplace joyful, romantic, and creative. Someplace affectionate where you could hug and kiss people without fear of killing them. Due to the pandemic, I was thinking about the big questions of life, and so I decided to write a novel following a group making a film about the meaning of life and living together in seclusion. Jean Mercier is an eccentric and controversial filmmaker. He curates an unexpected cast and invites his philosopher friend, Ella Sinclair, to join them for the summer. Since the film is about the meaning of life and I was writing during a global pandemic, a philosopher seemed like the natural choice. When Ella arrives on set in Sweden movie star Finn Forrester is instantly enchanted by her and they fall in love. That’s the first book in the series and it’s called The Location Shoot. When I wrote it, I never intended for it to become a series, but I loved the characters so much that although the lockdown was over, I wanted to continue. So next came, After the Red Carpet and finally, Cinematic Destinies. To me, the series is about what it means to live life and to do so well. It’s about love, the search for beauty, becoming who we’re meant to be, and the magic of art.
Emily: What inspired Cinematic Destinies in particular? Will there be any more installments?
Patricia: Each book in the trilogy inspired the next. The second book, After the Red Carpet, sees Ella and Finn building a life together and starting a family in the shadow of Hollywood. After I finished that book, I wanted to explore the lives of those three children when they were grown up. How would the public fascination with their parents’ love story affect them each and their love stories? Ella was always fascinated by what love might look like and feel like over a lifetime, so I also wanted to know how that unfolded for her and Finn. Finally, what ever happened to Jean, the filmmaker that brought them all together in the first place? What does it mean to create art for a lifetime? How might one look back? All these questions inspired Cinematic Destinies. Although it’s hard to let go of characters I love so much, there won’t be more novels about them. I feel like the trilogy is complete and I’m happy where they are. That said, there are years between After the Red Carpet and Cinematic Destinies and I’ve always seen scenes from those missing years in my mind. I see the potential for writing a collection of novellas or short stories that may include these characters.
Emily: The book focuses on Finn and Ella Forester’s three adult children Betty, Georgia, and Albert and their journeys to find love and happiness. Which one do you relate to the most and why?
Patricia: In different ways, I relate to each of them. I’m an artist like Georgia and I’m shy like Albert. But if I had to pick, I relate to Betty the most even though unlike her I am a total hopeless romantic. Betty feels the most different from her family of origin and she went off to New York to create her own life. I relate to that a lot.
Emily: You have published more than 50 books. What made you want to write?
Patricia: I’ve loved writing more than anything since I was a little girl. When I was really young, I would recite stories which an adult would type and then I would illustrate them and bind them with old wallpaper scraps and glue to make them “books.” I have one in my desk drawer that my mother saved in a plastic storage bag. I was six when I made it. To me, storytelling is magical. There’s nothing better than getting lost in a story world, especially one that you’re creating. I try to write things that I think could do some good in the world—stories infused with hope.
Emily: What is your writing routine?
Patricia: I write every single day—weekends, holidays, vacations. I don’t write all day every day, but I do write every day. It’s different depending on what else I have going on, such as promoting a book. On weekdays I usually write every afternoon after attending to other work obligations. On weekends and vacations, I usually write in the morning, although my idea of a good vacation is also sitting in a café somewhere writing. I just spent two and a half weeks in Denmark and Sweden. I spend most of the trip writing in little coffee shops and museum cafés.
Emily: What was the easiest scene to write? What was the most difficult?
Patricia: The easiest scenes to write were the ones with Ella and Finn because it’s my third book about them and I know them so well. Aside from that, I’d say when Georgia arrives at the inn in Iceland and sits and chats with Jean and Michael and then Roo joins them. Jean was the first character I created in this series, and I know his voice. I knew exactly how I wanted the scene to unfold, and it just flowed out of me. The hardest scene to write was Albert and Ryan at the party. I don’t want to spoil anything for readers, but that scene required a lot of sensitivity, and it was important to me to get it right.
Emily: One of my favorite scenes is when Georgia and Roo watch various movies like Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. What are some of your favorite films to see with your significant other?
Patricia: Thank you. We watch a ton of movies, all kinds. We love biopics about artists like Bohemian Rhapsody and Love & Mercy. We also enjoy thrillers like The Fugitive and Juror #2. I adore rom coms, so we watch all the new ones as they come out and rewatch the classics. My all-time favorite movie is Cinema Paradiso, but the downside is that it has me sobbing for days.
Emily: Where do you see the characters after the story ends?
Patricia: Happily living their lives.
Emily: I run the “Adapt Me Podcast,” where a guest and I talk about books that have never been adapted and how we would go about it. Who would you cast as the main characters?
Patricia: That’s so hard. I could imagine many actors in these roles. Given their age in Cinematic Destinies, I could see Rebecca Gayheart as Ella and Kiefer Sutherland as Finn.
Emily: What are some projects that you are working on now?
Patricia: I have a nonfiction book, part memoir part guidebook, called The Artist Academic coming out in October. It’s the first book I’ve written of this kind, and I’m excited to share it. My next novel comes out March 24 and it’s called Twinkle of Doubt. It’s the second book in a big series I’ve written called The Celestial Bodies Romances which follows the healing love story of a novelist and federal agent. For people interested in the series, the lead title Shooting Stars Above is available everywhere books are sold. I have many other romance novels that are already written and waiting to be rolled out and I’m currently working on a novel about a pop star.
Book Reviews by a Chick Who Reads Everything 