In August we had a great discussion at Lakeshore Cafe for Bring Your Own Book Club. We discussed 8 different titles.
Click on the titles to take to you to request a copy from the library.
Shirley - Hokuloa Road by Elizabeth Hand
A young man is drawn into the dark side of paradise in this haunting and atmospheric mystery about the eerie secrets of one Hawai’ian island—and the lengths some will go to keep them.
On a whim, Grady Kendall applies to work as a live-in caretaker for a luxury property in Hawaiʻi, as far from his small-town Maine life as he can imagine. Within days he's flying out to an estate on remote Hokuloa Road, where he quickly uncovers a dark side to the island’s idyllic reputation: it has long been a place where people vanish without a trace.
When a young woman from his flight becomes the next to disappear, Grady is determined—and soon desperate—to figure out what's happened to Jessie, and to all those staring out of the island’s “missing" posters. But working with Raina, Jessie’s fiercely protective best friend, to uncover the truth is anything but easy, and with an inexplicable and sinister presence stalking his every step, Grady can only hope he'll find the answer before it's too late.
From award-winning writer Elizabeth Hand, a master of crime fiction known for her magnetic characters, seductive prose, and fearless excavations into the darkest corners of our world, comes a chilling and illuminating new novel about a place unlike any other—and the deadly cost of keeping it so.
https://www.elizabethhand.com/books-list/hokuloa-road
Kim - Educated by Tara Westover
Nina - Every Summer After by Carley Fortune
They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of spending glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she stays in a stylish city apartment keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.
Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.
For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant, Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something more, before it fell spectacularly apart.
When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made, they’ll never know whether their love is bigger than their biggest mistakes of their past.
Told over the course of six summers in the past and one weekend in the present, Every Summer After is a gorgeously nostalgic look at love and the people and choices that mark us forever.
https://www.carleyfortune.com/every-summer-after
Kaliegh - Autoboyography by Christina Lauren
Three years ago, Tanner Scott’s family relocated from California to Utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. Now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out-of-state college freedom, Tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of Utah.
But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar—where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester—Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.
It turns out, Tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him.
https://christinalaurenbooks.com/books/autoboyography/
Terry - Headless George and other Tales Told in Canada by Steven Freygood
Erudite, witty, highly entertaining and just faintly alarming, the introduction to this book is probably as clear an explanation of myth as you will find. The stories themselves are a glorious mishmash of ancient myths connected by outrageous comments on Canada and Canadians.
Freygood makes full use of a storyteller's licence to present a delightful feast. Instead of leaving us to puzzle over details of past ages, he moves to a modern idiom. The devastating impact is hilarious; for example, the Queen of Winter "keeps me in a noisome dungeon and makes me clean all the cat-litter trays and feeds me junk food all the time that makes my face break out." Good, solid scholarship provides material for his wry ingenuity. My delight was crowned when I discovered Angus of the Bright Birds, rny favourite among the overlooked gods, even if he is described as "a real creampuff." The black-and-white drawings are completely appropriate�bold, contemporary and humorous.
The title is slightly misleading: these tales may be told in Canada, but only some of them are Canadian in origin. However, Freygood argues, Canadian myths are "a significant and continuous link with man's great mythic traditions." Myths, he says, are descriptions of the human universe, but Canadian myths describe Canadians, and Freygood has got us down pat. A brief bibliography directs further reading in mythology, but you will have to look far for another collection as penetrating as this one. All ages will enjoy it.
https://www.cmreviews.ca/cm/cmarchive/vol13no1/revheadlessgeorge.html
Dorothy - My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
A unique account of the amazing Thai cave rescue told in a heart-racing, you-are-there style that blends suspense, science, and cultural insight.
On June 23, 2018, twelve young players of
the Wild Boars soccer team and their coach enter a cave in northern
Thailand seeking an afternoon’s adventure. But when they turn to leave,
rising floodwaters block their path out. The boys are trapped! Before
long, news of the missing team spreads, launching a seventeen-day rescue
operation involving thousands of rescuers from around the globe. As
the world sits vigil, people begin to wonder: how long can a group of
ordinary kids survive in complete darkness, with no food or clean water?
Luckily, the Wild Boars are a very extraordinary "ordinary" group.
Combining firsthand interviews of rescue workers with in-depth science
and details of the region's culture and religion, author Christina
Soontornvat—who was visiting family in Northern Thailand when the Wild
Boars went missing—masterfully shows how both the complex engineering
operation above ground and the mental struggles of the thirteen young
people below proved critical in the life-or-death mission. Meticulously
researched and generously illustrated with photographs, this page-turner
includes an author’s note describing her experience meeting the team,
detailed source notes, and a bibliography to fully immerse readers in
the most ambitious cave rescue in history.
Meghan - The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson
https://sophieandersonauthor.com/books/thehousewithchickenlegs/
