Fire Sermon (by Jamie Quatro)

I finished the Read Harder Challenge just in time for the Tournament of Books longlist to come out! I've only read two of the longlist books (My Year of Rest and Relaxation and The Immortalists) so I have some catching up to do.

In past years, I've tried to predict what's going to make the final tournament and I've always been wrong. (This year based purely on buzz, I think Washington Black is going to not just make it in, but win. Which probably means it won't even make the shortlist.) So this year I went through and added anything that sounded interesting to my library holds list and am just reading them as they come up.

This is a spare and poetic novel about an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual affair, using a fractured structure and a somewhat unreliable narrator. It's frustrating to see Maggie choose to stay with her husband, who doesn't come across well, until the end, where she unveils some possible hidden motives that offer an interesting shade to the book as a whole. Overall I enjoyed it but it didn't blow me away.

So, will this make the shortlist? It could, but I'm not clamoring to revisit it. On the other hand, I'm really hoping My Year of Rest and Relaxation makes it, because it's definitely one of my top reads of the year!