THINGS YOU SAVE IN A FIRE by Katherine Center

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I absolutely loved How to Walk Away so I was very excited to see that Katherine Center has a new book.  Fans of Center will not be disappointed.

Cassie is a firefighter and is faced with having to relocate from Texas to Massachusetts to help her mother with her medical problems.  She quickly discovers that her new department is not nearly as progressive and female-friendly as Austin’s, which even had a female chief. Cassie finds that she has to prove herself again and again to be accepted as “one of the guys.”

Cassie lives a very predictable and regimented life. She likes it like that. She needs to to be in control of her life at all times after two unpredictable and tragic events traumatized her on her 16th birthday

Because of these traumatic experiences, Cassie has successfully insulated herself from getting close to others, but now she finds herself craving companionship and love. You see, Cassie has a big crush on the rookie firefighter at her new department but she knows that if anything were to happen between them, she would lose her job and career. But sometimes, as hard as one may try, you can’t stop love.

Center has a talent for creating characters with such depth, that you truly feel like you know them.  Cassie is believable, relatable, genuine, and admirable. At the same time, she faces major psychological struggles that you or I might have encountered as well — emotionally blocked and isolated, estranged mother, doesn’t believe in love, etc.

Things You Save in a Fire is about Cassie’s journey to psychological maturity and confronting the issues holding her back from love and enjoying life. Her biggest obstacle and lesson she needs to learn is forgiveness of others and of herself. I was rooting for Cassie and experienced her transformation. 

We feel so many different emotions along with Cassie, such as joy, anger, trust, surprise, etc.  I was particularly moved when she experiences empathy and compassion for her mother.

“For the first time, I understood. In all the times I’d remembered that story, I’d experienced every single part of it from my own perspective, standing in my own sixteen-year-old shoes. Now, for the first time, I saw it unfold from a new angle. Hers. And it changed the story.”

This book has all the elements — drama, love, suspense, heroism, a little humor, and secrets! It is well written with three-dimensional characters. We get to know the inner struggles of these characters and the motivations for their behavior.  

The first line of the novel grabbed me and it never let me go.

“The night I became the youngest person—and the only female ever—to win the Austin Fire Department’s Valor Award, I got propositioned by my partner.”

I really enjoy Katherine Center’s writing (see examples below) and am looking forward to reading her earlier books while I wait for her next one.

“...two ladies pulled out dress after dress, holding them up in front of me, then tossing them in rejection piles on the bed. Too purple, they’d decide. Or: Too bright. Too dark. Too flashy. Too plain. Too stiff. Too floppy. Too many pleats. Too teenagery. Too old-lady. Too much cleavage. Not enough cleavage. And on and on.”

“Down in Texas, everybody had been robust and tan. Here, they looked like ashtrays.”

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens

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Sometimes you finish a book and while feeling good because you really enjoyed it, you also feel sad because you have to say goodbye to the people you’ve come to love. That is how I feel about Where the Crawdads Sing. 

To say that this debut novel from Delia Owens is a magnificent and delightful read is an understatement. Delia Owens has an eye for detail and her expertise and appreciation for nature shines through. This is an amazing novel with lyrical writing and expertly developed characters. As an example of Owen’s skill, these quotes illustrate her gift for stringing together words in a mesmerizing way as she establishes the setting:

Marsh is not swamp.  Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky.  

The marsh was guarded by a torn shoreline, labeled by early explorers as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” because riptides, furious winds, and shallow shoals wrecked ships like paper hats along what would become the North Carolina coast.

Those looking for serious land moved on, and this infamous marsh became a net, scooping up a mishmash of mutinous sailors, castaways, debtors, and fugitives dodging wars, taxes, or laws that they didn’t take to.

At first I wasn’t so sure about this book...girl lives in Marsh? Feral? But it surpassed my highest standards and moved me to such an extent like few books do. The story revolves around Kya, whose entire life we follow, beginning at 6 years old.  In the opening pages, we see Kya’s Mother leave the house and walk away.  I felt emotionally attached to Kya at this early point in the story, while she waits to see her Mother wave but she never does and Kya begins to wonder if she will ever return. 

 It is a tale of survival, courage, love, and a search for self. It is virtually impossible not to feel compassion for Kya as we bear witness to her life. We feel along with her, running the emotional spectrum from anger to joy, with stops along the way at despair, loneliness and contentment to name just a few.  We root for her, cry with her and celebrate with her. 

Where the Crawdads Sing is ultimately about independence, courage and the will to survive. The book explores themes of trust/betrayal and love/hate plus a murder mystery is added in to the mix. I cherished the reading of this book and it’s unfolding story. As trite as it sounds, I must confess that I did not want it to end. Also, I found myself thinking about the book when I wasn’t reading it and, not just after finishing it like other books, but throughout reading it. I cannot recommend this book highly enough — for the characters, the story and the writing.

NINE PERFECT STRANGERS by Liane Moriarty

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Liane Moriarity features the topical issue of micro-dosing in her latest book Nine Perfect Strangers.  I’ve been hearing about micro-dosing psychedelic drugs for several years and have read a few articles about its benefits. In early 2017, the writer Ayelet Waldman (wife of Michael Charon) wrote a book chronicling her personal journey with micro-dosing. Then a year later, Michael Pollan authored a N.Y. Times Bestseller (13 weeks and counting) How to Change Your Mind, which brought the discussion more mainstream. 

Nine strangers come together at a health resort in search of a transformational experience.  Nine flawed individuals, each with their own emotional baggage and unresolved issues, are desperate to turn their lives around. At first, this setup led me to think that Nine Perfect Strangers would unfold as a murder mystery, but once I read a few more pages, I was quickly proven wrong. 

I began the book concerned that I would have trouble distinguishing one stranger from another and that I wouldn’t get to know any of the nine that well.  It is a testament to Moriarity’s skill as a seasoned novelist that each one is developed sufficiently for the reader to not feel lost and to experience a connection to each of them.

For me, the standout and most fascinating character was Masha, the head of the wellness retreat and the originator of the unconventional protocol for the guests.  I found her to be a multi-dimensional character with heavy emotional baggage and delusions of grandeur.  Although she acted as a therapist for the guests, one wonders how much she would have benefitted from some psychotherapy herself.  

Based on a cursory reading of reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, it seems this book was very polarizing in terms of readers’ reactions. As such, it was kind of amusing that one of the main characters, Frances Welty, a successful writer facing her first rejection, is tormented by a scathing review.  Frances has made it a point of never reading reviews but her publisher alerts her to it when he rejects her latest manuscript, claiming that it had no bearing on their evaluation of her current manuscript.  I couldn’t help but wonder if Ms. Moriarity avoids reading reviews of her own books.

While I enjoyed the story and found myself laughing out loud a few times, I felt that it got a bit far-fetched and over the top. But even so, I kept reading because I wanted to know how it ultimately turned out.  Overall it was a fun read that kept me entertained.