Book Reviews – A Spoonful of Honi

No Exit | A Book Review

Kimberly — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 13:00:27 +0000

Trigger Warnings: descriptions of extreme violence, torture, insinuations of rape, sex trafficking, and pedophilia, animal cruelty It’s a cold, snowy night when Darby is making the trip she never imagined herself taking — she’s driving home to tell her mother she loves her. Darby and her mother have never gotten along, but now, her mother’s been diagnosed with cancer, and Darby has to make amends for all the horrible things she said to her mother on Thanksgiving. So, that’s why Darby is driving through the worst blizzard she’s seen in her life. That’s why Darby is forced to pull over and wait out the storm at a highway rest stop with four strangers. And that’s where Darby’s life changes for ever, because that’s when she spots a little girl being kept in a cage in the back of one of her fellow traveler’s. vans. This is no longer just a long night Darby must survive, but a life-or-death situation where she must figure out who, if anyone, she can trust to save this little girl from certain death. Despite Adams’ writing style being honest and direct, No Exit was a wild ride from beginning to end. If you’re a regular connoisseur of thrillers, you’ll pick up on a few hints dropped throughout the book guiding readers on the path, but it still makes you want to turn the page over and over again to see how the story unfolds. Adams’ greatest strength is his ability to write a completely dislikable character with relatively little backstory and make you root for her from page one because all she wants to do is this right thing. Darby is a bit of a brat when we meet her. She’s driving home out of obligation, but all she wants to do is say sorry to her mother for the horrible things she put her through as a child. And now, Darby’s been thrust into a situation with an abducted child that she could have chosen to ignore but is determined to remedy. Readers are shown, not told, how tenacious, determined, brave, and caring Darby can be through her actions. Most thrillers slowly build up their characters from little dropped anecdotes here and there, but Adams has a special way of revealing his characters backstories. His writing will make your skin crawl as he depicts his villain. He does it with just enough humanity that you understand why things have ended up this way, but it still makes you sick to your stomach. This book is not without faults. There’s a bit of a structural deviation at the very end of the book that was a bit cheesy — email formatting to reveal an ending — but all in all, this was a page-turner that kept my attention and left me speechless when I hit the final word on the page. No Exit is a thriller like never before. Trust is just a game, and the unexpected is bound to happen. Happy reading, Kimberly

The post No Exit | A Book Review appeared first on A Spoonful of Honi.

Malibu Rising | A Book Review

Kimberly — Mon, 14 Jun 2021 13:00:19 +0000

Taylor Jenkins Reid’s latest published work on shelves now, and you’d be a fool not to pick it up. If you’ve been here for a while, you know how much I loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & the Six, and Malibu Rising is another Reid hit to add to the shelves. The Riva family is kind of famous. Not only are a few of them pro-surfers and models, but they throw the wildest beach party every summer that anyone who is anyone always makes sure to attend. This year though, things are different. This year, by 8 a.m., everything is up in flames. Reid tells the timeless story of what it means to be family — chosen and otherwise. She alternates between two timelines, the 80s with the current Riva family and everything that happened before now to get the family to where they are today. From their parents tragic love story to how the infamous beach party got started in the first place, Reid tells the story of the Riva family from the very beginning. After reading a few of Reid’s books, I’ve noticed a few common threads: multiple perspectives, framework stories, and family. At the root of ever Taylor Jenkin’s Reid work is family — and she does it so well. She talks about broken homes, forgiveness, and chosen family in one of the most honest ways I’ve ever encountered in a piece of written fiction. Reid is also brutally honest that sometimes, some mistakes are too big to forgive. I’m also a sucker for multiple POVs, and Reid always does it in a unique fashion. SHOEH utilized a frame story where a reporter was listening to Evelyn share her story, DJ&S was a verbal history, and Malibu Rising utilized the present-day Riva gang as the focal point to jump back and forth in time to fill in the missing pieces of the story. With her unique writing style, common tropes, and unique time fixations (all of her pieces are “period” pieces focusing on different decades), Reid’s work is sure to be in the lexicon for years to come. Her messages are timeless, her characters are flawed but deeply lovable, and her writing regularly brings her readers to tears. Malibu Rising is another book to add to your shelf the moment you see it in stores. No matter your background, Reid’s writing is relatable and impactful to its readers.

The post Malibu Rising | A Book Review appeared first on A Spoonful of Honi.

Book Review: Big Magic

Kimberly — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 17:00:39 +0000

Courage. Enchantment. Permission. Persistence. Trust. Divinity. The six components of creativity according to Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic. Big Magic is one of those books you read, and it changes or affirms your perspective on everything. Gilbert has a unique approach to creativity and inspiration that I think most people can benefit from reading. Rather than viewing creativity as this painful, elusive entity, Gilbert thinks of it as a gift that flits in and out of your life only if you let it. I’ve always struggled with calling myself a creative person, and the way Gilbert approaches the topic makes it possible for anyone to live creatively as long as they give themselves permission and trust to live that life. I love that message. I think it’s so important to approach creativity with a growth and abundance mindset — I am allowed to fluctuate in my creativity as long as I never let it go, and there is enough creativity out there for me. One of the most important concepts Gilbert explores is the concept of living in a state of constant curiosity and following those questions rather than being held back by fear. Gilbert tells a story about how one of her works came about because she decided to start a garden and she was sucked into the research of indigenous plants and the best plants for certain types of soil and such. She let this natural curiosity lead her down a rabbit hole that turned into a book. She wasn’t planning to write a book about botany, it kind of just happened because she let her curiosity be her guide. Let curiosity be your guide. One final concept I want to touch on, though there are so many, is the concept of permission that Gilbert delves into. Gilbert affirms that if you are pursuing a life of creativity, you have to give yourself permission to live that life. You can’t compare yourself to this person or that person and live a fulfilling, creative life. You’ll always be stuck in the comparison trap. Instead, you must give yourself permission to take up space and create in your own special way. “Well, yes, it probably has already been done. Most things have already been done – but they haven’t been one by you.” To fully embrace a creative life, Gilbert argues you must have the courage to pursue it, the wistfulness to let it enchant you, the willingness to give yourself to permission to follow it, the persistence to keep at it, the trust that it will always come back, and the belief that creativity is divine. If you have all that, you can live as creative a life as you want. If you’re a creative or want to be a creative, there is no better book to pick up than Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic. It will remind you why you started and encourage you to keep going. If you’re like me, you can add it to your TBR list every year on January 1 to kick-off the new year strong. Happy reading, Kimberly

The post Book Review: Big Magic appeared first on A Spoonful of Honi.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle: A Book Review

Kimberly — Mon, 17 Aug 2020 13:00:39 +0000

Warning: There may be spoilers in this review. Evelyn Hardcastle is going to die. She is going to die again and again until Aiden Bishop can figure out who her killer is. Only when he figures out who is behind her untimely death will he be freed from the loop of reliving the day of The Masquerade Ball hosted at Blackheath. Aiden wakes up every day in a different person’s body. Each person is supposed to bring him more clues to piece together who is behind Evelyn’s death. But, Aiden is sidetracked when the only person he can remember before his time at Blackheath is Anna. Who is Anna, and what does she mean to him? The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is unlike any other book I’ve ever read. It’s a thriller that leaves readers trying to piece it together until the very end. Turton has a unique ability to weave together various storylines and timelines without missing a beat. Since Aiden inhabits different hosts each day, he is able to communicate with himself to solve the murder — just himself in a different body at a different point in time. It’s all rather confusing up until the very end. It takes a true genius to think this up and be able to keep up with it. “One by one I knit these new memories together until I’ve got five minutes of past to wrap myself in.” There are a few key characters in the book — one of them is Anna. Aiden wakes up thinking Anna has been killed only to discover that she may in fact be an adversary in his attempt to leave Blackheath and solve Evelyn’s murder. Another is the so-called “Plague Doctor” that seems to be around every corner thwarting Aiden’s efforts to solve this murder. A key theme of the book is trust — who can Aiden trust if he can’t even trust himself and his memories? “Too little information and you’re blind, too much and you’re blinded.” [I hate to include this spoiler, but I can’t talk about the book without mentioning one of the twists at the end.] Aiden finds out on his sixth or seventh day that Blackheath is in fact a prison meant for only the darkest of criminals. Aiden is not one of those criminals, he came to Blackheath to seek revenge, but he is still subjected to the same fate as the prisoners — solve the crime, and you will be free. Evelyn’s death is very real, but no one had ever been able to solve it, which is why it was the perfect prison for the world’s evilest souls. I find the mere concept of a prison like Blackheath fascinating. Is that where we may be headed as a society? A prison of the mind rather than of the body? A prison where the captures are truly worthy of a psychological trap? Who am I to know, but I think it’s worth discussing on many fronts; is this a type of psychological torture, does anyone deserve this, is this what the future could look like? “The Plague Doctor claimed Blackheath was meant to rehabilitate us, but bars can’t build better men and misery can only break what goodness remains. This place pinches out the hope in people, and without that hope, what use is love or compassion or kindness?” My only true critique of this piece is that it felt like it wrapped up too quickly. Readers reach the twist and Turton finishes the book in fewer than 30 pages — and the twist is big enough that you should need more than 30 pages to wrap everything up satisfactorily. It felt like Turton created this intricate world and story and got bored with it by the end so he just finished it. I would have liked some more exploration in the end about everything Aiden learned over the last 300+ pages. Despite the quick ending, The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a work of intricate art challenging characters and readers-alike to keep up with Turton’s fast-paced, topsy-turvy thoughts. It’s a work like none other, and if you’re looking for a thriller with a twist, this is the book for you. Happy reading, Kimberly

The post The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle: A Book Review appeared first on A Spoonful of Honi.

Tell Me Lies: A Review

Kimberly — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 13:00:28 +0000

WARNING: There may be spoilers in this review. We all have that one person we know doesn’t treat us right, but we can’t help being in love with them. For Lucy, that person is Stephen. Stephen is mediocre at best, but Lucy can’t help going back to him time and time again. Tell Me Lies starts out in present-day New York with Lucy working a so-so job heading off to her best friend’s wedding. Lucy is a jumble of nerves because she knows her ex-boyfriend, Stephen, is going to be there. The rest of the book is mainly told in flashbacks to the pair’s college days reliving their tumultuous relationship. This book made me so angry. In full honesty, it made me angry because it reminded me so much of my own college relationship. I got mad when Lucy believed every lie Stephen told her. I got mad when she hung every hope she had on Stephen thinking she was beautiful. I got mad when she turned down her dream study abroad program to go to his stupid graduation party. I got mad every single time she gave him the power to break her because no one, especially not a shitty, kind-of boyfriend like Stephen, should have that power. Tell Me Lies is such a powerful book because it gives readers the permission they need to forgive themselves for their past mistakes. It reminds anyone that holds the book in their hands that their past does not define them, only their future. We all make mistakes, but we are all able to come back from those mistakes for the better. We can be better friends, students, sons/daughters, and partners. In addition to her toxic relationship, Lucy also deals with a pretty intense eating disorder throughout the book. It’s particularly hard to read about because her friends and family try to help, they really do, but Lovering shows readers that you can only lead the horse to water, you can’t force it to drink. Lucy struggles with her eating disorder after being told: “to watch out for the freshman-fifteen.” She cuts out almost every food group aside from lettuce, alcohol, and cocaine, which leads to years of hunger-pangs and carrying sweaters everywhere — even in 90-degree weather. Lovering doesn’t glorify this disorder, but she also doesn’t shame Lucy for experiencing it. In my opinion, she does a good job of vilifying the disease and portraying Lucy as a beautiful girl, inside and out, who got a little lost as she figured out who she was going to be in this world. Tell Me Lies kind of broke me. It reminded me of a time when I wasn’t as confident as I am now. It reminded me of a time when I relied on the validation of someone who should never have held that power. While it reminded me of some of the hardest times in my life, it also reminded me of how far I’ve come. How much I love myself just as I am now, and how I surround myself with people that lift me up rather than tear me down — just like Lucy. When she runs into Stephen at the wedding, she doesn’t break. She doesn’t know who is more surprised by this — Stephen or herself. She sees him, with none other than his recent fiancé, and she’s fine. She’s really fine. And I truly think that’s all anyone can hope for when they are forced to interact with the ex that absolutely destroyed them. Tell Me Lies is not an easy read by any means. If you’ve ever experienced a toxic relationship similar to Lucy and Stephen’s, your heart is going to be gutted. But, hopefully, it also brings you solace to the fact that you are not alone in making those choices. We read books for a variety of reasons, one of those being to feel less alone in this crazy world we live in, and Lovering accomplishes just that with her novel Tell Me Lies. Trigger Warning: Eating disorders, cheating, drug usage, and toxic relationships.

The post Tell Me Lies: A Review appeared first on A Spoonful of Honi.

The Girl He Used to Know: A Book Review

Kimberly — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 13:00:36 +0000

Imagine grocery shopping after work; looking for the perfect microwaveable meal so you get enough nutrition but don’t have to work too hard. Now picture running into your ex. Not just any ex, but the ex you haven’t seen since you tragically broke up ten years ago after a traumatic life event left you both feeling lost and confused. The ex you always wanted to rekindle things with but never knew how. That’s what happens to Annika in The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves. Annika and Jonathan meet at chess club during their senior year of college. Annika doesn’t make friends easily and is surprised when, after being paired with Jonathan for a match, he wants to keep playing with her. She isn’t used to change — she’s had the same roommate all four years of school, eats the same meals every day, walks the same paths, and sticks to the same routines — but when Jonathan enters her life, Annika’s life starts to expand in previously unexpected ways. Graves alternates between the present-day rekindling of Annika and Jonathan’s relationship and the early days in college. She builds up to the traumatic event that led to their eventual demise, but leaves readers who are paying any kind of attention to the date (hint, hint, I was not paying attention), heartbroken with a final twist near the end. The Girl He Used to Know tackles the difficult subject of what it can be like to have a relationship with someone with autism. Graves describes all of Annika’s behaviors early on without mentioning the disorder. I think by waiting to even mention the word “autism” until very late in the book, Graves forces the reader to understand Annika as a person with a whole host of characteristics that define her rather than simply as a person with autism. She’s capable of taking care of herself, developing relationships, nurturing hobbies, and learning new coping mechanisms. She is not her disorder. When Annika and Jonathan reconnect 10 years after their break-up, he notices immediately how much she has changed since their last encounter, but with a smile, he also notices that she is the same girl he originally fell in love with. He loves each and every thing that makes her Annika, and that isn’t to say he doesn’t get frustrated just like she does with him, but it’s a true depiction of love to accept someone as they are without trying to change them. Graves flawlessly demonstrates how much Annika has grown in the last ten years, not through words but actions. When Annika is faced with a challenge, much like she was presented when she and Jonathan broke up, she rises to the occasion. Hope is coursing through her blood, and she picks herself up off of the metaphorical bathroom floor to fight for what she believes in, even after everyone else has given up. The parallels between the two stages of their relationship are perfectly executed to demonstrate the change that can take place in a person with small steps every day. All in all, Graves’s book is a beautiful story about the love between two people and how timing means everything to the success of a relationship. 5/5 stars Happy reading, Kimberly

The post The Girl He Used to Know: A Book Review appeared first on A Spoonful of Honi.

Educated: A Review

Kimberly — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 13:00:52 +0000

Educated is the story of what happens when you have nothing to rely on but yourself, a book, and some very willing loved ones to get you out of a tough situation. Tara Westover was raised in a strict Mormon household in the mountains of Idaho. In addition to being conservative, traditional parents, Tara’s parents were also survivalists. Tara, along with her six other siblings, was homeschooled for the majority of her life, worked either in the junkyard with their father or in the kitchen putting together homeopathic remedies with her mother, and was always prepared for the second-coming. At 17, Tara was convinced by her older brother, Tyler, to leave home and go to college. After hiding years of emotional and physical abuse, experiencing the trauma of growing up with a bipolar father, and being sheltered from seeing traditional doctors, Tara was about to learn about the Holocaust, the Civil War, and so much more during her years at Brigham Young Univerity. “Then, I went straight to the computer lab to look up the word ‘Holocaust.’ I don’t know how long I sat there reading about it, but at some point, I’d read enough. I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. I suppose I was in shock, but whether it was the shock of learning about something horrific, or the shock of learning about my own ignorance, I’m not sure.” Tara went on to attend Harvard University and Cambridge University, but through her education, she separated herself from her family more than she ever thought possible. When family is all you’ve got, what happens when that relationship is irreversibly changed? “It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you.” It’s not often that I pick up a book where I read the notes and acknowledgments, but I read every single word that Tara had to write. Her prose is moving. Her word choice is impactful. And her story, every inch of it, is inspiring. As a woman who has been in school since she was three and able to make her own choices since she was 18, you’d think I wouldn’t be able to relate to anything in Tara’s story, but I did. Her loyalty to her family is deeply ingrained in her personality, her disappointment in herself for doing nothing but her best but still feeling like it’s not enough, and her determination to rely solely on her own being are all things I related to deeply. I admire Tara’s willingness to be brutally honest and open in this memoir. She didn’t sugarcoat her twisted relationship with her abusive brother, she didn’t shy away from the misremembering that might have happened while writing this book, and she didn’t hide the fact that she had people who did help her on her journey. Tara did a lot of things on her own, and there’s no doubt that she’s built the life she has for herself, but she is generous enough in her memoir to really call out the brothers that helped her, the teachers that pushed her, and the friends that supported her all along the way. “You are not fool’s gold, shining only under a particular light. Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were. It was always in you. Not in Cambridge. In you. You are gold. And returning to BYU, or even to that mountain you came from, will not change who you are. It may change how others see you, it may even change how you see yourself—even gold appears dull in some lighting—but that is the illusion. And it always was.” Educated is nothing short of amazing. From Tara’s troubling upbringing to her internal struggles as an adult between self and family, everyone can garner some connection and understanding from this book. “The decisions I made after that moment were not the ones she would have made. They were the choices of a changed person, a new self. You could call this selfhood many things. Transformation. Metamorphosis. Falsity. Betrayal. I call it an education” Happy reading, Kimberly

The post Educated: A Review appeared first on A Spoonful of Honi.

Daisy Jones & The Six | A Review

Kimberly — Wed, 28 Aug 2019 13:00:02 +0000

Daisy Jones is a force to be reckoned with, and The Six had no idea what it was getting into when they asked her to join the band. It all started out as an innocent co-writing session, and it ended in the best band of the era. Daisy Jones & The Six is the oral history of the greatest band there ever was. Their time together was short, but their impact lasted for generations. The story begins with Billy and his brother starting a band. They go through the regular crap a band does (members that quit, writing woes, etc), but eventually, they end up as The Six — Billy, Graham, Karen, Warren, Eddie, and Pete. The band is pretty successful, but then Daisy and Billy sing a song together, and everyone can tell it’s a hit. The only problem is Billy and Daisy hate each other. When Daisy joins the band on tour, and eventually joins the band for good, Billy and Daisy have to figure out how to work together because everything they produce is magic. Billy is a recovering drug addict with a wife and kids at home. As if the world he lived in weren’t enough of a temptation, Daisy is a rampant drug abuser. It can be obvious at times why Billy doesn’t immediately fall at Daisy’s feet like the rest of the male population, but at other times, his hatred is more complex. “We love broken, beautiful people.” — Daisy Billy and Daisy are not the only characters with a complex relationship. Graham and Karen have a complicated love story of their own. Graham is head-over-heals for Karen, and Karen is terrified of falling in love because she doesn’t know what that is going to do for her career. “I suppose everybody hurts everybody, but women always seem to get back up, you ever notice that? Women are always standing.” — Graham Jenkins Reid is not afraid of breaking boundaries — of pushing the limit. She did it with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and she did it again with Daisy Jones & The Six. Putting the blatant use of drugs aside, Daisy and Karen are some of the most headstrong female characters I have ever had the joy of experiencing. Both are determined to be stars of their own, will do anything to achieve their goals, and refuse to let a man get in the way. These are the types of characters I hope young women (and men) get to read about for years to come. “I had absolutely no interest in being somebody’s muse. I am not a muse. I am the somebody.” — Daisy The group, as well as their friends, significant others, and anyone related to the band at the time, are being interviewed years after their split by a surprising writer, but the reader feels like they are back in the 70s with the band during their rise to stardom. All the feelings and memories seem to be right on the surface like a day hasn’t passed. One wouldn’t normally choose to tell this story as an oral history years after the fact, but Jenkins Reid knew what she was doing. The oral history aspect of it is what gives it such a punch. It allows everyone to tell their story. All the stories follow a general grain of truth, but everyone has their own version of how that story played out. “However, it should also be noted that, on matters both big and small, sometimes accounts of the same event differ. The truth often lies, unclaimed, in the middle.” — Narrator/Interviewer Daisy Jones & The Six is about passion. It’s about going after a dream until you have nothing left in you. It’s about saving yourself the only way you know how, even if it’s destroying you in the process. It’s about loving someone that is just out of reach even though they are right there in front of you. It’s a heartbreaking story told at the perfect time in the perfect format. Happy reading, Kimberly

The post Daisy Jones & The Six | A Review appeared first on A Spoonful of Honi.

Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win: A Book Review

Kimberly — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 13:00:09 +0000

Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win. It’s a book title and a powerful statement in one. Charlotte Walsh is on the ride of her life. She’s running for a Senate seat in her home state of Pennslyvania, and she’s running against an old, white, incumbent, male. Nothing about this race is going to be easy for her, but she wants to fix what she believes to be past mistakes. I can relate a lot to Charlotte, and I think a lot of other women can as well. She’s responsible for taking care of everything — her career, her employees, her kids, her spouse, and herself when she has the time. She’s got to have it all because if she didn’t, is she worthy of anyone’s time? We’ve become a lot more aware of societal pressures on women than we ever have before, but those pressures don’t change overnight. Awareness and understanding come with time, and at this time, Charlotte still feels like any failure is her fault and she needs to fix it. “Maybe the world didn’t need her to fix everything. She’d been smug about that, often self-righteous and heavy-handed. Plenty of people glimpsed ghosts of lives they could have lived. She had at least attempted this one. That was worth something. Wasn’t it?” On top of running a household, Charlotte runs a company that her husband works for. She has streamlined her industry, but with that, she’s taken jobs out of people’s very capable hands and given them to robots. That’s why she’s running for Senate — though she’d never admit it. She wants to fix big problems like unemployment, employee benefits, and so much more. And maybe, just maybe, she wants to fix her marriage too. A few months ago, Charlotte caught her husband cheating on her. She feels betrayed, she feels hurt, she feels embarrassed — she feels everything imaginable about this experience, and the way Max tries to make it up to her is by standing by her side as she runs for Senate. He quits his job, becomes a stay-at-home dad, and gets praised for washing his children’s dirty clothes once a month. Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win is about what happens when a woman runs for Senate — it impacts her entire life, everything has to change, and it makes readers question if the same could be said for a man. “Haven’t we heard this over and over again when we talk about powerful women in business and politics? Agreements, arrangements, convenience. Powerful men never have these things. They just have marriages.” Piazza has a lot to say about strong women — and not all of it is good. Strong women are complicated. They aren’t perfect. Everyone makes mistakes, and Charlotte Walsh is no different. Charlotte struggles with letting go of the past, admitting to her mistakes, and opening up to people around her. She also sticks to her beliefs, understands a strong work ethic, and loves her children fiercely. She is simultaneously confident and self-conscious, honest and deceiving, and loving and cold. She is more than just a strong female lead, which is what makes her the perfect character for this time period. I don’t speak for all women, but I know I can relate to Charlotte more than I’d like to admit. She’s human, and that’s all we can ask for. Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win is about a woman running for Senate. But it’s also about societal pressures on marriage, perfection, politics, and family. It’s about confidence and determination, friendship and passion. It’s about navigating the modern world as a woman. It’s more than just a Senate race. Happy reading, Kimberly

The post Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win: A Book Review appeared first on A Spoonful of Honi.

Ghosted: A Review

Kimberly — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 13:00:51 +0000

Sarah doesn’t think she will ever find love again, but then Eddie comes around. Sarah is from California, but she is back in London after her recent divorce for her yearly trip home when she meets the man she knows she could actually spend the rest of her life with. She doesn’t know Eddie for long, just one week, but she knows it’s different than anything she’s ever felt before. Until he ghosts her. Ghosted is about feeling a love that is so real you can’t explain it — it’s a love you can feel in your bones — a love you’re willing to look absolutely crazy to find, but you don’t know if it’s willing to be found. “Something was going to happen. Something had already happened. We both knew.” Walsh’s novel is not everything it seems on the surface. The reader can think they have it all figured out until one little sentence changes everything. The use of ambiguity mixed with specificity is what makes this novel so powerful — it’s such a good mirror to how so many people live their lives. They give you an inch, but you take a mile. For instance, the reader knows Sarah has been involved in an accident for much of the novel, but they aren’t entirely sure of the details of said accident. The reader also knows that Sarah lost her sister as a result of the accident, but again, some of the details are a little more than fuzzy. Walsh lures the reader into a sense of understanding when it comes to Sarah and what she’s been through, but they don’t know all the intricacies of her past — much like new relationships and friendships in life. You may think you know the whole story, but you’re really only getting what someone is willing to share with you. From that information, we construct our own versions of their lives, but we could be completely wrong — like I was with this book. “Nineteen years since that day. Nineteen whole years! And I’m still looking for you. I will never stop looking for you.” Ghosted was a book that shocked me. It left me turning page after page to find out the whole story — a story I thought I had figured out but, in actuality, knew nothing about. As people, and readers, we have a funny way of thinking we know everything there is to know about a person — until we don’t. Until they reveal something about themselves that completely changes the way we look at them, and that’s exactly what Walsh does with Ghosted. It’s a story about finding love in the most unexpected places, but really it’s a lesson to never assume to know a person’s entire story. Happy reading, Kimberly

The post Ghosted: A Review appeared first on A Spoonful of Honi.