That’s right, two times the book reviews! Mainly because I read and finished two books simultaneously this week. That usually doesn’t happen, so for this rare occasion I will give my thoughts at the same time! They were two fairly different stories. One was a romantic drama, where two very different people work though in their own way why their relationship isn’t working. The other was a thriller about a woman feeling like her life is getting turned upside down when she learns secrets about her late husband and her current husband!
I’ll start with my least favorite of the two, and that was Memorial by Byran Washington. That’s certainly not to say this novel was bad, but it just didn’t quite hook me. It follows a bi-racial couple, the Asian, Michael, and Benson, who is black. Oh yeah, they are also living in Houston, Texas. They’ve been dating for four years, hardly touch each other, although they do still have sex, but that’s usually to fix of ignore an argument. One day, Michael tells Benson that his mother is coming to visit and that he will be going to Japan to re-connect with his father who is dying of cancer.
Benson is rightfully angry because he’s never met Michael’s mother before, and for dropping all of this on him at the last minute. It seems like the final straw in the relationship. At first, interactions with Michael’s mother are stilted, but soon the two connect with her teaching Benson how to cook. Michael, while in Japan, helps his father tend the bar that he owns, and the two make an unspoken pact not to mention they are father and son. Michael’s father abandoned him and his mother a long time ago, so it was interesting to see the two of them attempt to heal. Benson goes through a similar experience with his alcoholic father who was part of the reason Benson got kicked out when he first came out.
Eventually, Michael makes his way back home and even though his relationship with Benson seems better, it is clear that the two of them are going to end it. They seem tepid, probably because they do love each other and have been with each other for so long, but they realize they can still love each other and not be right for each other. Aside from their personal struggles, obviously race is touched on, especially in the context of living in Texas. I really wanted to like this book more, but it just meandered through far too many details. Perhaps I just couldn’t see why it all mattered.
My favorite book of the two was the thriller, The First Mistake, by Sandie Jones. This gave me very strong The Girl on the Train vibes. Not because Alice was an unreliable narrator, but because she was surrounded by shady characters. Alice is a business owner of a design firm that she started with her deceased husband, Tom, and now runs with her new husband, Nathan. Both men are perfect in her eyes, and she felt lucky she was able to remarry someone as good as her first husband Tom, who tragically died in a skiing accident.
All is well in Alice’s world, she’s got her great husband, good friend Beth, and her design firm is about to make a huge leap with a job at a new apartment site in Japan! All is well until she starts suspecting Nathan of cheating. But just as quickly as she suspects it, she shuts it down because Nathan just couldn’t do something like that. Her friend Beth tells her he could do something like that because she herself was cheated on back in the day and she knew absolutely nothing of it!
Beth’s story is full of juicy secrets that I just can’t give away, and then Alice starts making conclusions that are so close to being right that it’s almost frustrating! Eventually, the two women come together to help each other out, but I will say that the book somewhat ended on a cliffhanger. I feel like it could be interpreted one of two ways, but maybe I misunderstood the text. Either way, a fantastic thriller that I couldn’t put down! I know it’s almost being done to death, but I would love to see this adapted into a miniseries or something. Add it to your reading list!