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The Magic All Around by Jennifer Moorman - Have you ever watched the Disney movie Encanto and thought "Man, that was good...but I wish it was set in the American South, with only women in the magical family, and maybe give the main character a romance?" If you did, this book's for you! It wasn't a BAD read...it was just a little too derivative of the aforementioned movie for my taste. I'll give it a solid B.

The Bookbinder by Pip Williams - Yes, it was the title of the book that attracted me, given my previous employment. Set in WWI (I have GOT to stop reading books set in WWI or WWII) in England, a woman (Peggy) and her neurodivergent twin sister live on a houseboat and work at a book bindery across the street. Peggy puts in long hours binding books while dreaming of attending nearby Oxford, but she fears she will never rise above her status as "town" (the folks are informally divided into "town"--working class--and "gown"--college attendees and graduates). When Oxford becomes a temporary hospital for Belgium soldiers, Peggy volunteers to help with the war effort and meets a soldier who changes her life. The book itself is very good, tackling subjects such as women's suffrage, the devastation of war and "knowing your place" but what I really enjoyed was how much I related to Peggy. I too was working at a bindery "wasting" my intellect. Occasionally Peggy expresses thoughts that I've thought myself; at one point, she comments that her work is important because without books, scholars can't become scholars. It reminded me SO MUCH of a comment I once made to bff early on in our friendship. In the early days after college graduation, she would work "I'm a nurse!" into the conversation within the first few minutes of talking to a stranger, hoping for praise, respect, accolades, whatever. It got...nauseating. I reached my boiling point the night we had dinner at a local Japanese restaurant and shared our hibachi table with a couple and their teenage son. The wife was also a nurse, and after a few minutes of her and bff exchanging work talk, the wife turned to me and asked if I was a nurse too. I told her no, I bound books and she very literally sniffed, said "Oh." and ignored me the rest of the night. Her husband was mortified but bff didn't think much of it. A little later, as bff was once again bragging about being a nurse, I finally snapped. I told her yes, she's a nurse and that's an important job but my bindery bound the books she read to learn to become a nurse so without my contributions, she wouldn't be a nurse. That put an end to her bragging (and later on, she was so burned out, she no longer thought of nursing as a noble profession that required others to worship her). Anyways...I related a LOT to Peggy and I understood a lot about the bookbinding process described in the book...I even have a "bone folder" like Peggy inherited from her bookbinder mom, though mine is round at both ends...and was totally taken from the bindery when they closed forever. BTW, until I just googled "Bone folder" to see if I could find a picture, I had no idea the site above existed <g>. Back to the book...A- for other readers, but an A for me because man could I relate <g>.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova - The book has been around forever, as has the movie...but I've been avoiding it. Alzheimer's runs in Mom's family--two of her mother's siblings had it--and it was Mom's biggest fear. She passed that fear on to me...we can pretty much fix or replace every other part of the body but brain damage of any kind is sometimes untreatable, and if we lose our memories, who are we really? The book is fiction--for those unfamiliar with it, a 50 year old professor is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers and the readers go along as Alice slowly deteriorates--but the author meticulously researched the disease, so almost everything that happens in the book is an actual example of what an Alzheimer's patient experiences. I found myself breathlessly taking every test Alice takes in the book and for weeks after finishing the book, every tiny memory slip turned into "Do I have Alzheimer's?". I'm not exactly sorry I read the book--it's very well written and I like how Genova covers pretty much every reaction one could have to either being a person with Alzheimer's or knowing a person with the disease--but it's super depressing (to me) and maybe should only be read by people under 50? A solid A for storytelling though.

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard - In this sci-fi story, there's a village nestled in the mountains. Exit the village east and you find yourself in the same exact village 20 years in the future. Go west and you're 20 years in the past. Part "The Giver" (students about to leave high school apply for, and are either assigned to or denied, specific jobs) and part...any sci fi story dealing with time travel, this book follows Odile, a shy girl who at the urging of her mother applies for an internship with the Conseil, the ruling body that decides who can cross the border and who can't. Time travel stuff usually gives me a headache...and this was no exception...but I am intrigued by the notion of what happens if you change history, either accidentally or deliberately. A tad predictable at the end but I'm still giving this one a B+, mainly because I was impressed the author could keep track of all the time-related stuff <g>.

Finding Sophie by Imran Mahmood - A 17 year old goes missing from a small town in the English countryside and her parents have vastly different reactions to her disappearance. The story is told in alternating chapters--first the hubby's POV, then the wife's, with an occasional chapter set in a courtroom where the reader doesn't know who's on trial. There's a lot of twists and turns...a LOT...and just when you think you got it figured out, you don't. Two things I appreciated about this book: first, the main characters are all Muslim, and I like how that's not the focus of the story but it's still important to the story. And second, a lot of the second half of the book takes place in the courtroom, or whatever the British equivalent is, and not knowing a lot about the British judicial system (though Mahmood does; he's a lawyer in England), I enjoyed learning about the process and noting the similarities and differences between how England carries out the law and how America does. B+, maybe an A-...I did get a little confused at first with some of the twists but the ultimate twist was a pretty good one.

The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu - Set in relatively modern day China, a middle-age woman with a deadbeat husband is the family's primary breadwinner, hiring herself out as a professional mourner. The money is good but she is shunned in public, as the Chinese believe funeral criers bring bad luck due to frequently being around death. Not a lot happens in this book, and if not for the mention of cellphones, I would've thought the book took place in a much, much earlier time. I'm not sure if I need to read MORE books by Chinese authors or LESS; what I've read so far has been either oppressed women subject to poverty and crappy husbands (seriously, is there no middle class in China? Are all marriages unhappy?) or people fighting a war/tyranny. Not a lot of cheeriness there. I'm giving The Funeral Cryer a B-...I learned a lot about Chinese funerals but not a lot happens in the book, and what *does* "happen" is either barely hinted at or mere speculation. I wanted more action and less wallowing in the misery of the main character. Interestingly enough, the book won some major Chinese literature prize, so it could be my taste in books is just too Western.

I also started reading The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers by Sarah Tomlinson. A young ghostwriter vies for the chance to write the memoir of Anke, a "groupie" who follows The Midnight Ramblers (obviously a Rolling Stones copycat). Anke was married to one band member who drowned under mysterious circumstances in the late 1960s and later slept with two other band members. Now that she's an old woman, she's ready to tell all, and our ghost writer hopes to get the details on what REALLY happened the night of the fateful drowning. I got several chapters in but the book just wasn't what I was hoping it would be. I wanted it to be Anke's story, with the ghost writer appearing only occasionally, mostly at the beginning and the end, but it was more the tale of the ghost writer who'd been on a meteoric rise (as the "divorcee whisperer") before a scandal hurts her credibility. The book jacket enthusiastically claims the book is for fans of Amazon's Daisy Jones and the Six, a series that sounded interesting but I don't have Prime. I'm kind of hoping someone else reads it and tells me if Mal's drowning was the accident it was reported to be or murder.