April 2025 Book Marks
April showers bring May flowers. April also has a virtual rainstorm of good, new reads. Take a look!
Fiction:
Our Beautiful Boys by Sameer Pandya
Vikram Shastri has always been a good kid. He’s got a 4.6 GPA, he listens to his parents, barely hits the parties, and is on track to go to a fancy college. But when he gets the chance to play on the high school football team, his world shifts, and his parents are baffled. Basking in their recent victory, Vikram and his teammates, Diego and MJ, attend a party at an abandoned house in the Southern California foothills, located below three ancient caves. That night, they find themselves in one of the caves, a little drunk, each posturing in the presence of a classmate who has annoyed and bullied them for years. But when that kid stumbles down the hill, bloodied and in need of medical attention, the worlds of each boy collide. The winning football trio is suspended for the remainder of the year during an important season for college admission. When the boys’ parents are brought in, the situation becomes more complicated as they work with and against one another to determine what happened that pivotal night. This is a gripping novel that deftly combines race, class, privilege, the angst of adolescence and demonstrates the simple fact that we never really grow up.
Fiction:
The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner
This book snagged me from the get-go with the story of three generations of a talented musical family. But the child prodigy gene is both a curse and a gift. The Griffin sisters were a hot musical act in the early 2000’s (think Fleetwood Mac level) and then… poof. They dropped off the face of the earth, leaving fans to wonder what happened.
Twenty years later, one half of the duo, Zoe, is living in the suburbs as a married Mom, staying quiet about her past. Her sister Cassie is off the grid in an Alaskan town when an unintentional video goes viral and outs her location. What happened to the sisters? What broke them up at the height of their careers, resulting in a complete silence and estrangement? Everything might have stayed as it was, but Zoe’s talented musician daughter, Cherry, begins to get curious. She’s on the hunt to find her aunt, not just for herself, but to hopefully heal the rift and give everyone a happy ending.
Fiction:
Shadows of Tehran by Nick Berg
Based on the author’s life story, this book is told from the point of view of Ricardo, born and raised in Tehran to an American father and Iranian mother. Just as the revolution breaks out in 1979, his father abandons the family and his mother travels to the US to find him. He eludes them at every turn, and the family returns to life in a vastly changing Iran, where human rights are washed away in a tide of religious, anti-western fanaticism. When Ricardo’s mother remarries, his new step-Dad harbors a dark secret. Fourteen-year old Ricardo vows to take back what has been taken from them in the repressive regime. Moving from a fugitive to a U.S. Special Forces soldier, the story follows the transformation of a young man forged by his unbroken will and spirit. Amidst the backdrop of war, vivid action, tension, abuse and abandonment, this book is ultimately about the choices we make to be a victim, or a triumphant survivor.
Fiction:
The Float Test by Lynn Steger Strong
I loved this author’s book “Flight,” about the intricacies of family. In her next novel, Steger Strong demonstrates she can navigate the ins and outs that define the American family, no matter how “normal” it looks on the surface. The story is set in the unrelenting heat and flat landscape of a Florida beach town, as the Kenner family gathers to mourn the loss of their mother, during a period where each adult children is at a crisis point in their own lives. The book begins at a simmer, and works to a boil, with tight dialogue, and surgical writing that reminds any grown child that at our core, we are most likely who we always were, especially within a family structure. The book is chock full of moments of injury, kindness, love, betrayal and sorrow. All of us can find moments of our own family in the carefully rendered DNA in this story.
Fiction:
I See You’ve Called In Dead by John Kenney
What if you’re an obituary writer and you’re in a deep funk after your wife leaves you for a more interesting man? You aren’t doing your best at work, and one night, you drink a little too much and write your own obituary. It’s full of funny and intentional errors. And then, by accident, you press send. So now you are about to be fired, even though the company can’t legally fire a dead person. So, what do you do next? You go to wakes and funerals of people you’ve never met so that you can learn how to really live again. Written with insightful wit and laugh-out-loud lines (hard to do with the written word) the story was inspired by the death of the author’s Irish fire-fighter brother at the age of 65, who kept his humor to the end. Despite the wonderful humor in this story, it’s also a much-needed reminder that when we can laugh at the thing that scares us, in the face of sorrow and tragedy, we get to put it in a box, and feel some control.
Non-Fiction/Memoir:
The Wild Why by Laura Munson
Laura Munson runs a notable writing workshop in Whitefish, Montana, where she lives. Her latest creation is about creativity itself, and it starts with the premise that we are all born with a sense of wonder and awe, critical elements of creativity. We had it when we stomped around in puddles in the rain, when we watched an apricot sunset or simply believed we could accomplish certain things with imagination. Everyone has a voice, but somewhere along the line, Munson contends, whether as a child or later in life, we lose that sense of wonder. Munson not only tells us how to find our inner sense of wonder again ( and banish the critter inside who tells us we can’t) but she shows us, with step by step prompts that can help everyone reignite the feeling of being alive in this wondrous world. Even on the days it doesn’t feel so wonderous. Munson mines moments from her own life to remind us we aren’t alone. It’s the best kind of instructional, inspirational, how-to memoir out there.
Non-Fiction:
Secrets of Adulthood by Gretchen Rubin
The best-selling author of “The Happiness Project” is back with a book you want to keep on the shelf. With Rubin’s research-focused approach, she visits these truths through “aphorisms,” an ancient discipline that asks the writer to convey a large truth in just a few words. It’s the perfect reference and short-hand for any adult who feels like the world’s most incapable, fragile, out-of-touch or “fill in the blank” adult. Some of the wisdom around relationships, getting started, confronting life’s dilemmas and other lessons are just simply good to have around. This book also makes the perfect gift for anyone in your life looking at big and small decisions. And who among us can’t use a little wisdom these days?
Thriller:
Coram House by Bailey Seybolt
Crime writer Alex Kelley is ready for a fresh start. Her husband is dead and her second book has been nothing short of a disaster. When she receives an invitation to come to Burlington, Vermont to ghostwrite a book about the abuses at a long-shuttered orphanage, Alex jumps at the chance to reinvent herself. Coram House, run by the nuns and a pedophile priest, is also the place of an unsolved drowning of a boy named Tommy. But as Alex begins to search for the truth around Tommy’s disappearance, she discovers a woman’s body on the frozen shores of Lake Champlain. Slowly she begins to unearth and untangle the characters involved in the story of abuse and cover-up that happened almost 50 years ago. And now she must convince the local police that her findings are more than just someone desperate for a career-saving story. The question is, can she find the killer before he finds her?
These are books I genuinely love and am thrilled to recommend to my friends. These are Bookshop.org affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I get a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Alternately, if you prefer to rent books at your local library or buy from your local bookstore, I very much support that!
Intro Photo by Kristin Brown
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