There, There, by Tommy Orange: This starts in a hundred little pieces and constellates toward a supernova at its conclusion (forgive my mixed star metaphors). It’s one I’ll reread, both because I did have some trouble keeping track of all of the characters throughout and because although it’s not a mystery or a thriller, it would read much differently once you know the ending. I know I’ve just abused interstellar metaphors, but it’s also like a slow-panning shot that zooms in tighter and tighter, and the distant, blurred figures of the first read are sure to be much more recognizable the second time. Each voice within the novel sounds different from every other voice, but all recognizably from the same author, one who is clearly deploying his abilities precisely and deftly.
Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid: While I was reading this, I was thinking about coincidences within plots (specifically, I was thinking about a plot point in Claire Lombardo’s The Most Fun We Ever Had, though they aren’t particularly similar) and the relative likelihood/contrivance of the plot twists in the realistic fiction I’ve read (and also thinking about Philadelphia, this novel’s setting, and how it’s often described as a small town and so ripe for coincidence…maybe this is me talking around the fact that I found the major plot coincidence in Such a Fun Age contrived) – anyway, it was funny to then see Claire Lombardo thanked in the acknowledgments. I read much of Such a Fun Age between 5 and 7:30 am, because although I usually am able to go directly back to sleep if I wake up before I mean to, I realized my Kindle was sitting on the nightstand and continuing the book seemed like a better idea. Other than that one plot point, the plotting is extremely good and the social commentary just right, though some of the characters felt pretty flat.
Luster, by Raven Leilani: This was absolutely off-kilter and mesmerizing. Somehow it reminded me of Nell Zink’s The Wallcreeper in that both novels feature characters taking completely bonkers actions that you, the reader, are fully willing to accept because the writing is so good. I may have read it with a permanent shocked-emoji face, clutching my kindle as if afraid I was going to miss a single beat of the story.
The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett: So good; I enjoyed the diverging and converging over time and place, though sometimes wished I could linger with each character longer before jumping to another’s perspective years later.
Oligarchy, by Scarlett Thomas: I think I found this on Lit Hub’s “most anticipated” books of 2020 or 2021, a tremendous and intimidating resource. It’s a quick read, note even 200 pages, and initially seemed to cover pretty well-trodden territory – girls’ boarding school, teenage-dom, eating disorders – but was hiding a different story, a more darkly wacky one, in its second half. I would rather that story had been more prominent from the beginning (I think that when I read the blurb about the book it may have alluded to Oligarchy being more than a typical boarding-school drama, but I had forgotten by the time I read it since I had been on an epic ebook borrowing spree) and that some of the more cliched moments and language early on had been avoided, but I’m glad I didn’t stop reading it. It ended abruptly, but I’m intrigued enough overall to look for Thomas’s earlier books.
