Casey's Reviews

Navigating the story of love, loss, migration, deportation, and justice, Patricia Engel, the daughter of Columbian immigrants, weaves a heartfelt, beautiful, and haunting novel that speaks truth to our times. Each character embodies the push and pull of immigration—the longing for a sense of home and of belonging and the toll of being shut out from where your heart remains. A powerful novel that will be on everyone's best of list by year's end. —Casey

This book is part of our Spring Reading Challenge. Read more here.

A murder mystery set in a California coastal city, We Begin at the End carries equal parts suspense, tenderness, and social commentary about the communities that we call home. We meet Duchess Day Radley, a 13-year-old "outlaw" who tries valiantly to hold her family together while everything works to tear them apart. Radley and her community seer deep into the readers mind, making the outcome not only surprising, but filled with heart. —Casey

After US soccer star Megan Rapinoe’s game-winning goals in the 2019 Women’s World Cup captivated the world, Rapinoe has gone on to engage women (and men) everywhere with her brilliant leadership in promoting equal pay, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ rights, and through her straight talk to President Trump on an international stage. Now, in her memoir One Life, she chronicles how her conservative California upbringing, her role as the first woman soccer player to come out, and the internal reckoning that called her to take action for equality allowed her to fully use her place at the center of the world’s stage as a force for good. A perfect gift for every strong person in your life. — Casey 

As the world becomes more anxious and frayed than ever, one of our greatest remedies is to read a Fredrik Backman novel. Backman, through his humor, emotion, and honesty, reminds us that it is precisely the messiness of being human that makes us more connected to each other than we ever think possible. In Anxious People, Backman introduces us to a group of characters who happen to be in the wrong place (hostage situation) at the wrong time (apartment viewing) but whose willingness to listen and connect to each other turn everything right. This novel is a balm for the soul. — Casey

Ferrante (My Brilliant Friend) returns us to her beloved Naples, where we meet 13-year-old Giovanna and her family, who straddle the upper echelon and the working-class areas of the city. The novel combines Ferrante’s trademark touches—an indelible cast of characters and a stingingly honest coming-of- age story—with a complex narrative about what composes the truth. Be transported once again in one of this fall’s biggest books. — Casey

With our world more socially isolated, I believe that readers are searching for stories in which characters can help us understand our connection with each other. Bill Clegg (Did You Ever Have a Family?) is a master of exploring these connections. The End of the Day follows a wealthy East Coast family, the families who served them, and those who lived in their universe. How these worlds collide, and the secrets and longings trapped within them, provide a mysterious, multifaceted and deeply emotional book that will make you want to start again as soon as you get to the last page. — Casey

Internationally acclaimed poet and Santa Cruz resident Adrienne Rich broke boundaries of identity, representation, and activism in the literary world for decades. Now Hilary Holladay explores Rich’s life—including details contributed by many Santa Cruz figures—in the most definitive biography yet of her journey to becoming a queer activist who used poetry to blaze new paths of feminism. There isn’t a day that goes by that Bookshop doesn’t miss our dear friend or isn’t inspired by her work. Now everyone has a chance to learn about her seminal life and legacy. — Casey

In her first adult novel in over a decade, Julia Alvarez (In the Time of the Butterflies, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents) tells the story of an immigrant writer and recent widow whose life is suddenly filled with uncertainty. Afterlife is a quiet reflection on a lifetime of the things that bring us together and pull us apart from the ones we love. A lovely addition to Alvarez’s work.