more reading: broken families

Have I mentioned lately how grateful I am for the Seattle Public Library's e-book lending program? Yes? Okay, then.

Here are 2 more books I recently borrowed and read:

--Brit Bennett's "The Vanishing Half," which has been hyped (and rightly so) and is hard to get, but gee whiz am I grateful I finally made it to first in line. This book was so good I didn't want it to end, yet I kept reading, racing ahead, wanting to know what happened between sisters Desiree and Stella and their lovers and their daughters. The sense of family, sisterhood, place, and time is brilliant, deep, thoughtful, and gripping. I know these characters and their motivations. It's just brilliantly written. 

--Celeste Ng's "All the Things I Never Told You." Ng tends to be a slower read for me, but this novel is worth the effort. It begins memorably with a dead daughter, and the story both digs in, and spirals out from there. It's another tale of a fractured family, the lies we tell ourselves and each other, how kids know more and feel more deeply than we care to admit.