Record of a Spaceborn Few (by Becky Chambers)

The penultimate category in the Read Harder Challenge was a hard one. "A book based solely on its setting." I really wanted to read a book set on a generational starship and I downloaded a bunch of them.  None of them really hit right. I think I made it like 30% into Ark and they still hadn't gotten on any sort of ship and I was bored. 

Finally I chose this one, a Wayfarers book set on a generational ship, following 5 different point of view characters who live as part of the Exodus Fleet.  And, well, it was a bit boring. The point of view keeps switching and I kept forgetting who was who, and there was really no plot. Like each of the point of view characters has a very paper-thin plot, I suppose, most of them.  But everything worked out mostly great in the end because this is the coziest of cozy sci fi.

I really want Andy Weir to write a book set on a generational ship.  Can someone give him a call for me? Thanks. 

Crosstalk (by Connie Willis)

I tagged this "give-up" because I definitely would have given up on this book had it not been for the RHC category "a genre-blending book."  But so many of the other suggestions I'd looked at were a blend of fantasy and something, and I don't really love fantasy, so I stuck with it.

First off, Crosstalk is a blend of romcom (really, romantic farce) and speculative fiction.  The premise is that a woman named Briddey agrees to get a new procedure to get emotional closeness to her boyfriend - and it accidentally connects her to someone else. She has a really intrusive family with absolutely no boundaries (they call her constantly and show up at her work and at her house) and she seems really stupid at the outset - her boyfriend is obviously a douche (he's even named Trent, for god's sake) but also she doesn't even really seem to like him all that much? Why is she getting brain surgery!?

Between her family bombarding her and the results of the brain surgery, she's constantly feeling massive anxiety and the pace of the book is frenetic and it gave me secondhand anxiety to read.  I also think her sister, a massively neurotic helicopter mom, is supposed to be a funny character but honestly she came off as so awful and abusive to her child, it wasn't fun to read.  

Once Briddey finally started to figure out stuff that had been obvious to the reader for like THE ENTIRE BOOK, it got less annoying (happened at around the 70% mark, so, not ideal) and the ending was definitely better than the beginning. The romance was semi-problematic but whatever, it was cute.  I didn't hate it the whole way through, but I didn't totally enjoy it either. At least another category is checked off - only 5 more to go. 

If I See You Again Tomorrow (by Robbie Couch)

I wasn't a huge fan of Robbie Couch's last book I tried Blaine for the Win, which was about high school football. I also skim-read I Like Me Better over the weekend, which was also about sports, and it made me realize I have zero interest in reading about sports, at least white high school gay boys who do sports and have sports drama. 

But still, this one isn't about sports so I thought I'd move on and try this one! In fact it's about a kid stuck in a time loop, which is such a fun premise and I loved almost everything about it. I loved Clark's whole journey (even though at one point he was frustratingly slow on the uptake) and his relationships with all the side characters and his family. 

The huge thing that was lacking was the love story, which makes the ending completely unearned and out of nowhere.  Like, how about having them... interact? How about that? Anyway, other than that glaring issue, it was a good read!

A Short History of Russia (by Mark Galeotti)

Tagged this as "give up" because this was actually the third book about Russian history I attempted for the RHC category of "a history about a period you know little about."  

I selected Russia because I know very little about any period of Russian history, despite growing up in the 80s where Gorbechev's name was everywhere, and having both my spouse and one of my best friends knowing a lot about Russia, including the language.  Plus, with the rise of Putin and Russian disinformation, it seemed like a real gap, which this category of the RHC seemed primed to fill. 

Lenin's Tomb was the one I tried right before this, and I struggled to get through 5% of it because it is long and dense and Russian names are confusing. (Also the problem with Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, frankly.) (Sorry, I love you though Tolstoy.) A Short History of Russia is hilariously breezy in comparison. Gorbachev resumes power and then the USSR ends in like, two paragraphs. It's great.  

But the accessibility belies the fact that it was also an extremely informative overview of Russian history from the 900s to almost the present day.  It twigged some memories of what I have read (a biography of Catherine the Great; War & Peace) but put everything in its broader context. Particularly interesting: Russia became a world power only after (and because of) World War II and the Treaty of Yalta, and apparently at every single point in history, being an ordinary Russian has been depressing as hell. No wonder they drink so much vodka.  Seriously, I could only find like a decade where it didn't sound horrible to be Russian.

I'm really glad to have this lens on Putin and current world events, and if you are interested, like I said, this is really accessible and informative, and I recommend it.

(Oh, by the way, this was published in 2020, and the ending is a little overly optimistic about Russia's relationship with the rest of Europe considering current events, but who knew. The author is active on Twitter and worth a follow if you're still hanging around there.)

The Case of the Left-Handed Lady (by Nancy Springer)

This is kind of scary for a supposedly "middle grade" book! But checking off the "middle grade mystery" category anyway in the Read Harder Challenge. This is the second book in the Enola Holmes series, aka Sherlock Holmes fanfiction in which both he and Mycroft are wildly out of character, but whatever, it's just an excuse to write about the clever and independent Enola. I enjoyed it.

As I update my list I see I didn't finish a lot of books this month. I read parts of several Tournament books, including Deacon King Kong and Shuggy Bain, without finishing them. I made it through about three quarters of We Ride on Sticks before I got so irritated I gave up. (I wanted to like it as I love first person plural narration and my own beloved Gen X; it's just a bit too long and a bit too cutesy for me.) 

I did end up finishing all four of the Tournament of Books semifinalists, although I go back and forth on my favorite. (The Vanishing Half was my fourth-ranked, though I still enjoyed it; the others are simply more inventive.) My brain says Interior Chinatown and my heart says Piranesi.  But Breasts and Eggs is also my favorite! Augh! Anyway, great tournament, with some outstanding judgments, particularly this one.

Memorial (by Bryan Washington)

The Tournament of Books has begun! This year, I finished six books (Memorial, The Vanishing Half, Transcendent Kingdom, Breasts and Eggs, Luster, Interior Chinatown) and read parts of two others before abandoning them (Deacon King Kong, Shuggie Bain) and read enough about Tender Is the Flesh to know I never want to read it. 

Memorial is a book told in alternating perspectives by two halves of a couple, Benson and Mike. Mike's estranged father is dying, and he flies to Japan to be with him; at the same time, Mike's mother stays with Ben in Houston.

I thought this would add up to more than it did. Ben and Mike seem to dislike each other; the author and even the other characters want you to root for these two crazy kids to make it, but why? The narrators aren't very distinct except Mike says "fuck" a lot and Ben doesn't. I enjoyed the two characters and their stories individually, but I expected more to happen between Ben and Mike's mom, or Ben and Mike, or overall for it to add up to something more than a big shrug at the end.

Breasts and Eggs is still my favorite of the ToB books; this was my least favorite. Hopefully in the next week I can finish Piranesi, which just came off library hold for me...

Followers (by Megan Angelo) plus bonus

I read This Is How You Lose the Time War last year, and realized I completely forgot to blog it or put it on my list, so here it is now: this sci-fi novella by Amal-El Mohtar and Max Gladstone is an amazing, strange, beautiful, romantic story about warring time travelers. It's strange but great.

And Followers is also strange and great; speculative fiction featuring storylines from 2016 and 2051 that ultimately intersect. It's funny and wise about the ways in which technology controls our lives and relationships. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending but I keep turning it over in my mind

I may as well also toss in here that I started Oval for the Tournament of Books, a speculative fiction novel that did not compel me, so I gave it up. It's in the play-in against two books I liked better, so I feel good about my choices there.

The Italian Teacher (by Tom Rachman)

I remember having hated The Imperfectionists, but looking back I seem to have kind of liked it? Apparently I was in the throes of new motherhood so really, who can say. (Also gift4gab recommended Kindle books through the library right there in the comments. Somehow it took me like six years to take her advice. Sorry, gift4gab, if you're still out there! You tried to tell me!)

Anyway, I ended up with a handful of ToB books to choose from once I dug into the list. I got about 75 pages or so into Call Me Zebra and disliked it very much, so I gave that one up and tried this one instead. This one I liked! It's kind of a tragicomedy about an incredibly frustrating sad sack named Pinch. (Yes, the names in this book are dumb: Pinch's father is named Bear.) Bear is a famous artist and womanizer who clearly doesn't care about Pinch; Pinch idolizes him.

The book is definitely about the art world and about Pinch (aka Charles) making his way through life mostly in the wake of his famous father. If you want likeable characters, do not read this; everyone is awful. But if you enjoy character sketches and don't need likeability, you may enjoy the story of Pinch: an ultimately poignant figure, very well-realized.

(Definitely does not unseat My Sister the Serial Killer for my zombie vote though.)

Give-Up Books

Well, Proust finally did it; he broke me. I started on part two of Swann's Way and was just, like, why. Why would I keep going when this has been slow torture? So I threw the book aside and enjoyed the dual feeling of failure and liberation that washed over me. Flibberation.

I don't know why, but for some reason, this novel was so difficult for me to stay focused on. My mind constantly drifted. I think in part it's the description thing--Proust does a lot of describing of scenery, and I always tune out lengthy descriptions of scenery. The writing isn't particularly difficult; his meditations on memory and time are beyond lovely, even. But I don't know, I think it came down to this was not to my taste, in the way that Henry James is to my taste, and maybe that's enough.

I think one of the interesting things I've gotten out of my reading goal this year is this idea that I can decide life's too short and move on to read something else. This is the fourth give-up of this year. It's a little more difficult when it's "literature" that I feel I "should" read, but this is a good lesson too, I think. Here are my give-ups to date for posterity:

I gave up on Slam by Nick Hornby when I realized I didn't really care about the travails of a whiny little white lad enough to read it, and the writing was average. Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon actually shocked me with how poorly written it was. It was painfully awful and I made it through two pages before calling it quits. Maybe from page three onward it's a masterpiece but.... no. I didn't even open The Brothers K, I know it's a wonderful book, but I just admitted to myself finally after having it on my bookshelf for years that it wasn't gonna happen, I was never going to feel like reading it. And with Swann's Way, I gave it my best shot, but in the end, decided to bail.

Hopefully this means I have a shot at completing my reading goal; I have two reads and four re-reads to go.