Featured New Release of the Week: Keep Me Afloat by Jennifer Gold

This week we are looking at a sophomore effort that manages to keep some of the more interesting storytelling decisions and at the same time show solid growth as a writer and storyteller. This week we are looking at Keep Me Afloat by Jennifer Gold.

With this effort, Gold continues to use dates rather than chapter numbers, though this time there is a bit more cohesion to the dates. Basically, once again we have a current day storyline with flashbacks to earlier events, but those events are the key moments of the relationship that our lead is mourning – when they met, their initial relationship, their wedding, their marriage, their main issues, etc. This is one of the key areas Gold shows that she is growing in her style and storytelling abilities, and it works much smoother this time around.

Once again, Gold manages to bring us the story of a seemingly childfree woman – she mentions a desire to be an aunt a time or two, but the only references to having kids of her own are from others – yet once again Gold doesn’t actually use the term. Which as a mild activist about being childfree myself – in that I am very open about it and make frequent jokes about it with friends and family as well as being active in a few childfree communities on Facebook – is a bit annoying. USE THE WORD ALREADY! (Also a mild joke, btw, and not a serious complaint. ๐Ÿ™‚ )

The biggest change, however, in this story from the previous is that here, Gold deals with some very weighty issues – and you’ll likely want a few tissues on hand by the end – but manages to instill in the book a sense of hope, even as our lead finds herself quite lost and hopeless through much of the tale. It is here that Gold’s quiet strength and progress truly shines, and it gives great… hope ๐Ÿ˜‰ … for her junior effort.

Truly a very much recommended book, and I am very much looking forward to the next one.

As always, the Goodreads/ Amazon review:
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Featured New Release of The Week: The Ingredients of Us by Jennifer Gold

This week, we’re looking at a tale of the entire life cycle of a marriage which is told in a rare and possibly unique manner. This week, we’re looking at The Ingredients of Us from debut author Jennifer Gold.

Overall, the book is an interesting if slightly depressing look at the entire life cycle of a marriage, told via a present day storyline and multiple flash backs to various events. Stylistically, this book uses dates rather than chapter numbers, always with a reference to a particular event as the anchor. And while it works to an extent, it also leaves the reader a bit confused as the dates jump all over the place with no discernible order and little contextual clues as to what may be coming.

But my one real quibble with the book is that the author doesn’t seem to know of the existence of childfree people or the nascent movement to get such people more recognition and equal rights. Instead, the central conflict comes down to one partner wanting kids and having left a former spouse over the issue vs the other partner being childfree and yet not knowing or recognizing it, and instead agonizing over what they could do differently despite the fact that they really don’t want kids. In this manner, while the book at least addresses an issue not commonly seen in fiction these days, it does so in a bit of blundering and arguably even bigoted fashion where it could have been transcendental had it been handled a bit better.

Truly a very much recommended book, even with the childfree issue. Very much looking forward to more from this author… maybe even a follow on tale with this very couple… ๐Ÿ˜‰

As always, the Goodreads/ Amazon review:
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