Somethin’ to Holla About

“I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”  —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Hear! Hear! Jane. Not that I measure Christmas success by the quality of books I get—that might be considered borderline obsessive—but I’m so pleased with the library additions I received this snowy December. Wanna hear about a few? Let’s start with the darling, the aficionado, the two at twenty-seven brainchild, my girl Rae’s perfectly wrapped hardcover under the tree. She sent me British-born Jess Kidd’s latest, The Night Ship. We discovered Kidd together, the last time we were in Londontown. I’ve since seen The Night Ship on Barnes & Noble’s Top Ten Best Fiction of 2022; I wasn’t surprised, are you? Rae picks winners like Renior picked flowers. Love her.

My longtime friend, K.P., sent me a novel I’m currently listening to on audible and absolutely lovin’. Can’t wait to blog about Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead. I’ve got an Appalachian Elegy in my ears and it’s giving my imagination somethin’ to holla about. Melly gave me a fat B&N gift card, so I bought myself Jenna’s recommend: The Cloisters along with the book I gave Rae: I Must Betray You. Something tells me we’ve got some star-studded reviews headed your way. So be sure to look ahead!

In the meantime, I finished one of “The Best Mysteries of 2022.” I chose a mystery on purpose. (Not sure how any book could adequately follow The Marriage Portrait, so a different genre seemed like a good idea.) Maybe Sharee’s heard of Ashley Flowers, the “Crime Junkie” podcast host. Her debut novel All Good People Here was entertaining. The Junkie’s protagonist is a reporter named Margot Davies, who can’t shake the need to solve a cold case involving her childhood friend, January Jacobs. (January’s character was obviously inspired by JonBenet Ramsey.) There were plots twists throughout. Flowers found ways to keep things interesting, but there were moments of predictability for me. I can’t say that for the book’s ending. Unlike some reviewers, I thought the ending worked. I totally agree with this thought: “In a genre overrun by gratuitous violence against female characters, Flowers has applied everything she has learned from her own investigations to create a thriller that doesn’t shy away from the truth about violent crimes but doesn’t celebrate or forgive them either.” That being said, if you’re itchin’ for a thriller, I’d go with The Maid ahead of All Good People Here.

Posted by Tracy

You Had Me At Hamnet

“That’s my last duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive”

I don’t know about you, but I’m keeping track of Rae’s imaginary BFF’s. That girl’s got taste. I too have some best friends in my head. Lately, Maggie O’Farrell is my bestest and brightest pretend friend. To quote Rae, “If we lived next door to each other, I just know we’d get along swimmingly.” Maggie may suggest otherwise, but that’s the thing about pretend friends—my dream world, my dream details. If you haven’t heard, Mags has won a slug of awards for nearly a dozen books. (We’re talkin’ critical acclaim stuff.) She hails from Ireland. If you guessed redhead, you guessed right. Like King George VI, she suffered from a pronounced stammer when she was young but made her way to Cambridge just the same. Maggie is a literary queen. Frankly, she had me at Hamnet. The fact that she followed her award-winner about Shakespeare’s son with a novel equally compelling rocks my bookish socks clean off. Which lucky historical figure caught Maggie’s eye this go around? Lucrezia de’Medici.

If you haven’t heard of Lucrezia don’t worry, you’re not alone. History barely snagged a glimpse of the 15-year-old girl who married the Duke of Ferrara. Mags not only pulls back the curtain to reveal the inner world of a 16th century Italian noblewoman, she quietly exposes the unfairness of gender and social mores at the time. Lucrezia, a girl predisposed to nature and art, is relegated to confinement—she commutes from one of the Duke’s “prisons” to another. Of course, the Jane Austen lover in me is enchanted by O’Farrell. (Jane has always been a number 1 pretend friend.) She too masters the meaningful layers beneath the surface story.

If you’re not into literary layers, you’re still in luck. My BFF’s got you covered. The Marriage Portrait begins with the Duke taking his now 16-year-old wife to a dank “hunting lodge.” Flanked by a dense forest, they sup alone at a long table in a darkened hall. We read, “This is the reason for their sudden journey to such a wild and lonely place. He has brought her here, to this stone fortress, to murder her.” Mags creates intrigue on page one. I couldn’t turn the rest of her pages fast enough. (Actually, I listened to Genevieve—the voice of Harry Potter’s Pansy Parkinson—on audible and loved it; my BFIMH is on there too!) What a star you are, Maggie O’Farrell. Keep ‘em comin’, I pray you!

P.S. Hats off to fab poet Robert Browning who immortalized Lucrezia in his famous poem “My Last Duchess.”

One more P.S. Rae and I snatched this Book of the Year finalist long before Reese put her sticker on it. Why do I feel the need to put that in print?

Posted by Tracy

True Crime Vibes

“I’ve already learned my lesson here: when you catch someone lying about a murdered girl, you go ask them why.”

An excellent true crime seems to get all of us here at two@twenty-seven, especially Sharee. You’ll recall she’s a devout follower of Dateline. She records the episodes she misses! It’s in the genes apparently because I felt the itch for a little lawlessness. And I was looking for an easy read. One that didn’t require a lot of brain power but kept me interested. A while back, my friend mentioned that she loved Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder for its true crime vibes. So I picked it up because I hadn’t read a YA novel in a while.

Set in Fairview, Connecticut (a fictional town in Fairfield County where Tray and Sharee grew up!), Pippa Fitz-Amobi found the perfect project for her senior capstone project—uncover what happened to the murdered Andie Bell. The only problem? The police closed the case 5 years ago when Andie’s boyfriend, Sal Singh, was found dead in the woods with a confession on hand. Regardless of what the police say, something just doesn’t sit right with Pip. She decides to take matters into her own hands. An intricate web of lies, deceit, and shady dealings lead Pip down a dangerous path to discover what actually happened to Andie that fateful night.

Like many YA novels, this feels more adult as it mentions suicide, rape, sex, and drugs. I’m giving it a solid 4 out of 5 stars. Oh, and despite being a paperback purist, I listened to this thrilla in 3 days. Look at me go!

*Bonus points to you if you can find the UK version and get your hands on it–the author adapted the original UK version to a US version.

Posted by Michelle

Holiday Gift Guide 2022

OUR HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE IS HERE!

Home of the Not So Brave

“Story, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution—more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to.”  Lisa Cron

Opposable thumbs got me into trouble today. The right one in particular—it aided and abetted my primary hand in hoisting bacon and date dip on toasted baguette into my stuffed gut. Everyone should have been so lucky. But that’s not what I’m hangin’ onto. I’m locked on Celeste Ng’s latest story: Our Missing Hearts. Unlike the bacon and dates, this book does not satiate—it isn’t meant to make an American audience feel comfortable. Some are calling Our Missing Hearts dystopian. Others disagree with that label. If dystopia constitutes, “An imaginary place in which everything is as bad as possible,” it’s safe to say, OMH is not feelin’ good in the neighborhood.  

America has a new standard for keeping time: before and after “The Crisis.” Economically devastating and chaotic, the crisis eventually ends with the passing of PACT—the Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act—which essentially marginalizes persons of Asian origin. Fear and Suspicion replace freedom and speech in the home of the not-so-brave. Could things be worse? Books aren’t being burned; they’re being pulped instead. And children of vocal parents who don’t meet the status quo are being taken from their homes. When Bird Gardner’s Chinese mom preemptively leaves her boy and husband to spare her son’s “replacement” in a foster home because of some poems she wrote in grad school (that are being subversively interpreted as radical), their lives change forever.  How is Bird supposed to make sense of his surroundings? Fortunately, his twelve-year-old heart hasn’t become embittered, even in the face of abandonment. Thank you, Bird. Because you set out to find your missing mother, I was reminded of the beautiful and horrifying weight of words. Stories are crucial to our evolution. And no one can stop the strong from sharing powerful stories.

Posted by Tracy

Girdle Up Your Loins

There’s nothing average about the average housewife.”  —Bonnie Garmus

Here at 2 at 27, we love nothing more than a robust feminine role model, and Elizabeth Zott is no exception. She’s a chemist, TV star, producer, and mom to a brilliant little girl. Did we mention she did all of this during the 1950s and the 1960s?

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus follows Zott’s tale of two plus decades navigating a patriarchally oppressive society. Following a chaotic childhood, Elizabeth is accepted into UCLA’s Masters of Chemistry on an eventual Ph.D. track. After Zott’s program offer is rescinded due to an incident, she claws her way into Hastings Research Lab as an expert in abiogenesis. (Don’t worry, we looked it up for you—it’s how life begins and evolves from inorganic substances). Elizabeth is determined to swear off men and focus on her career at Hastings…for a couple of weeks. Brilliant, young, and off-putting, Calvin Evans swoops into Elizabeth’s life and sweeps her off her feet. They both agree to become the best chemists in the world sans kids or marriage. For once in her life, everything is perfect.

Until it’s not. Following a series of unfortunate events, Elizabeth’s at the bottom of the barrel. With a newborn, no partner, and no job prospects, she takes matters into her own hands. What follows is a story of a woman clawing and ball-busting her way to fame, respect, and, most importantly, female empowerment. Zott’s ability to rise above her misfortunes and lift others to a new plane is more of what we need to see in 2023, despite the 60-year gap.

I give this book a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars—it’s witty, sobering, and empowering all at once. Barnes and Noble clearly agrees with me as they just named it their Book of the Year. The Brits are loving it too. Waterstones has it on their Shortlist for Fiction Book of the Year. Every woman should read this book and share it with their gal pals. When we’re down about the testosterone, we should ask ourselves, “What would Elizabeth Zott do?”

Posted by Michelle

Girl Interrupted

“In all chaos, there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order. “ —Carl Jung

I’d like to pick a fight with Carl Jung right about now. For years, I’ve been living with chaos—we’re decade-long roommates—and I’m not seeing a whole lot of harmony or order spring out of the confusion. Just sayin. I sound cynical, I know. But here’s a fact to remember: when the chaos spills over into my precious reading minutes, I get cranky. Turning pages helps keep my world spinning. It took weeks to snatch interrupted time to listen to Mercury Pictures Presents. (Weeks, as in days on end.) Although breaking a book up over longer stretches of time usually fractures a read, I absolutely loved Anthony Marra’s latest.  “Absolutely loved” doesn’t quite cut it—it was more of a big cosmos kind of love actually.

Why, oh why, have I not met Anthony Marra before now? I’m with the reviewer who asked, “What is it about the spare beauty of Anthony Marra’s prose that makes us want to laugh and cry at the same time?” He followed with, “I had been entirely transported by his stunning debut, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, and still feel it’s the closest thing I’ve read to a “perfect” novel, one showcasing Marra’s thoroughgoing command of plot, character, and voice.” That debut five-star is en route, compliments of Amazon. Can’t wait.

Back to Mercury. I’m excited for you to meet Maria Lagana, one of several denizens who relocates from Mussolini’s Italy to Tinsel Town. She’s wily and ambitious—she manages to impress studio head, Artie Feldman, who hires her as a typist turned producer. Maria’s assimilation is seamless. She runs from her past, which involved unwittingly facilitating the internal exile of her anti-fascist father. Worlds collide for Maria when émigré Vincent Cortese arrives in LA. Like All The Light We Cannot See, golden threads weave through time, space, and small moments to connect characters in striking ways. You should know I laughed (Maria’s great aunts are a riot) and cried. When life settles down—if life settles down—I will read Mercury Pictures Presents all over again.

P.S. In honor of Rae’s fake friendship with Ann Patchett, I thought I’d include her high praise as well: “Marra has been compared to Nabokov, Kafka, and Orwell. The word 'brilliant' gets used in all his reviews. Mercury Pictures Presents… is full of history, comedy, and horror. It's a great literary read.”

Posted by Tracy

Rock-Solid Reads 2.0

“But books, like people, die. They die in fires or floods or in the mouths of worms or at the whims of tyrants. If they are not safeguarded, they go out of the world. And when a book goes out of the world, the memory dies a second death.” —Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land

Was it really March when I promised my book bestie Barack next dance? I’d like to say this is the only area of my life running seven months behind. Actually, considering I recently sent a baby gift for my nephew’s now 2-year-old daughter, seven months feels super speedy. Never mind that in the time it’s taken me to finally write this post, our fearless former leader has already posted a new reading list. Looks like retiring from running the country has left him with a little free time.

Here are some of the reads I loved from last year’s list. He’s yet to disappoint. A couple of his selections (The Lincoln Highway and Beautiful Country) were also on my other book bestie’s list so I reviewed them in my original post. I also noticed Black Cake made this year’s favorites. Was it my influence or Jenna’s? We may never know.

Most Important Read of the Year

Some books entertain, some educate, and some make your blood boil. This one does all three in riveting, page-turning fashion. You’ll be gobsmacked (and sickened) by the immense damage done by one family wholly consumed with greed. And perhaps even worse, how governments, the FDA, and the philanthropic world—whose pockets they lined—stood by and watched it happen. Johnathon Cohn of the Washington Post writes: “The opioid epidemic has killed nearly half a million Americans over the past two decades. Many of their loved ones, along with public health advocates and experts, believe that one very rich, very famous family has never fully faced the consequences for its role in those deaths. Empire of Pain is an attempt to change that — to hold the family accountable in a way that nobody has quite done before, by telling its story as the saga of a dynasty driven by arrogance, avarice and indifference to mass suffering.”

My new imaginary BFF

Emma Thompson, Jennifer Garner, and Anna Quindlen. What do they have in common? They’re all my best friends—in my head. If we all lived next door to each other, I just know we’d get along swimmingly. Kindred spirits, if you will. And because I know they love all the same things and people I do, I’m confident they’d welcome Ann Patchett to the neighborhood with arms open wide and something freshly baked by Jennifer. While I’ve been an ardent fan of Ann’s fiction for years, this collection of essays is what cemented her BFIMH status. Hard to beat this summation on NPR: "A catalogue of all the unexpected ways love can look, if you're imaginative and brave enough to try it — even while knowing that love and grief are two sides of the same coin." Huge shoutout to Barack and his trusty list for putting this one on my radar. And another huge shoutout to Kristen, a bestie in real life, who said I should also pick up Ann’s other collection of essays: This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. And then there’s Ann, in her own words: “As every reader knows, the social contract between you and a book you love is not complete until you can hand that book to someone else and say, Here, you’re going to love this.” So all this to say, here, you’re going to love this.

Favorite Listen of 2022

I’m calling it now. Hands down. Ain’t no one else even in the running. If you’re still in the “read only” camp, I triple dog dare you to listen to this book and not be converted. Barack may have influenced me, but in truth, it was my real-life bestie, Tray, who convinced me to download this one sooner rather than later. You can read her better-than-chocolate review here. Team Ryland and Rocky forever.

Anthony Doerr, We Don’t Deserve You

While we’ve established I’m solidly in the audiobook camp, I’m the first to admit there are some books that demand to be read and this is definitely one of them. If you started listening and gave up, here’s my plea: pick up this heft of a book (both in the literal and figurative sense) and give it another go. You can thank me and Michelle (ours, not Barack’s) later. Click here to read her stunning review. When choosing a quote for this post it was a wrestle between the one above and this: “‘That’s what God’s do,’ he said, ‘they spin threads of ruin through the fabric of our lives, all to make a song for generations to come.’” And what a mesmerizing song it is.

A Masterpiece, Indeed

To quote Maureen Corrigan (because who wouldn’t?), “I know [the word masterpiece is] something of an old-fashioned conceit, nevertheless, I'll go for broke and call Klara and the Sun a masterpiece that will make you think about life, mortality, the saving grace of love: in short, the all of it.” And to also quote Tracy (because again, who wouldn’t?), “With the backdrop of a futuristic world where loneliness is underscored, the importance of a true friend is amplified. Maybe we all underestimate, to some degree, the impact of a devoted friend—the kind that love freely and wholly, without conditions. All this to say, I’m grateful for a profound novel that ultimately explores the question we all should: what does it mean to love?” Do yourself a favor and read Tray’s full review here and then read this book.

Posted by Rachel