Shannon Starts Again in 2021 (sturlington)

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Shannon Starts Again in 2021 (sturlington)

1sturlington
Modificato: Mar 28, 2021, 4:55 pm

When I first set up this year's challenge, it was with the goal of getting myself out of the reading slump I had in 2020. (See my previous thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/325851#) But now that I've read more books in January than I think I read in the last half of 2020, I'd say I'm out of my slump! My previous challenge has become too limited for me, since I now have some new reading goals I'd like to tackle. So welcome to my new thread, starting over in February!

I will be reading in these categories:
- Shirley Jackson Award Winners and Shortlist (2020-2021)
- Other Prize Winners (2020)
- Road Trip Across America
- 250-Page Project
- CATs/KITs/BingoDOG

2sturlington
Modificato: Nov 14, 2021, 5:52 pm

Shirley Jackson Award Winners and Shortlist (2020-2021)

The Shirley Jackson Award is my favorite award because I always manage to find wonderful reads through its shortlist. It recognizes not just horror, but also thrillers, dark fantasy, and literary fiction with a dark side. I have pretty much caught up on the backlist, so this year, I want to read as many of last year's and this year's shortlist as I can get my hands on. You can see the full list here: https://www.librarything.com/list/10740/all/Shirley-Jackson-Award-Winners-and-Sh...

2020:
The Book of X - winner; need to buy so may not read
Ninth House
Nothing to See Here
Curious Toys
Tinfoil Butterfly
Goodnight Stranger - not available

2021:
Mexican Gothic
Death in Her Hands
Sisters
True Story
Plain Bad Heroines

3sturlington
Modificato: Nov 27, 2021, 10:58 am

Other Prize Winners -- COMPLETED

I've changed this category because I decided I wanted to read some more recent books. So this category will be for 2020 Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists, National Book Award winner, and Women's Prize winner. That's only five books, so I hope I'll get to them all!

The Nickel Boys - Pulitzer Prize winner
The Dutch House - Pulitzer Prize finalist
The Topeka School - Pulitzer Prize finalist
Interior Chinatown - National Book Award winner
Hamnet - Womens Prize winner

4sturlington
Modificato: Dic 28, 2021, 8:38 am

Road Trip Across America

Because the Pulitzer Prize is an American prize, that gave me the idea to read additional books from all over the country. I probably won't get to every state, but I would like to have a virtual road trip through as many of them as I can manage. Follow along on this map.


visited 19 states (38%)
Buy Douwe's Machine Learning Book

✓Hawaii: Sharks in the Time of Saviors
✓Alaska: How Quickly She Disappears
✓Washington: Devolution, Hollow Kingdom
✓California: Interior Chinatown
✓Arizona: Inland
✓Montana: Kingdomtide, The Only Good Indians
✓South Dakota: Tinfoil Butterfly
✓Nebraska: After the Flood
✓Kansas: The Topeka School
✓Colorado: Billy Summers
✓Texas: A Cosmology of Monsters, Night of the Mannequins
✓South Carolina: The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
✓Florida: The Nickel Boys
✓Tennessee: Nothing to See Here
✓Illinois: Curious Toys
✓Michigan: The House with a Clock in Its Walls
✓Pennsylvania: The Dutch House
✓New York: The Return, Leave the World Behind, Later, Severance
✓Massachusetts: Survivor Song, The Little Sleep

5sturlington
Modificato: Ott 1, 2021, 6:44 am

250-Page Project

I really love short novels. Tor, especially, has been publishing some really good ones lately. I have a list of 10 short novels I'd like to read, in addition to the one I read in January. Many of these will also fit ScaredyKIT or SFFKit categories.

✓1. Flyaway
✓2. The Lifecycle of Software Objects
✓3. The Haunting of Tram Car 015
✓4. The Nickel Boys
✓5. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
✓6. Night of the Mannequins

6sturlington
Modificato: Dic 22, 2021, 10:49 am

CATs and KITs

This is the KIT I try to read along with every year. I missed January, but I can start in February.

ScaredyKIT
✓Feb / Creepy Nonfiction: Literary Witches
✓Mar / Short Stories: Tiny Nightmares
✓Apr / Possession: The Haunting of Tram Car 015
May / Witches
✓June / Diverse Perspectives: The Only Good Indians
✓July / Ghosts: Monster, She Wrote
✓Aug / Adrift: The Deep (Katsu)
✓Sept / Dead and Their Abodes: Mexican Gothic
Oct / Real-Life Monsters
Nov / King and Fam: Billy Summers and Later
Dec / Horror Thrillers: The Shadows DNF

And to replace my usual world map:

GeoKIT
✓Africa: The Haunting of Tram Car 015
Asia:
✓Europe: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
✓North America: The Glass Hotel, Mexican Gothic
Central and South America and Caribbean:
✓Oceania: Flyaway
Polar:

7sturlington
Modificato: Dic 22, 2021, 10:50 am

RandomCAT and BingoDOG

I will select books off my to read list if they already match a RandomCAT or BingoDOG category.



1. One-word title: Bunny
2. By or about marginalized group: Interior Chinatown
3. Dark or light word in the title: Klara and the Sun
4. Character you'd be friends with: Curious Toys
5. Arts and recreation: Hamnet
6. Title describes you: The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
7. You heartily recommend: The Dutch House
8. Nature or environment: Devolution
10. 2 or more authors: Tiny Nightmares
11. Impulse read: Literary Witches
12. Contains a love story: A Cosmology of Monsters
13: Read for a KIT: The Lifecycle of Software Objects
14. Southern hemisphere: Flyaway
15. Made you laugh: Hollow Kingdom -- also Jan RandomCAT: LOL
17. New-to-you author: How Quickly She Disappears
18. Set somewhere you'd like to visit: The Glass Hotel
19. About history or alternate history: Inland
21. Less than 200 pages: The Haunting of Tram Car 015
22. Senior citizen protagonist: Kingdomtide
23. Type of building in the title: The Animals at Lockwood Manor
24. About time or time word in title: The House with a Clock in Its Walls
25. About or contains magic: The Only Good Indians

8sturlington
Gen 28, 2021, 12:56 pm

I'm all set up and ready to restart my 2021 challenge.

9mstrust
Gen 28, 2021, 1:03 pm

It's the re-boot! Hooray for getting out of that slump!

10DeltaQueen50
Gen 28, 2021, 1:12 pm

Great categories - looks like an interesting and fun reading year ahead!

11rabbitprincess
Gen 28, 2021, 1:20 pm

Woo hoo! Glad you're out of the slump and raring to go with a new challenge :)

12majkia
Gen 28, 2021, 1:23 pm

Very glad to hear you are over your slump. Good luck on the new plans!

13MissBrangwen
Gen 28, 2021, 1:27 pm

Congrats on your new challenge, have fun and happy reading! Your categories look very interesting and I'm looking forward to following along!

14dudes22
Gen 28, 2021, 3:50 pm

Glad to hear your slump is over, Shannon. Looking forward to your reading.

15Tess_W
Gen 29, 2021, 4:52 am

Congrats on the reboot!

16MissWatson
Gen 29, 2021, 6:42 am

Good luck with the new challenges!

17sturlington
Gen 29, 2021, 7:31 am

Thanks, everyone, for the encouragement!

18leslie.98
Gen 29, 2021, 8:25 pm

Glad that you are out of your reading slump! And a great reboot to your 2021 challenges :)

19Crazymamie
Gen 30, 2021, 2:50 pm

I love the reboot! Fun categories here, and I'm looking forward to following along.

20sturlington
Modificato: Gen 31, 2021, 9:42 am

Literary Witches: A Celebration of Magical Women Writers by Taisia Kitaiskaia, with art by Katy Horan

Read for: ScaredyKIT -- February -- Creepy Nonfiction

This combination of fantastical prose-poems and art is a tribute to women writers from all time periods and all parts of the world. Each writer is depicted as a witch, but "witch," as the introduction says, is not a hag or devil's consort, but rather "a woman who stands entirely on her own. She is more often than not an outsider, and her gift is transformation. She is a change agent, and her work is sparked by speech: an incantation, a naming, a blessing, a curse."

So each writer is given a title. Octavia Butler is "sower of strange seeds, species, and the future." Emily Dickinson is "specter of windows, flies, and the unexpected." Mary Shelley is "alchymist of monsters, children, the living and the dead." Following her title is a prose-poem that delves into the essential nature of the woman and her writing, depicting her perhaps as a spirit or an immortal or a prophetess. The writing is tinged with darkness, a little creepy, but in a good way--the seductiveness of danger. On the opposite page is a portrait of the writer by Katy Horan, again using symbology and sometimes-disturbing images to get at the essence of her. There is also a short biography and suggested readings, and the whole encourages the reader to seek out these women--some very famous, some quite unknown (at least, to me)--and experience their work for yourself.

I also have a Literary Witches deck of cards, which can be used like an oracle or fortune-telling deck: pull cards and find answers to questions or simply what is influencing you today. The cards include all of the witches as well as their materials, symbols such as bees, a ghost, a spider, or a teacup. I was drawn to both the book and cards by the art (and by my interest in owning unusual card decks), but I found the writing to be enchanting, which I'd like to dip into again and again.

21thornton37814
Gen 31, 2021, 2:42 pm

Congrats on getting out of the slump! Glad you are doing so well in 2021 so far!

22Crazymamie
Gen 31, 2021, 2:43 pm

>20 sturlington: That is an excellent review! I gave it my thumb. My daughter Birdy would love that book and the cards, so I am filing that away as a gift idea.

23sturlington
Modificato: Feb 1, 2021, 1:29 pm

How Quickly She Disappears by Raymond Fleischmann

Read for: USA Road Trip -- Alaska

Twenty years ago, when she was 11, Elisabeth's twin sister, Jacqueline, disappeared. The mystery was never solved. Now, on the eve of World War II, she is married with a daughter and living in a small town in Alaska where her husband is a schoolteacher. A stranger flies into town, unaccountably murders one of the townspeople, and while in custody tells Elisabeth that not only is her sister still alive, but he knows where she is. This starts a cat-and-mouse game between the two, as Elisabeth tries to find out the truth and the stranger asks for more and more from her in return.

This debut was a suspenseful mystery with an exciting conclusion. The Alaskan setting is used to good effect. My only quibble might be that I didn't really believe this was taking place in 1941. Other than the wartime preparations, I didn't get a sense of the time from the way the people spoke or behaved. It's a minor thing, as I still became immersed in the story and, like Elisabeth, I absolutely had to know what had happened to her sister.

24MissBrangwen
Feb 1, 2021, 12:59 pm

>23 sturlington: That one is absolutely a BB for me! Probably as a present for my husband, because he loves Alaska as a setting. I think the premise is so intriguing!

25sturlington
Feb 3, 2021, 11:41 am

The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang

Read for: 250-Page Project + SFFKIT - Feb - Sentient Things

A thought-provoking short novel about raising artificial intelligence (something like advanced forms of digital pets that used to be the rage), which raises a lot of intriguing questions but is rather short on characterization and plot. What is the best way to evolve an AI? What are the ethical ramifications of the relationship between the AI and the person who raises it? Is the AI like a pet? A child? Is putting an AI in permanent stasis ethical? What about when the AI wants full personhood--does it deserve that? More questions than answers at this point.

26sturlington
Feb 6, 2021, 12:04 pm

Kingdomtide by Rye Curtis

Read for: USA Road Trip -- Montana

I'm of a divided mind about this novel. It begins with an elderly couple flying to a remote cabin they have rented for vacation in the Bitteroot Mountains in Montana. The small plane goes down, and the husband and pilot are killed. Only the woman, Cloris Waldrip, survives the crash, and thus begins her odyssey back to civilization. I enjoyed this part of the story and found Cloris to be an engaging character.

The story is split between Cloris's narrative and that of the park ranger who is looking for her, a cynical, newly divorced, and alcoholic woman named Ranger Lewis. It is so important that we realize how much of an alcoholic she is that she is barely mentioned without the word "merlot" in the same sentence; in fact, she spends most of her time sipping merlot out of a thermos. I don't understand how she could function, to be honest. Lewis gets into an inappropriate relationship with an officer sent to lead the search for the downed plane, and then develops even more inappropriate feelings for his teenaged daughter. As an aside, this author does not believe in quotation marks, a pet peeve of mine; I didn't mind that so much in Cloris's narrative, which was first-person and mostly internal, but in Lewis's narrative, which was third-person, it was sometimes difficult to figure out when dialogue was taking place. I know authors have their reasons for doing things this way, which usually amount to pretentious bs, but I am a big fan of punctuation and don't understand why a writer would want to make their readers work harder to access the story. Anyway, I didn't much enjoy Ranger Lewis's half of the novel, I didn't like any of those characters except the teenager daughter (and I just cringed for her a lot), and in fact, I couldn't see much purpose for it other than to make the book twice as long as it was. Personally, I enjoy short novels, but I guess they are harder to sell.

In the end, though, Cloris and her story of grim survival won me over, hence my positive rating.

27sturlington
Feb 9, 2021, 7:17 am

Tinfoil Butterfly by Rachel Eve Moulton

Read for: Shirley Jackson Award Shortlist + USA Road Trip -- South Dakota

I'm really glad I didn't start reading this before bedtime because this story got intense real fast. A teenage girl hitchhiking to the Badlands in South Dakota gets herself out of one messy situation and lands in an even worse one. She runs out of gas in a deserted old mining town far up the mountain with a blizzard on the way. Then she discovers the place isn't quite deserted. I'm not going to say anymore. I didn't know anything about this going in, and I think that's for the best. Moulton's writing is compelling--I finished this in two days--and parts are downright terrifying, while other parts are simply heartbreaking. A nice discovery, courtesy of the Shirley Jackson Award shortlist.

28Tess_W
Modificato: Feb 9, 2021, 8:48 am

>27 sturlington: sounds like a good one!

29mstrust
Feb 9, 2021, 9:40 am

>27 sturlington: The blurb for that describes it as "The Shining meets About a Boy..."!

30sturlington
Feb 9, 2021, 10:42 am

>29 mstrust: Whoa, I don't know about that. LOL

31sturlington
Modificato: Mar 2, 2021, 7:13 pm

Inland by Tea Obreht

Read for: USA Road Trip - Arizona / HistoryCAT: 1800-Modern Day

Inland is a sprawling story of the Old West, a bit slow to get into, but satisfying in the end. It has two intertwining narratives. One, spanning many years, is about an orphan named Lurie who can see the dead. He is aimless and on the run from a warrant on his head when he falls in with a band of cameleers who brought camels to help the Army traverse the unsettled American desert. Lurie, now with a different name, bonds with one of the camels and spends a lifetime with the animal. The other narrative takes place over the course of one day and night. It is about an Arizona homesteader named Nora, whose husband and older sons are missing and who is almost out of water due to a drought. She also talks to a ghost, the ghost of her infant daughter who died of heatstroke. These two stories are each compelling in their own right, and they are eventually brought together in a way that surprised me.

32Tess_W
Feb 20, 2021, 5:44 am

>31 sturlington: That has been on my WL since I read her debut novel The Tiger's Wife.

33sturlington
Modificato: Mar 2, 2021, 7:13 pm

Curious Toys by Elizabeth Hand

Read for: Shirley Jackson Award shortlist / US Road Trip - Illinois

This is a mystery rife with historical details set in early-20th-century Chicago in the Riverview Amusement Park. Fourteen-year-old Pin and her mother, working as a fortune teller for the summer, are shacking up in the park, and Pin is disguised as a boy to keep her safe as she roams the park and earns extra money running drugs for the guy playing the She-Male on the midway. A serial killer is also targeting young girls in the city, and when Pin discovers his latest victim inside one of the rides, she joins forces with her new friend, the seemingly crazy Henry Darger, to find the killer. I didn't realize that Darger was a real person until after finishing the book; this is the second book in a row when I got some unexpected history with my fiction, which I really enjoy. I liked the characters (especially Pin), the setting, all of the detail. I didn't care for the short chapters (104 of them!) or the seesawing point of view, and I felt the mystery fell a little flat at the end. But the things I liked outweighed what I didn't. Those readers who really like delving into a time and place will enjoy this book.

34sturlington
Modificato: Mar 3, 2021, 7:50 am

Tiny Nightmares ed. by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto

Read for: ScaredyKIT - Short Stories Month

The contributors to this anthology were asked to write a very short story (less than 1,500 words) about something that scares them. Like all anthologies, this one is uneven, but there aren't any real clunkers, and there are quite a few standouts: stories that were especially creepy or funny or chilling. The authors are a mix of horror and literary writers, some of them well-known to me, and also seem to reflect a mix of backgrounds and perspectives. All this makes the stories nicely varied, with commentaries on everything from police shootings to illegal immigration to drug addiction to motherhood. I was particularly delighted by the index at the end to all the weird and scary subjects; I read it straight through--it was like a found poem. I also enjoyed the unsettling art that introduced each section of the book.

35mstrust
Mar 3, 2021, 10:04 am

36sturlington
Mar 3, 2021, 10:09 am

>35 mstrust: Awesome!

37sturlington
Modificato: Mar 4, 2021, 9:22 am

I have decided to update my categories again. I have been enjoying historical fiction lately, so I will try to tackle the HistoryCAT. Last time I tried, I was not too successful, so we'll see. I added my list to my CATs and KITs category in >6 sturlington:

And while I still may read some past Pulitzer winners (I'm not giving up quite yet!), I feel more like reading recently published books, so I revamped my Other Awards category in >3 sturlington:

Now I will be reading award winners from 2020 as so: Pulitzer winner and finalists, National Book Award winner, and Women's Prize winner. Mainly because these books all caught my interest. As the awards are announced this year, I may add them on for 2021 as well.

Almost through the Jackson Award short list in >2 sturlington:. I am reading one now and I have one in the mail that I may reserve for the ScaredyKIT. I haven't decided whether I'm actually going to buy and read the winner yet, so I may cross that one off. I also crossed off one of the other nominees because it a) exceeds 450 pages and b) is the first of a series. I don't really enjoy big books anymore unless I already love the author, and I have never been able to commit to series, so I just skip those books when they come up on lists I'm reading through.

If I get through those, I hope to read at least one selection per the genres I follow from the ALA Reader's List for 2021: Historical Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy, as well as at least one additional selection from the ALA Notable Books list for 2021.

Well, that should keep me going for a while!

38rabbitprincess
Mar 4, 2021, 7:55 pm

Have fun with the HistoryCAT! :)

39RidgewayGirl
Mar 4, 2021, 8:00 pm

>34 sturlington: I'm glad you liked Tiny Nightmares - a friend of mine is the author of one of the stories so I'm rooting for all the reviews to be good. I have a copy, but have only read the story she wrote.

40sturlington
Mar 5, 2021, 7:15 am

>39 RidgewayGirl: Oh, cool. What's your friend's name?

41sturlington
Mar 5, 2021, 7:19 am

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

Read for: Shirley Jackson Award finalist + USA Road Trip: Tennessee

I really had no idea what this book was about before I started reading. I think I vaguely believed it was a coming of age story. Well, it is most definitely not. I don't want to give away too many surprises by describing the plot in detail, but this is a book that's essentially about parenting and how to deal with all the anxieties that becoming a parent produces. It is also about being that kind of person who never fits and suddenly finding a place for yourself in the world. It is also funny and weird and pretty touching in the end. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

42RidgewayGirl
Mar 5, 2021, 11:11 am

>40 sturlington: Eshani Surya -- she wrote the one about the man who got the petroleum injections.

>41 sturlington: I loved that book so much! It's one I've bought to give to friends.

43sturlington
Modificato: Mar 5, 2021, 11:30 am

>42 RidgewayGirl: That story was really creepy. One of the standouts.

As for Nothing to See Here, I would not have read it had it not been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Award, which is why I really love that award. It has just been the best for discovering books that are right up my alley but I might otherwise have overlooked.

44sturlington
Mar 12, 2021, 2:26 pm

Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn

Read for: USA Road Trip - Hawaii

This is the story of a native Hawaiian family struggling with poverty and identity in the 1990s and early 2000s. I think this book just missed me. I really liked how it began, and I enjoyed the depiction of Hawaiian culture, although I struggled to understand sometimes. I felt like it took a left turn somewhere toward the middle, and I never caught up with it after that. The end was tantalizing--I could almost get what was going on, but not quite. Overall, it felt like a struggle, unfortunately.

45sturlington
Mar 19, 2021, 3:29 pm

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Read for: Pulitzer Prize finalist / USA Road Trip - Pennsylvania

I've read a lot of good books this year so far, but this is the first really great one. I may revise my opinion later, but for now this one is getting five stars.

This is a quiet, moving, utterly absorbing story of a brother and a sister. When they were young, they lived in a ridiculous house, a beautiful house, a fairy tale house--the Dutch House. And their mother abandoned them. There is an evil stepmother, as well, and when Danny is older, he and his sister are exiled from the Dutch House. Danny, the brother, narrates the story and was too young to really remember his mother. He never really understands why she left, but he has his older sister instead. It is still that most unforgivable crime for women to commit: abandoning their children. Never mind that men do it all the time, as Danny and Maeve's father did, in a sense--yet Danny grows up angry at his mother and wanting to be his father. It takes him a whole lifetime to figure this stuff out--and I'm not sure he ever really does, completely--but in the meantime, he tells the story of his sister, and ultimately of his mother and his daughter and the other women who noiselessly and without fanfare, almost without him noticing, shaped his life. The end, for me, was perfect and moving. Life is a wheel.

46sturlington
Modificato: Mar 19, 2021, 3:53 pm

So, I somehow talked my 13-year-old son into forming a mother-son book club that will go at least through the summer. He got to pick the theme, and he picked horror! My favorite! So I chose 5 YA horror books from NPR's 100 Best Horror List for us to read. I don't have a category for them, but I'm super excited that my teen agreed to this at all.

Here's what we are reading:
The Jumbies
The House with a Clock in Its Walls
Spirit Hunters
Rotters
Down a Dark Hall

47rabbitprincess
Mar 19, 2021, 10:37 pm

>46 sturlington: That is exciting! Have fun with your book club :)

48mstrust
Mar 20, 2021, 11:41 am

>46 sturlington: You must be very persuasive! Have fun with your book group!
I love Bellairs and hope you both enjoy The House with a Clock in its Walls.

49sturlington
Mar 25, 2021, 5:34 pm

>47 rabbitprincess: and >48 mstrust: Thanks, I can't believe he agreed to it!

50sturlington
Modificato: Mar 25, 2021, 8:11 pm

Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer

Read for: HistoryCAT / Early Modern History

This book--coupled with another I had read earlier this year, Bunny--led me to muse on rabbits, and how they are associated with the grotesque. There are not only these two novels, but the infamous rabbit-boiling scene in Fatal Attraction, and the human-sized rabbit in Donnie Darko, and probably some other examples I am forgetting. What is it about rabbits, associated as they are with innocence and cuteness, but also promiscuity and out-of-control breeding, that lends so well to horror? There's a whole essay there, probably, if I could be bothered to write it.

The rabbits in this story were not, strictly speaking, fictional, as this was based on a true story of a woman in 1726 rural England who suddenly began giving birth to rabbits, which convinced many people for a little while that she was miraculous. It's an interesting story, and Palmer dramatizes it well, but he also elevates it well above just a strange-but-true retelling. There is one chapter, midway through, written in Mary's voice, and it was there I realized that Palmer was really talking about the battle over ownership of women's bodies, particularly their reproductive organs, that is still ongoing:

"That need of his to occupy the space inside me, claim it as his own. ... The rule of men: all spaces must be filled."

The story of a woman giving birth to rabbits is truly an argument for bodily autonomy. And Palmer carries it further than just women's rights to own their own bodies, but extends that idea to everyone who has been dehumanized because their bodies do not conform to what is considered the norm. He populates his story with other freaks of the day, who nevertheless do not see themselves as freaks but as human: a woman with a facial birthmark, conjoined twins, a black man. In contrast, there are the idle rich who revel in the grotesque and the dehumanization of others, who dress themselves up ridiculously but see themselves as beautiful. This novel is all about how we perceive others and the reality we weave for ourselves as we tell ourselves the story of who we are and who everyone else is, and what is acceptable and what is freakish, and who has the rights of humanity and who does not. And also about how those perceptions can, and should, change--how we can rewrite our own story of our collective humanity.

When I got to the end, to the conversation that Mary's doctor, John Howard (a wonderfully drawn character) has with her alone about belief, about choosing what is true, and about what happens when God is brought into the room--it's amazing writing, and it gave me so much more to think about than I bargained for when I picked up this slim novel.

So far, I have read all three of Palmer's novels, and each one has surpassed the last.

51RidgewayGirl
Mar 25, 2021, 8:08 pm

>50 sturlington: The Rabbit Queen was just fantastic and your review really nails why it was so good.

52sturlington
Modificato: Mar 25, 2021, 8:17 pm

>51 RidgewayGirl: Thank you so much. I did not think I was going to love this book as much as I ended up loving it. Dexter Palmer is such an amazing writer.

I didn't even get into the transformative power of belief that he explores. That scene with the different people who come to stand vigil outside Mary's window and are transformed just by believing in her--that was incredible.

53MissBrangwen
Mar 26, 2021, 11:54 am

>50 sturlington: Fantastic review! I haven't heard about this book before, but it sounds fascinating and well worth the read.

54sturlington
Mar 28, 2021, 4:42 pm

>53 MissBrangwen: Thank you, the book definitely inspired me.

55sturlington
Mar 28, 2021, 4:43 pm

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark

Read for: ScaredyKIT - April - Possession / GeoKIT - Africa

This short fantasy is set in an alternate version of 1912 Cairo, in which djinni have entered the world and magic and the supernatural are so much a part of ordinary life that there is a Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities. Two agents of this ministry are investigating a tram car haunted by an Albanian spirit and must come up with a scheme to "exorcise" it. This is a light romp with an agreeably steampunk old-world Egyptian setting.

56sturlington
Mar 29, 2021, 5:33 pm

The Return by Rachel Harrison

Read for: USA Road Trip - New York / ALA Reading List - Horror

Just what I needed right now. A group of four college girlfriends are growing apart as their lives take different directions when they get the news that one of them has disappeared while hiking. Two years later, their missing friend returns, with no explanations or memory of what happened. A few months after, the four get together for a reunion at a creepy hotel located in the remote woods of upstate New York, where they gradually realize that their returned friend has changed--not in a good way. Make no mistake about it: this is an old-fashioned horror story, and I loved it. The tension and weirdness gradually ramp up until the book becomes unputdownable. It has a cinematic feel to it, and the first-time author employs the tropes of horror to good effect. I will look forward to her future books.

57sturlington
Mar 30, 2021, 5:19 pm

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

Read for: USA Road Trip - New York / ALA Notable Books

In this story, a rather ordinary family of middle-class white New Yorkers head out to the Hamptons for a late-summer vacation in a rented AirBnB, a lovely and well-appointed house that isn't on the ocean but does have a pool. They spend a couple of days there doing vacation things, spending a lot of money on extravagant and impractical food (the trip to the grocery store is described in much detail), and then there is a knock on the door late at night. An older Black couple is standing on the doorstep. They say they own the house and something bad has happened in New York, so they want to stay.

At first, this story, and this family, were annoying me. The family is so bland, so white-bread, that they didn't seem to be characters so much as caricatures. But when the Black couple shows up, they are completely ordinary as well, boring even. It's not a mystery whether they are truly the house's owners; the omniscient narrator lets us know fairly quickly that they are. The mystery is what is happening out in the world, and how will these people handle it?

It gradually dawned on me that all of these people were so ordinary and indistinguishable because they are meant to be anybody, and everybody. This is, I think, a story that pretty realistically depicts what it might be like if an unthinkable disaster were unfolding and you really had no idea what was going on or what to do. The narrator is godlike in knowing everything that is happening and will happen, and sometimes doles out little bits of information so we, the readers, know slightly more than the characters. But the questions of interest are: What would you do if you had no idea what to do? Would you come together? Or lock the doors? Much has been made of the race-relations aspect of the story, and the white couple are pretty typical in that they hold some fairly stereotypical views of Black and Hispanic people, but I don't think that's the point. I think the point is that these are ordinary people, the world may be ending, and what are they going to do? Anything besides getting drunk?

I don't think it's any accident that climate change is mentioned so frequently. The disaster unfolding, whatever it is, happens more quickly, but there is a point being made: that the world is already ending, and collectively, we're not doing much about it. However, it is interesting to me that there is one character who recognizes what is happening and knows what to do--who that character turns out to be. So although when the book started, it had me rolling my eyes at this Wonderbread family, by the end, it had me thinking about some very interesting questions. Overall, a win.

58sturlington
Modificato: Mar 31, 2021, 8:12 pm

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

Read for: National Book Award winner / USA Road Trip - California

The fact that this was mostly written in screenplay format but did not get on my nerves is a testament to the writing. This is the story of Willis Wu, Generic Asian Man, a mostly background player in a buddy-cop TV show with many scenes set in Chinatown who aspires to work up to the ultimate role of Kung Fu Guy. At first, I tried to parse this as a story that was happening both on and off set, but then I figured that was not the intention and instead viewed it as all part of the "show" that represents an exaggerated view of reality, and that worked better for me. It does get a little preachy and ridiculous toward the end, but isn't that emblematic of the Hollywood ending? (Think of the ending to The Player, which does the same sort of thing.) Sharp-witted and clever, but I think for me the back stories of Wu's parents were the most affecting parts of the novel for me.

59sturlington
Mar 31, 2021, 7:55 pm

It is spring break and I have read three books in three days. I have no life. :-)

60rabbitprincess
Mar 31, 2021, 10:10 pm

>59 sturlington: That sounds like the perfect spring break!

61pamelad
Mar 31, 2021, 11:16 pm

>59 sturlington: You're being noble and selfless, staying home and reading in order to prevent the spread of the virus. I salute you!

62sturlington
Apr 1, 2021, 7:30 am

>60 rabbitprincess: You know what, it is!

>61 pamelad: How right you are. I read for the good of humanity. ;-)

Plus, Mt. TBR is rapidly diminishing, since I can't even go to the library and curbside is not really an adequate substitute.

63mstrust
Apr 1, 2021, 10:04 am

>59 sturlington: Ha! You've lived three lives in three days!

64RidgewayGirl
Apr 1, 2021, 11:28 am

>59 sturlington: Well, there is still a pandemic going on. Not a great idea to catch a flight to Daytona Beach and hang out in bars right now.

65sturlington
Apr 4, 2021, 7:48 am

>64 RidgewayGirl: I don't think it's ever a great idea to do that!

66sturlington
Apr 4, 2021, 7:49 am

The House with a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs

Read for: Mom & Kid Book Club

I'm not going to review this right now but rather wait until my son finishes it to see what he thinks. Overall, I thought it was a fun story well-told.

67DeltaQueen50
Apr 5, 2021, 12:20 pm

>66 sturlington: I love that you and your son are reading the same books. I did some of that with both my grandson and granddaughter when they were younger. It was interesting to get their point of view. They introduced me to some new childrens' books and I was able to slip in a few classics along the way!

68sturlington
Apr 8, 2021, 7:48 pm

>67 DeltaQueen50: I don't normally read children's books, so it is fun to have this excuse to read some. I am looking forward to my son's take on the book, although it may take a while, as he has to read something else for class in the meantime.

69sturlington
Apr 8, 2021, 7:48 pm

The Topeka School by Ben Lerner

Read for: Pulitzer Prize finalist / USA Road Trip (Kansas)

Here is a story of a family of three in Topeka, Kansas, and of the son, Adam, negotiating the trials of young adulthood. Yay, I finished it. I was a bit disappointed that, although it is featured prominently on the cover, there is no tornado in the book. I jest. This was just ... not my thing. I liked the writing, generally, but I just couldn't access the story. The best chapter for me was Jane's first chapter ("The Men"), and nothing else in the book quite recaptured that, which is to say that it felt disjointed and its parts untethered to one another, and it did not at all explain toxic masculinity to me, as advertised.

70RidgewayGirl
Apr 9, 2021, 11:24 pm

>69 sturlington: On the other hand, did it answer all of your questions about high school debate and more?

71sturlington
Apr 10, 2021, 7:19 am

>70 RidgewayGirl: More than I ever thought there was to know.

72RidgewayGirl
Apr 10, 2021, 2:15 pm

>71 sturlington: Every time Ben Shapiro makes the news I think about the high school debate scenes and it explains so much.

73sturlington
Modificato: Apr 16, 2021, 7:51 am

After the Flood by Kassandra Montag

Read for: Off the Shelf / I'm going to count this as Nebraska on my US road trip, since that's a hard state to get and the book starts there.

In this post-apocalyptic story, rising seas have submerged most of the United States, and presumably the rest of the world's livable land. The survivors are forced to either subsist in small villages on the remaining high peaks that are still above water or live on the sea. Myra and her young daughter, Pearl, have a small boat from which they fish and trade. Pearl captures snakes, one of the remaining living animals, and keeps them as pets. Then Myra learns a piece of news that sends her on a desperate mission, dragging Pearl in her wake. Of course, there are all the dangers of being at sea: storms, hidden rocks, pirates. It's a pretty bleak world where there just isn't enough room for everyone. It just seems like this world had no hope for it--and yes, it did remind me of Waterworld. Myra's first-person narration sometimes came across as flat and mechanical, and probably the book goes on a bit too long. But I thought she, Pearl, and the supporting characters were presented well, as flawed, fully rounded people who don't always make the best choices and are trying to not just survive but build lives under impossible circumstances. Maybe I'd better avoid post-apocalyptic fiction for a while (although I have so many more on my TBR).

74sturlington
Modificato: Mag 10, 2021, 8:19 am

A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet

Yes, more post-apocalyptic fiction!

A satirical and darkly funny allegory in which the reader will recognize the many biblical allusions. The story concerns a group of teens on vacation in a rented house with their woefully inadequate and hedonistic parents (referred to only as the "parents," "mother," or "father"). A storm interrupts the vacation, and the children must fend for themselves. If you are of an older generation and reading this doesn't make you feel uncomfortable, you're not paying attention. Millet is sounding the warning bell on climate change and giving us all a sharp poke for our denial of what is happening in front of our eyes and our refusal to inconvenience ourselves to protect future generations. Pair this with Leave the World Behind, which tackles the same subject using a similar framework.

As an aside, this is the fourth book I've read this year that has had a creepy rabbit on the cover. What is the universe trying to tell me?

75RidgewayGirl
Mag 10, 2021, 10:06 am

>74 sturlington: I was impressed by A Children's Bible. Millet is such an interesting writer. I've recently picked up a book of her short stories. It would work well paired with Leave the World Behind, given that they are doing similar things in utterly different ways.

76sturlington
Mag 19, 2021, 12:14 pm

The Orphan of Salt Winds by Elizabeth Brooks

Virginia, now very old, recalls when she was adopted by a childless couple and taken to live in a remote house on the edge of the marsh at the age of ten and the tragic events of the next two years as England enters World War II. This is a slow-moving story, but I enjoyed the writing, the isolated setting, and discovering what happened to make present-day Virginia contemplate suicide and revenge. I think I would have liked more of an ending than we got, though.

77sturlington
Giu 20, 2021, 7:51 am

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

I thought this was SGJ's most mature novel to date, and really good horror, to boot. Real horror, as well--in that there are scenes that will horrify you. This is a tale of revenge sparked by the unjust killing of an elk by four young Indian men. The monster that arises out of that act is unique and terrifying, yet feels grounded in Blackfeet lore. The Indian characters seem real and whole, yet SGJ manages to weave in important commentary on reservation life and the historical treatment of Native Americans without coming across as preachy. The climax is never-wracking suspense, but the ending is not what you might expect and poses a potential solution to never-ending conflict.

78sturlington
Modificato: Lug 7, 2021, 8:50 am

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

A short book based on actual historical accounts, The Nickel Boys is set during the 1960s at a reform school (actually a prison) for boys in Florida. This was extremely well written but very difficult to read, as you know this book is eventually going to break your heart. Sometimes I feel battered by the stupendously cruel and seemingly infinite crush of racism in American history, which of course continues today, and continues to be denied. This is an important book, as are others of its ilk, but it is so difficult to keep reading them and reading them, and then turn on the news.

79sturlington
Lug 7, 2021, 8:50 am

Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay

A twist on the classic zombie story, Survivor Song hits close to home, considering recent world events. A rabies-like virus is overwhelming New England, and Natalie--who is very pregnant--has watched in shock as an infected man burst into their house, attacked her husband, and bit her. She fled to her friend Ramola, a pediatrician, and thus began their odyssey to try to save Natalie's baby. There are all the zombie-movie trappings, but Tremblay never lets the reader forget that these are not zombies but rather sick people. He does get a bit heavy-handed with his messaging; even though I agree with him, I don't like it when the authorial voice intrudes on the story. And by the end of this, I felt wrung out and depressed. But the end is worth it. Not as good as some of his earlier books, but Tremblay is still breathing new life into the horror genre, and I appreciate that.

80sturlington
Lug 14, 2021, 10:08 am

Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction by Lisa Kroger

This is a retrospective of women writing mostly supernatural horror from the gothic period until today. Each period has a short introduction giving some context, followed by profiles and reading lists for women from that period. Most of the fiction involves ghosts and hauntings of some kind, from Gothic romances and Victorian ghost stories to 20th-century domestic haunted houses and the modern-day gothic. I enjoyed this although I was already pretty familiar with most of the books and authors mentioned.

81mstrust
Lug 15, 2021, 10:25 am

Morning! That gets glowing reviews from everyone. I'll see if my library has it.

82sturlington
Lug 23, 2021, 7:42 am

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

As someone who grew up in the South during the 1980s and '90s, I recognized the people and places Hendrix writes about in this novel. It's the story of a group of Southern SAHMs who form a book club that mainly reads true crime and then discover a real monster in their midst. This is a big, somewhat over-the-top, sometimes squicky horror book, which makes it a perfect summer read, in my opinion. I highly enjoyed it. And I am fans of the women characters--they are tough, roll up their sleeves and do what they have to do. I want to join their book club.

I also wish that people who review books as being racist and sexist would back up their claims with evidence from the text. It's a pretty serious charge to level, and I have to wonder if it's a knee-jerk reaction to a book being truthful about the ways things are or were (and this book is truthful about the 1990s South--I lived it). Or is it that the reader didn't give characters a chance to evolve or deepen or for satire to reveal itself? This book throws a lot of shade on how men treat women generally and how housewives in particular are devalued. There is also commentary on how society ignores crimes targeting Black people such as the Atlanta children murders. The time and place the book was set in were sexist and racist (still are, in a lot of ways), not the book itself.

83VictoriaPL
Lug 23, 2021, 12:26 pm

Just catching up on your thread :)

84RidgewayGirl
Lug 23, 2021, 2:05 pm

>82 sturlington: I've been seeing discussions about this issue and it mystifies me. I wonder if some readers have trouble with reading with nuance (a character is not the same as the author, describing an event is not the author endorsing the event) or if they read something they don't like and social media gives them the chance to get over-excited with other people? I can think of two other instances of this behavior recently.

85sturlington
Modificato: Lug 23, 2021, 7:56 pm

>84 RidgewayGirl: Yeah, I'm seeing it a lot, which is why I went on a mini-rant about it. I really believe people are not giving the book a chance to make its points. Many authors writing today are aware of racism and sexism, and I just really hate to see these charges leveled at an author without real evidence backing it up. It makes me doubt the reader's ability to read critically, not the author's ability to write.

I wonder if it's a lack of context. In the book I reviewed, a little knowledge of the true crime genre in general and some recent history should make any reader aware of the points Hendrix is making about racism as it pertains to ignoring crime where Black people are the victims, especially in the South. It's hard for me to see how a generally educated person could miss that.

86mstrust
Lug 25, 2021, 11:54 am

>82 sturlington: I was totally unaware this was happening. It was one of my favorite reads last year.
>84 RidgewayGirl: Well put.
It's hard to believe anyone would read this book and come away with the impression that it's racist or sexist rather than a story of it being set in a time of overt racism and sexism, along with a story about fighting a vampire (not giving anything away when it's in the title). The women are more courageous and stronger than the men.

87sturlington
Lug 25, 2021, 4:27 pm

>86 mstrust: It's really kind of baffling.

88sturlington
Ago 28, 2021, 5:32 pm

The Deep by Alma Katsu

Because I really loved The Hunger, I had great hopes for this book, but it turned out to be a disappointment. It is about the historical sinkings of the Titanic and, four years later, its sister ship, the Brittanic, with a few of the same people on board both ships. The story is very slow to develop, with a lot of characters who I frankly didn't really care much about. There is a supernatural element, but I didn't find it all that scary, and there is a bit of a twist at the end, but I liked the twist I made up in my own head better. Sorry to say this was a letdown for me.

89sturlington
Set 19, 2021, 10:55 am

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

An old-fashioned pot boiler that draws heavily on the tropes of gothic literature, but also has some new twists--I found this very entertaining.

90sturlington
Set 19, 2021, 10:57 am

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Did I like any of the characters in this book? I don't think so. But I did like the book very much. It's subversive, it's ambiguous, and it's clever.

--

Sorry for the short reviews--I haven't felt much like writing lately.

91VictoriaPL
Set 21, 2021, 10:10 pm

>89 sturlington: that book is EVERYWHERE right now!
>90 sturlington: hey, short reviews are better than no reviews! :)

92sturlington
Ott 1, 2021, 6:42 am

Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones

This was a chilling story about a pyschopath--like a slasher movie only in book form, and told from the slasher's point of view.

93VivienneR
Ott 3, 2021, 3:25 pm

>90 sturlington: It's been years since I read that book (and saw it performed on stage) and I remember enjoying it, but then I really like Muriel Spark.

Short reviews are just fine with me!

>92 sturlington: Wow, that would be chilling!

94sturlington
Ott 15, 2021, 7:17 am

The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay

This was a hard-boiled humorous mystery by an author whose horror books I have very much enjoyed. The narrator is a narcoleptic detective who has trouble distinguishing reality from dream, which makes it more difficult to solve the case he's become involved in. For me, this was just okay, but then I'm not a huge fan of mysteries. I found the narrator's voice somewhat grating, which made it difficult to become attached to the characters, and the plot seemed somewhat weak, not as surprising or twisted as Tremblay's horror writing has been.

95mstrust
Ott 15, 2021, 8:41 am

Getting through some Halloween-ish reads. I read Night of the Mannequins a while ago and agree with your chilling slasher flick description. It's very different from his earlier Mapping the Interior, which had such a hazy dream/nightmare tone.

96sturlington
Ott 15, 2021, 10:10 am

>95 mstrust: Agree, very different. He's an interesting writer.

97sturlington
Ott 31, 2021, 8:25 am

Billy Summers by Stephen King

I needed a book I could get immersed in right now, and this was just the book. Billy Summers is a hired assassin who is taking one last job. It has a big payout but something about it seems off to Billy. Part of the job is just waiting; he's embedded in a suburban Southern town where he makes friends with the neighbors and starts writing a book about his childhood and his time as a sniper in Iraq. Some readers seem to have found all this setup boring, but I found it immersive and enjoyed reading Billy's story within a story. By the time we get to the job itself, I'm ready to accept the twists that follow. This book deals with some pretty heavy topics, but it's mostly about morality, and it's a pretty suspenseful crime novel to boot.

98sturlington
Modificato: Nov 10, 2021, 10:39 am

Later by Stephen King

This is a story about a boy who can see dead people. Yes, King is recycling ideas here, and none too subtly either, but I really like the narrator's voice. It also interested me that King took a fresh look at an idea from an older book of his--I won't say what, to avoid spoiling fans. All in all, this is a fast-moving, entertaining tale that I think really fits the Hard Case Crime series, and it tickled me that part of the plot revolves around a literary agency.

99sturlington
Nov 14, 2021, 5:52 pm

True Story by Kate Reed Petty

This is a book that, once I got into it, I could not put it down. It is yet another book about writing and storytelling, but I find that this subject always seems fresh to me, and here the subject is telling your own story--how do you do that when you aren't even sure what your story is? It uses the tropes of horror to good effect, resulting in a kind of "found footage" novel. I also thought the insights into both alcoholism and abuse were particularly sharp. Different and dark, another winner from the Shirley Jackson Award shortlist.

100RidgewayGirl
Nov 15, 2021, 7:59 pm

>99 sturlington: I loved True Story so much that I bought a copy in hardcover for a friend, who also loved it. Just so much going on in it.

101sturlington
Nov 16, 2021, 6:44 am

>100 RidgewayGirl: Really thought-provoking. It definitely calls for a reread at some point.

102sturlington
Nov 27, 2021, 10:58 am

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

The character of Agnes, Hamnet's mother, made this book compelling for me. She was the most well-realized character I've encountered in a long time, the world she inhabited felt vivid and real, and her grief at losing her son was so palpable. The ending was perfectly moving. I enjoyed how this was so much her story and so much not her famous husband's story that his name was never actually used. A wonderful read.

103sturlington
Dic 22, 2021, 10:48 am

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

It's hard not to compare this book to Never Let Me Go as they share several common themes and also an overall mood of separation as created by an unreliable, naive narrator who is not completely a part of the world she inhabits. I loved both books. Klara is an Artificial Friend, or AF--essentially, an AI created as a companion for privileged children raised and educated pretty much in isolation. Her world seems like a plausible near future of ours, and because she is an unreliable narrator, we readers only receives small glimpses into what that world is like, but those glimpses are both fascinating and alarming. I read in one review that this book is a literary depiction of the "uncanny valley," and I think that description is apt--everything feels off about this world as filtered through Klara's viewpoint, and the reader feels disoriented and off-step as a result. But the overall mood of this book for me was one of melancholy, as it depicts a world of disposability--not only of AIs like Klara, but also of living human beings--and even though this world seems "off," it is also all too plausible.

104christina_reads
Dic 22, 2021, 11:09 am

>103 sturlington: It's hard not to compare this book to Never Let Me Go as they share several common themes and also an overall mood of separation as created by an unreliable, naive narrator who is not completely a part of the world she inhabits.

I remember thinking the same thing when comparing Never Let Me Go with The Remains of the Day. Does Ishiguro keep writing the same book over and over again? I'm not necessarily complaining -- I loved both books -- but it does make me question whether I need to read any more of his work.

105sturlington
Dic 22, 2021, 1:17 pm

>104 christina_reads: He definitely explores the same themes, but I don't feel like it's reading the same book over and over like I do when reading some other authors. I've read most of his novels. I thought Klara was a quietly moving story, very bittersweet--I really enjoyed reading it.

106dudes22
Dic 22, 2021, 6:36 pm

>103 sturlington: - I thought the feeling of "off" made sense since Klara is an AI and has no emotions or filters either. No background as it were.

107sturlington
Dic 23, 2021, 11:09 am

>106 dudes22: Yes, it was really well done.

108sturlington
Dic 23, 2021, 11:23 am

I expect to read at least one more book in 2021, so I don't want to solidify my top 5 for the year yet, although I'm pretty sure I already know what they are. In the meantime, I'll do this fun year-end meme:

Describe how you feel: The Little Sleep

Describe where you currently live: Inland

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: The Glass Hotel

Your favorite form of transportation is: Flyaway

Your favorite food is: Bunny (sorry)

Your favorite time of day is: Later

Your best friend is: Literary Witches

You and your friends are: The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

What’s the weather like: After the Flood

You fear: Tiny Nightmares

What is the best advice you have to give: Leave the World Behind

Thought for the day: True Story

What is life for you: A Cosmology of Monsters

How you would like to die: How Quickly She Disappears

Your soul’s present condition: Nothing to See Here

What was 2021 like for you? Devolution

What do you want from 2022? Survivor Song

109sturlington
Dic 28, 2021, 8:38 am

Severance by Ling Ma

Normally, if I flipped through a novel and didn't see any quotation marks, I wouldn't buy it. This may seem irrational, but I am a big fan of punctuation, and trying to parse dialogue without quotation marks makes me tired, so I've rejected that trend. However, I neglected to do so with this book, and in the end, it didn't bother me too much--mostly, the dialogue was clear. I liked the writing, but overall, I think the novel failed to gel properly. It's the story of a single Chinese American woman named Candace living in New York City as a terrifying pandemic called Shen Fever gradually turns the city into a ghost town inhabited mainly by the "fevered," who behave like zombies with OCD. This description of Candace's routine office-work life as the city falls apart around her was for me the most compelling section of the book, but I felt that the overabundance of Candace's back story--her parents, her family in China, her boyfriend (for whom she had set the bar very low)--were overlong and distracting. I'm not sure what they added. I also had a hard time understanding the timeline of Candace's pregnancy; surely, if she had gotten pregnant in the summer, she would have been obviously so by the time she left New York in December. She does leave New York and hooks up with a cult of fellow survivors led by a creepy guy named Bob and traveling somewhere called the Facility. Candace manages to hide her pregnancy from them for most of the trip. This part would have been very compelling--here we get several scenes of outright horror as they deal with the fevered--but I just couldn't get a sense of these new characters. Bob should have been a much more interesting person than he turned out to be. The end seemed anticlimactic, and I struggled to find meaning in it. All in all, this is good writing, some interesting ideas, some affecting scenes, but lacking something essential that hooks me in and helps me care about what happens to Candace.

110sturlington
Modificato: Dic 30, 2021, 12:48 pm

Best Reads of 2021

Here are my top 5 books I read this year, in the order that I read them:

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Mary Toft, or the Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

And here are all the 4-star books from this year:
Billy Summers by Stephen King
Bunny by Mona Awad
A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill
Curious Toys by Elizabeth Hand
Devolution by Max Brooks
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
Later by Stephen King
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Monster, She Wrote by Lisa Kroger
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
Tinfoil Butterfly by Rachel Eve Moulton
Tiny Nightmares (anthology)

In total, I read 43 books this year--a decent number, although usually I try to get that number above 50. I was pretty brutal about DNFing books that I wasn't connecting with, though.