This month, I have read a few 5 star books so far and I’m excited to share them with you here. There is still time left in the month so it is possible I will read more 5 star reads before the end – in that case they will be included in my next wrap up post! You can see the first half of my November reading here and I will share the rest of my November reads next week. The Amazon links to the books I’ve read are affiliate links and if you use them and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission.
Title: Jasmine Zumideh Needs A Win
Author: Susan Azim Boyer
Genre: YA Historical Fiction
Publisher: Wednesday Books, 11/1/22
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
Jasmine Zumideh will do whatever she can to get into NYU where she wants to major in journalism. To make her application stand out, she writes that she is the senior class president-elect – but the election hasn’t happened yet. So now she has to win. While her opponent is running on a platform of restoring order and bringing back the dress code, Jasmine’s campaign is derailed by the Iran Hostage Crisis – as an Iranian American, she has to decide whether to deny her heritage or display it. Plus she gets caught between her two best friends, she has to deal with her parents’ separation, her brother is expressing pro Iran sentiments, and her visiting aunt wants her to speak Farsi and cook Persian food.
“It’s 1979, and Jasmine Zumideh is ready to get the heck out of her stale, Southern California suburb and into her dream school, NYU, where she’ll major in journalism and cover New York City’s exploding music scene. There’s just one teeny problem: Due to a deadline snafu, she maaaaaaybe said she was Senior Class President-Elect on her application―before the election takes place. But honestly, she’s running against Gerald Thomas, a rigid rule-follower whose platform includes reinstating a dress code―there’s no way she can lose. And she better not, or she’ll never get into NYU. But then, a real-life international incident turns the election upside down. Iran suddenly dominates the nightly news, and her opponent seizes the opportunity to stir up anti-Iranian hysteria at school and turn the electorate against her. Her brother, Ali, is no help. He’s become an outspoken advocate for Iran just as she’s trying to downplay her heritage. Now, as the white lie she told snowballs into an avalanche, Jasmine is stuck between claiming her heritage or hiding it, standing by her outspoken brother or turning her back on him, winning the election or abandoning her dreams for good.”
While the end of the book felt a little rushed (and refers to Passover as a 7 day holiday when it’s actually 8 days besides in Israel), I loved Jasmine and her journey the whole way through.
Title: Kiss Her Once For Me
Author: Alison Cochrun
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Atria Books, 11/1/22
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
Last year I loved The Charm Offensive and Kiss Her Once For Me was a fantastic follow up by Alison Cochrun. It is a bit of a spin on the fake dating trope as Ellie agrees to a fake engagement with Andrew, only to discover that the woman she fell for last Christmas (at Powell’s books in Portland) is Andrew’s sister Jack. As Ellie is snowed in with their family, Ellie and Jack face the prospect of something real.
“One year ago, recent Portland transplant Ellie Oliver had her dream job in animation and a Christmas Eve meet-cute with a woman at a bookstore that led her to fall in love over the course of a single night. But after a betrayal the next morning and the loss of her job soon after, she finds herself adrift, alone, and desperate for money. Finding work at a local coffee shop, she’s just getting through the days—until Andrew, the shop’s landlord, proposes a shocking, drunken plan: a marriage of convenience that will give him his recent inheritance and alleviate Ellie’s financial woes and isolation. They make a plan to spend the holidays together at his family cabin to keep up the ruse. But when Andrew introduces his new fiancée to his sister, Ellie is shocked to discover it’s Jack—the mysterious woman she fell for over the course of one magical Christmas Eve the year before. Now, Ellie must choose between the safety of a fake relationship and the risk of something real.”
This book has amazing representation of bisexuality and demisexuality and includes trans and nonbinary characters. It also includes anxiety and ADHD representation. It takes place over Christmas and the title apparently is from a Christmas song – it may have gone over my head but so did all the Taylor Swift references too – I still loved the book.
Title: Beautiful Country
Author: Qian Julie Wang
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Doubleday / Anchor Books, 9/7/21
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
While I’m not normally a huge memoir fan, I thought this one was beautifully written. It was a sad and shocking story of immigration and poverty in New York City. I had to check when the author grew up because it felt like the story was from the early 1900s – and it actually took place in the 90s! I lived relatively close to where this story takes place and yet our lives were so far from one another.
“In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to ‘beautiful country.’ Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian’s parents were professors; in America, her family is ‘illegal’ and it will require all the determination and small joys they can muster to survive. In Chinatown, Qian’s parents labor in sweatshops. Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the stress of their new life on one another. Shunned by her classmates and teachers for her limited English, Qian takes refuge in the library and masters the language through books, coming to think of The Berenstain Bears as her first American friends. And where there is delight to be found, Qian relishes it: her first bite of gloriously greasy pizza, weekly ‘shopping days,’ when Qian finds small treasures in the trash lining Brooklyn’s streets, and a magical Christmas visit to Rockefeller Center—confirmation that the New York City she saw in movies does exist after all. But then Qian’s headstrong Ma Ma collapses, revealing an illness that she has kept secret for months for fear of the cost and scrutiny of a doctor’s visit. As Ba Ba retreats further inward, Qian has little to hold onto beyond his constant refrain: Whatever happens, say that you were born here, that you’ve always lived here.”
The story is told through the eyes of Qian as a child, as she remembers living it. I imagine as an adult she sees some of what she went through differently, but they way the story was told made it that much more harrowing for me as the reader. She talks about food and being food insecure, her own child labor in a sweatshop and a factory, her treatment by teachers in the schools she attended, and the way she blamed herself for not keeping her mother safe. I highly recommend this book as a look at the way America fails its most vulnerable and as a memoir worth reading.
Title: Bomb Shelter
Author: Mary Laura Philpott
Genre: Memoir in Essays
Publisher: Simon Schuster Audio, 4/12/22
Source: Audio Publisher
Why I Read It: Wanted to read
My Rating: 5 Stars
It’s kind of funny that I really disliked Mary Laura Philpott’s previous book I Miss You When I Blink. I had to laugh at my review, in which I said that book was over hyped and was the reason I don’t like memoirs – the author being a normal person with connections who was able to get published. If I had reread that review before choosing to listen to this book, I probably would not have done so! And I loved this one! It made me laugh and cry and it made me feel seen, as I believe the author and I are around the same age and have children around the same ages.
“As a daughter, mother, and friend, Mary Laura Philpott considered herself an ‘anxious optimist’—a natural worrier with a stubborn sense of good cheer. And while she didn’t really think she had any sort of magical protective powers, she believed in her heart that as long as she loved her people enough, she could keep them safe. Then, in the early hours of one dark morning at home, her belief was upended. In the months that followed, she turned to poignant memories, priceless stories, and a medley of coping mechanisms (with comically mixed success) to regain her equilibrium and find meaning in everyday wonders.”
While I would not call myself an optimist, I’m definitely a worrier. I loved listening to the author’s thoughts on taking her daughter on a college tour, getting ready to be an empty nester, having to care for her aging parents, being at home during the pandemic, trying to get her dog to eat, and interacting with a neighborhood turtle. Quotes I liked included “The kind of ‘home’ I craved was a feeling, not a place.” and “There will always be bombs, and we will never be able to save everyone we care about. To know that and to try anyway is to be fully alive.”
Come back next week for the rest of my November reads and hopefully more good ones that I haven’t gotten to yet!
Do you have a favorite book you’ve read this month?