All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whittaker finished reading this one on our sailing vacation. And it was awesome. Patch is a kid in the 1970s with one eye, he wears an eye patch. His best friend, a girl named Saint, is also a misfit, and they live in a small town in Missouri. When they are teenagers Patch saves another girl from getting kidnapped. He gets stabbed trying to fend the guy off and the girl escapes while he gets taken by the kidnapper and held in a dark place. While he’s being held in complete darkness he makes friends with a girl named Grace who is also being held. He grows very attached to her. In the mean time Saint is trying to find him and she is going crazy with it until she finds out where he is being held. She figures it out and goes there to confront the kidnapper and a fire in the house breaks out. Patch gets free, and he never sees Grace again. He spends the rest of his life trying to find Grace, despite the fact that everyone tells him he conjured her up as a way to cope with such a traumatic event. Saint becomes a cop to help him find Grace as well, as his best friend she always believes him. An amazing story that spans like 30 something years. Loved it.
he Guilty Couple by CL Taylor The story starts with Olivia being found guilty of attempting to murder her husband, and she goes to prison for 5 years. The thing is, she didn’t do it. Sure she had an affair, and increased his life insurance so that doesn’t look great, but she didn’t hire a killer off of the dark web. The husband framed her and she knows it. So she gets out of prison and she sets out to prove that he set her up. Over the process of trying to figure it all out she realizes that he is not at all who she thought and the plot gets crazy.
Yellowface by RF Kuang This isn’t what I was expecting at all and it was terrific! June is an author whose career never took off—not in the way her frenemy Athena Liu’s did. And June is jealous as hell, but remains friends with Athena anyway. One night they’re hanging out in Athena’s apartment when Athena chokes to death. June calls 911 and then she grabs one of Athena’s unpublished manuscripts. She publishes it on her own. But the thing is, she’s white and the book is about Chinese soldiers in WWI. She then has to face all the backlash of appearing to pretend to be Asian and publishing this book, which absolutely tortured her. Super interesting. It sort of reminded me of the controversy when that book American Dirt came out, and people were talking about how a white woman has no business writing about the plight of migrants. It begs the question of whether someone who is not of the descent of the group they're writing about has any business writing from that perspective. Which, to me, that's what fiction is--embracing a character whether or not they represent you and fabricating a story from that person's perspective. I mean, did Shakespeare have any business writing Juliet's lies, then? Ultimately an awesome book.
Scarred by Sarah Edmonson Of course, if it’s about cults I am in! This is the story of the woman who helped bring down Keith Reniere and the NXIVM cult. She talks all about how she came to join the group all the way through getting branded with Reniere’s initials when they'd convinced her that it was a picture of the elements and mountains and some shit. Which, come on, I looked at the picture of that for half a second and could see his initials. This just goes to show you the power of persuasion and belief that she didn’t see it until someone else brought it to her attention. And also? How did they expect her to keep the brand from her husband? It was a story of falling in and then getting out and then healing. I do listen to her podcast A Little Bit Culty as well. Well done, a fascinating story about a modern day cult that roped her in bit by bit.
From Here to the Great Unknown by Riley Keogh and Lisa Marie Presley I am not such a big Elvis fan. I was always more drawn to the story of Priscilla Presley and how at age 16 her parents were like “yeah, cool, go visit Elvis for like a month and we’ll stay here in Germany.” Like, what? This is a memoir that uses the tapes by Lisa Marie Presley, recorded before she passed, and Riley Keough, who is Lisa Marie’s daughter. It was a super interesting look at what it was like to grow up as Elvis’ daughter and Elvis’ granddaughter.
BJ Knapp is the author of Beside the Music, available for purchase here. Please sign up for the Backstage with BJ Knapp mailing list to get updates on events, signings, dog pictures and so much more.