A Few Straggling January Recommends from Jackie

There were so many good books that came out in January, that Jackie couldn't fit them all into one post. Here are the final four books that came out in January that Jackie just loved. (Look for her February picks soon!)

Shelter Me by Juliette Fay

Fay's debut novel takes us through the heartache, confusion, and ultimate renewal of a young widow's first year without her husband. A fluke bike accident leaves Janie widowed with a pre-schooler and an infant to care for in a world gone very dark to her eyes. Festering wounds grow worse when a contractor shows up at the house to build a porch contracted by her husband months before. But slowly Janie comes to see that help is there for her: her crazy aunt actually gets her involved in some good ideas, the young priest can offer more wisdom than she ever dreamed, her family continues to blossom and grow and carry her with them. And the chance at new love might just be waiting for her on that new porch. This isn't as simple a story as it sounds--Janie is bitter, not a paragon of gentle widowhood, there are complications aplenty from the many "good intentions" that crowd her life, and choices are not easily wrestled into order. Fans of Lolly Winston and Anne Tyler should especially like this book.


The Mercy Papers by Robin Romm

This is a brutally honest book about living through the last few weeks of a terminally ill parent's life. Fierce love, fierce loneliness, self-centeredness, frustration, fury, exhaustion, bitterness, memories, too harsh realities--they are all here. Robin Romm is intensely brave and puts herself, and her family and friends, under the brightest of spotlights during one of the most difficult things a family can ever go through. It isn't pretty, but it is achingly true. There are no heroes in this book, only humans doing the best they can under the pressures that surround them. This isn't the kind of book you can "love" or "hate", but it is the kind of book you will be glad you read no matter what you think about it.


Miles From Nowhere by Nami Mun

This is the debut novel of Mun, and it isn't an easy one. At the age of 13, after her father left them for another woman and her mother went completely insane (she was already half-way there, but...), Joon decides that she would be better off on her own, on the streets. The book is basically 5 years of vignettes about the various situations she fell into. Most are not pretty, but Joon accepts them all without anger or much emotion at all--some of that is the drugs she's on, but most of it is the fact that she has never been valued in her entire life, so she doesn't expect it now. If anything, she becomes a collector of other people's stories, a witness to lives falling to ruin. The characters are always interesting, and the story is well told, if rather muted.


Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

I would never have picked up this book if it wasn't the top of the January IndieNext list. But I'm glad I did. The best way I can come up to describe it is that it's an unholy but frequently hilarious combination of The Sopranos and Scrubs. It's interesting (and frightening on some levels) that it is written by medical resident, so there are endless insider jokes and footnotes (yes, footnotes) regarding hospital behind the scenes stuff (very funny but it will make you avoid hospitals for as long as possible, trust me!). The main character is a former Mob hitman who is in the witness protection program and finishing up his medical training. It's hard to decide if he's a good guy now, or if he was a bad guy then, or really just what he is. He's certainly a colorful character, to say the very least. His past and his present collide when he walks into a new patient's room and the guy recognizes him from the old days. Chaos ensues. There is a Tarantinoesque scene at the end which will send the sensitive running for the bathroom, so be warned. It reads quickly, though it requires a somewhat jaded eye to truly enjoy. Fans of Palahniuk will love it.