Monday Mini-Reviews: Ending the Year With a 5 Star Book and the First 5 Star Book of 2023

 Black Cake had been sitting on my TBR pile for months and it took  hearing someone on a podcast rave about it  along with it being one of President Obama's best books he read in 2022 that gave me the ambition to pick this one up.

Byron and Benny, estranged siblings, have connected after their mother's death.  The two are directed to listen to a voice recording their mother made and have a black cake in their freezer that they are instructed to eat when the time is right. Their mom tells them they'll know when that is.   As they listen the two start to understand their mother's past- a history she kept hidden from everyone that began on an island when she was a young girl.    I liked the alternating storyline/timeline and the brother/sister relationship that developed as they came to terms with where their relationship fractured.  This is a debut novel and it was amazing.  Book clubs should love reading this and discussing it with each other.

And just like that, 2022 ended, and I have already managed to read a fabulous book in 2023.  

Sam by Allegra Goodman is Jenna Bush Hager's book club pick for the month of January.  I don't think there's a good way to accurately describe this book, which tells the story of Sam's growing up.  The story begins when Sam is little - six or seven years old- and she sees things through a child's lens.  Her parents aren't together and her mom struggles to make ends meet. Sam takes up climbing, and wants attention from her coach that isn't appropriate.  She struggles with growing up, with knowing what to do with her life, with trying to follow the path her mom wants for her rather than the path she might want - and also struggles to figure out what that path might be.  I think everyone can see some of themselves in Sam and the struggle that is universal in becoming an adult.  JBH picked another winner!

I'm stuck in a little bit of a slump right now. I feel like that happens when I've had an abundance of great reading and a little bit of a book hangover.  It's hard to know what to pick up after a five star read.  I've attempted a few but abandoned them after just a few pages - not even a DNF, really, but just not catching my attention right now.  I'm hoping that I will soon find something great that I can't put down.