By Zibby Owens

This was a Kindle First Reads pickup for June 2022. I tend to get behind in reading my First Reads, because they are often in genres that are not at the forefront of my either my professional or escapist reading lists. Bookends – described as a book about “Her infectious energy, tasteful authenticity, and smart, steadfast support of authors started in childhood, a precedent set by the profound effect books and libraries had on her own family. But after losing her closest friend on 9/11…” I started this a couple of days ago as I was waiting for one of my children…

Zibby Owens is a good writer. She is around my age, so we have a lot of the same touchstones in pop culture and books (that were popular at various times in our lives). So, in the first few chapters reading about her awkward childhood/teen years and in the midst of a chapter reading a list of books that were impacting her – well even if our lists at the age were not the same, there was a resonance. Zibby goes to Yale, loses her best friend during 9/11, and barely makes it though Harvard Business School due to her grief. And the she gets married. That is an almost verbatim quote from the book. After getting a lot of names of friends and boyfriends – that was a jarring transition. No name, no info.

At first, I thought that maybe the relationship and separation from him were so traumatic that she didn’t want to get into details. Or that maybe there would be more as we went along. Nope. She has four kids, and between her help and her family’s help, gets lost in the NYC parenting scene (where we hear more about a dear friend’s cancer problems than her husband). And then she meets her tennis pro, falls in love, and marries him….

Yeah. This is the Friends of memoirs. Self centered and neurotic, but very readable, but at the end you wonder “How did she afford to do that?” The answer is, of course, her parents. She does mention this at various points in the book – her father is Stephen Schwarzman – Yale grad and founder of the Blackstone Group and close friend of former President Trump. Her Mom Ellen was on the boards of the Mount Sinai Medical Center and the Lincoln Center Theater. Her Mom was good friends with Ina Garten before she was Ina Garten She admits that she won the genetic lottery with her family, but than talks about her hard work and the luck it took for her to find her voice….

263 Pages

2.5/5