Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.
Dead Ends by Samantha Byres
Why I have it: Spotted on Insta.
Summary: All-round chaos merchant Nell Jenkins has returned to her small hometown to fulfil family duties for the mother and brother she’s barely seen since she escaped as a teen. But her homecoming isn’t the triumph it should be. A string of bad decisions follows.
I’m thinking: No.
Loved One by Aisha Muharrar
Why I have it: Saw it compared to Really Good, Actually (which I loved).
Summary: When Julia’s first-love-turned-best-friend Gabe, a musician with a cultish following, dies unexpectedly at age twenty-nine, Julia launches herself on a quest to recover the possessions he left with friends across the world. She encounters Elizabeth, Gabe’s endlessly cool ex-girlfriend. As the two women struggle to reconcile their respective claims on Gabe’s memory, can they find their way from rivalry to friendship?
I’m thinking: Yes.
The Spoon and the Sea by Rachel Caplin
Why I have it: Because of Lisa’s review.
Summary: Ashi has always lived between worlds: the Arab island of Zanzibar where he was raised by his father, and the Jewish heritage of his British mother, Rose, who left when he was a child. Now, as Rose slips into the haze of dementia, she and Ashi begin an emotional journey to trace the fragments of a life lived apart.
I’m thinking: Maybe.
Thanks for the mention, I do hope that The Spoon and The Sea finds a spot in your reading schedule in the end!
Loved One sounds good.
So, I know this is only a synopsis, but the question I’m asking myself is why in Loved One the person is taking it upon herself to take back things that he’s left with his friends. Reminds me of a friend of a friend who gave away all her things in the 70s and then in the 80s tried to get them back.
I guess I’ll have to read it to find out! Why did your friend give everything away? Existential crisis?
She was definitely a friend of a friend, and it was the 70s, and she thought she was going off to have a different life on the road.