Favourite Books of May and June

Oops, skipped a month there! I'm putting both months together now, but instead of talking about more books, I'm just picking the best of the best!

    David Nicholls has quickly become one of my favourite writers, because every book that he writes is just so lively and funny and human. This one is about Charlie, who is 16 and spending a summer feeling adrift when he meets an intriguing girl, and so in order to spend more time with her he joins a theater camp, despite having no interest in Shakespeare. It's about first love, but it doesn't feel like a YA book because the story is being told by adult Charlie, who has gotten an invite to a reunion for this summer camp, and he's reflecting on his past and this experience through his adult eyes.

    This book had a bit of a slow start, as we just follow this kid who's a big mess as he begrudgingly tries acting and tries to flirt with Fran. But eventually it turns into something really lovely about first love, the messiness of family, nostalgia, and friendship. And I especially love the way that he writes dialogue. There's a lot of it in this book, with Charlie and other people going back and forth, cracking jokes, hesitating, not knowing what to say, and having poignant moments despite not saying much at all. I feel like he writes true banter, with characters playing off of each other and playing with words and trying to make each other laugh, but in a realistic way, where they don't sound like the smartest people in the world, but just people who play off each other really well. And it's funny! I genuinely laughed out loud several times.

    Charlie is a very interesting character. He is, as he admits, a really average dude. He's not good at school or sports, he has no particular interests or passions, and he has no idea what he wants to do with his life. For much of the book he's very complacent, just doing whatever to pass the time. We know that this summer acting didn't change his life and turn him into an actor, but he experiences a different kind of friendship than what he had with his school friends, and becomes a part of a group with different ways of being and seeing the world. It's not a flashy story, and yet it moved me more than most books do.

       Silvia Moreno-Garcia is one of the most interesting genre writers working right now in my opinion, and it was a treat to go back to her debut. Told in two timelines, this is about Meche, who is returning to Mexico for her father's funeral after 20 years of living abroad. She also finds out that her former best friend, Sebastian, is also back in town, but she wants to avoid him. But the bulk of the story happens in 1988, when they're 15. Meche is angry and all sharp edges and obsessed with music, and she discovers one day that she is able to cast spells through magic if she picks the right record and focuses her intentions. She lets her equally uncool friends Sebastian and Daniela in on it, and they start using magic to get what they want, including the attention of the cool kids in class.  

    I was pretty riveted from the get-go. Watching Meche and her friends make messes of their lives and relationships and also yearn for so much because they're teenagers really sent me back to my own adolescence. Meche and Sebastian obviously care deeply for each other, but are too distracted by the shininess of the popular kids to really see it. So it was very satisfying to see them slowly inch their ways towards each other. Music plays a huge role in this book, and it references so many songs and artists, both Mexican and American, that I was constantly looking things up on YouTube. It filled me with a lot of feelings, like all books do when it's about nostalgia and looking back on your past.

    Frankel is another beloved author, and her newest release did not disappoint! We have another high-concept story: Pepper is 77 years old and has just moved into a retirement home, mostly against her will, but she makes the most of it and makes friends and even starts a relationship with the nice man who lives next door. Her world gets turned upside down when she somehow ends up pregnant, and things are extra complicated because she lives in Texas, where abortions are illegal. Her doctors can't agree if it's more dangerous for her to have the baby or get an abortion, and then when the news is leaked to the media, the whole country starts to have an opinion about her body and sex life. Pepper has kids and grandkids, and whatever she does will affect more than just her and her own life. 

    This book is less than 300 pages, and yet it hits on so many important topics and themes. Aging, bodily autonomy, abortion rights, motherhood, media, family... It's all in there! And yet the writing is quick and snappy, maintaining a wry and witty tone despite all of the political and serious topics it addresses. Pepper is a delightful main character, both wise and open-minded to new experiences. I tore through this book in a day.

    This is one of the most thought-provoking and interesting non-fiction books I've read this year. The author is a journalist whose mother once fell for a romance scam run by a Nigerian man despite being a smart, educated woman, and so Carlos goes to Nigeria to look into Nigerian cyber crimes. There he discovers that instead of being a high-tech system of scammers, there's just a large amount of mostly young Nigerian men who use their phones and laptops to run scams on mostly Americans any way they can as a way to earn money. Known as Yahoo Boys, these men see scamming rich Westerners out of their money as a lucrative job to live the lifestyles they want, although it's a high risk and high reward type of job, and often leaves them living as high rollers one month and destitute the next. Through the lives of primarily four yahoo boys, he examines what it is about Nigeria that makes this so prevalent, how they get into it, why, what kind of lives they lead, and where it often leaves them in the end. He's also able to track down some of the people who get scammed to examine what kinds of people fall for these scams and the loneliness epidemic in the West that makes us the ideal victims. Fascinating, easy to read, and very eye-opening.