Hello hello! I hope all of you lovely people had a fantastic holiday! I definitely did, and am extremely grateful for it. I had a really great day today as well. I went out for lunch with my brother and mommy at Fisher’s which is a quaint little cafe that my sister waitresses at. I then got to have some nice hang out time with my big bro before he boarded a plane to Atlanta, Georgia to be with his fiance’s family for some post Christmas celebrations. I got a gorgeous stiletto nail manicure this afternoon AND my mom dyed my hair to my signature flaming red. After all of this pampering and primping, I was finally able to curl up in bed and finish the book that I’ve been working on this past week, The Storied Life of A.J Fikry.

This book was absolutely adorable. It was lighthearted and fun, which is exactly what I needed after reading the addictively disturbing novel The Life We Bury, which I will discuss later! My mom recommended this book to me and we always enjoy reading books at the same time so we can discuss it together. This quirky quick read tells the story of a cantankerous book store owner A.J. Fikry. He is recently widowed as his wife was killed in a car accident and he lives alone above his store Island Books. Everything is relatively normal in A.J.’s world, but that all changes the day he leaves the door to the book store unlocked while he goes out for his morning run. Upon his return he discovers two shockers:

• His extremely rare copy of Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tamerlane” has been stolen from his apartment. Only fifty copies of this book exist in the entire world.
• There’s a two year old girl on the floor of the children’s book section, with an Elmo doll and a note from her mother explaining why she can’t care for baby Maya anymore. The little girl was dropped off in the store because her mother wanted her to grow up in a place surrounded by books and people who appreciate them.

The story follows the riveting search for Tamerlane and the hilarious trials of A.J. learning how to become a single parent while also learning how to fall in love after his late wife’s death. Weirdly charming characters are peppered throughout the book who you grow to love just as much as A.J. and his brainy adopted daughter. What makes this book extra special is that before each chapter there’s a journal entry that A.J. makes to Maya that discusses a book he recommends to her and the reasons why it reminds him of her. It’s such a sweet testament of the love a dad has for his little girl. If you’re looking for a feel good book with some cheeky humor and a few shocking twists and turns, then The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is the book for you!

Prior to reading A.J. Fikry, I plowed through The Life We Bury and it was absolutely STELLAR.

This was author Allen Esken’s debut novel and let me tell you, he started off with a ginormous BANG. This book follows the story of Joe Talbert and his hell of a life. Joe hasn’t lived the most charmed life in the world, he doesn’t know his father, his mother is a raging alcoholic with a tendency towards abusive behavior, and his kid brother Jeremy is autistic. On top of all of the drama going on in his family, he has to write a biography of someone for his college writing class. College is already a struggle enough, considering he works late as a bouncer at a bar and is often caring for his brother who suffers blows at the hands of his mother and her piece of shit boyfriend. Because Joe doesn’t know his father, he can’t interview his grandparents on his side for the biography, and his grandparents on his mother’s side are dead. Running out of options and with a deadline creeping up, Joe ventures to an assisted living home in the hopes that he can interview one of the residents. Once Joe arrives, he learns that the residents there all suffer from either Alzheimer’s or dementia, except for one…Carl Irving. Irving who has been in prison for the past thirty years for the murder and rape of a fourteen year old girl has been granted permission to stay the rest of his life in the assisted living home because he has stage four pancreatic cancer. The rest of his life is estimated to be about four months. Joe gets permission to interview Irving, and quickly learns that things are not as they may seem about this sickly man. Through digging into Irving’s past as a soldier in the Vietnam War and the trial for the murder and rape of a young girl the question arises of if Irving really did commit this horrific crime…and if he didn’t, then who did? This book is an absolutely AMAZING murder mystery that left my heart pounding like a drum. Try as I may, I could NOT put this book down for the life of me and ended up finishing it in two days flat. If you’re looking for an intense thriller that might not necessarily be for the faint of heart, then The Life We Bury is just the book for you!

So there you have it, some recommendations from yours truly! So now, what I need from you guys is a favor. I need a new book to read, and I am up for any and all suggestions. I just finished The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry this evening, so I’m in the mood for something dark. I don’t shy away from any genres and I love getting hooked on a new author, so if you have any ideas on a book for Lil Red to enjoy, pleeease leave me a comment and let’s chat! Goodnight! -Sarah