Contemporary Fiction

Book Review: WE FELL APART by E. Lockhart

| Jessica Crawford

We Fell Apart by E. Lockhart is a 320 page novel published in 2025 by Delacorte Press. It may be read as a standalone, but it takes place in the same world as We Were Liars and Family of Liars, and references events from those books.

Genre:

Young Adult, Contemporary Fiction

Synopsis:

The invitation arrives out of the blue.

In it, Matilda discovers a father she’s never met. Kingsley Cello is a visionary, a reclusive artist. And when he asks her to spend the summer at his seaside home, Hidden Beach, Matilda expects to find a part of herself she’s never fully understood.

Instead, she finds Meer, her long-lost, openhearted brother; Brock, a former child star battling demons; and brooding, wild Tatum, who just wants her to leave their crumbling sanctuary.

With Kingsley nowhere to be seen, Matilda must delve into the twisted heart of Hidden Beach to uncover the answers she’s desperately craving. But secrets run thicker than blood, and blood runs like seawater.

And everyone here is lying.

Opening Line:

It was a bad place to fall in love.

My Thoughts:

We Were Liars is one of my all-time favorite books! It’s a powerful, heart-wrenching story told in a unique manner, and it left me in a total book hangover after finishing it. It tells the story of a family with great privilege, but also the responsibility to never admit that anything is less than perfect, even if that means lying.

I will prove myself strong when they think I am sick. I will prove myself brave when they think I am weak.

Family of Liars is a prequel that wasn’t as much of a homerun for me, because although it offered a lot of the same of what we got from its predecessor, it therefore felt sort of unneeded. It was once again well written, but just didn’t really offer anything new. I rated that one 3 stars, as opposed to the 5 glittering stars I showered onto the first book.

They hadn’t come to see how I was feeling. They had come to tell me to stop feeling that way.

Now, We Fell Apart comes in at a solid 4 stars for me–not as mind-blowing to me as We Were Liars, but neither did it come across as gratuitous. I enjoyed accompanying Matilda on her journey to Hidden Beach looking for connection. The themes of Kingsley Cello’s artwork and the inclusion of The Chronicles of Narnia references were hits with me (my own dearly departed sister once named a pet after Puddleglum!) And though some dark family secrets are always bound to be unearthed from the sandy beaches in these stories, I find them so eminently readable. These particular characters won’t leave much of an impression on me, but it was just a pleasure being along for the ride as Matilda learned about this strange pocket world while trying to puzzle out the mystery of her father, all while learning what it means to decide if someone is worth committing yourself to, whether that’s in a familial, platonic, or romantic sense.

And for the record, the print book itself is quite pretty!

A to reiterate: you can easily jump into this book without reading the others, but just know there will be huge spoilers.

Book Review: PORT ANNA by Libby Buck

| Jessica Crawford

Port Anna by Libby Buck is a 352 page standalone debut novel published by Simon & Schuster in 2025.

Genre:

Contemporary Fiction, Women’s Fiction

Opening Line:

A mountain of thick, dark water gathered and rose, a froth of white curling at the peak.

My Thoughts:

What a nice little trip to Maine I just took right in the middle of winter! (To clarify, I read and reviewed this book in the winter, and shared my reviews to my blog and Bookstagram closer to its publication date.)

The author’s love for the New England state is abundantly clear in this book. Readers are transported to the coast, complete with a lighthouse, sailboats, and nineteenth century cottages with ceilings of knotted wood and roofs of silvered shingles.

Our main character Gwen left her hometown of Port Anna over twenty years ago in the wake of a personal tragedy. Now in her forties and suddenly without the job and partner she assumed would be hers forever, she returns with her tail tucked between her legs. In Port Anna Gwen spends time confronting her missteps, as well as reconnecting with old friends and making some new acquaintances (including a potential love interest and a runaway teen hiding out in the forest). She begins to build her life anew.

While mostly a contemporary fiction novel, there are dashes of magical realism sprinkled throughout the story as well, most prominently exhibited by the Misses – ghosts of the lesbian couple who built Gwen’s family cottage who still let their opinions on the matters in their home known by making the walls creak and the doors slam. There is also the legend of the woman lighthouse keeper who would dive into the sea to save drowning sailors, and what ultimately became of her.

Besides being transportative, this was a very healing story about meeting ones past mistakes head on and putting one foot in front of the other until one finds their way in the world once again. Much thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Book Review: THE FAVORITES by Layne Fargo

| Jessica Crawford

The Favorites by Layne Fargo is a 448 page standalone novel published by Random House in 2025.

Genre:

Contemporary Fiction, Retelling

Opening Line:

Today is the tenth anniversary of the worst day of my life.

My Thoughts:

Guys, I think I already read one of my top ten books of 2025.

When I was strong and self-assured, people recoiled from me. They told me I was too competitive, too ambitious, too much. But when I was brought low, bruised and bleeding, a princess in need of rescue instead of a conquering queen, they loved me.

This book is a reimagining of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights with modern competitive ice dancers, and I was absolutely addicted to it! I did enjoy Wuthering Heights, although it boggles my mind that people call it a romance. I consider it a pure revenge story, and for whatever reason, I really seem to dig the revenge stories (that one, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Stars my Destination.) Although The Favorites has revenge, it is definitely more of a love story, albeit one that is a bit toxic at times.

At first I thought the comp of this book to the classic just meant it was inspired by it and had many of the same themes, but it’s more than that. Our characters are Heath Rocha (Heathcliff), Katarina Shaw (Catherine Earnshaw), Lee Shaw (Hindley Earnshaw), Isabella Lin (Isabella Linton), and Garret Lin (Edgar Linton). There are similarities to the story arc, but it is definitely not an exact copy in a new setting.

Kat has long idolized Olympic gold medalist Sheila Lin, and wishes fervently to follow in her footsteps to become a champion ice dancer. Because this is what she wants, Heath learns to be her ice dance partner. The two have been skating together since children, and in love with each other almost as long. The rub is that Kat is the most important thing in the world to Heath, and while Kat loves Heath like crazy, becoming champion is the most important thing to her.

They wind up presented with the amazing opportunity to train with Sheila Lin herself at Lin Academy. There they work alongside Sheila’s twin children, Garrett and Bella. The Lins are wealthy and entitled, and Heath can’t say he loves the way Kat changes when she’s around them and training at such a prestigious facility.

I really liked the best frenemy situation between Kat and Bella. They become friends, but both are incredibly ambitious and have the same goal, so they use one another as motivation to always push to improve and best the other. Even as competitors, the way they understand one another is a strong glue binding them.

“Any bitch can get married, but-“
“It takes a special bitch to be national champion?”
“Exactly.”

Interspersed between some chapters are transcripts from the documentary that commemorates the ten year anniversary of what Kat calls the worst day of her life, while the rest of the book is written in Kat’s POV, first person past tense. This style was great, it added a lot.

Kat and Heath realize the public respond more to their romance story as skate partners than they do to their performances as elite athletes, and decide to play it up for the press. Some in the industry consider them something of a scandal. Through it all, Heath’s number one goal in life is to be enough for the woman he loves, while Kat doesn’t take her eyes off the prize of taking home the Olympic gold. Unsurprisingly, some of the other hopefuls don’t shy away from trying to sabotage rival teams.

The characters in this book just all felt so real to me, multilayered, not 100% good or bad throughout. I loved taking this wild ride with them.

And as a side note, I also really enjoy the playlist the author put together for this book. Usually I avoid those, because although authors say it’s music that inspired them while writing, I can like the book and yet still not share their taste in music. In this case I took a look at the playlist because so many songs are mentioned in the book as the pieces the ice dancers are performing to. And it turns out this extra long playlist has many, many songs I am loving and would never have otherwise found on my own.

All the stars for this book, which had a 41 year old woman who doesn’t dance and hates being the center of attention asking, “Is it too late for me to start training in ice dance?” It did seem a bit overlong, but as I wanted to live in its pages forever, that didn’t bother me. I would love to see this as a movie some day!

People seem to have a strong preference for either the US or UK version of the book cover. How do you feel about them?

Book Review: THE WEDDING PEOPLE by Alison Espach

| Jessica Crawford

The Wedding People by Alison Espach is a 384 page standalone novel published in 2024 by Henry Holt and Co.

Genre:

Contemporary Fiction

Opening Line:

The hotel looks exactly as Phoebe hoped.

My Thoughts:

“I suppose I didn’t realize that’s what it would feel like getting older.”

“…it is all about moving on. Saying goodbye to whoever you thought you were, whoever you thought you would be.”

I LOVED this book that is equal parts cathartic and laugh out loud funny.

Phoebe’s life has imploded over the past several years. One final straw in the midst of a deep clinical depression sends her to The Cornwall (a fancy historic hotel in Newport, Rhode Island she had always hoped to visit one day) in a green silk dress, equipped with no luggage but instead a plan to end her life.

But she decides that’s how some people are (she decides that she likes deciding things now that she is forty and alone, that’s how some people are). Some people don’t ask for what they need. Some people are like religious children that way, mistaking suffering for goodness.

In the meantime, Lila has booked the hotel for her wedding week, and it was supposed to only have guests for the wedding staying. Phoebe’s reservation was a clerical error. The two women meet on the elevator and Lila asks Phoebe what she’s doing there. Unemcumbered by any concerns about what may or may not be socially appropriate, experiencing a sense of freedom by the thought that she will not live past the night, Phoebe tells the truth. She is there to kill herself. Lila, who has spent years and one million dollars planning the perfect wedding, is horrified. This could totally ruin everything!

In her bid to talk Phoebe out of her decision, Lila is more her true self around her new acquaintance, not putting on an act of the perfect bride like she is for everyone else. Phoebe, thinking it won’t matter for long, continues to feel able to speak and act in a brutally honest, direct manner. This itself opens up to her a new way she could choose to be moving forward. Coming across the wedding people like this actually helps her realize that there is another option besides taking her own life, a different way to approach living.

Over the course of a week the two women help each other face hard truths and find a way forward, which was really heartwarming. As someone who has struggled with depression, I loved reading about Phoebe moving through it and coming out on the other side stronger with a little help from authentic human connection. I laughed, I cried! This is a strong contender for my favorite book of the year.

There is a metaphor with a Newport diner that has been demolished by hurricanes and rebuilt several times:

Phoebe imagines that rebuilding after each devastation must be a real chore, especially for a place like Flo’s, which has knickknacks covering every inch of the walls. To rebuild each time with the same level of bursting, idiosyncratic personality–how do you do that?…How do you act like this singular and quirky existence is entirely natural and will never be destroyed again?

All the feels! ❤️❤️❤️

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Book Review: SANDWICH by Catherine Newman

| Jessica Crawford

Sandwich by Catherine Newman is a 240 page standalone novel published in 2024 by Harper.

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Literary Fiction

Opening Line:

Picture this: a shorelined peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean.

Synopsis:

From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It’s one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.

My Thoughts:

Life is a seesaw and I am standing dead center, still and balanced. Living kids on one side, living parents on the other, Nicky here with me at the fulcrum. Don’t move a muscle, I think. But I will of course. You have to.

Holy nostalgia, Batman!

This book is equal parts heart-wrenching and hilarious, and wholly bittersweet.

The main POV character is 54 year old Rocky, who tells us of this year’s annual week-long vacation to Cape Cod with her family, in which she is sandwiched between young adult children and elderly parents. I could relate so much, if not in particulars then in vibes, to the fond recollecting of these trips of the past, when the children were younger and the parents in better health. My own children, my spouse and myself are about a decade behind in age than the family in this book, but we just recently had a similar weeklong beach vacation that has become a tradition, where my parents joined us for part of the time.

This part of the story, the joyful reminiscences of past family quality time as well as enjoying one another’s company in the present, made me want to hug this book (alas, I took it in via audio format). There was also a very funny streak, often provided by either Rocky’s adult children or else her own internal monologue.

Less heartwarming but still appreciated was all the commentary about the bodies of middle-aged women. I myself have not yet had the distinct displeasure of perimenopause, but I sure know it’s coming for me before too much longer, and it seemed to be addressed really well here. Rocky rails against the betrayals of her own body throughout her adult lifespan, and how it never feels like it belongs just to her. Her family often feels the brunt of her hormone-fueled rage, but she is self-aware enough to recognize that some of the problem is hers, not all theirs.

Then there were more difficult aspects of the story: pregnancy termination and loss, mental health struggles. And the troubling knowledge that one’s parents are drawing closer to the inevitable end.

There is plenty of talk about sex in this book; there is no violence (but see the above content warnings regarding pregnancy). The audio narrator was amazing, except only that I absolutely despised the voice she chose to use for Rocky’s daughter Willa – a twenty year old lesbian described as butch, but whose voice sounded like an especially whiny prepubescent child. I greatly enjoyed the character of Willa – her voice, not so much.

This book made me laugh out loud, it made me tear up, and it made me wish I was physically capable of hugging soundwaves, so in all I think that’s worth five stars. Perhaps I’ll also make a note to revisit this one when menopause starts knocking at my door…

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Book Review: SIPSWORTH by Simon Van Booy

| Jessica Crawford

Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy is a 198 page book published by David R. Godine May 7, 2024.

Genre: Contemporary Literary Fiction

Opening Line:

Helen Cartwright was old with her life broken in ways she could not have foreseen.

The Synopsis:

Over the course of two weeks in a small English town, a reclusive widow discovers an unexpected reason to live.

Following the loss of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns to the village of her childhood after living abroad for six decades. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss. She retreats into her home on Westminster Crescent, becoming a creature of routine and “Each day was an impersonation of the one before with only a slight shuffle—as though even for death there is a queue.”

Then, one cold winter night, a chance encounter with a mouse sets Helen on a surprising journey.

Sipsworth is a reminder that there can be second chances. No matter what we have planned for ourselves, sometimes life has plans of its own. With profound compassion, Simon Van Booy illuminates not only a deep friendship forged between two lonely creatures, but the reverberations of goodness that ripple out from that unique bond.

My Thoughts:

Well, if this wasn’t the sweetest thing!

Helen Cartwright was raised in England, moved to Australia, spent sixty years there, many of them as a pediatric cardiologist. She lived an entire happy life there. But after her husband and her son both pass away, she moves back to her hometown in England and waits for her turn to die.

Walking helped, and she tried to go out every day, even when it poured. But life for her was finished…Each day was an impersonation of the one before with only a slight shuffle⁠—as though even for death there is a queue.

But then Helen encounters a mouse.

At first she intends to get it out of her home, then to bring it to a wildlife rescue center…but then she finds purpose and meaning again in caring for this little creature, whom she names Sipsworth.

Helen is certain now that the creature in her sink must surely have been a child’s pet that outlived his use as a companion and was left to die. Except he is downstairs in a pie box. Not dying. And for the first time in many years, against her better judgement, neither is she.

She even tells her new companion that if he passes away before her to keep an eye out for her husband and son:

“I want you to let them know that I’m fine. I wasn’t for a long time, but I am now.”

Not only do her interactions with the mouse bring her joy, he also winds up bringing other people back into her life: the owner of the hardware store where she initially intends to buy mousetraps, the librarian from whom she checks out books on mouse care, and others.

“You know what your gift to the world is, Sipsworth?” Helen asks him. “It’s that you bring out the best in people.”

A heartwarming tale about a renewed lease on life, meaningful connections, and found family, this story made me tear up while simultaneously pasting a wide grin on my face. I think fans of A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman might enjoy this (although I hesitate to make comps because I personally always find them disappointing – like although books share some similarities, what I loved about the other book, such as the tone or voice, is not one of them). A real treasure!

(Side note: I was originally concerned about HOW MUCH TEA the people drink in this book – but the internet tells me that each cup only contains 26 mg of caffeine, so really 15 cups per day should be safe for consumption–which is good, because these characters are probably not far off from that!)

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Book Review: CHLORINE by Jade Song

| Jessica Crawford

A classic trait of girlhood—forever confusing your desires with that of an older man’s.

Jade Song’s debut novel, “Chlorine”, is a bit like if you crossed “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang with “The Art of Starving” by Sam J. Miller.

🌿 + 🩻 = 🧜‍♀️

This is YA contemporary fiction about Ren Yu, who has loved mermaids ever since she was a little girl. She took to the water right away herself and now swims competitively on her school’s cutthroat swim team. As one of the school’s top swimmers, she has a parasitic relationship with her touchy-feely, quick-to-anger coach, Jim. She and her teammates follow very specific dietary protocols that vacillate between pasta parties and restricting to snacking on small portions of protein throughout the day. Her father leaves to return to China, she suffers a concussion that threatens her athletic career, and her family expects her to get into an Ivy League school. 🏊‍♀️🥜🥦🤕📑🙇‍♀️👩‍🎓 No pressure, right?

Amidst all this stress from a human life catering to human sensibilities and values, Ren Yu experiences an epiphany: she’s not actually a human after all, but has always been a mermaid herself. She is not afraid to take matters into her own hands in order to complete the transformation for her to transcend to her true form. 🩸🩸🩸

Star athletes had to be delusional enough to think they could withstand physics and gravity enough to fly up onto the first-place podium and shine with the sheer force of athletic ability; there was nothing more bold than a star, after all, visible with the human naked eye despite its death eons ago.

I found this to be a smart novel about the mental gymnastics that can be induced by the pressures and traumas of human adolescence.

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Book Review: THE HALF MOON by Mary Beth Keane

| Jessica Crawford

But it turned out people didn’t want things to be nice, they wanted them to be familiar.

“The Half Moon” by Mary Beth Keane is contemporary fiction about a married couple in crisis.

Malcolm and Jess are in their forties. They’ve spent years, and a small fortune, on trying to get pregnant. Malcolm owns a bar, The Half Moon, but thanks to some unsound financial decisions and the struggle to compete with the newer bars and microbreweries, things are not going well in that department, either. Dreams are crumbling, mistakes are made, and these two find themselves facing some really tough decisions. 👰‍♀️🤵‍♂️👶🏼🍻📉

He stopped himself from saying it aloud, but they knew each other so well that the air between them became legible, and she could read it anyway.

My minor gripes: 1) I believe Malcolm’s attraction to Jess was explained on three separate occasions (if not more) as because “she was different from other girls”, and 2) the fact that people who assume that everyone thinks New York City is the Best Thing Ever just because they do is a big pet peeve of mine (and the assumption here that no newly single person might actually want to live in the suburbs).

Lastly, I have no idea what half the words in this quote mean: “[he] shaped for per diem work with the sandhogs. He was a little on the old side, but he had a hook…” Shaped for work? Sandhogs? A hook? Huh?

But overall the writing was very good, and the characters felt quite real, as did their experiences. I didn’t necessarily enjoy how the feelings the story engendered were mostly depression and claustrophobia, but there is certainly hope here, as well, and a theme throughout of starting anew and choosing to redirect the story of your life.

The things they didn’t end up doing, the places and people they decided against, all defined them as much as anything else, in the way negative space defines a photo or a song.

TW: Infertility, miscarriage, infidelity

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