This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

I'll confess that I'm a sucker for books and movies about time travel and alternative lives. Movies like Peggy Sue Got Married, About Time, Sliding  Doors. And books like The Midnight Library and Life After Live. They all make me think about the "what ifs" and what I would do differently if I had it all to do again.

This Time Tomorrow is a fun read and I loved the characters and writing. Alice and her father have lived in New York City (tons of references to life in NYC) and their relationship is a highlight in the novel. On her 40th birthday, Alice travels back to her 16th birthday where she sees a younger, healthier version of her father. She also realizes that she can make changes when she's 16 that will be revealed when she returns to adulthood. I won't give away all the details but I enjoyed it all. If you're open to the possibility of time travel, add it to your list. - June

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

As I started reading this book, I had a feeling I'd read it before or I'd read other books with the same theme - husband is missing and his wife realizes that there are a ton of things she doesn't know about him. During the course of the novel, she finds clues about his secret past. Even though I haven't read this one, I do wonder how many books are out there that start off like this one.

I'll confess at first I was curious and because it's a fast read, I was hooked. But then it started to get weird. And then it got ridiculous. So by the end of the book, I was really pissed that I'd wasted my time. 

Obviously, I do not recommend this one. - June

The Paris Library by Janet Charles

A friend selected this book for our mother-daughter book club. And as I read it, I kept wondering why she picked this one? It's another WW2 book which most of us sigh when one is mentioned. We've just all read so many of these. And there are so many books on Paris - The Paris Key, The Paris Architect, The Paris Bookstore, etc. Is there something unique about this one?

Maybe the uniqueness is that we are introduced to the American Library of Paris which I had never heard of before. And we meet the individuals (we learn in the epilogue that many of the characters are based on real people) who worked there during the war and bravely kept the library open for the people of Paris. They even delivered books to people in their homes, a very risky move especially if they were delivering to Jews.

But the writing. There were just so many times I put the book down and groaned. The characters did things completely "out of character" and would have no logical reason for this change. And the ending was baffling. But the one thing that prevented me from getting into the story for more than a page or two was the overuse of similes. I actually started writing some of them down because they made me laugh:

"...his satchel sat beside him like a faithful wife" (What does this even mean? It didn't cheat on him?)

"...her eyes were like the neon sign of the Oasis bar on Monday - unplugged.

"She squeaked like a demented parakeet." (Can a parakeet be demented?)

"Her eyes sparkled like the gems Marjorie Simpson's second husband gave her for their third anniversary."

That last one really cracks me up because I can't remember the context of this quote, but wasn't Marjorie Simson the mom on The Simpsons? 

You can probably tell I don't recommend this one. - June