Sunday, July 31, 2022

Best of the Bunch (July 2022)

Best of the Bunch header

Today I'm sharing the best book I read in July.

Of the 9 books I read this month, I had a whopping four 5-star reads!

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

How to Talk When Kids Won't Listen: Whining, Fighting, Meltdowns, Defiance, and Other Challenges of Childhood by Joanna Faber and Julie King

Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality by Sarah McBride:

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

I'll eliminate the two rereads (Little Fires Everywhere and Gender Queer) to narrow it down. And since the How to Talk book is more of a follow-up to the authors' first book, I'll choose the other as my Best of the Bunch!
Tomorrow Will Be Different is an excellent memoir by an amazing woman. McBride details both the intimate moments of her life and those on a larger, political stage. Throughout her story, she manages to weave in both a kind of Trans 101 education for readers and also frequent acknowledgements of the privilege she holds as a white, well-connected, "passing" trans woman. This book came out in 2018, and I think McBride strikes a nice balance between acknowledging the progress that has been made and facing the progress yet to be made in our country. I'm glad she was elected a state senator in 2020, and I don't think that's the last we'll see of her on the national political stage.

What is the best book you read this month? Let me know in comments, or write your own post and link up below!

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The Thursday Murder Club, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
Five years ago I was reading: Infinite Jest, Faithful Place, and Crime and Punishment
Ten years ago I was reading: The Grapes of Wrath

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Monday, July 18, 2022

Ten of the Weirdest Books I've Ever Read


I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week is a freebie! For the topic of my choosing, I'm sharing ten of the weirdest books I've ever read. Not all of them were bad weird per se, but they were definitely weird.
1. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
I know it's a classic or whatever and full of symbolism, but it's also just a weird book. All of the characters make choices that don't make any sense, the writing shifts drastically between character perspectives, and there's the well-known "My mother is a fish." chapter. (Yes, that's the entire chapter.)
2. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
This book has a cult following for a reason — it's creatively imagined and well written, and it's also super weird. The basic premise is that this couple has created their own circus freak show through experimenting with drugs and other chemicals during pregnancy and then putting their own children on display. The plot is bizarre though coherent and the story is depressing and disturbing though well constructed. Definitely unlike anything else I've read.
3. Glittering Images by Susan Howatch
My review described this as "a Christian soap opera with a large side of someone's personal therapy sessions." The main character is supposed to be investigating someone else's relationship but ends up sexually assaulting both the woman in question and a totally different woman (acts portrayed as passionate in the one case and investigatory in the other), and then ends up with him getting psychoanalyzed by a monk who for some reason has some kind of psychic powers? It was bonkers, and I'm completely baffled by the following this series has.
4. Grendel by John Gardner
It's been 15 years since I last read this book, so I'm going off some of the more detailed Goodreads reviews to remind me what was so weird about it. First, I remember Grendel having a weird relationship with his mother, who one reviewer describes as "some kind of void-filled slug monster." Another reviewer describes Grendel himself as "a cannibalistic English professor from the 1960s or a Beat poet who happened to occasionally go on murderous rampages." And then there's the unnecessary dense prose itself, such as "I am aware in my chest of tuberstirrings in the blacksweet duff of the forest overhead." Given that I read it for English classes in both high school and college, I'm sure it's chockfull of important symbolism and such, but I just remember being like, "What the heck am I reading?"
5. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
I know I'm missing the relevant context of Russian history and culture to fully appreciate this book's satire, so I could only absorb it on a surface level, which was a mostly bizarre plot involving larger-than-life characters (including the devil and a talking cat) acting in unexpected ways.
6. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
I found this to be a sharp critique of capitalist society, but it's also a weird story about a guy turning into a giant bug and being treated as a nuisance by his family.
7. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
In this anti-war satire, the main character gets unstuck in time, reliving parts of his life repeatedly and out of order, and also getting abducted by aliens and put in an alien zoo. Another classic that has a lot of deeping meaning and also is just a bananas reading experience.
8. Stuart Little by E.B. White
This is not the Stuart Little of the 1990s kids' movie. This book doesn't have a narrative arc, nor did White bother to explain anything about the world he'd created, like why animals and humans can talk to each other, or whether Stuart is actually a mouse or just a human whose body is identical to that of a mouse, and also why his family still keeps a cat in their house with their son/mouse, and let's just pretend it's totally natural that this tiny mouse-boy would have a car his size that can turn invisible. Also there's a girl who's Stuart's size, but she's not a mouse or mouse-like, she's just the size of a mouse. (I'm not sure which is weirder??) Reading this book is just an adventure in going, "Wait, what?"
9. Wicked by Gregory Maguire
If you drop a bunch of hints and clues and symbols and mysterious plot threads, and by the end you tie them all together in a coherent way, you've made something clever and satisfactory to read. If you drop a bunch of hints and clues and symbols and mysterious plot threads and then never provide any answers, now you've just written a weird conglomeration of meaningless implications that leaves the reader more confused than anything. Thank God someone found a way to make this mess into a musical with an actual, coherent plot with clever wordplay and satisfactory plot twists.
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Of all the books on this list, this is definitely the weirdest one that I've read. Besides being 600+ pages of sex, violence, and gore, I was epically confused the entire time reading it. What's real? What's a dream? What's a memory? What's a symbol? Why does the main character suddenly have a random mark on his cheek, and why are unknown women licking it? There are no answers, just more confusion the deeper you go.

What are the weirdest books you've read?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Lovecraft Country, Jada Sly, Artist & Spy, and A Promised Land
Five years ago I was reading: Infinite Jest and A Piece of the World
Ten years ago I was reading: Fahrenheit 451

Friday, July 15, 2022

What I've Been Reading Lately (Quick Lit)

Today I'm linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy's Quick Lit to bring you some short and sweet reviews of what I've read in the past month. For longer reviews, you can always find me on Goodreads.

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender: On reread I felt similarly to the first time: I'm glad this book exists and found the plot compelling, even if I took issue with some specific plot points.

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson: Jackson is one talented mystery writer! The characters in this sequel felt just as real as in the first book. I liked how the book played with the concept of being a "good girl" and how Pip comes to embrace the authentic but less socially acceptable parts of herself.

Solitaire by Alice Oseman: This was incredibly disappointing. Tori is my favorite character from the Heartstopper series, but in this debut novel that Oseman wrote before Heartstopper, she's so numb from depression that what comes out is nearly nonsensical. It may be an accurate representation, but it made for a terrible reading experience.

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki: I can see why opinions are divided on this graphic novel that's more mood than plot, but I really liked it. I enjoyed the summer atmosphere and the coming-of-age feel to it. Definitely a good summer read.

Velma Still Cooks in Leeway by Vinita Hampton Wright: I'm not entirely sure how I felt about this one. The characters in the book felt real to me, in all their flawed humanity, and there's a painfully realistic depiction of a domestic violence situation at the heart of the plot. Still, the writing and overall plotting was a bit clunky.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: I was glad for the chance to reread this, and my book club had a great discussion about it! There are so many complicated choices that characters make that it just begs for a discussion about what happened, which factors should hold the most weight in difficult decisions, and what to do when different people's best interests come into conflict. And the writing is excellent.

How to Talk When Kids Won't Listen: Whining, Fighting, Meltdowns, Defiance, and Other Challenges of Childhood by Joanna Faber and Julie King: This is How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen 201. The authors don't provide any new tips per se, but they show you how their tried-and-true approaches work in a wide range of situations, from teeth brushing to toy sharing. I highly recommend all of the How to Talk books!

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver: This story of a non-binary teen was a good balance of realism (anxiety, transphobic parents) and hope + cute romance. I'm definitely glad this book is out there, even if the writing had some of the hallmarks of an average YA book that I don't particularly care for.

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers: If A Psalm for the Wild-Built was an existential exploration of identity and purpose, this sequel is an exploration of what it means to live in community and find value in others' efforts in a structure that is not capitalism. It's more world-building than plot, and I may not have found it life-changing, but I'm still grateful to Chambers for writing this slim duology.

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Lovecraft Country, Jada Sly, Artist & Spy, and A Promised Land
Five years ago I was reading: Infinite Jest and A Piece of the World
Ten years ago I was reading: The Pillars of the Earth

Monday, July 11, 2022

Ten Book Covers That Feel Like Summer


I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week's theme is book covers that feel like summer! Here are ten from the books that I've read.
1. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
2. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
3. The Buried Bones Mystery by Sharon M. Draper
4. Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
5. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
6. Heartstopper: Volume Three by Alice Oseman
7. The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson
8. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
9. Still Stace by Stacey Chomiak
10. This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

What books have you read with summery covers?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Lovecraft Country, Jada Sly, Artist & Spy, and A Promised Land
Five years ago I was reading: Evil Under the Sun, Infinite Jest, and A Walk in the Woods
Ten years ago I was reading: The Pillars of the Earth