REVIEW: Vladimir by Julia May Jonas

 

Not going to lie, I've had this book forever but I only started reading it because Netflix has released a limited series. THe first line was so promising: " When I was a child, I loved old men and I could tell that they also loved me."

And that legitimately sets the tone for the rest of the novel. The narrator and main character is a female professor in her late 50's at a small liberal arts college in upstate NY. She has a crisis when her older husband, also a professor, is accused of sexual harassment and improper relationships (many of them sexually consummated) by former students of his.  They have always had agreements about boundaries in their relationships but now that everything is so public, the narrator gets her revenge by developing an infatuation with another much younger professor - Vladimir. He's a wildly successful, young and attractive novelist that arrives on campus with his wife and their child. 

I generally enjoyed how the novel started - it was so promising. I enjoyed seeing an older woman embrace her sexuality and who she was.  Her creativity started to blossom after her infatuation started. And I really appreciated how it took on things like relationships - the narrator and her husband seem the most solid even though their boundaries may be questionable, but the gender roles in the relationship are still so strict. She has his dinner on the table for him. Every night. No matter what.  He took care of all the finances. But then we got the last third of the book and things just went completely off the rails in a way that I just couldn't get behind. I honestly wondered if the author felt like me - and just wanted to get to the end of the book in a rush and so ended it the way that she did. 

Not my cup of tea, this one.  Pass on it - you're not missing anything. 

Links I love

 

Last week had a lot going on for me work wise and life wise. At least I have some fun links to share though! I'm listening to Future Boy by Michael J. Fox and reading I Wish You all the Best by  Mason Deaver and The Academy. 

• Memoirs about losing a parent when in childhood.
• The Bell Jar is getting an adaptation with Billie Eilish. There's an adaptation of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow too!
• This supplement can help in perimenopause.
• What is the Kennedy curse?
• 6 female writers that shaped modern science fiction.
• Why you should consider holding hands during your next fight?
• Morning might be the best time to exercise.
• Ten best books to read with interesting female protagonists. 
• Microwalks and your steps.
• 9 Novels about women in the wild. 
• Because who doesn't need a new podcast to listen to?
• Why readers are taking up Grannycrafts.
• Historical novels set in South Africa.
• The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards have been announced. 
• Bridgerton's diversity - what's up with it?
• Cursive is back, but should students be learning it?
• The Inside Literary Prize announces its shortlist. 
• Lift your weights, especially if you're female. 
• 8 coastal cities that look divine. 
• Emotional abuse in college sports.

Please feel free to make a gift to our child's 529 account or visit my Pangobooks store.

REVIEW A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah Maas

 

I read this physical book, did not listen to it.  I tend to find listening to non fiction is easier than reading it in some circumstances!  

This book is short for an ACOTAR book, and is a nice respite from the heavier, longer and more action packed other novels in this series. Feyre and Rhys have returned to Velaris to prepare for and celebrate solstice, which is also Feyre's birthday. Everyone is also trying to come to terms with what they had experienced in the prior novel. Most are coping well, except for Nesta, who is a hot mess, seemingly an alcoholic and is having a hard time moving forward. 

I enjoyed this novella. It's like a larger epilogue to the last novel, clears the palate and gets us ready for the next novel. It moved very quickly and was very refreshing - exactly what I needed in the moment that I picked it up. I enjoyed learning about the characters' everyday lives and their everyday struggles.  I also became much more fond of Azriel and Mor, who are hands down my favorite ACOTAR characters. I appreciated how Maas seems to be setting up the next novel, particularly in her chapters surrounding Nesta and Cassian (not going to lie, I'm not a fan of Nesta. At all.). Maas uses alternating points of view in this book, which is different from the prior novels and which was VERY effective in setting up the next book.  It's nice to get to know the other characters in the Inner Circle as well, which isn't something that happens as well when the story is told just from one point of view. 

Generally, I really liked this book. The ACOTAR books seem to get better with each book and I'm looking forward to the next book, as well as the ACOTAR books that are set to be released at the end of the year.

REVIEW The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iverson

 

I selected this book to fulfill one of the prompts for the Popsugar Reading challenge of 2026 - which called for one of the books to have a garden playing a seminal role in the novel.  I didn't want to re-read The Secret Garden, so here we are.

Harriet has always been considered odd.  Her father has gone missing and so she ultimately takes advantage of the newfound and unexpected freedom afforded to her by his disappearance. She forges her own path, by hanging out in her own home and tending to her garden. However, when an inspector appears and begins to question her father's disappearance, she becomes acutely aware of how truly vulnerable that she as a woman in the Victorian era is. She puts her trust in people that perhaps she shouldn't have and here we have the conundrum: being caught and trying to solve a mystery.

There's a lot of mystery to cover - what happened to her dad and mom, why a strange man is courting her and what happens to her. The mysteries move very, very slowly in unfolding. I found it to move almost so slowly that I was losing interest. And then we have the answers explode in one very big explosion at the end of the book and by the time that this happened, I honestly didn't care at all. I had lost so much interest and didn't care. The garden was such an instrumental part of the book, but I never really fully understood why and wanted more of an explanation. 

Not a great read and I was happy when I was done.  On to the next!

Links I love

I'm so looking forward to the longer days and warmer weather. And Tulips. I love tulips.

•  Can you name all the sitcom dads?
• What causes spontaneous human combustion?
• Modern day Thelmas and Louise in crime fiction.
• The scandalous story of Lucy Locket.
• What was being a ninja really like?
• Resources for learning about different topics.
• How John Grisham lost his love of baseball. 
• Peanut butter vs almond butter: is one better than the other?
• This years GS cookies, ranked. 
• Finalists for the Lambda Literary awards.
• I love me some True Crime and  these look good. Some of these look pretty good too. 
• This Roman fort was found...in Scotland?!
• Lemon peels...in the sink?
• Some bone healthy foods that no one talks about.
• 6 random facts about the spring equinox.
• Why do airplanes have tiny windows?

I hope that everyone has a great week!  Please don't forget that I have a Pangobooks store that you should check out!

REVIEW: All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert

 

I was totally on the Eat, Pray, Love bandwagon. Not going to lie.  It's one of those books that I re-read at different times in my life in order to learn something (along with Handmaid's Tale, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Wild by Cheryl Strayed). I was curious to see what this book could teach me, if anything.  And what I learned is that I'm very much like Elizabeth Gilbert in many ways, although I haven't ever had to go through what she had to go through to write this book.

This is a memoir and it is about Gilbert's relationship with Rayya Elias - who Gilbert met, incidentally, because she was Gilbert's hairdresser (yup!), then her closest most bestest friend for many years, and finally her lover/partner until Rayya died from cancer. This includes, BTW, the time that Gilbert was married to her husband from Eat, Pray, Love and Committed era. When Rayya got sick, it seemed that Gilbert figured out that the relationship was romantic, intimate, and sexual (even though she'd been working for years to deny it). Gilbert then left her husband and moved to be with Rayya in order to care for her during her last few months (in a house that Gilbert bought for her essentially). This plan went majorly off the rails when not only did Rayya live longer than the doctors predicted but slid back into a full blown addiction in the last months of her life. She was addicted to heroin, alcohol, you name it and Gilbert was there to not only witness it but to experience the effects of those addictions on their relationship. When I say things got ugly, I'm not really doing it justice because they were U-G-L-Y without any alibi in sight anywhere. It got so bad that Gilbert contemplated killing Rayya and making it look like an accident.  

The story is very well told. Gilbert is a good author if nothing else. It's a love story, a story of passion and obsession, a story about codependency and love addiction, a story about an addict relapsing, a story about grief, a story about confronting the darkest side of your own nature when your life spins out of control.  Rayya is brought vividly to life in technicolor. Having said that, I've come to view Gilbert with a tad sense of skepticism and caution: trust but verify.  I simply can't help but believe that this woman would write anything that she thinks would sell. And maybe this was her complete rock-bottom moment - when her grand passion and co dependency for Rayya led her down so many dark paths that she thought that she would actually kill her.  What I didn't need, was the self helpy, preachy part because guess what?  She's been peddling this stuff for YEARS.  I loved the gritty memoir. I loved reading about what happened with her and Rayya and the ups and downs and her experiences but I could do without the preachiness from someone that, in my humble opinion, hasn't learned from any of the other experiences that she has had and written about.  It also felt really icky and exploitative. Of Rayya and her last days.  

::shrugs:: would I recommend it?  Yes, but go in forewarned and don't be afraid to chuck it if it gets to be too much for you.  

REVIEW Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

 

Shelby Tebow, a young and new mother, has gone missing in her upscale Chicago suburb during a late night run. Everyone starts looking at the husband. However, local doula Meredith and her daughter go missing shortly thereafter, which places this theory into doubt. Eleven years after the disappearances, Meredith's daughter has seemingly reappeared and people are trying to figure out what actually happened. The book bounces not only between different perspectives but also be tween different timelines. 

I don't know that I can be as thorough in my review since I don't want to give away too much - this is a thriller and a mystery after all. I felt like the buildup was very well done; however the end was too neatly presented to me with a bow on top and felt very, very predictable. The "villain" was very different in the end, character development wise, than at the beginning although if you're a complete sociopath maybe that isn't too much of a stretch (although I found myself saying - "Oh come ON really?!" a lot). I actually really enjoyed having the perspective of the other child in th e family after his sister disappeared and when she reappeared.  It's often a perspective that gets lost, so I truly appreciated it being there. 

That being said, I wish that I had a better story to follow and buy into. This just didn't do it for me.  I had to suspend my disbelief a bit too much.