Competitive Grieving by Nora Zelevansky

Summary from Goodreads: An Entertainment Weekly Pick of Summer’s Best New Books

Wren’s closest friend, her anchor since childhood, is dead. Stewart Beasley. Gone. She can’t quite believe it and she definitely can’t bring herself to google what causes an aneurysm. Instead of weeping or facing reality, Wren has been dreaming up the perfect funeral plans, memorial buffets, and processional songs for everyone from the corner bodega owner to her parents (none of whom show signs of imminent demise). Stewart was a rising TV star, who–for reasons Wren struggles to understand–often surrounded himself with sycophants, amusing in his life, but intolerable in his death. When his icy mother assigns Wren the task of disseminating his possessions alongside George (Stewart’s maddening, but oddly charming lawyer), she finds herself at the epicenter of a world in which she wants no part, where everyone is competing to own a piece of Stewart’s memory (sometimes literally). Remembering the boy Stewart was and investigating the man he became, Wren finds herself wondering, did she even know this person who she once considered an extension of herself? Can you ever actually know anyone? How well does she really know herself? Through laughter and tears, Nora Zelevansky’s Competitive Grieving shines a light on the universal struggle to grieve amidst the noise, to love with a broken heart, and to truly know someone who is gone forever.

Competitive Grieving has been on my periphery since last May, when Sarah MacLean (a fave) hosted Nora’s launch event on Instagram. I picked it up on my Nook a while back, but the paperback is coming out next month this summer so I decided to pick it up (and read one of my own damn books for once, lol).

I really liked this story about a woman who gets assigned the task of sorting out her suddenly-deceased best friend’s belongings. All the weirdness, and surreal nature of missing someone so suddenly, but also finding out that perhaps there was a side of her friend she never knew. Pieces of Stewart’s life start to emerge through other mourners – a deeply depressed young woman, a fellow less-successful actor, an old acquaintance from high school. Some of these mourners seem to be out-doing themselves in displays of grief, while Wren only feels numb, watching the “vultures” pick over Stewart’s belongings as she creates funeral plans for everyone in her head as a distraction. This book is darkly funny in some places. There’s also Stewart’s lawyer, also assigned to help Wren with her task, and also, maybe, someone she could open up to (and he’s kinda cute). In between each chapter, as Wren negotiates her reactions to Stewart’s death and life, she writes him an email in her head, asking him why he never told her what was going on.

I am going to give a trigger warning for discussion of major depression and suicide. In the book, as Wren investigates the parts of Stewart’s life that he hid from her, it becomes very clear that he fought serious depression and suicidal ideation throughout his life. And it is revealed later that he did die by suicide. It’s not something that is included on the flap copy, and while I had guessed that this would be a major reveal in the book given some foreshadowing by the author, I don’t want it to be a “surprise” plot point if that’s something a reader would wish to avoid.

Competitive Grieving will be out in paperback in May August (it got pushed), but the hardcover and ebook are available now.

Dear FTC: I think I had a digital galley of this via Edelweiss, but I read my copy on my Nook since I apparently bought it during a sale.

Little Pieces of Hope: Happy-Making Things in a Difficult World by Todd Doughty

Summary from Goodreads: “Todd Doughty is one of the happiest people on the planet. He finds things big and small that make us smile, and in this wonderful book he shares them with a world he cherishes.”–John Grisham

“A poetic, sparkling gem you’ll want to pick up every time you need a smile. It’s the ultimate compendium of joy.”–Kevin Kwan

An enchanting collection of lists, musings, prompts, and illustrations that will inspire you to cherish all of the things–from the extraordinary to the everyday, from the big to the little–that bring hope into our lives

On March 11, 2020, the day the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic and all of our lives began to change in unprecedented ways, Todd Doughty knew he needed to do something to help him stay connected to the everyday joys of daily life. So he wrote down a list of things that make him happy: The musical intro to “All Things Considered.” Someone forgiving you. Someone believing in you. Your foot sticking out from under a blanket in order to find the cool spot. Freshly cut yellow tulips. A really good burger. Many, many lists later, Little Pieces of Hope pulls together the best of Doughty’s lists along with never-before-seen entries, essays, musings, prompts, quotes, and playlists that offer solace, connection, and a daily touchstone of joy in a difficult world. A beautiful keepsake full of gorgeous illustrations, Little Pieces of Hope is brimming with the pleasures of life, inspiring readers to look for and celebrate the good things that surround us.

The design of Little Pieces of Hope is doing a disservice to the content. The conversion from Instagram account to book is just page after page of names and objects and so forth in long paragraphs broken up by mix-tapes/playlists (which are pretty good) and short essays. The paragraphs are so long that they become hard to read. It would have been much nicer to have curated the long lists a bit and use some graphic design work to have more interplay between the layout and the text (see: The Comfort Book, which is going for a similar vibe but is much easier to read).

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.

The Lights on Knockbridge Lane by Roan Parrish (Garnet Run #3)

Summary from Goodreads: Can one man’s crowded, messy life fill another man’s empty heart?

Raising a family was always Adam Mills’ dream, although solo parenting and moving back to tiny Garnet Run certainly were not. After a messy breakup, Adam is doing his best to give his young daughter the life she deserves—including accepting help from their new, reclusive neighbor to fulfill her Christmas wish.

Though the little house may not have “the most lights ever,” the Mills home begins to brighten as handsome Wes Mobray spends more time there and slowly sheds his protective layers. But when the eye-catching house ends up in the news, Wes has to make a choice: hide from the darkness of his unusual past or embrace the light of a future—and a family—with Adam.

I’m slowly coming back to category romances so why not start with this Christmas romance about a gay dad and his reclusive neighbor?

Well, The Lights on Knockbridge Lane is adorable as shit, y’all. Adorable. As. Shit. Take one lonely dad with his gregarious, curious-about-everything eight year-old daughter Gus and mix in a reclusive neighbor plus a meet-cute where the kid breaks into the recluse’s house because HE HAS A TARANTULA (and other non-standard pets including a couple of racoons) and set it at Christmas…. Absolutely the cutest. And VERY steamy, more so than expected. Both Adam and Wes have history that make them a bit (ok, more than a bit, in Wes’s case) hesitant to open up to a new relationship. Adam’s ex basically dumped him – and Gus – because he didn’t want to be a dad and Wes has PTSD from the paparazzi (among others) when he was a teen actor. But when Gus’s Christmas wish is to have a house with The Most Lights on It Ever and Adam, who is not handy at all, needs help, Wes slowly begins to open up (and Gus kind of forces the issue by being fascinated with Wes’s work with biochemical-luminescence and clean energy…and his tarantula). Such a sweet and funny and steamy holiday book.

Slight complaint that this is the third book in a series but the first two (Better Than People and Best Laid Plans – sorry, I haven’t read that one, yet) came in trade paperback but this third one is part of the Harlequin Special Editions series and comes in mass market. *side eye*

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. And I’m probably going to buy a copy.

Broken (In the Best Possible Way) by Jenny Lawson

Summary from Goodreads: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jenny Lawson comes her most personal book yet.

As Jenny Lawson’s hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In Broken, she explores her experimental treatment of transcranial magnetic stimulation with brutal honesty. But also with brutal humor. Jenny discusses the frustration of dealing with her insurance company in “An Open Letter to My Insurance Company,” which should be an anthem for anyone who has ever had to call their insurance company to try and get a claim covered. She tackles such timelessly debated questions as “How do dogs know they have penises?” We see how her vacuum cleaner almost set her house on fire, how she was attacked by three bears, business ideas she wants to pitch to Shark Tank, and why she can never go back to the post office. Of course, Jenny’s long-suffering husband Victor―the Ricky to Jenny’s Lucille Ball―is present throughout.

A treat for Jenny Lawson’s already existing fans, and destined to convert new ones, Broken is a beacon of hope and a wellspring of laughter.

A new book by Jenny Lawson is such a treat.

Broken is made up of Classic Funny Jenny chapters (like buying her dog condoms or how she almost went blind during an eclipse because of the rats in her yard or how penises got all over the inside of her car (we are all Victor in that one)) interspersed with beautiful and enraging chapters about her struggle with depression and anxiety (she includes both her open letter to her health insurance and her diary from TMS treatment – which I remember from her social media – and there are few people who can mix both eloquence and deadpan humor so well).

I would have perhaps cut down the Failed Shark Tank Pitches chapter, which loses steam after about the 10th idea, but that’s an extremely minor thing.

I love it so much. Broken is out today!

Dear FTC: I read the shit out of a digital galley from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May

Summary from Goodreads: Wintering is a poignant and comforting meditation on the fallow periods of life, times when we must retreat to care for and repair ourselves. Katherine May thoughtfully shows us how to come through these times with the wisdom of knowing that, like the seasons, our winters and summers are the ebb and flow of life.

Wintering was my other choice for the Book of the Year at work. It is a slow-read, dip in and out type of book – I read sections between subjects in the clinic at my day job. May gives us a memoir about settling into winter/ and cold weather rather than fighting it at a time when she felt lost and unhappy within her life. She was in the middle of a health crisis, she had taken leave from her job, her son was having trouble at school, and so on so concentrating on winter rituals was a way to get her through the cold, dark months. While reading I had wondered a bit at why the author chose to only discuss wintering rituals in Northern hemisphere cultures, and not Southern, and she did address that a bit in her Afterword.

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Everything Is an Emergency: An OCD Story in Words Pictures by Jason Adam Katzenstein

Summary from Goodreads: A New Yorker cartoonist illustrates his lifelong struggle with OCD in cartoon vignettes frank and funny

Jason Adam Katzenstein is just trying to live his life, but he keeps getting sidetracked by his over-active, anxious brain. Mundane events like shaking hands or sharing a drink snowball into absolute catastrophes. Jason has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, a mental illness that compels him to perform rituals in order to protect himself from dangers that don’t really exist. He checks, washes, over-thinks, rinse, repeat. 

He does his best to hide his embarrassing compulsions, and sometimes this even works. He grows up, worries about his first kiss, falls in love with making cartoons, moves to New York City — which is magical and gross, etc. All the while, half his energy goes into living his life, while the other half is devoted to the increasingly ridiculous rituals he’s decided to maintain to keep himself from fully short-circuiting. Then, he fully short-circuits. At his absolute lowest, Jason finally decides to do the things he’s always been told to do to get better: exposure therapy and medication. These are the things that have always freaked him out, and they continue to freak him out. Also, they help him recover. 

Everything is an Emergency is a comic about all the self-destructive stories someone tells himself, over and over, until they start to seem true. In images surreal, witty, and confessional, Jason shows us that OCD can be funny, even when it feels like it’s ruining your life.

Everything is an Emergency is a nice comic collection from a cartoonist who illustrates his own journey with severe OCD and anxiety. It’s not quite a full graphic memoir – Katzenstein is a cartoonist who published in The New Yorker so it’s kind of that style, a comic panel per page with some accompanying text. He communicates his experience both in the downward spiral and back through therapy and treatment really well through his drawings. You could probably give this to a teen or perhaps older middle-grader in need of some support although the audience is aimed more for adults. It could have perhaps been a little longer. Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert (The Brown Sister’s #2)

Summary from Goodreads:

Talia Hibbert returns with another charming romantic comedy about a young woman who agrees to fake date her friend after a video of him “rescuing” her from their office building goes viral…

Danika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relieve all that career-driven tension. But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best and a drain at worst. So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend-with-benefits—someone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom.

When brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it’s an obvious sign: PhD student Dani and ex-rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together. But before she can explain that fact, a video of the heroic rescue goes viral. Now half the internet is shipping #DrRugbae—and Zaf is begging Dani to play along. Turns out, his sports charity for kids could really use the publicity. Lying to help children? Who on earth would refuse?

Dani’s plan is simple: fake a relationship in public, seduce Zaf behind the scenes. The trouble is, grumpy Zaf’s secretly a hopeless romantic—and he’s determined to corrupt Dani’s stone-cold realism. Before long, he’s tackling her fears into the dirt. But the former sports star has issues of his own, and the walls around his heart are as thick as his… um, thighs.

Suddenly, the easy lay Dani dreamed of is more complex than her thesis. Has her wish backfired? Is her focus being tested? Or is the universe just waiting for her to take a hint?

We met Danika Brown a few times in her sister Chloe’s book last year, so I was prepared for a very smart academic. But what we got in Take a Hint, Dani Brown was an amazing kinda friends-to-lovers, maaaaaybe fake relationship story about a witchy, smart, nerdy, AMAZING Black doctoral student (evolution of misogynoir post-chattel slavery), who has impostor syndrome about allowing someone to love her, and Zafir, the romance novel reading, ex-pro rugby player who brings her protein bars and loves her. Dani and Zaf know each other because he’s the security guard at her university building. Over the last several months they’ve started chatting in the mornings – now Dani brings Zaf a coffee when she picks up her green tea and he brings her a protein bar because he knows that sometimes she forgets to eat (nerdy academic, remember?). One day there’s an emergency drill in their building. When Dani doesn’t appear in the crowds during the evacuation, Zaf finds her stuck in the elevator, rescues her, and carries her to “safety.” The students, of course, get the rescue on video which goes viral (#DrRugBae) complete with myriad speculations about their relationship. So Dani and Zaf decide to have a little fake relationship. For a month. What Zaf doesn’t know, is that Dani has asked the goddess Oshun to help her find a new fuck-buddy. Her last casual relationship ended when Josephine wanted to be an actual girlfriend and Dani does not do romantic relationships. They don’t turn out well. What Dani doesn’t know, is that this cinnamon-roll, gentle giant is head-over-heels in love with her. He’s in it to win it. I had great big-ol’ heart-eyes the entire time I was reading. Dani is so awesome. I love her so much. And she’s been absolutely fried by a former romantic partner who just didn’t get her – her obsession with houseplants, how driven she is academically, how hard she works in the library (and loses track of time), how her personal hero is Inez Holly (a Black female theorist), how she just can’t seem to remember birthdays, etc. – and then used it against her. So now Dani has major impostor syndrome when it comes to relationships. In contrast, Zaf, while he’s a goner for Dani since before the book starts, has to learn to fully care for himself. He’s so good at caring for Dani, for his sister-in-law, his mother, his cousin – one of Dani’s students – but he’s doing the bare minimum for himself. He cut himself off from his former pro rugby community in the wake of his father’s and brother’s deaths when his depression became overwhelming. While romancing Dani he has to decide whether to seek help from his former teammates to grow an opportunity for his mental health outreach nonprofit. It flips the script a bit in this romance. So often it’s the hero who has to recognize that he’s the one pushing the heroine-who-loved-him-forever away because “bad at relationships” but in this instance it’s reversed. Dani is the one who has to realize that Zaf has loved her so long and that she is deserving of that love, rather than pushing it away as something she isn’t allowed to have. The mini-grovel at the end is so good. (Not to say this book is low steam – Dani and Zaf are very hawt together. I believe at one point Dani refers to Zaf as a “sex wizard.” *fans self* ) Take a Hint, Dani Brown is out today, June 23! Dear FTC: I read a galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Girl Gone Viral by Alisha Rai (Modern Love #2)

Summary from Goodreads:
In Alisha Rai’s second novel in her Modern Love series, a live-tweet event goes viral for a camera-shy ex-model, shoving her into the spotlight—and into the arms of the bodyguard she’d been pining for.

OMG! Wouldn’t it be adorable if he’s her soulmate???

I don’t see any wedding rings [eyes emoji]

Breaking: #CafeBae and #CuteCafeGirl went to the bathroom AT THE SAME TIME!!!

One minute, Katrina King’s enjoying an innocent conversation with a hot guy at a coffee shop; the next, a stranger has live-tweeted the entire episode with a romantic meet-cute spin and #CafeBae is the new hashtag-du-jour. The problem? Katrina craves a low-profile life, and going viral threatens the peaceful world she’s painstakingly built. Besides, #CafeBae isn’t the man she’s hungry for…

He’s got a [peach emoji] to die for.

With the internet on the hunt for the identity of #CuteCafeGirl, Jas Singh, bodyguard, friend, and possessor of the most beautiful eyebrows Katrina’s ever seen, comes to the rescue and whisks her away to his family’s home. Alone in a remote setting with the object of her affections? It’s a recipe for romance. But after a long dating dry spell, Katrina isn’t sure she can trust her instincts when it comes to love—even if Jas’ every look says he wants to be more than just her bodyguard…

Welcome to The Bodyguard: Extreme Pining Edition.

Seriously, this book needs a Whitney Houston soundtrack.

Girl Gone Viral is a very (very) slow-burn romance with much mutual pining between a woman with severe anxiety/panic disorder (with maybe a little agoraphobia/PTSD) and her bodyguard/head of security (who is ex-military and definitely has PTSD). So much pining. All the pining – and that possibly awkward she’s-been-his-boss-for-years thing. Kat and Jas are two of the nicest, sweetest cinnamon-rolliest people (even though Jas could probably break you in half) who totally deserve each other. What I really liked in this book is that Rai gave them each some personal issues that couldn’t be solved by talking about their feelings and tackling the #cafebae issue. Kat has an awful, awful dad while an incident from Jas’s military past comes back to haunt him. That makes their romance very true-to-life. You don’t get to deal with one issue at a time, you have to juggle it all at once, the good and the bad.

Now, if you’ve read a lot of Rai’s previous books, Girl Gone Viral has a much lower “steam” level by comparison. No sexytimes until about 60% through the book and even those are much less in-depth, shall we say. It fits with Kat and Jas, though. They’re sweet and thoughtful and very private characters. They are not Livy and Nicholas from Hate to Want You, secretly hooking up once a year for ten years and having raw, can’t-get-you-out-of-my-system sex, or even Jackson and Sadia from Wrong to Need You who are also “extreme pining edition” but real dirty-talkers. If you like shagging early and often in your romances, be prepared this one’s going to be mild.

Girl Gone Viral is out today!

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.