Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday and then they are published later in the week.
And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.
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Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
A woman is detained under an American regime where even dreams are being surveilled. Lalami’s stellar fifth novel concerns Sara Hussein, a Moroccan American woman who’s returning home from a conference in London to her family in L.A. when she’s held by the Risk Assessment Administration, a federal agency that uses biometric data to assess citizens’ “pre-crime” tendencies. She’s done nothing troubling, but her “risk score” is high enough to force a stay at an all-woman “retention center” that’s effectively a prison. Though her stay is supposed to be brief, the smallest hiccups lead to extensions, and the private-prison firm contracted by RAA charges extortionate rates for everything from emails to clean sheets; Sara and the other retainees are also expected to work to lower their scores, labor that partly involves feeding AI models. There are echoes ofThe Handmaid’s Tale here–as Margaret Atwood does in that book, Lalami builds a convincing near-future dystopia out of current events, and Sara plots a similar small-scale resistance. But Lalami’s scenario is unique and well-imagined–interspersed report sheets, transcripts, and terms-of-service lingo have a realistic, poignant lyricism that exposes the cruel bureaucracy in which Sara is trapped. (Not for nothing does she have a Borges book checked out of the library.) And the story exposes the particular perniciousness of big tech’s capacity to exploit our every movement, indeed practically every thought. It’s a fiction-workshop cliche that dreams are unnecessary, but here they play a crucial role in the plot, opening up questions of what we’re sacrificing in the name of convenience and safety. The novel’s striking message is summarized in Sara’s retort to a bureaucrat who tells her the data doesn’t lie: “It doesn’t tell the truth, either.” An engrossing and troubling dystopian tale. – Starred Kirkus Review
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Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen
Another instant classic from Carl Hiaasen—laugh-out-loud funny, tackling the current chaotic and polarized American culture (following in the path of Squeeze Me), with two wonderful Hiaasen heroes
“The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Shores, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he’d take him there after finishing an errand.”
Thus begins Fever Beach, with an errand that leads—in pure Hiaasen-style—into the depths of Florida at its most Floridian: a sun-soaked bastion of right-wing extremism, white power, greed, and corruption. Figgo, it turns out, is the only hate-monger ever to be kicked out of the Proud Boys for being too dumb and incompetent. On January 6, 2021 he thought he was defacing a statue of Ulysses S. Grant, but he wound up spreading feces all over a statue of James Zacharia George, a Civil War Confederate war leader.
Figgo’s already messy life is about to get more complicated, thanks to two formidable adversaries. Viva Morales is a newly transplanted Floridian, a clever woman recently taken to the cleaners by her ex-husband, now working at the Mink Foundation, a supposedly philanthropic organization, and renting a room in Figgo’s apartment because there’s no place else she can afford. Twilly Spree has an anger management problem, especially when it comes to those who deface the environment, and way too many inherited millions of dollars. He’s living alone a year after his dog died, two years after he sank a city councilman’s party barge, and three years after his divorce.
Viva and Twilly are plunged into a mystery—involving dark money and darker motives—they are determined to solve, and become entangled in a world populated by some of Hiaasen’s most outrageous characters: Claude and Electra Mink—billionaire philanthropists with way too much plastic surgery and a secret right-wing agenda—and Congressman Clure Boyette—who dreams of being Florida’s (and maybe America’s) most important politician. The only things standing in his way are his love for hookers and young girls, and his total lack of intelligence. We meet Noel Kristianson—a Scandinavian agnostic injured when Figgo thinks he’s a Jewish threat to humanity and runs him over with his car; Jonas Onus—Figgo’s partner in white power idiocy; and many, many more. Hiaasen ties them all together and delivers them to their appropriate fates, in his wildest and most entertaining novel to date.
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Parents Weekend by Alex Finlay
This popcorn thriller from one of the genre’s best is a twisty, dark tale about the power of social media and the consequences of family trauma. It’s Parents Weekend at SCU, and the festivities are set to begin with a dinner for the students and their families. When friends Stella, Libby, Mark, Blane, and Felix don’t show up for dinner as expected, there are several legitimate possibilities for their absence. But their parents immediately know something isn’t right and notify the authorities, who are already on high alert after a student was found dead earlier in the week. Assigned to the case, FBI agent Sarah Keller quickly discovers that everyone involved has a secret, and each family has something to hide. Finlay (If Something Happens to Me, 2024) has a gift for intertwining many story lines and characters in a cohesive, compelling way. The tropes used here don’t feel stale, and plenty of surprises and red herrings will keep readers interested. Fans won’t want to miss Finlay’s latest. – Booklist Review
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Retirement Plan by Sue Hincenbergs
Four couples have been friends for ages, but the shine has definitely gone from each of their marriages. They argue and stew over tiny affronts, such as why can’t Andre just cut down the juniper bush that Shalisa hates? Didn’t Hank know that Pam was saving that leftover pad thai to eat later? After one wife, Marlene, suffers a loss that turns out to be a win (Dave’s sudden death by garage door makes her well-off after she gets a huge insurance payout), the other women start to think that they too should bump off their husbands for the life-insurance money. They have no idea, however, that the men have been plotting as well; their scheme to skim funds from the casino where Hank works has been a wild success, and it’s almost time for the men to cash out and flee the country. The plots thicken when someone gets wise, prompting Hank to hire a hit man.
VERDICT It all adds up to unlikable people doing crazy things in increasingly outlandish situations, with a tone that switches between mordant humor and camp.– Library Journal Review
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Who Will Remember by C. S. Harris
Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin’s twentieth outing (after What Cannot Be Said, 2024) begins, as most do, with the discovery of a brutal murder. This time it’s Lord Preston Farnsworth, hung upside down in an abandoned chapel in the pose of the tarot card, The Hanged Man. During the unusually cold and rainy August of 1816, Devlin is called in to help Bow Street with the investigation because of his ability to move among the social circles that must be investigated, and he finds that Farnsworth was a member of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, whose obsession with crime and immorality led to the cruel mistreatment of London’s poor. The authorities are pointing to Devlin’s friend Major Hugh Chandler, who ran off with Farnsworth’s wife years ago, but when another body is discovered posed like another tarot card, that seems unlikely. Harris once again presents a holistic view of Regency England as the plight of the poor, the fallout from the war with France, and political turmoil at home all come into play in this terrific historical mystery. – Booklist Review
Reader’s Note: As mentioned, Who Will Remember is the twentieth book in the Sebastian St. Cy series; if you’d like to binge read from the beginning checkout book one What Angels Fear.
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Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
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Information on the four library catalogs
The Digital Catalog aka Libby: https://stls.overdrive.com/
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
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Hoopla Catalog: https://www.hoopladigital.com/
The Hoopla Catalog features on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
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Kanopy Catalog: https://www.kanopy.com/en
The Kanopy Catalog features thousands of streaming videos available on demand.
The Kanopy Catalog is available for all Southern Tier Library System member library card holders, including all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders!
You can access the Kanopy Catalog through a web browser, or download the app to your phone, tablet or media streaming player (i.e. Roku, Google or Fire TV).
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StarCat: The catalog of physical/traditional library materials: https://starcat.stls.org
Card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can access StarCat to search for and request materials available at libraries through out the Southern Tier Library System.
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Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
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Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 