Les's Book Nook

Title  - Like It Never Was Author  - Faith Gardner ________________________________________________________________   spice 🌶 - 0 scare 😱 - 3.5 plot 📖 - 4 characters  🧍- 4 stars ⭐ - 4  Like It Never Was deserves an award for having an unreliable narrator I did not loathe! Unreliable narrators have burned me in the past, but Gardner did a fantastic job with Jolene's character. Jolene is a thirty-year-old with nomadic tendencies. Not only does she jump from job to job, but she jumps from place to place even quicker. While we all probably know someone who doesn't like to stay in one place for too long, Jolene's reason for never settling down is (hopefully) different. Jolene did something bad, REALLY bad.  When she makes the move to Berkley, CA she really thinks this may be it. She has outrun her past. Little does she know her past is in her backyard, and her improv class. When she begins spiraling she signs up for therapy to stop that voice in her head once and for all. 

Title  - Bear Author  - Julia Phillips ________________________________________________________________   spice 🌶 - 1.5 scare 😱 - 2 plot 📖 - 4 characters  🧍- 4 stars ⭐ - 3.5 Bear .. was something.  It is a very atmospheric novel about two sisters, Sam and Elena, who live on the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington. They live in a dilapidated house that their grandmother bought, who passed when the girls were very young. Now, their mother is in that same bedroom withering away from a terminal illness. Sam and Elena are the sole caregivers.  The medical bills are piling up along with a multitude of others, even with working double shifts and almost no days off their heads are barely above water. However, they have a plan: once their mother passes on they can sell the house and take the money from the sale to get off this godforsaken island. That was the plan anyway; until a bear appeared at their front step.    I have some things to praise and some things to gripe about. I