Lions - Bonnie Nadzam

At some point in Lions, the residents of the town refer to it as a "living ghost town" and the description is hauntingly perfect. In fact, lots of things about this book are hauntingly perfect.

When a mysterious stranger and his dog walk into town, they have the fortune of meeting probably the kindest, most unassuming, three people to ever walk the dusty roads of Colorado. Georgiana and John Walker, and their son, Gordon, feed, clothe and give money to the man so that he can make it through another day or two. Unfortunately, the man takes the money and charity (not the same thing) and goes to the local watering hole where he meets other citizens of the town less likely to be friendly to a stranger. Small towns, small minds kind of thing. A fight ensues and the man ends up in the local jail for the night and his dog... well, a dog on its own in a strange town and dark roads...

And after the encounter, the town, which was already teetering on the brink of extinction, gets tipped over the edge into a downward spiral. And just as Gordon Walker's life is about to change and he's about to go off to college with his girlfriend Leigh, his father dies and Gordon enters a spiral of his own.

It's a jarring time in someone's life to lose a parent (I know only from watching others go through it - I'm blessed to still have both of mine). And Gordon seems to suffer more than most. On top of the normal grief is a way of life and a town that John Walker was not prepared to leave. And his son is tied to that way of life in a way that others may be free. John would take days at a time away from his welding work to travel north to where the Colorado roads become gravel and unpaved. What he did up there was a town mystery and source of gossip. And, it's a question that's never really answered in the book which adds to the entire feeling the book evokes.

It's so rare that a place serves as an extra character in a book, but Lions is certainly a main character here. It's really well done. I was uncomfortable with Gordon and his quietness as I think I was meant to be.

4/5 Stars. 

This Will Only Hurt a Little - Busy Phillips

Right about the time I was wrapping up high school, I fell pretty hard for a brown haired boy and was so frustrated by the girl who wouldn't notice him for fear of ruining a friendship. Of course I'm talking about Pacey Witter and Dawson's Creek (Team Pacey, don't @ me). But then I went to college and so did Joey Potter and that's when I first saw Busy Phillips. I wasn't a huge fan of the character of Audrey. The writers and show runners so obviously wanted to place someone in juxtaposition to Katie Holmes' character and they went a lot overboard with Audrey in the process.

So I lost the thread on Busy Phillips for a while until she was gearing up to have a late night show on E! called Busy Tonight. Finally, said the feminist inside me. A late night show hosted by a woman. This is so great. Hmm 10 p.m. said practical sleepy me. And while I followed both the show and Busy Phillips on social media (instagram), I didn't stay up to watch any episodes. And inevitably the show was cancelled and I'm mega-bummed but also can only really blame myself.

Busy's book has been on my to-read pile for a while but it took some time to get around to it as the urgency of connecting the book with the show became lost. So, having no other knowledge of her career, I dug into this (audio) and really enjoyed it. Busy is honest AF about her life and irreverent of the system within which she works for her profession. Hollywood is about as rough and misogynist as I imagined. I really connected with her journey through balancing motherhood and work, and her loneliness following the birth of her first daughter. Being a new mother can be terribly isolating and society does not prepare men to become dads and shoulder ANY of the load. Men who have managed to figure out how to do this are going above the norm and this should change.

Busy on her show. At the end of the night she drank a margarita in her nightgown. 

I'm glad women like Busy exist to demand to take up space and give voice to some of the pitfalls women when we're trying to be polite. I'm only sad Busy's show was cancelled before she got a chance to have Glennon Doyle on. But, at least I can rewatch the Kristen Bell episode whenever I want to really live my best TV life. 

4/5 Stars. 

Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered - Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark

I enjoy podcasts although I prefer audiobooks so I don't stay up to date on many. I'm familiar with the My Favorite Murder podcast mostly through other readers I follow on the bookish side of Instagram - what those of us with book accounts like to call "Bookstagram" - although I'm not an avid listener myself. I find it hard to listen with any regularity to podcasts in general unless I'm commuting to work and I'm really in the mood. Part of it must be that there are just so many different pods to listen to. And if they update their content regularly, which is good for their avid listeners I guess? I just get overwhelmed by anything I've missed.

But when it comes to the who and why behind murder, especially serial murder, I'm intrigued. What makes people so depraved? Why do people do these things to others? Back when my husband and I were both still travelling for work (what I wouldn't give for a king size Hilton bed about now) and I had the time, I torched my way through Mindhunters and various other Netflix murderer shows.

I don't know what I was expecting from Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered. But a joint memoir about the podcast creators was not it. Not to say I didn't enjoy hearing about Karen and Georgia and their upbringings. They were very honest about their lives and their addictions - where they had succeeded and where they had gone wrong. Sometimes reading a memoir is interesting because you find out that people who have had some success also have some of the same underlying issues and insecurities as you. And that's helpful. I really liked reading the chapter on Fucking Politeness, because I definitely have had some trouble with that of my own and I want to make sure I don't pass down to my own daughter a bad and dangerous people pleasing habit.

So this was a decent book but I definitely was expecting more murder.

3/5 Stars. 

The Language of Spells - Garret Weyr

The Language of Spells starts out a bit slow for its target demographic. While I really liked the description of dragons and why Grisha is special, or not, it took a while to build to the actual premise of the book - namely, Grisha's meeting a young girl named Maggie, who is about to change both their lives. Maggie doesn't show up for several more chapters and her absence is felt by a dragging plot line that involves Grisha being turned into a teapot for almost a century.

Once Maggie and Grisha meet up, the story turns into one of friendship and trust, with a slight sinister undercurrent of something rotten in the city of Vienna when it comes to the control and handling of dragons. I also liked the descriptions of magic and the "rules" for either seeing the dragons or not seeing them depending on one's openness to magic.

This book belongs to my 8 year old and I knew he was struggling to get through the first couple slow chapters so I asked him to borrow it and returned it to him with a note thanking him for letting me borrow his book. I got a very sweet note in return and a promise to talk about the book with me when he was finished. It's the simplest way I know to encourage reading. Both my kids love being read to and reading stories together is a really important part of our evening, but getting them to also be independent readers is important to me because one day, I want them to choose to pick up a book.

A book like this one with complex themes of love and sacrifice, choices made by a child protagonist is just the ticket to getting some of those discussions started, I just have to get him over the initial hump of a couple slow chapters.

3/5 Stars.