Thanks to @vikingbooks for the ARC of I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai. I loved The Great Believers a few years ago so I was very excited for this one. This book follows a successful podcaster, Bodie Kane, as she revisits her boarding high school to teach a class. During her senior year, her former roommate Thalia Keith was murdered, and the school’s athletic trainer Omar Evans was convicted. Back at the school, Bodie’s doubts about the conviction get stronger, and as she revisits memories, she begins to suspect someone else - someone she was much closer with.

The podcast Serial had to be a strong influence for this book, as true crime podcasting is a main plot point. I love dark academia books, so of course I was here for the boarding school setting. This book reminded me of a darker version of Prep. It explores power dynamics, belonging, and the question of who gets believed.

I liked this book a lot! I really love Makkai’s writing and definitely plan to keep up with her work. My one (really weird aside) complaint about this one is… why did she have kids? The book takes place with Bodie away from her kids, and they seem like such an afterthought. She never thinks about them, rarely talks to them, and doesn’t seem to mind being away from them at all. It was just a weird detail about her character that I didn’t understand - it made her a less likable narrator to me. But, overall I still really liked this book. It was a quick and compelling read. If you’re into true crime podcasts and dark academia, definitely pick this one up!

I read The Measure by Nikki Erick for book club. I thought this book had an interesting premise but a poor execution. The premise is that one night overnight, everyone aged 22+ gets a box with a string that tells them the length of their life. The question is: to know or not to know? To look or not look? The appearance of the strings brings social and political upheaval, new discrimination based on the length of someone’s life, new dating apps, and support groups for “short stringers”.

The writing in this book did a lot more telling than showing. There are a lot of characters, and none of them experienced discrimination based off the length of their string, even though that was a big point in the book. I thought there was tokenism with the one main gay character of color. The author touches on every possible social issue but doesn’t really explore any of them in depth. The characters felt more like caricatures than real people - the evil white male politician, the quirky schoolteacher who doesn’t look at her string, etc.

A book with such an interesting plot could not have been less compelling to me. I didn’t particularly care for any of the characters or storylines. The whole book is just people wondering when they are going to die and fixating on their string length. I was rushing through just to be done with it by the end. I don’t recommend this one. Kinda hated it.

 House Gone Quiet by Kelsey Norris was one of my most anticipated books this year and it delivers! This short story collection comes out on October 17 from @scribnerbooks. Every story in this collection is a hit. These stories have so much range, from unsettling magical realism to outrageous satire. I’m always in awe of writers who can create so many distinct worlds - each story strongly stands on its own. Some of my favorites were about a support group for runners who have found dead bodies, a town that takes down a Confederate monument and allows residents to take turns on its empty pedestal, and a boy that drinks seawater that is full of stars. My emotions varied with the stories, from deep melancholy to cackling at the absurd. On top of the creativity and variety of the stories, this collection gleams with shimmering prose and sharp observations of human nature. This book is not to be missed - a standout for me this year. Can’t recommend highly enough!

 I listened to the audiobook of A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney. I actually wasn’t familiar with him as an actor, and you definitely don’t need to be in order to read this. This memoir is an achingly beautiful, devastating, intimate look at losing a child to cancer. Obviously the material makes this one a tearjerker, but Delaney also weaves in humor. If you can’t imagine what it is like to lose a child, Delaney wants you to do just that - imagine what it was like. I was so moved by this crushing story of a family trying to keep it together through an unthinkable diagnosis. Highly recommend!

 I listened to the audiobook of Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt for book club. I would describe it as a soft book - it is heartwarming and kept my interest. I think a lot of people would like it for this reason. I especially liked the chapters from the perspective of the octopus. Still, I could not overlook the parts of it that I didn't care for. 

 

A couple of things I can share that aren’t spoilers: Cameron's character was an actual jerk and the way he talked about women gave me the ick. The dialogue did not ring true. There were characters that for me, had no purpose in being a part of the story. Also this story was set in a fictional town north of Seattle and I feel like surfing isn’t a big thing up there? I lived in eastern WA for four years and I’ve never heard of anyone in that area surfing - it’s not really wild ocean with surf-able waves. I think there are areas in Washington where surfing is more of a thing, but not where this book was supposedly set. So the fact that a character owned a surf shop and went surfing every morning had me skeptical (among many other things). 

I didn't like the way everything wrapped up so neatly. You can't tell me that two people who are related that way would actually possibly meet like that IRL. I am willing to suspend my disbelief for the octopus parts, but couldn't suspend it for Cameron happening to get to know Tovah by taking over her job, and then discovering they are related. Also the part where he conveniently leaves his phone on the car so nobody is able to get ahold of him... so many things were so contrived and I just didn't care for it.

 

I think this book would appeal to a lot of people (actually I know it does bc I rated it the lowest by far at book club lol), but it wasn't for me. I think this book is comparable to Lessons in Chemistry because of the grief themes and how some chapters are narrated by animals, but I preferred Lessons in Chemistry. 

My first book of 2023 was They’re Going to Love You by Meg Howry - thanks to @doubledaybooks for the ARC! This book follows a professional choreographer, Carlisle, as she looks back on her life and decides whether to say goodbye to her dying father, who she has been estranged from for years. Carlisle once dreamed of becoming a professional ballet dancer like her mom, and throughout childhood relished the few weeks each year she got to spend in NYC with her father, Robert, and his partner, James, until one summer damaged their relationship irreparably.

Overall I really liked it, though I felt it was little unpolished. Specifically, the way the dialogue was written confused me at times because it would break the same speaker into multiple paragraphs, which would throw me off. Still, I liked the ballet themes and the complex family story.

The relationship between Carlisle and James reminded me of the one between June and Finn in Tell the Wolves I’m Home. This book felt like a mix of that one, The Great Believers, and the movie Center Stage (a fave of mine still haha), so if you love any of those, you’ll probably enjoy this one too.

Madonna in a Fur Coat was my final book for the #10books10decades challenge. This novel by Turkish author Sabahattin Ali is a quick read. I found it surprisingly tender and forward thinking for its time. It was originally published in 1943.

This novel begins in Ankara in the 1930s. The narrator gets a job with the help of an old friend, where he meets Raif Efendi, a coworker who is rarely moved to show any emotion, and seems to not give much of a care to anything. After Raif falls ill, the narrator gets to know him better, and learns about his past. When he was younger, he had a romance with an artist he met in Berlin after being taken by her painting. At first unrequited, it eventually grows into something more. Their relationship defies traditional gender stereotypes from the time, with Maria taking charge of defining their relationship while Raif follows her lead.

The book’s fatal flaw for me was that Raif is such a passive character. I almost always struggle with characters who are so unassertive. It bothers me IRL when someone always says “I don’t care” and doesn’t express preferences, and I feel the same about characters in books. Still, I found this story to be overall moving and worth reading.

I loved The Transit of Venus so much that when I realized another Shirley Hazzard novel fit into my #10books10decades challenge, I immediately started reading The Bay of Noon. This one was published in 1970, 10 years before The Transit of Venus. I definitely loved Transit more, but I still really liked this one.

The Bay of Noon is set in Naples, Italy. The setting is a character in its own right. I read this right after watching the second season of The White Lotus and the combo really made me want to visit.

In this book, there are glimpses of the form that Hazzard’s writing will later take, with strong and sometimes shocking sentences, but this book has less plot and feels more languorous, and is written in first person rather than third. The story revolves around Jenny who comes to Naples to work for NATO. She becomes enmeshed with Giocanda, a local writer, and her lover Gianni, a married film director who has adapted one of Gioconda’s books. She also forms a separate will-they-won’t-they relationship with Justin, a Scotsman she meets through work.

Much like with The Transit of Venus, the ending of this book was stunning and reminded me of Hazzard’s brilliance. If you are a fan of her writing, I think this is worth a read.

Thanks to @randomhouse for the ARC of How to Fall Out of Love Madly by Jana Casale. I read this book for book club. I was looking forward to it because the author has drawn comparisons to Sally Rooney. After reading, I think that comparison was just done for marketing. I didn’t really like this one, and I definitely do not think the writing compares to Sally Rooney.

This book follows three women in their 30s through some ups and downs. Joy and Annie are longtime close friends and live together, though Annie would rather live with her detached boyfriend if he would only ask. To save money, they look for a third roommate and settle on Theo. Joy is infatuated with Theo, and as they grow closer, she finds herself spending almost all of her time with him or thinking about him. The problem arises when he brings home Celine - the third “narrator” of the book.

Some of the problems in this book were interesting - how Annie would deal with her uncaring partner, for example, or deal with an anonymous note at her work alleging sexual harassment by her favorite boss. Unfortunately, though, I thought most of the character and story arcs didn’t work well. Joy lacked self respect, had major body image issues, and her interactions with Theo were very cringe. I realize this was intentional but I just didn’t think it was done well. I never felt sympathy for the characters. Celine was also a wet sandwich. She was supposed to be a misunderstood bombshell who had more going on below the surface aside from her looks, but it is only a few weeks out from reading this and all I can remember about her is that she was pretty.

For a book about friends and relationships, there is a surprising lack of intimacy in the writing and between the characters. The writing tells you what happened instead of showing you. There aren’t many actual conversations between people - more descriptions of interactions and conversations that don’t let you get to know the characters. Because of this, I thought some of their inner dialogue came off as mean, and I didn’t even buy the friendship between Annie and Joy because Annie seemingly disliked Joy so much.

I think selling this book as similar to Rooney is doing it a disservice, because I went in expecting something different than what it was. I felt like the writing was trying to be almost trendy in its wittiness, but it missed the mark. This one just wasn’t for me.

I read Four Soldiers by Hubert Mingarelli for the #10books10decades challenge. It was originally published in French in 2003, and won the Prix Médici, a French literary award for fiction. This book is about four young soldiers in the Red Army in 1919. This is not what I think of a typical war book - there aren’t major battles and there really isn’t much action. Instead, it focuses on the close friendship of four soldiers who are always waiting for what is to come. Waiting for spring at the end of a frigid winter, or waiting for marching orders, or simply waiting for a chance to sneak away from their battalion to linger around a hidden pond.

This book felt melancholy, and though it was short, it did seem to drag along with their days. The writing is simplistic and sparse. I didn’t end up having strong feelings about this one, but I am surprised that it was a prize winner and that it was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2019 too. It just didn’t feel inspiring or insightful or really stir up many emotions for me at all. I think I will feel okay about skipping Mingarelli’s other works.