Book Review- Jen Mann's Midlife Bites: Anyone Else Falling Apart, of is it Just Me?

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for a copy of Jen Mann’s Midlife Bites: Anyone Else Falling Apart, of is it Just Me?.

Bestselling humorist Jen Mann tackles the unique challenges that middle-aged women face, including relationship issues, body changes, and personal fulfillment. She considers the differences in which women face middle-age, as compared with men, and if women have their own form of a mid-life crisis.

I’ve been a long-time fan of Mann’s writing. She has a wicked sense of humor and a style of writing that makes me feel like I’m hearing stories over coffee with my best friend. She’s relatable and likable. I would read anything she writes, but I appreciate that she tackled an issue that I am beginning to face: middle-age. I turn forty-five in a few weeks, and although I have not faced some of the challenges that Mann mentions, I didn’t even realize some of the potential issues ( weird body hair???), I read Midlife Bites as a guide for what may come in the future.

In particular, I liked Mann’s thoughts on why middle-aged women should start, and many do, to care less about what other people think. That there is a freedom when you realize that people are too consumed by their own issues to care about yours, and if they do spend time focused on you in a negative way, that has nothing to do with you and is only their loss. Middle-aged women, often “sandwiched” between caring for children and elderly parents, have so much on their plates that letting go of worrying what others think is a huge weight lifted. I appreciated Mann’s candor with regard to parenting and her marriage. There is plenty of humor in Midlife Bites, but overall, this book is far more serious and deep in context than her other works.

Let’s take a moment to appreciate the title, a riff on the 90’s film, Reality Bites, and as Mann mentions, purposefully chosen to attract her Gen-X cohorts. Mann also has a Facebook group based on ideas in her book, a place where other middle-aged women can ask questions, share thoughts, and ideas. I love the sisterhood vibe that Mann has created through Midlife Bites.

Book Review- Riley Sager's The House Across the Lake

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for a copy of Riley Sager’s The House Across the Lake.

Famed actress Casey Fletcher is an alcoholic, who recently lost her husband in a tragic accident. Her trauma from the loss, along with the drinking, caused her to lose a steady acting job, prompting her family to exile her to the family lake house in a bid to get her to “dry-out” and consider her future. This house has been in Casey’s family for generations and it happens to be on the lake where her husband drowned months earlier. Having no intentions of quitting alcohol, Casey enlists a long-time neighbor to keep her supplied and to keep his mouth shut.

As Casey drinks away her days, she uses binoculars to spy on the new neighbors across the lake; a tech tycoon and his wife, a glamorous mode named Katherine. When Katherine blacks-out during a swim on the lake, Casey saves her, and she begins to suspect that Katherine is involved in an abusive relationship. The more Casey spies on her neighbors, the more her suspicions grow.

This was my first novel by Riley Sager, an author that I had long been interested in reading. I’ve found Sager’s books shelved in the mystery section of bookstores, but this one blends genres, including suspense, horror, and mystery. If pressed, I would shelve it in horror. It’s a mix of Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Blatty’s The Exorcist. Casey’s alcoholism and role of unreliable narrator are reminiscent of the protagonist in Paula Hawkin’s novel, The Girl on the Train. The mix of genres work,, especially in concert with Sager’s quick pacing and atmospheric setting. The House Across the Lake is unsettling and creepy, the type of suspense where you are cringing when the protagonist decides to open the wrong door or enter a dark basement. It’s a visceral reading experience.

I enjoyed The House Across the Lake and look forward to reading Sager’s previous works.

Book Review- Jodi Picoult's Wish You Were Here

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for a copy of Jodi Picoult’s novel Wish You Were Here.

Diana’s life is going according to her plan. She works at an auction house and is about to orchestrate a career changing sale of a famous piece of art. Her long-time boyfriend, Finn, is finishing his residency at a local hospital and will be a surgeon. Diana is confident that Finn will propose to her on their upcoming Galapagos vacation and soon, they will be married and buying their first home. Life is perfect in early 2020.

Finn’s boss cancels all vacation requests as pandemic worries begin to grow, but Finn presses Diana to take their vacation alone. Nervous to travel solo and missing Finn, Diana arrives in Galapagos, and is forced to make an quick decision; she can either stay on the island or head back to the airport, with no guarantee of making a flight, as the world is starting to shut-down due to the pandemic. She has no cell service and is unaware of the severity of the situation. Diana decides to stay and ends up stuck on a remote island discovering that the hotel where she had reservations, has closed. A kind local woman allows Diana to stay in a small apartment that used to belong to her son.

Alone, isolated, and unable to contact Finn, Diana begins to embrace being stuck in paradise. She befriends a local teenage girl and the girl’s handsome father, who happens to be the previous tenant of the apartment where she is staying. Diana finds a second family and an alternative life in the Galapagos, while Finn is fighting on the frontlines in a New York hospital.

When I started reading Wish You Were Here and realized it was yet another pandemic story, I nearly stopped reading. It makes sense that so many pandemic stories are publishing now and that so many authors would be compelled to write pandemic stories, but it also is a subject that I don’t want to keep revisiting. However, to would-be-readers in a similar state of mind, don’t give up on this one.

Picoult presents both a twist on the pandemic story and a huge, monumental, didn’t see it coming, surprise half-way through. I was just about to stop reading for the evening and I encountered the twist, which propelled me to read for another hour. It was a huge shock and even better, it ties to intriguing themes of the story which are not strictly pandemic related. Wish You Were Here is far more broad thematically and would have been a different story if the pandemic had not occurred, but likely still would have been written.

I’ve read many of Picoult’s books and I’m a fan, but Wish You Were Here, just may be her best one yet.