Little Fires Everywhere

Wow - this is a book that makes you think. What if? What if? What if? What is good and bad - how do you decide between impossible scenarios? When teenaged Pearl and her mother Mia move to Shaker heights they turn the Richardson's lives upside down - at first they are just renters, but then Pearl befriends one of the sons, Moody and Mia starts cleaning the Richardson's big house. Soon their lives are intertwined in ways they never thought possible. The book opens with the Richardson's house on fire and then goes back to the beginning, by the end of the book all is revealed and readers are more than invested in the lives of these deeply flawed yet still relatable characters. I loved all them, the quandaries they faced, the drama. This was a stellar book - one that I won't soon forget about and will surely return to.

142 Ostriches

Running an ostrich ranch in the unforgiving California desert is not how Tallulah Jones wants to spend the rest of her life. She's helped her grandmother run the ranch since she was thirteen years old, but she's finally ready to forge her own path and get out of the Mohave Desert. When her grandmother unexpectedly dies and leaves her the ranch she decides that she's going to sell the ranch even though it's the last thing her grandmother would have wanted. Unfortunately for Tallulah, that's when the ostriches mysteriously stop laying eggs and some unexpected relatives come to town. She must navigate not only her own emotions but those of her fragile and complicated family (birds and all). Brilliantly narrated by Sarah Mollo-Christensen, who deftly conveys the emotions of all the family members with ease and authority. Fraught with family struggles, addiction, duplicity, and deceit; this courageous coming of age story set in a unique and wonderful backdrop is one that readers won't soon forget.