Book 40: Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee

 I just finished Free Food for Millionaires and I give it 🪭🪭🪭🪭.

This is kind of a long book with a lot going on. It focuses on Casey Han and how she is navigating her post-Princeton years after she gets thrown out of her family's home for being sassy to her very traditional father. Casey's discovery of who she is and who she wants takes up much of the book. There's a rich cast of characters who are also learning about themselves: Casey's very traditional mother Leah, who sings in the church choir; her cousin Ella, who marries what looks to be the perfect man and finds out that he really isn't, and her sister Tina, who is the 'good daughter' compared to Casey. The characters are written so well. The problems with this book is that it can be repetitive in places, some of the storylines kind of fizzled (all the stuff with Sabine) and most of the men were horrible. But all in all, a good (if long) read.

Book 39: Class by Stephanie Land

 I just finished Class by Stephanie Land and I give it 🧹🧹🧹.

Class is a sequel to her first book, Maid, and the subtitle is "A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education".  Class follows Land as she moves to Missoula to attend the University of Montana and, hopefully, gain admittance to their MFA in writing program. She continues her housecleaning work to try to make ends meet, all the while raising her daughter basically on her own. 

There's little new territory covered in this book. The challenges of being poor in America are devastating, and she continues to highlight this devastation, but doesn't really bring anything new to it. She continues to have horrible taste in men, and the book also highlights many of the (to me) bad decisions she makes. I thought I'd get some new insights into the challenges of being poor while going to college, but instead she shares how she really kind of blows off her classes (as well as her application to the MFA program). At the end, she is faced with a decision about an unplanned pregnancy  that had me very, very judgey (I'm kind of embarrased to write that) and that kind of ruined the whole book for me. Anyway, not a favorite. 

Book 38: Green Dot by Madeleine Gray

 I've just finished Green Dot and I give it 💚💚💚💚💚.

Wow. This book. This astonishing book. It's the story of a woman growing up, of love, of desire, and of what we will or won't do for the people we love. Hera is a recent college graduate in Sydney, living with her Dad.  She has good friends, a recent breakup, and an unclear vision of her future. At her 'content moderation' job, she meets and falls in love with an older journalist, who is married. The novel centers on the development of their relationship, and her perceptions of what she will and won't accept, and how that changes during the course of the relationship. I steeled myself for a heartbreaking conclusion at about the 75% mark, and I was so invested in Hera and her happiness. Just a great book.

Book 37: The Midnight Feast

I just finished an ARC of The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley and I give it ❤❤❤❤❤. Read my review at Goodreads!

Book 36: Society of Lies by Lauren Ling Brown

 I just finished Society of Lies and I give it ✸✸✸✸. If you like dark academia, read by review on Goodreads!

Book 35: The Longest Race by Kara Goucher

 I just finished " Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on Nike's Elite Running Team" by Kara Goucher and I give it 👟👟👟 1/2 stars.

Goucher was a world class long distance runner who graduated from Colorado and then went to 'work' as a member of The Oregon Project, a track team coached by Alberto Salazar. This memoir details her time at the Oregon Project (funded by Nike) and the various abuses she dealt with: sexual abuse from Salazar, mental abuse from Nike, physical abuse she sustained with the training, doping abuse (probably) from her blind acceptance to do anything Salazar told her. I think this was kind of my problem with the book--she knew a lot of bad stuff was happening but because she wanted to be the best long distance runner, she just ignored them. She eventually blew a bunch of whistles, but probably to no real avail. I appreciate that she finally told this story, but at the same time feel she missed some opportunities to really change the world.

Book 34 The Search Party by Hannah Richell

 I just finished The Search Party by Hannah Richell and I give it 🌃🌃🌃🌃.

I'm a sucker for twisty domestic thrillers when everyone has SECRETS SECRETS SECRETS and this one totally fits that bill. Four families go 'glamping' at a resort called Wildernest (eye roll) that is owned by one of the couples (it's sort of the shake down cruise for Wildernest). During the course of the long weekend, one of the children goes missing which sets off a search (hence the title) as well as the discovery of lots and lots of secrets (who had an affair, who was the father of a baby, who owes who money, who is a reality star a-hole, etc). There are just a ton of secrets that come to light in this book. It moves in a non-linear fashion between 'Sunday' (when things are slowly resolving) and Friday and Saturday (when all the bad things happen) and of course you think you know who is being 'talked about' in the Sunday chapters but in reality there are TWISTS GALORE! Only four stars though because there are just too many characters to keep track of---four couples (eight adults), eight children, local people, etc. Some of the 'secrets' were not really helping to move the story along and didn't get resolved. But if you like a nice twisty story--this is fine. Richell is no Ruth Ware but as far as these go, it's pretty good.

Book 32: Same as it Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

I just finished the ARC of Same As It Ever Was and I loved it! ✹✹✹✹✹ 

Read my review at Goodreads!

Book 33: Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

 I just finished Help WAnted and I give it ✴✴✴✴✴.

Help Wanted is a serio-comic novel about a week or so in the lives of a group of people who work for a chain store (similar to Target) in a depressed town in New York state. The group of employees work in a department called "Movement" which is all about getting merchandise boxes off a truck and onto the selling floor. We learn a bit about the lives of the crew and how they ended up in Movement, and how they bond by the dislike of their boss, Meredith. When the store manager gets a promotion and Meredith is up for his job, several crew members are hopeful they might get a promotion and then join together to plot how to get their disliked boss the top job. Whether there can be 'movement' in their lives, or whether they are stuck in a dead end place, is the question that will be answered by this book. I really liked it. 

Book 31: The Hunter by Tana French

 I just finished The Hunter and I give it ☆☆☆☆. This had all the hallmarks of a Tana French book--great Irish setting, quirky characters, menacing undertones throughout the whole book. This novel revisits the characters from The Searcher, and has Trey's father returning to the little town where she lives with some type of 'scam' in mind. Retired Chicago cop Cal and his partner Lena want to make sure Trey doesn't get into trouble given her father's proclivities, but Trey is out to revenge her brother's death (which was the focus of The Searcher). I liked this book but it seemed to move a low more slowly than her other books, and I sped through the last part just to find out 'who did it'. A good book but not my favorite. 

Book 30: First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

 I just finished First Lie Wins and I give it ✵✵✵ 3/4 stars.  This book is quite the talk of the book world, and is a Reese's book club pick. It's a thriller-type of book, and it is one of those that twists and twists and twists and twists. The main character, Lucca has a job where she basically goes undercover and gets dirt on people so her boss, "Mr. Smith", can blackmail them or steal from them or something. It is sort of John Grisham-like in that it moves as a very fast pace and it was ok--I kept reading to figure out how all the threads came together but it got so twisty at the end I could hardly keep up.

Book 29: Good Material by Dolly Alderton

 I just finished Good Material and I give it ☆☆☆☆1/2. This was a really good novel.

I guess it could be classified as a Rom-Com? But not really? Andy is a stand-up comic who, at the start of the novel, is broken up with by his girlfriend Jen. Most of the novel is the first six (maybe eight) months after the breakup as Andy tries to come to terms with the breakup. At the same time, he is struggling with his career and tries different things to try to move on and change his life (he lives on a houseboat, he starts working out). It's funny but it's sad (because Andy is sad) and it seems to be a very realistic view of what it is like to be single when you're at the age (mid-30s) when all your friends are settling down to a 'real' life. 

I took off a star because I am struggling with whether the book needed the last 10% or not--it certainly changes how I viewed the first 90% but not sure if I needed it or not. If you read this book I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Book 28: The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan

 Lucky lucky lucky me got to read an ARC of this book! See my review here! Hint: five stars. Five big stars.

Book 27: Astor by Anderson Cooper and Katharine Howe

 I just read Astor and I give it I read the first book these ✰✰✰ 1/2 stars. 

I read the first book these two wrote together, "Vanderbilt" which was the history of Anderson's family. I am a big fan of gilded age stuff so I wanted to read their take on the Astor's. I'm also interested in what happened to these huge gilded age fortunes. 

This book was interesting for the first half or so, as it traveled well-worn gilded age stories but I did learn more about how the Astors got so rich (not just the fur trade, but also they owned a huge amount of real estate in Manhattan). I also thought the sections on the Astor who died on the Titanic was interesting. But once the fortune got disseminated among ancestors, and much of it got squandered (which apparently is the way these Gilded Age fortunes go), it wasn't so interesting. There was an odd chapter about a bar at the Astor Hotel as a meeting place for gays for many years mid-century, but that wasn't much about the Astors as it was as a cultural moment. It was interesting, but not a great fit for the book. The final chapter on Brooke Astor was ok but just a sad way for this family story to end.

Anyway, I don't completely recommend but if you are interested in rich families loosing it all, this could be a book for you.