“Mixed up” Gordon Korman

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. Scholastic Press (Scholastic). 241 p. Published July 18, 2023.

Twelve-year-old Reef is filled with guilt because he made his mom sick, and she died of COVID. With nowhere to go he’s taken in by her best friend, though her fourteen-year-old son is not happy and makes his life miserable. As if things weren’t bad enough memories from someone else begin to fill his mind while his own start to decline – including his mother’s face.

Twelve-year-old Theo is a disappointment to his father because he likes gardening and is not into sports. Battles with his dad, and an obnoxious rabbit intent on ruining his garden, fade when memories of places he’s never been to and people he doesn’t know fill his head. With his own memories starting to fade, Theo is determined to figure out how to get them back.

Through alternate chapters Reef and Theo talk about what’s happening, their thoughts about each other, and how to get their lives back. Time is not on their side as, with each passing day, many memories completely disappear. Will the boys figure out how to reverse what’s happening before it’s too late?

As usual, Gordon Korman hooks readers with an interesting storyline. Middle school boys, especially reluctant readers, will enjoy reading about Reef and Theo’s interesting predicament.

Recommended for ages 12-15.

“The silent bride” Shalini Boland

Rated 3 stars *** ebook. Thomas & Mercer. 2023.

Alice swore off men after she learned her boyfriend was emotionally abusing her. With her trust shattered she wasn’t ready for another relationship but, five years later, met Seth and fell madly in love. Dreams of happiness began to sour when they got engaged and he could never find time to meet her friends or family. He seemed to become more possessive, but she felt they’d get on track once they were married.

Halfway down the aisle on her wedding day Alice realized her Seth was a stranger. She literally didn’t recognize him and was sure someone switched a stranger for the love of her life. Though he sought to calm her all she felt was terror at his presence. With everyone staring and her heart broken, she ran away. How could she marry a man she’d never seen before?

So starts this bizarre story of Alice’s memories from before her wedding day and afterwards. Interspersed are snippets of ecstasy from the person who caused the chaos, leaving readers to draw conclusions as to who caused the mayhem and why. I had my suspicions but was proven completely wrong. Though turned off by Alice’s doormat personality, the book’s premise is highly unusual. I’ll leave it up to you to pick through the flotsam to find the pearls in Alice’s nightmarish adventures.

Recommended for Adults.

“The light we carry: Overcoming in uncertain times” Michelle Obama

Rated 5 stars ***** Crown (Random House). 318 p. (Includes “Resources” and “Notes”). 2022.

In her unique storytelling way, Michelle Obama offers advice on ways to overcome difficulties. Memories from her growing up years and marriage are integrated in chapter titles such as “Decoding Fear,” “Partnering Well” and “Going High.” Each of the ten chapters are filled with tools from Michelle’s personal toolbox that have helped her get through difficult situations.

From figuring out how to navigate Princeton as an undergraduate to raising children, to becoming First Lady and more, Obama highlights and explains her fears from different situations with humor, strength and the tools that helped her get through her struggles. Throughout the book she encourages readers and helps them figure out ways to overcome their own problems, and ends by explaining the phrase “When they go low, we go high”.

Recommended for Adults.

“The wind knows my name” Isabel Allende

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Ballantine Books (Random House). To be published June 6, 2023.

In 2019 a police officer in El Salvador shot Marisol, who fled with her seven-year-old, blind daughter Anita knowing he would kill her if she stayed. After a difficult trip to the United States, she and Anita were forcibly separated at the border, and she was deported. Selena, a Latina social worker, took a personal interest in Anita. Though she had been trying for years to reunite separated children it had proven difficult because the U.S. didn’t keep good records of where children were sent. She was determined to find Anita’s mother.

In 1938 six-year-old Samuel was a violin prodigy in Vienna, but everything changed on Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass. That night his father was beaten and sent to a concentration camp, and his mother put him on a kindertransport to England thinking it would be a short separation. A few years later Samuel found out his parents, grandmother and aunt had all been murdered in the concentration camps. As the years passed music was the only thing that kept him going. The day he met Anita, everything changed.

Anita, Samuel, Selena, and others tell their interwoven stories which recount how separation from their parents affects children, but also splices in the poverty and murders migrants are forced to flee on their desperate journeys to the United States. “The wind knows my name” educates, saddens, but also gives hope.

Highly recommended for Adults.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

“The lost Kings” Tyrell Johnson

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Anchor Books (Penguin Random House). To be published August 2, 2022.

When Jeanie’s mother died unexpectedly in a car crash when she was eight, she and her twin brother Jamie lived in California for 3 years with an aunt and uncle until their father took them to a rural cabin in Washington State. War had messed him up mentally, so he was constantly drunk and left them to fend for themselves. Through their wanderings they met Maddox, another lost soul, and the three were inseparable. One night Jeanie’s father came home with his hands covered in blood. That was the last night she ever saw him or Jamie, as they both disappeared and she was left to fend for herself.

After high school Jeanie moved to England for college, seeing a therapist to help her come to terms with her many issues. She spent 15 years having one-night stands, sleeping with her married professor, drinking, and drifting along in life. For years she wondered what happened to Jamie, and was filled with anger at her father for abandoning her in the cabin. When Maddox turned up with a lead on her father’s whereabouts, Jeanie finally has a chance to get answers to her questions. Will she be brave enough to face up to the truth?

Told through flashbacks and the present time, the author engaged the reader, invested us heavily in Jamie’s life, and then slammed us with a shocking ending. Well-done Mr. Tyrell. Very well done.

Highly recommended for Adults.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

“Boys of The Beast” Monica Zepeda

Rated 5 stars ***** 2022. Tu Books (Lee & Low Inc.) 2022. 326 p. (Includes “Author’s note.”)

Seventeen-year-old Ethan and his 18-year-old cousins Matt and Oscar go on a road trip from Oregon to New Mexico with The Beast, the 1988 Thunderbird Matt inherited from their recently deceased grandmother. Though none of them know each other well, they have their own reasons for wanting to take the trip.

Ethan wants to drive through California to finally meet the boy he’s been texting with for months. Matt hopes to get the courage to disobey his parents and visit Berkeley, though they don’t want him at a non-Christian college. Seven years earlier a school shooter killed his father, so Oscar plans to continue to stay high and keep everyone at arm’s length. On the road the boys begin to trust each other as they enjoy adventures, and talk about relationships, decision-making and mental health issues. As they learn to laugh, share, hug and carry each other’s burdens, the true meaning of family and brotherhood is revealed to each of them.

I LOVED this book! I laughed out loud SO MANY times, while sympathizing with issues in their lives. Teen readers will be equally engrossed in their travels, banter and deep discussions.

Recommended for ages 16 and older.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

“Long way home” Lynn Austin

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Tyndale House Publishers. To be published June 21, 2022.

Losing her mother at a young age was hard for Peggy. Jimmy, her next-door neighbor, was always available to dry her tears, and taught her to depend on God for strength. He was like a big brother, so it broke her heart when he attempted suicide a month after coming home from war in 1946. Peggy is committed to bringing back the positive thinking man who’d gone to war as a Medic and returned full of pain. She won’t stop until she brings light to his darkness, just as he’d done for her.

November 9, 1938 was Gisela’s 16th birthday. She lived with her sister and parents in Berlin, but disaster fell after Kristallnacht when her father was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. It took months to get his release while the family sold everything they owned to board the St. Louis with over 900 other Jewish passengers. Everyone was excited to start a new life in Cuba, but hopes were dashed when the government refused to let them land. Though the ship’s Captain and other agencies tried their best, neither America nor Canada would let them land. They had to return to Europe, where the Nazis were rapidly overtaking every country and rounding up Jews in all of them.

In alternating chapters Peggy, Jimmy and Gisela’s stories intertwine and are unveiled for readers, mixing the horrors of war with the love of God and the kindness of strangers to those in need. The age-old question “where is God when there’s evil in the world?” is pondered and seen through the lens of the Jewish and Christian faiths, giving readers much to contemplate.

Highly recommended for Adults.

I received an advance reading copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

“Mud lilies” Indra Ramayan

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Cormorant Books. To be published May 17, 2022.

“Mud lilies” is a compelling story of a young girl who survived rape at the age of 14 then, with nowhere to turn, became a prostitute. Over many years Chanie suffered sexual, mental, physical and emotional abuse. When she was arrested, to avoid jail time, she enrolled in a program for troubled youth where she discovered a love for literature and writing. Most importantly she found hope in her teachers and, for the first time in her life, had friends and a plan for her future. She felt accepted and loved, working hard to climb out of the hole where all the people who had used her had buried her body. Unfortunately her meth addict boyfriend and pimps had other plans for Chanie, as they had no intentions of ever letting her be free.

Despite the hatred she felt for herself, Chanie’s teachers, strangers and friends were persistent in showing her that she was important and mattered to them. As Chanie walks through the darkness of her life, her painful steps towards the light will touch reader’s souls.

Highly recommended for Adults.

I received an advance reading copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

“Shadows of Berlin” David R. Gillham

Rated 4 stars **** ARC. ebook. Sourcebooks Landmark. To be published April 19, 2022. (Includes “Reading group guide,” and “A conversation with the author.”)

Rashka Morgenstern was a little girl, living with her famous painter mother and uncle when war came to Berlin. She grew up learning the new laws for German Jews, and was a young teenager when they were forced into hiding to avoid transport to concentration camps. Now known as U-boats they tramped across the city for miles every day seeking safe hiding places, eking out a living until they were captured. To keep them both out of the camps Rachel was forced to collaborate with a Nazi traitor but despite her efforts, her uncle and mother were sent to the camps where her mother was murdered.

After the war Rachel miraculously found her uncle and they arrived in New York City in the early 1950’s. There she met her American Jewish husband and settled down to become a housewife. Unfortunately, guilt at what she had done to survive weighed heavily upon her mind, forcing her to make weekly visits to a psychiatrist. Though she was urged that painting would release the tension, her fears manifested as ghosts from her past that left her unable to pick up a paintbrush. “Shadows of Berlin” is Rachel’s story of survival, guilt and perseverance.

Rachel’s story is told through flashbacks and present time, but the constant changeover from past to present is set down without dates. It would have been better if dates were inserted whenever the author chose to send Rachel back in time to Berlin or return her to New York. Despite these omissions, I will recommend this book because her story of survival needs to be told.

Recommended for Adults.

I received an advance reading copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

“Three more months” Sara Echavarre

Rated 5 stars ***** ebook. Lake Union Publishing. 2021.

Chloe had a very busy job, spending hours reviewing applications and projects, reading journals, covering shifts, sitting on committees, and taking work home, so didn’t have much free time. Every now and then she’d remember to call her mother, but work consumed every waking moment. It had been months since she’d last seen her – though she only lived three hours away. At her best friend’s urging Chloe made plans to come home but, before she could arrive, her mom died of a heart attack.

Chloe is devastated, and guilt overwhelms her as she thought about the many times she let work get in the way of not seeing or calling her mom, the work emergencies that kept her from home, and all her mom’s recipes she’d never made time to learn. As she and her brother began the burdensome task of planning the funeral Chloe’s sadness became almost more than she could bear.

After one especially difficult night Chloe awoke to discover it was March 30th instead of early May, and her mom is alive. She’s ecstatic, as this is her second chance to love her mother more, talk to her, hug her and tell her all the things she never got the chance to tell her. “Three more months” is Chloe’s love story to her mom.

As Chloe mourned, my tears fell as I remembered my mother who passed on almost 3 years ago. Any reader with such a grievous loss will relate to Chloe’s heartache, wishing we too could have had more time with our mothers. The author also lost her mom, so her grief is as real as Chloe’s and as real as that felt by her readers.

Highly recommended for Adults (make sure to have tissues nearby.)

Available on Kindle Unlimited.