The Cemetery of Untold Stories

 Book 91 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from December 15 - 23

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

published 2024

Summary (via the book jacket)

Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn't want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories - literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.

Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas and soon begin to defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener to the secret tales unspooled by Alma's characters. Among them, Bienvenida, dictator Rafael Trujillo's abandoned wife who was erased from the official history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States. 

The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories. Julia Alvarez reminds us that the narratives of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.

My Opinion

3 stars

The beautiful writing took me on a journey but the last third of the book, when the layers and connections of the characters began to appear, lost me a little bit.  I'm sad there wasn't more resolution, especially between Filomena and her mother.

I'm rating it neutrally because I know part of my confusion could be due to the way I read it; I took time off in the middle and was constantly interrupted due to the chaos of the holiday season.

The Grownup

 Book 90 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read on December 21

The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

published 2014

Summary (via the book jacket)

A canny young woman in struggling to survive by perpetrating various levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the "psychic" visits the eerie Victorian home that has been the source of Susan's terror and grief, she realizes she may not have to pretend to believe in ghosts anymore. Miles, Susan's teenage stepson, doesn't help matters with his disturbing manner and grisly imagination. The three are soon locked in a chilling battle to discover where the evil truly lurks and what, if anything, can be done to escape it.

The Grownup, which originally appeared as "What Do You Do?" in George R.R. Martin's Rogues anthology, proves once again that Gillian Flynn is one of the world's most original and skilled voices in fiction.

My Opinion

4 stars

This slim book packs a punch.  I read it in one easy sitting, both because it was riveting and because it was only 62 pages.  I'm still not actually sure what the truth was by the end but that feels realistic; it depends on who you believe.

The Widow's War

 Book 89 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from December 6 - 19

The Widow's War by Sally Gunning

published 2006

Summary (via the book jacket)

Married for twenty years to Edward Berry, Lyddie is used to the trials of being a whaler's wife in the Cape Cod village of Satucket, Massachusetts - running their house herself during her husband's long absences at sea, living with the daily uncertainty that Edward will simply not return. And when her worst fear is realized, she finds herself doubly cursed. She is overwhelmed by grief, and her property and rights are now legally in the hands of her nearest male relative: her daughter's overbearing husband, whom Lyddie cannot abide. Lyddie decides to challenge both law and custom for control of her destiny, but she soon discovers the price of her bold "war" for personal freedom to be heartbreakingly dear.

My Opinion

4 stars

This book had a lot of moving pieces in a way that felt true to life but it wasn't dense to read.  I liked that the characters weren't all good or bad; they were all flawed. Their baseline decency and morality were different so even if most/all the characters made progress by the end, the changes looked different because of where they started.

I see this book is the first in a series and I will probably continue reading them even though it doesn't look like I have to (the second book appears to be in the same town but focus on new main characters so some characters will be familiar but not the central plot).

The Vacant Chair

 Book 88 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from December 7 - 14

The Vacant Chair: the Northern Soldier Leaves Home by Reid Mitchell

published 1993

Summary (via Goodreads)

In many ways, the Northern soldier in the Civil War fought as if he had never left home. On campsites and battlefields, the Union volunteer adapted to military life with attitudes shaped by networks of family relationships, in units of men from the same hometown. Understanding these links between the homes the troops left behind and the war they had to fight, writes Reid Mitchell, offers critical insight into how they thought, fought, and persevered through four bloody years of combat.

My Opinion

2 stars

This wasn't what I expected.  The book jacket said the author drew from letters, diaries, and memoirs of soldiers and I thought it would be more of the actual writings and less of the author's recap with quotes from soldiers sprinkled throughout.  That skewed it on the 'textbook non-fiction' side versus the 'story non-fiction' I enjoy more.

There were some interesting things to consider but I found my mind wandering as I read.  

A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

 Book 87 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from December 7 - 12

A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna

published 2025

Summary (via the book jacket)

Sera Swan used to be one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead, lost most of her magic, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her Guild. Now she (slightly reluctantly and just a bit grumpily) helps Jasmine run an enchanted inn in Lancashire, where she deals with her quirky guests' shenanigans, tries to keep said talking fox in check, and longs for a future that seems lost to her. But then she finds out about an old spell that could hold the key to restoring her power...

Enter Luke Larsen, a handsome and icy magical historian, who arrives on a dark autumn evening and just might know how to unlock the spell's secrets. Luke has absolutely no interest in getting involved in the madcap goings-on of the inn and is definitely not about to let a certain bewitching innkeeper past his walls, so no one is more surprised that he is when he agrees to help Sera with her spell. Worse, he might actually be thawing.

Running an inn, reclaiming lost magic, and staying one step ahead of the watchful Guild is a lot for anyone, but Sera Swan is about to discover that she doesn't have to do it alone...and that the weird, wonderful family she's made might be the best magic of all.

My Opinion

3 stars

I wavered between 3 and 4 stars with this read but ended up with 3.  While I enjoyed the characters a lot and would love a continuation of the series focusing on the inn, I realized I wasn't compelled to continue reading and could set it down easily for a day or two before picking it up again. 

I also struggled with the specific plot of regaining her magic because of how easily some things came together after such a long time.  If only a year or two had passed it would've been a little more understandable but 15 years of nothing passed and then things are resolved in a week?  That was a jump too far for such a major storyline. 

Careless People

 Book 86 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from November 30 - December 5

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

by Sarah Wynn-Williams

published 2025

Summary (via Goodreads)

From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite.

Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.”

Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.

My Opinion

2 stars

Uh oh, I feel like I wandered into a firestorm by accident.  By chapter 11 I felt like there was backstory I'm missing so I looked up the author and saw the back-and-forth between her and Facebook over this book and the allegations on both sides.  The total lack of knowledge I felt led me to Goodreads to see how this book had ended up on my TBR in the first place.  That's when I realized I actually had a different non-fiction book titled "Careless People" on my list and when skimming my library's catalog, I didn't notice the difference and got this instead.

So without getting into the veracity of claims on either side, here's my opinion of the memoir itself...

I think my biggest disconnect with the book is calling it a memoir.  If that wasn't part of the title then it could be presented as a non-fiction book about the BTS of Facebook and its impact nationally and globally.  It could still be through the first-hand lens of someone who worked there, giving a little more leeway on fact-checking and research, but it would be clear the company is the focus of the book.  Instead, by calling it a memoir, I'm left wondering why a book about the author's life focuses so much on other people.

I also find it disingenuous for the author to continually throw everyone else under the bus with little accountability for herself.  I know everyone wants to paint themselves in the best light and think of themselves with the best intentions but if the author truly disagreed with every single morally gray (or flat out immoral) decision, it seems unlikely she would've stayed there as long as she did with the success she had.  It was tough reading her black and white critical assessments of everyone else and the lines she felt they were crossing while at the same time having no recognition of any lines she herself may have blurred.  That's not even my opinion on whether or not lines were crossed, it's seeing that she doesn't appear to hold herself to the same standard as she holds everyone else.

She also mentions not negotiating for a good salary and not understanding the wealth of those around her, implying she didn't even benefit monetarily as much as other managers did.  This doesn't impress me because it's either a) a lie or b) naive and nonsensical because why would you work so hard in a job you don't agree with for seemingly no benefit?  At least money would be understandable even if it's not the choice everyone would make...plug your nose, get your bag, use the money to do good and enjoy your family after you leave.  A throwaway line about your husband picking you up in your "dilapidated" car felt deliberately chosen to further illustrate the difference between the author and her co-workers.  Again, even if her co-workers made a ton more than her, I can't imagine she's working for minimum wage.

I'm glad for her own health that she's no longer working at a place she clearly didn't enjoy.  

The Book of Lost Hours

 Book 85 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from December 1 - 4

The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso

published 2025

Summary (via the book jacket)

Who Would You Rewrite History For?

Enter the time space, a soaring library filled with books containing the memories of those who have passed, and accessed only by specially made watches once handed down from father to son - but now mostly in government hands. This is where eleven-year-old Lisavet Levy finds herself trapped in 1938, waiting for her watchmaker father to return. When he doesn't, she grows up among the books and specters, able to see the world only by sifting through the memories of those who came before her. As she realizes that government agents are entering the time space to destroy books and maintain their preferred version of history, she sets about saving these scraps in her own volume of memories. Until the appearance of an American spy named Ernest Duquesne in 1949 offers her a glimpse of the world she left behind, setting her on a course to change history and possibly the tie space itself.

In 1965, sixteen-year-old Amelia Duquesne is mourning the disappearance of her uncle Ernest when an enigmatic CIA agent approaches her to enlist her help in tracking down a book of memories her uncle had once sought. But as Amelia visits the time space for the first time, she realizes that the past - and the truth - might not be as linear as she's like to believe.

My Opinion

5 stars

This is the kind of book where my 5 star rating is more for the experience than the book.  I don't reread books but this isn't the kind of book I would want to reread even if I did.  The reveals along the way were timed well and the uniqueness of the book was what drew me in and kept it going.  However, there was still enough predictability to keep me comfortable and grounded (and yeah, the ending is wrapped up neatly but who's going to complain about a little unrealistic happiness?  Not me.). 

It was easy to visualize and get sucked into, the kind of book that snuck up on me.  I didn't realize how much I was enjoying it until it was over and I felt satisfied.