Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus was a surprising delight. I expected, based on my not very close reading of the synopsis and the cover, for this book to be light, a little fluffy, and romantic. It subverted my expectations in the best way. It felt serious enough for me to take it more seriously. It had a sprinkling of romance but the romance wasn’t the main plot point. And, while there were some fluffier aspects (such as including a dog’s perspective), this book went deeper than pure entertainment.

A very high-level synopsis: Lessons in Chemistry follows Elizabeth Zott, a female chemist in the 1960s as she struggles to be taken seriously in a time period when women were expected to be homemakers. After she becomes a single mom, she reluctantly takes a job starring on a cooking TV show called Supper at Six, which becomes a surprising success.

This book tackles some serious subjects, such as sexism and sexual assault, with earnest humor and skill, without managing to trivialize or make light of them. I found the writing to be uncommonly surefooted for a debut. I was swept up in the story and the characters, rooting for Elizabeth and her daughter Mad, and rooting against their naysayers.

If you like contemporary fiction, and simply want to read a really good book, I highly recommend this one. I listened on audio and I can’t help but wonder how much of a role that played in how much I enjoyed this one - the narration by Miranda Raison was stellar.

Thanks to @riverheadbooks for sending me a copy of The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid. I loved Exit West when I read it a few years ago, so was really excited about this one. In this novel, one morning Anders wakes up to find that his skin has turned dark overnight. He looks in the mirror and sees a stranger. At first he tells no one except his old friend Oona, who he has recently begun a casual relationship with. When similar changes start spreading, unrest and violence begin, as some, like Oona’s mother, cling to their identity and defend their kind.

This is a short book with long sentences, a combination that was for me conducive to finishing the book in a single evening. I felt lost in the story and swept up in the language, seeing a reflection of the current politics and societal unease paralleled in magical realism. I particularly appreciated the complex relationships between Anders and Oona and their parents. Overall I thought it was a good quick read that gave me a lot to think about. I’d recommend it if you’re a fan of magical realism or Hamid’s writing style.

I already loved Severance but after reading Bliss Montage by Ling Ma (thanks to @fsgbooks for the early copy), it’s safe to say I’m a Ling Ma superfan. This story collection is so brilliantly perfect! It is my new favorite story collection.

Some of the stories are set in what seems to be our current reality, while others have a magical/speculative fiction or sci-fi-esque element (a drug that lets people turn invisible, an office space with a door that opens to a parallel world). Despite difference in settings, these stories feel like they fit together so well. I was in a flow while reading this book that I rarely get into with story collections, due to their often disjointed nature. Somehow one story leads so naturally into the next in this collection - I truly could not put it down. I can’t stress enough how rare this is for me with story collections. It usually takes me at least a week to finish them, as I only will read a story or two per day. This collection was different. I couldn’t get enough of these stories. I read this entire book in just over a day.

Basically every story in this collection was a standout for me, but some extra special standouts: G, about a complex friendship and a drug that turns you invisible; Returning, featuring an unfaithful marriage and a festival with major Midsommer vibes where the attendees choose to be buried alive for a night to be unburied the next morning changed; Office Hours, which reminded me a bit of the Netflix show The Chair with a mysterious element; Oranges, where the victim of an abusive relationship follows her abusive ex to his new home in reflection and disbelief, seeking some sort of closure…. Honestly I could go on because every story works.

If you liked Severance, you’ll like this one too. If you haven’t read Severance, stop everything and read it! And then wait eagerly for this one, with a preorder if you can - it’s out in September from @fsgbooks.

My thoughts on two books in one post! I started reading The Novelist by Jordan Castro (thanks to @softskullpress for sending it to me) and it heavily referenced The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker, which I had on my shelves and had been meaning to read. I decided to put down The Novelist and read The Mezzanine first, and then picked back up The Novelist after.

Now maybe I did a bit of a disservice to Castro with that. The Novelist clearly pays tribute to The Mezzanine. Both novels take place over the span of a workday - the former the workday of, obviously, a novelist, and the latter of an office worker. Both look deeply into the mind of the narrator, with many random tangents to ruminate on various topics in depth.

The Mezzanine had me laughing out loud a lot. I even read parts out loud to my husband which I truly never do. I can see why it is a much admired modern classic. It made copious use of footnotes, which were fun at first but did take me out of the reading flow a bit - for a short book, it took me a relatively long time to get through.

In The Mezzanine, the narrator puzzles over the exact wear patterns and circumstances that have resulted in the shoelace from each shoe breaking just two days apart. What is different between his right vs. left shoe that made one of the laces last two extra days? Is it the way he ties the shoes? In The Novelist, unfortunately the narrator ponders about the difference between each side of his butt as he wipes his poop. Is it the way he is wiping? I honestly wish I was kidding. I wasn’t sure if this section was supposed to be funny or satire or what it was supposed to do, but this section was not for me.

The Novelist takes place in the modern day. The distractions of the internet are prominent. Some parts rang very true for me. The way the narrator talks to his dog, and the self doubt the narrator faces… however other parts (like the poop scene) felt like they were trying to hard to be a different book. I also think another novel I read somewhat recently, No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, does a better job of capturing the disorienting precipitousness that is being on the internet today. It also didn’t feel prose-y, like I would expect a novel by a poet to feel, like for example something by Ocean Vuong. I did like how Jordan Castro appears in the novel as a character. That was fun.

These were an interesting duo of books. If you want to read just one, I’d go with The Mezzanine (and I think Castro would agree). If you’d rather read metafiction set in the current day, and haven’t read the Lockwood, you might like The Novelist. Yeah, reflecting more on my experience now, I don’t think it’s totally fair to compare the inspiration to the inspired. I’m just a random reader so it feels like I’m not qualified to judge writers who actually put things down on the page. But, at the end of the day, when the narrator of The Novelist laments that his novel cannot compare to The Mezzanine, I tend to agree.

Speaking of the inspired/the inspiration, two other books mentioned in The Novelist have made appearances in other books I’ve read recently. Kierkegaard with Either/Or, and Woodcutters by Bernhard. Kierkegaard features prominently in Either/Or by Elif Batuman (a recent fave), and Woodcutters was also referenced in the novel I finished today - Writes and Lovers by Lily King. I like to read the books that are inspiring the writers I’m reading, so I’ll probably pick those up soon.

My thoughts on two books in one! I started reading The Novelist by Jordan Castro (thanks to @softskullpress for sending it to me) and it heavily referenced The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker, which I had on my shelves and had been meaning to read. I decided to put down The Novelist and read The Mezzanine first, and then picked back up The Novelist after.

Now maybe I did a bit of a disservice to Castro with that. The Novelist clearly pays tribute to The Mezzanine. Both novels take place over the span of a workday - the former the workday of, obviously, a novelist, and the latter of an office worker. Both look deeply into the mind of the narrator, with many random tangents to ruminate on various topics in depth.

The Mezzanine had me laughing out loud a lot. I even read parts out loud to my husband which I truly never do. I can see why it is a much admired modern classic. It made copious use of footnotes, which were fun at first but did take me out of the reading flow a bit - for a short book, it took me a relatively long time to get through.

In The Mezzanine, the narrator puzzles over the exact wear patterns and circumstances that have resulted in the shoelace from each shoe breaking just two days apart. What is different between his right vs. left shoe that made one of the laces last two extra days? Is it the way he ties the shoes? In The Novelist, unfortunately the narrator ponders about the difference between each side of his butt as he wipes his poop. Is it the way he is wiping? I honestly wish I was kidding. I wasn’t sure if this section was supposed to be funny or satire or what it was supposed to do, but this section was not for me.

The Novelist takes place in the modern day. The distractions of the internet are prominent. Some parts rang very true for me. The way the narrator talks to his dog, and the self doubt the narrator faces… however other parts (like the poop scene) felt like they were trying to hard to be a different book. I also think another novel I read somewhat recently, No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, does a better job of capturing the disorienting precipitousness that is being on the internet today. It also didn’t feel prose-y, like I would expect a novel by a poet to feel, like for example something by Ocean Vuong. I did like how Jordan Castro appears in the novel as a character. That was fun.

These were an interesting duo of books. If you want to read just one, I’d go with The Mezzanine (and I think Castro would agree). If you’d rather read metafiction set in the current day, and haven’t read the Lockwood, you might like The Novelist. Yeah, reflecting more on my experience now, I don’t think it’s totally fair to compare the inspiration to the inspired. I’m just a random reader so it feels like I’m not qualified to judge writers who actually put things down on the page. But, at the end of the day, when the narrator of The Novelist laments that his novel cannot compare to The Mezzanine, I tend to agree.

Speaking of the inspired/the inspiration, two other books mentioned in The Novelist have made appearances in other books I’ve read recently. Kierkegaard with Either/Or, and Woodcutters by Bernhard. Kierkegaard features prominently in Either/Or by Elif Batuman (a recent fave), and Woodcutters was also referenced in the novel I finished today - Writes and Lovers by Lily King. I like to read the books that are inspiring the writers I’m reading, so I’ll probably pick those up soon.

White on White by Aysegül Savas was a really quick listen. This short novel begins when a student moves to a city to study art history. The student rents an apartment from a painter and her husband, who mostly live elsewhere. The painter, Agnes, comes to stay in the upstairs studio of the apartment.

This book reminded me of the Outline trilogy by Rachel Cusk, because it mostly consists of conversations, though the conversations are just between Agnes and the student. Over time, through their conversations, the student learns more about Agnes, and how she may not be as polished and put together on the inside as she is on the outside. While in the city, Agnes is working on a painting made entirely of white paint on a white background, which I think speaks to her mental state. She’s coming undone a bit. As her stories grow darker, the student feels unsettled by her presence, but continues to listen and observe from a careful distance.

Honestly not a lot happens in this book but that’s kinda my thing so I really liked it. I enjoy stories about artists and I like a menacing tone. The way the student listened without giving advice or offering up their own stories reminded me so much of Cusk (and I love Cusk). If you liked the Outline trilogy, and you like books without a lot of plot that still manage to build some suspense, I’d recommend this one. The narration by Imani Jade Powers was great as well so I can vouch for the audiobook too!

I really loved Joan Is Okay by Weike Wang. Thanks to @randomhouse for sending me the ARC. This book follows Joan, a doctor in NYC and daughter of Chinese immigrants who moved back to China after she reached adulthood. Joan is extremely dedicated to her job and it’s a big part of her identity. After her father suddenly dies, Joan’s routines are disrupted as her mother returns to the US for an extended visit. Joan has to figure out how to move forward, with her own grief, and with the way others expect her to behave and cope during this time.

I really loved this book because Joan was such a remarkable special character. She’s perfectly content in her routine, completely dedicated to her job, and happy on her own. She lives on her own terms and subverts the expectations of society. She rejects her brother’s pressure to start a practice in a wealthy suburb - she’s happy in her modest apartment and isn’t striving for extreme wealth. Her observations are reflective and dryly funny.

If you like quiet character-driven novels about unconventional characters, I’d highly recommend this one.

Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony is a quick, fun read. It’s a political satire with two storylines. The modern day storyline is about a closeted Republican congressman who receives a FedEx package of a taxidermied aardvark, leading to a spiraling series of events that threaten his entire political career. The storyline in the past tells the story of the taxidermist who stuffed the aardvark in question.

This book had me laughing out loud a lot. It’s absurd and perfectly bizarre - a giant stuffed dead aardvark as plot device for a satire about the American political system?! How does one come up with this? I am surprised with how much I enjoyed this one. It reminded me so much of Veep! If you loved Veep or are in the mood for something funny, I’d recommend this one.

I have consumed a lot of media about the opioid epidemic in the US. I’ve read Empire of Pain and Dreamland, I’ve watched the HBO documentary, and I was halfway through the TV show of Dopesick before my book club picked it as our next read. Even still, I got a lot out of this one.

While Empire of Pain focused on the Sackler family and how Purdue Pharma set the opioid crisis in motion, Dopesick focused more on the impacts of opioids to individuals and families. Something that I got from this book that I knew in my head but hadn’t fully grasped was just how desperate users of opioids can get, and why they can’t just stop using. The focus on dopesickness stood out in this book. A major point that this book drove home is that it’s very often not the case that people who are addicted to opioids are seeking their next high - it’s that they are desperately trying to avoid the horrible painful withdrawal.

The Sackler family has still not adequately paid for their crimes. The way Oxy devastated entire communities while they pushed for higher sales and victim blamed is truly despicable. If you don’t know much about the opioid crisis, this is a great book to start with. It was great on audio and I’d definitely recommend it. The show is also really good - it’s fictionalized, but I could tell who different characters were based on after reading the book. I always have to plug Empire of Pain as well - of the three books that I’ve read on this topic, it’s a standout.

What buzzy book did you miss when it came out, and then ended up loving when you finally got to it? For me, it’s Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis. This book has been in my backlog for a long time. @aaknopf sent me the ARC before it came out in 2019, and I’ve held onto it since then. Because I don’t always love historical fiction, and I’m not often in the mood for it, I didn’t prioritize reading this one. But, I still held onto it, because I’d heard enough rave reviews to figure that it could be an exception.

All this to say that I’m very glad that my friend @bookmarkedbya recommended this one as her 12 books 12 friends pick for me. I mostly listened to this one on audio, and I absolutely loved it. Cantoras tells the stories of five gay women in Uruguay, from the 1970s to the present day. At the beginning of the novel, they live in secret, under a dictatorship, where it’s illegal and even dangerous to be gay. Somehow, they still manage to find each other. One summer, they take a trip to a remote beach town, Cabo Polonio, and are briefly able to live freely as they are. Over the years, as their relationships with each other ebb and flow, as the country undergoes political turmoil, and each woman undergoes personal changes, the group is anchored by their friendship and their visits to their secret paradise.

The five main characters in this novel are all so interesting and complex that I could have read a whole book about each of them individually. The descriptions of the landscapes (physical and political) drew me in completely. de Robertis narrates the audiobook herself and wow, it is fantastic. Authors narrating their own work can be hit or miss for me (writer and voice actor are very different jobs) but this is one of the better fiction audiobooks I’ve listened to. All around, this is truly a beautifully told story. I loved it. If you also missed this one when it came out, I highly recommend reading it now.