Every once in a while, you pick up a book that you know very little about, and by the time you finish, it feels like it was written just for you and for that exact moment. It’s the feeling of a 100 percent perfect reading match.
I had the pleasure of this experience earlier this year when I sat down to read a debut novel from Rita Zoey Chin, entitled The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern. The book was pitched to me as a coming-of-age story about a young woman born into a traveling carnival who becomes "The Youngest and Very Best Fortuneteller in the World”—then is abandoned at age six to a complete stranger by her flighty mother. Who then disappears entirely from her life. We meet Leah on her 21st birthday, when she is in the midst of a very elaborate (and rather—dare I say—joyful?) day-long series of rituals, at the end of which she is planning to die by suicide. She’s tired of not fitting in, and wants to go out on her own terms.
I realize that this sounds incredibly dark and sad, but stick with me. Something happens to interrupt her plan, and her entire life changes, and the book ends up being one of the most uplifting and positive stories I have enjoyed in a long time. It’s all about chosen family, art, mothers & daughters, secrets, road trips, rituals, friendship, love, and of course: magic. I absolutely adored every second of it. It’s my favorite book of 2022, and I hope that many of you will give it a chance to bring some light into your reading life this winter.
Kari Meutsch and Kristian Preylowski co-own and run the Yankee Bookshop in Woodstock.