Dog Person by Camille Pagán

Dog Person by Camille Pagán
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to Delacorte Press via NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
----------
Harold may be an aging mutt—but Amelia May, the romance novelist who adopted him, taught him a thing or two about the human heart before she died. And she left Harold with a final task: to help her partner, Miguel, find love again.

Trouble is, the grief-ridden recluse rarely goes out, not even to the bookstore he and Amelia owned together. Now it’s in danger of going under, and when a renowned author doesn’t show up for his event, it pushes the store’s already precarious finances into the red. In a final attempt to save the bookstore, Miguel and Harold set out to find the no-show and insist he fulfill his obligation. But instead they’re greeted by Fiona, his sunny yet secretive sister.

Fiona is intent on protecting her brother’s privacy—and to Harold’s horror, she doesn’t like dogs. But her precocious eleven-year-old daughter, who’s also named Amelia, immediately befriends Harold . . . and he can’t help but wonder if his Amelia was right when she said there are no coincidences in life.

Harold is quickly running out of time to accomplish his mission, but if he can just convince his infuriatingly stubborn person to let Fiona in, he’s certain Miguel will find something far more important than a missing author: his own happy ending.
----------
I am someone who has loved many dogs in my life. And I have always been a person who talks to her dogs and is pretty sure that I can "hear" them talking back to me. Therefore, reading Harold's story in his voice was a really fun way to experience this story for me. I immediately fell in love with him and his people when I found myself awake early one morning (thanks to one of those dogs I was talking about) and decided to stay in bed for a bit and read my new book.

On top of our unconventional narrator, another thing to love about this book for me was that it had as one of its central settings a bookstore. I love books about bookstores, and this one was no exception. Miguel's devotion to Amelia's legacy leads him and Harold on an adventure as they attempt to save this legacy from financial ruin.

If you don't want to cry, this might not be the book for you, but if you are looking for an emotional exploration of grief and the healing power of love between a man and his dog, as well as the hope that comes from learning to love again, definitely pick it up. There also is a strong theme of found family throughout, and anyone who has read my reviews before knows that is a sure way to get me hooked. By the end of the day, I had finished the book and had been reminded why I have always been and would always be a Dog Person.

View all my reviews

Love by the Book by Jessica George

Love by the Book by Jessica George
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
----------
Remy is lucky. Her debut novel, based on her three best friends, became an instant bestseller when it was released, and her agent and publisher are clamoring for a follow-up. But just as Remy’s creative inspiration seems to leave her, so too do her friends: one moves to New York, one gets pregnant, and one gets back together with her (awful) boyfriend. After an ill-advised one-night stand complicates matters further, Remy is left deeply alone—and unable to find her next book idea.

Simone is successful. A Kindergarten teacher with a passion for kids, and a well-paying side hustle that affords her all the material comforts she desires, she doesn't have time for a robust social life. All Simone needs is her close-knit family—but after the true nature of her work is revealed, they cut her off, and she realizes for the first time just how isolated she is.

When Simone and Remy bump into each other (literally) in a bookstore, it isn’t exactly soulmates at first sight. Simone is guarded and prickly, Remy is insecure and heartbroken, and each woman is harboring a secret. And yet they might just be the missing piece the other has been searching for—if only they can let each other in.

Can Simone help Remy make one of the most important decisions of her life—and can Remy help Simone recover all that she’s lost? In Jessica George’s heartwarming, funny, and soulful second novel, she explores the restorative nature of female friendship and the life-changing power of platonic love.
----------
I missed out on Jessica George's first novel Maame (but I will certainly be remedying that!), so I was going into this novel blind. However, the description of it - exploring "the restorative nature of female friendship and the life-changing power of platonic love" - spoke so deeply to me because I have not been in a romantic relationship for many years. However, I am not someone who lives without love in her life. Those of us who live outside of romantic relationships sometimes are a forgotten demographic in popular fiction storytelling, so the thought of reading a novel not centered around this was interesting to me.

I immediately loved Remy, both her light parts and her dark parts. George writes her as such a well-rounded character, and we are able to see her for all her positive attributes, but she is never presented as perfect. In fact, throughout, I felt a low level of tension? anxiety? due to some of her actions and what their outcome might be, which is one of the elements of the book that had me grabbing every spare moment I had to read "just one more chapter." Simone, once she is introduced into the main plot and we get know her, is fascinating, in that she is so much more than she seems to be, and witnessing the way she and Remy dance around each other as they settle into their relationship is so real. The last third of the book flew by faster than I wanted it to, as I didn't want to say goodbye to these women who had come to feel like friends. However, I can say that I loved how we left those friends, and I will definitely read whatever comes next from Jessica George.

View all my reviews

The Name Game by Beth O'Leary

The Name Game by Beth O'Leary
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
----------
Charlie couldn’t be happier to take the job of farm-shop manager on the remote, wild Isle of Ormer. She’s grieving, a little lost, and in desperate need of a fresh start.

Jones has come out of a difficult breakup and is looking forward to some peace away from the noise of his city life. Moving to Ormer couldn’t have come at a better time.

But when Charlie Jones and, ahem, Charlie Jones both turn up at Ormer’s one and only farm shop, claiming to have been offered the role of manager, everyone is baffled. How could this have happened? And just who is the real Charlie Jones?
----------
I think it was between The Switch and The Road Trip that I decided that I would be reading every book that Beth O'Leary wrote for the rest of her career and that I hoped that career would be good and long. First of all, her characters are always so enjoyable. Getting to know them through the pages of her books is always a fun time. The banter between her MMC and FMC in all of her novels have always been delightful to read. She does forced proximity so well, but it is always with a little bit of a surprising take, not in a repetitive or predictable way that makes it seem to be too trope-y. And the portions of this book that are made up of an epistolary format are woven seamlessly into the other more narrative timelines that eventually come together to bring us a twisty surprise (I did not know quite how she was going to pull everything together at the end, but I loved where we ended up!). There are some serious topics that are tackled in this one, including grief and early stages of recovery from alcoholism, and they are handled with sensitivity. I think the fact that I started and finished in one day speaks for itself!

View all my reviews