“Crush”ing It

Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon checks another 2024 high school Nutmeg nominee off my read list.

This is an enemies to lovers romance story. Rowan has spent her entire high school career competing with Neil. Now it’s their last day of senior year and he beats her again by getting valedictorian over her.

The final senior event is a scavenger hunt called Howl, it is organized by the junior class. There is a cash prize at the end. Rowan is determined to take this last victory over Neil. However, they begin working together which forces Rowan to see Neil as more than an enemy. They share information about their families, their feelings about being Jewish and their desires for their futures. Could one day overturn four years of animosity?

Deadly Worm

The Troop by Nick Cutter is a solid horror book.

A Boy Scout group of five teenage boys and their scout master are on an island for their yearly getaway. Each boy‘s background is explored a bit through the story. There is a budding psychopath, an overweight nerd, a jock, one prone to anger issues and his closest friend.

Their whole group is put to the test when an infected stranger shows up during their first night. This sets off a domino effect of contagion which pits the group against each other in varying degrees. Snippets of the experiments that led to this point are scattered throughout the story in the form of interviews and news clips.

I had to skip over a few particularly gruesome scenes involving animals. Reminiscent of Lotd of the Flies cranked up with a horror/science twist, it is a take on human nature in extreme circumstances.

User’s Life

The Guest by Emma Cline is a trippy novel.

Alex is a major player. She lands herself a great deal by starting a relationship with a wealthy man named Simon. All is going well until he decides to break up with her.

She can’t go home (she left on bad terms with just about everyone). She decides to stay in the area for the week until Simon’s big Labor Day party. She feels this party will be her moment to win him back. Until then she works her way into various groups of people in order to use them as needed. She manages to botch just about everything that she touches along the way.

Spoiler- the ending is a huge cliffhanger. Maybe I missed something, but I wasn’t sure if she was even alive any more once making it to Simon’s party. Overall this is a decent read with lots of uncertainty to keep you going. Unfortunately for me, the uncertainty remained after finishing!

Pregnancy Bonds

Girls Like Us by Randi Pink is a high school Nutmeg nominee.

It is set in the 70s and told from multiple female points of view. Each girl is contending with teenage pregnancy.

Ola is pregnant and her younger sister Izella is determined to end the pregnancy. Missippi is only fourteen and pregnant with twins. Sue is from an affluent white family.

Missippi and Sue are hidden away at the same home for pregnant girls under the excellent care of a midwife. They become best friends, and eventually all become bonded due to shared circumstances by the end of the book.

Different family and societal issues are explored throughout the story with a focus on empowering women.

Office Crush

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne is a fun, steamy romance.

Lucy and Josh are both assistants to the co-CEOs of a recently merged book publishing company. They can’t stand each other and purposefully annoy each other on a daily basis which creates some entertainment.

Events get spicy once they are both up for the same promotion. Through this, they begin to develop feelings for each other, or is it possible that those feelings have been there all along?

This book reminded me a bit of the movie “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.” It was a perfect summer beach read.

Working It

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz is a quirky read about main character Cara’s experiences with a Senior Workforce Program.

We learn more about Cara during her weekly check ins with her caseworker. Cara is an immigrant from the Dominican. She arrived in America many years earlier with her young son to escape her abusive husband. She lost a factory job she had for years, and is hoping for help finding a new job in order to keep her apartment.

Cara has made some interesting choices (affairs, abusive actions toward her own son), but she has also shown herself to be a strongly devoted woman. This story is a quick read about working with what you have, and not giving up despite barriers.

A New Poet

In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner is a beautiful tear jerker that touches upon just about everything important in life. It’s one of the 2024 Nutmeg high school nominees.

Cash and best friend Delaney receive an incredible offer to attend a private school in Connecticut. This entails leaving their home in Tennessee. This is especially difficult for Cash. He was raised by his grandparents, and he knows his grandfather doesn’t have much time left. He also doesn’t feel worthy of this offer.

Once at the private school, Cash explores life away from everything he’s ever known. Despite a cruddy roommate, he finds friendships, a sport he enjoys and an introduction to poetry class that profoundly impacts him. He also finds love.

This book is beautifully written. Countless lines grabbed my attention. Loss, change, integrity, friendship, family, nature, poetry and religion are all explored in some manner and the combination resonated with me.

Mermaids

Things in Jars by Jess Kidd is a fantasy story taking place in the mid 1800s in England.

Bridie is a female detective of sorts, with exceptional understanding of the medical world. She was an orphan who changed hands a couple times before ending up as ward to a doctor. She is unable to work in her field because of her gender during this time period.

She is asked to help search for a missing girl named Christabel. She went missing along with her nanny. Christabel is a merrow, or mermaid, who is most likely being sold for a high price as an oddity.

Bridie’s search mixes her up with unsavory people from her past, most notably the doctor’s son. She is accompanied by a boxer ghost who also seems to have a link to her past. Eventually, Bridie confronts her past while attempting to rescue the mermaid girl.

Fact and Fiction

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins collides past and present in a drama/murder mystery taking place at the same Italian villa.

Past- Mari, her husband and half sister join a famous musician and his friend at the villa for rest and creative inspiration. The two women are the only ones of the group to produce anything noteworthy. Mari writes a famous horror story, and her sister Lara writes a best-selling album. Their creations are even more notable due to the scandalous murder taking place during their time at the villa.

Fast forward to Emily and childhood friend Chess vacationing to the same villa. Emily is hoping for writing inspiration for her mystery series, but she ends up switching to a whole new topic. She begins writing about the murder that occurred. She finds interesting parallels between Mari’s famous book and elements around the villa. She wonders if Mari’s fiction was based on reality.

Entwined is Emily’s own personal drama between her soon to be ex-husband and her competitive relationship with Chess. This is a fast-paced, easy beach read.

Puzzling Events

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt is a fantastic book!! I really enjoyed this one!

Multiple characters tell the story, including my favorite: Marcellus the octopus. Marcellus is an incredibly smart octopus that forms a bond with the nightshift cleaning woman at his aquarium. Tova is an older woman who has lost her his husband to cancer and her teenage son to drowning years earlier. She never learned what caused the incident.

Meanwhile, Cameron is a thirty-ish-year-old man who is down on his luck. He lost yet another job, his girlfriend broke up with him and his band is losing their lead singer. He decides to investigate his unknown father, which leads him to working at the same aquarium as Tova and Marcellus.

While there is some predictability within the plot, I just loved the story. There are great characters and satisfying plot events.