#29 [2026/CBR18] Not My Type by E. Jean Carroll

I had heard of E. Jean Carroll, her accusations of sexual assault against Donald Trump, and her subsequent lawsuit against him, but I did not pay much attention to the specifics. This was clearly a he said/she said situation, and I believed her. On the one hand you have a woman who told a believable story. On the other hand you have a creepy misogynist, a friend of Epstein, a man who brags about sexual assault on tape, and someone who lies constantly and loudly. Now having read the book, I'm even more sure about Trump's guilt.

I have read a couple other memoirs involving rape, and I think they are important in shedding light on how damaging rape is and how difficult the legal system is for rape victims. It's after reading some of these that I wonder how any victims manage to get through this process. I read Know My Name by Chanel Miller back in 2023, and it was very eye-opening--even though I already knew the basic facts. Miller did a phenomenal job describing the long-lasting physical and emotional impacts of Brock's assault and the subsequent court proceedings.

Not My Type (2025), although it covers similar ground, has a very different feel. E Jean Carroll was 81 when Not My Type was published. She is from a different generation, and she is a very unique woman. She is funny and opinionated and optimistic. She'd prefer to focus on the positive in her life rather than dwelling in painful memories. She is not here to psychoanalyze her feelings. Thus, Not My Type does not go into the same detail describing the emotional toll of the assault that I've seen in other memoirs. Instead, Carroll begins the book by recounting her deposition with Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba as they discuss every man she's ever had sex with. For Carroll, her sex life began after college with her then boyfriend, an Olympic swimmer, and continued to stay [shall we say] impressive throughout most of her life. But after Trump attacked her in the dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, she never had sex again. 

Because Carroll focuses more on clothing, random asides, and specifics of the trial, her true emotional state mostly comes through with inference. We hear that Trump destroyed her sex life, we hear that she can't even talk about the hundreds of thousands of ugly threats she received after Trump publicly denounced her. Occasionally, Carroll becomes emotional on the Audiotape when talking about her legal team, and you can see how hard this all is on her.

Carroll describes many parts of the trials in great detail, and I learned a lot about what led up to the assault, as well as specific testimony in each of the trials. In fact, I didn't even know there were two trials when I started the book. I loved Carroll's descriptions of all of the attorneys involved, and the testimony was really interesting. It almost made me want to read an entire transcript of the trial. What really stood out, though, was how aggressively Joe Tacopina, Trump's attorney, went after Carroll on cross examination. I can only imagine the optics of a giant, muscle bound man deriding an 80-year-old woman for not screaming when she was sexually assaulted.

I was not looking to read this book until I saw it was available when I was looking for a new Audiobook to read. Now I'm glad I listened to it. Carroll deserves a chance to share her story in a way that is unfettered by Trump's attorneys throwing judgment and blame at her. I'm glad that I now know what she went through and how brave she is to stand up to Trump (well, really, his attorneys). I hope she gets all the money that's owed her.

#28 [2026/CBR18] The Good Liar by Denise Mina

I'm not sure how I first heard of The Good Liar (2025) by Denise Mina, but I probably saw it on some end-of-the-year-best-novels list. Mina seems to be a pretty prolific writer, but she was new to me. The Good Liar is a thriller/murder mystery that takes place in London. On the whole, I found this book well written and interesting to read. However, I've found I'm not too into murder mysteries these days. I'm finding them a little too dark and sometimes unrealistic.

Claudia Atkins O'Sheil is a forensic scientist. She has developed a computer program that can analyze blood splatter data and pictures from a crime scene and spit out details of the assailant. For example, the program can estimate how an attack took place, how tall the assailant was, and other details of the crime. This computer program has come to be relied on more and more by the English Criminal Courts, which is great for Claudia's career.

The Good Liar has two timelines. The book begins with Claudia about to make a speech that will blow up her life and the lives of many around her. Then the book falls back some months in order to show how Claudia ended up where she was and what kind of speech she is going to make.

Claudia is with Phillip at a party for the grand opening of a new building when Phillip receives a phone call. A good friend of his and his fiancé have been found murdered in their home. Claudia drives Phillip in his car to the scene so he can identify the bodies. Immediately, suspicion falls on the victim's estranged son, who shows up on scene when Claudia is still there. Claudia sees enough to know that the son cannot be the killer, and she is disturbed that they take him in for questioning without explaining to him what's happening.

Besides the mystery of this double murder, Claudia has a lot of heavy stuff going on in her life. Her husband died almost a year before in a car accident. She is trying to navigate her own grief as well as her life with her two sons without him. Her sons are grieving in their own ways, and she struggles to relate to them. At the same time, Claudia's sister is a drug addict. She had been clean for some time, but relapses in the middle of the book. 

Finally, a young scientist challenged Claudia's blood splatter computer program openly in court, saying that it is fatally flawed. Claudia realizes that the woman is right, but doesn't know what to do about it. If Claudia admits to its flaws, it could invalidate hundreds of convictions. But the police are currently using her blood splatter analysis to wrongly convict the son for the double murders.

When a friend and rogue attorney of Claudia's dies on the same road and in the same way as her husband, she finally knows that her husband's death was no accident. She's determined to figure out what happened, but also desperate to protect her sons. When she figures everything out, she has to make a choice: whether to let everything go and protect herself, her family, and her living--or do what's right and go public.

Class is a big theme in this book, and I appreciate how Mina handled it. Claudia was not born into high society, but she married into it and wants to stay a part of it--even though she doesn't completely fit in. There are a number of titled gentlemen and ladies in this book who live a pretty privileged life. It was interesting to see their interactions and expectations. In addition, I liked that Claudia felt like a real and flawed person. She wanted better relationships with her sons and her sister, but often couldn't manage to act in a way that could make that happen. It was very relatable. I felt all of the pressure she was under while I read the book, and I was glad I was not her. I think fans of thrillers and murder mysteries should like this book.

#27 [2026/CBR18] Burn Book by Kara Swisher

My book club chose Burn Book: A Tech Love Story (2024) by Kara Swisher as our latest book. We'd already read another tech memoir, Careless People, which I enjoyed. I was hoping I would like Burn Book as well. In the end, I didn't love it. Although there were parts that were engaging, I did not have enough interest in or knowledge about the subject matter for me to appreciate it. 

Kara Swisher has been a tech reporter for three decades, covering tech from the very beginning back in the 1990's. She knows all the players, has scooped a good number of stories, and seems to be important in her field. I might have found this book more interesting if I'd heard of her or knew anything about her. But even though I begrudgingly and eventually accept technological progress, I am usually one of the last ones on the bandwagon. My phone does so much for me now, and I really do appreciate it. However, I also feel relief when I go backpacking, and I'm completely disconnected from all of it.

Swisher discusses her relationships with various tech moguls over the years. She mentions conversations she's had with them, articles she's written about them, and interviews she's done with them. Some of these people I'd heard of, including: Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg. Many of them I had not heard of, but sometimes I'd heard of their companies. Most of this I didn't find particularly interesting. I understand that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates did some pretty cool things, but I just don't care if they were interviewed together. 

In a similar vein, I appreciate that Apple was at one time a pioneer in products and design, but I'm not a fan. I don't like how you have to have everything Apple to use anything else from Apple. I don't like that I can't see my brother's photo albums because I don't have an iphone. Everyone says Apple is intuitive, but that's only if you've been using Apple products all your life. Sometimes Apple users feel like a cult that I have no interest in joining. Swisher, on the other hand, seems to love Apple and Steve Jobs and she talks about them a lot.

Swisher seems to be smart and funny, and some of her takes were interesting and/or amusing. (She calls Rupert Murdoch, technically her boss at one time, Uncle Satan). I think I would have been more drawn into the book if she had made it more in depth or personal. She would give a little anecdote about a famous tech dude, and then move onto the next one. But because I don't follow that world at all, I did not have the context for it to be meaningful, I often didn't know anything about the person she was talking about, and I didn't feel like I was learning anything.

My favorite parts of the book were when Swisher wrote about where tech was going (AI) and how it could change all of our lives for better or for worse. She warned us a number of times that having a small, homogeneous group of rich, white, men who care more about money and power than the greater good is not who we want making all these decisions. Many of these tech moguls started out wanting to do good in the world, but they've proven that they do not care about harmful side effects and collateral damage (Mark Zuckerberg). Whether spreading misinformation that potentially sways elections or foments violence around the world, or targeting young teens with predatory advertising, they've shown that new technology needs a legal and ethical framework to be safe.

I can imagine the right person loving this book, but I am not that person.

#26 [2026/CBR18] Here's Looking At You by Mhairi McFarlane

After finishing Cover Story by Mhairi McFarlane, I wanted more and started looking through McFarlane's novels to see if I'd missed any. I was happy to find Looking At You (2014), an older McFarlane novel that I hadn't read before. Looking At You was fine, but it did feel a little dated and is not on the top of my McFarlane list.

Anna Alessi is a history professor in England, forcing herself to go online dating in order to meet the one. She has mostly gotten over a traumatic history of intense bullying from what in America would be called her high school years. The book begins with Anna in high school. Her secret crush, James Fraser, asks if she wants to do a duet at the final school lip sync show. But he just leaves her on stage, laughs at her, and calls her an elephant while the rest of the school throws candies at her. It was premeditated and appallingly mean.

Now, many years later Anna has transformed herself into someone literally unrecognizable after losing about fifty pounds (not the best of tropes). She goes to her high school reunion for closure--or something. James Fraser and his friends are there, but they don't even know who she is. Shortly thereafter, Anna is helping out with a museum exhibition and James's company is brought on for some of the tech. Anna and James have to work together, and he still doesn't know who she is.

At first Anna is very prickly and defensive with James, which he doesn't understand. But slowly the two start getting along better. and even become friends. But one day, they go to Anna's place and James sees an old picture of Anna and the truth is out. James barely remembers what he did to her, and thinks she's making too big a deal out of it.

Eventually James understands how miserable Anna's life was in high school and properly apologizes. There are also some side stories with Anna's sister and James's wife.

I think its pretty gutsy to have a main character do something so mean in the very beginning of the book, and then bring him back as the romantic hero. The problem for me is that it didn't work. I know he was only sixteen and sixteen year old's are especially stupid with undeveloped brains. But there's a difference between stupid and cruel. And I never got the sense that James changed enough for me to really trust him. He consistently seemed low on the caring about other's feelings scale. And he didn't have any good relationships. He hated his best friend and coworkers and had nothing in common with his wife. He didn't know who he was. Even though he supposedly figured this out at the end of the book, he still went back to his wife before finally deciding he should stick with Anna. Their relationship didn't feel very romantic to me.

Anna was more sympathetic, but a lot of her character was just her looking to get married, which seemed a little tiresome. I'm also not a huge fan of the losing weight to become an entirely different, and very hot, person. I might have preferred if Anna had stayed the same and James had changed into a more substantive adult who noticed and cared about other people who weren't as hot as him. I love McFarlane, but I don't think this one aged as well as some of her others.

#25 [2026/CBR18] Daughters of the Bamboo Grove by Barbara Demick

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove (2025) by Barbara Demick is another book I first saw on NPR's Favorite Books List. Then my husband read it, and he also recommended it to me. Demick is a journalist who was based in China for a number of years. She writes about China's one-child policy, and how that affected children and families in China. Because of the draconian rules around having too many children, children were being abandoned in growing numbers, especially baby girls. In 1992, China allowed for international adoption and over 160,000 children were placed out of the country--most to the United States--over the next three decades. 

Demick focuses on two twin girls, who were the third and fourth children of two rice farmers born in an isolated mountain town in China in 2000. The twin girls were Fangfang and Shuangjie. While the parents were in the city with Shuangjie making money to pay the fine for their children, Fangfang was brutally kidnapped from her aunt and uncle's home where she had been staying. It is estimated that as many as ten percent of the children adopted out of China were forcibly taken from their parents or relatives.

So, Shuangjie grew up with her family in China with the shadow of the traumatic kidnapping of her twin sister. Fangfang was adopted to an older, religious couple in Texas who had already adopted one little girl from China. Both girls grew up in a loving family, but they had drastically different experiences. Through Demick's reporting, she met Fangfang's family in China, and thought she might try to figure out where Fangfang ended up for them. With a lot of luck, Demick discovered Fangfang's likely location, but when she reached out to the family, they were not interested. Fangfang--now Esther--was only nine years old and her adopted father had just died. Demick told Fangfang's Chinese family that their daughter was safe in America, but left it alone after that.

Many years later when the girls are seventeen, Esther decides that she wants to know more about her birth family, and they get in touch with Demick again to help them. Demick facilitates some Facetime calls and then finally a meeting in China with the two families.

This book was fascinating. I was aware of the one-child policy in China, but I knew almost no specifics and had never thought critically of what it would entail. The breadth of the Family Planning Association, how many people were involved, and their powers over people's bodies and lives was shocking to read about. The kidnapping of children to sell them to orphanages was brazen and astonishing.

I was impressed by Demick's ability to explain complex policies in a huge country without getting bogged down in too many details. I also like that the book starts out in China, from the point of view of the birth parents. It gave me a better understanding of the people in China and the tragedies they faced through the one-child policy. In addition, I was impressed by how much compassion she had for everyone involved. She really focused on the people and their love for their children.

Demick also discusses orphans, specifically Chinese and Korean orphans raised in the United States. When Esther came to China, she finally looked like everyone around her, but she was also an American foreigner.

I found this book hard to put down, and I feel like I learned a lot. Highly recommended.

#24 [2026/CBR18] Cover Story by Mhairi McFarlane

I've read many books by Mhairi McFarlane and really enjoyed most of them. So, when I saw she had a new book out, Cover Story (2025), I knew I was going to read it. McFarlane writes romance-centric novels but with more developed characters and storylines than you sometimes see in your flimsier romances. McFarlane is Scottish and her books take place in England, so there are a lot of Britishisms and other cultural references that sometimes fly over my head. I still enjoy reading them, though.

Bel is an investigative journalist working in a tiny satellite office in Manchester with her coworker Aaron and a rotating intern. The latest intern is Connor. Older than the usual intern, Connor has recently switched career tracks from finance to journalism. He's not happy about being up in Manchester, he recently dealt with a bout of depression, and he's unsure about his relationship with his girlfriend of five years. So, his first impression of Bel, Aaron, and the Manchester office is not positive, and he doesn't hide his feelings. Bel immediately labels Connor a snobby finance bro and wants nothing to do with him.

Bel hears from a source that the mayor is having inappropriate relationships with young women in his office. She decides to go undercover to befriend the woman who runs the AirBnB the mayor uses for his liaisons. When Connor stumbles into her at an inopportune time, he is roped into the undercover business as her boyfriend. 

As Connor and Bel work together, their relationship slowly thaws into a good working relationship and then into friends. Part of why this case is so important to Bel is that she recently fell into a similar trap with an older man at her previous work. Even worse, when she wizened up and left, he began stalking and harassing her.

Bel and Connor's romance is a very slow burn, but I liked their interactions and I didn't get bored while reading. I also thought McFarlane did well in explaining how Bel felt about the man at her previous work who was pretty nefarious. The guilt and blame she put on herself was tremendous, but I imagine a lot of women could relate.

Connor was dreamy, but he sometimes felt too good to be real. And speaking of realistic, almost every male character in this book was obsessed with Bel. We have Connor, of course; Bel's ex-boyfriend; Bel's office fling/stalker; co-worker Aaron; and even the mayor of Manchester as soon as he sees her. It was a little much, but didn't detract from my enjoyment of the novel.

#23 [2026/CBR18] Heartwood by Amity Gaige

Heartwood (2025) by Amity Gaige is yet another book that I originally saw on NPR's Favorite Books List. It is about a woman who goes missing on the Appalachian Trail (AT) and the search to find her. Heartwood sounded like something I would like, so I got it from my library back in December. But I was about to do some solo backpacking and camping, and I wisely decided I didn't want to read a book about a missing hiker while I was sitting alone in my tent at night. Now it's about five months later, and I finally got around to it.

Gaige states at the end of this book that this story was partially inspired by the tragic story of Geraldine "Gerry" Largay, a 66-year-old woman who had been hiking the AT. When she went off the trail to go to the bathroom, the woods were so thick that she could not find her way back. She survived for 26 days in her tent before succumbing, writing to her family in her journal. Her body was found two years later.

In Heartwood, Valerie Gillis is a 42-year-old nurse who is hiking the AT as a way to take a break and reset after the heartbreak of being on the frontlines during COVID. She is alone, but her husband is supporting her trek, meeting her every few days with supplies and logistical support. Valerie is in Maine, but she doesn't show up to meet her husband as they'd agreed. He waits one day because she is often delayed and then goes for help.

Beverly is a Maine State Game Warden. She is 57 years old, and has been in charge of missing persons cases in the woods for a number of years. She is good at her job and has a great record. Beverly is fleshed out with details of what it's like to be the only woman in a male dominated field, her complicated relationship with her mother and sisters, and her determination to find Valerie.

Lena is a 76-year-old woman who is living in a Connecticut nursing home. She is immediately sucker punched by the news of the missing hiker because her own estranged daughter is the same age as Valerie and also a nurse. Lena's immediately takes it upon herself to find out everything she can about the case.

The search brings out hundreds of volunteers and wardens as they search for Valerie. But their confidence in finding her decreases as the days continue. It's possible that she's lost, but there's also the outside chance that she was the victim of foul play. There are a number of suspects, including Valerie's husband. Some hikers are also suspicious of Valerie's last hiking partner, who had already left the trail because of a sick father. In addition, there is a SERE campus that is right near where Valerie disappeared. SERE is military training for captured soldiers and it stands for: Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. Plenty of internet sleuths think the military is hiding something, and their poor relationship with the Maine State Game Wardens don't help.

I liked this book. It was well written and seemed to have a good understanding of what long distance hiking is like. The characters are developed and feel like real people. My wanting to know what happens kept me reading, although I was sometimes frustrated when I felt like we were finally getting somewhere and the book changes perspective. I had the hardest time understanding Lena. I wish I could have related to her more. 

Recommended.