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Book Review: Youthjuice

MelindaLeave a comment

Gut healing supplements, anti-aging night cremes, and questionable wellness practices lie at the heart of youthjuice. Imagine a world where Devil Meets Prada is crossed with Gwyneth Paltrow’s goop and you’ve got HEBE, a fictional luxury wellness company run by New York City it girl Tree Whitestone. When Sophia lands herself a job on the Storytelling team at HEBE, she’s ready to embrace the cult of wellness with open arms. Living in the shadow of a beauty blogger roommate, the radiating youthful glow of the interns and employees at HEBE call out to Sophia as she tries to blend into the world of colonics, concoctions, and connection. When Tree offers Sophia a tester of HEBE’s newest moisturizing product, youthjuice, Sophia jumps at the chance to prove her loyalty. Especially when the moisturizer gives her painful (and shameful) nail-bitten hands new life. But with all things, HEBE’s glittering facade might just be hiding a darker underworld…and Sophia’s about to dive right in.

Former beauty editor E.K. Sathue takes the reader on a journey into beauty culture that is sure to delight fans of the horror genre. This campy yet cunning exploration of the body horror subgenre could be a bit of a queasy-filled journey, but ultimately the world of pseudo-wellness lures you back. Readers will relate to Sophia’s desire to balance the all-consuming need to get ahead with her moral compass. This book is great for anyone who likes a little gore with their glam.

youthjuice comes out on June 4. Request a copy here.

Happy reading!

*I received a review copy from Soho Press and Edelweiss. This is my honest review. 

-Melinda

Memoirs for May: AAPI Heritage Month

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May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage (AAPI) Month, celebrating the more than 20 million people who are part of the AAPI community. The month of May was selected in commemoration of the immigration of the first Japanese people to the United States in May 1843 as well as the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869.

In celebration of AAPI stories, here are memoirs written by members of the AAPI community available in our collection. Click on the title to request the print book, or check our digital offerings for more options.

Owner of a Lonely Heart by Beth Nguyen

At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her family fled Saigon for America. Only Beth’s mother stayed–or was left–behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was nineteen. Over the course of her adult life, she and her mother have spent less than twenty-four hours together. A memoir about parenthood, absence, and the condition of being a refugee.

The Worlds I See by Dr. Fei-Fei Li

Known to the world as the creator of ImageNet, a key catalyst of modern artificial intelligence, Dr. Li has spent more than two decades at the forefront of the field. But her career in science was improbable from the start. As immigrants, her family faced a difficult transition from China’s middle class to American poverty. And their lives were made all the harder as they struggled to care for her ailing mother, who was working tirelessly to help them all gain a foothold in their new land.

Stay True by Hua Hsu

In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken–with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity–is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes ‘zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them.

A Man of Two Faces by Viet Thanh Nguyen

With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a son.

Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant by Curtis Chin

Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone–from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples–could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese.

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life, that forever feeling slightly out of place was her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as Nicole grew up-facing prejudice her adoptive family couldn’t see, finding her identity as an Asian American and as a writer, becoming ever more curious about where she came from-she wondered if the story she’d been told was the whole truth.

Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong

Binding these essays together is Hong’s theory of “minor feelings.” As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these “minor feelings” occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality–when you believe the lies you’re told about your own racial identity. Minor feelings are not small, they’re dissonant–and in their tension Hong finds the key to the questions that haunt her. 

What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don’t move on from trauma–but you can learn to move with it.

Happy reading!

-Melinda

From Page to Screen: Spring 2024

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This spring’s book to film adaptations are hitting the streaming services all season long! These limited run series take your favorite blockbuster books and turn them into six or seven episode arcs, building out the world of beloved characters from Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley to Liane Moriarty’s family of tennis pros.

If you want to compare and contrast or just love a good spoiler, pick up the book to read before you start watching! Click on the book title to request a print copy of the book, or check out Libby or Hoopla for eBook or eAudiobook offerings.

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

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 fifty 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?

Streaming on Peacock.

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

“Are you happy with your life?” Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the kidnapper knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man he’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.” In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college professor but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Coming to AppleTV+ on May 8.

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter

It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety.

Streaming on Hulu.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a “man of two minds,” a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. 

Streaming on Max.

Under the Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey

In this “tour de force of crime reportage”, acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey takes us into the hidden world of the seven teenage girls–and boy–accused of a savage murder. As she follows the investigation and trials, Godfrey reveals the startling truth about the unlikely killers. 

Streaming on Hulu.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism–but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. 

Coming to Peacock on May 2.

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley’s fascination with Dickie’s debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie’s ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game.

Streaming on Netflix.

-Happy reading!

Melinda

National Library Week Reads

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Did you know that this week is National Library Week? We are closing out the week celebrating the books, people, and buildings that make the Library a place for everyone!

If you’re looking for a on theme read, look no further. Here are some library-related reads for the bibliophile in us all. Just click on the book title to place the book on hold!

The Librarian of Burned Books by Brianna Labuskes

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

Evil Librarian by Michelle Knudsen

The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin

How Can I Help You by Laura Sims

The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

What You Are Looking for is in the Library for Michiko Aoyama

Happy reading!

-Melinda

How To for the Fiction Lover

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Are you a chronic DIYer? One of the fiction trends I’ve noticed recently is an increase in books starting with two little words- “How to.” They might not be the classic guides you’re used to, but maybe some of the principles explored throughout the pages still apply. Read on for book recommendations that offer less helpful advice and more fictious fun.

For the amateur detective:

How to Solve Your Own Murder

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered.

Request it here.

For the engineer:

How to Build a Boat

Jamie O’Neill loves the colour red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of certain objects, books with dust jackets, rivers, cats, and Edgar Allan Poe. At age thirteen, there are two things he wants most in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother, Noelle, who died when he was born.  In his mind, these things are intimately linked.

Request it here.

For the realtor:

How to Sell a Haunted House

When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls.
 
Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale.

Request it here.

For the aspiring royal:

How to Best a Marquess

Beth Howell needs to find her dowry, post haste. After her good-for-nothing first husband married her–and two other women, unbeknownst to them all–she’s left financially ruined and relegated to living with her brother, who cares more for his horses than he does his blood relatives. If Beth fails to acquire her funds, her brother will force her to marry someone fifty years her senior and missing half his teeth. She’d prefer to avoid that dreadful fate. 

Request it here.

For the fed-up:

How to Kill Men and Get Away With It

He was following me. That guy from the nightclub who wouldn’t leave me alone.

I hadn’t intended to kill him of course. But I wasn’t displeased when I did and, despite the mess I made, I appeared to get away with it.

That’s where my addiction started…

I’ve got a taste for revenge and quite frankly, I’m killing it.

Request it here.

For the author:

How to Write a Novel

Aris is 12.5 years old and destined for greatness. Ever since her father’s death, however, she has to manage her mother’s floundering love life and dubious commitment to her job as an English professor. Not to mention co-parenting a little brother who hogs all the therapy money.  

Luckily, Aris has a plan. Following the advice laid out in Write a Novel in Thirty Days! she sets out to pen a bestseller using her charmingly dysfunctional family as material. 

Request it here.

Happy reading!

-Melinda

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

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When Lauren returns home after a night out in London, she is greeted by Michael. This man is a stranger claiming to be her husband. She was definitely not married when she left that evening, but now her own camera roll, the changes to her flat, and her friends all tell a different story. How could this be? When the shocking answer is revealed, it is truly unbelieve-he came from the attic. Lauren quickly discovers that her attic produces a seemingly infinite supply of husbands.

Lauren’s life changes with each new husband. And while the idea of endless possible lives sounds appealing, she eventually starts questioning what she truly wants out of love and life. How will she trust she’s found the right one when she knows she can easily swap him out?

The Husbands is a delightful debut brimming with quirky characters, magical realism, and thought-provoking situations. Lauren’s journey is an emotional rollercoaster for both her and the reader! The audio narration by Miranda Raison made the experience all the more enjoyable.

Fans of witty, romantic comedies, and Brit Lit will want to add The Husbands to their reading lists. Thanks to NetGalley for providing a review copy.

Request a copy of The Husbands here.

Book Review: Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame

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Jenny Quinn has been baking her entire life. From treacle tarts to chocolate teacakes, her baked goods are always sampled by her husband of fifty-nine years, Bernard. The two enjoy a quiet life as pensioners, puttering about the garden and visiting their niece and her children. After almost a lifetime together, there aren’t too many secrets between them. But when her favorite tv show Britain Bakes puts out a casting call for the new season, Jenny impulsively decides to apply without telling Bernard.

After she’s invited to audition, she begins baking up a storm using her trusty old fashioned scale to precisely weigh her ingredients. As she prepares her family recipes for judging, she reflects on the other thing weighing on her…the secret she’s been keeping from Bernard for almost six decades. A secret from long ago, before she even met him.

When Jenny lands a spot on the show she immediately regrets applying, sure that this series will highlight failures galore as she enters the competition. What she finds instead is camaraderie in a fellow baker and a producer whose youth and zest for life remind her of her younger self, forcing her to reflect on what could have been.

This sweet read draws heavily from GBBO, and the descriptions of the baking are so detailed it practically puts you right in the competition tent. Jenny is a lovable grandmotherly type of character and the flashbacks to her young adulthood add layers of interest and a dash of intrigue to an otherwise cozy story. This is a great pick for anybody who enjoys a good bake and a light-hearted read.

Request a copy here.

Happy reading!

-Melinda

Book Review: The Heiress

MelindaLeave a comment

Cam and Jules are just an average young couple. But Cam isn’t quite the everyday man he appears to be. As the son of North Carolina’s richest woman, he tries everything to escape both his inheritance and the home of the legendary McTavish family.

When a family death pulls the couple back to the stately Ashby House, Jules is awestruck at the opulent surroundings. And even more awe-inspiring is the life of the woman behind them- Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore, Cam’s late adoptive mother.

Ruby’s storied past began when she was the victim of a famous childhood kidnapping. Her legend continued as she found love, and was widowed…four times over. Amidst the rumors of her husbands mysterious deaths, she earns the moniker “Ruby Killmore.'” Even in death, Ruby oversees Ashby House from a life size oil painting, reminding Cam that one can never run from family. As Cam and Jules unveil the family’s storied past, secrets come to light that threaten their relationship, the inheritance, and the future of the McTavish name.

This was a twisty read told through Ruby’s own letters and the alternating perspectives of Cam and Jules. Rachel Hawkins thrills again with a story of a old money, old secrets, and an even older house. Slightly reminiscent of a gothic novel, The Heiress is a book that will have you flipping pages to find out what happens next.

Put the print copy on hold here.

Happy reading!

-Melinda

Book Review: Shutter

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A forensic photographer who works for the Albuquerque police, Rita Todacheene is good at capturing what others don’t see, through the lens of her cameras. Not only does she have a keen photographer’s eye that helps cops solve the toughest crimes, but she also has a special talent –Rita can see dead people. As a young girl, her only friends were often such ghosts, but the first time Rita confessed this, she was mostly ostracized by her fellow Navajos on the Reservation. Now she knows to keep her “gift” quiet.

While she can usually block out her visions, after Rita photographs the particularly brutal scene of a supposed suicide, the victim’s enraged ghost, Erma, begins to full-on haunt Rita. Erma insists that her death was murder, forcing Rita on a quest to find her killers and avenge her death. Unbeknownst to Rita, investigating this case gets her the wrong kind of attention from Albuquerque’s most dangerous drug cartel and the crooked cops who work for them.

Shutter by Ramona Emerson was longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction. Not only is this a suspenseful debut crime novel, it is also a compelling coming of age tale, as Rita’s Indigenous upbringing and the history of her visions are revealed in flashbacks along the way. Filled with non-stop action, grisly descriptions of violent crime scenes and corpses, and plenty of not-so-friendly ghosts, this truly original blend of mystery and the supernatural might be just the change of pace you are looking for. And good news –its sequel, Exposure, will be published in October 2024.

-Carol



Readalikes for The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store

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One of the books currently flying off the library shelves is The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. When a skeleton is unearthed in the small, close-knit community of Chicken Hill, Pennsylvania, in 1972, an unforgettable cast of characters, living on the margins of white, Christian America closely guard a secret, especially when the truth is revealed about what happened and the part the town’s white establishment played in it.

If you’re still waiting to read this one, request the physical book here and the eBook here. But if you’re searching for a similar book, read on for some readalikes.

What’s a readalike? A readalike is a suggested book that has a similar style, plot, or genre to a book that you enjoyed reading. We love to suggest books for you, so stop by the Reference Desk anytime to get a recommendation.

Moonrise Over New Jessup by Jamila Minnicks

It’s 1957, and after leaving the only home she has ever known, Alice Young steps off the bus into the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their “side of the woods.” In this place, Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup’s longstanding status quo and could lead to the young couple’s expulsion–or worse–from the home they both hold dear

Request it here.

The Evening Road by Laird Hunt

Two women, two secrets: one desperate and extraordinary day. In the high heat of an Indiana summer, news spreads fast. When Marvel, the local county seat, plans to lynch three young black men, word travels faster. It is August, 1930, the height of the Jim Crow era, and the prospect of the spectacle sends shockwaves rumbling through farm country as far as a day’s wagon-ride away.

Request it here.

Promise by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

The Kindred sisters–Ezra and Cinthy–have grown up with an abundance of love. Love from their parents, who let them believe that the stories they tell on stars can come true. Love from their neighbors, the Junketts, the only other Black family in town, whose home is filled with spice-rubbed ribs and ground-shaking hugs. And love for their adopted hometown of Salt Point, a beautiful Maine village perched high up on coastal bluffs.

Request it here.

The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama

Daniel Abe, a young doctor in Chicago, is finally coming back to Hawai’i. He has his own reason for returning to his childhood home, but it is not to revisit the past, unlike his Uncle Koji. Koji lives with the memories of Daniel’s mother, Mariko, the love of his life, and the scars of a life hard-lived. He can’t wait to see Daniel, who he’s always thought of as a son, but he knows the time has come to tell him the truth about his mother, and his father.

Request it here.

Decent People by De’Shawn Charles Winslow

In the still-segregated town of West Mills, North Carolina, in 1976, Marian, Marva, and Lazarus Harmon-three enigmatic siblings-are found shot to death in their home. The people of West Mills- on both sides of the canal that serves as the town’s color line-are in a frenzy of finger-pointing, gossip, and wonder. The crime is the first reported murder in the area in decades, but the white authorities don’t seem to have any interest in solving the case.

Request it here.

Happy reading!

-Melinda