Followers by Megan Angelo
We meet Orla in 2015 working for a blogging company writing about celebrities and wanting to become a big author someday. Her roommate, Floss, whom she found on Craigslist, wants to become a popular singer someday and is always out partying.
Jump to 2051 and we meet Marlowe who lives in a closed off California town called Constellation, set in a futuristic world with robots. Constellation was launched at the dawn of the new government after an internet catastrophe called “The Spill” happened in 2016. This town is unlike the rest of the world in that some past celebrities live there and are always on camera. Their lives are being filmed for the rest of the world to see, morning, noon, and night. The more followers you have, the more fame you have. We learn later that Marlowe’s parents, Floss and Aston, were two big reality stars before the spill and Floss happens to be Orla’s roommate from 2015. All who live in Constellation take a pill called Hysteryl to regulate their movements and language on screen. This science-fiction setting reminds me of movies like the Truman Show or EdTV where cameras are constantly in your life, and you are always on display.
The turn of events happens when Marlowe’s story script says she is to have a baby with her unloving husband. Since this is a futuristic time, you can decide the sex of your child along with its features and brain quality. When they are in the process of making up Marlowe’s child, a friend looked into her genetic makeup and realized the father Marlowe grew up with is not her biological father. She manages to flee to find the truth about her birth.
Simultaneously we learn about Orla and Floss. They make it big when they are hired to do a reality show with this hit YouTuber Aston. Aston and Floss are in love and Orla is the third wheel roommate. Fame hits them fast and Orla’s life spirals out of control, especially when she reconnects with an old fling from high school.
People magazine says it best, “This dark, pitch-perfect novel about our dependence on technology for validation and human connection is as addictive as social media itself.”
Read-alikes:
The Circle by Dave Eggers
People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd
Touch by Courtney Maum
The Circle by Dave Eggers
People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd
Touch by Courtney Maum
Liana Coletti, West Islip Public Library
A story about an Egyptian family from the 1950s to 1980s and how its history affects today’s children of immigrants.
Halah Ibrahim is 14 when Egypt is on the brink of revolution. Her schooling ends and she is forced to stay at home. When her parents attempt to arrange her marriage to a much older man, Halah rebels, running away to marry Khalil, one of her father’s military acquaintances, whom she barely knows. This act irreparably damages her relationship with her family.
They travel to New York where Khalil will attend medical school. After Halah has a daughter, she tries to make amends with her father. Then, during a visit to Egypt a few years later, she disappears and never returns. Her family is left to discover what became of her and their stories show how they come to understand her influence and their connections to their Egyptian past.
Read-alikes:
The Daughter Who Walked Away by Kimia Eslah
The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Disoriental by Negar Djavadi
Grace O'Connor, Retired
In a perhaps slightly futuristic and dystopian country,15-month-old Harriet is left home alone for two hours, while her mother, Frida, runs out for a coffee. Harriet is fine, but a neighbor called CPS after hearing her screaming and now Frida must go to school to learn how to be a good mother while Harriet lives with her father and his new girlfriend.
Most of the story takes place at the school, where it is nearly impossible for a mother to excel. Mothers are given robot children to care for – robot children who transmit data about their “mommies” to the school administrators and counselors.
At the school, all personal items are surrendered. It is like being in prison, with guards, uniforms, cameras, roommates, and bad food. They cannot leave. No one can visit. Phone call privileges are taken away at random. The mother’s mantras are: “I am a bad mother, but I am learning to be good” and “I am a narcissist. I am a danger to my child.” Frida is a bad mother for “violating the new code of maternal ethics.” She shouldn’t think of herself as a friend, daughter, employee, sister, lover, wife, or anything else. She’s a mother – that’s it.
The story ends when Frida loses all parental rights to Harriet. She can never see her again unless Harriet reaches out when she turns 18 years old.
This is a dry, third-person read. The little people against “the Man.” I felt no sympathy for Frida.
I didn’t feel close to her; didn’t really get how she was feeling. I did, however, know how much she wanted to sleep with one of the “bad fathers” who was at the neighboring school. Voice was very matter-of-fact and robot-like. The pacing was odd, as the narrator would tell us something, then go back in time for just a minute, then come back to the present. I would’ve preferred a more linear pacing.
A scary read because it’s easy to imagine this happening in the near future.
Read-alikes:
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh
The Mother Fault by Kate Mildenhall
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
Lori Ludlow, Babylon Public Library
Seventeen-year-old Lenni lives in the terminal ward of the Glasgow Princess Royal Hospital. In her short time on earth, she learns that it’s not what you make of life that matters, but who you share it with. Dodging doctors’ orders she joins the art class for octogenarians in the new art room of the hospital where she meets 83-year-old Margot. The two bond instantly as they realize they have lived a combined one hundred years. Lenni and Margot set out to paint the stories that represent each year of their lives. They tell stories of love and loss, growing old and staying young, kindness, and finding the person who means everything. Lenni and Margot discover that friendship becomes family.
Despite the tough topic of terminal illness, this novel is full of life. Readers will travel from Glasgow in the 1940s to London in the 1960s to Sweden in the early 2000s. Lenni also spends time in the hospital chapel where she befriends Father Arthur, a kind and thoughtful man. He tries to answer Lenni’s questions with honesty and often finds that he is still searching for the answers himself.
This was a touching novel. The topic is heavy at times, such as the looming end for Lenni and Margot, but readers learn that Lenni and Margot are not just sickly patients, but humans who have lived full lives in their collective one hundred years. Their intergenerational friendship and love for each other is heartwarming. This book would be a great book club pick.
Read-alikes:
The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg
The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons
We Are the Light by Matthew Quick
Nanci Hemle, The Smithtown Library - Commack Building
Faye, Faraway is a story of love, loss, faith and, oh yes, time travel. If the reader is willing to suspend belief for just a little while, this novel will transport them into a world where the unbelievable becomes believable and the notion that, if given the chance, we can change how the events in our lives have unfolded. And who among us would pass up the chance to go back in time to see a long-lost loved one once again.
Faye is 30-something with an idyllic family—a husband who’s training to become a vicar and two beautiful daughters. And Faye wants nothing more than to provide a loving and secure environment for her children. She has first-hand knowledge of the important role a mother plays in a child’s life, because when she was 8 years old her mother died, and that loss has consumed her ever since. So, when Faye’s husband finds an old tattered box that had once contained a toy from her childhood, she strongly objects to the suggestion that it be discarded. Eerily, Faye had recently found an old photograph with that same box in the background, and it flooded her with memories of her childhood, and of her mother. Nostalgically putting the box in the attic for safekeeping, Faye accidentally breaks an overhead lightbulb and to avoid stepping on the shards of glass, she steps into the box. Here is where the fantastical story takes off. The box turns out to be a portal to the past, sending Faye whirling through time back to the year 1977. She’s able to see the neighbors that raised her after her mother’s death, and she even sees her childhood self. But above all, she gets to see her beloved mother again. And when she does, she not only gets to experience all the wonderful things she remembers, but she also learns some things about her mother that she never knew. Deceitfully concealing her true identity, Faye interacts with all of the people from her past, always wondering if she can change the course of her personal history. But the thought that constantly haunts her is if she will be able to return to her own time, home, and family that she left behind. It turns out that she can, but that tragically puts her in a position where she must lie to her husband—something she’s never done before. She cannot fathom that he will ever believe what she has experienced—he might even think she was insane.
The novel follows Faye and the various dilemmas that she faces as she straddles her two worlds. Questions about grief, belief, and betrayal provide much for discussion. And then there’s the classic conversation about the effect that a person can or cannot have on subsequent events by traveling back in time.
The writing style makes for an easy, page-turning read. The narrative is in Faye’s voice, and she engages readers by speaking directly to them from time to time. A rainy day or a day at the beach would be the perfect setting to delve into this engaging debut novel.
Read-alikes:
She Wouldn't Change a Things by Sarah Adlakha
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffennegger
One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle
Three More Months by Sarah Smith
This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
Deborah Formosa, Northport-East Northport Public Library
Twenty-six-year-old Nella Rogers is an editorial assistant at publishing powerhouse Wagner Books in present day New York City. After being the only black associate contending with white privilege and a steady stream of microaggressions for the last two years, she is thrilled when her company hires another black woman, Hazel. However, it becomes apparent that there is something a bit off about Hazel. Is it the way she conducts herself around their white coworkers? Is it how quickly she has become the office favorite?
Then, the notes start to appear on Nella’s desk. “Leave. Wagner. Now.”
Told from different viewpoints, with Nella’s voice being the strongest, I would recommend this sharply written, fast-paced story to adults that are interested in thrillers, dark humor, and social satire.
Read-alikes:
Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour
When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole
Imposter Syndrome by Kathy Wang
Jessicca Newmark, The Smithtown Library - Smithtown Building
After suffering the loss of her father, college student Ann Stilwell escapes from the small town of Walla Walla, Washington to the East Coast to start a summer job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Unexpected circumstances (or is it fate?) replace that chance with another - working at the Cloisters, The Met’s medieval museum, instead.
During her time at the Cloisters, Ann is drawn into the darker underside of academia. Her associates are obsessed with the idea of the mystical, specifically tarot and fortune telling in medieval Italy. Patrick, the director of the Cloisters, and Rachel, a fellow researcher, dive deep into the realm of shady acquisitions and midnight fortune telling in their obsession to find the truth and make their name as art historians. The addition of Ann and the shady gardener Leo create a strange 4-sided love/rival triangle that ends up crashing and burning in a series of disasters that destroys all of them.
While the description of this book leads to high expectations of dark academia and magical shenanigans, the book itself does not stand up to its description. The pace is glacial, and the plot is almost non-existent for the majority of the book. The story is mostly the tortured inner monologue of a recent graduate combined with the selfish machinations of rich Manhattan academic elites. It is somewhat akin to watching a soap opera play out on the decks of the Titanic as it sinks… excruciatingly slowly. The art history and magical sides of the story are lost in the interpersonal drama, and it is hard to understand the significance of the tarot which plays a large part in the plot when you have no previous knowledge of it. It would have been helpful to know before reading that there is a guide to the cards in the back of the book. Any mystery that occurs in the book plays a backseat role to petty drama and backbiting. It also presents a particularly ugly view of the academic world of NYC.
Although this is marketed as an adult book, I feel like it would be good for older YA readers, especially those who are going to college. They might appreciate reading about the experiences of a recent grad and the struggles of adapting to a new life and job across country. I also think it would be good for people who like interpersonal drama, as this book is mostly based on the relationship of the characters.
Read-alikes:
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey
The Oxford Inheritance by Ann A. McDonald
Carolyn Brooks, The Smithtown Library - Commack Building
Three adult sisters at odds with each other and with their elderly mother make a mess of their lives as well as the lives of their daughters in this modern, generational tale that began with an ancient family curse.
Mai Nguyen is the eldest daughter, or so she thought, until a lost sister comes back into the picture and takes the house she thought was rightfully hers. This causes not only a rift between Mai and her mother, but also between her mother and her other two daughters, and between all of the sisters as well. After doing everything her mother wanted, including marrying a man she didn't like, Mai vowed that she would never do the same things to her three daughters. However, life hasn't worked the way she thought and none of her daughters really speak to her or each other either. None of them are happy, their relationships are failing, and the traditional Vietnamese culture that their grandmother and mother still believe in has passed them by as first generation American born children. The same has happened to Mai's two sisters and their daughters as well.
After Mai makes her annual visit to her psychic, she tries to patch up her relationship with her mother and sisters. Unfortunately, her mother dies soon after and it's up to the sisters to put their family back together. In a series of mistakes, mishaps, and meddling, the sisters slowly repair their family, find love, and break the curse that has followed them for generations.
This book is a quick read as it's filled with lots of dialogue that sometimes goes on for pages. The bickering between the sisters and cousins is annoying at times, as is the "chorus" of other people in the community who gossip about Mai and her family throughout the book. The novel is mostly told in the present, but it does delve into the past to explain the curse, how the family migrated to California, goes into each woman's childhood and relationships to each other and their significant others, and eventually how each one heals and tries to fix what's wrong in their lives. There are a lot of characters in the book between friends, family, neighbors, etc., but there's also a family tree at the beginning of the book to help keep the generations straight. Overall this is a good read, but I would only recommend it to someone who enjoys generational sagas and messy family relationships.
Read-alikes:
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Peony in Love by Lisa See
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Azurée Agnello, West Babylon Public Library
The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers is a coming-of-age story about Maddie Sykes, a young girl who through no fault of her own is abandoned by her mentally unstable mother. Because of this, Maddie is sent to live with her favorite Aunt Etta, a popular dress maker in the town of Bright Leaf, North Carolina. The town’s main industry is tobacco.
Maddie soon meets David, and the two immediately hit it off and a romantic relationship ensues. Not too long after Maddie arrives her aunt becomes ill with measles and is admitted to the hospital. Maddie is invited to live with Mitzi, the wife of Mr. Winston, the president of a big tobacco company. Because Maddie was taught to sew by Aunt Etta, she is now charged with finishing all the gowns for the tobacco wives in time for the annual gala while Aunt Etta recovers. At one of the appointments Maddie accidentally picks up a confidential report from the town’s medical doctor, Mr. Hale to Mr. Winston. It states that tobacco use among pregnant women is harmful and can cause miscarriages and low birth weight. Distressed by this news, especially since Mitzi suffered a miscarriage in the past and is now pregnant, Maddie confides in David. The two hatch a plan to confront Dr. Hale, claiming that they overheard some workers talking about the report. All goes well until Maddie slips that she read the report. Dr. Hale threatens Maddie by discontinuing the lifesaving treatment for her Aunt Etta. Maddie is beside herself and finally resorts to telling Mitzi. When Mitzi confronts her husband, she must choose whether to truly go public and destroy her marriage and give up her comfortable lifestyle or remain silent. The decision she makes would impact an entire town and its people that depend on the revenue generated by the tobacco industry.
Ultimately, Mitzi finds a compromise that allows the women of Bright Leaf to become more involved in the tobacco industry while remaining silent about the health risks. Maddie is so upset about Mitzi’s decision to withhold the report that she leaves town. Many years pass and Mitzi requests a meeting with Maddie who is now married to David with a family. Even after all this time, Maddie is committed to lobbying Congress to enact a truth in advertising law that would prevent tobacco companies from lying about the health risks associated with smoking. Mitzi gives Maddie the report and tells her it is now up to her to go forward and reveal what she could not do all those years ago.
Review
I really loved this book. It is one of those fast-paced books that keeps you interested every step of the way. The characters were well developed and likeable. I learned so much about the tobacco industry in its early days. The author was influenced by two grandmothers who dressed and did the makeup of the wealthy tobacco wives during that era. The book also touches on themes such as race and sexual identity. Overall, I would highly recommend to readers who are interested in historical fiction with strong women figures.
Read-alikes:
The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton
The Seamstress of Sardinia by Bianca Pitzorno
The Daughters of Erietown by Connie Schultz
Karen McHugh, Harborfields Public Library
As is the case in most small towns, everybody who lives in Sowell Bay, Washington knows at least a little about everyone else who lives in town. And everybody knows that Tova Sullivan's son, Erik, died when he was 18, but nobody quite knows how or why, except that he was on his boat, and many suspect that he took his own life. Tova never believed that, though, and 30 years later, she has no more answers than she did the day he died.
Marcellus knows a little bit about what happened to Erik, or at least where his body is. But Marcellus is a Giant Pacific Octopus and can't exactly share that information. He is, as the label by his tank reads, a remarkably bright creature, and prone to escaping from his tank. When Tova finds him stuck in a tangle of electrical cords, she helps him back in his tank, and a friendship is formed.
Cameron has never had good luck. His mother abandoned him when he was nine, and although his aunt gave him a loving home, he's never been able to live up to his potential. When a class ring and a photo suggest that wealthy real estate developer Simon Brinks is his father, he heads to Sowell Bay to find out.
Chapters go back and forth among these three characters (and yes, Marcellus is obviously the best narrator). Cameron's arrival in town sets off a chain of events that will connect the three characters and provide some closure for all of them. The way their stories come together will not be a surprise for most readers, but the journey with these characters is so pleasurable that no one will mind the predictable ending. Readers will be rooting for each character to find their own kind of happiness, and will appreciate the way they do.
Read-alikes:
The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery
The Shell Collector by Nancy Naigle
The Dolphin House by Audrey Schulman
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Mara Zonderman, Westhampton Free Library
