The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan: Overall, I loved this. The constellation of characters was much more compelling to me than it was in A Visit From the Goon Squad, although the writing was so excellent that I may need to revisit Goon Squad. There were a few chapters whose format felt gimmicky, while others worked as experimentations with form. I’ll read it again, especially because there are so many characters that I know there are more connections to be made.
Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl, by Jeannie Vanasco: This was tough – it’s about rape – but important, impressive, and brave. Difficult to read, but worth doing.
The Deep, by Alma Katsu: Oh how I wanted to love this…I read Katsu’s The Hunger a year or two ago and thought it struck the perfect balance of literary fiction and hints of something supernatural. It’s possible that I was disappointed by The Deep because the sinking of the Titanic is less compelling to me than the journey of the Donner Party, or because I’m more open to intimations of werewolves than I am to plots about possession or ghosts, but I don’t think that was all – the writing just wasn’t as good, especially in the final chapters. Still, I’ll read Katsu’s latest in hopes of chasing the thrill of The Hunger.
Who Gets In and Why, by Jeffrey J. Selingo: Similar to, and slightly less engaging than, another admissions book I read recently (Valedictorians at the Gate). The case studies of three students were the most interesting, and there was some good background about the ways in which colleges advertise themselves to students (and when that began). New to me was some of the info about how huge state schools deal with 50,000+ applications and balance in-state and out-of-state applicants.
Alive, by Piers Paul Read: I recall being ten or eleven and seeing a documentary about the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972. I remembered the most “scandalous” element (that they survived by consuming their friends who had died) but hadn’t registered just how long they were trapped in the mountains – more than two months, which seems truly fantastical. By nature, it was hard to keep track of most of the characters – there are so many – but a great work of nonfiction.
