Welcome to my monthly feature “Book of the Month Selections: What Book Should You Choose?”! Every month, I provide commentary on the books that are chosen as that month’s Book of the Month selections that will hopefully help you choose your pick, and tell you which book(s) I’m going to choose.
Remember last month when I said that it seemed like Book of the Month was choosing more and more thrillers and romances and less literary fiction? Well, maybe they (partially) heard because October is lighter on romance and thrillers, but heavy on the historical fiction.
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Book of the Month October 2021 Selections
Harlem Shuffle
Fiction – Historical (Release Date: September 14, 2021)
318 Pages
Average Goodreads Rating: 3.97 on 1,317 ratings
Recommended By: Mateo Askaripour (Author of Black Buck)
From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.
“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked…” To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver’s Row don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home.
Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. […]
Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs?
Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.
My Thoughts:
Harlem Shuffle is different than Whitehead’s previous books. It’s a mash-up of crime novel, family drama, and exploration of race and class. Multiple Goodreads reviewers said the book’s greatest strength is its portrayal of life in 1960’s Harlem. They also liked the exploration of the issues it addresses (race, politics, class), the gorgeous writing that Whitehead is known for, and the crackling dialogue. On the flip side, they didn’t love its slow start, that it felt like more of a character-study than a crime thriller, and multiple reviewers said “too much action happened offstage.” Finally, some readers who liked his two previous novels (The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys) didn’t like this one. It was a DNF for Catherine from Gilmore Guide to Books.
The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling
Fiction – Romance (Release Date: September 28, 2021)
320 Pages
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.07 on 418 ratings
Recommended By: Sarah Penner (Author of The Lost Apothecary)
New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins, writing as Erin Sterling, casts a spell with a spine-tingling romance full of wishes, witches, and hexes gone wrong.
Nine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths…and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows she shouldn’t use her magic this way, but with only an “orchard hayride” scented candle on hand, she isn’t worried it will cause him anything more than a bad hair day or two.
That is until Rhys Penhallow, descendent of the town’s ancestors, breaker of hearts, and annoyingly just as gorgeous as he always was, returns to Graves Glen, Georgia. What should be a quick trip to recharge the town’s ley lines and make an appearance at the annual fall festival turns disastrously wrong. With one calamity after another striking Rhys, Vivi realizes her silly little Ex Hex may not have been so harmless after all.
My Thoughts:
Erin Sterling is a pen name for Rachel Hawkins (author of The Wife Upstairs, a previous BOTM pick, and multiple YA series). The Ex Hex is a paranormal romance that multiple people on Goodreads said they were pitched as Hocus Pocus with sex. Goodreads reviewers also said it’s light, fun, and funny and it’s great for people looking for a Halloween-themed book. They said it has a second chance romance trope, a bit of a mystery storyline and that it’s sweet and heart-warming. On the flip side, a couple reviewers said the magic wasn’t fleshed out enough and there was less suspense than they expected.
Everything We Didn’t Say by Nicole Baart
Fiction – Family Drama / Suspense (Release Date: November 2, 2021)
368 Pages
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.23 on 124 ratings
Recommended By: L.Alison Heller (Author of The Neighbor’s Secret)
From the author of Little Broken Things, a “race-to-the-finish family drama” (People) following a mother who must confront the dark summer that changed her life forever in order to reclaim the daughter she left behind.
Juniper Baker had just graduated from high school and was deep in the throes of a summer romance when Cal and Beth Murphy, a childless couple who lived on a neighboring farm, were brutally murdered. When her younger brother became the prime suspect, June’s world collapsed and everything she loved that summer fell away. She left, promising never to return to tiny Jericho, Iowa.
Until now. Officially, she’s back in town to help an ill friend manage the local library. But really, she’s returned to repair her relationship with her teenage daughter, who’s been raised by Juniper’s mother and stepfather since birth—and to solve the infamous Murphy murders once and for all. She knows the key to both lies in the darkest secret of that long-ago summer night, one that’s haunted her for nearly fifteen years.
As history begins to repeat itself and a dogged local true crime podcaster starts delving into the murders, the race to the truth puts past and present on a dangerous collision course. […]
My Thoughts:
Everything We Didn’t Say is the latest entry in the recent trend of suspense novels featuring true crime podcasts. Goodreads reviewers said it’s a small town secrets novel, has dual timelines, and has an ending that’s surprising, but still fits with the story. They also said it’s a slower burn until a certain percentage (multiple people mentioned the actual % that things picked up, but I’m not including it here because I think that’s slightly spoiler-y) and has a bit of a YA feel. On the flip side, some readers didn’t love its slow pace, the number of characters to keep track of, and the amount of timeline switching.
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
Fiction – Historical (Release Date: October 5, 2021)
592 Pages
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.49 on 268 ratings
Recommended By: Andrew J. Graff (Author of Raft of Stars)
In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.
Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.
My Thoughts:
The Lincoln Highway has a thriller element, is told from multiple perspectives, and takes place over the course of 10 days. Goodreads reviewers loved the characters (flawed, but mostly lovable), joyfulness, and humor. On the flip side, some said it dragged and meandered. Unfortunately, I DNF’d this one around 37%. I liked the beginning, especially the relationship between Emmett and his younger brother, Billy and I love his writing style. But, at a certain point, it started to feel like a road-trip book (but, on a train), which I generally find boring. Drive / ride a bit, meet new people, leave said people, keep moving, meet new people, repeat.
The Perishing by Natashia Deon
Fiction – Historical (Release Date: November 2, 2021)
320 Pages
Average Goodreads Rating: 3.89 on 27 ratings
Recommended By: Shay Mitchell (Actress, Pretty Little Liars)
An extraordinary novel featuring a Black immortal in 1930’s Los Angeles who must recover the memory of her past in order to save the world–from NAACP Image Award Nominee Natashia Deón, the author of Grace , a New York Times Best Book of the Year.
Lou, a young Black woman, wakes up in an alley in 1930s Los Angeles, nearly naked and with no memory of how she got there or where she’s from, only a fleeting sense that this isn’t the first time she’s found herself in similar circumstances. Taken in by a caring foster family, Lou dedicates herself to her education while trying to put her mysterious origins behind her. She’ll go on to become the first Black female journalist at the Los Angeles Times, but Lou’s extraordinary life is about to become even more remarkable. When she befriends a firefighter at a downtown boxing gym, Lou is shocked to realize that though she has no memory of ever meeting him she’s been drawing his face since her days in foster care.
Increasingly certain that their paths have previously crossed–perhaps even in a past life–and coupled with unexplainable flashes from different times that have been haunting her dreams, Lou begins to believe she may be an immortal sent to this place and time for a very important reason, one that only others like her will be able to explain. Relying on her journalistic training and with the help of her friends, Lou sets out to investigate the mystery of her existence and make sense of the jumble of lifetimes calling to her from throughout the ages before her time runs out for good.
My Thoughts:
The publisher is marketing this Sci-Fi crossover novel to fans of N. K. Jemisin and Octavia E. Butler (multiple Goodreads reviewers compared it to Octavia Butler and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue). I loved the sound of this premise until it got to the part about the “jumble of lifetimes.” Goodreads reviewers said the writing was gorgeous, there is some magical realism, it will require concentration from the reader, it touches on some lesser known parts of California history (St. Francis dam and killing of Natasha Harlins), it’s light on the sci-fi elements (the phrase “sprinkles of sci-fi” was used multiple times), it deals with what it was like to be a black woman in the 20th century, and it deals with immortality. On the flip side, they said the narration moves around in time and gets hard to follow, that the narration gets overly philosophical at times, that it reads more like historical fiction than sci-fi, and there’s not enough plot.
What Book of the Month October 2021 selection(s) will I choose?
I’m skipping this month.
Make your Book of the Month selections by Wednesday, October 6th.
What book will you choose this month?
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