Dreaming of Summer '21

“Oh, when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Yeah, I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life” —Bryan Adams, “Summer of ‘69”

While working my favorite “hobby job” at the bookstore, a regular customer recommended Summer of ’69, a recent release from her favorite author Elin Hilderbrand. I figured since I was always giving suggestions, maybe I should try one suggested to me. Not only does the story take place on Nantucket Island (one of my favorite East Coast getaways), Bryan Adams crooned that it was the best year of his life…so what did I have to lose?

Hilderbrand weaves together multiple historical events together with tumultuous (yet entertaining) family drama. Jessie, the youngest in the family, usually looks forward to her summers on Nantucket with her siblings, despite having to deal with her elitist host of a grandmother. This year, she finds herself alone with her grandma trying to navigate the many life changes her family is facing. With her brother, Tiger, off fighting in Vietnam, her oldest sister, Blair, waiting to have the first grandchild in the family, and her other sister, Kirby, “finding herself” as a chambermaid on the “lesser” island (Martha’s Vineyard doesn’t seem to be a lesser choice to me, but I digress), Jessie is looking forward to her Nantucket summer almost as much as her up-and-coming tennis lessons Grandma’s forcing her to take.

Jessie’s summer is anything but ordinary. Hilderbrand does a magical job of meshing together the Levin sibling’s stories throughout a summer of crazy changes. A solid 3.5 out of 5 stars, this is a good book to take on your next beach vacay. (2021, be good to us, please!) While I wouldn’t run out and grab it from your nearest bookstore, it’s a quick and light read that’s perfect for a break from reality.

Posted by Sharee

Good Girl Vibes

Well-behaved women seldom make history. — Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is right. Here at Two at Twenty-Seven, we live by the three F’s: faith, family and feminism. (Personally, I would argue for a fourth: food.) We’re all about that girl power! And A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts brings us all the good girl vibes about making the world a better place for us gals.

Additionally, historical fiction is all the rage these days, and we’re here for it. Who doesn’t love a good story that’s also based on true events? Plus, author Therese Ann Fowler does a phenomenal job weaving in the day-to-day “struggles” of the rich during this time period. Now, I don’t necessarily “Keep Up” with those Kardashians, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a sucker for lifestyles of the rich and the famous. And the Vanderbilt family brings the DRAMA. Think family shame from lavish lifestyles, crashing yachts, affairs and competitions to see who has the biggest and best mansions—spoiler alert: the Biltmore Estate wins—and you’ve scraped the surface of the Vanderbilts. What started as a monopoly on the U.S.’s railway lines turned into millions of family dollars through investments and business ventures. Underlying all of that drama, however, is a more poignant story: the remarkable life of a Vanderbilt in-law and eventually the evolution of one of the country’s first forward-thinking feminists.

Alva Smith is a soon-to-be wannabe in the world of the rich and needs to marry someone with status soon–not only for her family’s status, but for their livelihoods, after her father’s cotton business is nearly bankrupted by the outcome of the Civil War. When a prominent Cuban heiress (and Alva’s best friend) proposes a union between Alva and their second son of the recently shunned yet prominent Vanderbilt family, Alva would be foolish to deny the offer. She accepts. The marriage is arranged. And the world opens up for Alva and her three sisters in New York City.

Now, I know you’re reading this and thinking, “Why do I want to read the story of an insanely rich person? How does this relate to me?” I thought the same thing about 50 pages in. The truth is, Alva Smith Vanderbilt is anything BUT a “well-behaved” woman by the standards of the Gilded Age. She throws a costume party to get back at a socialite who denied her mother-in-law a box at the opera, she designs mansions and works hand-in-hand with a male architect to bring the buildings to life (gasp!), and more. My personal favorite would be Alva’s ability to see beyond the status of those traditionally rich families and create new trends. In order to get back at that pesky Mrs. Astor who (still) refused to give the Vanderbilts a box at the opera, she worked with a team to found The Met—for all to consume fine art. The world thanks you for your gumption, girl!

Beyond all of that excitement, I was deeply pensive about Alva’s story towards the end. She continually contemplates many of life’s deepest questions—the most frequent surround the subject of love. What is love? Is it marrying for comfort? Is it committing yourself to your partner no matter their profession or standing, even if it means putting you and your family in a lesser position? Is it even attainable in this life? Through all the twists and turns, Alva’s belief that love is out there to be found leads her to make one the grandest decisions in the fight towards gender equality in the Gilded Age. (Read it, you’ll understand.) I believe there are women everywhere that will forever be grateful for Alva Smith Vanderbilt and her ardent bravery.

It’s annoying I know, but I gotta make a not-so-shameless plug mid-review for Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Fowler first came on the scene in 2016 with the life story about Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and her rollercoaster relationship with F. Scott. A striking read that invokes empathy and sympathy, Z sheds some light on mental health and the toll it takes on all family members, especially women. In my humble opinion, Z is a better story, but A Well-Behaved Woman is a better book. Pick it up if you want a throwback and a dose of drama from the roaring 20’s and 30’s. And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Despite coming out in late 2018, this book has stood the test of time. A solid 4.5 out of 5 stars, A Well-Behaved Woman will have you cheering for Alva all the way. Who runs the world? GIRLS!

Posted by Michelle

Follow-Up Friday

“Either you follow-up, or you fold-up.” – Bernard Kelvin Cline

TGIF, my friends. Although the days of 2020 seem to blend together, Fridays still tend to be extra sweet. It’s an extra special Friday to chat lit, as we’re moving into the cozy days of fall—hope you have a chance to nestle under a blanket with your favorite drink and current read this weekend!

We’ve shared posts about books that now have sequels, so of course, we had to read them. Be warned: it’s rare to find a sequel that’s better than the original, but the books below are worth your time. If you haven’t read the original books, we suggest putting a pin in this post until you’ve dived into the originals.

P.S. There are multiple spoilers in the review below!

“If I’m going to have regrets in this life, I’d rather them be for the chances I took and not the opportunities I let slip away.”

 If this post rang true to you, get excited: Chanel Cleeton’s sequel When We Left Cuba tells the story of Beatriz, the life of the party in the Perez family. SPOILER ALERT: Following their exile from Cuba, Beatriz focuses her efforts to going back. Her goal: avenge her brother’s death and kill Fidel Castro, while working with the CIA. Adding a layer of complexity, Beatriz falls in love in with a powerful politician and begins a secret (and forbidden) relationship. Trying to balance her secret missions and passions proves difficult. Beatriz is left with no choice but to sacrifice one to gain the other.

This book deserves a solid 3.7 out of 5 stars. Most sequels have a hard time packing the same punch that originals do. You gotta give Cleeton credit though, it’s hard to come off a home run of a first release (just ask MC Hammer). While the story of Next Year in Havana is more captivating, you’ll be turning pages to find out what crazy thing Beatriz does next.

“When you get old, you become invisible. It’s just the truth. And yet it’s freeing in a way…You go through life and you think you are something. Not in a good way, and not in a bad way. But you think you are something, and then you see that you are no longer anything. To a waitress with a huge hind end you’ve become invisible. And it’s freeing.”

Glowing praise from Tracy for Olive Kitteridge motivated my mom and me to get to know the impossibly flawed Mainer. The prize winner one of the best-written books we’ve read all year, so the natural next step was to read her second story, Olive, Again. Elizabeth Strout picks up her story where she left off – we’re taken directly into the mind of Olive, as she provides the blunt reasoning produced by her later years. Not only is she attempting to mend the relationship with her son and daughter-in-law, she’s trying to navigate (and squander) her feelings for Jack Kennison. Thirteen additional stories from the townspeople of Crosby tie together 10 more years of Olive’s life. Jump into the story to join the pursuit of Olive’s quest to find what makes her “not unhappy.”

While the original book had better stories and more thought-provoking mind rants, Strout poses deep life questions that one ponders towards the end of their lives. The sequel deserves  4 out of 5 stars and a few hours of your time.

PS- if you’re into TV, HBO made the first book into a mini-series!

Posted by Michelle

2020 Reading List

The only effect I ardently long to produce by my writings, is that those who read them should be better able to imagine and to feel the pains and the joys of those who differ from them in everything but the broad fact of being struggling, erring human creatures. —George Eliot

Last week was rough, dear reader. And that’s saying something in the midst of a very rough year. Is 2020 over yet? This year has been heavy on shouting and light on listening. Cue last night’s debate. Things are at a fever pitch and I’ve got the family email, laced in all-caps and chock-fulla venom, to prove it. While it made me ache for a gentle brother gone too soon and a father who wore his compassion in his eyes, I didn’t take the personal attack personally. I recognized it as just another symptom of a far greater problem: an alarming lack of tolerance and empathy.

I’m not a hopeless person, but lately those silver-linings I’m good at spotting are proving harder to find. 2020 seems to be the perfect storm. Quarantine led to isolation which led to more people spending more time on social media. Which is rarely, if ever, a good thing. Don’t believe me? Watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix and then we’ll chat. That got me thinking: could the answer be as simple as getting everyone to read more? Not more editorials or conspiracy theories. Not more books selling an agenda or the latest tell-all. I’m talking stories here. The kind that let us see the world from another’s point of view by climbing in their skin and walking around a while. When in doubt, channel Atticus.

Here’s a roundup of recent reads that have helped me tune out the noise from both sides and focus on what really matters: people and their stories. Please know this isn’t a list of books to persuade readers to one side or the other of the political spectrum, it’s simply a hope of putting human faces to the issues that polarize us. In the words of Brené Brown, “people are hard to hate close up.”

Racism

I lost sleep over this book. And still, if I wake in the night and think of it, my heart breaks all over again and sleep eludes me as I lie there thinking of the children navigating the unforgiving streets of their neighborhood, who don't know what it's like to grow up not fearing for their lives. I hear this line from Coates and weep for the mothers and grandmothers every time: “Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we have, and you come to us endangered.” If you're ever inclined to say we don't have a racism problem in America, please read this book first.

Immigration

Tray reviewed this important read back in April and asked me to weigh in on the controversy surrounding it. So 5 months later (which is par for the course these days), I’ll say this: From what I’ve read of the controversy, the main complaint was the author, not being hispanic herself, Americanized her characters too much in order to make them more relatable to her readers. I’m in no position to argue that point, but I will say that when a book is able to humanize the plight of a people caught in the political crossfires, it’s well worth the read. American Dirt not only does just that, it does it beautifully. For more, read Tray’s review here.

One thing that should bring solace to those who decried Cummins’s merits in speaking to their experiences: her book led me to search out more on the subject. I recently listened to “The Out Crowd,” the Pulitzer-Winning audio broadcast from This American Life. It’s the first audio broadcast to win the Pulitzer and, like Between the World and Me, it’s kept me up at night. Everyone needs to hear this—regardless of your opinions on immigration. You can find the broadcast here. I also just started Once I was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America by Maria Hinjosa. I’ll keep you posted!

A Forgotten People

I read this book in an attempt to deconstruct the 2016 election and the role played by working-class whites in electing Trump. It ended up being my favorite and most important read of 2017. I wrote then: Vance offers an unflinching look at his family and a culture in crisis and "what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck." Because it's told from the inside, it never feels patronizing or heavy-handed. As Vance reminds us, "there are no villains in this story. There’s just a ragtag band of hillbillies struggling to find their way—both for their sake and, by the grace of God, for mine.” Read the rest of my review here.

This book inspired me to recently pick up Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope. That, and this review by the author of Educated, Tara Westover: “A deft and uniquely credible exploration of rural America, and other left-behind pockets of our country. One of the most important books I’ve read on the state of our disunion.”

Racial Injustice

I can’t recommend this book loudly enough. Don’t be fooled into thinking if you’ve seen the movie, there’s no need to read the book. First of all, is that ever true? I would submit no but in the case of this book, it’s a resounding no. The movie only scratches the surface of Bryan Stevenson’s amazing work. He’s the real-life Atticus. No joke. Here’s a snippet from my earlier review: A good non-fiction is hard to find. Even harder? One that permeates our sheltered lives and upends our worldview. If there was a required reading list for life, Just Mercy would be on it. Stevenson shines an unadulterated light on the destructive effects of mass incarceration, a broken judicial system, and the devastating consequences when we reduce the worth of a human soul to "the worst thing [they've] ever done." This book feels like a clarion call—one that pleads, as Maya Angelou once said, "when you know better, do better."

You can read the rest of my review here.

Slavery and the Destruction of the Black American Family

Perhaps one of the most far-reaching tragedies of slavery is the calculated decimation of the black American family by slave owners. Those consequences run deep and last for generations. This is clearly something that haunts Coates as evidenced by his original work: Between the World and Me. A heart-wrenchingly beautiful tale of an illegitimate son of a slave owner who is forced to watch his mother, the man who loved her, and all his siblings sold off one by one to places unknown. Never to be seen or heard of again. Let that sink in. No family history. No stories passed down through the generations other than one of deep longing and sorrow for what might have been.

“I felt a great rage, not simply because I knew they had been taken but because I knew how they had been taken, how they had been parted from each other, how I was born and made by this great parting. Better than before, I understood the whole dimensions of this crime, the entirety of the theft, the small moments, the tenderness, the quarrels and corrections, all stolen, so that men such as my father might live as gods.”

Posted by Rachel

Candle in the Wind

“Reading is the key that opens doors to many good things in life. Reading shaped my dreams, and more reading helped me make my dreams come true.” —Ruth Bader Ginsberg

“Life is a brief candle, but love is a craving for time.”

Rest in peace Ruth. Thank you for being your own person—for being a leader and a true visionary. We need strong women with strong values more now than ever before. Of course, I’m particularly fond of any rockstar dynamo who will acknowledge the power of reading to help open doors and lasso dreams. I wonder if the notorious, glorious RGB picked up a copy of The Confessions of Frannie Langton in the past year? 

Something tells me the Supreme Court Justice would thoroughly appreciate Frannie Langton, a Jamaican slave who “travel[ed] across the Atlantic and through the darkest channels of history.” Literacy bought her thoroughfare. (She was part of a “little colonial experiment” by a depraved scientist in Jamaica, which afforded her an education, despite being enslaved.) Swapped from an “iron cage for a gilded one,” Frannie was gifted to George Benham, a scientist who was purported to be the finest mind in England. Benham’s French wife, Marguerite, forms an unlikely “special” relationship with Frannie. She shattered the Jamaican girl’s belief that every white you’ll ever meet “either wants to tame you or rescue you.” So how do both of the Benhams wind up being murdered at the hands of this mulatta slave? Is she responsible for their untimely deaths?  You’re gonna have to read to find out. It’s true: “The Confessions of Frannie Langton is large, lavish and gutsy, a skilled and intoxicating mash-up of slave narrative, gothic romance, whodunit and legal thriller.” 

P.S. I did some supplemental reading about Sarah Collin’s debut novel. This was pretty insightful: “Frannie is an extreme version of Jane Eyre. She is a powerless child brought up horribly in a horrible place, and her voice thunders in exactly the same way. She often says things that are true, but jarring, such as: “A man writes to separate himself from the common history; a woman writes to try to join it.” Her pronouncements are just like those of Jane, who isn’t afraid to tell Rochester that she loves Thornfield in part at least because she has not “been buried under inferior minds.” Like Jane again, Frannie is awkward and pretentious in her cleverness because she has never been allowed to exercise it properly. Rochester calls Jane a caged bird, but Frannie is a battery hen.” If you love Jane, you’re gonna like Frannie.

Posted by Tracy

The Bees Knees

“Mother Nature knit a careful plan in place, and if you pulled one thread of it loose, the whole thing could unravel. These insects that made most people run in fear were the invisible glue of the earth that held us all together.”

Did someone say sizzling pace or was it fizzling pace? I’ll let you guys decide. I’m a wee bit upset with myself for waiting so long to write about one of my favorite reads of a somewhat miserable 2020. (Not to worry—the glass is still half full, I promise.) Maybe it was subconscious? After all, I had to distribute The Honey Bus by Meredith May to the masses before I let the cat out of the book bag. It’s hard to beat a never-before-heard-of memoir in the mailbox that wraps you up, pulls you in, and penetrates your unsuspecting heart. Don’t believe me? Give me your address.

If you liked The Glass Castle and Educated, you’ll love The Honey Bus. This novel reminded me that we can mend our broken parts if we’re astute enough to see the world through new eyes when life destroys the lens we’ve formerly looked through. May’s childhood lens shatters when her parents get divorced. When her mother hits the proverbial (and dysfunctional) rock bottom, May’s kindhearted grandfather introduces her to the productive world of bees who teach her important lessons about family. Survival too. Already, I want to read it again. I’m 100% with the reviewer who observed that this memoir is “filled with grace, beauty and wisdom, [it’s] like warm honey in the sunshine.” You’ll definitely want to bask in this one.

Posted by Tracy

Good, Better, Best

How are the longer, lighter days of summer winding down already? We’re not remotely ready to slow the reading flow just yet. Maybe Corona will help us keep our sizzling pace? (Come on, two posts a week constitutes some sizzle, doesn’t it?) Here’s a good, better, best post for those of you who are trying to read by the fading natural light.

Good

Coming from a family of pleasers, The Guest Book reminds me that sometimes saying “no” is not necessarily the best answer. The rich and powerful Milton family, hailing from New York, has secrets that neither propriety nor time can dismantle. When decades of family deceit surface on their island in Maine, descendants begin to question their lily-white legacy. This read offers up intrigue, some good ole fashioned elitism with a splash of racism. It underscores the idea that things aren’t always as they appear. So find yourself an island and pick up this 4-star beach read.

Better

Speaking of island reads, The Scent Keeper gave me all the beach feels. If forced to choose between the two, I’d definitely pick Bauermeister’s coming-of-age novel. I’m 100% with Macmillan Publishers about this Reese Book Club pick: “Lyrical and immersive. The Scent Keeper explores the provocative beauty of scent, the way it can reveal hidden truths, lead us to the person we seek, and even help us find our way back home.” You’re bound to love Emmaline’s fragrant search for her place in the world.

Best

The Vanishing Half earned the highest honors because this recent release has it all: plot twists, family dynamics, passing, racial identities, and (like Rachel) identical twins. One twin sister is trapped in an abusive marriage, only to run back to her rural Louisiana hometown. The other sister tries to escape racism by passing and marrying a prominent white man. Non-parallel paths reveal the stark difference between a black and white world. I’m not the only one singing Bennett’s praises—Kiley Reid, author of Such A Fun Age, had this to say: “Bennett’s tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jaqueline Woodson, but it’s especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye.”

Guest Post by Sharee

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?

Tracy,

Yes, we’ve reached our happy ending. Heathcliff finally finds joy as his visions of Cathy grow more vivid and he shuffles off his miserable mortal coil to be reunited with her. Or, as we’d say in more clinical terms, he had a series of strokes.

I know, I’m a cynic.

I love your idea of Victorian Lives Matter. I was saddened by the young deaths of the characters in Wuthering Heights, but as you pointed out, their ages were consistent with the times. Tuberculosis is a thief that robbed us of many great people. Check out this list, it’s mind-blowing.

But you asked me why we should read sad stories. Awareness and empathy are two good reasons you provide. I’ll add perspective. It’s good to be reminded that as terrible as things seem, they could probably be much, much worse. Is that also cynical of me? Maybe. There’s a reason sad books so often appeal to us more when we’re young. It’s not that teens thrive on schadenfreude, but when you’re navigating the vagaries of the teenage social scene and have to make important life choices while hormones are waging a battle for your brain, it’s sure nice to be able to think, “Well, at least I’m not trapped in an abusive marriage because I have literally no other options except to drop dead of lung disease.”

You asked a couple of other questions:

Do Heathcliff and Cathy redefine love for the reader?

Are soulmates real?

I think those are intertwined.

We need to think about where this notion of soulmates comes from. It’s typically credited to Plato, who wrote in The Symposium (370 BC) that Zeus created the two genders when he got worried that perfect and complete humans would get too powerful, so he split them in two. This is supposedly why people are looking for their other half—to complete them. I’m not even going to go into the problems of thinking about gender as something other than a social construct, or as a binary. Let’s just say that this line of thinking certainly limits the soulmate options for many people.

What really got in the way of this searching-for-my-other half idea when it comes to romantic partners is that for centuries in most cultures there was almost no choice involved in marriage. Marriage were an institution between two families made for economic reasons. This is still the case in many parts of the world. Marriages were made for money, and people found intellectual, social, emotional fulfillment through platonic relationships with other people, regardless of gender. They weren’t looking for one magical person to meet all of those needs.

This romanticized idea of soulmates really made its big comeback during the Victorian period. Sure, Shakespeare dabbled back in the Elizabethan, but the idea really took off later, especially in Gothic Fiction. The Brontë sisters were key in bringing it back through literature–Emily in Wuthering Heights and Charlotte in Jane Eyre. You might say they lit the fire and it’s been burning strong ever since, as evidenced in countless books, tv shows, and movies. “You complete me,” indeed.

So, do Heathcliff and Cathy redefine love for the reader? They definitely helped shift how the Western world thinks about love for generations. But I’d like to again point out the ages of the characters whose passionate soulmateness we use as a template for perfect love. Juliet was 13 in Romeo and Juliet. Heathcliff and Cathy were teenagers. Jane Eyre was 10 at the beginning of the book and 20-ish when the main narrative ends. Isn’t that when we’re supposed to believe in magical, lightning-strikes love? When we’re teenagers and hormones make everything bigger and more dramatic? Kate Bush wrote her biggest hit from the point of view of Cathy in Wuthering Heights. You know how old she was when the inspiration hit her and she wrote it? 18.

I wonder if we’re all missing the point because we read these stories when we’re teenagers ourselves and fall for the romance. Isn’t that what I wrote in my very first entry for this book club? I remembered liking all the moody broodiness when I was a teenager. We get caught up in the magic of Heathcliff and Cathy’s bananas love, but Brontë wrote an entire book about how that love destroyed them and everyone around them. I’m not convinced she was so pro-soulmate. Let’s not forget, she doesn’t end the book with Heathcliff’s spiritual reunion with Cathy. She leaves us with the love between Cathy Jr. and Hareton–a love that grew over time through proximity and helping each other, rather than the struck-by-lightning soulmate oneness of Cathy and Heathcliff. They loathed each other in the beginning, but doesn’t their love seem happier? Healthier? Maybe Wuthering Heights is a cautionary tale about searching for our one true soulmate. Personally, I think Brontë might very well have agreed with relationship therapist Esther Perel’s assessment:

“This idea of finding “The One” is problematic for relationships. The paradox of choice creates a real sense of anxiety for people looking to find a long-term partner. The expectations of one person to satisfy all of our many emotional, physical, and spiritual needs is a tall order for one individual. Perhaps, instead of looking for a person who checks all the boxes, focus on a person with whom you can imagine yourself writing a story that entails edits and revisions. As a reminder, there are no perfect stories.”

I think that’s where I land. Who needs a soulmate? Gimme someone I can write a story with. I bet Brontë would have loved that. Or at least loved to have that option.

So, here we are at the end. What’s my takeaway? Old me felt frustrated by all the drama. I just wanted to shake each character and tell them to snap out of it. Your wise prompts to remember the context, the lack of choice people (especially women­) had is what kept me reading. And Nelly. I really like Nelly. So, I’m all for doing another book. This time let’s be a little snappier to make it easier for people to follow along. When we announce the book, we’ll determine how many chapters we’ll read per week and we’ll stick to that. Sound good? The real question is what book should we do next? Do you have any other shameful gaps in your literary past, Tracy? I’ll out you as never having read Lord of the Flies, but I can’t take more teenage drama right now, so you’re on your own there. I’ll confess to having read almost no Jane Austen (I know, I KNOW), but since you wrote your thesis on her, I’m afraid my amateur entries would be one long eye roll for you.

What say ye, dear readers? Any suggestions?

Posted by Eliane