Episode 570 || February 2026 Reading Recap
This week on From the Front Porch, Annie recaps the books she read and loved in February. You get 10% off your books when you order your February Reading Recap bundle. Each month, we offer a Reading Recap bundle, which features Annie’s favorite books she read that month.
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search episode 570), or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:
Kin by Tayari Jones
Another Marvelous Thing by Laurie Colwin
Man Overboard! by Kathleen Rooney
Strangers by Belle Burden
Warning Signs by Tracy Sierra
From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.
A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.
Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Podcast Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
This week, Annie is listening to One and Only by Maureen Goo.
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Our Executive Producers are...Ashley Ferrell, Beth, Cammy Tidwell, Gene Queens, Jammie Treadwell, Joseph Shorter IV, Kimberly, Linda Lee Drozt, Nicole Marsee, Stephanie Dean, and Wendi Jenkins.
Transcript:
[squeaky porch swing] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business and life in the South. [music plays out]
For good people, name is everything. The beginning and end.
-Patmeena Sabit, Good People.
[as music fades out]
I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia. And this week I'm recapping the books I read in February. If you like my book reviews here on the podcast, you might be interested in joining my private Instagram account, Annie's Five-Star Books. For $50 a year, you can become a part of my bookish community online. Through the private Instagram account you'll get access to my book review, backlist and frontlist titles. I host monthly Instagram story Q & A's and share about the books I start, but never finish. If you follow me personally online, you've seen my reviews for years. And, of course, From the Front Porch listeners will always have access to these free monthly Reading Recap episodes. The private Instagram is simply a place separate from The Bookshelf where I get to be more detailed with my reviews. And Five-Star Book Club members can also choose if they want to order my five star reads each month from the store. There's a quarterly newsletter option for the social media averse too. For more information or to sign up for the 2026 group, just visit anniebjoneswrites.com/five-star-book-club. There's also a link in the show notes. Now back to the show.
[00:01:55] Every month I like to give short reviews of the books I read that month. And February was another really good reading month. I'm really pleased with my reading rhythm for 2026 so far. I think it's because-- and I know I've said this before, but I think because I'm reading across platforms, is that the way we want to say across mediums. So I've been listening to some good audio books. I've have been reading some e-gallies on my Kindle. And then I've reading print books as well. So kind of a nice mixture, which I think keeps me moving and grooving. Is that a thing that we say? So I think that's what has helped me maintain a reading rhythm this winter. And I really do like winter as a reading season. It's not quite as overwhelming maybe as fall, which is when not only The Bookshelf picks up, but also it's when a lot of books get published. And so it feels like I can better keep my finger on the pulse of publishing in the winter. So I had a great reading month. I read a lot of books. The first one that I finished was Ken by Tiari Jones. You might recognize Tiari Jones from her previous work, An American Marriage. She also wrote, I believe, a book called The Silver Sparrow. So she has written several books. This is my first experience with her. I believe that An American marriage came out and was one of those books, and I've talked about this on the podcast previously, one of those books where because it's selling itself, I wind up not prioritizing it to read. Think podcast listener, Deja, actually reached out because she had gone deep into the files from the front porch, deep into the backlist, and she said she had heard me say that I had started An American marriage. And She said, "Did you ever finish An American Marriage?" And I'm here to confess publicly that, no, I did not finish an American Marriage and it wasn't because I didn't like it, but it was because it was selling itself and so I put it down. And sometimes when you put a book down, you forget to pick it back up. Not always, but sometimes.
[00:04:06] So Kin, her latest work, that book released late February. Maybe by the time you're listening to this, it came out maybe a week or two ago. So it released late-February, but I got an ARC, beautiful cover. And I will admit that the cover is what drew me to the book. It's got this beautiful illustration on the front and that is what naturally caught my eye. I do judge books by their covers. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And so I grabbed this one off the galley shelf at The Bookshelf. We have these bookshelves for staff where we keep all of our advanced reader copies. And I grabbed one, partly too because it was not too long. I know I've talked about this I think in a pre or post Bookshelf world, Bookshelf life, I won't be nearly as daunted by length as I currently am, but now it does feel like if a book is 500 plus pages, I just think, oh, how am I going to do that and read all the other things I have to read? So this one was, I want to say, between two and 300 pages, so I grabbed it off the shelf. The book is about Annie and Vernice. They are self-described cradle friends. They've been friends since they were infants. And they both are by different experiences; they are both motherless. And so that is one of the reasons they kind of form this natural friendship and bond. And the book follows Annie and Vernice from, I want to say, early adolescence, maybe we get a glimpse of their childhoods as well. And then it follows them into early adulthood. Annie winds up heading to Memphis to leave their small town where they've grown up. She is desperate to find her mother. So her mother kind of abandoned her or left her as a baby. And then Vernice, her mother has died. And so Vernice decides she's going to go to Spelman College in Atlanta. And so the book takes you back and forth between Annie's experiences and Vernice's experiences. It's historical fiction in that I believe it takes place starting in the late 40s and maybe going into the early days of the civil rights movement, because there's definitely some descriptions of that, particularly with Vernice as she goes to this all-black women's college.
[00:06:31] So you get to see this vibrant music scene in Memphis. You get this kind of collegiate experience in Atlanta. This book, to me, felt a lot like Old Love Good Girls, which is a book I read a few years ago and really liked. It's definitely a book about friendship, the friendship between Annie and Vernice, and also why their bond is so strong and the fact that they really are brought together because neither one of them grew up with mother figures-- or did they? And maybe getting them to reexamine what a mother is and what maternal care actually looks like. So I loved this book. I mean, started it, took it everywhere with me, could not put it down. I think it will make an excellent book club book because of some of the decisions that are made for the characters and some decisions the characters make throughout book. This one was a gut punch. I finished it. I say often here that if an author sticks the landing, it's almost immediately a five-star read for me. Tiari Jones stuck the landing on this one. I finished it and wanted to weep. I just loved Annie and Vernice and what they meant to each other. And I think if you enjoyed Old Love, Good Girls, if you liked The Vanishing Half by Brett Bennett, then I think you will love Ken by Tiari-Jones. And that came out just either this week or last week as you're listening to this. So great new release that should definitely be on your radar at the top of your TBR. Next up, I picked a backlist title. So I guess not only am I reading across multiple mediums, so audio book, e-galley, physical book, but I do think I've done a good job so far this year of reading backlist and frontlist titles and maybe across some genres. I read a memoir this month.
[00:08:16] So, anyway, I wound up picking up Another Marvelous Thing. This is by Laurie Colwin. I looked and I bought this one in New York in 2021. So if you are the kind of person who goes to independent bookstores, which obviously I am, and you buy books and then you don't read them right away, I do just want to let you know books find you when they're meant to. I really do believe that. And so this one had been sitting on my shelf. I think when I was in New York in 2021, I picked up three or four of these Laurie Colwin books. They had just been re-released, I want to say with these different covers, and I had not ever read Laurie Colwin. And so I wound up reading two out of three of them. I found them all on my shelves, and I read almost all of them. I think Another Marvelous Thing was the last one for me to read that I had purchased. So I took this one with me on a solo trip to St. George Island, partly because it was February and I wanted to have maybe a kind of love story and this was an unconventional love story. Billie and Frances. Billie is a nickname. She is not your typical-- as Frances would describe her, she is not your typical mistress. But she is Frances's mistress. And so Billie and Frances are happily married to other people. And that's kind of the whole premise, is that Billie and Frances are married to other people, to people that they love, but they are also drawn to each other. And so they embark upon I believe it is a years-long affair. Another Marvelous Thing is told in short story format. I have been reading a lot of these connected short story collections. This one is a backlist title, but I do wonder if this is a recent. There's an uptick in these this year. I wonder if it has to do with our changing attention spans. This one was published years and years ago, but I read an Allegra Goodman collection of connected short stories. That's a mouthful. A Collection of Connected Short Stories, and then I read one by Woody Brown coming out.
[00:10:27] So, anyway, there are a lot of connected short story collections making their way across my desk right now, and this was one of them. So you get the opening short story is told from Frances's point of view. And he is kind of talking about how he came to meet Billie and how she's not your typical mistress. She's a little more practical. She doesn't wear a ton of makeup. She is beautiful, but not maybe in your stereotypical way, but he naturally was drawn to her. So, anyway, they embark upon this year's long affair. You get Frances's perspective; you get Billie's perspective. And you also just get kind of changing or different stories throughout the years. I say it's a year’s long affair. It is a long affair, but you also definitely get these underlying questions of guilt, of can you love multiple people without hurting anyone? There's a lot to unpack. I think this is another book that could make a really great book club. I liked this one. I know I have friends and fellow readers who shy away from books about infidelity. So obviously this one would not be... If infidelity is a trigger for you, this would not for you. But I think what I liked about it is you the reader, you like Frances and Billie together. But even as Frances and Billie begin to question themselves and begin to their affair, you also are questioning it because they do seem to love their spouses. And you start to wonder, wait a minute, how fair is this to the people in their lives? How long are they going to keep this secret? I loved it. I found it witty and charming and smart. Laurie Colwin is often compared to Nora Ephron and I can totally see why. So if you like books like Heartburn, if you liked Nora Ephraim's fiction, I think you will like Laurie Colwin quite a bit. If you like Katherine Newman, I think will like Laurie Colwin quite a bit I liked this book a lot and I started it while I was overnight at the beach for two nights. And I started this one my second night. So I hadn't finished it. And I downloaded the audio book so I could listen to it on the way home too. Like that's how invested I was in these stories. I did prefer the physical format. So this isn't one necessarily that I would pick up in audio book though you could. I mean, the narrator was great. I really wanted to know what happened to these people. So I kept reading in physical format when I got home. So that is Another Marvelous Thing by Laurie Colwin. Short and sweet collection of connected short stories or novel told in short story form about Billie and Frances and their affair.
[00:12:57] I also picked up this month, Man Overboard. It's really Man Overboard with an exclamation point by Kathleen Rooney. This does not release until July 7th. And I know how you all feel about me previewing books that are not out for several months but it's literally my job. It's literally my job to tell you about these books that you may or may not want to pre-order. So you may recognize Kathleen Rooney's name. She published a book years ago called Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, which I, bookseller confession, have not read, but it was extremely popular and was not just popular as a New York Times bestseller, but was very popular in independent bookstores amongst readers. I saw this one a lot like I've been seeing The Correspondent pop up everywhere. It felt like Lillian Boxfish was everywhere for a long time. So this is Kathleen Rooney's newest book. I was immediately intrigued by the premise, which is exactly what the title suggests. Patrick Kilpatrick, that is his real name, but he is known as Kick. Kick finds himself in the Gulf of Mexico on a family cruise. He's been on a cruise for Thanksgiving. But we don't get to see him on that cruise. We literally only see him in the Gulf of Mexico trying to survive. He has found himself overboard in the gulf, trying to make it. And the maybe underlying mystery, though this is not in any way a mystery book, I would argue it's not an adventure book. It's not a survival book, despite maybe how he has found herself in the open waters. But this is the underlying mystery. The underlying question for the reader is did Kick find himself because he made an attempt at taking his own life, or was he drunk and fell overboard? Like, and that is the underlying question you, the reader, are asking. The entire book is Kick in open water. Each chapter, I think, is an hour, each chapter is a specific or set period of time. And so you watch him spiral. You're in Kick's head the whole time. I loved the premise of this book. I did not like Kick. I struggled to like Patrick Kilpatrick Kick.
[00:15:18] I struggle to like him, and you spend the whole book with him. I mean, you really don't spend the book with anybody else except through Kik's thoughts and feelings. You do get glimpses at his family life, at his relationships, you get insight into how he wound up on this cruise, what he's been missing in his life, if he's been depressed, you do get all of that. So it sounds like from the premise, again, that you might be getting an adventure story, a survival story, a-- what was that book I read last year that I loved so much? It's like Sea Wife or Marriage at Sea. That's kind of what you thought you might be getting and certainly I could put those books together on a shelf. But that's not what this is. This is very much a character study of Kick and you the reader getting to know him better and better as his thoughts spiral and as he tries to figure out, does he want to survive? Why did he wind up here? So that's the entirety of the book. I think publishers will compare this one and I think they already have, compared it to The Wedding People. I personally did not find it quite as funny as The Wedding People not quite as life-affirming, maybe as the weddings people. But I think I could be in the minority on this one. I did after reading-- when you read a book so far in advance, you often are reading in a vacuum. And so I, Annie B. Jones, did not love this one like I thought I would. But then I started looking up reviews. I think went to Goodreads. Maybe I even looked at Kirkus or Publishers Weekly. And it does look like a lot of people love this book. And so, I want to be very clear as I hope I always am on this podcast. Which is just because a book isn't for me doesn't mean it won't be for you. And my job as a bookseller is to try to talk to you about a book so that you can know if it is for you. And so I want to be very clear that this is not a particularly plot-driven book and it is not an adventure suspense survival story. So this is an Olivia book. It is far more of an Annie type read where it is deeply character driven. You spend time with this one character, it's got this unique timeframe set up.
[00:17:34] I guess if I'm comparing it to a book, so like I said, the publisher will compare it to the wedding people. I could put it on a shelf with other cruise ship books, like This Is Your Life Harriet Chance, or the upcoming book by Emma Straub, American Fantasy. I could put it on the shelf with Marriage at Sea, with Sea Wife, but really I think where it belongs is with a book that released early, early this year called The Rest of Our Lives. If you read that book and you appreciated that male protagonist, then I think you will like Man Overboard because The Rest Of Our Lives was a road trip novel where we were with one character, I believe his name was Tom, and we followed him across the country. And while there were some plot points in that book, that book was mostly about Tom. So I think that weirdly is the best comp. I also think the other book I would compare this one to and this would be a slight stretch, but maybe Remarkably Bright Creatures, just because some of the things that Kick encounters. Remember in Castaway how Tom Hanks eventually befriends a volleyball because that's what happens when you're alone on an island. You've got to befriend somebody. Well, Kick also has to communicate. In order to survive, he has to distract himself. He has to communicate. So there are some things that to me are a little bit reminiscent of Remarkably Bright Creatures. So if Remarkable Bright Creature had a book baby with the rest of our lives, I think it would be Man Overboard. And so hopefully that gives you an idea of this one will be for you. I cannot compare it to Lillian Boxfish because I didn't read that book, but I suspect if you like Kathleen Rooney, this one would also be worth checking out. This would make a good one-sit read because of the timeframe and because each chapter is an hour. This would be a good one to take to the beach to read over the course of one day. And I think I would have really liked that reading experience. So that is Man Overboard with an exclamation point, by Kathleen Rooney.
[00:19:44] This month, I also listened to Strangers by Belle Burden. I had no intention of picking this one up. I got a printed ARC of this one and put it in my little free library. The cover I liked, some of our customers at The Bookshelf did not like this cover. I liked the cover; I was drawn to it. But when I read what it was about, I honestly thought, well, I've read this before. Because essentially, this is a divorce memoir. You can't see me, but I'm using air quotes. So I last year read Jen Hatmaker's Awake. Obviously, I've read Elizabeth Gilbert's books. And I think that one of the closest comps to this one is actually Wild Game by Adrien Brodeur. And so I kind of just thought, well, I've read that before. And so, I had no intention of reading this. And then, I believe Libro.fm offered this as an advanced listening copy. And I needed an audio book and memoir typically works really well for me in audio book format, so I started it. She narrates it, the author, Belle Burden narrates. She does, I think, a really great job. She has a very soothing voice. She's a former attorney and I feel like you can always tell. I feel like you can always tell. They actually make really great writers. Anyway, she narrates it. And at first I thought this is going to be interesting because Belle Burden is extremely wealthy. She is essentially, I don't know, almost an American heiress type figure, which I totally did not know when this book kind of started making waves. So I had gotten the ARC, put it in my little free library, didn't really think too much about it. Then when it released in January, it released to a lot of buzz and interviews. And I did not realize how her family is deeply wealthy, like the granddaughter of Babe Paley, like lots of rich American history, New York City kind of history. So I did not know any of that, but certainly I believe those names and that history helped this one get her on kind of the interview circuit. And I did not know this, but you might know this, that she wrote a modern love column, maybe shortly after or late in the pandemic about her experience of her husband leaving her. And so that modern love columns became this memoir.
[00:22:06] By now you have probably heard of this one because, again, I do feel like it made a bit of a splash in January and was kind of everywhere. It was just kind of in the literary zeitgeists anyway. So you may have already heard of this one, but I am here to tell you, I loved it. As I started listening to it, I did think, oh, this is going to be very wealthy, waspy kind of book. And it is. I mean, she makes a lot of references to her home. She has a home in New York. She also has a Home-- oh my gosh I'm going to mess this up because I'm a plebe. And is it Nantucket? Is it Martha's Vineyard? Who could say? I don't know. But one of those places, which as a plebe I love books like this because this is as close as I'm going to get to that lived experience, so I do like to read about it. Her story is heartbreaking, and I think that's what's really important and interesting about this book, is as a reader you might start reading it and maybe even be eye-rolly because you might just think, well, this lady's a millionaire. How could her life be hard? But everybody has something. Everybody has something. Jordan is so good about reminding me about that. And I think this book is really good about reminding readers of people's humanity. So if you are unfamiliar, Belle Burden has been married to her husband for 20-ish years. It is peak pandemic, March 2020. They have retreated from New York City to their home in Nantucket, and he makes dinner that night. Everything is fine. They're with their two girls. Their son is quarantining with some of his friends. They're kind of on the family compound. All things considered, they're doing well. And then she gets a text on her phone that says, I'm so sorry to tell you this, but your husband is having an affair with my wife. And what follows is this extremely destructive act where instead of working on their marriage or even offering a ton of information or communication or trying to clear the air or offer explanation, her husband just leaves and doesn't really seem to need to have a relationship with the kids, doesn't claim to want access to the property they own, although that takes some twists and turns.
[00:24:33] And this is about the fallout of that affair and what happens to not so much their marriage, but what happens to Belle Burden and her sense of self as she navigates a new season in life that she did not ask for. If you liked Awake by Jen Hatmaker, I think you will really like this one. If you liked Wild Game by Adrienne Broderre, I think you will love it. The writing is outstanding. I mean, the writing is really, really good. I loved the audio book experience and I loved this book. I went in thinking I would just maybe like it. But also I kind of went in maybe a little skeptical and by the end, I felt such a deep empathy for her. And did it feel voyeuristic? Maybe, I mean, certainly I Googled some things after I was done reading because I was like, wait a minute, I need more information. But overall I felt like she was pretty respectful of all parties involved and I'm glad she wrote it. Not every modern love column needs to be turned into a full length memoir, you know? But I actually really did love this book. And this is an odd note, but I thought the nature writing was beautiful. She writes a lot about the Osprey and that's why the cover kind of looks the way that it does. And I just think she's an excellent writer. It'll be interesting to see if she does anything after this, because maybe this was the story she was meant to write. But I loved it. If you have not read it yet, I think it's fantastic. Another great book club selection, if you're looking for one, that is Strangers by Belle Burden.
[00:26:04] Okay, next I picked up Warning Signs by Tracy Sierra. If you listened to the podcast episode, I think it was a February new release rundown, typically what happens when we record those is that I wind up writing down at least a book or two from Olivia and Erin that I need to read. So Olivia talked about Warning Signs and I knew immediately that I needed to read it. Tracy Sierra is the author of Nightwatching, which was a beloved book by both me and Olivia. We thought that was this just heart-pounding thriller. It's kind of a home invasion thriller. It is excellent if you have not read it. It's not for the faint of heart, but it's also really fast. It's a really fast read. So even if it bothers you, it'll only bother you for as long as it takes you to read it. Warning Signs is very different, and Olivia did say that. She was like, this is a very different story. Much more in my mind in the same vein as a Tim Johnston kind of story or a-- is her name, Kimmy Cunningham Grant? I think that's her name. That's definitely what this book is. It's more of an adventure nature story. Zach is a 12-year-old boy. His mother really raised him to respect and love nature, particularly out in the West Midwest where Zach learns to ski and hike in kind of these snowy mountain ranges. And Zach is on a trip with his dad, Bram. Bram is a real piece of work, and you know this immediately. Bram's a real work. We're not quite sure why Zach is having to spend the weekend with Bram, but Bram on what I can only picture as like this succession type weekend where these wealthy men who think hiking is just putting on clothes by Patagonia. They're not actually outdoorsy, they just like to wear the clothes. And they're on this kind of outdoorsy man weekend. And Zach is with them and Zach quickly realizes they don't know anything about nature and he really knows the most, thanks to the training he received from his mother.
[00:28:14] So Man Overboard is not at all a survival tale- this is. This is a survival story, but you the reader are trying to figure out who's the real antagonist in this story. Is it mother nature? Is it this wild beast that roams the mountain range, the woods, or is it Bram? Is it a human you have to be worried about? I loved this one. It's slow going, not in a bad way, but it's very atmospheric. You can tell, and I think the author's note or the acknowledgements talk a lot about Tracy Sierra's research that she did. She knows this part of the country, and you can definitely tell. I felt like I was there. I felt I was in a cabin in the snowy woods. I read a New York Times article about avalanches after this book, because I was so intrigued. It's so foreign to me. And I was intrigued. And so you can tell Tracy Sierra did a lot of work. And as a result, the book is a slow burn, but it's never boring, but it is not kind of the heart-wrenching, the heart-pounding book that night watching her first book was. So I'm pretty impressed with Tracy Sierra and her ability to write both ends of the mystery thriller genre. Olivia loved this. I did too. It is Warning Signs by Tracy Sierra. I would say read it now. Read it now because I do think it is a winter book. I would have a hard time reading. I personally would have a hard term reading this one during the summer. So read it now or-- I don't know, are you a skier? Are you listening to this and you're a skier? If so, read this one on your next ski trip. That's not something I do, but perhaps you do. In which case, this would be a fun book to read at the ski lodge if you want.
[00:29:56] I referenced this one earlier, but I was able to snag an advanced reader copy of American Fantasy. This is by Emma Straub. I love Emma Straub. I love her books. I love Modern Lovers. I am trying to think about my favorite Emma Straubs book. Let me think about that. I think I really love The Vacationers. I also liked This Time Tomorrow, which wound up being really touching because of her relationship with her dad and her dad passed away a couple years ago. I like Emma Straub; she's an auto buy author for me. So this is her latest. It's not out until April 7th, but again, this is what you want me for so I can preview books for you. The premise of this one is so fun. American Fantasy, the name of the book is also the name of the cruise ship that Annie, Keith, and Sarah are on. Annie is middle-aged. I believe in the book, she's like 45. She and her sister were supposed to go on this cruise together, but her sister is home with like a broken leg. And so Annie comes on this Cruise by herself. She's very eye-rolly about it. She doesn't want to be here. And the whole point is that this boy band that she and her brother loved as teens does this like special cruise. It's like a three day, two night cruise, I want to say, where they get to celebrate. It's essentially like if the Backstreet Boys did a cruise or something like that. That's what it felt like. So if you are a child of the 2000s or 90s and you loved New Kids on the Block or Backstreet Boys or NSYNC, I think you will feel a kinship with this. My favorite parts of the book were Annie's perspective. So this book is told through a variety of perspectives. Keith is a member of the boy band. They are now in their late 40s, early 50s. Sarah is more or less the crew's director, and you get her perspective. To me, this is a little bit like Meet the Newmans, where I loved Annie's parts of this book. Loved them. Maybe even Keith's part of the book, and getting kind of the insight into what it would be like to be an aging pop star. Like, did you guys ever see the movie Music and Lyrics with Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant? It was a great movie. And so kind of what happens when you age out of your career, particularly from the male perspective because I think we get that from a female perspective pretty frequently. Like actresses age out so early or the roles for them change so quickly. It's like you're the ingenue and then you're the mom and then you’re the old crone and those are your options.
[00:32:26] But this is interesting to take this man who was a sex symbol and a member of this boy band which even the phrase boy band, what happens when you become a man? Do you stay as a group, do you go out solo on your own? Anyway, I loved Annie and Keith's perspectives. I'm not sure I needed anybody else's. And so much like Meet the Newmans, it felt like there was a lot going on here when really I only needed a couple of things to be going on. I loved the parts of this book and there's some really great writing in this book about fandom and girlhood. And if you if you got to attend a Taylor Swift concert on the Eras tour, if you got to go to the Eras tour, and the feeling that you got there of being surrounded with fans and feeling so safe, it's interesting because I think Emma Straub is writing a lot about that and how on this cruise ship it's mostly women, middle-aged women, kind of reminiscing about their teenagehood. All of that stuff is so rich and interesting. I loved those parts. Something about this book, listen, this would still be an auto-buy for me. Like I would still buy this book. I would recommend this book, but it is not my favorite of Emma Straub. That's what I will say. I had very high hopes for this one and it wound up not being my favorite. Again, great book club book. So many things to unpack. So many themes to work through together as a group. I'd love to have a conversation about this. The plot itself was a little confusing to me. The best parts of this book were about Annie and her trying to make peace with her teenage self and the things this book kind of says about aging and fandom. I loved all of that. The plot, itself, I felt like maybe needed more, but I still really like this one. It'll be a great spring break book. I'm sure that's why it's coming out in April. That is American Fantasy by Emma Straub.
[00:34:34] The other audiobook I listened to this month, and this was my Erin recommendation. So I read Warning Signs by Tracy Sierra. That one was basically hand sold to me when we recorded the podcast. And then Good People by Patmeena Sabit was hand sold me by Erin on that podcast episode. This is a book about the Sharaf family. Erin did such a good job of selling this. I had an ARC of this and I wound up listening to it and I loved the audiobook. I think you could go either way. Because it did take me a few chapters to get my bearings because there are so many narrators, there are many voices in this book. But I wound up loving the audiobook experience. I also think you could like this one in print format as well. But this is about the Sharaf family. They are Afghani immigrants and they're living in Virginia and they have really made a name for themselves, a home for themselves in America. They are perhaps the quintessential American dream. But something has happened and we know something has happened because we are introduced to this book by saying that the investigation is ongoing. I think Erin wound up kind of reading the whole paragraph to us on that podcast episode, but the book starts with this kind of opening page, opening paragraph where it lets us know, it lets the reader know what follows our transcripts and interviews and news articles. But the investigation into the Sharaf family is ongoing. And that's kind of the setup. So you know something has happened that is requiring this almost kind of documentary style format, but you don't know what. And I'm not going to tell you what, because I think that's part of the appeal of this book very much reminds me of a book by Celeste Ng, or I read a book two years ago called Good Country, which was excellent and I do not think got enough buzz.
[00:36:24] Good People definitely could sit on a shelf with those couple of books or with those types of books, with the Celeste Ng's books, because it's about this family in crisis, but you don't know who to believe. And you never get the Sharaf's family perspective. You never get their perspective. You only get the perspective of their friends, their family, their neighbors, the police, the town, the investigators, the journalists. But you never get to hear from the Sharaf family. So you, the reader, are really kind of put in this jury seat where you're not only trying to figure out what happened but why it happened. This is longer, but I should state I was never bored. I was very invested. Once I got into the rhythm of the narration and all the different voices, particularly in audiobook format, I was hooked. This is fantastic, not a mystery per se, but kind of a domestic family. Yeah, not even a domestic suspense, but a family story, a complicated family story that really left me thinking. And, in fact, this is a good note that I need to ask Erin about this book because there were some questions maybe left unanswered or that you, the reader were just supposed to kind of sit with. And I'd be curious what Erin's conclusion was versus what my conclusion was. So really liked this one. Great audio book, but also I think would be good in physical format. That is Good People by Patmeena Sabit.
[00:37:51] And then last but not least this month, I read Dandelion Is Dead by Rosie Storey. I picked this one up again partly because of the cover. I was in Atlanta for a girls' trip and we visited the Virginia Highlands bookstore, which I love. I picked up this one and when I read that one of the characters was about to celebrate her 40th birthday, I was like, oh, I've got to pick this up. And I've since even started or started reading a couple other books where the protagonist is 39 and turning 40. And I just turned 40 in February. And so I kind of picked this one up because I thought, oh, well, this is kind of an homage to like I'll remember that I read this around my 40th birthday. So Dandelion is dead. Her sister is Poppy. And Poppy is clearly grappling with her sister's death. She was very close to her sister. And on what would have been her sister 40th birthday, Poppy has unlocked Dandelion's phone and is kind of going through Dandelions phone and she realizes she has a dating app. And I can't remember now if it's a specific dating app, if it was ever named, but essentially Poppy logs onto the dating app and she sees this message from somebody named Jake. Her sister kind of ghosted him because she died. And so Poppy takes it upon herself to reply to Jake and the two of them agree to go out on a date. Poppy essentially catfishing Jake pretending to be Dandelion. This is a messy book. I would not describe this book as a romance novel. Instead, if you like Dolly Alderton, I think you'll like this book. If you liked The Rachel Incident, I think, you will like these books. So not necessarily a rom-com or romance. Instead, it's about Poppy, who is clearly struggling with grief and trying to navigate a life after her sister and what she is supposed to do. You know, her sister's death also is kind of a wake-up call and Poppy feels a little bit at loose ends. And then Jake also has his own dramas. Jake is not always 100% likable to me, but that wound up being okay. I found both of them really complicated and interesting, messy, messy people making terrible decisions, but you understand why they're making them. You understand why their making them and that it is because they are kind of blinded by their grief. Jake has just gone through a divorce.
[00:40:09] Anyway, I liked this one a lot. I liked it a whole lot, even though the characters weren't always people that I necessarily understood or liked. I wanted to know what was going to happen to them. And yeah, if you liked Good Material by Dolly Alderton, or if you like The Rosie Incident, I think that was the name of that book, then I think you will like Dandelion is Dead by Rosie Storey. This is a book that I believe might already have been out in the UK. It did release earlier this year in the US. And I haven't heard a ton of buzz about it, but I really liked it. I found it to be really enjoyable, great cover, and was fun for me to read as I also turned 40. So that is Dandelion is Dead by Rosie Storey.
[00:40:50] And those are the books that I read in February. As usual, with our Reading Recap episodes, we're offering a reading recap bundle for this month. The February reading recap is $80 and it includes three books. It includes Strangers, that's the memoir by Belle Burden, Good People by Patmeena Sabit, and Dandelion is Dead by Rosie Storey. You can find more details and the February bundle online through the link in our show notes or go to bookshelfthomasville.com and type today's episode number, that's 570, into the search bar. And, of course, if you aren't interested in the bundle, all of the books I talked about on today's episodes will be listed online as well.
[00:41:34] This week, I'm listening to One and Only by Maureen Goo.
Annie Jones: From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website:
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