Thanks to @avidreaderpress for my copy of Perfect Tunes by Emily Gould. This book follows  Laura, a songwriter, after she moves to the East Village. She waits tables at a bar, lives with her magnetic best friend Callie, and dreams of writing and performing music full time. After she meets and falls for a more famous but troubled musician, she gets pregnant, and soon becomes a single mother with changed priorities. We jump forward in time, and Laura’s life looks nothing like she imagined. Meanwhile, her daughter’s mental health struggles resemble those of her father.

This book felt unpolished. The characters and relationships didn’t seem fully formed. Particularly the romance - there isn’t much dialogue so there isn’t much opportunity to feel chemistry between the characters. The story doesn’t offer character growth or even a deep understanding of Laura. Instead it feels like we just watch her going through the motions, with her choices determined more by her responsibilities and less by her own motivations. Despite jumping forward in time a few times, this book was slow. I liked the idea of it from the description, but the execution left me wanting more. I did finish it, but it was a chore to get through.

Indelicacy by Amina Cain is a short, quick book and could definitely be read in a day if you are so inclined. I think it’s interesting when authors write novels with ambiguous settings, and in this book the time period and the city are never revealed. The story follows Vitória, a cleaning woman at a museum, whose marriage to a wealthy man raises her out of poverty. After marriage, despite her newfound privilege, she still doesn’t feel entirely liberated, instead finding herself repressed by her new role of wife. She wants to write, and spend all of her time writing, particularly about the art she used to covet at the museum. Ambition is a major theme - she is entirely devoted to her chosen art form.

Vitória cherishes her friendships with other women, though she’s very detached from other people, and even when she is with other women or her husband, she is still somehow alone. I had the impression that she tolerates her husband but does not care for him at all, and how their relationship came to be is vague. The writing has a dreamlike quality that is somewhat claustrophobic. There isn’t much plot -  it’s a lot of observations and stream-of-consciousness moments.

I don’t know… I wanted to love this, because I love the idea of it - I think the combo of the passive writing style, opaque characters, and lack of plot made it hard for me find something to cling on to. I’m not a writer, and I’m not as dedicated to anything as Vitória is to writing, so I found it hard to understand her. In some ways this book reminded me of White on White by Ayşegül Savaş, but it didn’t manage to leave a strong impression like that one did. It left me wanting more.

Romantic Comedy is the second book I’ve read by Curtis Sittenfeld. Thanks to @randomhouse for sending it to me. This book is about Sally, a comedy writer at an SNL-like TV show, who writes a skit about how average-looking men somehow manage to end up with beautiful talented women, but average-looking women don’t end up with 10/10 men. Appearing on the episode is a pop-star hunk who she ends up hitting it off with. But guys like him never end up with girls like her, right? But what if they do?

This book is split into essentially three parts. The first part is the week of the show. The second part is comprised of emails written back and forth during the pandemic. The last part is post-email exchange, still during the pandemic. The first part was very much inside-SNL, which if you are a mega fan, it might be fun, but for me it was a little much. The emailing landed a little better for me - there were some witty exchanges, I cracked a smile or two. And the last part, idk, I just feel like the way things worked out wasn’t entirely believable. The chemistry between the characters wasn’t there.

I think I would enjoy this more as a show or movie, because banter on the page just doesn’t often work for me like it does on the screen. I didn’t really find the writing funny. I feel like this book takes itself and its premise very seriously, and it wasn’t super romantic either, despite the title. Also, it’s not doing anything new. Super talented/super handsome man falls in love with plain average-looking woman who actually isn’t that funny despite being a comedy writer… tbh Twilight did it first. If the title of a book is Romantic Comedy, the book should be a romcom, shouldn’t it? And it really isn’t that. Slight rom with a hint of com maybe, but neither aspect worked particularly well for me.

Overall this was fine. I did finish it. I would watch it as a movie or show, because I think a talented actors could bring more personality and chemistry to the characters, and then it would be a more fun story.

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson is my kind of guilty pleasure beach read - thanks to @penguinrandomhouse for the copy. I occasionally enjoy a rich people problems book, and that’s what this is. It’s quick and entertaining, and a fun escape from reality. This book follows three members of the Stockton family - sisters Darley and Georgiana, and their SIL Sasha. Sasha struggles to connect and fit in with the old-money family. Darley recently gave up her career for motherhood and wonders if she made the right choice. Georgiana begins an affair with a married man she works with at a nonprofit. I thought Sasha’s story was the most compelling, as she grapples with how to be a member of this family, after having grown up middle class.

Beyond rich people problems, this book isn’t doing too much - there isn’t a lot of character growth or really any lessons learned, and the privileged stay on top. There is also a plot point that is an absolute pet peeve of mine. <spioiler>My literary pet peeve is unnecessary death where the author gets away with letting some complex relationship go unresolved, which is what happens when Georgiana’s married BF conveniently dies in a plane crash so there is no real reckoning with how they are in the wrong and the wife is none the wiser. Meh it just feels like a cop out!
 
he only point of this book is entertainment - it doesn’t make any sharp observations of society, or offer any unique perspectives or new ideas. Still, I read this quickly and it kept me engaged over the course of a flight. If you like books in this genre (rich ppl probs) and are looking for an easy, low-stakes escape, this is one to try.

After watching the Murdaugh Murders trial, my book club was on a true crime kick and we picked I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara as our next read. I used to be a big true crime podcast girly so I knew the story of the Golden State Killer, but I hadn’t read this book yet. I’m glad to have finally gotten to it as it had been on my list and shelves for a long time. I mostly listened to the audiobook. 

In this book, McNamara shares her own journey as a cold-case aficionado running a true crime blog, and how she became obsessed with solving the mystery of the Golden State Killer. The book goes back and forth between her life and the life of the killer, who was known in different areas by different criminal nicknames - he was also called the Visalia Ransacker, the East Area Rapist, and the Night Stalker.

This book is chilling due to the nature of the crimes. I was grateful to have a home alarm system while reading! Sadly, McNamara passed away before finishing it, and before seeing the killer brought to justice. I found this book to be mostly well-written but choppy-feeling. I think that likely has to do with it being published after her death, and having to piece together her notes and work after. Overall I thought it was a good book about the Golden State Killer, and I’m so glad he was finally caught.

This is an unpopular bookstagram opinion but I’m a J. Ryan Stradal hater. I read Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club for book club. I previously attempted to pick up Kitchens of the Great Midwest and almost immediately put it down and wrote him off as not for me, and after this one, I stand by that initial judgement. I listened to this on audio, and even a great narrator did not help. This book follows Mariel and her family - Mariel’s storyline is the main current day story, and stories of her husband Ned and mother Florence in different timelines are woven throughout. In the present day, Mariel owns the Lakeside Supper Club.

When I was reading this, especially Ned’s sections, I was just thinking… are you truly this idiotic and naive? Ned is embarrassingly ignorant, and doesn’t care to try to do much of anything except the bare minimum. He has no work ethic, so his future with his family business is pretty obvious from the start. It was pretty unbelievable that Mariel, who is smart and hardworking, would be interested in him at all. The foreshadowing is so heavy in every aspect of this story - almost like to a point that it is disrespectful? Like I did not need that much handholding to figure out where this was going. There is a tragedy in the middle, but it was so obviously clear what was going to happen down to the details of how it happened, because the build up was too much. The ending was so unnecessary and just a weird choice. The timelines were so jumpy that I was often confused about where we were. There were a lot of side characters that didn’t add anything to the main plot or enrich the stories of the main characters. Characters would do things that seemed, well, out of character with how they were previously described and portrayed. There was also some weird fertility stuff to where you could tell this book was written by a man. Everything about this book felt so forced. It gives me the ick tbh. Also like why is the midwest Stradal’s entire personality? It’s not the only place with cozy charm.

Reading this cemented the fact that Stradal’s writing is not for me, and I don’t plan to read any more of his work unless I am overruled by book club.

 Thanks to @scribnerbooks for a copy of Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer. I was completely captivated by this debut. It’s not an easy read, in many aspects. The unusual narration takes some figuring out and getting used to, and the subject matter is also tough. This story is about Lia, a wife and mother, whose cancer has recently returned. We learn about Lia’s often difficult past and witness her current life with her husband Harry and daughter Iris. All the while, something sinister is brewing within her body. 

 

The creative typography and poetic prose make this a completely unique reading experience. It feels like a completely fresh and distinctive writing style, and I was stunned to learn that the author is only 27 years old! I loved how the characters in this book felt completely human - as Lia gets sicker she reflects on her past, and she longs to be there for her daughter’s future. Iris is learning how to deal with other kids at school, Harry is coping with a dying wife, and Lia’s mom Anne is trying to be there for her daughter in ways that she hasn’t ever been before. Everyone’s flaws are front and center. The writing is so beautiful, the story is so devastating, and when I fully understood the unique narration choices of the sickness inside Lia’s body, I was blown away by Mortimer’s originality. I would definitely get a lot out of going back and reading this a second time.
 
 This is going to be one of my top reads of this year for sure. I really loved it. I’m eager to read whatever Mortimer writes next! 

Thanks to @doubledaybooks for sending me a copy of Bad Cree by Jessica Johns. I ended up mostly listening to the audiobook, and the narrator was great. The story follows a young Cree woman named Mackenzie, who starts have unsettling dreams that creep into reality following the death of her sister Sabrina. After her dreams increasingly become dangerous, she visits home for the first time since before her Sabrina. Together with the other women of her family, they try and figure out what happened one night a couple of years ago, before Sabrina died, when they returned from a party to their lakeside campsite.

This is what I would describe as soft horror - the violence is quiet (meaning, no gory axe murders or anything like that), and contains supernatural elements of Cree legends. The horror element isn’t the only part of the story - woven throughout are family members facing their grief in their own ways, and coming together and starting to heal.

I liked this one. I appreciated the family dynamics. There was good buildup as the dreams became increasingly scary and built up a sense of dread. This is definitely a slower-paced read. I think some parts of the story could have been explored more fully - I was really interested in Mackenzie’s mom and her scavenging, and think their relationship could have been fleshed out more fully. I also felt like the climax was sort of… anti-climactic?

I would recommend this one when you’re in the mood for something spooky, but don’t necessarily need it to be fast-paced. I think it would be a good read in the fall.

My reading year did not get off to the strongest start. We started listening to the audiobook of Seven Steeples by Sara Baume on the drive back from an NYE weekend away, and got like 2 hours in and were like wait is there a plot?? Is this book going anywhere? We gave up for the rest of the drive but I am stubborn and made myself finish this one on my own after. And the answer to my question was no… there was no plot. There was no payoff. This book was so boring 🥲 a couple and their two dogs move to the Irish countryside and become reclusive and insular, losing touch completely with their old lives. It remains unclear to me why they choose to do this. This book describes their day to day, they’re year to year, over and over. Ever looming is the mountain nearby that they never bring themselves to climb. And that’s the book! If you like a lot of description, maybe you’d like this. But honestly I’m shocked that this is considered an “acclaimed novel” by anyone.

The thing is, I like quiet books. I like character driven novels, and novels where there isn’t a lot of plot. But this one did not work. I don’t think it had much to say. The writing was lovely at a sentence level, but overall there wasn’t enough going on. And the ending… just wasn’t for me.

I’m not a royal family stan. I just don’t care very much about them in general. But, I do like Meghan Markle and I was interested to hear Harry’s story in his own words so I listened to this entire book. It was a slog!! It is so long. And I don’t think it was worth it, lol.

The first section is all about his childhood. It was sad that he didn’t believe his mom actually died. I will say that I thought he painted Charles as an actual loving father who tried his best, despite Harry acting like he was horribly mistreated. I think Charles didn’t have a great role model on how to be a good dad, but it sounded to me like he did try.

The second section… I’m sorry Harry, but nobody really cares that much about your time in the military. This section could definitely be skipped. The thing that made me laugh here was that William wanted Africa to be “his thing” lol okay he wanted a whole continent to be his thing?? Petty.

The third section where Harry meets Meghan is the most interesting. I definitely believe Harry’s side of things after reading this. Nothing was too egregious or farfetched. It seems reasonable to me that Harry and Meghan were upset that the royal family wouldn’t stand up for Meghan to the press. I get that they don’t typically say much to the press at all, but this was a circumstance where I think they should have.

Anyway those are my quick thoughts on this one. Honestly I listened to it in January and already forget like… most of the details. It could have been half as long. Unless you are a big fan of the royal family, I would skip this one, or just skip to section 3.