The Sentence (by Louise Erdrich)

Unbelievably, this is my first book by Louise Erdrich. And it's so good, I don't know what I was waiting for.  (I was about to say it is amazing on the sentence level and then realized that was a potentially confusing pun. But it is amazing on the sentence level nonetheless. As well as on other levels.)

This both qualifies as a RHC book (a book set in a bookstore) and is a contender for the Tournament of Books, so I saved two birds with one stone, as my child likes to say. I don't know how Erdrich somehow managed to write a novel about 2020 that feels correct. I feel like any other novelist would need some distance from the events of 2020 - Covid, George Floyd, Trump - before writing a novel about it all, and yet she manages to thread the needle perfectly, even with a novel set in Minneapolis that engages with those events directly. She has perspective, somehow, and the novel shines as a result. How is that even possible!?

Anyway please tell me which Erdrich is your favorite so I can add another book to my library wait list. And let me know how depressing it is on a scale of 1-10 so I can prepare myself.

How Not to Fall in Love (by Jacqueline Firkins)

A young adult romance about a cynical girl and her nerdy, romantic best friend - will he turn out to be what she's been looking for all along!?

Yes, the plot is predictable, but the cast of characters is quite delightful and the chemistry really works. I loved both Harper and Theo, even if Harper was a bit dense about a lot of very obvious signals throughout the book. I loved her journey. Also this book is quite sex-positive without being gratuitous, which I really appreciated.

Very charming!

Spin Me Right Round (by David Valdes)

This is an LGBTQ version of Back to the Future, kinda. Luis, an out and proud gay teen, gets hit on the head and sent back to 1985.  He has to deal with homophobia (from his high school classmate who in the future will be his father) and trying to find his way back to the present day.

Some people on Goodreads hated this narrator but I didn't - he's slightly obnoxious and clueless but in a fun, charming teenage way. There are still issues though: he seems to change the timeline enough that it makes no sense his parents would still get together, among other things; on top of that, there's a My Dark Vanessa storyline that I realize neither the narrator nor the author approve of in any way, but it's icky nonetheless and I could do without it.

The ending is a bit too pat and happy. But that said, it was a fun and quick read, the 1980s nostalgia was on point, and the premise is clever and entertaining.  Enjoyed, with caveats.

Ghost World (by Daniel Clowes)

This was a fun category that I had to think about for a bit: "Read a book whose movie or TV adaptation you’ve seen (but haven’t read the book)." Ghost World is a movie I've seen many times, but I'd never read the original comic collection, until now. 

Something about these disaffected, posturing teenagers trying to navigate a complicated adolescence really resonates with me, both in the book and in the graphic novel. Yes, Enid and Rebecca are sometimes monstrous and cruel, but they are also in pain and dealing with complex feelings about each other and other people and themselves. Their world is fascinating and perfectly sketched.

Often, I feel like I don't read graphic novels "correctly" in that I read them too fast without really looking at the artwork. (Check out Ken Parille's essay about the comic, which goes into some of the subtle touches included by Clowes here.) It's worth slowing down and appreciating all the details in this one and maybe a re-read is in order.  Very happy with the challenge giving me the excuse to pick up this book.

When We Cease to Understand the World (by Benjamin Labatut)

This book was written by Dutch-Chilean author Benjamin Labatut and translated into English by Adrian Nathan West. It's an exploration of discoveries in quantum mechanics by such figures as Einstein, Schrödinger, and Heisenberg, and each part (ranging in length from pretty short to essentially a novella-within-a-novel) gets increasingly more fictionalized.

It's unlike anything I've ever read. I've always been fascinated by theories about the nature of the universe (from The Arrow of Time to string theory) and I learned a lot from this book. But on top of the factual stuff, this really delves into the human element. How invention and science can change the world in a good way but also led to atomic weapons, mustard gas in the trenches, Zyklon B.

I'm going to have to sit with this one for a bit - and of course discuss it in the Tournament of Books. But I really liked it.

Wrong Number, Right Woman (by Jae)

Another romance, but a much better one. This is a slow burn romance between two women, one of whom starts out the novel assuming she is straight. It starts off as a text relationship and grows into a friendship with chemistry and then.... dot dot dot. It ends up being extremely cute, with minimal conflict, but did I mention cute af. 

I do think it is overlong and the pacing could be picked up at points (for me, after they get together and there's really no conflict, it's like a 200 page epilogue). But still enjoyed the read. I also enjoyed that our characters were not like book marketers or architects; one designs bird toys and the other works at a supermarket. It's nicely grounded. Jae has written over 20 F/F romances, and I would definitely pick up another one sometime.

This was for the Read Harder category "a romance where at least one of the protagonists is over 40" since one of our leads, Denny, is 41. 

The Princess Trap (by Talia Hibbert)

I'm not a huge romance fan anyway and this wasn't my favorite. At first it just read like PWP (aka "porn with plot") with a lot of sex and an extremely thin plot and flat characters. Then BAM, we throw in some child abuse and domestic violence? Like on one page there's a sex scene that we were all expecting from 50 Shades of Grey and then the next page bam, childhood abuse flashback. In what had been, to that point, a very light read. Okaaaaaayyyy.  

And now that I look at the Read Harder list, which is supposedly why I read this book, and am hesitating to pencil this in. I think this was recommended in the Goodreads group as "Read a book in any genre by a POC that’s about joy and not trauma" but there is definitely trauma.  The trauma is not experienced by the POC though; our main character is a Black woman who is worshipped by everyone she meets and she has no real flaws or issues, and she enjoys a lot of sex. So I guess this still counts for the spirit of the challenge. 

All’s Well (by Mona Awad)

I was pondering what tags to add to this one, I suppose we could call it magical realism? A theater professor with chronic pain is directing a production of All's Well That Ends Well, although her students want to do Macbeth. She runs into three strange men at a bar (in case you don't pick up the reference, they flat-out say "double, double toil and trouble" at one point) and strange things begin to happen. It's almost like she has... a power that she didn't have before.

I enjoyed the weirdness of the plot and the unreliability of the narrator as events begin to unfold.  It has this creeping dread as our narrator, Miranda (another Shakespeare reference of course) begins to spiral out of control.  Some reviewers didn't care for the ending but it really worked for me. Overall, big thumbs up!

All the Feels (by Olivia Dade)

As I was creating a new book spreadsheet for 2022, I saw that the first book I read in 2021 was Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade. By sheer coincidence, the first book I read this year was All the Feels, its sequel. (I know this is, at best, mildly interesting. But still pleasing to me.) 

This book takes two side characters and makes them the focus of their own romance, taking place at roughly the same time as the events of Spoiler Alert.

I enjoyed it although had some quibbles. The "conflict" that leads to our characters separating is patently absurd and there's something off about the chemistry, although I did really like our lead characters, their banter, and their flaws.  Not as good as Spoiler Alert but I will probably keep reading the series. I'm not a huge romance fan but I do enjoy Dade's unapologetic plus-size heroines!

Year-End Book Wrapup 2021

My goal this year was to read 80 books* and to complete the Read Harder Challenge. Achieved! I read 83 books and you can see all my Challenge books on last year’s wrapup post.  

*I said the goal was 80 here and 75 elsewhere. Luckily I read 83 books this year so it’s a moo point.

Normally I note the breakdown of books by men and women, but about halfway through the year I realized that wouldn’t work anymore; I’ve been reading more trans and nonbinary authors and didn’t keep track of every author’s pronoun as I read.  Plus I was just reinforcing the gender binary.  I think we can take it as read that my list was not skewed towards cis white men, and not worry about this going forward.

Top five books of the year:

1. There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job

I have been loving Japanese literature lately (Breasts and Eggs was another favorite this year) and this one was so quirky, specific, funny, strange, and interesting.

2. Crying in H Mart

A wonderful memoir that was also extremely critically acclaimed, about the author’s relationship with her mother and grief after her mother is gone, told through the lens of her Korean-American culture and food.

3. Subdivision

So weird and such a puzzle, I loved this. I’m excited to discuss this more and figure out more of its secrets in the upcoming Tournament of Books.

4. Fugitive Telemetry

Murderbot! This is a fun murder mystery standalone novella, and as always I love spending time with Murderbot. Martha Wells recently won Best Series at the Hugos for the Murderbot Diaries; very well deserved.

5. The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest

I found myself talking to people about this book all year! A nonfiction account of an ascent of the North Face of Everest, paired with a mystery about Mallory and Irvine and whether they really summited in 1924. The best Everest book since Into Thin Air and a really compelling adventure.

Honorable mentions: No One Is Talking About This, Perfect on Paper; Breasts and Eggs; Interior Chinatown; Cool for the Summer; Nobody, Somebody, Anybody; Shit, Actually; Project Hail Mary

Bottom three books:

I know I DNF a bunch of books again this year but can’t remember any of them. Here are the three that stuck out to me as my least favorite reads of the year.

1. Detransition, Baby

Read this for the summer Tournament of Books. I found it unconvincing and I hated the characters. (There is no way Katrina would make the choices she does in this book, whatsoever.) Not for me.

2. Felix Ever After

Speaking of hating the characters, I really did not like or root for Felix. I hate to have two books on my lowlights list with trans protagonists, but so it goes, at least this year.

3. Written in the Stars  

A romance, which is a bit of a harder sell for me anyway, in which the plot and writing didn’t quite land. It was supposed to be a fake relationship trope but it never happened (kind of like in Single All the Way, the Netflix masterpiece that I enjoyed anyway because my standards are lower for Netflix holiday films apparently).  

For this year I’ll aim for 75 books, which feels like a nice number and is what I thought I was aiming for this year anyway. And as usual, I will track my Read Harder Challenge books here throughout the year and tag them with 2022 rhc. The 2022 categories are:   

Total: 24/24

[X] Read a biography of an author you admire: Jane Austen at Home
[X] Read a book set in a bookstore: The Sentence
[X] Read any book from the Women’s Prize shortlist/longlist/winner list: Sorrow and Bliss
[X] Read a book in any genre by a POC that’s about joy and not trauma: The Princess Trap
[X] Read an anthology featuring diverse voices: Love After the End
[X] Read a nonfiction YA comic: Honor Girl
[X] Read a romance where at least one of the protagonists is over 40: Wrong Number, Right Woman
[X] Read a classic written by a POC: A Raisin in the Sun
[X] Read the book that’s been on your TBR the longest: Pachinko
[X] Read a political thriller by a marginalized author (BIPOC, or LGBTQIA+): A Study in Honor
[X] Read a book with an asexual and/or aromantic main character: Loveless
[X] Read an entire poetry collection: Finna
[X] Read an adventure story by a BIPOC author: The Unlikely Thru-Hiker
[X] Read a book whose movie or TV adaptation you’ve seen (but haven’t read the book): Ghost World
[X] Read a new-to-you literary magazine (print or digital). Rattle
[X] Read a book recommended by a friend with different reading tastes: Mistborn: The Final Empire
[X] Read a memoir written by someone who is trans or nonbinary: This One Looks Like a Boy
[X] Read a “Best _ Writing of the year” book for a topic and year of your choice: Best Travel Writing 2021
[X] Read a horror novel by a BIPOC author: The Trees
[X] Read an award-winning book from the year you were born: The Killer Angels
[X] Read a queer retelling of a classic of the canon, fairytale, folklore, or myth: Cinderella Is Dead
[X] Read a history about a period you know little about: A Short History of Russia
[X] Read a book by a disabled author: Golem Girl
[X] Pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat! (from 2015: A self-improvement book: Just Eat It

Great categories this year I think; looking forward to it!