Remarkable Jane

“We love Jane Austen because her characters, as sparkling as they are, are no better and no worse than us. They’re so eminently, so completely, human. I, for one, find it greatly consoling that she had us all figured out.” 

Attention Literati! You know who you are—scrupulous readers who crave good prose and don’t mind admitting one bit, “Yep, still doin the English major thing.” Of course, you don’t need to be an English major to adore Jane Austen. (She can feel universal like the need for oxygen, a craving for chocolate, or the pure love of puppies.) If you love Jane Austen (and I know you do), I’ve got a thoroughly charming read for you.

Jane had tons of stuff figured out over 200 years ago. I wonder if that’s why her works are still so relevant today? (You’ll have to join our upcoming book club to find out.) In the meantime, if you’re a Janeite like me, you will love Natalie Jenner’s The Jane Austen Society. Her debut novel is set in the small English village of Chawton, where Jane Austen lived for the final 8 years of her storied life. An unlikely cohort—a doctor, a widow, a farm hand, a Hollywood star, to name a few—band together in an effort to preserve what remains of Austen’s home. Not surprisingly, they forge authentic connections through remarkable Jane. And their common goal of protecting her legacy, amid difficulties of their own, underscores characters that sparkle in their own right, who are no better or worse than each of us.

 p.s. The audible narrator, Richard Armitage, was spot-on!

Posted by Tracy

Mostly Idiots

“It's always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is.”

“A bank robbery. A hostage drama. A stairwell full of police officers on their way to storm an apartment. It was easy to get to this point, much easier than you might think. All it took was one single really bad idea.  This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots. So it needs saying from the outset that it’s always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is.” So says Fredrick Backman in his latest.

In a year full of frustration, anxiety, and a good bit of political idiocy, humorous fiction might just be what we all need. A failed bank heist (it’s difficult to rob a cashless bank) leads to a hostage crisis involving eight anxious and slightly broken people. A robber in need of a getaway runs into an apartment open house where the would-be thief gives new meaning to Stockholm Syndrome. What follows is a whimsical story that uses humor to touch on the more sensitive topics of forgiveness, tolerance, hope, and our innate desire for human connection. Isn’t that what we all crave during these turbulent times? In my opinion, A Man Called Ove remains the crowning jewel in Backman’s writing portfolio, but this heartwarming tale lifted my spirits much in the same way as the loveable curmudgeon Ove. If you’re a Backman fan, you will love his latest offering. If you’re not a fan, I think you soon will be.

Posted by Sharee

On the Doorstep of 5 Bright Ones

“It is sad, of course, to forget. But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten. To remember when no one else does.”

When I was in elementary school, recess consisted of playing on the Big Toy, with some light kiddie conversation sprinkled in. Superheroes and superpowers were hot topics. The most frequently debated question—“If you could have one super power, what would it be?” I was fixated on the idea of flying—you could go anywhere you wanted on your own terms! (Maybe I’m Toni Morrison’s long-lost cousin, a girl can dream, right?) Most of my friends wanted the power of invisibility. How freeing to be present in an instant but nobody knows it. After reading V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, I am firmly convinced that invisibility is less of a superpower and more of a curse.

Picture this: it’s 1714 in a small village in France. You’re 23, past your prime, single and disapproved by everyone in your small town (minus “crazy” Esther). When a recently widowed man wants you to be his wife, your parents practically throw you at him to marry you off. Your wedding date is set despite protests. Minutes before the wedding, you run off into the woods to pray to anyone who will listen. The only “thing” that appears is Darkness, who agrees to take away her fate in exchange for her soul. Such is the plight of Addie LaRue – what should she do?

Addie takes the deal. Shortly after, she discovers no one can remember her – not even her beloved Papa, who casts her out of their home when she tries to return. Calling back the Darkness, she begs to have it reversed. The dim creature declines, mentioning to her that she was the one that prayed to him for relief. Left with no other options, Addie embarks on a nomadic life attempting to find her purpose.

For 300 years, Addie steals, swoons, and stalks her way into hundreds of friends and admirer’s lives, desperate to have one person remember her. No one remembers her long enough to sustain a relationship. She is a forgotten soul—that is until 2014, when she meets Henry Strauss. Strauss remembers her stealing a book from his bookstore the previous day. Shocked beyond all reason, Addie throws herself at Henry. She’s desperate for answers, until she discovers Henry’s dark secret.  

This book is a solid 4.75/dare I say on the doorstep of 5 stars? From the moment I picked it up, I was hooked. The first half of this gripping fiction details the backstory of Addie’s experiences with history and travels; the second half focuses on her current-day situation with Henry Strauss. Beginning to end, Schawb keeps readers entranced with what will become of poor Addie LaRue. Don’t wait to pick this book up. I repeat, don’t wait to pick this book up!

If you’re so inclined, drop what superpower you’re after below…just do it after you finish the story. (Who knows, your answer may change :)

Posted by Michelle

Southern Comfort


“Sometimes the debt you pay ain’t exactly the one you owe, but it works out jus’ the same anyway. Lord knows I done caused my share of heartache in this life.”

To quote my girl Rachel, “Sometimes Audible proves a skillful matchmaker—pairing me up with [a great] read based on books I’ve loved. One that I may never have stumbled across otherwise,” like The Pecan Man. If you’ve been following along with us for a while now, maybe you’ve noticed that Rae and I are big fans of Southern fiction. We’ve recommended southerly winners like Where the Crawdads Sing, All Over but the Shoutin’, The Giver of Stars, and Charms for the Easy Life, to name a few. And we have to weather the persistent urge to defend against altering quite possibly the most perfect character in modern-day literature, Atticus Finch. It’s hard to resist lit from “a place where grandmothers hold babies on their laps under the stars and whisper in their ears that the lights in the sky are holes in the floor of heaven.” (Thank you, Rick Bragg, for that little bit of starriness right there.)

The Pecan Man shot to the front of my tbr pile when I read that, “This [novella] has been described as To Kill a Mockingbird meets The Help.” Any time, I said, any time a book is mentioned in the same realm as Harper Lee’s phenom, I’m down to give it a try. The pee-can man, a homeless elderly black man named Eddie, did remind me a little of Boo Radley—mothers would call their children inside when he came into view. And Ora, a widow with a big heart and dispassionate eyes, who hires Eddie to help about the yard certainly has elements of Atticus Finch in her. You’ll have to read this little southern gem to discover whether or not Eddie was unjustly accused and sentenced for the death of the police chief’s son.

I’m grateful I met Ora. She’s both progressive and kind, and her moral compass is somewhere in the vicinity of true north. Let’s be honest, she didn’t start a movement. But in the summer of 1976, Ora demonstrated a deep understanding of this truth: Black Lives Matter.

P.S. Looks like Laurence Fishburne is set to play The Pecan Man onscreen…should be good!

Posted by Tracy

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