Six Great Bossy Contemporary Fiction Reads
I loved a range of great books last year, and these were six of my favorite contemporary fiction reads.
If you've read any of these books, I'd love to hear what you think! What are some of your favorite contemporary fiction reads?
01 Sandwich by Catherine Newman
Sandwich is beautifully wrought story of complications and familial adoration from Catherine Newman, with the unapologetically contradictory and menopausal Rocky at the heart of the messy, wonderful extended family.
Rocky's family has been vacationing in Cape Cod for twenty years. She's built years of happy memories in their low-key beach house rental.
This year, she's sandwiched between her half-grown children and her aging parents. And the carefree vacations of the past feel light years away, because Rocky's menopausal rage threatens to undo any joy she might gain from spending time in her favorite place.
To save their treasured family time together, Rocky may have to share secrets she never intended to reveal.
Sandwich made me laugh, twisted my heart, and kept me interested throughout. I just adored all of the heart and humor in Sandwich.
Catherine Newman is also the author of other books I love: We All Want Impossible Things, Waiting for Birdy, and How to Be a Person: 65 Hugely Useful, Super-Important Skills to Learn Before You're Grown Up.
For my full review of this book, please see Sandwich.
02 Burn by Peter Heller
I love Peter Heller's books, and Burn offers a wonderfully complicated friendship, meaningful connections to nature, momentous secrets, and looming danger. But the lack of resolution at the end of the novel left me feeling unsatisfied.
Jess and Storey are childhood friends who spend their summer adventures exploring striking, remote areas of the U.S.
This summer they head to Maine to camp, fish, and hike. Maine, like other states across the country, has been swept by a secession movement, but Jess and Storey assume the conflicts and political upheaval won't touch them out in the wild, and they figure that the charged friction might even die down while they're in the woods.
After weeks in the wild, they're shocked to come upon a town that's been blown apart. The bridge has burned, cars along the road are black and smoking, and shells of buildings teeter.
The friends soon realize that conflicting political ideologies have led to this horror here and elsewhere in the country--and that they must use their wilderness expertise and dodge armed men (militia or U.S. military; they're unsure) in order to make it out to safety.
Jess and Storey's situation becomes more and more complicated as they encounter survivors--some with deadly intentions, some needing life-saving help. And all the while, Jess and Storey are considering the worth of their own lives--and keeping enormous secrets from each other.
I love Peter Heller's books--the connection to the wilderness, the layered friends-like-family relationships, the looming danger. I'll read anything Heller puts down on paper. But the lack of resolution involved in Burn's (non-)ending here made me crazy with frustration. I felt like the fascinating build-up in so many areas of the story warranted much more at the novel's close.
Heller is also the author of The Last Ranger, The Guide, The River, and The Painter, as well as the stellar novel The Dog Stars.
For my full review of Burn, please check out this link.
03 Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
Thorpe's irresistible character of 19-year-old Margo discovers her strength, drive, creativity, and vulnerability after becoming pregnant. She defies societal expectations to provide for her baby and to find fulfillment in her personal and professional life.
Margo is a 19-year-old community college student having an affair with her married professor. When she finds that she's pregnant, she begins a winding path to figuring out her life that mainly entails defying most of the stereotypes of a young single mother.
She is told she will receive zero support from the baby's father; she loses two roommates due to the baby's crying; she receives little practical help from her mother; and she loses her job.
Yet she finds a true friend in her last remaining roommate, who until then seemed primarily a source of rent; she finds a strange and fulfilling new relationship with her estranged father, a former professional wrestler; and she dives into an unorthodox new profession in order to secure a financial future for her family.
Thorpe offers lots of joy and offbeat fun, yet doesn't shy away from weighty conflicts between classes, genders, ages, education levels, and levels of wealth or poverty. Margo butts up against--and at times, dismantles--frustrating societal expectations and double standards related to sex, desire, body autonomy, and freedom.
The story and its characters feel unexpected and fascinating; Margo's Got Money Troubles is an edgy contemporary novel with a wonderfully oddball premise and a captivating amount of depth.
For my full review, check out Margo's Got Money Troubles.
04 Family Family by Laurie Frankel
Frankel's story of a nontraditional, loving, zany family flips traditional views of unplanned, young pregnancy through the view of a main protagonist who refuses to fear, feel shame, or to regret the sometimes complicated occurrences in her life.
India Allwood is a successful actor who's supposed to be doing the publicity for her new movie, which exploits the heartbreak of giving a baby up for adoption.
When she shares her frank thoughts about the complex issues surrounding unplanned pregnancy, a storm of publicity explodes around her. Her precocious ten-year-old kids secretly reach out to family for help--but even India doesn't realize the ripple effect of the contact her beloved children are making.
Family Family offers varied love and acceptance, discovery, and renewed connection. I also loved the peek at a celebrity's home life.
You can see the rough sketches of where the novel is going, but the extended, loving, odd, sometimes zany family was unexpected in its makeup and irresistible in its existence within this charming story from Frankel.
Click here for my full review of Family Family.
05 The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Espach layers complex emotional challenges like suicidal thoughts, grief, and loneliness with funny, quirky, poignant moments in this charming, heartwarming novel.
Phoebe arrives at the decadent Cornwall Inn in Newport, Rhode Island, wearing a green dress and heels, and she's quickly mistaken for one of the "wedding people." But Phoebe is having a crisis, and she's latched onto being at the site of her former dream vacation--which she'd envisioned visiting with her now-ex-husband--as the answer to her problems.
Lila has planned her million-dollar wedding down to the last detail, and Phoebe's depression and her very presence are throwing her for a loop--only the wedding people were meant to have rooms at the inn, and Lila isn't used to having her plans go awry.
Phoebe and Lila are unlikely confidantes and even more unlikely friends. But as the wedding week goes on, each woman is surprised by what she discovers about herself and the truths she is forced to confront.
I loved the tone of this novel. Espach writes a playful, poignant, often funny novel while anchoring the characters in complex emotions: suicidal thoughts, grief, loneliness, and despair. I was struck by the balance of depth and humor, and I was hooked throughout.
For my full review of this book, please see The Wedding People.
06 Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty
I loved this dive into the repercussions of a seemingly psychic woman's predictions of demise for her fellow passengers on a flight. Characters scoff, become resigned, or work to control their futures as they face issues surrounding their mortality.
An elderly woman is causing a major disruption on an airline flight. She's going through the plane as if in a trance, announcing expected ages of and causes of death for each person aboard.
From the overworked dad trying to make it home in time for his daughter's musical, to the mother of two young, crying children, to a spry older couple, to Allegra herself, the Death Lady (as she is later called) announces a prediction of each person's age of and cause of demise.
Here One Moment traces what begins to happen as the first of the Death Lady's predictions seem to come true and each passenger considers the prospect of their own immortality--and for some, what seems to be their imminent death.
Here One Moment tracks many characters' subsequent dilemmas and decision-making, in a few cases delving back into their past to set a stage for current-day events--and building a rich story of the life of the Death Lady herself.
I love a book that considers life and death and inspires me to do the same, and Moriarty shapes each character's path forward in varied ways. They are thoughtful, dismissive, daring, resigned, afraid, negligent, or determined; they defy their prediction, or try to control their fate, or recognize how they most want to live out their days and make new choices.
I listened to Here One Moment as an audiobook.
Please click here for my full review of Here One Moment.
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