beckykphillips's reviews
375 reviews

Wow, I should not be in the least bit surprised that Robin Wall Kimmerer has written another incredible piece, and yet The Serviceberry absolutely enraptured me and made me consider how I can better incorporate the principles of the gift economy into my life. I think anyone who may, like me, abhor the fact that they are stuck in end stage capitalism, can maybe even feel leaving optimistic on how to make things just even a little better for yourself and your community. 

Kimmermer presents the serviceberry as an analogy for the gift economy - how the birds who feast on the serviceberry help spread the seeds and allow for the serviceberry to flourish while at the same time ensuring the birds may continue to be nourished; to how people picking the berries may then provide the surplus to their neighbors, who may then make a pie, which is then shared. In the end, the gift economy is about fostering community - "the prosperity of the community grows from the flow of relationships, not the accumulation of goods" 

She ends the book encouraging folks to determine how they can incorporate the gift economy into their own life, and I promise to continue to find ways to do just that and encourage anyone who could use a little hope to do the same and read The Serviceberry. 

Thank you so much to NetGalley and to Scribner for the advanced copy.

I absolutely adored spending time with Eleanore - we follow her as she begins her nascent career as a midwife and herbalist in Avignon in 1347, right before the Black Plague rages throughout Europe.  One fun, relevant fact to the story that I learned - there is a whole period called Avignon Papacy where from 1309 to 1376 seven successive popes resided in Avignon rather than in Rome. Eleanore befriends the personal physician of Pope Clement VI, Guigo de Chauliac (based on the real Guy de Chauliac), by providing an herbal tonic that helps the pope and spins that into an apprenticeship with Guigo.  

Eleanore and Guigo's relationship as the plague progresses was phenomenal - I loved reading about the mutual respect and the intertwining of herbalism and humour-based medicine. They both felt incredibly grounded and I was delighted to learn that Guy de Chauliac was a very real person who indeed wrote influential books surrounding the plague and medicine at the time. 

I also felt the echoes of the COVID pandemic within this book and Eleanor and Guigo's struggles as they tried to figure out how to deal with the Black Plague, the tireless research and feelings of helplessness with the people who succumbed. One of my favorite glimpses of this is Elea's attempt at encouraging herself after searching through Guigo's books: "Surely medicine has come so far in the last five hundred years, all it will take is one breakthrough--one brilliant reading of an ancient text in which a cure or cause is illuminated--and we shall stop this disease in its tracks." That same helplessness will feel so similar to any reader with even an ounce of empathy. I should not have been surprised to read in the Author's Note in the end that this was in fact quite intentional by Elizabeth DeLozier, even if the idea of the novel came before the pandemic. 

In the shadows of the pandemic though, we get to know Elea and the people that surround her so much more - her sister, Margot, her house keeper, Anes, the Queen, Paolo. There is a rich cast of characters and you grow to care about each one so much. 

Even as someone who is not usually a huge historical fiction fan, this book completely won me over and I highly recommend to anyone - part coming of age, part historical novel, part love story and so much more than can be categorized. Also PS the dog comes out okay (I was so worried the whole time)

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Penguin Dutton for the advanced copy. 

This Girl's a Killer tells the story of Cordelia Black, a pharma sales rep with a side hobby of using her product to help her kill off horrific men. Cordelia is extremely devoted to her best friend, Diane and her goddaughter, Sugar (aka Samantha). While Cordelia is usually a methodical planner when it comes to her...disposals, things go haywire when she has an off encounter with Diane's new fling. 

I think folks will really enjoy the female Dexter - Cordelia is smart and also cares deeply for Diane and Sugar. She is also though very materialistic, which started to grate on me while I was reading the book. The book on the whole didn't quite work for me, but potentially for different reasons than other folks might have. I work in pharma and so was particularly frustrated by some of the characterizations and particularly the quote that "bad medicine is part of the process" when it came to some terrible side effects for the drug that Cordelia was responsible for selling. It made the company/some of the things Cordelia was touting feel a bit too close to Purdue Pharma  and made it harder for me to feel endeared toward her as a character. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the advanced copy of this book. 

I just absolutely adore how Jenny Slate describes the world and all her experiences. Lifeform covers her experiences with being single, getting married, having her kiddo, and the death of her grandma - in one of the most unique memoirs I've had the pleasure to enjoy. I will say I don't know that I fully understood all of her musings, but I was happy to be along for the ride nonetheless. 

One of the repeated devices in the memoir was her missives to her doctor where she describes what is going on with her at all her different stages of life. Among other items she discussed, I could not have related more when she talked about how she was worried about annoying her doctor and not necessarily wanting to deal with certain things that were just not going right.

When Jenny railed against her guest who left small, wet, hot bags everywhere and managed to both relate how frustrating it is to feel like you're responsible for everything, and then how our moms are to blame (for better or for worse) for our behavior and how that made her feel as a mom was just amazing. 

I listened to this as an audiobook, which is mostly narrated by Jenny herself as well as some guest stars, and I would highly recommend. I always love listening to memoirs when they're read by the author and Jenny does such a fantastic job of reading it I can't imagine consuming it any other way. 

I definitely recommend this book - thank you so much to NetGalley and Hachette Audio for the advanced copy.

Jo Bailen is a private detective called in to help a missing persons case for her estranged best friend from childhood, Rose. She returns to her hometown of Delphi, Arizona to try and unravel the mystery of what happened to Rose and who from her past is responsible. 

This was an interesting mystery to follow along and I enjoyed Jo as a character - she is 40-ish, queer, and reads like someone with experience who has seen a lot, rather than some ingenue, which I liked. The story of her relationship with Rose really went off the rails from everything that Rose did. In the end, we find out what was going on, but this happens with not much left in the book. This made the pacing feel off as a result and I wish we'd spent more time with the consequences of Rose's behavior and its impact on her family. The ending of the whodunit just seemed out of left field and I don't know that I saw anything in the story that would have led the reader to the conclusion we end with.

While this didn't quite work for me, I would be curious to read another story by the author. Thanks so much to NetGalley and to Harper Perennial for the advanced copy. 

American Rapture follows Sophie as she tries to find her twin brother Noah in the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse in Wisconsin. Sophie has spent her life growing up in a sheltered, religious community without access to television, the internet, or even newspapers. When a viral apocalypse hits that sends the US into turmoil, she comes home to her parents having succumbed to the virus in the...unique way that this one hits. 

Throughout the book, Sophie is reckoning with her religious upbringing and how she has seen the world for her entire life - much of her inner thoughts deal with this and how she thinks about attraction, which is also complicated by the virus's side effects. 

I really enjoyed the different elements coming from Wisconsin as someone who lived there for a long while and thought the premise was very interesting. In the end though, I had a hard time connecting with Sophie and found a lot of her thought processes to be rather melodramatic. This does make sense in the context of the book given that Sophie is 16, but meant that it just didn't quite work for what I typically enjoy reading. 

I listened to this as an audiobook and thought the narrator did a great job bringing Sophie to life and would recommend it for sure. 

Thank you very much to NetGalley and to MacMillan audio for the advanced copy.

Januaries is an wonderful short story collection. by the masterful Olivie Blake examining love, life, and death. The stories cover genres including Olivie's signature fantasy and sci-fi, and the audiobook is beautifully narrated by a whole host of actors. I definitely recommend the collection to anyone looking to escape in bite-sized story bits. 

The collection kicks off with The Wish Bridge, which ended up being one of my favorites of the whole collection - I don't want to spoil too much, but this one made my heart absolutely sing as Lila, the bridge-keeper becomes more and more aware of the world. This is followed up by The Audit where the government is piloting a program to provide people with their future earnings in their 20's so that they can better enjoy their life while their young. The House was another favorite of mine that reads like a treatise on marriage and I can absolutely see this becoming a reading in many literary-minded wedding ceremonies in the future. Chaos Theory was another gem for me - following five women across different worlds and what happens when their lives intertwine.  There were certainly a few stories that didn't quite hit for me, but the excellent far outweigh the ones that didn't quite work. 

I would also definitely. recommend listening to Januaries as an audiobook, the different narrators each bring their own flair to the different stories and I loved each and every one. Januaries accompanied me on a long road trip up and I couldn't have asked for better company. 

Overall, I highly recommend - thank you so much to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the advanced copy.

How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster contains a rich, post-apocalyptic world centered in New York where acid rain has devastated the city and everyone is striving for connection with world around them. Throughout the novel, we follow the love across generations and timelines,  ranging from a ghost cockroach to the main character, Mira, Many of these love stories absolutely broke my heart, and never did I expect I would care so much for a cockroach, however, I found the storyline at times did not fully hold my attention. This is definitely a vibes book and at times I didn't know if I was quite cool enough to get the book. That being said, I would recommend the book if you're looking to explore a full world with unique characters and think about how love transcends our circumstances.

Thank you to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for the advanced copy.

Rejection is an electrifying collection of short stories dealing with nothing other than rejection - across seven stories we meet loosely connected characters each with their own conundrums. Some of these stories were what one would consider highly online, which I absolutely ate up. The juxtaposition of the stories was fantastic - my personal favorite back and forth was Ahegao, or the Ballad of Sexual Repression, with Our Dope Future where we move between an incredibly sexually repressed man to a man who is so lacking in shame that he believes he is the best partner ever as he love bombs and ultimately attempts to pyramid scheme his way into making a cult comprised solely of his children and their offspring. Re: Rejection was incredibly meta and I loved every word. 

I highly recommend this story collection - if you are someone who enjoys reading about...perhaps less than moral characters but with absolutely fascinating psychology you're going to have a great time. 

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the copy. 

A haunted house is a violent one.

Model Home is an incredible take on the haunted house trope that explores familial bonds and generational trauma. The book opens on our main character Ezri, who is traveling back to their childhood home in Dallas with their daughter, Elijah. After being estranged from their parents throughout their adult life, Ezri finds their parents dead in their home in an apparent murder-suicide. However, Ezri, joined by their sisters, Eve and Emmanuelle, suspect their death is due to the house, which they had long considered haunted. 

We learn more about Ezri, Even and Emmanuelle's childhoods through flashbacks throughout the book, which informs some of the parallel narratives we see with Ezri and Ezri's daughter Elijah, and all of the horrors the children experienced throughout growing up. The character development throughout the book was amazing and I particularly appreciated seeing how the family bonded through the tragedy of losing their parents and how they reckon with the grief associated both with their childhood and losing their parents.  I also loved the sessions between Ezri and Max, their therapist, to understand Ezri better and how they processed their trauma. 

The last quarter of the book I was absolutely rapt and needed to figure out what was happening to everyone. This was a fantastic novel, but check the content as it is quite heavy and so many of the events that happened left me feeling so anxious and worried for these characters. 

I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator, Gabby Beans, brought each and every character to life. She gave everyone a unique voice and brought so much to the story. I highly recommend listening to this as an audiobook as a result. 

Thank you so much to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the advanced copy.