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.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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).

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

Hex, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt: Not sure why I finished this…it was over-written, nonsensical, tonally inconsistent, and completely devolved in its second half. Weird misogyny and other offenses, failed attempts at allegory. One interesting thing – it was originally written in Dutch, then when sold to the American market was rewritten by the author, rather than translated. Maybe the Dutch version is better? I’m not holding my breath.

None of This is True, by Lisa Jewell: I appreciated the twistiness of this and the parallel between the two primary characters – it was definitely hard to put down. I also enjoyed the structure of a mystery within a podcast within a Netflix show (the turducken of genres!) That said, I had some issues with the ending and the way some of the characters’ actions were portrayed…it felt like the author undercut some of what she had pulled off.

Land of Milk and Honey, by C Pam Zhang: I absolutely loved Zhang’s first novel, How Much of These Hills is Gold, but unfortunately this didn’t captivate me. The premise was intriguing – I kept picturing the bunker from A Murder at the End of the World – but it felt overwritten in the extreme, and I found myself gritting my teeth through some of the flowery descriptions. I’ll still be eager to read anything Zhang puts out, but this one just wasn’t for me. With that said…as I reached the final quarter of the book, I wondered how much of the overwriting – it felt like clutter, in which no single striking sentence had a chance of standing out among so much flash – was intentional, to mirror the setting. And I wondered if it would clear at some point, and it did. I found that I did appreciate the ending, even found that it redeemed the whole book to a degree.

Although the books themselves are completely different, reading Land of Milk and Honey was a similar experience to reading Hernan Diaz’s Trust: I loved each author’s first novel so deeply that some disappointment was inevitable, and I ultimately admired more than enjoyed them.

The Pull of the Stars, by Emma Donaghue: This was really lovely, albeit predictable. It was a toss-up for me whether it felt predictable in a slightly pejorative way or if I knew what was coming at every step because it could only have happened that way. It felt like a play in many ways, and I could see it adapted for the stage easily. Initially I wondered if the entire novel would take place in a single setting (like Room, which I haven’t read!), and in large part it did, to its benefit.

Moon of the Crusted Snow, by Waubgeshig Rice: I appreciated this as an allegory, but unfortunately the writing was overly expository, stilted and flat. The premise was good but the plot predictable.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

The Longest Race, by Kara Goucher: Oof this was so tough to read – I enjoy running memoirs in the same way that I love media about Mt. Everest (ie “living out vicariously things that I would never be able to do”), but it made me want to bang my head against the wall at every turn. Not because of the author’s actions; I fully understand how difficult it is to question someone (especially someone you initially trusted) who’s in a position of immense power over you. But I felt for her with every passing chapter in which she was treated so carelessly. The book definitely demonstrates how toxic power structures can be and how while narcissists and abusers might be dangerous on their own, that danger is amplified exponentially with systemic power imbalances. Having read Lauren Fleshman’s running memoir last year, I enjoyed seeing her name as their careers crossed paths.

The Rachel Incident, by Caroline O’Donoghue: Loved this – in some ways it reminded me of Lily King’s Writers and Lovers in its attention to the details of being a very young adult. A great depiction of codependence as well. Like a favorite from last year (They’re Going to Love You), I kept shaking my head at characters in their 30s/40s laying all culpability at the feet of the 21-year-old.

An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones: Wrenching…I knew the broad outlines of the plot before I started, but still a devastating read.

Bright Young Women, by Jessica Knoll: Fantastic. This is a fictionalized version of a woman who encounters Ted Bundy (who isn’t named in the book, as one of the points is that he wasn’t actually particularly interesting) but also has an entire plot outside of the Bundy murders. Scathing and galvanizing.

The Best Minds, by Jonathan Rosen: Started this a few months ago, found it hard to concentrate on the first chapter, had to return it to the library, picked it up again and this time got a better foothold. What an absolute wallop of a book. Rigorously introspective, wide in its scope – the author’s relationship with his childhood friend, who develops schizophrenia after college, is the primary narrative, but the book also takes on America’s shifting attitudes toward institutionalization, deinstitutionalization, medication, and the portrayal of mental illness, all while also interrogating the character of the 1960s, 70s, and beyond – I found it completely mesmerizing. My (merely cosmetic) quibble is that while there were many beautiful and illuminating sentences, there were also some that bent so hard toward cleverness they ground the flow of language to a halt.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

Under the Harrow, by Flynn Berry: I had mixed feelings about this – it’s very atmospheric and surprising, but I struggled to remember the characters’ names and identities outside of the narrator and her sister. For some reason, they just wouldn’t stay with me. The ending was slightly abrupt but satisfying.

The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth, by Elizabeth Rush: An entwined narrative about the Antarctic glaciers and the choice to become a parent – events that are more interrelated even than by the obvious thread of climate change and uncertainty. Fascinating and compelling, it gained an extra layer in the reasonable comparison between the first months of COVID isolation and life on the Antarctica-bound ship where the author spent six (?) weeks.

Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam: I did not love this – alas, while I appreciate the intentions, the execution (without giving too much away) didn’t work for me; I’ve read other novels in which “precipitating incident” does not form the plot but simply forces a setting, and they did it better. The writing is sharp and witty but felt very same-level throughout – no beat more important than any other beat. (My family watched the movie over the holidays and I can’t recommend it either, although I did appreciate the less-coy level ofI exposition about “precipitating incident.”

Doppelganger, by Naomi Klein: Cannot say enough great things about this – it’s brilliant. Rigorous, inward- and outward-looking, incisive, creative. In some ways, quite depressing, but crucial.

Deadly Quiet City, by Murong Xuecun: Really stark nonfiction about the first weeks of the pandemic in Wuhan, which the author (and those whose stories he tells) undertook great risk to report on.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

The Women Could Fly, by Megan Giddings: A fun premise (though I was confused initially when I started reading it with no background and no physical copy with a back-jacket description to orient me), but somehow felt very juvenile to me and somewhat didactic.

Alone, by Daniel Schreiber: As I read this collection of essays on living alone and un-partnered/childfree, I couldn’t stop thinking about the author’s siblings – as an only child it’s very easy for me to romanticize having siblings, and I kept thinking, “but he’s one of seven!” I know sibling relationships aren’t always close, but the writer does have at least one sibling he’s close to.

They’re Going to Love You, by Meg Howrey: This was pretty much perfect in its execution. Set in the 80s during the HIV/AIDS crisis and in the present (roughly), the novel focuses on a woman, her mother, her father, and his partner, all who have deep connections to the ballet world. I loved it.

The Marigold, by Andrew F. Sullivan: I admired this more than I enjoyed it. For me there were too many different characters and plot threads, and although it was effectively creepy, it veered slightly silly at times. That said, I thought the overall message was compelling and well-executed.

Fire Weather, by John Vaillant: Terrifying, but captivating. It’s so gratifying to read the nonfiction of someone whose choices – about what to include and what to exclude, about how many people to focus on, about what seemingly unrelated concerns we should be thinking about – are so on point. The way Vaillant writes about fire itself is fascinating; the balance of history, chemistry, physics, meteorology, and the human stories of the Fort McMurray Fire in Alberta, Canada is deft; and the comparisons he draws among the rapaciousness of fire, corporations, and colonizers is amazing. The only thing I wanted more about was the indigenous community north of Fort McMurray (where many people from Fort McMurray fled), which seemed oddly absent from a book so cognizant of colonization. Overall, one of the best books I read this year.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.