Followers

Finished July 4

Followers by Raziel Reid

This is definitely a type of book I don't normally read. This teen novel is set around a group of teenagers who are on a reality television show in Beverly Hills. Most of them have either money or the illusion of money, and most of their parents are also part of the show. The novel moves from character to character and the chapters are structured to begin with Instagram posts on the character that is the focus of that chapter. They are titled with the Instagram profile name and give the number of followers, and then a few comments that appeared on that profile. 

It begins with one of the young stars Hailey Paley reached the point of a million followers, which she decides to have a party to celebrate this achievement. 

Then we have her cousin Lily enter the story. Lily lives with her mom in a trailer in the Valley and she's just had a bad date, one where she ended up in jail charged with a crime. Hailey's mom has decided this event and her being taken in by the Paley family for a time will help ratings. So Lily is bombarded by paparazzi, met by a team from the show, taken to the Paley house in Beverly Hills and installed in the pool house. Cameras are rolling almost all the time, and Lily must figure out what is real and what is staged, and how she feels about it all. It takes a little ways into the book for Lily to get an Instagram account of her own, and some time for her to find her feet. But she's used to relying on no one but herself, and has a summer job as a lifeguard on one of the beaches, and she has a good head on her shoulders.

Getting immersed into a world of status, money, alcohol, and drugs is a big change, and decoding the terminology of this generation and their social media took me a while. This is a very dysfunctional environment and that becomes obvious through some of the behaviour that we see. A window into another world.

The Tender Bar

Finished May 15
The Tender Bar: a Memoir by J.R. Moehringer

This is a captivating book of a boy turning into a man. JR spent most of his growing up years in Manhasset, New York on Long Island. His mother moved back into his grandparents' home when he was very young escaping domestic abuse. She struggled to move out, and finally followed a sister out to Arizona and made a life for herself and JR there. She sent him back to New York every summer though.
His mother's brother, his Uncle Charlie worked in a nearby bar, and took JR under his wing, taking him on outings to the beach, to baseball games, and other excursions along with Charlie's friends, many of whom also worked in the bar. JR grew up listening to these men's stories and watching them and trying to be someone they liked.
Once he got to be drinking age, he had his first drink in the bar, and it became even more central in his life.
I loved the characters here, the various idiosyncrasies that each one has and how JR makes them come alive. Colt, with his voice like Yogi Bear's. Joey D, large, manic, and his way of talking into his breast pocket. Bobo, a handsome blond with a lovable black mutt of a dog. Their boss, Steve, who owned the bar and gave everyone nicknames that stuck whether they liked them or not. Fuckembabe, the porter, whose speech was almost unintelligible except for that one line. Bob the Cop with his seriousness.
We see JR grow up, go to university, fall in love, try various jobs before falling into the journalism career he loves, and come to terms with the issues in his life, from his phantom of a father, to his class awareness, to the role alcohol played in his life.
A fantastic read.

Smashed

Finished March 28
Smashed by Lisa Luedeke

This teen novel follows Katie Martin in her senior year of high school. She's a star on her field hockey team and hoping for a scholarship to be able to attend university. She's also dealing with a recently broken family.
After an argument between her parents, her father drives off, and never returns. Her mom is a nurse in nearby Portland, Maine, and working as many shifts as she can to make ends meet. The novel starts in the summer, and Katie is working as a swim instructor at the nearby lake in the mornings, and at the local ice cream place later in the day. Her best friend Cassie is away in Europe for the summer, and her other friend Matt is also busy working.
When the football star, Alec, from school shows up to work nearby and starts to show an interest in Katie, she isn't sure what to think. He seems a lot nicer than he was in school, and interested in what she has to say, but what is his real motive in doing her favours?
Katie resents that her mother is never home, often staying at her boyfriend's place in town rather than drive home late at night after work. Katie's little brother Will is a good kid, and he and Katie get along well, but her commitments mean that he spends a lot of time at his best friend's place.
In trying to escape her problems, Katie makes a few bad decisions and finds herself owing Alec and bigger favour than she is comfortable with, especially when the costs of that favour start coming due.
When school starts up, Katie throws herself into her practices, working hard to do well enough to get the attention of university coaches. But her struggles continue, as do her bad choices, and this time she may not be able to avoid the costs.
A novel that deals with a lot of teen issues, and a great first novel.

One Tiny Lie

Finished April 16
One Tiny Lie by K.A. Tucker

This is the third book in a series, and the only one I've read so far. Livie is just starting college, at Princeton, the school that her father wanted her and her sister to attend, just like he had. When she was eleven, her parents died in a car crash, one that badly injured her older sister Kacey. Kacey has struggled to recover, and even though Livie seems to be doing well, getting great marks and doing everything according to a long-set-out plan, Kacey is worried about her. So Livie agreed earlier in the summer to talk to someone and she's been shaking her life up a bit.
Now, as Kacey sees her off to school, she finds herself talked into an off campus party, where she lets loose a lot more than she ever has, beginning with Jello shots. The next morning she finds herself with a new nickname, an incomplete memory of the previous evening, and a sore back. As she gradually remembers the events of the evening over the school term, she settles into a pattern of partying, studying, and questioning her own feelings, and finds herself drawn to a young man that she knows is trouble.
This is a story of coming of age, but also one of coming to terms with the past, not only for Livie, but for other characters as well. Her relationship with her sister is a strong one, but this is the first time she's really been making decisions that are hers alone.
Despite the American setting, the author is Canadian. This series will definitely appear to the adult reader ready to move on from teen fiction.

Red Lights

Finished April 16
Red Lights by Simenon, translated by Norman Denny

This dark novel is unusual for Simenon in that it was set in the United States, rather than France. On the Friday evening of Labor Day weekend, Steve and Nancy Hogan, meet as the always do in a small bar in downtown Manhattan for a drink before heading to their home on Long Island. The couple is a bit unusual for their time as Nancy went back to work after having children and is a well-paid executive assistant at a Madison Avenue firm.
This evening they are waiting for the worst of the traffic to stop before driving up to Maine to bring their two children back from summer camp. For some unstated reason, Steve has a bit of an attitude, drinking at first secretly and then more openly as they drive north. Nancy finally has enough of this, and tells Steve that she won't go on this way. When he pockets the keys, he returns from a bar to find her gone, likely to the crossroads ahead to get a bus. He follows, but has missed the bus and when he drives on, loses his way. As he continues driving on in the rain and dark, and his mind grows more confused, he goes over his resentments in his head, and we learn of his life and his wife's.
At one point Steve agrees to drive someone else north, someone he clearly suspects to be an escaped convict, and when he stops after getting a flat tire, loses consciousness. When he wakes the next morning, he finds himself alone and with his wallet gone. Phoning ahead to the camp, he finds that Nancy has never arrived, and as he realizes what must have happened to her, he finds his life forever changed.
The drinking and driving is definitely an element from another time. The novel was set in the early 1950s, and first published in 1955. But the dynamic of resentment and guilt are still clear in today's world. This new edition has an insightful foreword by Anita Brookner. The cover on this edition has the right feel to it, but I would have liked it better if the cars had been from the right era.