The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

 

From GoodReads:

Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?”

A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived.

I enjoyed this book a lot. Made me think about life, choices, regrets, successes, etc.  I recommend it.  I must say that the end was not my favorite part of the book, but I totally understand why the author ended the book the way he did. 

White Ivy by Susie Yang

This was a compelling and disturbing book about a young woman with lots of problems!  From USA Today:

"Ivy Lin was a thief but you would never know it to look at her," the book begins. Little do readers know, settling in to read, that Ivy Lin is many other things she doesn't appear to be.

The question of how far one a person will go to get what she wants is explored in many novels. But how far Ivy will go is another question altogether, as is what she's willing to lose along the way, giving the book the feel of a thriller, but not in the classic sense. It keeps readers on their toes the entire way. 

Since the main character is Asian I was disturbed because of all the recent discrimination against Asians; reading a book about an evil Asian woman was disconcerting at this time.  Her problems do stem from her feeling of not being "trendy, preppy and American" however.  

There are lots of twists and turns in the book. It was certainly a page-turner and good psychological study of a young woman trying to attain happines.

The End of October by Lawrence Wright

I first heard about this book at the beginning of the pandemic; the author was interviewed by Pamela Paul on the NYTimes Book Review podcast.  I thought to myself, "I am not ready for that book yet." So I didn't even attempt to take it out.

As time went on and we became used to the current state of affairs, I kept recalling that interview...how uncanny it was that the author (so well-respected for his NON fiction and a Pulitzer Prize winner) wrote this book BEFORE this current pandemic.

Then, when talking about the book with my daughter, she told me how the book was written by the father of a friend of hers from Brown, who I had met years ago. The sheer coincidence prompted me to check out the book.

And I am not sorry! It was a gripping page-turner, but so informative and revealing about viruses, and I just could not stop reading.  Thank God, it goes way further than our pandemic has gone, so it was not quite to close to home.  But you realize, that what happens in the book COULD happen to us.

Here is a quote from the NYTimes Book Review:  

"...much of the book not only reads like nonfiction, it is nonfiction: Wright weaves into the book accounts of historical epidemics, descriptions of Russian cyber- and biowarfare capabilities, the story of the 1803 attempt to save the New World from smallpox, and other curious nonfiction set pieces. In writing the novel, he interviewed scientists, epidemiologists, government officials and military officers. His understanding of world affairs, Middle East gossip, politics and governmental ineptitude is exceptional."

Highly recommend this book!