The Other Valley, by Scott Alexander Howard: Very lovely time-travel narrative that didn’t feel as if it relied too heavily on the conceit, even though the plot wouldn’t have existed without it. I’ve heard comparisons to The Giver and don’t disagree, though I don’t think it reads like YA. The setting felt very specific and complete even though we don’t know what continent we’re on (I kept feeling like we were in France or some kind of French outpost, given some of the language, descriptions of the trees, and characters names) or what time period we’re in. I will say that while the ending made sense to me, some of the initial descriptions of what happens when someone “meets” herself in a different valley felt like they contradicted one another, but it was easy to suspend disbelief in spite of that.

The Achilles Trap, by Steve Coll: A very in-depth look into Saddam Hussein’s rule, the question of whether Iraq had biological/atomic/chemical weapons, and the extreme messiness that can result from shifting international alliances, lack of understanding of what’s motivating someone, and proposing one thing publicly but another secretly. Glad I read it, but it did move very slowly and sometimes suffered from too much detail.

Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer: When I saw this recommended as strong apocalyptic YA, the author’s name tugged at my brain for a few days before I caved, Googled, and found that I had indeed read several of her (40+!) books from the 70s and 80s! April Upstairs, Darcy Downstairs, Kid Power…one of those authors who wasn’t ever a household name but was incredibly prolific (and, I would bet, did some ghostwriting for popular series). This was…bleak. I’m not sure why it struck me as so much bleaker than any other YA dystopia I’ve read; maybe it felt too realistic (the ensuing events, at least – less so the asteroid knocking the moon closer to Earth). Or maybe I would have loved it when I was an actual YA reader, but the events – outside of the inciting one – felt too plausible.

Poor Things, by Alasdair Gray: While its obvious antecedent is Frankenstein, this struck me as the (patched together, reanimated, etc etc) child of Tristram Shandy and I am Lucy Barton. Tonally, mostly – the earnestness of Lucy Barton with the sharp wit of Shandy. I found it wildly entertaining.

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What Happened to Nina, by Dervla McTiernan: This was extremely hard to put down at night – very propulsive. I thought the style – from the multiple perspectives to the short chapters to the spare prose – served the story well, although I was frustrated by the ending.

Some People Need Killing, by Patricia Evangelista: A must read – I didn’t know enough about Duterte or his regime in the Philipines, and Evangelista both crafts a strong work of journalism AND includes linguistic digressions that I am the exact audience for. Really devastating.

Big Swiss, by Jen Beagin: I was screaming in shock and hilarity half of the time I was reading this. I should note that I don’t read romance or “spicy” books so the sex scenes were A LOT to digest, but how great this was. Unbelievably funny and also sad, with truly unique characters.

Without You, There is No Us, by Suki Kim: I loved this memoir/journalism of a woman who taught English in North Korea for six months by posing as a missionary. The book is a case of great subject matter + great writing, a combination rarer than it should be. It was somewhat jarring to read this and then…

Nuclear War, by Annie Jacobsen: This is nonfiction but explores a hypothetical scenario in which North Korea initiates nuclear war by attacking Washington DC. It was both terrifying and hokey (which, unfortunately, didn’t make it less terrifying), and I probably shouldn’t have read it, but…I’m not good at self care? I kept thinking about Without You, There is No Us as I read.

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From October and part of November.

The Sleepwalkers, by Scarlett Thomas: I was aghast – generally in a positive way, for the book and writing if not the characters – by the events in this novel. Thomas does an impeccable job demonstrating how trapped the narrator feels and how easy it can be to question your own perceptions.

North Woods, by Daniel Mason: I started this, got bored, wasn’t ready to call it more than a conceit/excuse to write in different styles – but after restarting it I found it really took off after the first third or so. I’d like to read it again, actually, now that I know the scope of the whole story (though I might skip the hunting songs and odes this time).

Under the Bridge, by Rebecca Godfrey: I had tried watching this on Hulu, got distracted, decided I would rather read the book (definitely the right decision). I’m still curious about the entire plot-line they added to the show, but not sure I’m curious enough to keep watching. This was a baffling crime (or not, as Godfrey spends the book explaining the circumstances…nope, still baffling) and sad to read about.

Ascension, by Nicholas Binge: Alas, this was a dud on all counts – plotting, writing, dialogue.

The Singularity, by Dino Buzzati: This, on the other hand, is an amazing example of early science fiction dealing with artificial intelligence, deceptively funny and also incredibly modern feeling. The eeriness Buzzati captures is affecting.

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I am VERY behind on these – this set is from the end of August through early October.

Whalefall, by Daniel Kraus: So much of this was ridiculous, and the prose veered very purple, but damn I have to hand it to the author for coming up with this conceit – a modern-day Jonah, basically – and sticking with it in the most comparatively realistic way possible.

The Garden, by Clare Beams: I loved The Illness Lesson and read this with interest but was ultimately not blown away by the plot or ideas. I liked that the main character was prickly, but for a premise with so much potential the story didn’t really pan out.

The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore: Heard many things about this before reading it; I kept trying to figure out if the dual timelines were really necessary, but they also didn’t bother or confuse me, so why question it? The Judyta sections were the most compelling and I thought Moore generally stuck the landing (more so, in my opinion, in the 1970s storyline than the earlier one). I did question a few characters’ motives in framing people…

The Cemetery of Untold Stories, by Julia Alvarez: I expected this to literally be a set of unfinished stories, perhaps held together by some minimal framework (and I was already jealous of this concept), but it was much more developed than that, with the actual cemetery a part of a larger story. None of the “untold stories” felt incomplete or forced together.

I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman: This one gave me some existential dread. Very compact and also claustrophobic. I wished more had been explained, even though I know that wasn’t the point.

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What Lies in the Woods, by Kate Alice Marshall: When I picked this up, I didn’t realize the author had written a YA book (How to Disappear Completely) that was not for me at all, and fortunately, this was much stronger. Slightly predictable, but solid enough, though some slightly off-putting depictions of mental illness.

The Devil and Mrs. Davenport, by Paulette Kennedy: In one sense, this felt a bit stock and melodramatic, but those qualities also felt deliberate. I will say that this did a really good job at demonstrating what a nightmare life could be like for women in the 1950s.

The Noonday Demon, by Andrew Solomon: When I read Darkness Visible I was underwhelmed; I enjoyed this much more, though Solomon’s Far From the Tree is more fascinating. I can also understand that when this was published, it would have had far greater impact (in a world in which depression was less frequently written about).

Absolution, by Alice McDermott: The ending left me feeling at odds – surely there’s more? – but in spite of that, this is a gorgeous book. I’m not convinced the structure was the right choice for the story, but I loved the primary plot that took place in Saigon in the 1960s, and the writing is beautiful.

Sociopath, by Patric Gagne: There’s plenty of chatter as to whether this is “real” or if it’s an invented memoir; while it seems likely to me that there’s reconstructed dialogue – triumphant speeches delivered all at once, in perfectly digestible terms – I don’t know that there’s any reason to doubt the author’s experience. I certainly felt as if I had a stronger sense of empathy for personality disorders after reading; I think it’s still true that people are likely to view depression, autism, schizophrenia, OCD, anxiety, etc as illnesses and narcissism/sociopathy/borderline personality as “evil,” or at least “irredeemable” and countering that is a good thing.

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Babel, by R.F. Kuang: I’m a massive linguistics lover and was thoroughly delighted by the wordplay here. Was it didactic at times? Yes, but how could it not be? I didn’t feel it detracted from the story; I don’t think the story was possible without it. I thought the book might fizzle out toward the end, but was pleased that it did not.

Dolls of Our Lives, by Allison Horrocks and Mary Mahoney: Very gimmicky – structured based on the subjects of the six books that accompany each historical American Girl doll, and the voice felt particularly forced. But a fun read in some ways. I never had one of the dolls, but I loved both the catalogs and American Girl magazine. The major hole in the book, for me, was that they discuss AG founder Pleasant Rowland in depth but don’t mention ever attempting to interview her (my assumption is they wanted to but she denied their request).

Moon of the Turning Leaves, by Waubgeshig Rice: I did not think much of Moon of the Turning Leaves yet still felt a compulsion to read this sequel. The writing is better than in the first, but nothing especially compelling.

The Frozen River, by Ariel Lawhon: A beautiful book, immersive and engaging. I really loved this – characters, setting, and plot.

Annie Bot, by Sierra Greer: Very quick and satisfying; I was less interested in the questions about AI and robots and humans and more in the extended allegory of domestic violence (granted it’s a literal story of domestic violence in one sense, but also felt metaphorical).

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Darkness Visible, by William Styron: I think it’s probably unfair to judge a book about depression written in 1990 by the standards of today (but I have The Noonday Demon on hold, so let’s see how it measures up) – but everything Styron mentioned felt very obvious, and the whole thing felt meandering and stream-of-consciousness.

The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson: A lovely, very young-feeling collection of vignettes about a grandmother and granddaughter living on an island off the coast of Finland for multiple summers (there’s a father, too, but he’s less spotlighted). I can imagine that for the right reader at the right time this could become a seminal book (that’s not a compliment laced with condescension, just a compliment). My only quibble was (and this may be due to translation) how often the verb used for the granddaughter’s speaking and/or was “screamed.”

The Appeal, by Janice Hallett: Truly, truly fun. Hilariously specific in many ways, this pastiche of emails, text messages, and court documents examines a scandal (several, really) amid the participants of a local theater troupe in the UK. It’s not trivial – there’s murder – but it felt appealingly (har) campy at times, like Clue.

The Hunter, by Tana French: Tana French never misses for me. I’ve read a fair amount of criticism that bemoans her standalone novels and decries them as “slow” and “boring” – slow I can accept, though I’d go for weighty or ponderous instead, but I was certainly never bored…the character studies, the depictions of the landscape, the subtleties of navigating an isolated place – these are masterful.

A Fire So Wild, by Sarah Ruiz-Grossman: Oh boy…I’ve seen praise from all directions for this and I LOVE the cover. Otherwise, I found it lacking entirely – heavy-handed, preachy, and very young-feeling. Alas.

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The Stranger in the Woods, by Michael Finkel: I know this was an expansion of a long-form article, and in some ways it felt like it should have either remained an article or gone deeper into the historical perception of hermits and of other “famous” hermits – it did so in a cursory way. Interesting nonetheless.

The Lola Quartet, by Emily St. John Mandel: So atmospheric. The members of a high school jazz quartet remain interconnected (but mostly unbeknownst to them) by events that took place just before they graduated, whose consequences reappear ten years later. Like most people, I’d read St. John Mandel’s three most recent books (Station Eleven, The Glass Hotel, Sea of Tranquility) but not her earlier work. Though it is a bit dreary, I enjoyed it.

Hot Springs Drive, by Lindsay Hunter: This book was so horny, which I guess fit with the (unrelated) title. I think I was more interested in the (real-life, which this was based on) murder and motivation than I was the characters, which may make me a sensationalist. The writing had teeth, but I wasn’t super taken with the way the perspectives shifted or the stories of the peripheral characters (with one poignant exception).

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? by Seamus O’Reilly: I think the only time I’ve ever listened to an audiobook all the way through was when I was a child and there was a somehow Christmas-related novel that my parents and I listened to in the car while driving 12+ hours to visit cousins. I can picture the car and the sense I had while listening but remember zero details of the plot, characters, or any identifying info. I haven’t listened to an audiobook since then because 1) no car/no driving; 2) I cannot focus when the words are out loud and not on the page. I can do podcasts, but even that took practice. Anyway, this is the rare book that I think might have benefited from its audio version. It was funny, yes, but in a sort of small-stage way.

Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan: This is a novella – almost a cross between a short story and a novella – that felt to me in tone and conclusion like James Joyce’s “The Dead.” Set in Ireland in the 1980s, it addresses the Magdalene Laundries where unmarried pregnant women were sent, shamed, and abused. Really, really lovely.

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The Last Language, by Jennifer duBois: WOW. A whole gamut of emotions and responses while reading this, from intrigue to delight (at all of the linguistic tidbits) to shock to horror. I didn’t recognize the author’s name when I borrowed this; after looking her up I realized I read one of her other books, Cartwheel, and though I remember enjoying it, the experience didn’t compare to this one. Mesmerizing.

Waiting to Be Arrested at Night, by Tahir Hamut Izgil: The memoir of a Uighur poet and his family’s escape from China – difficult and important. There’s nothing flashy in his prose, but he perfectly demonstrates the quotidian torture of life as a minority under China’s current (and past) government.

Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton: So much of this is great. Catton’s satire has the sharpest, finest, most cutting point, and in many ways the book is quite funny. What I appreciated most, though, were the “minor” conversations between characters, those that didn’t advance the plot but which were more profound than the “big” takeaways. I did struggle with the cartoonish element of one character, and the ending left me in a bleak state.

The Snakehead, by Patrick Radden Keefe: I’ll read anything by Radden Keefe, and this was a fascinating examination immigration, corruption, human trafficking, and interconnectedness among different communities.

Penance, by Eliza Clark: I thought I would enjoy this more than I did, alas. The voice never quite landed for me, and the framing devices felt like gimmicks rather than additions that meaningfully affected the book. The story of a teenage British girl’s gruesome murder – by her classmates – this had more main characters than I could keep straight for the first half of the novel, and the ultimate narrator was unsatisfying.

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Fear is Just a Word, by Azam Ahmed: I’m glad I read this for its comprehensive background on the Zeta drug cartel and the terror the residents of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, have faced. The primary story – of a woman who becomes an activist after her daughter is kidnapped and murdered by the Zetas, one of many such kidnappings – was compelling, but could have made a much more compelling long-form article. Unfortunately, in book-length, the writing felt repetitive, and the shifts between timelines felt random. I found myself wishing for the style and substance of some of the great nonfiction works I’ve read; this felt at times like a catalog of facts.

Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett: Initially I found this “nice” – a bit tepid. I grew to enjoy it more, though it’s not the most memorable or earth-shattering. That’s okay! It was a lovely read, albeit with a few underdeveloped themes (climate change…) and a somewhat aloof narrator.

Safe, by Mark Daley: The personal narrative of fostering children combined with a medium-depth look at child protective services and foster care in California. I think I would have preferred this either as a more in-depth examination of foster care – sans personal narrative – or a completely journalistic take on one family’s story, like Random Family or Invisible Child. But I may have enjoyed it more if I had been more engaged by the prose and the voice, which struck me as a bit cloying.

The Last Word, by Taylor Adams: This…was silly. A hokey thriller with one hundred false endings. Yes, I should have stopped reading it. But it went fast!

American Kingpin, by Nick Bilton: I have to confess that although I was vaguely aware of the dark web/black market website Silk Road back when the Gawker article about it was published, I didn’t know the trajectory of the site or its founder. This was very well told – tracing the actions of both the founder and the various law enforcement agencies working to track him down – and interesting.

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