Book Review: Etiquette for Lovers and Killers

It’s 1964 in the tiny town of Eastport, Maine, and Billie McCadie is bored to death. She’s surrounded by dull people with more manners than sense, and no sign of the intrigue or romance that fills her beloved novels. That is, until an engagement ring and cryptic love letter turn up, addressed to 'Gertrude'. Until she meets yacht-club handsome Avery Webster. Until the unsettling phone calls and visits from a man in a fedora begin. Until she's one of the last people to see Gertrude alive... and the first to see her dead.

Book Review: Deep Cuts

It’s a Friday night in a campus bar in Berkeley, fall of 2000, and Percy Marks is pontificating about music again. Hall and Oates is on the jukebox, and Percy—who has no talent for music, just lots of opinions about it—can’t stop herself from overanalyzing the song, indulging what she knows to be her most annoying habit. But something is different tonight. The guy beside her at the bar, fellow student Joe Morrow, is a songwriter. And he could listen to Percy talk all night.

Joe asks Percy for feedback on one of his songs—and the results kick off a partnership that will span years, ignite new passions in them both, and crush their egos again and again. Is their collaboration worth its cost? Or is it holding Percy back from finding her own voice?

Book Review: Honey - A Novel

It is 1997, and Amber Young has received a life-changing call. It’s a chance thousands of girls would die for: the opportunity to join girl group Cloud9 in Los Angeles and escape her small town. She quickly finds herself in the orbits of fellow rising stars Gwen Morris, a driven singer-dancer, and Wes Kingston, a member of the biggest boy band in the world, ETA.

As Amber embarks on her solo career and her fame intensifies, her rich interior life is frequently reduced. Surrounded by people who claim to love her but only wish to exploit her and driven by a desire for recognition and success, for love and sex, for agency and connection, Amber comes of age at a time when the kaleidoscope of public opinion can distort everything and one mistake can shatter a career.

Book Review: I'm a Fan

Sheena Patel’s incandescent first novel begins with the unnamed narrator describing her involvement in a seemingly unequal romantic relationship. With a clear and unforgiving eye, she dissects the behavior of all involved, herself included, and makes startling connections between the power struggles at the heart of human relationships and those of the wider world. I’m a Fan offers a devastating critique of class, social media, patriarchy’s hold on us, and our cultural obsession with status and how that status is conveyed.

Sex, brutality, politics, work, art, tenderness, humor—Patel tackles them all while making the reader complicit in the inescapable trap of fandom that seems to define the modern condition.

Book Review: The Final Revival of Opal and Nev

Opal is a fiercely independent young woman pushing against the grain in her style and attitude, Afro-punk before that term existed. Coming of age in Detroit, she can’t imagine settling for a 9-to-5 job—despite her unusual looks, Opal believes she can be a star. So when the aspiring British singer/songwriter Neville Charles discovers her at a bar’s amateur night, she takes him up on his offer to make rock music together for the fledgling Rivington Records.

Decades later, as Opal considers a 2016 reunion with Nev, music journalist S. Sunny Shelton seizes the chance to curate an oral history about her idols. Sunny thought she knew most of the stories leading up to the cult duo’s most politicized chapter. But as her interviews dig deeper, a nasty new allegation from an unexpected source threatens to blow up everything.

The Final Revival of Opal and Nev is the debut novel from Dawnie Walton. 37 Ink, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster Canada released it on March 30, 2021.

Regulars here know I'm all in on music and books (fiction and nonfiction) that revolve around it. This one was added to my want-to-read list earlier this year, and I'm now getting around to it. The description indicated it would have a lot going for it.

Most of the narrative is written in a documentary transcript style. Daisy Jones and the Six from a few years back was one of the first I encountered in this same style. For books that focus on entertainment media, I find that it can work well. It does force the author to really lock in on the "voices"of the characters as their words and speaking rhythms are key to selling it. Walton does a wonderful job at this; many of the secondary characters are very memorable here.

I can tell when an author has done the work to include authentic pop-culture and historical references into their work. The mentions of several classic soap operas as well as various British music programs made me smile. I also like the fictional soundbites from real celebrities as well; they really fit in with the story nicely.

Overall, a moving narrative with a lot of thematic meat to leave the reader thinking.

Book Review: On Earth as It Is on Television

Since long before the spaceships’ fleeting presence, Blaine has been content to go along with the whims of his supermom wife and half-feral, television-addicted children. But when the kids blithely ponder skinning people to see if they’re aliens, and his wife drags them all on a surprise road trip to Disney World, even steady Blaine begins to crack.

Half a continent away, Heather floats in a Malibu pool and watches the massive ships hover overhead. Maybe her life is finally going to start. For her, the arrival heralds a quest to understand herself, her accomplished (and oh-so-annoying) stepfamily, and why she feels so alone in a universe teeming with life.

Suddenly conscious and alert after twenty catatonic years, Oliver struggles to piece together his fragmented, disco-infused memories and make sense of his desire to follow a strange cat on a westward journey.

Book Review: Please Report Your Bug Here

A college grad with the six-figure debt to prove it, Ethan Block views San Francisco as the place to be. Yet his job at hot new dating app DateDate is a far cry from what he envisioned. Instead of making the world a better place, he reviews flagged photo queues, overworked and stressed out. But that's about to change.

Reeling from a breakup, Ethan decides to view his algorithmically matched soulmate on DateDate. He overrides the system and clicks on the profile. Then, he disappears. One minute, he’s in a windowless office, and the next, he’s in a field of endless grass, gasping for air. When Ethan snaps back to DateDate HQ, he’s convinced a coding issue caused the blip.

Book Review: The Coisters

When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination.

Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers’ more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs.

Book Review: Things We Found When the Water Went Down

When brutish miner Hugo Mitchum is found murdered on the frozen shore of a North Country lake, the local officials and town gossips of Beau Caelais are quick to blame Marietta Abernathy, outspoken environmental activist and angry, witchy recluse. But Marietta herself has disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Living on an isolated island with her father, Marietta’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Lena, begins sifting through her mother’s journals and collected oddities in an attempt to find her. While her father’s grief threatens to consume him and her adoptive aunt Bea reckons with guilt and acceptance, it is the haunting town outcast Ellis Olsen who might have the most to lose if Lena fails to find her mother.

Book Review: Welcome to the Game

Having moved his family from England to Detroit and opened a foreign car dealership, ex-rally driver Spencer Burham’s life was derailed by the death of his beloved wife. Now disconnected from his young daughter and losing control of the cocktail of drugs and alcohol that gets him through the day, he only just keeps Child Protective Services at bay while his business teeters on the edge of bankruptcy.

Then he has a seemingly chance encounter with a charismatic but lethal gangster, Dominic McGrath. Feeling the squeeze from informants, the rise of tech surveillance, and a hotshot detective who’s made busting him a personal crusade, McGrath’s been planning a last heist that would allow a comfortable retirement, provided he can find a very special type of driver—one who’s capable, trustworthy . . . and naïve.

Book Review: The Book Eaters

Truth is found between the stories we're fed and the stories we hunger for.

Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.

Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories. But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.

Bertie Higgins - Just Another Day In Paradise (35th anniversary)

This month marks the 35th anniversary of the release of Bertie Higgins' debut album Just Another Day In Paradise. It spent twenty-five weeks on the US Billboard Album chart, peaking at number 38.

For my review of this album, please click here.

Boston - Boston (40th anniversary)

Today (August 25th) marks the fortieth anniversary of the self-titled debut album from Boston. 1976's Boston spent an epic one hundred and thirty-two weeks on the US Billboard Album chart, and surprisingly it only peaked at number 3.

For my complete review of this rock classic, click here.

For more from Boston, click here.

Luther Vandross - Never Too Much (35th anniversary)

Today (August 12th) marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of Never Too Much, the 1981 debut record from Luther Vandross. It spent thirty-six weeks on the US Billboard Album chart, peaking at number 19.

For my complete review, click here.

For more from Luther Vandross, click here.

The Time - The Time

Today (July 29th) marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of The Time, the self-titled debut from the famed Minneapolis band. While the cover showed the roster of the original group line-up who toured, the main people in the recording studio were Morris Day (on vocals) and Prince (on all other instruments and some vocals).

Was (Not Was) - Was (Not Was)

This month marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the self-titled debut album from Was (Not Was). David Weiss and Don Fagenson formed the band in Detroit, Michigan, in the late 70's. The duo enlisted vocalists Harry Bowens and Sweet Pea Atkinson for this 1981 record. The album was re-released in 2004 under the title Out Come the Freaks with an expanded track listing.

the Go-Go's - Beauty and the Beat (35th anniversary)

Today (July 8th) marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of Beauty and the Beat, the debut album from the Go-Go's. This 1981 record spent seventy-two weeks on the US Billboard Album chart, including six at the number 1 spot.

For my full review of this classic debut, click here.

For even more from the Go-Go's, click here.

Kim Wilde - Kim Wilde (35th anniversary)

Today (June 29th) marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the self-titled debut album from Kim Wilde. Kim Wilde went Gold in the UK after reaching number 3 on those charts and Gold in Germany after reaching number 1. Here in the US, it spent twenty-two weeks on the Billboard Album chart, peaking at number 86.

For my full review, click here.

For more from Kim Wilde, click here.

Duran Duran - Duran Duran

Today (June 15th) marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the release of the self-titled debut from Duran Duran. This 1981 went multi-Platinum in sales and climbed to number 27 in Canada, number 22 in Germany, number 9 in Australia, number 3 in the UK and number 2 in New Zealand. Here in the US, it failed to chart in 1981 but upon re-release in 1982 it spent eighty-seven weeks on the Billboard Album chart with a top spot of number 10.

Thompson Twins - A Product Of... (Participation)

This month marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of A Product Of...(Participation), the debut album from the Thompson Twins. Initially the group consisted of six members: Tom Bailey (bass, lead vocals, keyboards, percussion), Chris Bell (drums, backing vocals, percussion), Peter Dodd (guitar, backing vocals, percussion, saxophone), Joe Leeway (congas, backing vocals, percussion), John Roog (guitar, backing vocals, percussion) and Jane Shorter (saxophone, percussion). Bailey and Leeway would remain with the group as the decade continued.