Tag: Loyalty

Madeline McKnight Signs Off by Evan Brooke (Literary Fiction)

Madeline McKnight — fierce, determined, a “Wizard of Wall Street”, and … not possessed of too many friends. Fighting against the inevitable resulting from a stage 4 melanoma diagnosis, she is determined to survive it until her museum honoring Hetty Green (1834 – 1916) is opened. She wants people to care about Hetty, and to recognize her brilliance. She sees herself — her accomplishments and her lack of recognition — in Hetty. Hetty was called “the Witch of Wall Street” in her time — Madeline’s epithet rhymes and starts with B. She invites (cajoles, bribes) Bri Davis — struggling nursing student drowning in debt and easily bribable — to help her get to the finish line. The catch? Bri’s mother was Madeline’s best friend until an emotional explosion drove them apart many years ago. Bri’s attitude toward Madeline is ambivalent at best.

Alternating chapters between Madeleine and Bri’s perspectives, the narrative is surprisingly witty, thoughtful, and illuminating. While I shed some tears when the obvious finally occurred, I left feeling more uplifted than down. Excellent writing — clear, humorous at times, and perfectly capturing the internal struggles one faces when considering the parts of one’s life already lived. Themes around money and wealth, atonement, loyalty conflicting with morality, and plenty of thoughtful coverage of how women are treated differently than men — not the heavy handed oppression storyline, but the small ways in which things are harder or more criticized or misunderstood or subject to some doozies of double standards. The latter was particularly interesting because Madeline was forced to acknowledge the complexity of individual human beings. She wanted to make Hetty an unsung hero but the reality of Hetty — known as the “richest woman in America in the Gilded Age” — was more complex. She was a self-made woman with astonishing financial prowess, yet she did nothing to help others, not even supporting women’s suffrage. This led to Madeline’s own soul searching and the recognition and acceptance of her own accomplishments and failures.

Completely engaging.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on November 3rd, 2026.

All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien (Audio Book — Literary / Multicultural Fiction)

Writing: 4/5 Characters: 4/5 Plot: 3.5/5

Ky Tran comes back to the violent, drug ridden, largely Vietnamese / Chinese Sydney suburb of Cabramatta when her relatively nerdy, honor student, brother is brutally murdered at a post graduation party. The witnesses won’t talk, the police don’t care, and her parents haven’t the language skills or the will to pursue the matter. Ky tackles the witnesses — most of whom she knows — unable to let the matter rest. The novel structure fills in background, the story each witness reluctantly lets out, and the real story each remembers about while curating what comes out of their mouth. The path of disclosure winds towards a confrontation with Minnie — the best friend Ky hasn’t spoken to in years.

The writing is good and the main reader for the audio book is excellent (I did not love the two minor readers but they only appear once each for a relatively short time). I appreciated the in-depth descriptions of different approaches taken by members of a refugee community trying to make a life in a new country that doesn’t necessarily want them. Insightful commentary on loyalty, friendship, family, justice, and the concept of “being good.”

Thank you to Harper Audio and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on September 13th, 2022.