Book Reviews by a Chick Who Reads Everything

Interview with Julie Ryan McGue

Hello Everyone,

We have something special for you all on Book Reviews by a Chick Who Reads Everything today. We have award-winning author Julie Ryan McGue on today. She is the author of the new book Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood. You can see my interview with her down below.

Emily: What was the catalyst for writing this memoir, specifically as a prequel to your book Twice the Daughter?

Julie: The idea to write Twice the Family rose out of readers expressing that they wanted to know more about what it was like to grow up as a twin and an adoptee. Twice a Daughter had a specific timeline; it focused on the events surrounding my adoption search. Twice the Family has a longer timeline: twenty-seven years. It is the essential backstory to my first memoir.

Emily: Since this book details your life in a household consisting of adopted and biological children, what advice would you give to those navigating blended family dynamics?

Julie: Such an important question. Because my adoption experience was rooted in the closed adoption era––absolutely no information was exchanged between adoptive and birth families––I always had a curiosity about my roots. I accepted my fate, aware that rigid state adoption laws prevented me from accessing information. Nowadays, open adoption is the norm. There is an exchange of information, and a contact plan is put in place between the adoptee, adoptive and birth parents. Navigating this tricky situation–two sets of parents and possibly birth siblings––is something parents should seek advice from experts in how best to handle. Parents should always support their adopted child if they express interest in connecting with first families.

Emily: You often express gratitude for having an identical twin sister, Jenny. How did she help you steer through the obstacles your family endured?

Julie: As an adoptee, being raised with a full sibling is a tremendous blessing, an advantage that most other adoptees are not given. I never had to wonder who I looked like, who I took after regarding looks, traits, and interests. Those are curiosities most adoptees admit to having. She and I have been an instant pack since the day we were born, aligned in so many ways. That buffer, that support system, is something I have benefitted from at every stage of life.

Emily: How did your parents and siblings react to this memoir and Twice the Daughter?

Julie: When I wrote Twice a Daughter, I gave selected chapters to the family members involved. This effort enabled people––all characters in the book––to weigh in on events and details that concerned them before it published. In some cases, I withheld or changed identifying information to protect privacy concerns. My adoptive mom and I discussed sensitive chapters in which her character provided necessary conflict, and we agreed that most mother-daughter relationship undergo challenges. Because growth and healing occurred on the other end of the story arc, she was satisfied with my telling it the way I did.

Because the events in Twice the Family occurred a long time ago, I collaborated with my twin sister and mother to achieve clarity on essential facts in key chapters. My children have said this new book provides important family history for everyone involved.

Emily: Twice the Family is the second book in a planned trilogy. What can readers expect from the third and final installment?

Julie: My husband is a character that appears in the opening scene of Twice a Daughter. I credit him with the adoption search and my attaining vital family background information. If he hadn’t insisted that I tackle the project, I’m uncertain if I would have embarked on that journey. In Twice the Family, the story closes with my meeting him, falling in love, and beginning our family. Three years ago, he passed away after a long battle with cancer. My journey as a new widow has launched me into a new stage of life. I am still becoming, reinventing myself, and grappling with issues of identity and belonging. A third book in the “Twice” trilogy will reveal more about the characters from the first two works, as well as sharing about my widow journey through grief and personal transformation.

Emily: There have been plenty of books that discuss family dynamics, identity, and belonging. How does your memoir fit into the wider conversation?

Julie: Because my situation is unique––I’m an identical twin, an adoptee, raised in a family comprised of adoptees and biological kids––the stories I share add a different perspective to the whole identity, family, and belonging paradigm. Very few can offer the perspective of twin identity within the context of adoption. A recent review of my work by Patricia Meyer of My Adopted Life offers this: At its core “Twice the Family” offers readers a deeper understanding of how relinquishment shapes our quest for identity and belonging. Together with “Twice a Daughter” and “Belonging Matters,” it is an invaluable contribution to the literature centered on adoption, family, and self-discovery.

Emily: I understand that you believe storytelling can heal and that this memoir can serve as a pathway for people facing similar challenges. Can you elaborate?

Julie: Since my tween years, I have been an avid journaler. I discovered that by putting a pen to paper, I learned what issues and conflicts my inner self was mulling over. Often, I do not know exactly what I think about something until I sit down to write. This spilling over of the subconscious mind, allows me to recognize and name issues I need to overcome and/or to seek help in tackling. So, yes writing is an essential tool toward healing from disappointment, loss, and trauma.

Emily: At the end of the book, there’s a set of reader discussion questions. I’ll have you answer one. Was there something you felt you should have left out or expanded upon? What aspect of your story interested you most, inspired reflection, or caused a shift in perspective?

Julie: There were several chapters I had to cut to keep the book length reasonable. Those chapters showed more about the personalities, sensibilities, and creativity of my sister and me. I wish that I didn’t have to eliminate them. With respect to the story arc, I learned things I hadn’t known about before when I collaborated with family members. This outcome taught me something important: ask more questions than you are normally inclined to ask. There is always more to a story than you realize. For me, because of my husband’s recent passing, the chapters about him were difficult to write. I went slow with them, honored that beautiful time of falling in love, and the result are memories that my children now have of their father and me.

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 your family in a possible adaptation?

Julie: If Twice a Daughter were to be adapted, I would love to see Meryl Streep and Olivia Colman play my mothers. I think Mandy Moore might love the challenge of playing adult identical twins, and I’d love to see Tim Matheson play my adopted father. For Twice the Family, I think Saiorse Ronan would be excellent as the younger version of the Ryan Twins.

Emily: What are some projects that you are working on now?

Julie: An award-winning essay that I wrote called “When a Tree Grows” is being adapted into a children’s book. I’m in discussion with my publisher about a series. Life continues to provide rich material for essays, blogs, and my column at my hometown paper, The Beacher Newspaper. I don’t plan to retire anytime soon.

Emily: Where can people find you?

Julie: My website: www.juliemcgueauthor.com is the best place or on my socials.

FB @juliemcguewrites
IG @julieryanmcgue
twitter @juliermcgue

Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood by Julie Ryan McGue is out now. You can get it wherever you get your books.

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Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by Books Forward in exchange for an honest review.

As I mentioned in my review of Childless Mother: A Search for Son and Self by Tracy Mayo, adoption stories have always been compelling to me. I’ve always wondered what the lives of adoptees were like with their adopted families. There are plenty of books written about that, and I was lucky to come across one of them with today’s subject Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood by Julie Ryan McGue. It’s a lovely book about Julie and her identical twin sister Jenny’s experiences after being adopted into an Irish Catholic family in the metro-Chicago area.

Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood details what it was like to be adopted and raised with one’s identical twin. In this coming-of-age memoir, set in Chicago western suburbs from the 1960s to the 1980s, twin sisters Julie and Jenny become the oldest daughters of a family that consists of both adopted and biological children. Their bond is tight as the two strive for individuality, identity, and belonging. But Julie’s parents’ constant need to add more adopted and biological kids leads to a ton of complications like infertility, infant mortality, and a child with special needs. When Julie is sixteen, tragedy strikes in the family. Faced with these challenges, Julie questions everything such as who she is, her adoption, her faith, and her idea of family. As familial values and relationships are tested, she realizes her adoptive family is held together by love, faith, support, and her parents’ commitment to each other and family. However, the life that her parents envisioned for Julie is not one that she wants for herself. As she gets older, she realizes that her parents’ goals and dreams differ from hers, and how the experiences that have formed her provided a road map for the person and mother she wants to be.

Before I go any further, I want to mention that this memoir is actually a prequel to the one McGue published in 2021 called Twice the Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging. I haven’t looked at that one, but it didn’t impact my experience reading Twice the Family. While it’s good to read both, they are still standalones.

The writing is really good. It’s clear that McGue took plenty of time to flesh out her story. Each of the main characters has their own distinct personalities. This is important because the main focus is on Julie and her twin Jenny. While they are similar in many ways, they are different, and McGue lets readers know that. Julie is studious, overthinking, and can get sick quite a lot, while Jenny is the healthier and more ambitious one even though she has a hard time studying and gets nervous when speaking in public. I could immediately tell who was talking even if “he said” or “she said” weren’t there. In addition, I loved how each chapter ends on a cliff hanger like, “Nikki’s death [the family dog] was not the first time I had experienced a life altering moment in our family, and it would not be the last” (p. 151).

This might read to some people as manipulative, but Twice the Family earns it because so much happens to Julie and her family. Plus, McGue gives plenty of time to her and her family’s thoughts regarding certain events. I kept wondering what was going to occur after I finished a chapter.

The best part of this memoir was seeing the relationships within the Ryan clan. I know I said this before, but I’ll say it again: I can’t believe that Julie and her family went through all that. In many ways, it helped to build up the bonds Julie had with her adopted family. For example, McGue recalls how her adoptive mother could have emotional outbursts and depressive episodes. She admits that it was difficult to live with her mom during those times, but after the tragedy, her mother became more emotionally detached. Overtime, Julie realized that each member of her family, “regardless of who [they were] and where [they came] from, [carried] within [them their] own brand of brokenness. What [they] do…determines the people [they] become and the course of [their] lives” (p. 204).

In the later chapters, her mother seems fine, but it would have been good to know how she lifted those dark clouds.

I also loved reading about the relationship between Julie and her twin sister Jenny. Julie always knew that she could trust Jenny with her secrets and true feelings. Despite their differences, they held a strong bond that got tested over and over again. When Julie won a beauty pageant, she should have been happy for herself, yet when she saw her sister look disappointed because both tried out, it soured her good fortune. On the other hand, when Julie was finding her place in the world after she graduated from college, she saw Jenny moving up the corporate ladder, and it made her feel left behind. Regardless, they still found ways back to each other.

Another thing that I want to point out about this memoir is that it contains a set of discussion questions. They relate to the various events and themes. As someone who runs a book club, I think that it would be a good choice for a book group. It’s thought provoking, and there would definitely be someone who will connect to the story beyond the surface level.

Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood by Julie Ryan McGue is a good memoir about growing up with an identical twin sister in a blended family. McGue writes in a straightforward manner that leaves readers anticipating what’s to come. Most importantly, the story itself and the relationships among various family members, especially her mom and twin sister Jenny, are worth reading. I would recommend it to readers who love books about identity and belonging regardless if they’re adopted or not as well as stories about adopted families. Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood will be out tomorrow, February 4, so go check it out wherever you get your novels.

Before I go, I want to let you know that I had the opportunity to interview Julie Ryan McGue for the website. The transcript will be posted soon.

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Adapt Me Podcast – The Night Circus

Hi Everybody!

The latest episode of the Adapt Me Podcast is up right now. In it, guests Amanda and Claire from the Fictional Hangover Podcast and I talk about how we would adapt The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. We discuss about how it would be absolutely possible to translate this magical and whimsical novel into a different medium as well as the multiple fan castings that have been made over the years. 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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Bench Strength: Judging a Century of Tax Avoidance in Canada Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by Sasha Stolz Publicity in exchange for an honest review.

Since I’m a chick who reads everything, I have looked at books that are pretty niche. In the past, I’ve reviewed titles that focused on subjects like the Caterham Seven, starting up tech businesses, and Groucho Marx’s solo career. But never have I read something as niche as today’s book Bench Strength: Judging a Century of Tax Avoidance by Kerry Harnish. It’s about the tax avoidance cases the Supreme Court of Canada reviewed within the last 100 years. I admire the research, structure, and how much Harnish tries to make the subject digestible for a wider audience, but I couldn’t get into it.

Bench Strength: Judging a Century of Tax Avoidance covers the Supreme Court of Canada’s approach to income tax avoidance cases from 1920 to 2019. Harnish is an expert in tax policy and a former senior official with Finance Canada, and he takes readers on a journey exploring Canada’s national income tax system, through the opinions of the Court’s nine most influential judges in income tax over that period. He also weaves fascinating anecdotes related to many cases and important historical, political, and economic events that influenced the Supreme Court and the judges deciding on the cases. The book reveals that the Supreme Court and its judges denied income tax avoidance in 83% of the disputes decided before the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted in April 1982. However, since then, the Court and its judges have allowed income tax avoidance in 73% of the disputes. Does a cultural shift emphasizing individual rights over duty, and the enactment of the Charter in 1982, explain this reversal in the Supreme Court’s approach to income tax avoidance in the Charter era? Bench Strength answers those questions while looking at the Supreme Court of Canada’s evolving approach to income tax avoidance.

When I talk about titles that contain very specific subjects, I usually include my point of reference. I do this to show readers where I’m coming from when tackling certain books. In the case of Bench Strength, since the subject matter involves Canadian taxes, I must include my experiences with that, which is nothing. I have no relationship with that because I’m an American. As for taxes, my connection to them only extends to paying them and watching the aptly named Three Stooges short Income Tax Sappy (it’s a good one) to remind myself that I should do my duty as a law-binding citizen every tax season.

In other words, because of my limited experiences with taxes, let alone Canadian tax law, I could not get into Bench Strength. It also didn’t help that the book itself was written in an academic manner. It’s filled with footnotes and analysis of income tax cases that the Supreme Court of Canada decided. As someone who loves to analyze things, I couldn’t understand what was being said half the time. And, what I did comprehend, I couldn’t bring myself to care. Not even the mention of Enron could save this.

Now, I can’t entirely blame Harnish for this. He’s doing his darndest to get his research out there, and it’s clear that he really wants regular people to know how the Supreme Court of Canada has made decisions on tax cases and how that affects them. After all, he is a tax policy expert and a former senior official with Finance Canada. However, Harnish is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to taxes since barely anybody cares about them, and he’s fully aware of this. In fact, there’s even a line in the book that sums up the general feeling regarding the income tax, which reads, “For almost everyone, income tax is a boring fact of life and death, not a career that inspires, challenges and on occasion frustrates” (p. 253).

Harnish had to do a lot to get people invested in taxes, and I don’t think this book enough.

On the other hand, I can’t say that this is a bad book. It’s well written for academia. Harnish uses a lot of sources to back up his arguments and includes a bibliography and index. He even has some graphs that sum up the results of every tax avoidance case the Supreme Court of Canada were involved in, especially if they decided in favor of the Crown or the taxpayer. Additionally, the structure is well made. Harnish uses a chronological order to discuss every tax avoidance case from 1920 to 2019. Within that structure, he splits them up before and after the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedom in 1982. Moreover, he looks at the cases through the eyes of the chief justices in various periods. The best part of the book was reading about the backstories of each chief justice to see how their backgrounds influenced the decisions in some way. Also, I love how Harnish loathes Mackenzie King – the prime minister of Canada from the 1920s to the 1940s, who did more to serve the Crown as opposed to the people. I didn’t know about him until I read this book. Most importantly, I enjoyed how there’s the constant theme of rights versus duty. As Harnish points out, before 1982, many cases were decided in favor of the Crown because it was believed to be a duty for citizens to pay taxes. After that year, the mentality shifted to being more of a right.

One last thing, there was one case that I was intrigued to hear about. That was the Ernest Stickel (1974) case. In it, an American professor named Ernest Stickel moved his family to Edmonton to teach at the University of Alberta. There was a tax benefit for teachers and professors in temporary positions not exceeding two years. Stickel took advantage of that benefit, but he didn’t leave Canada until three years later. The court ruled in his favor since he taught for two years, and he worked non-teaching gigs for another year, and he remained a U.S. citizen during that time. I found the case to be fascinating.

Bench Strength: Judging a Century of Tax Avoidance by Kerry Harnish is a book that’s not for everyone. It’s well researched and structured, but it’s about Canadian tax cases. If one is familiar with Canadian tax laws and cases, they would like it. If not, it will be a slog to get through. It was for me. Regardless, I would still recommend it for tax experts; business, legal, and economic professors; and anyone who wants to learn more about the Canadian income tax. There have been plenty of niche books that I’ve gotten into. This wasn’t for me sadly.

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A Gilded Rosewood Coffin Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given an ARC of this book from Stress Free Book Marketing in exchange for an honest review.

One year ago this month, I reviewed Death in a Gilded Frame by Cecelia Tichi – the sixth title in the Val and Roddy DeVere Gilded Age Series. I enjoyed that book so much that I decided to read the follow-up in the historical-mystery series. This one is called A Gilded Rosewood Coffin. While it doesn’t quite live up to the previous novel, I still had a good time reading it.

A Gilded Rosewood Coffin is the seventh novel in the Val and Roddy DeVere Gilded Age Series. Western silver heiress Val DeVere is enjoying time in Newport in 1899 when she receives a note from her friend Theo urging her to come to New York. While there, Theo confides in Val, begging her to save the life of his cousin Phoebe. He believes that her Irish manservant is plotting her “accidental death” when she goes to the Rocky Mountains – just as he allegedly did when Phoebe’s twin sister Judith was found dead in Boston a year earlier. Determined, Val tries to convince Phoebe to delay her trip, yet the Irish servant reminds her so much of her father, the“Silver King” and an Irish immigrant, whose charm and brogue are unsettlingly familiar. When Phoebe is found dead in her New York apartment, suspicion falls on her servant, appearing to wrap up the case neatly. But, for Val, the truth feels far more elusive. Is she blinded by sentiment, or is there another killer on the loose? Val has to race against time to find the killer, all while risking arrest as an accessory to murder.

With this latest installment, Tichi brings her signature elements for this mystery series. These include the realistically portrayed Gilded Age society, real-life historical figures, and cocktail recipes. High society doesn’t have much of a presence in this one, but they certainly are just as snooty as ever, especially when it comes to prejudice of any one that isn’t like them. Val still struggles to fit in, and when the murder of their friend’s cousin is suspected to be the Irish manservant, she thinks there’s more to the story due to her own Irish heritage. Actual historical people like Alva Belmont, who was present in Death of a Gilded Frame, and Henry Clews – economic advisor to Ulysses S. Grant during his presidency – make appearances in this book. In addition, Roddy is mostly absent in this installment because he’s helping to organize Dewey Day – the real-life event which celebrated Admiral George Dewey’s successes during the Spanish-American War. He still provides level-headed advice to the impulsive Val and makes cocktails. This means readers get some more cocktail recipes for five different drinks. They are the Dewey Cocktail, Futurity, Italian Lemonade, The Wall Street, and The September Surprise. The last one can be created without alcohol. All of these are well researched as expected, for Tichi is a Professor of English and American Studies Emerita at Vanderbilt University.

Additionally, the recurring characters reveal more sides of themselves in A Gilded Rosewood Coffin. There’s a backstory of Cassie – Val’s best friend who has the visions. It was sad to read about how members of her family tried to “cure” her of her gift. Nonetheless, it provides more details to who Cassie is and how she is more than a foreshadowing trope in the flesh. Then, there’s Theodore Bulkeley. In the previous book, he’s the herald by informing Roddy and Val about the art forgery. In this one, he’s more active since it involves his living relatives. He also reveals his prejudice against Irish people since he’s certain that his cousin Phoebe’s servant Anson Burke was the one who killed her, and he believes that all Irish people are drunks. Ironically, he’s drunk most of the time. To be fair, Phoebe’s twin died under mysterious circumstances a year prior to this story’s events, so give him a little bit of slack.

One of the best things about this novel is Val’s character development. In A Gilded Rosewood Coffin, she is bolder with her actions. Granted, she still has to be the perfect high-society wife. She follows leads, which gets her into some trouble with the police. As I learned from the last book, Val can be quite hasty, but this time, her decisions are less stupid. I still think about the one thing she did in Death in a Gilded Frame, and I was happy when there were some references to it in this title. Moreover, Val spends some time reconciling her own upbringing and ties to the Emerald Isle. Her father came from Ireland, and despite his success, he faced discrimination because he was Irish. She is shocked when Theo demoralizes that group, for he would have known about Val’s heritage, and they have been friends for a while. In the end, I liked how Val admits how she regretted not giving much thought to the Mexican and Chinese people who faced prejudice while working in her father’s silver mines, thus being a hypocrite in her own way.

Now that I’ve praised historical aspects, what do I think about the mystery? Well, this is the weakest part of the novel. First off, Val and Roddy weren’t as entangled with Theo and his family as they were with the art forgery in the previous title. As a result, I didn’t feel as invested. Second, not much happens throughout, and when something did prior to the third act, I had to re-read certain parts to make sure I knew what occurred. Third, I figured out who the murderer was once they were introduced, especially how they treated others. This person was obviously scheming to the high holy heavens that it didn’t surprise me in the slightest they were revealed as Phoebe’s killer. Regardless, the novel still does some good things with the mystery element. There are plenty of roadblocks and red herrings, which certainly made the plot interesting. Plus, the pacing is brisk, which keeps the momentum going. With those in mind, the mystery still works, but not as well as it was in Death of a Gilded Frame.

A Gilded Rosewood Coffin by Cecelia Tichi is a good installment in Val and Roddy DeVere Gilded Age Series. Even though the mystery didn’t hold up as well as it did in the previous title, other parts worked. The history is researched well, and there are more cocktails to try out. Most importantly, the main characters show more development, especially when it comes to Val and prejudice. While A Gilded Rosewood Coffin is the lesser of the titles I’ve read in that series, I would still recommend it to those who love whodunits, especially ones that are set in the past and contain female detectives, as well as, you guessed it, the Gilded Age! The book will be out on Tuesday, January 28, so make sure you have a Gilded time while reading A Gilded Rosewood Coffin.

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Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a copy of this book by Books Publicity Services in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: this review talks about mental health and suicide.

I’m not one who gets into politics that much, but it’s amazing to see how many women were running for various political offices, including for President, in 2024. There’s still a long way to go to achieve true and equal representation in that area. Luckily, while the most recent election cycle was going on, I read the book Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation by Mary Chung Hayashi. It provided reasons why women face obstacles while running for political offices and reasonable advice on how to overcome in a highly approachable way.

Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation explores the strides women made in government. This contemporary analysis bridges the gap between past and present, blending Hayashi’s personal journey as an Asian American immigrant and former California State Assemblymember with the inspiring stories of trailblazing women in political leadership. By featuring interviews and insightful discussions, Hayashi brings to life the trials and triumphs of these women, showcasing their invaluable contributions to political landscapes and the transformative power of their perseverance. Her work sheds light on the ongoing struggles for gender-political equality and serves as a call to people to actively participate in shaping our democracy. It’s a tribute to the women’s political journey and a compass guiding us all toward a future of inclusive leadership and a truly representative democracy.

This is the kind of book for women who are looking to get into politics. I’m not one of those women, but I found a lot to love about it.

At under 200 pages, it’s a comprehensible book about how women can get into politics more. Hayashi delivers her messages in a clear and easy manner that doesn’t talk down to its readers. She’s willing to get to the bottom of the issue of why not enough women are in politics even if it can get uncomfortable. Moreover, she interviews several women of various backgrounds, including former and current female politicians, in order to get their stories of struggles and triumphs. In addition, the book is well structured. It’s divided up into three parts: Inspiration, Barriers, and Achieving Gender Parity. Each chapter is no more than 20 pages, so readers could get it done in a week, or two if they want to savor each sentence the author wrote like I did.

Another thing that works about this book is the realistic assessments of why women usually don’t participate in politics and what needs to be done to achieve that. These include motherhood, money, and racial bias. Hayashi argues that one of the chief reasons why this is a problem is because of the “good girl” mentality. She was familiar with it since she grew up in South Korea, where that was a common idea of what women and girls should be. This meant getting married, raising children, keeping thoughts and opinions to themselves, and avoiding conflict (p. 6). In other words, they were meant to be seen and not heard. This frame of mind is present in other cultures, including Western ones. Hayashi managed to distance herself from that way of thinking when she lived in the United States during her adolescent years, saw Connie Chung – the first Asian-American newswomen – on television, and took a Women’s Studies course at California State University (p. 8 and 9). She acknowledges that it’s a hard one for society to move past, and it’s not going to happen overnight.

But what can women do? Although Hayashi is a realist when it comes to the barriers that women face when dealing with politics, she’s optimist when it comes to overcoming them. These include having role models; mentors, both older and peers; and allies. The one piece of advice that sort of surprised me was having male allies. In today’s world, women are infused with the whole idea that they don’t need a man. In Hayashi’s view, they do need male mentorship if they want to succeed in politics. Specifically, she references a study from Messengers Matter: Why Advancing Gender Equity Requires Male Allies, which found that “those men who may not be open to discussing gender equity with women are available to the same message when a man delivers it. In other words, one of the most meaningful actions men can do for gender equity is to confront discrimination and gender bias against women in conversation with other men” (p. 138-139).

This is why Hayashi argues that both men and women need to be in the fight against discrimination.

The biggest strength of this book is Mary herself. Throughout, she shares her story of how she got into politics, the barriers she had to face, and the things that she accomplished while holding various offices. It was incredibly moving to hear how her platform was about mental health since her oldest sister took her life when Mary was young. She wanted to honor her sister by trying to get laws passed that helped others going through mental health issues since her family essentially erased her after she died. Some reviewers wonder why Hayashi didn’t just write a memoir because her story was so powerful. My theory is that some people want to write something more than about their own lives, and this is the case for Hayashi. She clearly wanted to encourage women to run for office, so what better way to do that than to tell them what she and other female politicians went through and impart some advice along the way. In this case, she succeeds.

Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation by Mary Chung Hayashi is a good introduction book for any woman looking to enter politics. Hayashi is good at making arguments in a clear and concise manner that’s easy to digest. Of course, the best thing about it is the author’s story, which will resonate with readers regardless of gender. I know that I already mentioned who I would recommend this to, but I would also encourage men to read it, especially those who are looking to get into the fight against sexism. After all, men and women need to work together to combat discrimination, especially in the world of politics.

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Flat Water Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by Author Marketing Experts in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: this review discusses trauma and shark attacks.

There are plenty of books that feature an “unlikeable” protagonist. They might do stupid things, treat others poorly, or a combination of both. Having this kind of main character is not a bad thing. If done right, they can be compelling to read, especially with understanding why they do the things they do. A case in point is the protagonist from Flat Water by Jeremy Broyles. Monty from this novel is an interesting lead, who is forced to deal with the trauma of witnessing a shark attack on his brother.

Flat Water is about a man who has to confront the complex and painful loss that drove him away from his hometown and now demands his family. Called back to California for his sister’s wedding, Monty Marinnis has to make a road trip from Nebraska to California. This is also a journey through memory, one that’s complicated by the presence of Charlotte, his loving, but increasingly frustrated wife. Monty has concealed from her the horrifying details of his family’s fracture and how he remains haunted by what he saw as a teenager. The Marinnis family lost their eldest son, Max, in a shark attack while Monty watched helplessly. Since that day, he has yearned to answer two questions that persistently on his mind: why do bad things happen to some people but not others and why are they selected to suffer? While in California, Monty will be confronted with hard truths that rise like a shark from the depths. Faced with these realities, he will have to choose between acceptance and self-destruction.

The novel doesn’t have chapters per say. It has sections named after six different kinds of sharks since Monty memorizes facts about that kind of fish to combat his trauma in the short term. They are long, but they have places, in which people put their bookmark in when they’re done reading for the time being. Also, each section begins with Monty remembering before, during, and after the shark attack.

The main focus of this novel is Monty. He may not appeal to every reader because of his actions and how he treats others. He’s deep into his thoughts when he and his wife Charlotte arrive in his hometown of Flat Water. Monty ignores almost everyone around, especially his spouse. She loves him and tries to help him confront his fears of being by the water, but to no avail. To be fair, the trauma of witnessing that shark attack was that great, and he dealt with it by fleeing California to Nebraska. Also, it seemed like their relationship moved pretty fast, so it’s up in the air if Monty truly loves Charlotte. Plus, he does some stupid things like jumping off a pier with a girl that he knew from town. These tested my patience with him.

Despite my grievances with the character, Monty is compelling. The focus of the story is him confronting his trauma, but Broyles gives him a snarky personality that covers up the torment he’s going through. He has some snappy lines. For example, when he loses his chips at a Las Vegas casino, he says, “It could be worse…I could be the victim of a shark attack. But what are the chances of that ever happening, right?” (p. 200).

Luckily, he does have a realization about why it’s hard for him to deal with his brother’s shark attack. Unfortunately, it’s too late because he made some idiotic decisions beforehand.

One would think that he should have gotten counseling, but if he did, we wouldn’t have this story. He deals with it by learning facts about sharks and spewing them when the moment is right. It also seems like his family is more of the confront-the-thing-one-is-afraid-of type. In addition, if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan, it’s that people will go to therapy when they are ready. Monty wasn’t.

The one thing that I would complain about is the pacing. I felt that the first and last third of the novel were well paced. But, the second part, in which Monty and Charlotte arrive in California and stay with his mom, was a bit slow. Not much happens during that third outside of Monty slowly confronting why he feels traumatized by the shark attack. The pacing picked up when Max’s friends invited Monty and Charlotte to a party and remained consistent for the rest of the book. The last third was easily the best part of the book.

Flat Water by Jeremy Broyles is a good example of having an “unlikeable” character. Monty makes some dumb choices and may push the people close to him away, yet he’s still an interesting person as he demonstrates how not to deal with a traumatic experience. But then again, do we expect people to have the perfect response when something horrific occurs (*cough The 23rd Hero by Rebecca Ann Nguyen)? I would recommend it to those who have dealt with grief and loss and are in the proper headspace as well as to readers who like reading about flawed characters. There’s nothing wrong with having such a protagonist as long as they are compelling.

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Top 3 Best and Worst Books* of 2024

Hi Everybody!!

Today is the last Monday of the year! You know what that means? It’s the 5th annual year-end countdown of books* I reviewed in 2024!

I can’t believe that I’ve been doing these countdowns for 5 years now. Each year, I find new batches of books* to include on both lists.

*This also includes movies.

Like before, I’ll pick 6 titles for this list – 3 for the best and 3 for the worst! Now, I have only one question for you!

I sure am! Let’s get started with the Best Books of 2024!

This year I read a lot of 5-star books. There were plenty of great titles, and it was easy to choose my top 3 this year because they stood out in very specific ways. Let me show you.

3. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

I’ve read plenty of books that have opening lines that sum up everything that I need to know about them, but they don’t do like the way Celeste Ng does in her 2014 debut novel Everything I Never Told You. “Lydia is dead. But the family doesn’t know it yet” should be considered among the greats because it sets up the tone and the omnipresent third-person narration, which is wonderfully utilized in this story. What also works is the characters. Each person has their own backstory and view on what happened to Lydia, yet they will never know the whole truth. It’s a wonderful exploration on a mixed-race family dealing with tragedy in the 1970s. I hope it gets an adaptation soon.

2. Almost Family by Ann Brancroft

When I found out that Almost Family by Ann Brancroft was about a snarky woman attending a cancer support group, I knew I would like it. After reading it, I immediately wanted to put it on my best list, and I devoured it on my Wisconsin trip back in May. I loved the main character Liz, her sense of humor, and how she uses it as defense mechanism. In addition, Brancroft does a great job with balancing the comedy with sincerity, and not just with the protagonist. Liz’s friends in the support group have their moments to shine. I also enjoyed how vulnerable it got. Since this is a story about coming to terms about life before dying, it makes sense for Brancroft to go to certain places without readers feeling manipulated. It’s all earned through the characters and their journeys. This novel is anybody who loves snarky characters and more.

1. Big Love by Bari Beckett

Another book that wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable was Big Love by Bari Beckett. It explores love, sex, and romance in 40 short stories to help people (single or in relationships) to express their big love. All of them felt genuine, and I appreciate that Beckett included the empty pages, so people could write their own love stories, thus giving the readers agency. I knew each of these titles would be in the top 3 best list for the reasons I mentioned earlier, but it was a bit tricky to get them in what order. What ultimately put Big Love at number one was that it made me cry. I knew that I was going to be emotional since reading certain books makes me do that to some degree, but I didn’t expect it to make me sob. I recognized some of the things that Beckett described as big love, and it hit me hard, for I do some of them with my husband. We have been finding more ways to express big love as a result. I also had the opportunity to interview Bari Beckett this past summer, which you can check out here. Thank you so much for this book, Bari!

Before, we get the worst list, I want to mention that this is similar situation that I encountered in 2021, in which the titles were not bad. They happened to be the weakest of the ones that I looked at this year.

Now that we got that out of the way, it’s now time to get to the Top 3 Worst Books* of 2024!

3. Nightbitch Movie

The film adaption of Nightbitch is not bad. However, when the premise involves something bizarre like a woman turning into a dog, it doesn’t deserve Bob Barker coming in to spade and neuter it for a mainstream audience. It needed to embrace the scenario 100 percent. The movie contains some good elements like the expansion of the core relationships and the acting, especially that of Amy Adams, yet it wasn’t enough. It also didn’t help that it repeatedly beat its message about motherhood over the audience’s heads. Most importantly, it fails to capture the dark, satirical, and horrific spirit of the book of the same name by Rachel Yoder. With all of that being said, I would still recommend it for parents of all kinds and Amy Adams fans. Other than those groups, stick to the novel since that one has a lot more bite.

2. LOY and Beyond by Todd David Gross

LOY and Beyond by Todd David Gross is one that I wanted to like. There were some good things like the environment and the possibly autistic-coded Tremlo and his relationship with his mentor Jormah. However, I couldn’t get into it. I felt like I was dropped into the middle of the world Gross created without warning. Granted, this is the second book in the series with the first being Loy: In the Forest of the Mind. I hope that one day I can give it another chance by reading the first novel and then this one again. For now, LOY and Beyond stays on my worst list for this year.

1. The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers by Sarah Tomlinson

While I’m willing to give LOY and Beyond another chance, I can’t say the same thing for The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers by Sarah Tomlinson. Although I enjoyed the emphasis on the ghostwriter aspect, that ended up being its downfall. It spends too much time in the present with the main character Mari and not enough in the past with the Midnight Ramblers (who are essentially the Rolling Stones). As a result, readers don’t get a sense of what made that band famous and thus, they will question why should they care as much as Mari does. Similar books like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six (both by Taylor Jenkins Reid) understand the appeal of their fictional famous characters and hone in on that. I get what Tomlinson, who is a ghostwriter herself, was going for, but the ghostwriting and the band parts should have been more balanced. Oh well, I can’t always get what I want from the books I read and the shows I watch.

And that was the Top 3 Best and Worst Books* of 2024! I hope all of you enjoyed it. I look forward to having plenty of new reviews for 2025! See you next year!

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A Young Soul Maturing during Another Summer in the North Woods on the Big Lake Book Review

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.

Over a year ago, I reviewed The Tale of the Red Fox in the North Woods – Robert C. Jones’s first book written for a younger audience. It seems like Jones got enough positive reviews on it that he decided to create another title with a similar age range in mind. This became A Young Soul Maturing during Another Summer in the North Woods on the Big Lake. It’s a coming-of-age tale that doesn’t always work, but what is effective really is.

A Young Soul Maturing during Another Summer in the North Woods on the Big Lake is about a summer Bobby spends at his aunt and uncle’s resort in the North Woods. Bobby comes back to the North Woods and encounters old and new friends, strange new characters, and his aunt and uncle. Problems arise when unknown individuals disrupt his story. Bobby confronts the issues of trust, bullying, and social/emotional conflicts with them. At his young age, he learns that adults have and keep secrets, and sometimes help can come from the most unexpected places. At the end of visit, he is regarded as more grown up.

Like The Tale of the Red Fox, Jones wanted to target children of a certain age with A Young Soul. This time, it has mixed results. I liked Addendum A, which provides the recipe for Aunty’s Peach Cherry Cobbler with Sweet Biscuit Topping. Aunty makes that in the book, which represents a sense of normalcy in the midst of chaos that Bobby experiences. Even though I wish Jones had included exact measurements, I understand that recipes from an earlier time didn’t do that, so it feels authentic. I still have to make that cobbler at some point. In addition, I love the Postscript, which discusses the presence of migrant workers in Northern Michigan. Bobby befriends a 12-year-old worker named Daniel Ortez. Migrants play a big role in the story because the hospital being built is on land that they’re working on, and they are portrayed realistically. The postscript reminded me of the ones I used to see in American Girl and Dear America series.

On the other hand, I wish there was a set of book club questions that addressed certain plot elements. A lot happens to Bobby in this book like him having funny feelings towards the girl who dives off the local bridge, an intruder coming into the cabin that Aunty and Uncle reside in, and the realization that adults have and keep secrets. Luckily, Jones does include one question, which is “Do you the reader have a secret you should share with a person close to you?”

This is definitely intended for an upper elementary/middle school audience because of the vocabulary and the amounts of violence. I’m not kidding about the latter. People get injured and murdered in gruesome ways throughout the book. There are some mentions of violent acts in The Tale of the Red Fox, but A Young Soul raises the stakes in that regard. Even one of the black-and-white illustrations depicts a man getting shot in the shoulder. Jones mentions that it’s based on a true story, yet I have to wonder if the violence actually happened in the way that it did because it felt so visceral.

Since Jones wanted to educate kids about what it was like decades ago, he had to explain certain things. There are times where it’s well done. For example, Jones defines what a fruit cellar is when Bobby has to go down there to grab items for Aunty. On the other hand, they are sometimes awkwardly inserted. To some readers, they may come off as patronizing. For instance, a person literally describes what a peeping tom is in his journal, and I had to scratch my head over that.

Finally, I have to talk about the story. A Young Soul is more of a coming-of-age tale than The Tale of the Red Fox was. Bobby has a big realization among adults and musters up the courage to do things that earn him respect in the community. It all plays out in a way that readers will know and possibly predict. However, I like the ending, in which Bobby makes an important choice regarding what he learned about adults. The main plot surrounds people getting injured and murdered while a new hospital is being built. Because this is a coming-of-age story, it makes sense to have more mature content. I also want to point out that the perpetrator is wonderfully evil. He explains his entire backstory in a diary that’s featured in one and a half chapters of this book. I loved how far he’s willing to go to achieve what he wants. Because of this villain, it does elevate A Young Soul from being another by-the-numbers coming-of-age story.

A Young Soul Maturing during Another Summer in the North Woods on the Big Lake by Robert C. Jones is another coming-of-age story. However, it tackles a lot of big issues from migrant workers to a sad realization about adults, which were well handled. Does everything work? No, but what does work really does, especially the obviously evil villain. It’s basically everything that one could expect from Jones after reading The Tale of the Red Fox in the North Woods with the stakes raised. I would recommend it for 9-13 year olds, especially if they like coming-of-age stories and truly heinous baddies, and their grandparents who want to relive their younger days and love Jones’s other books. I’m curious to see how Jones continues with the “North Woods” series.

Stay tuned for next week when I reveal my Top 3 Best and Worst Books* of 2024! See you then. In the meantime, Merry Christmas!

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Adapt Me Podcast – Nightbitch Movie

Hi Everybody!

Grab your buttered-up popcorn and some raw meat because returning guest Carl Malek and I start a new subseries “His/Her Reviews” on the Adapt Me Podcast. In our inaugural episode, we discuss the movie adaptation of “Nightbitch” in all of its glory. Check it out at this link.

In the meantime, you can see my review of Nightbitch the movie here.

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