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Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (audio)

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Audible, 9+ hrs.
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Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, narrated by January LaVoy, is set in the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, follows the family of Esch, Skeetah, Randall, and Junior as their alcoholic, single father does his best to keep a roof over their heads and protect what little they have from the storm, Hurricane Katrina. Over the course of 12 days, Ward tells the story of this loyal family, not unfamiliar with sacrifice.

Skeetah hopes that his prize-winning pitbull will provide a litter of pups the family can use to earn some cash, at least some of which could be used to help their brother Randall play summer basketball at a camp their father cannot afford. Esch, unfortunately, has no motherly guidance and is surrounded by brothers and relied on too much by her father as a mother to the others. She falls in love with her brother’s friend Manny, but it is clear he’s only interested in what she can give him, and as all things naturally happen, she gives him everything for only heartache in return.

The narration is engaging, even if there are far too many details on some occasions and some of the details are repeated far too many times.

The heart of this story is salvaging from what has been lost — whether that is the lost “love” or what’s left after one parent dies or after a devastating hurricane destroys everything.

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward is a stark look at what it takes to survive in a world where racism and poverty are all anyone sees when your father drinks too much and works hard for so little and when you have no discernible parent there to guide you. Like the dogs who fight in the pit, this family is struggling for survival even before Hurricane Katrina hits.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the historic winner—first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.

A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss (audio)

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Audiobook, 11+ hrs.
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A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss, narrated by Elizabeth Sastre, is a delightful reunion of three half sisters — Maggie, Simone, and Star — in a small village, Rowan Thorp, after the passing of their father. These sisters have not spoken or visited one another for many years, and all were affected by their traveling, unreliable, antiquing father, Augustus. These sisters return for their father’s funeral and the chill between them is palpable, until the reading of their father’s will requires them to work together in order to receive their inheritance.

Star is the new-age, hippie sister, while Simone is the high achiever, and Maggie is the one that stayed in the village with her children and raised them along after her husband passed away. Menopausal Maggie is having a secret fling with the grocer, while Simone has come to the village with a saddened heart as she and her wife try for a baby through IVF. Star seems carefree to her sisters, but her last boyfriend’s drug addiction cost her everything — job and home — leaving her little choice but to return to the village where she was a happy child until her sisters no longer came for the summer.

Bayliss is adept at crafting quirky characters and providing a well-rounded picture of the village and its residents. As she unravels the backstories of each sister and their lives after their blissful summers with their father ended, Bayliss sets the stage for a reset for these sisters and healing through a winter solstice celebration and the sifting through their father’s antique/junk shop. These characters feel like family, even the town busybodies. You can’t help but hope these sisters patch up their differences, learn to forgive, and work together.

A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss is a sweet cup of cocoa with some dark, bitter chocolate thrown in. I loved these sisters and their squabbles, but even more so because they were able to grow and evolve.

RATING: Cinquain

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About the Author:

A former professional cake baker, Jenny Bayliss lives in a small seaside town in the United Kingdom with her husband, their children having left home for big adventures. She is also the author of The Twelve Dates of Christmas, A Season for Second Chances, and Meet Me Under the Mistletoe.

The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary (audio)

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Audible, 10+ hrs.
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The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary, narrated by Jessie Cave and Lino Facioli, is set in a small town at a failing hotel just after the pandemic sent many in the hospitality industry under. Forest Manor Hotel cut corners to stay open, and it’s beginning to show, as parts of the ceiling fall. Everything could do with a touch up, but when your owners don’t like to budget or deal with numbers, the task can be overwhelming. Izzy Jenkins and Lucas da Silva are the two main receptionists of the hotel, but they are always arguing and sniping at each other.

Even though Izzy and Lucas may hate each other, they both love the hotel and the mission to find the owners of some lost wedding rings could just be the miracle they need, especially if rewards are involved. O’Leary always has fun characters in awkward situations. While I wasn’t too keen on how long the misunderstanding lasted in this one, the banter and awkwardly sparkling moments between Izzy and Lucas were funny. It probably didn’t hurt that the male narrator really did well with the Brazilian Portuguese.

The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary, narrated by Jessie Cave and Lino Facioli, was a comedy when I needed some cheering up, even if I did get frustrated with Izzy and Lucas. I think that is to be expected in these kinds of scenarios. I had a good time with this one.

RATING: Quatrain

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About the Author:

Beth O’Leary is a Sunday Times bestselling author whose books have been translated into more than 30 languages. She wrote her debut novel, The Flatshare, on her train journey to and from her job at a children’s publisher. She now lives in the Hampshire countryside and writes full time.

Holly by Stephen King (audio)

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Audiobook, 15+ hours
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Holly by Stephen King, narrated by Justine Lupe, is a novel that will at times challenge readers because it is set during the height of the pandemic when information about the virus was minimal and many people were running scared. Holly, who is a bit of a hypochondriac, wears masks and gloves, and she’s definitely wiping down everything for germs, but she still smokes cigarettes. She is nothing but a ball of contradictions, but aren’t we all.

Finders Keepers is the private detective agency she runs with her partner, Pete, and some other helpers/researchers who will be familiar to readers of If It Bleeds and The Outsider, among others. She sets out to find a missing girl and uncovers a lot more than she bargained for.

This is probably the least creepy of King’s novels, as it deals with a real-world evil, rather than a supernatural one. Holly’s investigation of the girl’s disappearance takes her down a rabbit hole into other disappearances, but in the back of her mind is the anxiety about the pandemic, her mother’s passing, and her partner’s sickness.

Holly by Stephen King is a solid novel set in a time period many of us would probably like to forget or gloss over, but it reminds us that while we lived through it, we haven’t really dealt with the consequences of it. Some readers will bristle at the vax vs. antivax and COVID vs. non-COVID believers and all that it entails. I suggest they skip this one because they will be too focused on things that are just part of the time period for the story and less on the story and the character, Holly, herself. She navigates some big emotional traumas in this one, and I’m not sure if she’s addressed all she needs to (much like the rest of us) — she may show up again in another King novel, who knows.

RATING: Quatrain

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About the Author:

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Doctor Sleep and Under the Dome, now a major TV miniseries on CBS. His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller as well as the Best Hardcover Book Award from the International Thriller Writers Association. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (audio)

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Audiobook, 6+ hrs.
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Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, narrated by Joseph Balderrama, is a translated work in which a dystopian world of cannibalism emerges after a virus makes all other meat inedible. Marcos is the main character who is the supervisor of the local “specialty meat” plant. His father has dementia and he is paying for all his care, but his wife left him and his only child is dead.

Much of this book is stomach-churning, and while I see it as a commentary on the meat production industry and the industry/money driven industry’s influence over government policy. It’s interesting to me that the author chose this topic after I learned that Argentina is one of the largest meat consumers in the world. Marcos is so detached from his family, his emotions, his interactions with others, and while the gift he is given later on is supposed to make us believe he is reconnecting with his humanity, I don’t believe it. I was unconvinced. The ending wasn’t a shock.

I can see how this would be a good book club selection because there are a number of themes to explore and discuss, but the characters were very flat and didn’t evolve much throughout. Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica is an odd dystopian novel set in Argentina where cannibalism is the norm out of necessity, but little is examined about the moral or ethical challenges of this decision. What’s worse is the conspiracies about it being a government hoax are never explored.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Agustina Bazterrica is an Argentinian novelist and short story writer. She is a central figure in the Buenos Aires literary scene. She won the prestigious Premio Clarin Novela for her second novel, Tender Is the Flesh, which has been translated into twenty-three languages. Several of the stories in Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird have also won awards, including First Prize in the 2004/2005 City of Buenos Aires Awards for Unpublished Stories and First Prize in the Edmundo Valadés Awards for the Latin American Short Story, among others.

Inheritance by Taylor Johnson

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Paperback, 100 pgs.
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Inheritance by Taylor Johnson, who is Takoma Park, Maryland’s Poet Laureate, is deceptively quiet. It opens with a poem, “Since I Quit That Internet Service,” that speaks to community and finding your voice. It is such a hopeful beginning to a collection that delves into the depths of our nation’s capitalism, what role gender-ization plays in society and how it forces us to view ourselves as something we seem to have no control over, and the pressures of race, a societal box to check, and all its baggage.

All of these poems ask us to carefully consider the word “inheritance” whether that be what we’ve carried from our families, our DNA, what we’ve been given by relatives after they pass, and so on. Johnson, for example, widens his definition of “inheritance” to include the spaces between us and strangers and the slight nods of acknowledgement we give and receive in passing. Johnson’s poems are witnesses and participants at the same time — we all can relate to that if we take the time to pause and listen, watch, and consider the complex world and our participation in it.

Chiaroscuro (pg. 42)

Whereas I come into the into to talk with my shadow.
From you I've not hid my face.

For in the morning I make, and am made by you:
beautiful projection, boy in the mirror, boy in my mind.
I separate my flesh from my flesh to become more
like you, to drown in your holdings.

O young lord of my desire, you are the light
I ride toward, I run from. I eat less and avoid
being hailed. Anonymous interstitial prince
of my undoing, redeemer of my yes, I want

to grow into you, and then abandon your
imprecise naming. I am bequeathed violence—
your inheritance — and your rough glamour.

I am made to tarry, here, with you,
thus illumined by your tenuous light.

Inheritance by Taylor Johnson is a collection to read aloud and read again as you listen to each word, envision each image, and hear the truth of life and its complexity. We try so hard to simplify a world that is far more layered than our brains can comprehend, perhaps we should just live it, not try to wrangle it into submission.

RATING: Cinquain

photo by S*an D. Henry-Smith

About the Poet:

Taylor Johnson is from Washington, D.C. He is the author of Inheritance (Alice James Books, 2020), winner of the 2021 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. His work appears in Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, The Baffler, Scalawag, and elsewhere. Johnson is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and a recipient of the 2017 Larry Neal Writers’ Award from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the 2021 Judith A. Markowitz Award for Emerging Writers from Lambda Literary. Taylor was the inaugural 2022 Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum. He is the Poet Laureate of Takoma Park, Maryland. With his wife, Elizabeth Bryant, Taylor curates the Green Way Reading Series at People’s Book in Takoma Park.

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand (audio)

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Audiobook, 12+ hrs.
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The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand, narrated by Erin Bennett, is a rich person’s vacation but what anchors this weekend in reality is the relationships between these different women in Hollis Shaw’s life and the fractured relationship Shaw has with her daughter, Caroline. A tragic event widens the cracks in Hollis’ “Insta-worthy” life.

In the midst of her sadness, Hollis comes across a rejuvenating idea — the five-star weekend — in which you invite one friend from each of your “significant” stages of life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife. She invites her childhood friend and “sister” Tatum, her elitist college friend Dru-Ann, Brooke who went through pregnancy and childbirth with Hollis in her thirties, and Gigi who Hollis has met online through her website as they connect over tragedy.

Tragedy has a way of amplifying what is wrong in a family. Hilderbrand’s novel also reminds us that what we see of people’s lives online — social media, websites, etc. — is only a snapshot of happiest moments but not the reality of their whole lives. Hollis Shaw’s picture-perfect Nantucket/Bostonian life is no where near perfect, but neither are many of her other friends’ lives — lives she has done little to keep up with.

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand is a far deeper story than its dressings of high-end dinners, exclusive reservations, and sailing trips make it seem. These women are stronger because of their bonds, even if the have some wear and cracks. It’s the ability to overcome the slights and miscommunications of the past that ensure these women will be stronger into the future.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

What Follows by H.R. Webster

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Paperback, 70 pgs.
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What Follows by H.R. Webster is a debut collection of poems that shed light on the darkness and the scars left in the wake of turbulence. The opening poem, “What Follows,” sets the tone immediately: “Every house I’ve ever lived in was filled with snakes./” and “The snakes I live with now leave/quieter marks.” (pg. 3)

These poems try to make sense of the darkness in the world, the men who catcall at every woman and the boys that love the danger of the flips and tumbles of the skate park. What follows that darkness, what’s left behind? Shame? Heartbreak? Desire? It’s not the harm or the dark emotions but the glimmer of light that remains, the hope of beauty and satisfaction. “Look at the stain/in the diamond. It’s not the thing itself,/but what’s left of the light that was swallowed./” (“Occlusion”, pg. 36)

What Follows by H.R. Webster explores the space in between the before and after trauma, reminding us that there is some light in the darkness. Her poems use language that doesn’t focus directly on the trauma. The poems state what the trauma isn’t, outlining the pain with pain that is easier to understand. Readers will learn so much in these poems, through the poet’s dark humor and explorations of deep desires and lashing out. It’s a deeply human collection that reflects on our darkest thoughts and feelings — many of which we bury deep.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

H.R. Webster has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, and the Helen Zell Writers’ Program. Her work has appeared in the Massachusetts Review, Poetry Magazine, Black Warrior Review, Ninth Letter, 32Poems, Muzzle, and Ecotone.

Words We Might One Day Say by Holly Karapetkova

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Paperback, 84 pgs.
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Words We Might One Day Say by Holly Karapetkova pushes the boundaries of reality, incorporating what I would classify as some magical realism in her poems. A prime example of this is the opening poem, “The Woman Who Wanted a Child,” in which a woman wants a child so much that she can no longer sleep at night, visiting the marsh and watching the terns until she too becomes pregnant with a tern and must learn to feed her. “The Lost Mommy” is another delightful fairy tale she creates, woven from tales we all know.

Karapetkova’s poems are magical and imaginative, transporting readers to new places, while at the same time, those places seem familiar. It’s the emotional touch stone of wanting and of something missing that reaches us.

Parts of Speech (pg. 11)

Tomorrow, I will build a universe
of ink and write you subject to my pen,
controlling all you do and think in verse
and changing every loss of mine to win;
for instance, I could start with adjectives,
crossing out the old that I've become,
replacing dull with lovely, or I'd give
your careless words a turn to grateful ones.
And then for nouns -- inscribe your apathy
as care with but a movement of my wrist,
to trade distaste for passion, transform me
into she, and thus by you as her be kissed.
Or better than this wordy love-retrieving
I'll simply stop all verbs, keep you from leaving.

In a variety of poetic forms, including sonnets, Karapetkova is saying those words we might one day say or words we wish we had said to departing partners, almost children, and even our loved ones who are still with us. The collection is alive with wanting and loss, but also hope and love. Words We Might One Day Say by Holly Karapetkova is a storyteller who can transport you to magical places, only to ground you in reality like in “Cadaver Room,” where a cadaver is “an empty house” or in “Love and the National Defense” where a nation is incapable of protecting itself against the infection of love.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Holly Karapetkova is the Poet Laureate of Arlington County and the recipient of a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She is the author of two books of poetry, Words We Might One Day Say, winner of the 2010 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Poetry Award, and Towline, winner of the 2016 Vern Rutsala Poetry Contest from Cloudbank Books. Her current manuscript projects, Still Life With White and Planter’s Wife grapple with the deep wounds left by our history of racism, slavery, and environmental destruction. She is also the author of over 20 books for children. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in English and Comparative Literature and teaches in the Department of Literature and Languages at Marymount University.

The Last Girl by Rose Solari

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Paperback, 68 pgs.
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The Last Girl by Rose Solari has a dream-like, otherworldly quality as the poems move from past to present, reality to dreams, memory to heartache. Setting the stage is “Tree House of the Dream Child,” in which we are gathered up to see a tree house that was build long ago by unknown persons but if we’re stealthy enough and believe in the unseen, we can receive a visit from the “dream child.” In this poem, elements are conspiring, the world is wild, and as readers, we are entering Solari’s world where Persephone comes back to earth as a father leaves it.

In “Math and the Garden,” Solari captures grief in a way that few can articulate – through those moments when parents try to impart advice to children who are half-listening, half-dreaming. A tough task depending on the age of the child, but even as adults, we tend to half-listen to our parents.

In “Another Shore,” we experience imagination first hand when apples become part of a schoolroom and a pan of mud becomes quicksand for another adventure. There are prayers and dreams, and day-dreaming throughout the poems as Solari explores the what-ifs of alternative life paths and relationships — the “other” lives we could have led. “You could always//come back. Those are the breaks, your mother would say/if she heard you now, and she’d be right.” (From “Somewhere Between Four and Five A.M.”, pg. 40-1)

There is a deep mourning in The Last Girl by Rose Solari, but there’s also the breath of imagination and memory, a reveling in the past and the what could have been. Delve into this dream-like exploration of loss and imagination, visit island paradises, abandoned tree houses, and so much more.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Rose Solari is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, The Last Girl, Orpheus in the Park, and Difficult Weather; the one-act play, Looking for Guenevere, in which she also performed; and a novel, A Secret Woman. She has lectured and taught writing workshops at many institutions, including Arizona State University’s Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing; the University of Maryland, College Park; St. John’s College, Annapolis; the Jung Society of Washington; and The Centre for Creative Writing at Oxford University’s Kellogg College.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (audio)

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Audible, 12+ hrs.
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Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, narrated by Cassandra Campbell, is my 9th book for the 12 books recommended by 12 friends. Kya Clark is a young girl living in the marshland of North Carolina in the 1950s and 1960s, but her home life is far from calm and loving. Many of her family abandon the marsh and her father, leaving her alone with a man who drinks too much, has a mercurial personality, and can be abusive. She grows up wild like the birds and fish around her, learning about the marsh from the marsh and learns how to fish and find muscles on her own, as she struggles to earn money to live after even her father abandons her.

As you might guess, this marsh girl is shunned by her school peers, forcing her to live in the marsh and evade truant officers. She shies away from town, except for Jumpin’s marina gas station and shop where she strikes deals for gas for the boat and other supplies, mostly grits. He and his wife care from her at a distance, as close as she will let them. Kya is an independent woman who fears everything outside the marsh. And rightly so.

The death of former football star Chase Andrews, however, thrusts Kya into the spotlight and at the center of a murder case, with her life hanging in the balance. I loved all of the poetry in the book. I love that Kya finds solace in poetry and uses it to get through some of her most trying times in this novel. Cassandra Campbell is an excellent narrator, as she dramatized each of the characters well and made them easy to differentiate.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is a sweeping tale, and I fell into it and out of it like the tides. Some of the longer descriptive sessions dragged on too long. But overall, I enjoyed the story and Kya’s coming of age story with the backdrop of the marsh and the predator-prey dynamic.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

Delia Owens is an American author, zoologist, and conservationist. She is best known for her 2018 novel Where the Crawdads Sing. Owens was born and raised in Southern Georgia, where she spent most of her life in or near true wilderness.

Happy Place by Emily Henry (audio)

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Audible, 11+ hrs.
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Happy Place by Emily Henry, narrated by Julia Whelan, is set in a Maine cottage worth millions of dollars (while I love escapism, there’s something about this setting that rubs me the wrong way). Perhaps it was the semi-whining about the sale of a home by Sabrina’s father. Eventually, this one wins me over once I look past the elitist nonsense.

Harriet is nervous about returning to her happy place in Maine without Wyn, who broke their engagement with her five months ago with little explanation after nearly a decade. One week in paradise might turn into torture where these two are concerned, especially as sparks continue to fly even if they are pretending to be in love. Parth, Kimmy, and Cleo round out the friends group.

Julia Whelan is an excellent narrator, and I love how she brings out the personalities of each character as she performs. She’s definitely on my very short list of go-to-narrators on Audible.

Happy Place is so much more than just a romance and book about a vacation home, it’s about friendships and how we change over time. In some cases, we leave our friends out because we fear their reactions to what we tell them and in other cases, our lives get so busy we can’t possibly keep in touch with everyone we’ve known throughout our lives. I loved that Henry parsed out the friendships throughout the novel while talking about Harriet and Wyn’s relationship — the flashbacks enriched the secondary characters and their relationships to one another.

I don’t necessarily consider this complete fluff given the relationship between Cleo, Harriet, and Sabrina and how they have coped with being “shut out” of key happenings by their best friends. It made this story far richer than a beach read often is. There are plenty of light moments, but there are some key heavily emotional ones in Happy Place by Emily Henry, narrated by Julia Whelan, but it’s a book you probably don’t want to miss this summer.

RATING: Quatrain

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About the Author:

Emily Henry writes stories about love and family for both teens and adults. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the now-defunct New York Center for Art & Media Studies. Find her on Instagram @EmilyHenryWrites.