We are getting close to the end of the year. I’m personally not ready for 2024, but as I was thinking of what to title these reviews, I realized these might be it for me for 2023! Keep reading this post to see mini reviews of Seven Days in June, Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead, and An Unreliable Magic. It’s an eclectic wrap up post!
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Seven Days in June by Tia Williams
Seven days to fall in love, fifteen years to forget, and seven days to get it all back again…Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award‑winning novelist, who, to everyone’s surprise, shows up in New York.When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their buried traumas, but the eyebrows of the Black literati.
What no one knows is that 15 years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. While they may be pretending not to know each other, they can’t deny their chemistry – or the fact that they’ve been secretly writing to each other in their books through the years.
Over the next seven days, amidst a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect – but Eva’s wary of the man who broke her heart, and wants him out of the city so her life can return to normal. Before Shane disappears though, she needs a few questions answered…With its keen observations of creative life in America today, as well as the joys and complications of being a mother and a daughter, Seven Days in June
Review
Seven Days in June felt whip smart, sexy, and vulnerable all at once. From the beginning I loved the chronic illness representation of Eva and how it permeates into her feelings of herself as a mother and as a partner. We love a writer character and Seven Days in June features two in this dual perspective story which is focused on Eva and Shane. On their journeys as characters and people. The ways both of them have to make sense of their past, explore the ghosts haunting them, and navigate this re-emergent relationship.
It talks about generational trauma and healing with grace. About the ways in which our families leave marks on our consciousness. Seven Days in June is committed to exploring the histories and stories we make up. The careful constructed fronts we show off to the world and the raw hidden truths we hide. It manages to be multi-faceted about second chances, but also about individuals and being the person we want to be. About not letting secrets control us. Mela Lee does a phenomenal job with the narration, with crafting these two characters and the ways they hold these fronts up to the world.
Find Seven Days in June on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, and Libro.fm.
Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily R. Austin
Gilda, a twenty-something, atheist, animal-loving lesbian, cannot stop ruminating about death. Desperate for relief from her panicky mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church, and finds herself being greeted by Father Jeff, who assumes she’s there for a job interview. Too embarrassed to correct him, Gilda is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace.
In between trying to memorize the lines to Catholic mass, hiding the fact that she has a new girlfriend, and erecting a dirty dish tower in her crumbling apartment, Gilda strikes up an email correspondence with Grace’s old friend. She can’t bear to ignore the kindly old woman who has been trying to reach her friend through the church inbox, but she also can’t bring herself to break the bad news. Desperate, she begins impersonating Grace via email. But when the police discover suspicious circumstances surrounding Grace’s death, Gilda may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence.
Review
A bookstagram friend, Hannah, recommended this to me and you know when a friend recommends something you have to read it. I immediately put it on hold at the library and I’m so glad I did. I’m not sure I would have stuck with it without Emily Tremaine’s narration. Emily brings a vulnerability, a depth of emotion, that brings Gilda to life. It turned a narrator who I enjoyed, but wasn’t sure how to bridge the distance, into an experience and an echo.
Some pieces of it felt a bit disjointed until it finally kicked in later. Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is about the death within our daily lives. The inherited dread at the end, the perpetual loose ends. It’s about everything we leave behind and how this fear, this eventuality, impacts our now. In many ways, I connected with Gilda and her feelings, the ways she tries so hard to not inconvenience, and her pretending. There were some elements that made it hard to read like the homophobia of the church Gilda works at. But overall I enjoyed the ways it feels like a rumination on mental health and making sense of our life. The current moments, the things that scare us, but infuse our life with meaning.
This wasn’t one that swept me away, but it has a quiet thrumming. I’d recommend the audiobook because of Tremaine’s narrative pull. For me it was crucial to have the humanity and fears shine through. Find Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, Libro.fm, and Google Play.
An Unreliable Magic by Rin Chupeco
Tala, Alex, and the rest of their friends are safe for now, but know the Snow Queen is still out there. They have to be prepared for when she eventually attacks—and all decide to do so in their own way.
When Ryker comes out of the woodwork, showing himself when he starts attacking American detention facilities and freeing refugees. And the Nameless Sword, a legendary weapon that according to Avalon legend, will make its wielder the most powerful warrior of their time turns up with her name on it, Tala’s life gets messier…But when the Snow Queen arrives with an unlikely ally, the group will have to work together.
Review
An Unreliable Magic picks back up where it left off. It asks questions about how do we make a change, what is the right course of action. We can think we’re doing the right thing, but it’s impossible to figure out sometimes. When we have to pick between our friends and protecting them, between the search for the truth and forgiveness.
Yet again I am so in love with the world Chupeco has created in An Unreliable Magic. And Cassie Simone, the narrator, does a phenomenal job at infusing this world with authenticity, emotions, and humor. There’s this great balance of humor, seriousness, and emotion all at once. Simone does some great emotion and reactions in An Unreliable Magic. This sequel focuses on forgiveness, on the things people we love do that don’t make sense to us. It’s about second chances, mistakes haunting us, and quests for revenge.
Find An Unreliable Magic on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, Libro.fm, and Google Play.