Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Read by Julia Whelan 

Published June 2021 by Random House Publishing Group

Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:

Malibu: August 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer Mick Riva.

The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time for him to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.

Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.

And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come rising to the surface.

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them . . . and what they will leave behind.

My Thoughts:

Two years ago and listened to, and very much enjoyed Reid's Daisy Jones and The Six (review here) so it was a no brainer to pick up Reid's latest, Malibu Rising. 

Like Daisy Jones, Reid plays with structure here, giving us a decades long history of the Riva family juxtaposed against twelve hours of the day we already know that Nina's house will be yet another of Malibu's famous fires. Because we know that all four of the Riva children will be at the party, we know that they will survive a childhood that sees their father abandoning them not just once, but twice, and a mother who self-destructs when he leaves for the second time. But it's their upbringing that has made the Riva children so close, the fact that they had to rely on each other to survive their mother's collapse, the fact that they discovered surfing together and find their lives tied to it. 

But they each have secrets they've been keeping from each other that will be revealed the night of the party, a night they discover another secret they've long suspected and a night they confront the man who all but abandoned them a third time when he didn't come to help them when their mother died. 

I was especially drawn to the parts of the story  set in the past, when Reid keeps readers hoping for the best for the family even as she is letting us know that things are going to get worse before they'll get better. We know almost from the minute we meet Mick Riva that he's not going to keep his promise never to leave the children's mother, June. We know from the minute a woman comes to the door and hands June a baby she says she can't keep and thinks he should be with his father that while June may not forgive Mick, she will love this child as her own. We know that even as things happen that could tear the children apart that they will, in fact, be better for what's happened. 

This one's getting great reviews, understandably. Reid has written four very strong characters in the Riva children, with very real relationships. For me, though, it suffered from my own high expectations. In the day of the party sections, it felt like Reid was adding too much to help that part of the book hold up to the history of the family. Too many extra characters, too much background on the people who came to the party and then behaved miserably, too much bad behavior. I liked this one but I would have liked it more if Reid had held back some.

Credit Julia Whelan for doing, as always, a terrific job reading this book. I was glad that I opted to listen to this one. 

Spotlight: Any Dumb Animal by A. E. Hines and The Trevor Project Fundraiser

        Coming in Fall 2021

Any Dumb Animal (Main Street Rag, 2021), the debut poetry collection by AE Hines, presents a memoir-in-verse as told by a gay man raised in the rural South who comes of age during the AIDS crisis. Flashing back and forth in time, a cast of recurring characters and circumstances are woven into a rich tale of survival and redemption, exploring one man’s life as a queer son, father, and husband, over a span of more than thirty years.

Preorder at Main Street Rag   Why preorder? Because a preorder gets you a nice discount on the book AND for every book pre-sold between June and November 2021, a group of anonymous donors will match dollar for dollar each sale and done it to The Trevor Project. The Trevor Project was founded in 1998 and is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25. 

Early reviews

“This compellingly candid work speaks the language of courage, of breath-taking transcendence. Finely crafted, it is a remarkable debut collection. Take note, world: a powerful lyric poet has emerged. Take note and rejoice!” ~ Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita

“I was amazed over and over at the bravery of these poems, never shying from the difficult moments in life, and all the while staying true to the clear-eyed, fearless vision of their author.” ~ James Crews, Editor of How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope

“With a strong gift for storytelling and an eye attuned to detail, Hines ultimately shows us the beauty and knowledge made of experience.” ~Richie Hofmann, Author of Second Empire

Life: It Goes On - July 25

Happy Sunday from, once again, cloudy Omaha! Would have been an easy day to sleep the morning away. Wait! I did that yesterday - I didn't wake up until 10:30!In my defense, I'd been up very late watching the Olympics. Because that's what I do when the Olympics are on. Last night I couldn't go to bed before watching the women win in both volleyball and softball. It'll be hard to get me away from a television for the next couple of weeks. 

Last Week I: 

 Listened To: Daphne du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel, which is read by the actor Jonathan Pryce. He is fantastic! 

Watched: ALL of the sports! I still haven't found the new-to-me sport that will capture my love as curling did ten or so years ago. 

Read: I read like crazy early in the week to finish three books that I needed to have finished for varying reasons. I finished The Guest List, The Summer Before The War, and The Ocean In Winter. I really need to do a better job of keeping track of when things will be due so I don't do that to myself so often!

Made: More caprese salad (it basically lives in my refrigerator in the summer), naked pasta with tomato and basil, and Spam sandwiches just like Mom used to make. 

Enjoyed: Date night with the hubby. We hit up our favorite pizza place in Omaha followed by ice cream at one of the great creameries in town. I went with the tried-and-true coffee flavor but The Big Guy got basil and white chocolate and it was amazing. 

This Week I’m:  

Planning: Miss H is coming to town this weekend so, while I'm cleaning the guest room for her and putting on clean sheets, I'm going to do some rearranging and organizing in there. 

Thinking About: One of the accounts I follow on Instagram has adopted the philosophy, as she tries to find a way to tackle all that needs to be done as a new mom, "Inch by inch, life's a cinch; yard by yard, life is hard." I had a migraine Friday that resulted in what I call a headache hangover yesterday. Making myself get up and get busy was hard but I finally decided I'd work inch by inch and ended up getting a lot done. I think that will be my new philosophy - it's certainly the way I've traditionally tackled big projects so it shouldn't be hard to adopt for every day life. 

Feeling: A bit sad, if I'm honest. I found out this week that Mini-me and Ms. S will be moving to Alaska in October. What a great adventure for them but it will mean we'll see much less of them. 

Looking forward to: My sister and niece are coming down this weekend for a baby shower for my niece. I'm looking forward to seeing them and hoping my other niece, who recently had a baby, will also be able to come so that I can meet that little man. 

Question of the week: What's on the menu this week? I'm on the struggle bus in the kitchen right now and need ideas?

The Ocean In Winter by Elizabeth de Veer

The Ocean In Winter by Elizabeth de Veer

Published July 2021 by Blackstone Publishing

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through TLC Book Tours, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:

The lives of the three Emery sisters were changed forever when Alex, eleven at the time, found their mother drowned in the bathtub of their home. After their mother’s suicide, the girls’ father shut down emotionally, leaving Alex responsible for caring for Colleen, then eight, and little Riley, just four. Now the girls are grown and navigating different directions. Alex, a nurse, has been traveling in India and grieving her struggle to have a child; Colleen is the devoted mother of preteens in denial that her marriage is ending; and Riley has been leading what her sisters imagine to be the dream life of a successful model in New York City. Decades may have passed, but the unresolved trauma of their mother’s death still looms over them creating distance between the sisters.

Then on a March night, a storm rages near the coast of northeastern Massachusetts. Alex sits alone in an old farmhouse she inherited from a stranger. The lights are out because of the storm; then, an unexpected knock at the door. When Alex opens it, her beautiful younger sister stands before her. Riley has long been estranged from their family, prompting Colleen to hire the private investigator from whom they’d been awaiting news. Comforted by her unexpected presence, Alex holds back her nagging questions: How had Riley found her? Wouldn’t the dirt roads have been impassable in the storm? Why did Riley insist on disappearing back into the night?

After her mysterious visitation, Alex and Colleen are determined to reconcile with Riley and to face their painful past, but the closer they come to finding their missing sister, the more they fear they’ll only be left with Riley’s secrets. An unforgettable story about grief, love, and what it means to be haunted, The Ocean in Winter marks the debut of a remarkable new voice in fiction.

My Thoughts:

Twenty-five years after their mother committed suicide, Alex, Colleen, and Riley continue to struggle with the after effects of the event that changed their lives. Their father has become a recluse and something of a hoarder, requiring his girls to not only care for themselves but for him as well. 

Alex, who lives with the memory of finding her mother and seeing her dead, never marries but goes into a career where she continues to care for people. That is until she gets some news that rocks her world just as an opportunity to travel to India gives her the chance to finally do something entirely for herself. 

Colleen has been living the perfect life - great marriage, perfect house, two kids that she devotes her entire being to - until suddenly things aren't so perfect. Her husband has moved out, and fire leave Colleen and her children homeless, and she finds out her husband has found another woman. And her baby sister, Riley, has been out of touch for months. Desperate to try to pull her family back together, Colleen hires a private investigator to find Riley; but when he does, the news isn't good. 

Riley, who has no recollection of her mother, has become a famous model. But that lifestyle and her painful history have cause Riley to turn to drugs. A stint in rehab worked for a while but slowly Riley is unraveling again and this time there is no safety net. 

There's a lot going on here and de Veer touches on a lot of tough subjects - suicide, mental health, addiction, abuse, family dynamics, infertility, marriage. It felt like a bit more than was needed to make the book compelling and a supernatural elements that de Veer introduced didn't really work for me. But, overall, with the alternating first person narratives of the three sisters, this was a book that pulled me through it, wanting to know what secrets were still hidden and hoping that each of the sisters could find the peace they needed. De Veer does a terrific job of helping the reader to feel the cold and grey of the winter that mirrors what is happening in the sisters' lives. This is de Veer's debut novel; I'm looking forward to seeing where she goes from here.

Thanks to the ladies of TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. For other opinions about this book, check out the full tour here. 

About Elizabeth de Veer:

 Elizabeth de Veer has a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and has been admitted to writing residencies at the Jentel Artist Residency, the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is a member of several writing groups, including Grub Street Writers’ Collective of Boston, the Newburyport Writers’ Group, Sisters in Crime New England, and the New Hampshire Writers’ Project. She lives in a small town in Northeast Massachusetts with her husband, daughter, and labradoodle. 

To learn more, check out her web site at elizabethdeveer.com. Connect with Elizabeth:  Website | Facebook | Instagram

Life: It Goes On - July 18

Happy Sunday! Boy, was this a week that didn't go as planned! Wednesday a.m. Miss H woke up in a lot of pain and took herself to the emergency room. After five hours, someone finally looked at her and after three more hours determined that she had kidney stones that were moving and that she needed surgery. Needless to say, this mama spent a good part of Wednesday distracted then came home from work and packed to head south early Thursday morning. Got her home Friday and I got home late Friday night. After spending the night Thursday in a hospital recliner, I may have offered to let one of her friend's 13-year-old daughter come live with me and tried to kidnap her roommate's dog. Neither of these would have been popular with The Big Guy! 

Last Week I: 

My view Thursday

 Listened To: I finished Malibu Rising and started Daphne du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel for books. I also listened to Hamilton when I was driving in the city and to keep me awake on the way home. 

Watched: I lost track of how many episodes of Friends, The Office, Impractical Jokers, and Brooklyn 99 Miss H and I watched while I was there. Believe it or not, I had never sat through an entire episode of The Office before. Also, I can happily live the rest of my life without ever seeing Impractical Jokers again. 

Read: I'm balancing books that are due for review, book club, and expiration dates so I've got three going right now: The Guest List, The Summer Before The War, and The Ocean In Winter. Good thing I'm enjoying all of them but I'd prefer to be able to focus on them one at a time. 

Made: Not as much as I'd planned, needless to day. I did get some caprese salad made - that's something that basically lives in my refrigerator throughout the summer. We also grilled chicken, burgers, and corn on the cob and I made some cucumber dip. And I just pulled a loaf of sourdough bread out of the oven - maybe the best loaf I've ever made, at least to look at. 

Enjoyed: A new, to me, place to eat in Kansas City (Shawnee, actually) - McLain's Market. We will definitely be going back when we're down to see her again. 

This Week I’m:  

Planning: Finishing up a plant project I'm working on inside the house. Things are getting repotted, moved, pruned. We've got sixteen on the first floor and they were starting to feel like they were taking over the place!

Thinking About: The new to us chair and ottoman that need to be reupholstered and what that will take. 

Feeling: Grateful for the staff at the hospital who worked hard to keep Miss H pain free without narcotics, which, as a recovering addict, are a real danger for her. 

Looking forward to: Book club Tuesday. 

Question of the week: My family has spent so much time in hospitals that I'm kind of a pro when it comes to packing to spend time in one. What's something you always take that you'd recommend?