Lit Hit List: Recent Reads
A quick roundup of some books I’ve read recently!
“Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing” by Allison Winn Scotch (Bookshop | Kindle): I liked, didn’t love, this new release that was all over Bookstagram. I didn’t find Cleo—the junior senator from New York and a gasp single mother!—to be a great protagonist. Cleo gets called out by one of her high school classmates for being ambitious and bitchy back in the day, and then goes on a request to correct some of her regrets. But, I wouldn’t care if a senator was a single mom, and I assume all politicians are super ambitious, so the entire premise of this novel was kind of meh for me. 3.5 / 5
“The Masterpiece” by Fiona Davis (Bookshop | Kindle): Fiona Davis’ books are fun escapes for me, especially as they’re set in old-school New York. This one, which toggles between the late 1920s/early 1930s and the mid-70s (when New York was at its lowest in modern history) centers around Grand Central Terminal. It ended up leading me down a google hole to find out whether or not the Grand Central School of Art was real (…it was!) and, as with many of Davis’ books, there’s a great twist toward the end. 4 / 5
“The Wicked City” by Beatriz Williams (Bookshop | Kindle): Another historical fiction book set largely in New York that toggles between two eras: the Prohibition-era 20s, and the late ‘90s. The ‘20s portion was narrated by one of the main protagonists in dialect, which was a little annoying at first. Our ‘20s protagonist, Ginger, finds herself involved in a caper to hunt down her stepfather, who’s importing alcohol. The ‘90s portion centers around Ella, who moves into an apartment in the Village which is purported to be haunted. She develops a strange relationship with a man in the building. I couldn’t necessarily get excited about either narrative, and there was a weird twist that just seemed a little ridiculous at the end. 3 / 5
Perfect Tunes by Emily Gould (Bookshop | Kindle): Another book that seemed to be everywhere this summer. It was an incredibly quick read, but one I enjoyed. I liked the premise a lot—small-town girl moves to New York hoping to record an album, she falls in with a musical crowd and her more extroverted best friend, and winds up pregnant. The story takes us through Laura’s first few months in New York, and then skips around as she raises her daughter and reconciles the fact that her dreams are unfulfilled. The novel is largely told through Laura’s POV, and occasionally her daughter’s, with very little dialogue, which really keeps us focused on their perspectives. 3.75 / 5
