Julie Kushner (Author of Life Sucks, Death Bites)

Julie and 3 other people liked Laurie Leilo's review of Every Version of You: "I did not go into this one blindly, but still it wasn’t at all what I expected. I usually enjoy magical realism, and the book definitely showed potential. There was just a lot going on, and some moments felt very superficial. Maybe it was the MC thoug" Read more of this review »
12 hours, 4 min ago · see review
Julie rated a book Mansfield Park by Jane Austen	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The eldest daughter to a large and financially strapped family, Fanny Price, is sent at the age of 10, to live with her wealthier, heretofore estranged, maternal aunt, Lady Bertram, her husband, Sir Thomas Bertram (a baronet), their children Tom, Edm ...more
21 hours, 49 min ago · like · see review
Julie made a comment on Caz’s review of All Cats Are on the Autism Spectrum: An affirming introduction to autism " Excellent review, Caz! This book sounds amazing! I knew I identified with cats for a reason! It all makes sense now! I'll definitely be looking for th ...more "
Oct 21, 2026 08:14PM · see review
Julie and 246 other people liked Caz's review of All Cats Are on the Autism Spectrum: An affirming introduction to autism: "I’ll be honest, I picked this up because the title made me curious, and then the cats completely won me over. This is a children’s nonfiction book about autism, but it doesn’t feel like you’re being given a lesson. It’s simple, easy to read and uses p" Read more of this review »
Oct 21, 2026 08:13PM · see review
Julie and 59 other people liked Karen's review of All Cats Are on the Autism Spectrum: An affirming introduction to autism: "I want to thank my Goodreads friend, Caz for making me aware of this book through her wonderful review. If interested, her review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.... Several years ago, one of my granddaughter’s teachers suggested that " Read more of this review »
Oct 21, 2026 08:13PM · see review
Julie and 14 other people liked Laura's review of All the Little Secrets (All the Little Houses, 2): "This book was absolutely delicious in the most unhinged way possible. Truly a guilty pleasure from beginning to end! The dysfunction? Immaculate. The characters? Absolutely unhinged. The level of diabolical behavior? Almost impressive. 😂 The scariest " Read more of this review »
Oct 21, 2026 08:12PM · see review
Julie rated a book You Deserve to Know by Aggie Blum Thompson (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Three couples in their 40’s, Aimee & Scott, Lisa & Marcus, and Gwen & Anton reside in the same upper middle-class neighborhood in a DC suburb. The couples are close friends. Their children are friends with one another. They regularly travel together, ...more
Oct 21, 2026 07:59PM · 3 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of You Deserve to Know by Aggie Blum Thompson. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — You Deserve to Know by Aggie Blum Thompson <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Julie rated a book really liked it Whistler by Ann Patchett	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Daphne Fuller, a 53-year-old high school English Teacher for a women’s private preparatory school, is visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one day, with her husband, Jonathan, a retired hospital administrator, when the latter notices an older gen ...more
Oct 17, 2026 10:45AM · 8 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Whistler by Ann Patchett. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Whistler by Ann Patchett <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Julie rated a book My Big Fat Shifter Wedding by Roxie Ray	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
When we first meet Olivia on her 30th birthday, she is a polite, perpetually-put-upon, and often taken advantage of, werewolf shifter, in a large and boisterous Italian pack. After a disastrous birthday celebration that seems to be about everyone bu ...more
Oct 10, 2026 04:41AM · 6 likes · like · see review
Julie rated a book really liked it Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
For Francesca, George was the literal “boy next door.” These two protagonists (whose birthdays were just four days apart from one another) met in their adjoined backyard space at the age-of-eight, at a time when both were coping with issues of parenta ...more
Oct 06, 2026 11:46AM · 4 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

Julie and 3 other people liked Laurie Leilo's review of Every Version of You:

"I did not go into this one blindly, but still it wasn’t at all what I expected.
I usually enjoy magical realism, and the book definitely showed potential. There was just a lot going on, and some moments felt very superficial.
Maybe it was the MC thoug" Read more of this review »

Julie rated a book

Mansfield Park
by Jane Austen

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

The eldest daughter to a large and financially strapped family, Fanny Price, is sent at the age of 10, to live with her wealthier, heretofore estranged, maternal aunt, Lady Bertram, her husband, Sir Thomas Bertram (a baronet), their children Tom, Edm ...more

Julie made a comment on Caz’s review of All Cats Are on the Autism Spectrum: An affirming introduction to autism

All Cats Are on the Autism Spectrum by Kathy Hoopmann

" Excellent review, Caz! This book sounds amazing! I knew I identified with cats for a reason! It all makes sense now! I'll definitely be looking for th ...more "

Julie and 246 other people liked Caz's review of All Cats Are on the Autism Spectrum: An affirming introduction to autism:

"I’ll be honest, I picked this up because the title made me curious, and then the cats completely won me over.

This is a children’s nonfiction book about autism, but it doesn’t feel like you’re being given a lesson. It’s simple, easy to read and uses p" Read more of this review »

Julie and 59 other people liked Karen's review of All Cats Are on the Autism Spectrum: An affirming introduction to autism:

"I want to thank my Goodreads friend, Caz for making me aware of this book through her wonderful review. If interested, her review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

Several years ago, one of my granddaughter’s teachers suggested that " Read more of this review »

Julie and 14 other people liked Laura's review of All the Little Secrets (All the Little Houses, 2):

"This book was absolutely delicious in the most unhinged way possible. Truly a guilty pleasure from beginning to end! The dysfunction? Immaculate. The characters? Absolutely unhinged. The level of diabolical behavior? Almost impressive. 😂

The scariest " Read more of this review »

Julie rated a book

You Deserve to Know
by Aggie Blum Thompson (Goodreads Author)

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Three couples in their 40’s, Aimee & Scott, Lisa & Marcus, and Gwen & Anton reside in the same upper middle-class neighborhood in a DC suburb. The couples are close friends. Their children are friends with one another. They regularly travel together, Three couples in their 40’s, Aimee & Scott, Lisa & Marcus, and Gwen & Anton reside in the same upper middle-class neighborhood in a DC suburb. The couples are close friends. Their children are friends with one another. They regularly travel together, barbecue at one another’s houses, socialize, and run errands for one another.

Then, one fateful night after a group dinner, one of the husbands is murdered, hours after issuing the following warning to one of the wives: “You deserve to know.”

Now, one of the women is writing an autofiction book about the events that followed, which rocked their friend group, and irrevocably changed all of the group members’ lives forever.

Who is writing the book? Who is hiding who they truly are? Which one of these friends is capable of murder? And who will survive to solve the mysteries of this tony suburb, and tell their version of the tale to the world?

You Deserve to Know is a domestic thriller and my first read by best selling author Aggie Blum Thompson. I had a great time with MOST of this novel.

Thompson’s writing has a sudsy, addictive quality to it. The chapters are super short and always end on a cliffhanger, to ensure the readers keep on turning pages until they reach very last one. The twists come hard and fast, some of which you will predict, others of which will likely genuinely surprise you.

Thompson’s story is mostly about her female characters. The men are kind of just there as window dressing and necessary plot devices. The females, meanwhile, can be as catty, conniving, and messy, as your favorite reality TV housewives, giving the thriller a bit of a soap operatic feel to it. With one possible exception, the women aren’t particularly likeable or rootable. That helped to propel the story. But it also kept this reader from becoming too invested in the fates of any one character, for better or worse.

The epilogue of the tale contains a particularly creative twist that I’ve never experienced before. This will likely be what people will remember most about this story.

Personally, for all the solid build-up of the various mysteries presented throughout the tale, I found the resolution a little overly rushed, campy, and not entirely credible, based on what came before it. To get there, the character all seemed required to spout some really awkward and unnatural heavily expository dialogue. I couldn’t help but wonder whether Thompson was so focused on getting to the epilogue’s ultimate “gotcha” that some of the character development and plotting toward the end of the novel suffered a bit to service it.

That said, I did ultimately have a good time reading You Deserve to Know. I found it to be an easy reading, fast-paced, domestic thriller. I suspect this will not be my last read by this author. ...more

Julie rated a book really liked it

Whistler
by Ann Patchett

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Daphne Fuller, a 53-year-old high school English Teacher for a women’s private preparatory school, is visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one day, with her husband, Jonathan, a retired hospital administrator, when the latter notices an older gen Daphne Fuller, a 53-year-old high school English Teacher for a women’s private preparatory school, is visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one day, with her husband, Jonathan, a retired hospital administrator, when the latter notices an older gentleman, who appears to be following Daphne.

When the couple approach the man, he reveals himself to be Eddie Triplett, a 76-year-old book editor who was a colleague of, and briefly married to, Daphne’s mother, when Daphne and her younger sister Leda were children. Shortly following a fateful night in 1980, when Leda was in the hospital with appendicitis, and Daphne and Eddie experienced a car accident, Daphne’s mother divorces Eddie. Daphne loses touch with Eddie shortly thereafter. She remains uncertain about the events that ultimately led to the marital dissolution, during the years that follow.

Following that reunion, Daphne reconnects with Eddie. Together, the pair attend various social and familial gatherings together. They also parse through their shared past, and how their lives proceeded in the intervening years. Most notably, the two discuss a story the pair shared during the night of the car accident, involving an extremely loyal horse (the titular Whistler), who rescued a young woman who was stranded one night, in similarly dire and dangerous circumstances to Daphne’s and Eddie’s car accident.

Whistler is, on the surface, a rather cozy and straightforward, slice-of-life story . . . a deft character study of two individuals gaining important insights into a pivotal moment in both of their lives, while also regaining the intense connection between them that was seemingly lost. However, beneath the surface, the novel is a semi-autobiographical (more on that below), deeply personal, thought exercise about the transient, and occasionally unreliable, nature of memory, childhood and generational trauma, mortality, love, death & the afterlife, family (both found and biological), and the immortal and amorphous nature of the stories we tell one another about ourselves.

It is notable that Patchett’s life dovetails closely with that of Daphne, in many ways. These similarities include, but are not limited to, their both having “three fathers” (of the biological and step variety), their being deeply literary creatures (by trade and by hobby), their having one sister, their marrying an older man who works in the medical field, and both choosing to remain child free throughout their marriage.

Perhaps, this is one of the reasons Patchett chose to narrate her own audiobook for Whistler, despite not being a seasoned audiobook narrator herself. The naturalistic, raw, and vulnerable nature of the narration (There is A LOT of VERY off-key singing in this novel!), made the listening experience (which was how I personally experienced Whistler) feel more personal and intimate, as if the reader is having the story told to them by a cherished friend or family member over an extended Sunday brunch.

I found Whistler to be a well-written, poignant, remarkably quotable, and thought-provoking work.

(Note: I am always a sucker for stories where a benevolent animal friend plays a major role in the tale! Whistler had that in spades!)

I loved Eddie as a character. He was lovable but believably nuanced, optimistic but realistic, kindhearted, but also flawed & fallible.

The novel takes a bit of a wry and winking turn in its final chapters, one that questions the veracity of all that appears on page. I’ve seen a number of widely varied and interesting interpretations of what this narrative choice means for the “ultimate truth” of this book. Personally, I choose to view the story in a more straightforward fashion, with the “wink” simply relating to the way in which Patchett has deftly disguised her own personal life in this novel. However, I love that this potential twist allowed for further discussion and the expansion of the novel’s tale beyond the walls of its pages.

I docked a point from my rating, because I did find the novel to be a bit meandering at times. Additionally, I found the time jump that occurs at the ¾ mark to feel somewhat tonally inconsistent from the rest of the novel’s glacial pace.

I appreciated the story being an intimate snapshot of two distinct moments in time. So, when the author was suddenly “yadda-yaddahing” many months of events to get to the next story beat, I found myself wondering whether the same conclusion could have been established while still “remaining in the (narrative) moment.” Additionally, while it is heavily downplayed in the text, the characters in Whistler are all extremely privileged, universally brilliant, immensely successful, and well educated at all the best schools, in a way that occasionally made them feel a bit remote from this reader.

That said, I am so glad I read Whistler. It marks only my second Ann Patchett read! (Bel Canto being the first!) This is a story that I suspect will remain with me long after I completed the final chapter! ...more

Julie rated a book

My Big Fat Shifter Wedding
by Roxie Ray

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When we first meet Olivia on her 30th birthday, she is a polite, perpetually-put-upon, and often taken advantage of, werewolf shifter, in a large and boisterous Italian pack. After a disastrous birthday celebration that seems to be about everyone bu ...more

Julie rated a book really liked it

Our Perfect Storm
by Carley Fortune (Goodreads Author)

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For Francesca, George was the literal “boy next door.”

These two protagonists (whose birthdays were just four days apart from one another) met in their adjoined backyard space at the age-of-eight, at a time when both were coping with issues of parenta ...more

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	Life Sucks, Death Bites really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2009 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Snarky Goes to Hollywood: A Novel it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hollywood Warlock it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	InGENEious 4.80 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Me and You, Inc. 4.20 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2014 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Exquisite Corpse it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Comeuppance it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Academy of Divine Intervention really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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