You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar
Publisher:Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date: January 12, 2021
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Now a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and host of The Amber Ruffin Show, Amber Ruffin lives in New York, where she is no one’s First Black Friend and everyone is, as she puts it, “stark raving normal.” But Amber’s sister Lacey? She’s still living in their home state of Nebraska, and trust us, you’ll never believe what happened to Lacey.
From racist donut shops to strangers putting their whole hand in her hair, from being mistaken for a prostitute to being mistaken for Harriet Tubman, Lacey is a lightning rod for hilariously ridiculous yet all-too-real anecdotes. She’s the perfect mix of polite, beautiful, petite, and Black that apparently makes people think “I can say whatever I want to this woman.” And now, Amber and Lacey share these entertainingly horrifying stories through their laugh-out-loud sisterly banter. Painfully relatable or shockingly eye-opening (depending on how often you have personally been followed by security at department stores), this book tackles modern-day racism with the perfect balance of levity and gravity.
You may know Amber Ruffin from her appearances on Late Night with Seth Meyers or The Amber Ruffin Show. While she lives in culturally diverse New York City, her older sister Lacey lives in Nebraska. You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey is a collection of racist incidents that Lacey has experienced living in the Midwest. It’s supposed to be a humorous take on these events but it mostly just made me mad and ask myself, “Why are people so stupid?” Most of these stories are about overt, unmistakable racism. People have no shame. I might have chuckled a few times but mostly I was rolling my eyes. And I’m sure Lacey has hundreds more stories that didn’t make it into the book. I understand why the stories try to be funny – it’s like if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.
I think this book would be extremely helpful to people who think they aren’t racist but still commit micro-aggressions without even realizing it – like the woman in the grocery store who put her hand in Lacey’s afro. And since it’s marketed as a comedy book, your friends won’t be suspicious when you gift them a copy.
Even though I didn’t find it laugh-out-loud funny, I did find it to be an engaging read. I finished in one night, which is rare for me. Highly recommended.
May 25th, 2023 in
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The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
Translated by: Stephen Snyder
Publisher: Pantheon
Publication Date: August 13, 2019
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around Publisher’s Description:
On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses—until things become much more serious. Most of the island’s inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.
them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.
The Memory Police is a stark, dystopian novel about an island where the Memory Police are slowly disappearing objects from everyone’s memory. Only a few select few can remember these forgotten items and those who can are enemies of the state who disappear themselves. When a woman discovers that her friend is one of those people, she hides him under her floorboards.
There is never a backstory given of how the Memory Police came into power or what their objective is. None of the characters even have names. My friend who lived in Japan for years said this style is quite common in Japanese literature. This would usually be frustrating for me because I like good world-building, but for some reason, I enjoyed this book anyway. It’s definitely disturbing but in a good way. It was a selection for my book club and led to a great discussion. People either loved it or hated it. Those are always the best meetings. It’s boring when everyone agrees!
Recommended.
May 22nd, 2023 in
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Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: September 14, 2021
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
The Delaney family love one another dearly – it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other….
If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father?
This is the dilemma facing the four grown Delaney siblings.
The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it their chemistry is palpable. But after 50 years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?
The four Delaney children – Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke – were tennis stars in their own right, yet as their father will tell you, none of them had what it took to go all the way. But that’s okay, now that they’re all successful grown-ups and there is the wonderful possibility of grandchildren on the horizon.
One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that was all she wanted.
Later, when Joy goes missing, and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he, like many spouses, seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent, two are not so sure – but as the two sides square off against each other in perhaps their biggest match ever, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light.
I read this book when it first came out but somehow neglected to review it. I decided to listen to the audiobook to refresh my memory of the story and I’m happy to say, it was just as good the second time around.
Apples Never Fall is told in classic Moriarty fashion. Something big happens in the first few pages – in this case, Joy Delaney, the mother of four adult children has gone missing. The prime suspect in her disappearance is her husband. Then the book alternates between the recent past, when a stranger knocks on the Delaney’s door and the future where the police are looking for Joy. The stranger, Savanah, is a young woman who says she’s running away from her abusive boyfriend and Joy invites her in. Savanah stays with them up until right before Joy goes missing. Could she be involved?
In the meantime, all four children are harboring secrets of their own. There’s a lot going on in this book and it’s all expertly woven together. I just love Liane Moriarty. Highly recommended.
Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Publication Date: December 7, 2021
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Renu Amin always seemed perfect. But as the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death approaches, she is binge-watching soap operas and simmering with old resentments. She can’t stop wondering if, thirty-five years ago, she chose the wrong life. In Los Angeles, her son, Akash, has everything he ever wanted, but he is haunted by the painful memories he fled a decade ago. When his mother tells him she is selling the family home, Akash returns to Illinois, hoping to finally say goodbye and move on.
Together, Renu and Akash pack up the house, retreating further into the secrets that stand between them. Renu sends an innocent Facebook message to the man she almost married, sparking an emotional affair that calls into question everything she thought she knew about herself. Akash slips back into bad habits as he confronts his darkest secrets―including what really happened between him and the first boy who broke his heart. When their pasts catch up to them, Renu and Akash must decide between the lives they left behind and the ones they’ve since created, between making each other happy and setting themselves free.
By turns irreverent and tender, filled with the beats of ’90s R&B, Tell Me How to Be is about our earliest betrayals and the cost of reconciliation. But most of all, it is the love story of a mother and son each trying to figure out how to be in the world.
Renu’s husband of over thirty years died almost a year ago and she’s decided to move from Illinois to London. Her son Akash comes back from Los Angeles to help her pack up the house. Akash has secrets and so does his mother. The book flashes back and forth between the present day and the past, making the characters well-developed and providing context for where they are now. This book brought out strong emotions in me – that’s usually a good sign. Akash is self-destructive but sympathetic at the same time.
My son gave me this book for Christmas – he knows me well! Recommended.
May 15th, 2023 in
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The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: April 13, 2021
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Fern Castle works in her local library. She has dinner with her twin sister Rose three nights a week. And she avoids crowds, bright lights and loud noises as much as possible. Fern has a carefully structured life and disrupting her routine can be…dangerous.
When Rose discovers that she cannot get pregnant, Fern sees her chance to pay her sister back for everything Rose has done for her. Fern can have a baby for Rose. She just needs to find a father. Simple.
Fern’s mission will shake the foundations of the life she has carefully built for herself and stir up dark secrets from the past, in this quirky, rich and shocking story of what families keep hidden.
I just love reading books that have neurodivergent characters. They have such an honest, refreshing, and usually humorous take on the people and world around them. In The Good Sister, that character is Fern. Her sister Rose wants to have a baby but can’t so Fern decides to get pregnant for her…without telling her. As you can probably guess, this was not the best decision.
This story had twists that kept me guessing and was thoroughly enjoyable. Recommended.
May 11th, 2023 in
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: July 5, 2022
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.
Even though this book is about gamers, you don’t have to be one to appreciate how wonderful it is. I’m definitely not a gamer in any way – Candy Crush and Wordle are the extent of my gaming experience. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is more about the relationship between the two main characters, game designers Sam and Sadie, and their friend Marx and what happens to it when the video game they design becomes a massive success. The characters are well-drawn and complex. It’s character-driven but still has an out of nowhere twist. This is also one of the few books that have made me ugly cry. Luckily, I was in the privacy of my own home! I chose this book because John Green recommended it and he did not steer me wrong. I also highly recommended it.
May 8th, 2023 in
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Shockaholic by Carrie Fisher
Narrator: Carrie Fisher
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio
Release Date: November 01, 2011
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Infused with Carrie Fisher’s trademark incisive wit and perfectly poised on the heels of Wishful Drinking’s instant New York Times best-selling success, Shockaholic takes listeners on another rollicking ride into her crazy life.
Told with the same intimate style, brutal honesty, and uproarious wisdom that placed Wishful Drinking on the New York Times best-seller list for months, Shockaholic is the juicy account of Carrie Fisher’s life, focusing more on the Star Wars years and dishing about the various Hollywood relationships she’s formed since she was chosen to play Princess Leia at only 19 years old. Fisher delves into the gritty details that made the movie – and herself – such a phenomenal success, admitting, “It isn’t all sweetness and light sabers.”
Shockaholic was a quick, fun listen. As usual, Carrie Fisher pulls no punches and tells it like it is. She has a very long section about her friendship with Michael Jackson and thinks there is no way he could be a pedophile. I didn’t realize they were such good friends. That section might be a little troubling, depending on what your thoughts on Jackson are. She also talks about getting electroshock therapy for her depression and other mental issues and how it’s helped her. I think her honesty will help people going through the same thing.
Fans of Carrie Fisher and/or Star Wars will enjoy this book. Recommended.
Other books I’ve reviewed by Carrie Fisher:
Wishful Drinking
The Princess Diarist
This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
On the eve of her fortieth birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, and her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning, she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her sixteenth birthday. But it isn’t just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush—it’s her dad, the vital, charming, forty-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?
This Time Tomorrow is an interesting take on time travel and has elements of Peggy Sue Got Married and Back to the Future as well. Even so, I found it to be original. Alice wakes up on her 40th birthday discovering that she is 16 again. Her father, who had been dying in the hospital in the present time, is his spry younger self. Alice’s fervent hope is to change the past so that her father can live longer and happier in the present. Is that even possible and if so is it a good, idea? You’ll have to read to find out!
Emma Straub is one of my favorite authors and this book did not disappoint. Highly recommended.
Other books by Emma Straub I’ve reviewed:
Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures
The Vacationers
All Adults Here
May 1st, 2023 in
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Rachel to the Rescue by Elinor Lipman
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Publication Date: July 13, 2021
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Rachel Klein is sacked from her job at the White House after she sends an email criticizing Donald Trump. As she is escorted off the premises she is hit by a speeding car, driven by what the press will discreetly call “a personal friend of the President.” Does that explain the flowers, the get-well wishes at a press briefing, the hush money offered by a lawyer at her hospital bedside? Rachel’s recovery is soothed by comically doting parents, matchmaking room-mates, a new job as aide to a journalist whose books aim to defame the President, and unexpected love at the local wine store. But secrets leak, and Rachel’s new-found happiness has to make room for more than a little chaos. Will she bring down the President? Or will he manage to do that all by himself?
I picked up Rachel to the Rescue because I was looking for something light and cheerful. (Also, it has Rachel in the title!) Luckily, this hit the spot. Rachel Klein has a job at the Trump White House taping together all of the documents that the president rips up after he reads them. One drunken night, she accidentally replies all to an office-wide email in which she criticizes Trump and his ilk. She is promptly fired the next morning. As she is leaving the office on foot, she’s run over by a car and wakes up later in the hospital.
When Rachel finds out who ran her over, that opens up a whole can of worms that could involve the president. She takes a new job working for a muckraking journalist who mainly hired her for the dirt on Trump. She tries her best to stay above the fray but it’s not always possible. Meanwhile, her personal life is actually going pretty well – her roommates set her up with a great guy and she has very loving parents.
I found this book to be charming. I liked that there wasn’t too much drama, apart from Rachel trying to figure out who ran her over and why. She and her boyfriend never fought – it was nice. As far as romance goes, it’s extremely chaste. That may be good or bad depending on how steamy you like your books. Also, it takes down Trump in many ways so if you’re a fan of his, you definitely won’t like this book. I personally thought it was really funny. Recommended.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl
Narrator: Dave Grohl
Publisher: HarperAudio
Release Date: October 5, 2021
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Read by Dave Grohl. Features excerpts from five never before heard demos performed by Dave Grohl and an original story exclusive to The Storyteller audiobook.
So, I’ve written a book.
Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities (“It’s a piece of cake! Just do four hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!”) I have decided to tell these stories just as I have always done, in my own voice. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I’ve recorded and can’t wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child.
This certainly doesn’t mean that I’m quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it’s like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.
Dave Grohl has lived a fascinating life. Most of his stories are about crazy things that have happened to him on the road with one of his bands. It’s pretty amazing he is s so successful today, he had some pretty rough times in the beginning. He had real bravery to keep going when most people would have thrown in the towel. He also had a couple of what he would even admit, were lucky breaks.
I love that Dave is still completely down to earth. Even now, he’s amazed that he’s friends with Paul McCartney and other famous musicians. I wish he would have written more about his time with Nirvana, but it actually was a pretty short time in the grand scheme of his career. And he doesn’t even mention Courtney Love’s name, which I thought was telling.
This book was a joy to listen to because Dave is such a positive person. He’s downright bubbly and not jaded at all. He’s a great dad too. There aren’t many personal stories but it’s clear he loves his family. This was a great road-trip listen for my husband and me.
