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When you are a single woman in her twenties and starting a career, saying yes to new adventures and possibilities is fun and thrilling. Saying yes when you are 20-25 years older with an established career and a family can be exhausting. And, as the four ladies in Gretchen Anthony’s new novel find, it can also jeopardize a friendship.

Tired Ladies Take a Stand introduces us to Emma, Fern, Carolina, and Andi. Emma, a teacher recently divorced from an unfaithful husband, has a daughter getting married in six short months. Fern is a writer who can’t find anything she wants to write about. She and her husband have two sons in college and a daughter ready to graduate and head to a university on the east coast. Carolina, a corporate executive with an exercise fetish, has an understanding partner. And Andi is a human rights attorney currently handling way too many cases, leaving her husband to parent their teenage son.

These four ladies became fast friends after they formed a book club. They encouraged each other to try new things and were there with support when life didn’t go as planned. After her writing career started Fern wrote essays about some of their adventures and lessons learned. She pulled those together into a book called “Smart Girls Say Yes”. She didn’t use full names but anyone who know Fern can identify them. She also didn’t ask or inform her friends about the stories she was sharing.

But these ladies have always had each other’s back, at least until the night of the engagement party. Emma has to make a toast at her daughter’s party. She really wants to do well and outshine her ex who brought the woman he was cheating with. She needs the support of her friends but when her moment comes only Carolina is there to cheer her on.

Andi left to find coffee so she can stay awake and Fern is in the bathroom hiding while she texts and makes phone calls. Smart Girls Say Yes has found a resurgence through TikTok and Fern just got an offer to option it. Fern, however, is the only one thrilled with the news.
Hurt and fed up, Emma tells them each what they are ignoring. They need a lesson in learning to say no. Andi’s humanitarian work is exhausting her, Carolina is a workaholic that exercises way too much, and Fern wrote a book about them without changing their names and included moments, one day in particular for Emma, that they didn’t want shared. Now she wants it made into a movie? Emma says no.

Anthony tells these ladies’ stories in chapters alternating with excerpts from Smart Girls Say Yes. So you get a glimpse of what they were like when young and relatively carefree and now when responsibilities weigh them down.

In the six months from the engagement party in March to the wedding in September, each lady will have decisions to make. Fern’s is a decision that will affect them all. If she says yes it will be a dream come true and give her family much needed financial support. But what are the consequences of that decision for her friends?

Andi’s clients need her and the number keeps growing. But what is the travel and workload doing to her son and husband? Carolina seems to be on top of everything at work but exercise is her stress reducer and her stress is off the charts. What happens when her body and her partner say enough?

Emma has said her no but can she stay the course? She has a wedding to make perfect and a single life to navigate. Plus she has tasked herself with being the buffer between her daughter and Doris, the passive-aggressive future mother-in-law. Then there’s that long ago day that Fern included in the book. The incident on that day is one that will do damage to someone with a lot to lose.

This book is a fun read. The characters are likable with issues a lot of working women recognize. I will admit that the format threw me at first because it was hard to keep everyone straight. Once I had the characters identified, I really enjoyed this story about strong women and friendship.

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Book review by Patty Crane, Reference Librarian

The Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee

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Miye Lee’s THE DALLERGUT DREAM DEPARTMENT STORE imagines a world that our subconscious minds visit while we sleep. We do not remember this world when we wake up, but it is where we purchase our dreams every night.

The novel is set almost exclusively in this dream world. The main character, Penny, has just been hired at the Dallergut Dream Department Store – the most famous dream store in the world. She has some basic knowledge of dream production and sales, as do most citizens of this world. Penny is curious and diligent, and eager to get to work.

Dallergut himself is somewhat eccentric. He is the top name in dream sales and has personal relationships with many of the dream artists, but he also seems to be scatterbrained and flighty. His office is a mess, that Penny wants to clean up, but his ability to match dreams to dreamers is uncanny.

Each floor of Dallergut’s department store is dedicated to a different type of dreaming. From the generic dreams of hanging out with friends on the second floor to the dreams of swimming through the ocean as a whale – an extremely popular dream available only by special order.

Dreams are created by artists, who craft them much as an author does a novel. Dream artists usually specialize in a specific type of dream, even nightmares. There are many dream artists in the world, but the most famous are the Big Five, who the world treats as celebrities and Dallergut knows personally.

In this world, dreams manifest as small boxes. These boxes fill the various shelves of the department store where our unconscious selves can purchase them. Dream world citizens are also able to buy the dreams. They experience them as we do, the only difference is that they are aware of where the dreams come from.

Generally the dream world is very like our own: there are food vendors on the sidewalk, Penny lives in an apartment building, even the store is outwardly very normal. But there are also magical creatures roaming the streets, ready to give pajamas and robes to visitors from our world who arrive without them. Their world also trades in emotions distilled from the dream visitors.

When a person from our world buys a dream, they agree to a payment plan that will collect some of their feelings upon waking. These emotions can then be taken by the dream world citizens to feel calm or excited — or they can be taken to the bank and converted into money.

Each chapter of this relatively short novel explorers a different type of dreaming. There are brief glimpses into our world to show how the things we dream can affect our real lives.

It is easy to get lost in the world that Lee has built. Her deep interest in dreams is explored both in her author’s note at the beginning of the book and in the translator’s note at the end.

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Book review by Alyssa Berry, Technical Services Librarian

Family Family by Laurie Frankel

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India Allwood grew up wanting to be an actor. She was hooked from the age of ten when she saw the play Guys and Dolls with her mother. Her whole life was about making this dream come true.  She had to make a lot of tough choices along the way, but finally, decades later, her dream came true and she is one of the most well-known actors in America. 

But now that she has realized her childhood dream, she feels in danger of losing it. Not because she is not a good actor, because she is the best, but all because she dared to tell the truth.

The situation is best described by India’s daughter, “It all started the way it all started.  There was a tiny matter. And then it exploded.”

India made a big screen movie, and she did her best with the script provided. While she agrees it was a good movie, she also admits that some parts of it could have been written differently. Thinking this is one thing, but she tells a journalist and now a tiny matter has exploded and turned into a media storm.  

Despite the ensuing drama and threat to her livelihood and career, India refuses to be ashamed. She admits that families are complicated, but she refuses to compromise hers for the sake of her career, the media, or really anything. She thinks that she is justified in defending her family and her livelihood, but outside forces are intent on convincing her otherwise.

Laurie Frankel’s writing speaks directly to my heart.  It is witty, clever and humorous. It is such a dry, smart humor that I am reading parts of the text over and over, even weeks after I have finished the book.

She is a master at character development.  India is self-assured and poised, especially as a young adult, which she is for half of the book. She is smart, opinionated, beautiful, caring and such a badass. I love the spark and spunky personality that Frankel has given her. 

Plus, the supporting characters, of which there are many, are drawn almost as beautifully as India.  Three dimensional and literally leaping off the page.  India’s boyfriend, Robby Brighton, her mother, even her best friend Dakota.  They all feel like real people. 

While the characters are enough to make me giddy, the plot is the real gem.  The way it is put together is superb.  The story alternates between the present day media blow up to flashbacks starting in 1999 and moving toward the present, until it eventually stays in the present day. To say it is compelling is an understatement.  It is also especially tender and raw. Frankel explores many themes in her newest offering – families, love, adoption, self-sacrifice, friendship and parenting. 

Reading this was an eye opening experience, but not in the way that I first expected when I checked the new title out.  There are many beautiful and unexpected turns along the way.  Not only is this a great addition to the category of contemporary fiction in 2024, Frankel’s latest would make an excellent book club selection thanks to the various themes it explores. Consider adding this one to your list today, it is excellent! 

Review written by: Jeana Gockley, Joplin Public Library Director

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Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

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Mercy Thompson works as a Volkswagen mechanic in the Tri-Cities area of Washington State. Mercy is an expert mechanic that does restorations on the side, owns and runs her auto shop, and is its sole employee. Mercy keeps to herself, her cat Medea her primary companion. Yet Mercy’s life is not as simple as it seems (because, of course not). Mercy is a magical being known as a walker – she can shift from human form to a coyote at will. Mercy is the only one of her kind, but she is not the only supernatural being in this first novel of the Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series by Patricia Briggs.

Despite her loner tendencies Mercy has connections in the four other supernatural groups of the novel: vampires (Mercy is helping vampire Stefan fix his Scooby-Doo mystery machine van), witches (witch Elizaveta enjoys switching up the strength of her Russian accent when certain moods strike her), fae (Mercy bought her auto shop from its previous owner and her teacher, Zee, who is a gremlin), and most of all werewolves, whom Mercy was raised with. The magical beings in the novel live among the human population, some hiding what they are and all attempting to maintain copacetic lives alongside humans. While the novel does contain many supernatural elements and characters, Briggs’ unfolding of the fantasy world she has built is easy to follow with basic concepts any regular fantasy reader or new fantasy reader alike can enjoy.

The plot of the novel is set in motion when Mercy agrees to let a lone teenage werewolf that wanders into her shop work part time. Mercy soon discovers that this werewolf, Mac, is a recently turned werewolf that does not know anything about being a werewolf, and is thus dangerous to himself and those around him. When Mac is confronted at Mercy’s shop by a mysterious werewolf and human from his past, Mercy learns that Mac has just escaped from being held captive and experimented on. The experiment objective: to create and perfect a serum that can immobilize werewolves. To help Mac and put a stop to these brutal experiments Mercy enlists the help of the local werewolf alpha, Adam, who also happens to be her neighbor.

Events unfold rapidly from here, the novel is not short on action or drama. Mercy throws herself into uncovering the group behind the dangerous serum, propelled by her kind nature and her status as the only walker . When Adam is attacked and his daughter is kidnapped by the group, Mercy is forced to turn to the werewolf pack from her past, the very one that raised her. Old friends (and romances) come back into Mercy’s life as she finds herself more and more entrenched in the mystery of the werewolf serum and its potential danger to all supernatural beings. With help from her magical friends Mercy intends to save Adam’s daughter, prevent any future harm to others, and stop the use of the serum – simple, right?

I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. While it is fairly tame as far as its fantasy world and plot goes, that was one of the things I ended up enjoying most. The characters are funny and interesting and there are many aspects to the novel: fantasy, mystery, action, romance, and a consistent humorous undertone, which helped lighten the mood of the story. Mercy is a cool protagonist with unique magical abilities. She’s equal parts independent, capable, and tough while simultaneously being funny and compassionate. This is the type of series where the characters remain the same, but each novel is its own independent story. The latest and fourteenth book in the series was published this year. Briggs has written a cozy urban fantasy that is perfect for the upcoming fall season.

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Review written by Sarah Turner-Hill, Adult Programming Coordinator

THE LOST YEAR by Katherine Marsh

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I try to make it a point to read a handful of the National Book Award winners and finalists each year. When Katherine Marsh’s newest novel The Lost Year came across my desk emblazoned with a silver finalist medal, I knew I had to add it to my to-read list.

The Lost Year begins, and is told through, Matthew, a preteen boy living in New Jersey at the start of COVID. His journalist father is stuck in France and his busy writer mother tasks him with organizing his great-grandmother’s boxes. GG, as she is affectionately called, recently moved in with Matthew and his mother after her 100th birthday. As Matthew reluctantly goes through the boxes, he uncovers a treasure trove of mementos, letters, and family history. He also unravels a secret his GG has been carrying with her for over 80 years.

The items in the boxes tell the story of three girls named Mila, Nadiya, and Helen, in the 1930s. Mila and Nadiya live in Soviet Ukraine, though under very different circumstances. Helen lives in Brooklyn with her brother and parents, who emigrated from Ukraine before she was born. Mila Lomachenko loves her father, who is a leader in the Soviet Union’s Communist Party. She also loves “Papa Stalin,” the USSR’s affectionate nickname for the dictator Joseph Stalin. She is steadfast in her commitment to the cause, attending youth Party meetings and parroting propaganda to anyone who will listen. She believes that the hungry people in the streets have brought it upon themselves. Everything changes when she meets Nadiya, a young girl who shows up at her front door late one night. Nadiya is frail, very hungry, and recently orphaned. Her entire family perished from the government-orchestrated famine after their farmland was seized. Meanwhile, Mila’s entire worldview and trust in authority begins to crumble. If Mila helps Nadiya, there could be dire consequences for her family. The decision she makes could alter the course of both their lives.

Across the Atlantic, Helen Lomachenko wishes there is more she could do to help her Papa, who recently suffered a heart attack. Unbeknownst to her, he has been trying to bring his family in the USSR to the United States. Helen’s mother is working two jobs, and her younger brother Peter is blissfully unaware of the situation or the famine in Ukraine. With some prodding from her school friend Ruth, Helen begins recording her neighbor’s stories of their families’ lives in the USSR. She becomes intent on setting the story straight and doing something about her family.

I hesitate to say more about this book because I don’t want to divulge too much. Matthew, Nadiya, Mila, and Helen are brave and tenacious. However, they aren’t perfect. They have to weigh comforts versus ethics. Such weighty decisions are difficult for adults, let alone young teenagers. Frankly, Matthew would rather play Switch than sit with his centenarian great grandmother. He misses school and he wishes his dad were there. Shy Helen is scared to speak up. A connecting thread amongst these characters is courage, belief in humanity, and devotion to family that is stronger than fear or a desire to maintain the status quo.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I enjoyed reading about Mila, Nadiya, Helen, and Matthew. I did not know much about the government-created famine (also known as the Holodomor) which, as the characters discover, was intentional on behalf of Stalin’s Communist Party. I appreciated the author’s note where Marsh tied the events and the characters to her family history. The Lost Year is a heavy read, but it’s an important one. Hand this to your upper elementary/middle school historical fiction readers (after you read it, of course).

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A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon by Kevin Fedarko

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Have you ever thought about hopping into the Grand Canyon and hiking its entire length? Neither have I. Not only did Kevin Fedarko, author of A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon, think about it, he actually did it. The subtitle of this compelling and thoughtful book very well could have been penned before the actual hike began. For how could an 800-mile trek by someone who is spectacularly unprepared be anything but a misadventure?

Fedarko made the excursion with photographer Pete McBride, his friend and sometimes nemesis (they bicker a lot). It’s not as though the duo were tenderfoots. Over the years, they have teamed up on numerous global adventures that became stories for publication. And prior to that, Fedarko spent many a summer within the canyon as a whitewater boatman for a Colorado River rafting company. Sounds impressive enough. However, he writes it as a marker of his inadequacies. The goal was to be a guide with a boat full of paying guests, not a boatman hauling supplies at the tail end of a rafting convoy. The fact that he was never good enough to be entrusted with piloting other humans down the river was “soul crushing.”

Over five million people a year visit the Grand Canyon. Most peer over the rim; some hike its trails or raft the Colorado. But there have been only a few dozen that we know of who have hiked its entirety. There’s no guidebook for this, of course. Such is the allure for dedicated thru-hikers who must rely on each other, from sharing route information to dropping in caches of supplies when a set of comrades are on the epic hike.

Obviously, this is not something novices just jump into. Enter Fedarko and McBride, two novices who do exactly that. They do have access to a small group of experts who will guide them. Again, they are not exactly just off-the-couch blokes. With this hike, however, they are not prepared. Not only is their gear all wrong, they are—most egregiously—commencing the hike with a “no problem” attitude.

Fedarko’s writing brings the wonders of the canyon to the reader. There are mile-deep walls where “nearly 40 percent of the planet’s chronology was etched directly into the stone.” It’s a place that has both tundra and desert conditions, where streams are almost sentient, retreating from the scorching sun and reemerging at night.

And, without a doubt, the canyon can be deadly. Aside from the dramatic cliffs that claim both casual tourists and experienced hikers alike, there’s the grinding heat. Ultimately, this is what ends Fedarko and McBride’s first attempt. Every day is a slog, notwithstanding the most breath-taking scenery imaginable. Fedarko’s feet are wrecked from all the sand that’s worked its way in. (He forgot to pack gaiters. McBride said it was for the best as he thinks wearing gaiters look goofy.) He quotes what another hiker said of such interminable days: “that hell might well consist of hiking like this for eternity.” McBride eventually experiences “water intoxication.” He’s drinking enough water, but he’s not taking in the requisite amount of electrolytes. His muscles seize and contort to the point where it looks as though there’s another living entity inside him trying to escape. It then becomes a race to escape the canyon before certain death.

Humiliated, they initially conclude that there’s no way they should try this again. But much to their surprise, another set of experienced hikers immediately reach out to educate (and scold) them. Fedarko and McBride had already learned the hard way that they just couldn’t mule their way through. They needed to (surprise) meticulously plan, become obsessive in weighing their gear so as to not schlep more than their daily exertion levels can manage.

Properly humbled, they return to the canyon with this new group of experts. The duo persevere, even tackling some segments of the canyon by themselves. At times it’s hard not to be envious of their experiences: dropping into cavernous slot canyons that very few people (if any) have explored; walking by the numerous artifacts and pictographs from prehistoric peoples; stargazing into a night sky that’s without a trace of light pollution and experiencing what astronomers call “celestial vaulting.” But then there are the recounted days where you think, “Nah, I’m good.” There are many weeks where the only water sources are various muddy potholes, some with such small apertures that the water must be extracted with a syringe. Then there are the snow-covered catwalks where one wrong step will send you to your death. And if you’re in the wrong place when a flash flood appears, forget it, you’re dead.

On the final leg of the hike, their guide made sure to take them through “Helicopter Alley.” At the western end of the canyon, helicopters ferry tourists up to the rim where they disembark for a few minutes (take a few selfies); and then they clamber aboard again, roaring back down the canyon. It’s nonstop and maddeningly loud. This, their guide tells them, is why he and the others agreed to lead these two on a thru-hike. A story about the canyon’s splendors must also include the commercial threats that undermine the canyon’s grandeur.

Towards the end of hike, McBride confesses to Fedarko that he believes he’s wasted his time snapping pictures along the way; for they can’t capture what’s probably the most powerful feature of the canyon: the quiet. I understand the sentiment. What makes the Southwest so enthralling is not just the landscape that changes hues throughout the day, but also the quiet that seems to emanate from it. It’s transcendent.

Fedarko grew up in the industrial regions of Pennsylvania, where chemical emissions poisoned both workers and residents. When he was a boy, his father gave him a copy of Colin Fletcher’s account of thru-hiking the Grand Canyon. So the Grand Canyon was—and is—the other much needed counterweight to having our way with the land. It’s both a message and a gift to future generations: There are some wild places that should remain just as they are because what they offer is already more than enough. While very few will ever undertake such a trek as Fedarko made, they should at least have the opportunity to do so and experience the same quiet and wonder.

At hike’s end, Fedarko renters the park’s trails, where people are simply walking and smiling, completely oblivious to what he has accomplished. It’s a simple yet powerful pleasure. They, too, are enjoying a walk in the park.

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Reviewed by Jason Sullivan

The Library of Borrowed Hearts by Lucy Gilmore

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Chloe once dreamed of being a librarian, now her dreams are for a dishwasher or a new roof. She does work in a library but not as a librarian. She is a general city worker. She may be sent to work in another city office or she will shelve books, cover the desk, or discard the many decades of old books that have accumulated in the basement. It is during this task that she finds a copy of the scandalous banned book The Tropic of Cancer.

The discovery of this book and the story that unfolds around it are the subject of Lucy Gilmore’s latest novel, The Library of Borrowed Hearts.

Chloe’s quest to be a librarian was upended by her mother’s abandonment of Chloe’s siblings. Eleven year old Trixie (Beatrice) tried to care for her younger brothers (Theo and Noodle (Aloysius)) but CPS soon sent them to foster care. Chloe has them back home and is doing her best to raise them but money is tight. Selling this abandoned copy may net her a tidy sum as this version is a 1960 Mexico printing. The book was not allowed to be published and sold in the U.S.

She hopes to get enough for at least a down payment on the roof then discovers writing in the margins. At first disappointed that the value has now dropped she soon becomes intrigued. It appears C and J were corresponding with each other using passages in the book to further their flirtation/conversation.

But book values and flirtations have to wait for dinner, homework, and a new crisis. In a vain attempt to train their old dog to fetch, Noodle threw his Frisbee into the yard next door. Unlike the rest of the neighborhood Jasper Holmes has a beautiful yard and a bad disposition. Anything that comes into his yard never comes out. Knowing how much that Frisbee means to Noodle, Chloe heads next door. Her request for the toy is denied but with more conversation than usual.

Holmes doesn’t like the nickname Noodle then accuses her of wasting money. For Chloe that is the final straw and she tells him just how much $5.00 means to her family, even telling him about taking the book to sell. His response is to ask what book and appears stunned by her response. When he makes no move to bring her the Frisbee she leaves.

Once the kids are in bed she starts researching the book’s value but is soon caught up in the notes in the margins. Interrupted by someone at the door she opens it to Jasper Holmes on the doorstep with the Frisbee and an offer to buy the book. When she doesn’t name a price, he offers $5,000.00 then gives her a blank check. Handing over the book she realizes Jasper is J.

Chloe is now on a quest to discover any other volumes Jasper and C wrote in. One of the notes in The Tropic of Cancer referred to Hemingway novels. Chloe and her best friend Pepper are scouring all the Hemingway novels looking for notes when she is called to the hospital. Noodle is in the ER having fallen off a cliff!

Suffering a broken leg and bruised ribs, Noodle was found by Zach, a trainer at the survival camp. Zach teaches Air Force pilots how to survive after a crash. He is also a flirt as Chloe soon discovers. Dealing with the broken leg will be enough of a problem but the reason Noodle was running and fell worsens the situation. He hit a boy at school and was suspended for a month.

Forced to leave him home alone, Chloe is at work when Zach shows up. He wants an update on Aloysius, to invite Chloe out, and to return a Hemingway title. But, he emphasizes, he is not responsible for the writing in the margins. Thrilled to have another part of J and C’s story Chloe leaves to check on Noodle but he is gone. It seems Jasper has decided that Noodle should stay with him during the day. Could this be the beginning of a friendship with her grouchy neighbor?

Chloe has guessed that the C in the margins is a Catherine and she’s right. In chapters titled Catherine then later Jasper and 1960 the love story of J and C is told. As the novel flips between 1960 and present day we see how the past affects the future and the people we become. For Chloe J and C’s story is important because she sees some of herself in Jasper.

This novel is centered around a romance but it is so much more. It’s about love in all forms -for family, friends, community, books and each other. It’s also about sacrifice, forgiveness and learning to let go.

Gilmore’s characters have depth and with an intriguing story line this is a heartfelt read. You’ll find it in the new book section at the library.

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Review by Patty Crane, Reference Librarian

Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier

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The unnamed narrator of Jean Kyoung Frazier’s PIZZA GIRL is an eighteen-year-old pregnant woman working as a delivery driver for a local pizza restaurant. She feels unmoored from her life – overwhelmed and directionless – and unable to connect to the child growing inside her. Until she meets Jenny Hauser.

Jenny is also feeling overwhelmed by her life. Her family just moved to Los Angeles for her husband’s job, and her small son refuses to eat anything until his parents move him back to Bismarck. Jenny is convinced that if she can find his favorite pepperoni and pickle pizza, he will learn to love their new home.

The narrator answers the phone when Jenny calls in and finds herself unable to say no to the odd request. When she makes the delivery, she gets drawn into Jenny’s life.

The pepperoni pickle pizza order becomes a regular Wednesday tradition. The narrator jumps for the phone all evening, hoping to intercept the call. When they discuss the narrator’s pregnancy, Jenny invites her to a young mothers support group. The narrator goes along, but the more time she spends with Jenny Hauser, the more she obsesses over the other woman.

She drives out of her way to cruise by the Hausers’ home. She imagines what their life would be like if she and Jenny ran away from Los Angeles together: starting a new life with the two of them and Jenny’s son.

The narrator neglects all the other people in her life. She comes home late at night with no explanation. She begins sneaking out to the shed while everyone else is asleep. She can’t seem to care about her life or her unborn baby.

Her mother and her boyfriend, Billy, are both excited about the baby. Billy wants to plan their future – he is even considering skipping out on his college scholarship so that he can take care of their new family.

Some of the narrator’s angst stems from their baby derailing the hopes that she and Billy had for the future. She is also afraid that they will grow to be too much like her own small, struggling family and, specifically, that she is too much like her deceased father.

When the narrator was young, she used to regularly bring her father home from drunken nights out. He was cruel to her and her mother, although her mother has many fond memories of him – things that the narrator doesn’t remember. He also used to sneak out to spend time alone in the shed. As the novel progresses, the narrator finds herself slipping right into the role he left behind.

PIZZA GIRL is a short and intense novel. The narrator jumps around to different points in her life, revealing new information as the book progresses.  It’s difficult to be on her side, because she makes such terrible decisions, but I still wanted her to succeed. I wanted her to find a way to be content with life she already had.

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Book review by Alyssa Berry, Technical Services Librarian

Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle

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For twenty years, each time Daphne Bell meets a new man the universe sends her a sign for how long their relationship is destined to last – Noah, five weeks; Hugo, three months; Tae, two years and two months – but this time, as she heads out for a blind date with Jake, it’s different. His name is there, but the expiration date is missing.

She is both taken aback, but also giddy, because she is convinced this must be the start of her final relationship. The one without end, or at least the one she is going to marry and live out her life with.

Her date with Jake goes well and they have a good connection. He is caring, attentive and a steady presence at all times. However, as their courtship and eventual engagement progress Daphne finds herself feeling unsure and questioning the universe on the lack of timeline it has assigned for Jake.

Through the help of her friends – Hugo, an ex boyfriend turned best friend; Irina, her boss; and Kendra, a previous co-worker – Daphne learns the importance of opening up and sharing the truth, even if it is difficult. She learns that it is up to her to choose her destiny and not to depend on anyone else to decide for her.

I have enjoyed Rebecca Serle’s previous books – IN FIVE YEARS, THE DINNER LIST, ONE ITALIAN SUMMER – and her latest offering is no different. I love that this book feels different than her previous books. I am always impressed at her quiet, calm way of writing a story. The set up is always key and usually there is a missing piece, and this title is no different. The pacing is exact and the character development is a focus. Each relationship Daphne has is meaningful, whether it is her best friend Hugo or her boss Irina. Even Murphy, her dog, has a personality and special connection with Daphne.

One reviewer called this book “a sugary confection.” I think this is the most perfect description – “sweet, light, enjoyable, fun” – all the things I look for in a quick summer read. This one may have gone a little too quickly though, because I did feel like I needed to know more about what happened to Daphne after the book ended. Or maybe that is just because I was curious about her? Either way, I thought it was compulsively readable and a page-turner. Readers will want to grab this one quickly, before summer expires.

Review written by: Jeana Gockley, Joplin Public Library Director

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Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova is a book that has stuck with me. If you are a reader you likely know what I refer to – a book that lingers after you’re finished reading, one that leaves a mark. Monstrilio is that for me. In a past book review I mentioned that I have been exploring horror fiction, a genre that until recently, I didn’t really pick up. I’ve read a handful so far this year, Monstrilio being the most recent, and I am becoming more and more content with my new reading exploration. A debut novel, Monstrilio is a horror novel with literary leanings released in 2023 by Mexico City author Córdova. I think there are a lot of ways to describe this unique novel, it runs the gamut of emotions, but in essence this novel explores extreme sorrow and immense love through the story of a boy that becomes a monster that becomes a man.

The novel is told in four parts by four different main characters. It opens with Magos on the most devastating day for a parent: she and her husband, Joseph, lose their 11 year old son, Santiago, who dies from complications of living with one lung. In her grief, Magos opens the body of her son and removes a chunk of his lung. “One believes the stupidest things in grief,” Córdova writes, and this is one of those things. Magos believes if she cares for and feeds the piece of Santiago’s lung he will come back to her.

Much to her family’s surprise (and horror), it works…in a way. From the piece of lung grows a black furred, ferociously hungry being, or monster, if you’d like. However, he is not Santiago, although he carries some likeness in addition to the lung. Magos calls him Santiago, while Joseph and Lena (a good friend to Magos and Joseph) call him Monstrilio. 

What follows are short segments moving forward in time as Monstrilio matures, learning to adapt to his circumstance and live like a human. Following Magos’ narration is Lena’s, the friend and doctor in love with Magos who often helps care for Monstrilio’s not-so-human health. Then, Joseph takes over narration. Monstrilio is now a young adult living with Magos and going by his new name, M. Joseph and Magos have very different views on who M is, and have been separated since the death of Santiago. Yet something they have in common is their fierce love for M. 

Finally, the last part of the novel is told by M. The sections leading up to M’s are a slow burn, and M’s narration was my favorite part of the book. M is trying to figure out where he belongs in the shadow of someone else, but M has the added obstacle of not being completely human. He is battling his ever-present hunger for humans, the expectations of his loved ones, his desire to understand humans, and generally fitting in a world not created for him. M is the result of a monstrous decision made by someone else, in the throes of monstrous grief, and he does not know if he is M, Santiago, Monstrilio, a combination, or someone else entirely. 

Monstrilio is a stunning novel that wraps its characters in grief, love, and the persistence of both. It examines the lasting effects of grief and how, if we let it, our own grief can affect those we hold most dear and even turn us monstrous. The novel also explores the binding results of loyalty and acceptance of those we love. Monstrilio features dark themes and is the most gory horror novel I’ve personally read (I haven’t read many). That might be an immediate “no” for some readers, and an immediate “yes” for others; either way, the part horror, part literary meditation on emotions that makes up this novel was unexpected, unsettling, and simply wonderful. Córdova comes out swinging with this debut and I am looking forward to what he releases next. While Monstrilio did make me sad, it is a book that I won’t soon forget. 

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Review written by Sarah Turner-Hill, Adult Programming Coordinator