Sunburn, by Laura Lippman: I’m nearly positive I’ve read everything Laura Lippman has ever written, which is rare for me to be able to claim for anyone with more than five books (Murakami–I think I’m missing one or two; Tana French–I think she just has five or six so far.) I would expect to have her mysteries figured out by now, but I never do, and they’re always great.
The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller: I think I prefer my post-plague literature a little more suspenseful and/or comedic, but I still thought this was worth inclusion in my own personal canon, even though one scene made me cry for 20 minutes at one in the morning and wake up with a completely puffy face the next day.
Dreamland, by Sam Quinones: Totally fascinating journalism about the way oxycontin and prescription opioids created a devastatingly perfect market for black tar heroin, and examination of how different that form of drug trafficking was from anything that came before it, making it much more difficult to prosecute or curtail. When I left Cincinnati there wasn’t a publicly known opioid or heroin epidemic, though at that point or in college I heard about it contextualized as a problem in Appalachia. Now Cincinnati has an intense heroin problem (which, at least, is much more recognized as a serious issue, though the reasons governments prioritize opioid addiction (vs. the crack epidemic of the 80s, for example) are often depressing (and discussed in depth in Dreamland)).
What Made Maddy Run, by Kate Fagan: This was depressing enough and not well written enough that I almost regret reading it. It’s an important subject, to be sure, but with an absence of anything resembling a way forward or a method for preventing teen suicide.
Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngoze Adichie: There’s so much to recommend this book for; in addition to discussions of race–African experience in America vs. the American experience of African Americans–and gender (what stuck with me most were the main character’s observations of how CERTAIN of themselves and their ideas/worldviews many of the men she interacted with were, whereas she was much more interrogative of her own motivations and much more able to express uncertainty), the main character is hilarious and the dialogue is fantastic.
You All Grow Up and Leave Me, by Piper Weiss: In theory, this is an examination of a bizarre case of kidnapping, pedophilia, and abuse of power, but it’s more of an exorcism for the author (which, in fairness, she recognizes–the subtitle is “A Memoir of Teenage Obsession,” which cleverly reads as both “of a man obsessed with teenagers” and “of my own obsessiveness as a teenager”). I didn’t love it; I probably would have preferred it to err more on the side of true crime rather than memoir.
Tenth of December, by George Saunders: Outside of anthologies, I’d never read Saunders, which is probably blasphemous to admit. I’ll also admit that sometimes I find it harder to say authoritatively (or listen to anyone else’s authoritative statement) that a certain collection of short stories is SO much better than another collection (as opposed to “this book is leagues beyond all the other books published this year), although I can remember thinking Deborah Eisenberg’s Twilight of the Superheroes was clearly one of the best collections I’ve ever read. So I went into my read of this knowing that it was a National Book Award finalist and feeling skeptical of that. Okay! You win, Saunders; I’m no longer a skeptic.
Every Note Played, by Lisa Genova: I really like the idea of having a clearly delineated or established niche (Genova’s being: novels in which the main character is affected by a brain disease/condition/injury), even as I also appreciate authors who try wildly different things with each book (Ishiguro–though if you’re wondering, I did think The Buried Giant was frankly pretty bad). As a writer I think there would be a certain comfort in having such a clear starting point for your next novel (but at this point, with Genova having covered Alzheimer’s, TBI, ALS, Huntington’s, and Autism, I’m not sure what’s left!). As as reader, though…I think I generally prefer reading nonfiction about the brain. Every Note Played didn’t hold my attention the way Still Alice did, and I found my mind drifting to the nonfiction I’ve read about ALS and related conditions.
Give Me Your Hand, by Megan Abbott: I’ve read all of Abbott’s contemporary novels (i.e. I haven’t read her noirish fiction set in the 1940s) and I have a really definitive ranking of them in my head. The Fever is at the top, followed by The End of Everything, while You Will Know Me (which I desperately wanted to love, since it was about gymnastics) and Dare Me were books that seemed right up my alley but disappointed. Give Me Your Hand probably fits right in the middle. As with Dare Me and You Will Know Me, I love the premise: intrigue in a lab! Science! and there are some pretty clever turns. But overall, the story pretty much hinges on not just ONE character being a sociopath, but many, which made suspending disbelief too arduous. Also, I predicted most of the plot elements from the beginning, which I’m notoriously bad at (really, the only other time I’ve figured out the “twist” or whodunit has been in M. Night Shyamalan movies).
Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou: As a hypochondriac, I was SUPER excited about Theranos way back when. I literally googled it from time to time to see if it had become available in any Walgreens outside of Arizona. And as someone who likes to read about 1) medicine; 2) conspiracy, I was super excited about this book. I think that the blurb I saw about it was “Whatever you expected…it’s WORSE” which managed to hold up in a meta way even after I went in with heightened expectations (fittingly, this is also what happens if you describe Elizabeth Holmes’s voice to someone…it’s still startling (and, to my ear, clearly faked)). I was disappointed when I finished it and am now reading every article I can find that’s more up-to-the-minute (and the book covers everything through 2017, so it’s not like it’s dated).
