The Overbooked Bibliophile

  Rating: 3.75⭐ Touching upon themes of social class and inequality, ambition, family, friendship, gender identity and sexuality, abuse, guilt and grief, I found  Women and Children First  by  Alina Grabowski  is an impressive debut novel. “Your choices have to mean something, even if they mean something terrible.” The tragic death of a local teenager at a house party sends shockwaves through the small (fictional) town of Nashquitten, Massachusetts. Structured in ten chapters ( each from a different character’s perspective) in total, divided into five “pre” and five “post” Lucy’s death, this is a slow-moving yet immersive character-driven novel. Among the voices we here from are : a sixteen-year-old who went to school with Lucy and worked with her cousin and was in a romantic relationship with a teacher; a guidance counselor who tries to do right by her students only to have her concerns dismissed by the school principal who is unaware or rather chooses to ignor...

  Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐ After her husband of forty-three years leaves seventy-one-year-old Georgina “Gina” Knight to “find himself,” she is forced to rethink her plans for the future. With her adult children well settled in their own lives and the family home about to be sold, Gina not only needs to find a place to live but also a means to supplement her income after splitting the proceeds from the impending sale. When she sees an advertisement for a Companion to an elderly lady for a well-paying week-long assignment that would require her to accompany the family to Norfolk for a family wedding, she is quick to apply for the position. Eighty-nine-year-old Dorothy “Dot” Reed isn’t too keen on having a Companion following her around, but when she meets Gina, whom she instantly likes and shares common interests, she has a change of heart. Unbeknownst to Gina at the time, Dorothy has a hidden agenda – a quest to find the culprit responsible for the theft of a piece of art from her home. She beli...

  Plot: 4⭐ Audio Narration: 5⭐ Adam Archer was Gin Talcott’s second husband, whom she married not too long after she lost her first husband Eddie. Piper, Gin’s eighteen-year-old daughter from her first marriage, discovers the gruesome crime scene after a shooter left Adam dead and Gin fighting for her life in their own bed. Piper’s twin brother Daniel, who also might have been present at the time, is believed to have left the scene with the murder weapon, indicating that the twins may have been involved. Detectives Greta Jessup, who was a friend of Eddie’s, and Finn Pate leave no stone unturned as they do a deep dive into Adam and Gin’s lives. Not only theirs might not have been the happy marriage that everyone assumed, but complicating matters further is the fact that Piper , Daniel and Ruth, Eddie’s sister, know more than they are letting on. Parallel to the police investigation, we are given insight into the events that led up to that fateful through a letter Gun left for estate...

Rating:  4.5⭐️ See: Loss. See Also: Love.   by  Yukiko Tominaga  r evolves around Kyoko, a young Japanese American immigrant in her late twenties, who loses her Jewish-American husband to a freak accident while she is visiting her family in Japan with her eighteen-month-old son, Alex. The narrative is shared in four sections comprising a series of non-linear vignettes from the first person PoV of Kyoko as we follow her upbringing in Japan, her years as a student in the United States, her marriage to Levi and her settling in the United States to how she juggles her professional aspirations, her responsibilities as a single mother and her personal life in the years following Levi’s demise. Kyoko decides to remain in San Francisco with her son. Her parents in Japan are supportive of her decision and Levi’s family, especially his mother Bubbe, extend their support whenever needed. As we follow Kyoko over the years we see her reflect on her marriage and her loss – it is n...

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Set on a fictional Welsh island in 1938,  Whale Fall  by  Elizabeth O'Connor  revolves around eighteen-year-old Manod Llan, a lifelong islander, who dreams of a life different from the one expected of girls her age in her community. She yearns for a future that would take her away from the island yet feels a deep attachment to the small community (fifteen men, twenty women, and twelve children), her father and younger sister Llinos whom she has taken care of ever since her mother passed on. When a beached whale washes ashore, their isolated island catches the attention of outsiders among whom are two ethnographers who visit the island to study the way of life of the islanders. Manod is a bright girl, well versed in both Welsh and English and the natural choice for a translator who could assist Joan and Edward in communicating with the islanders and transcribing their notes. Joan’s friendship and worldliness inspire Manod and Edward’s promises give her h...