Rules for Visiting (by Jessica Francis Kane)

This was the first (new) book from the 2020 Tournament of Books longlist that popped up in my library app, so here we go!

This is another book where the summary of it misled me. "When [May Attaway] is unexpectedly granted some leave from her job, she is inspired to reconnect with four once-close friends. So she goes, one by one, to each of them." This sounds like it's a book about these four visits, but actually the visiting doesn't start until almost 40% into the book and some of it is quite glossed over. It's more like a quiet character study.

 It all comes together at the end, when May talks about what she's been trying to tell and what she's been writing around the whole time. It ends in a quietly powerful way that feels right, and also takes us by surprise. I wasn't sure about this book, but I ended up really liking it. Not sure if it will make the shortlist, but very glad I read it.

Case Histories (by Kate Atkinson)

I've been meaning to read the Jackson Brodie mystery series forever, because I love Kate Atkinson's writing and mystery is a genre I really enjoy.

This is billed as a set of case histories of different crimes, which end up being intertwined. I was expecting a big aha moment at the end, but it's more like they coincidentally touch on each other. Not that there's secretly one killer who did all the crimes or anything like that. So the marketing kind of led me astray here.

The individual mysteries are very good, although the one about Michelle (the ax murder) was less compelling than the other two and even more tangential. They are quiet, more character studies than sleuthing.  But Atkinson's writing is so good, it's easy to take it and enjoy it for what it is.

I will be continuing the series, although now I have an entire longlist to catch up on.

Maybe in Another Life (by Taylor Jenkins Reid)

An airplane read that I read once my trip was over, in the fallow period before the Tournament of Books longlist is released.

This is a Sliding Doors-esque novel that begins pretty much the same way Sliding Doors ends. I love Sliding Doors (and Gwyneth's accent in Sliding Doors, and the fact that it has a scene where one character is cracking up his friends by quoting Monty Python, a form of quote-based comedy that happens all the time in real life but never in movies).

I digress. I enjoyed the main character's journey and the fact that this was basically two romcoms in one.  It's interesting watching certain things come to pass in both timelines, suggesting there is an element of fate or destiny, but also other things diverge in unexpected ways. A very fun read.

Sydney Books

Read some books over the past two weeks in Sydney. Here now are those books!

The Testaments (by Margaret Atwood)
I went to go add the "2020 tob" label to this and realize I forgot to write about The Testaments! I felt like something was missing. This book is so good. I thought it would be more depressing than entertaining, but it's not. It's amazing.

How Could She (by Lauren Mechling)
Breezy but heartfelt and comedic meditation on the complexities of female friendship. 

Not Working (by Lisa Owens)
Breezy but heartfelt and comedic meditation on family, love and identity. Written in delightful vignette style. My favorite of these four novels!

Early Riser (by Jasper Fforde)
Not quite as enjoyable as Shades of Gray or the Thursday Next series, primarily because I didn't enjoy the world as much as Bookworld or the color world, but a still a "Ffun" read. Ha!

Fall; or, Dodge in Hell (by Neal Stephenson)
Augh, this one was so frustrating. Started out great, but it's the usual Stephenson thing where it's about 400 pages too long. It turns from speculative fiction about digitally uploaded consciousness (yay) into a fantasy quest novel with so much scenery description (boo) and is super heteronormative to boot. Ultimately we are expected to root for one white billionaire cis man with a God complex over another white billionaire cis man with a God complex. You'd think the author of Seveneves would do better than that.