Taking place in an alternate reality where humans can mutate into animals, Habeck’s debut explores the nature of grief through deft and beautiful writing. Lewis and Wren are newly married when they receive terrible news: Lewis has developed a condition that will transform him into a great white shark within a year. Neither Wren nor Lewis is prepared for the toll it will take; Wren is still healing from a difficult childhood, and Lewis, a high-school theater teacher, isn’t ready to give up his dreams. Wren vows to learn scuba diving so she can be with him, and Lewis struggles to continue directing Our Town until his carnivorous side takes over. Wren's past comes to light, too, exposing the circumstances of her birth and the events that led to her mother’s death. Poetic interludes and play-like vignettes punctuate the lyrical prose.
This book is my favorite so far in 2024. If you can suspend belief and lean into the magical realism, a grown man slowly transforming into a great white shark, you will enjoy this earnest exploration of love and lost. The writing is very lyrical and carries some emotional heft, reader beware. I was deeply touched by Lewis and Wren's love and friendship and found myself crying happy tears at the end of this beautiful book.
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Teddy is unhappily single in L.A. In between sessions with his therapist and dates with men he meets online, Teddy has debates with his dachshund, Lily, who occupies his heart. Unfortunately, he is also able to communicate with the "octopus" attached to Lily's head, which is soon revealed to be a metaphor for Lily's lethal cranial tumor. As Lily's condition worsens, Teddy faces off with the "octopus", engaging it in a battle of wills that takes on epic proportions. An exceedingly authentic, keenly insightful, funny and ardent tribute to the purity of love between a pet and its human.
When celebrated writer Alma Cruz inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, she turns it into a place to bury her untold stories--literally. She creates a graveyard for manuscript drafts and revisions 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 the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives .
JK
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