The Books I'm Reading Now
I'm reading The Other Valley, Scott Alexander Howard's literary speculative fiction about the implications of traveling back and forth through time; I'm listening to Abby Jimenez's newest story, another of her rom-coms with weighty issues at its core, Just for the Summer; and I'm listening to Sloane Crosley's memoir about the loss of her best friend, Grief Is for People.
What are you reading these days, bookworms?
01 The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard
In Scott Alexander Howard's The Other Valley, teenaged Odile lives in an isolated community that's bordered by two worlds: one in which her same community is living in the past and one in which it's living in the future.
Quiet Odile and her classmates are readying to apply for apprenticeships, and as she considers applying for the powerful Conseil, which makes decisions about who is allowed to anonymously travel between the worlds to observe loved ones from a distance, she accidentally sees and identifies visitors to her own world--and they're the parents of her young love.
Howard's literary speculative fiction explores fate, free will, changing the past and implications for the future, and other fascinating issues.
02 Just for the Summer (Part of Your World #3) by Abby Jimenez
Abby Jimenez is wonderful at crafting a satisfying romance that's anchored in serious issues, and in Just for the Summer, she offers up an irresistible rom-com premise with weighty, messy, real-life-imperfect conflicts galore.
Justin and Emma are strangers, but they both seem to have the same curse: after they break up with someone, the next person that person dates ends up being their soulmate. A Reddit thread and unlikely coincidences bring Justin and Emma into contact, and their initial spark is undeniable.
But Justin's family is going through an incredibly complicated and fraught time, and he's caring for his three younger siblings. Meanwhile Emma's unbalanced, often-absent mother is the reason she ended up in foster care multiple times--and the reason she can't settle down for more than a couple of months at a time.
When Justin's situation keeps getting more stressful and Emma's mother shows up, will the potentially serious feelings between them stand a chance against the push of real-life troubles?
I'm listening to Just for the Summer as an audiobook.
Jimenez is also the author of Part of Your World, Yours Truly, The Friend Zone, and The Happy-Ever-After Playlist.
You might also like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories.
03 Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley
In Sloane Crosley's memoir Grief Is for People, she explores life after the loss of her closest friend.
But a month earlier, her New York City apartment is burgled, and all of her tenuous physical links to her past and family members--mixed though her emotions may be concerning some of them--are suddenly gone.
Crosley links the theft to the gutting death of her beloved friend, and she allows the reader into her mind as she follows a messy, everchanging, zigzagging route toward trying to find answers, toward trying to craft resolutions to open-ended loss, and to trying to somehow move forward.
I'm listening to Grief Is for People as an audiobook.
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