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Mattsbookaday

Mattsbookaday

Joined February 2025

🇨🇦 | 44 | 🏳️‍🌈 | ✝️
review
Mattsbookaday
Street of Riches | Gabrielle Roy
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Street of Riches, by Gabrielle Roy (1955, trans. 1957 🇨🇦)

Premise: A series of stories about the author‘s childhood in Manitoba‘s francophone community.

Review: This was a marvelous surprise. These stories — seventy years old themselves, but recounting events of thirty years earlier — strike a perfect balance: You feel the foreignness of this version of Canada from a century ago, while also seeing the seeds for the country we‘ve become. Cont.

Mattsbookaday But it‘s the little common touches of universal humanity that I‘ll remember most about this tender and beautiful, deserved Canadian classic.

Bookish Pair:This would be an interesting pairing with a more contemporary collection, such as Bernardine Evaristo‘s Girl Woman Other (2019).

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
6h
3 likes1 stack add1 comment
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Mattsbookaday
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Lunar New Year Love Story, by Gene Luen Yang (illustrated byLeUyen Pham) (2024)

Premise: A Vietnamese-American teenager is pulled in many directions after she learns of a family curse that means they are all destined to fail at love.

Review: This was a bit of a mixed bag for me, largely because there were a few too many things stuffed in this particular bag for my liking. Cont.

Mattsbookaday For me the best parts were the specificity of the cultural representation — particularly in the similarities and differences among East Asian Lunar New Year celebrations and in the mixture of indigenous and Christian themes in Vietnamese communities — and the moral of the story, which was not what one might expect from this kind of novel. But it did feel a bit over-stuffed.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
1d
4 likes1 comment
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Mattsbookaday
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Harriet Tubman, Live in Concert, by Bob the Drag Queen (2025)

Premise: In an alternative present where figures from the past have come back to life, a queer Black music producer is confronted with his own internalized oppression when Harriet Tubman asks him to make a record with her.

Review: I really wanted this to be something special, but while it has moments of genuine insight, it didn‘t quite get there for me. Cont.

Mattsbookaday I think the problem was that Bob is, as a general rule, the smartest, deepest-thinking, person in any room; but the main character and narrator of this story is anything but, and I don‘t think Bob able to successfully bridge that gap in this debut effort. There‘s a reason why they always say to write what you know. Still, the strong premise and often difficult discussions within are enough to make this work.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
2d
3 likes1 comment
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Mattsbookaday
The Unseen World | Liz Moore
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The Unseen World, by Liz Moore (2016)

Premise: As her odd but doting father recedes into dementia, a young woman discovers that he wasn‘t who he said he was.

Review: This is unquestionably one of the best books I‘ll read this year and I‘m shocked I hadn‘t heard about it until this week!
Cont.

Mattsbookaday The bookish world sure was sleeping on this one! I don‘t want to say too much since so much of the book revolves around things that are best discovered for oneself. But it‘s well-written, with wonderfully-crafted characters, and a lot of heart.

Bookish Pair: This reminded me a lot of the best aspects of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin (2022)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
3d
3 likes1 comment
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Mattsbookaday
The Lost Library | Wendy Mass, Rebecca Stead
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The Lost Library, by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass (2023)

Premise: A boy becomes fascinated with the mystery of his town‘s library, which burned down in 1999 under mysterious circumstances.

Review: This is a fun middle grade romp with a memorable set of characters, and a lovely father-son relationship. The problems come if you think about the plot or need a satisfying conclusion to the mystery
Cont.

Mattsbookaday Bookish Pair: For a more successful middle grade mystery, The Only Black Girls in Town by Brandy Colbert (2020)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Medium: Audio
4d
6 likes1 comment
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A Sweet Sting of Salt, by Rose Sutherland (2024 🇨🇦)

Premise: A queer take on the Selkie Wife legend set in 19th C Nova Scotia

Review: This is a legend ripe for a postmodern retelling, and this works really well. I loved the main character and her found family, and the selkie wife herself more than holds her own in a frightening situation. It‘s not perfect but a great read nonetheless.

Mattsbookaday Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

🦭 Myth Retelling

🇨🇦 Canadian Literature

🌈 Queer Characters
5d
4 likes1 comment
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Jennie‘s Boy, by Wayne Johnston (2023 🇨🇦)

Premise: A memoir of the author‘s childhood living with chronic illness in an impoverished Newfoundland community.

Review: This is close to being a perfect memoir: full of humour, insight, and vulnerability. It does a fantastic job of showing the reader the insecurity of growing up in illness, poverty, and as the child of an alcoholic, but also the power of familial love.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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Mattsbookaday
Ghosts | Dolly Alderton
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Ghosts, by Dolly Alderton (2020)

Premise: An English woman struggles to manage the ever-shifting dynamics of fading friendships, aging parents, and the horror that is twenty-first-century dating.

Review: I‘m pretty sure no author has been able to articulate the highs, lows, and humiliations of the millennial generation as well as Dolly Alderton. Cont.

Mattsbookaday This book deals beautifully with relevant contemporary themes such as the shifting nature of adult relationships, managing a parent with dementia, and online dating. In its humour and point of view, this is very similar to her Good Material (2023), but it didn‘t bother me (maybe just give at least a few months in between them to let the fertile literary ground lie fallow).

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🙃 Millennial Life. 💑 Dating / Relationships
1w
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The Abbey, by James Martin(2015)

Premise: Two suburbanites are drawn into the life of a local monastery.

Review: A good effort at fiction by a popular nonfiction writer, but this probably should have stayed a nonfiction ‘monasticism for dummies‘ book.
Cont.

Mattsbookaday Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1w
2 likes1 comment
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Stop Me If You‘ve Heard This One, by Kristen Arnett (2025)

Premise: A Florida clown struggles with her career and relationships and the ghosts of the past.

Review: This is sharp, biting, and unflinching, especially when it makes the main character look bad. But I‘ve read many books by queer women that share this sensibility and I definitely felt the diminished returns here. Cont

Mattsbookaday . I just wanted more, both from and for the protagonist — more growth and development, more awareness. But the things this does well, it does really well.

Bookish Pair: For a similar tone and themes, Melissa Broder‘s Milk Fed (2021)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🌈 Queer Characters

🎭 Performance / the Arts

👩‍👧‍👦 Complex Family

Medium: Audio
1w
2 likes1 comment
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Mattsbookaday
Water Moon: A Novel | Samantha Sotto Yambao
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Water Moon, by Samantha Sotto Yambao (2025)

Premise: The new proprietress of a magical pawn shop teams up with an unsuspecting physicist to track down her missing father.

Review: I was really excited about this one, but I have to say it completely let me down.
Cont.

Mattsbookaday The premise and atmosphere felt like a delicious cross between Japanese ‘healing fiction‘ and a Studio Ghibli film. But instead this just dragged, as the two characters go from quirky location to quirky location. At the end of the day, nothing happened and I didn‘t care. Bookish Pair: a far better version of something like this is Ben Okri‘s Astonishing the Gods (1995)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️💫
1w
4 likes1 comment
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Mattsbookaday
Lunar Boy | Jes and Cin Wibowo
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Lunar Boy, by Jes and Cin Wibowo (2024)

Premise: Set in a futuristic world steeped in Austronesian culture, an adopted child comes to terms with his trans identity, new family, and the cultural impacts of colonialism.
Cont

Mattsbookaday Review: I wanted to really love this, but there was just too much going on for me. There‘s still some wonderful representation here, of various queer and cultural identities, and a helpful and hopeful story of discovering how one belongs in an often hostile world. But I‘m not sure how well the various pieces fit together as a story.

Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

🎒 Middle Grade

🖼️ Graphic Novel

🇮🇩 Indonesian Representation

🌈 Queer Characters
2w
TieDyeDude It sounds like they may have needed to focused on the representation that worked for the story, rather than trying to fit the story to the identities they wanted to represent? Bummer. 2w
Mattsbookaday @TieDyeDude For me it was more a matter of needing to focus on the story as much as the representation. There are major plot points that are left completely unaddressed 2w
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Mattsbookaday
Into the Woods | Jenny Holiday
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Into the Woods, by Jenny Holiday (2025)

Premise: In order to reinforce a ‘no more men‘ resolution after being burned out on dating apps, a Minnesotan dance instructor takes a position as a mentor at a summer camp for artistic teens. But fate may have other things in mind, when she meets the grumpy rockstar facing life transitions of his own.
Cont.

Mattsbookaday Review: This was really cute. I don‘t have much more to say about it than that. Just a nice, easy, contemporary romance.

Bookish Pair: While not in a series per se, this is in the same universe as the author‘s Canadian Boyfriend (2024).

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

💞 Romance
2w
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Mattsbookaday
Tartufo | Kira Jane Buxton
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Tartufo, by Kira Jane Buxton (2025)

Premise: The eccentric residents of a dying Tuscan village dare to hope their prayers have been answered when the world‘s largest truffle is found in their woods.

Cont.

Mattsbookaday Review: My feelings about this novel can be summarized as “damning with faint praise.” It‘s a decent execution of a tired trope, with characters a little too quirky, and writing that skirts the edge between beautiful and purple
Bookish Pair: l Mink River, by Brian Doyle (2010)
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
2w
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Murder Most Royal (Her Majesty the Queen Investigates 3), by S.J. Bennett (2022)

Premise: Her Majesty‘s Christmas celebrations are interrupted by the discovery of a severed hand on the beach near her Sandringham Estate, a hand bearing a signet ring she instantly recognizes.

Review: This is another solid entry in this charming series. The Christmas vibes were fun, and the setting of the end of 2016 added an interesting element to the story.
Cont

Mattsbookaday Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🔎 Mystery Fiction

👑 Royal Family

Medium: Audio
2w
4 likes1 comment
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Mattsbookaday
Here | Richard McGuire
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Here, by Richard McGuire (2014)

Premise: The story of a room across the generations of its inhabitants.

Review: This is a brilliant premise brilliantly executed. You really just have to see it to appreciate it.

Bookish Pair: A literary version of this idea was well-executed in North Woods, by Daniel Mason (2023)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🖼️ Graphic Novel

🕰️ Historical

Medium: Graphic Novel

BooksandCoffee4Me Intrigued! Also, I like how you organize your review. 2w
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Mattsbookaday
All That It Ever Meant | Blessing Musariri
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All That It Ever Meant, by Blessing Musariri (2023)

Premise: Reeling following a family tragedy, a Black British girl is taken back to her parents‘ native Zimbabwe to regroup.

Review: Despite doing a lot well, this didn‘t hit for me. But I‘m also very aware that I‘m not the target audience for it, and I have little doubt it would work better for those living in a diaspora or immigrant context. Cont.

Mattsbookaday The author had some beautiful ways of describing the sense of displacement such experiences involve. It was also a moving story of a family in free fall and a dad doing whatever he can to keep them afloat.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🇿🇼 African Fiction (Zimbabwe)

🎒 Middle Grade

👧🏿 Diaspora Literature

Medium: Audio
3w
3 likes1 comment
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Mattsbookaday
The Resurrectionist | A. Rae Dunlap
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The Resurrectionist, by A. Rae Dunlap (2024)

Premise: A naive member of the gentry arrives in 19th C Edinburgh, excited to jump head on into the vanguard of the new science of medicine, but is quickly drawn into the seedy realities required by his new passion.
Cont.

Mattsbookaday This had me hooked from the opening paragraph and kept me engaged right through until the end. I loved how the author managed to convey both the brightness of the Enlightenment and the darker realities the emergence of science required. The mixture of true crime into this fictional story was also very successful. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3w
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Mattsbookaday
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Premise: A young woman at loose ends is forced to solve the mystery of her paranoid great aunt‘s murder in order to receive a life-changing inheritance and keep a small town safe from developers.
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Mattsbookaday Review: I really enjoyed this. While the premise is silly, the actual mystery was intriguing and I enjoyed the slow revelation of the pertinent facts. I also liked the journal entries that brought us into the mind of the late great aunt. This was just good murderful fun and I‘m excited to hear this is becoming a series, with book 2 due out in a few weeks.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🔎 Mystery Fiction | 🤫 Buried Secrets | 🏘️ Small Town
4w
bookandbedandtea "Murderful fun." I love it! 3w
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Story of a Soul, by St. Thérèse of Lisieux (ms. 1890s, pub. 1922)

Premise: The spiritual autobiography of a young French nun, whose simple wisdom has inspired generations.

Review: I decided to pick this up again after I read Mariette in Ecstasy last week, since I knew there were a lot of similarities between the lead character in this novel and St. Thérèse. Cont.

Mattsbookaday I can understand why this will absolutely not be for everyone, but also why it has spoken to so many people over the past century. Her life of radical — almost belligerent — simplicity is a real challenge to our cultural norms, and seems equal parts beautiful and irresponsible.

Bookish Pair: Mariette in Ecstacy, by Ron Hansen 1991)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

🙏🏽 Spirituality

✝️ Christianity

🗝️ Classics

Medium: Text
4w
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A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, by Tia Williams (2024)

Premise: Determined to make her own way in the world, the youngest and ‘disappointing‘ daughter of a prosperous Black family moves to Harlem to set up a flower shop. But as she establishes herself there, she becomes haunted by both the neighbourhood‘s disappearing history and a strange and beautiful man she can‘t stop bumping into. Cont.

Mattsbookaday Review: There are a lot of elements here I really liked, including the content around Harlem Renaissance and New York‘s disappearing history. But the supernatural elements, while enjoyable, felt out of place in Ricki‘s story. And while I enjoy Williams‘s writing, a bit of purple prose snuck in here. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

💞 Romance

👩🏿 African American Fiction

🌆 New York City

Medium:Text
4w
6 likes1 comment
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Mattsbookaday
Kwame Crashes the Underworld | Craig Kofi Farmer
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Kwame Crashes the Underworld (Kwame Powell 1), by Craig Kofi Farmer (2024)

Premise: As he prepares to travel to Ghana for his grandmother‘s funeral, a Carolina boy is pulled into a dangerous adventure in the underworld of West African lore.

Review: This does a lot well, but was ultimately a disappointment for me. Cont.

Mattsbookaday I liked its purpose of connecting Black kids to west African lore, but felt like it didn‘t know what it wanted to be. It tried on a few themes before settling on grief, leaving a lot unresolved. Bookish Pair: For another book helping kids connect to Black culture(s), Trtistan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, by Kwame Mbalia (2019)

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

🎒 Middle Grade | 👦🏿 African American Experiences | 🇬🇭 West African Culture

Medium:Audio
1mo
3 likes1 comment
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Life Hacks for a Little Alien, by Alice Franklin (2025)

Premise: Told in second person, the story of what it‘s like to grow up neurodivergent in a world in which one feels utterly alien.

Review: When we talk about ‘window‘ books, this is the kind of book we talk about. The descriptions of the main character‘s confusion at the world and its response to her are as visceral as they are heartbreaking. Cont.

Mattsbookaday Bookish Pair: For a more adult take on life on the spectrum, Emily Austin‘s Interesting Facts about Space (2024).

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🤓 Literary Fiction

🧠 Neurodivergence

🔠 Language and Linguistics

Medium: Audio
1mo
3 likes1 comment
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The Widows of Malabar Hill (Parveen Mistry 1), by Sujata Massey (2018)

Premise: India‘s first female solicitor takes the case of three Muslim widows living in seclusion, but must think quickly when the estate‘s overseer is found dead.

Review: This was a fascinating novel. The mystery was compelling but I appreciated it most as a window into the complex relationships between ethnic and religious communities in India under British rule. Cont

Mattsbookaday What didn‘t work for me were the long digressions into the MC‘s relationship with her estranged husband — while it definitely emphasized why the widows‘ plight meant so much to her, a tenth of this backstory would be enough.

Bookish Pair: The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, by Vaseem Khan (2015)
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
🔎 Mystery Fiction
🇮🇳 India
Medium: Text
1mo
5 likes1 comment
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Isaac‘s Song, by Daniel Black (2025)

Premise: A Black gay man tasked with writing the story of his relationship with his estranged father uncovers inconvenient truths that upend his assumptions.

Review: While I don‘t think that for me this hit quite as hard as his previous book, this is still an incredible and powerful work of art. Cont.

Mattsbookaday It beautifully captured the weight of generational trauma and the many ways the legacy of oppression twists lives.
Bookish Pair: For another great book about racism‘s constant reinvention, Yaa Gyasi‘s Homegoing (2016)
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
👦🏿 Black History
🌈 Queer Characters
👨‍👩‍👦 Complex Families
Medium: Audio
(edited) 1mo
3 likes1 comment
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Mattsbookaday
A Minor Chorus: A Novel | Billy-Ray Belcourt
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A Minor Chorus, by Billy-Ray Belcourt (2022 🇨🇦)

Premise: An Indigenous graduate student, jaded by the institutional game and the broader lack of effective action on Indigenous Reconciliation in Canada, returns to his home community to find the voice for the novel he knows he has within him.

Review: This is incredibly well-done and is thought-provoking in all the best, most challenging ways. Cont.

Mattsbookaday Yet it felt like a piece of sociology or political sci with a thin veneer of story thrown on top. That said, this offers a needed perspective I fear many Canadians are unable or unwilling to take to heart in these times of backlash.

Bookish Pair: Conor Kerr‘s Prairie Edge (2024 🇨🇦)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

🧡 Indigenous Fiction

🇨🇦 Canadian Society

🌈 Queer Fiction

Medium: Audio
1mo
2 likes1 comment
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Oscar Wars, by Michael Schulman (2023)

Premise: A history of the Academy Awards told through the stories of several pivotal moments across the decades.

Review: This is a fascinating and generally successful piece of nonfiction. My only struggle with it is the decision to tell the story of the Oscars through long, in-depth vignettes, rather than through a traditional survey. (Cont.)

Mattsbookaday The format has the advantage of really zooming in to specific moments in time, but its disadvantage is that it left me still feeling pretty murky about those parts of the history that were not the focus of any of the chapters. But if you‘re at all interested in cinema or pop culture in general, this is an excellent read.

Bookish Pair: n/a

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

🤓 Nonfiction

🎬 Pop Culture

Medium: Text and Audio
1mo
3 likes1 comment