Orbital (by Samantha Harvey)

This novella won the Booker Prize this year, and is basically a short meditation on earth from the perspective of six astronauts and cosmonauts on a space station.

I tend to zone out on descriptions of scenery, as you may remember, and this is basically all descriptions of scenery. (Yes there are characters, there is slight tension about a typhoon in the Philippines, but basically it's just descriptions of scenery.)  True, the scenery is the entire earth and it's being viewed from space so it's at least more interesting than average! Still, I found this boring. 

I chose this one off the longlist first because it won the Booker and because it was short but I actually took a break and read a second book in the middle of it because IT IS BORING.  I'm sure there are people who loved the prose and the perspective of Humanity in the Vastness of Space and the Care we should Have for our Planet, Mother Earth and blah blah.  But I'd rather watch a video taken from the space station and meditate on it all myself.

The Husbands (by Holly Gramazio)

It's here! It's here! The Tournament of Books longlist is out.  I've only read two books on it - Margo's Got Money Troubles and James.  But I did have a handful of books on hold and even a few checked out already, so I started with the ones that were almost about to expire.

The Husbands is a fun read about a woman whose attic magically produces a series of husbands, parallel universe style, and our main character sees how her life changes depending on who she's married to.  It doesn't feel particularly like literary fiction, or particularly worth deep discussion, but as a book, I really enjoyed it! Fun and entertaining, and unlike some of the Goodreads contingent, I thought the ending was interesting.

I'm bad at predicting what's going to make the shortlist but I will say I'm shocked The Husbands made the longlist but Annie Bot, which has a lot more depth, did not.  Again, its not bad, it's very entertaining! But more lightweight than I have come to expect from ToB.  Still, glad for the nudge to read it. 

On to the next one!

Airport Feminist Book Club

These are the four books I finished on a work trip to Austin last week; the theme of patriarchy was front and center in three of them.  The first two I finished had pink covers and I wanted to do a whole theme but I gave that up after looking at my library holds and realizing I didn't have any more pink books. Would have been cute in a pointless way though.  

Annie Bot (by Sierra Greer)

Contender for favorite book of the year (which I thought James had locked up).  Onstensibly about a sex robot who is sentient, but actually an exploration of the subtleties of personhood and emotional abuse.  Skin crawling and fascinating and unpredictable... I loved everything about it and re-read the ending like four times.

Plan A (by Deb Caletti)

About a girl who has to travel from Texas to Oregon to get an abortion. The way her pregnancy is discovered by the community is incredibly contrived and the writing takes some getting used to - a bit stream-of-consciousness and discursive. But once I adjusted to the writing and decided to suspend disbelief, I enjoyed it. (While, obviously, being enraged because women should have basic fucking body autonomy.)  It's a bit didactic but it's young adult and this particular kind of didacticism is badly needed even though it SHOULDN'T BE but here we are. 

This Time It’s Real (by Ann Liang)

This was an adorable YA palate cleanser about a girl living in China who has a fake relationship with a film star in her class. It's very cute and well-written with great chemistry.  I hoped it would be good because Ann Liang's I Hope This Doesn't Find You was also very good. Great to discover a new, extremely solid young adult writer!

The Secrets We Keep (by Cassie Gustafson)

Also a YA but this time about a girl whose father is arrested for abusing her friend, and the secrets she may have been keeping for him. Absolutely moving, utterly heartbreaking.  Weirdly has a similar ending to Annie Bot as both characters undergo a sort of liberation.  I also re-read this ending like four times for the same reason. And god I loved the fairy tales interspersed throughout too! A couple of moments when the inner voice doesn't quite work, but for the most part, great.

One by One (by Ruth Ware)

I wanted to find a thriller to read on Halloween and this one was recommended on a list of books with good twists, I've enjoyed Ruth Ware before, and it was available from the library.

Do not bother! It's a take on And Then There Were None, where a group of tech workers and a couple of workers get snowed in by an avalanche, and people begin to die. But the mystery is structured so poorly. They reveal the murderer two thirds of the way through the book (and it's obvious) so I kept reading thinking surely now will come the twist!

There's no twist. It's just boring all the way to the end. Most of the characters aren't even trapped, they leave the chalet! So we're left with two people, and of course you can guess what that means if you've read any murder mysteries at all.  

As the kids say, or probably stopped saying already, it's very mid.