I expected this book to be funny, but I don’t think I quite expected it to move me as much as it did. There’s a Word for That brings disparate family members together in a high-end rehab clinic and, as can be imagined, old hurts are brought to the surface and long-simmering tensions lead to major drama. All of this is prime material for a hilarious sitcom. One can just about imagine the memes that can come from the scene where Marty, a retired LA film producer whose fortune is slowly being eaten away by his long string of girlfriends, realizes that the newest addition to his therapy group in rehab is none other than his ex-wife Bunny Small, a world-renowned children’s book author whom he hasn’t seen in decades. Yet while Tanen does deliver some laugh out loud moments and some delightfully comedic situations, she also takes us deep into the heart of her characters and makes us care.

I love how complex the character are and how nuanced their relationships were with each other. For example, Bunny is estranged from her son Henry. We can’t help but sympathize with Henry, who grew up under the shadow of sharing a name with his mother’s famous hero (when he initially introduces himself to Marty’s daughter Janine, she thinks he’s giving a fake name) and who also has difficulty dealing with his mother’s alcoholism. But by the same token, we also can’t help but feel for Bunny, who, for all her success, is desperately lonely, and wants nothing more than to connect with her son.

I also love the two pairs of sisters with intense rivalries — Marty’s daughters Janine and Amanda, and Amanda’s daughters Hailey and Jaycee. Janine and Hailey are probably the easier to relate to — both grow up being told that their sibling is by far the prettier one, and both feel like they lost out on their parents’ love as a result of this. I love the parallels in their storylines — Janine is a former child star who now struggles to find work and Hailey is determined to become an actress against her mother’s wishes — and I also love how their similarities forge a bond between them.  But most of all, I love that Amanda and Jaycee aren’t the stereotypically mean pretty girls. There’s a great moment when Jaycee does something drastic to cover up a mistake Hailey made, and rather than acknowledging her sister’s kindness, Hailey instead resents that after the situation settles down, things seem to work out better for Jaycee than for her. I love that because even though we may more easily relate to Janine and Hailey’s situation, Tanen calls us out on the role we can sometimes play in causing the injustices and hurts we experience.

Less successful is the romance between Janine and Henry. It was cute, and kinda sweet, but it also fell short when compared to the emotional resonance of the other relationships. The family relationships struck me as particularly strong, but I also really like the friendship that develops between Marty and Bunny in rehab. Even though they hadn’t spoken in decades, and there’s little hint of a romantic spark, I love how they very clearly still care for each other.

Tanen keeps the story pretty lighthearted throughout. As a result, some of the relationships and emotional notes don’t quite go as deep as they could have. But I think it still worked overall. I really enjoyed getting to know these characters. I loved watching them grow together, and deal with all the stuff life tends to throw at us. At its heart, this book is about family, and while it may seem pithy to say, the story is a moving exploration of the ways in which families can break apart for years yet pull together when it really matters.

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Thank you to Hachette Book Group Canada for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Keep You Close is a taut and thrilling page turner that challenges us to consider: how far would you go to protect someone you love? Stephanie Maddox is an FBI agent and single mother who learns that her teenage son Zach is being investigated by a colleague for potential involvement with a terrorist group. Her duty as an FBI agent dictates that she stay out of the investigation completely, but her love for her son makes that impossible.

I enjoyed this book. It’s not quite as gripping as the author’s earlier novel Need to Know, but Cleveland is a talented storyteller, and drops just enough clues and red herrings along the way to keep me invested in the outcome. Mostly, though, the strength of this book is in its protagonist. Despite her high-powered job and unusual circumstances, Stephanie is a very relatable woman. I love how her investigation into her son’s case slowly unearths the possibility that her career may be directly responsible for the current situation. Without spoiling anything, Stephanie works in the Internal Affairs division, which understandably puts a target on her back from some of her colleagues. She has also used her professional position in the past to go after Zach’s father, a rapist and a powerful man with ties to organized crime. The twists and red herrings did feel a bit much after a while, and part of me wished the story had kept a narrower focus, but I like the emotional arc of Stephanie’s fear that her son may be an innocent victim of her choices.

I do wish Stephanie had a bit more uncertainty about Zach’s innocence throughout the novel. Instead, apart from a few niggling doubts here and there, she seems almost fully convinced of his innocence and the story spirals out more into her investigation into past enemies. Some things do happen, particularly near the end, that somewhat complicate Zach’s role in the whole affair, but I think fewer red herrings and a tighter focus on the particulars of Zach’s case would have built up to this emotional payoff much more powerfully.

Overall, this is an entertaining read, and a fun thriller. In my review for Need to Know, I mentioned how much I loved the way Cleveland shows her protagonist balancing the professional and personal parts of her life, and I thought Keep You Close tackles this same theme in a different way.

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Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I love, love, absolutely love ballet stories. There’s something about the glitz and glamour of dancing itself contrasted with the hours upon hours of literal blood, sweat and tears that dancers have to put in. And when it comes to books and movies, these usually come served with a dose of romance, fierce rivalry, and lots of real-life issues we non-dancers rarely have to think about. (For example, in this book, the lead student in the ballet class is called The Ruler, because she is shaped like a ruler when viewed from the side.)

So Bright, Burning Stars checks a lot of my must-read boxes. It’s set in a French boarding school. It’s about an elite class of ballet dancers. And it focuses on the friendship AND rivalry between two of the school’s top female dancers: Marine Duval and Kate Sanders. Marine is a quiet, ‘nice’ and naturally talented girl who wants to be a dancer mostly as an homage to her twin brother who died a few years ago. Kate is a fiercely ambitious American who grew up poor and whose mother left the family, and who views a dance career as an escape from the realities of her childhood. Only the very top student in their class can move on to the next level at the end of the year, so both girls must battle each other — and the aforementioned Ruler — for that spot.

Bright, Burning Stars features a lot of the usual dance story tropes, and does so very well. We learn about the intense pressure ballet students face to lose weight and perform at superhumanly high levels, and how as a result, these students confront eating disorders, drug use, an unexpected and potentially career-ending incident. There’s also a rivalry over a boy that threatens their friendship, though to the story’s credit, the rivalry over the boy they nicknamed “The Demigod” was less out of the usual romantic attraction, and more because The Demigod is so talented that performing with him elevates his female partners’ performances, and therefore, having chemistry with him can help your chances at being the top student.

I love the characters of Martine and Kate, and how their strengths and vulnerabilities complement each other. For example, we learn how Martine has a natural musicality and talent for dance that Kate lacks, yet Kate has the intense driving ambition and star quality that Martine doesn’t exhibit. I also love the strength of their friendship, and even when they were at odds with each other, I really wanted them to reconcile.

I also really love the way the author talked about the dancing. She used a lot of terms I’m not super familiar with, but she also gave a very strong sense of the magic in the movements. I especially loved reading the sections where Martine loses herself in the music — in one scene, to a Jay-Z track — and I would’ve loved to see that unfold on screen.

I was initially unsure how to feel about the ending, as it wasn’t the super perfect happy ending I’d been rooting for. But after a bit more reflection, I think it was probably the best ending for both characters, and very true to who each of them has become. They both had to give up a bit of what they wanted, and yet still ended up with something that they very much dreamed about. They also both grew a lot over the course of the novel, and I thought both had strong character arcs. Overall, like the best ballet stories, Bright, Burning Stars took a turn towards a darker side of this reality than I anticipated, yet also treated us to the magic and glamour that makes ballet so wonderful in the first place.

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Thank you to Thomas Allen & Son for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.