Staff Picks - LibGuides at Boulder Public Library

Alyssa F recommends The Hebrew Teacher by Maya Arad

06/21/2025

Boulder Library

adult fiction, domestic fiction, .Alyssa F.'s reviews

I flew through these three stories filled with so much tension truth and heartbreak. The first story personifies the inter-generational views on Isreal through the loss of an older woman teaching Hebrew at an American university for forty years. Then we meet a woman forcing an extended visit on her reluctant and distant son and daughter in law to spend time with her grandson. And in the final story, we see how far a mother will go worried about her daughter's lack of friends.

Publisher's description:

Three Israeli women, their lives altered by immigration to the United States, seek to overcome crises. Ilana is a veteran Hebrew instructor at a Midwestern college who has built her life around her career. When a young Hebrew literature professor joins the faculty, she finds his post-Zionist politics pose a threat to her life's work. Miriam, whose son left Israel to make his fortune in Silicon Valley, pays an unwanted visit to meet her new grandson and discovers cracks in the family's perfect facade. Efrat, another Israeli in California, is determined to help her daughter navigate the challenges of middle school, and crosses forbidden lines when she follows her into the minefield of social media. In these three stirring novellas -- comedies of manners with an ambitious blend of irony and sensitivity -- celebrated Israeli author Maya Arad probes the demise of idealism and the generation gap that her heroines must confront.

Find The Hebrew Teacher in our online catalog

Monnie recommends Long Bright River by Liz Moore

05/03/2025

Boulder Library

adult fiction, mystery, .Monnie's reviews, domestic fiction

Liz Moore's Long Bright River is a propulsive tale of sisters on different paths in a struggling area of Philadelphia, a police officer and an addict. A duality of good and bad is woven through the plot: life choices, crime, policing, parenting. This is a harrowing but redemptive whodunnit.

Publisher's description:

In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don't speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling. Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey's district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit, and her sister, before it's too late.

Find Long Bright River in our online catalog

Monnie recommends Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

03/05/2025

Boulder Library

adult fiction, .Monnie's reviews, domestic fiction

Intermezzo is a chess tactic where a player makes an unexpected move, mid-sequence, to disrupt an opponent's plans. Sally Rooney's latest is about brothers (one a chess pro) finding their way, both together and apart, after their father's death. Add a May-December romance and...Intermezzo!

Publisher description:

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke. Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined. For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

Find Intermezzo in our online catalog

Juliana recommends Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

01/13/2025

Boulder Library

adult fiction, humorous fiction, domestic fiction, .Juliana's reviews

Oh, Margo... I don't even know where to start. This book was thought-provoking, heartwarming, and so real. Margo's struggles and triumphs felt like I was right there with her--cheering, cringing, and tearing up. I couldn't put it down. You'll want to read this before the TV show drops in 2025!

Publisher's description:
As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger. Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Find Margo's Got Money Troubles in our catalog

Jessica A. recommends Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

12/04/2024

Boulder Library

adult fiction, domestic fiction, LGBTQIA+, .Jessica A.'s reviews

An achingly tender and honest look at sisterhood, grief, and addiction. Coco Mellors' writing is addictive. For fans of Sally Rooney and Dolly Alderton.

Publisher description:

Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family, from the acclaimed author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein. The three Blue sisters are exceptional –and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in. But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize that the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves. Imbued with Coco Mellors's signature combination of humor and heart, Blue Sisters is a story of what it takes to keep living after loss – and, ultimately, to fall in love with life again.

Find Blue Sisters in our online catalog

Anonymous teen volunteer recommends Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

07/30/2023

Boulder Library

adult fiction, romance, humorous fiction, domestic fiction, .Guest Post, .Teen Picks, Asian

This is one of my favorite books of all time - fast paced, culturally aware, and also a fantastic film that brings the story to life. The story is so beautifully crafted with funny characters that I absolutely fell in love with. I recommend this book for anyone that likes romance novels, or simply a fun read!

-Anonymous twelfth-grade teen volunteer

Publisher's description:

When New Yorker Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home and quality time with the man she hopes to marry. But Nick has failed to give his girlfriend a few key details. One, that his childhood home looks like a palace; two, that he grew up riding in more private planes than cars; and three, that he just happens to be the country’s most eligible bachelor.

Find Crazy Rich Asians in the library's online catalog.

Natasha recommends Please Look After Mom by Kyŏng-suk Sin

05/28/2023

Boulder Library

adult fiction, family life, domestic fiction, lived experiences, .Guest Post, .Teen Picks, Asian, motherhood

Mother figures are enigmatic and our relationships with them are never straight-forward. This is almost written in a train-of-consiousness style that remains easy and engaging to read. We look into the brains of different characters to view the memories they had of their mother. None of the characters, not even Mom, are perfect, which makes them and their sacrifices come alive. The ending leaves the reader in a state of a satisfying lack of closure that is so well-written and lyrical that it lifts the characters off the page and breathes life into them. All in all, this book is really worth it and proves the powers of taking creative choices in literature.

- Natasha, ninth-grade teen volunteer

Publisher's description:

Follows the efforts of a family to find the mother who went missing from Seoul Station and their sobering realizations when they recall memories that suggest she may not have been happy.

Find Please Look After Mom in our online catalog.

Neel recommends The Windfall by Diksha Basu

05/05/2023

Boulder Library

adult fiction, family life, humorous fiction, .Neel's reviews, domestic fiction, Asian, BIPOC, multicultural, multiracial

From a cramped city life in Delhi, India, Mr. and Mrs. Jha's family move to an upscale neighborhood, where they have to make few updates to their lifestyle to match with their new posh neighbors. The plot has a touch of cultural snobbery, humor, and a romance that challenges the conventional thought.

Publisher's description:

For the past thirty years, Mr. and Mrs. Jha's lives have been defined by cramped spaces, cut corners, gossipy neighbors, and the small dramas of stolen yoga pants and stale marriages. They thought they'd settled comfortably into their golden years, pleased with their son's acceptance into an American business school. But then Mr. Jha comes into an enormous and unexpected sum of money, and moves his wife from their housing complex in East Delhi to the super-rich side of town, where he becomes eager to fit in as a man of status.

Find The Windfall in our online catalog.

Margie recommends Out of the Clear Blue Sky by Kristan Higgins

04/19/2023

Boulder Library

adult fiction, romance, family life, domestic fiction

Her husband announces suddenly that he wants a divorce because he deserves joy in his life. I laughed so hard reading this wonderful book.

Publisher's description:

Beware the wrath of a woman scorned--she just might save the world. Lillie knew the empty nest would be hard when her son left for college, but she had no idea of the full extent to which her world would come crashing down--until her husband announced out of the blue that he was in love with another woman, and he would be leaving, too. Besides the fact that this announcement was a complete surprise (to say the least), what surprised her most was that she wasn't...sad. She was furious. What was she supposed to do now? She surely couldn't look for help from her mother, who had left the family on Cape Cod to live with her new wife when Lillie was still a little girl. Lillie's sister, Hannah, had abandoned her to live a more interesting life and wouldn't be any help now either. Her father was usually her rock, but recently, he'd betrayed her by taking Ben Harriman under his wing--the man who almost ruined her life in a car accident when she was in high school. Her dad had put the guy up in the family guesthouse, which was certainly no help to Lillie at all. And she sure as hell wasn't going to get any help from Melissa, her husband's gold-digging new wife (or her oddly lost teenage niece, Ophelia). So, who was going to help her? Actually, maybe all of them. And maybe she would save them, too.

Find Out of the Clear Blue Sky in our online catalog

Katharine P. recommends Meredith, Alone by Claire Alexander

04/18/2023

Boulder Library

adult fiction, psychological fiction, domestic fiction, .Katharine P.'s reviews

Sometimes you just want to read a book about nice people. Characters living in the British Isles seem to know how to be especially kind to each other. Meredith's friends, in the suburbs of Glasgow, are just what she needs after 1,214 days of not being able to step out her front door.

Publisher's description:

Not leaving her house in 1,214 days, Meredith Maggs is kept company by visits from her best friend, her online support group, and her treacherous memories of a traumatizing past, but when the world comes knocking at her door, she must find the courage to answer.

Find Meredith, Alone in our online catalog.