I really hope you're as excited for that kind of content as I am, I really do. I've already got so many ideas about genres, series, novels, and authors I love, all amply worth writing about. However, it also wouldn't do fit to abandon what my blog has been for nine years entirely: this corner of the Internet was originally shaped to be the place where I could, enthusiastically, share my thoughts and feelings about books in as unadulterated a manner as possible.
So while I'm stoked to get to the special interest pieces, it's still really important to me that I catch you all up on a few other titles I've been dwelling on, as well. They might not warrant their own individual posts or deep dives, but they're still what I've been reading recently.
Here are a few of the books I've enjoyed (or not!) so far this year:
30 BEFORE 30, Marina Shifrin
For everyone, those goals look
different, but for writer and viral content creator Marina Shifrin, the list
included everything from the seemingly mundane (riding by bike across the
Brooklyn Bridge, meeting a local radio personality from her youth), to the
somewhat explosive (the intricately intertwined "Quit Shitty Job" and
"Become Famous" chapters, which she tackled in one go with a popular video of her leaving her abusive workplace, to the tune of Kanye West's"Gone," back in 2013). Some she admits she fails at, while others are much more successful, but the same sense of energy, action, uncertainty and
bewilderment at their completion permeates them all.
That isn't to say that they're
redundant; they're just familiar. What 20 or 30 something doesn't dream of
living in a different country, falling in love, or flying first class?
Shifrin's voice speaks to plenty with ambitions and interests, and abundance of
opportunities that are maybe unmatched with a cohesive sense of direction.
But Shifrin sorts through that madness, using the goals of a
narrative structure by which she can detail some of the lessons that life has
doled out along the way, from the importance of knowing your personal value,
taking time to understand your roots, and finding a place in the world where
you feel a sense of belonging. Yet, she is also the first to acknowledge that
not everything in your 20s has to be imbued with some sense of deliberation or
intention: she chooses to forego an essay for one chapter, and instead, glibly admits, "Holy cow, not everything was a lesson."
SPINNING SILVER, Naomi Novik
A poor girl takes the reins of her family's household, and turns around their dwindling livelihood. Unfortunately, her tendency to "turn silver into gold" has caught the eye of a local otherworldly king.
A beautifully written and absolutely enchanting fantasy tale... one that perfectly matched with the snow falling outside my window when I read it, during Seattle's "Snowmageddon" this past February.
Naomi Novik excels at world-building, as well as bringing unlikely
characters together across that world. Not only are all the moving parts
lovingly rendered, but they come together in glorious pieces
that enmesh themselves completely, laying out an intricate and complex tapestry of a
narrative that fits seamlessly with a high fairy-tale aesthetic.
In terms of specific reasons why I appreciate Novik's fractured or re-imagined fairy tales in a Fantasy genre that almost regards such things as passe, I really love her focus on well-fleshed female main characters,
and even supporting female characters, as well. None fall into the trap of
being too much of any one thing - too girly, too strong, too helpless, too overpowered - and while all have good intentions, it never
keeps them from being too "good" either, frequently falling into jealousy, or anger, or selfishness. They are
allowed to be heroes and humans, but all at once.
Something about her writing also feels really old-school, while still being very contemporary, in the best kind of way... like, it follows the
classical construction, with characters that feel well-established, without relying on tropes or convenient plot formulas, but who else is integrating elements of Jewish faith into Fantasy?
LESS, Andrew Sean Greer
[Thorough and unrepentant spoilers and significant personal emotional responses abound here, folks. I am not talking down to anyone's point of view, especially if you enjoyed this book... these are just my feelings. I have a lot of them. Strap in.]
To put it bluntly: this book did not deserve the 2018 Pulitzer. In
fact, the fact that it won the Pulitzer, makes me like Less less. It wan't that it was BAD, necessarily, just that it wasn't up to
par, especially when judged against other books that have achieved that sort of
recognition in the past.
I understand what the book was attempting to do, especially in
nestling the story within a story at the hands of the authorial main character.
It made me consider how much of the narrative itself was autobiographical, if
anything.
The main character is comically gifted with a litany
of things that make him overburdened with goodness in his life: He has no
problem pulling guys much younger than him, he's in better physical shape than
most, he's experienced success as a writer that has kept him paid (even if his
recent writing isn't as successful), he is hosted in countries around the world
for arbitrary reasons, wins an award along the way, has an absolute
embarrassment of friends, and good relationships with his exes (AND, as it
turns out, his ex's ex-wife). And he gets his guy in the end! What the hell did
he feel like he needed to pay all of this emotional penance for?
It did raise the interesting question of how LGBT writers perform
gayness in their written works - something I haven't considered a ton before - in the main character grappling with being described as "spoony" in a review, or the claim being made against
him by another another that he was "being a bad gay" when making
his main characters suffer needlessly for the sake of a redemptive gay love story.
I did finish it. I liked the ending; I thought it was sweet.
Various repetitive elements / callbacks / motifs within the frame of the
narrative were cute... it was a gentle reminder that nothing in the world
exists in a vacuum; there will always be "signs" from the universes
that remind you of the path you've walked this far.
Honestly, though, I can't help but consider what kind of reception this
book would have gotten if its main character / author was a woman. It would
have been lambasted as overly-gratuitous navel-gazing! She would have been
called a mopey Mary Sue! She would have been decried as unlikable and
unrealistic! Ugh.
The Pulitzer!!!
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, Jane Austen - Audiobook
I've read this novel plenty of times in my teenage and adult years, but after I couldn't quite find the time to finish it this past Spring, I turned to alternative means of making my way to the final page.
I was wholly unprepared for the unexpected and complete joy of
listening to this classic on audio book, and found myself going for long walks
alone in the morning, because I'd been looking forward to it so much the
evening before. As someone who's never particularly enjoyed this format before, and never thought about the amount of time I spend listening to various media, it was a wholly happy surprise. I drove to and from Seattle for a sorority advisory event listening to this audio book, and found myself so enraptured, I sat in my driveway for five minutes after arriving home, listening to a chapter.
As it turns out, Darcy and Elizabeth hold up no matter the format,
and listening to everything Mr. Collins says out loud, with a nasally
inflection, might be even funnier than reading it yourself.
WINK POPPY MIDNIGHT, April Genevieve Tucholke
Sometimes it's nice to read books that are pretty, aesthetically written, and don't make you work very hard.
Welcome to Tucholke's PNW, where the teenagers are beautiful, prose is
flowery, and consequences don't matter. The parents are absent, which is half
of the reason why everyone seems to have such mental complexes, and even the
foods everyone eats feel like something out of a Zelda video game (strawberries
still warm from the sun, golden turmeric milk, slabs of gingerbread cake, basil
and mozzarella sandwiches eaten on the porch in the dying light of day).
When these teens aren't wandering the woods and local haunted
houses and cemeteries with impunity, they're toeing a weird sort of line
between childlike wonder and rampant sexual behavior. Existing in this weird
in-between of youthful whimsy and climbing-in-windows-naked, you're asked to
consider for yourself which of the characters is a Hero, which is a Villain,
and which is a Liar.
However, even once all of those questions have been answered,
you'll remain with the most important one of all: What the actual hell?
So, they're a bit of a far cry from my typical review format, but they're something I'm still trying to figure out. All I know for sure, is that there's plenty more where this came from! I hope you are enjoying the difference in how I choose to write on this platform... but just in case you haven't detected all that much of a change yet, I hope you stick around for next Wednesday!
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