What I Read this Summer: Summer Reading Challenges, Part Two

Is it still Summer? The Washington weather might have you thinking so. We're still seeing days with highs in the upper 70s, and enough smoke drifting up from nearby wildfires to obscure one side of the neighborhood from the other. I went pumpkin picking with my best friend last weekend, and it was so hot, we considered ditching the plaid for just tee shirts, and didn't even consider bringing our boots. I was at my local high school earlier this week, where one seventeen-year-old complained to me that she had bought a really cute puffer coat for this school year, but hadn't even been given the chance to wear it to school yet. THAT'S how dire the situation is. 

It's midway through October, and things are still so balmy and temperate that not all of the leaves have even started turning that burnished gold color yet. My favorite Fall sweaters are still relegated to the "tricky" drawers of my dresser, the ones that get stuck, that I don't open very often. My tomatoes and cucumbers are still producing in my garden, gosh darn it! It's hard to get excited about pumpkins and apples when you're still bringing in zucchinis the size and length of your forearm! 

But who's complaining about a little extra sunshine? (I mean, the Earth. The Earth is complaining. That's why Florida's getting buffeted around like a tetherball every late summer, and Washington's on the lookout for another year of multiple-snow-day danger this winter again.) I'm just glad that the typical seasonal rainfall hasn't just blown the leaves down from the trees all together, so we can enjoy the foliage as it slowly turns... usually it knocks them all off in one good tear, leaving them a sludgy, smeared mess that floods the cul de sac storm drains. THAT'S when we'll really know it's Fall around here. 

Still, as long as there's sunshine outside, I'm counting it fair game that I haven't finished wrapping up all of my Summer Reading just yet. 

(Oh, you thought I'd forgotten? Yeah, I don't blame you.) 

where we left off in JULY (part two)

Square: Health or Healthcare Workers

Book: This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Medical Resident, Adam Kay

When I first saw that the Bingo card had "Healthcare Workers" on it, I was at a total loss. Not only did I not have any books on my own shelves that would convincingly match the prompt, but I couldn't even think of a single title in my own scope of interest that would spark my curiosity.

Then, completely out of the blue, this book got recommended to me specifically as a funny and compelling memoir - no healthcare mention to do with it - and I knew that I would absolutely have to pick it up. All of a sudden, one of the challenge squares I had been the most nervous about, became something so much better: a book I pretty much demolished in two sittings, in less than 24 hours. 

This memoir - truly based off of the personal diaries of a medical professional working as a Junior Doctor in London, as an OB/GYN in the NHS system - follows as Adam climbs through the ranks of his local hospitals, detailing the interactions he has with patients, his best and most difficult cases, and entirely too many foreign objects placed up the rectum (OBGYN, after all, isn't just bouncing newborn babies). While he gains more experience and knowledge, he can't help but notice a whole lot of loss, as well: whether from patients experiencing traumatic events at work, or losing on some of his personal relationships at home, due to critical workloads and difficult schedules. 

These memoirs ARE as funny as they were promised to be, but are also deeply emotional, and at turns, both tragic and heartwarming. Throughout stories of births, c-sections, a litany of items crammed into various crevices, and more, run further anecdotes of personal grief, critical issues within healthcare services itself, and the crucial toll that being a doctor takes on your relationships, mental health, and more. 

Kay's voice is charming, to-the-point, and conversational (something he claims he was terrible at as a doctor). The bottoms of each page are positively crammed full of footnotes on technical terms and cultural significance relevant to the story, as well as cheeky asides to the audience. His candor and heartfelt expression - paired with his natural sense of humor - make this a real glimpse into the hectic and sometimes harrowing life of a doctor... without all the tv dramatics, but with real, honest care. 

(Funny enough, this book has also been recently adapted into a comedy-drama on the BBC and AMC, written by Adam Kay himself, and starring Ben Whishaw. I've heard it's quite good.) 

Square: Reread a Childhood Favorite

Book: The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide (#1) and The Seeing Stone (#2), Holly Black and Tony Diterlizzi

I told my brother, before starting out on these books again, that it's a little nerve-wracking to revisit something you loved so much as a child. There's a level of trepidation that arises solely from thoughts of "What if this isn't as good as I remember? What if Little Me was wrong?" The idea that something you thought was brimming with magic as a kid, revealed as nothing more than rudimentary sleight of hand, is a heart-breaking one, and one that I've encountered time and again as I've gotten older, like figuring out your dad's favorite card trick. 

This series - a favorite among my later elementary school years, one that is indelibly tied to silent reading in the library the day before Thanksgiving break, for some reason - follows the three Grace siblings, Jared, Simon, and Mallory, as they move into their aunt's ramshackle house after their parents' divorce. While exploring one day, Jared finds a secret office accessed by dumbwaiter, filled with strange collections and even stranger books... including The Field Guide, which suggests that there is more to this unfamiliar place than the kids could have imagined. 

Thankfully, the Spiderwick Chronicles books lost absolutely none of the magic I had experienced when I was a kid, obsessed with the idea of hidden worlds, unseen wonders, and plenty of mysterious creatures. It brought me right back to those feelings - the ones that feel so impossible to access, once you've passed the threshold of twenty-five - of coming home after school in the Fall, when it's already dark outside by dinner, and you've finished all of your homework, but you just checked out these new books from the school library and you've been waiting all day to retreat to your room and enjoy them uninterrupted... that's exactly how I felt about picking up these books again. 

I already told my brother that I'm anticipating reading the rest of the series this Fall, and that I really love the idea of buying them not just for myself, but in building a personal library for any future children who might be a part of my life... this all made him laugh, and say to hold off on checking any more out from the library until after my birthday, which is coming up just this weekend. Apparently, there's a handful of well-priced and well-kept boxed sets on eBay. And honestly, just the idea of owning these books again makes me plenty happy, too. 

AUGUST

Square: Recommended by a Local Bookseller

Book: I'm Glad My Mom Died, Jenette McCurdy

As you might know, I have an all-encompassing love of Celebrity Memoirs. Since I was a kid, it's been one of my favorite niche genres to enjoy, for several reasons: not just the insider's glimpse into the entertainment industry, or the voyeuristic fun of attaching famous names to indiscretions or personal drama, but more than that... just the effective humanization of someone who once seemed intangible. When written correctly, these kinds of reads shouldn't leave you feeling in awe of the person, but come with the act of recognition: Oh, look, this billboard-sized face and dazzling smile is a real person, too. 

And good grief, does Jeanette McCurdy NAIL every single one of those points. 

This isn't just your typical Hollywood story, though: Jenette McCurdy details a childhood raised by a fame-obsessed mother, one who drives Jenette to not only auditions and rehearsals and dance lessons, but who prompts severe eating disorders, requires supervised showers, and controls the people she spends her time with, so as to keep her daughter as close to the limelight as possible. Jenette not only describes her own fame journey, but her mother's: the ways she constructed Jenette's life to keep her in grasp at all times, the ways the two were almost inextricable from each other in ways that, at the time, Jenette thought was just her being protective. 

The book is not just as an Hollywood actress' peek into the entertainment mecca of the West Coast, but a complete throwing-open of windows towards the good and especially the bad, plus all of the action going on in the bureaucratic underpinnings of an image-obsessed industry. She addresses not only her own missteps and mistakes, her own faults and missed calculations, but shed light on the interactions with other people in her life that allowed those faults to continue to develop, unchecked, and where the origin points had arisen. She wrenches open the idea of a child star, and points out the gross and grimy parts of the machine that the polished chrome of a million-dollar investment would try its best to hide. While other celebrities might graze a hand over the idea of eating disorders, parental neglect, drug and alcohol abuse, on-set manipulation, and more, Jeanette firmly grips it with both, and thrusts them directly into sharper relief, so that the details are made more explicit. 

And to make the point perfectly clear: She is an incredibly talented writer. There is a significant amount of detail afforded; an open, candid relationship with personal pain; and an emotionally balanced perspective on great turmoil. Jeanette McCurdy has played a game of chicken with a series of crippling life hurdles, and she's not only bested them all, but still kept on running now. 

Square: A Book About Books 

Book: Shakespeare Wrote for Money (Believer #3), Nick Hornby

I didn't realize I was at the final installment in the series from Nick Hornby's long-running "What I've Been Reading" column in The Believer, until a chance glance at the intro material. I've loved reading through each of these slim, witty installments over the past two years... in fact, I read the first of three back in February 2020, a few weeks shy of Covid lockdowns across the United States, when I grabbed it last-minute off my TBR shelves while my mom was recovering from surgery. 

I'm so bummed I've ran out of them now. They weren't only well-crafted and fully possessing Hornby's typical dry humor, but regularly churned out book recommendations that made it into my Goodreads TBR, as well as reminded me of other works I've already read and loved before. The way he couches his reviews within the framework of details about his own life reminds me of the ways I used to write my beginning book reviews a decade ago; the reviews themselves remind me of how much love I have for my blogging platform now, too. 

I've tried reading exactly ONE of Hornby's own full-length novels, and didn't really like my go at it (I made it about halfway through High Fidelity and found the main character so chronically insufferable that I decided to straight-up donate the book, in lieu of finishing it myself). But I am so sad about not being able to read any more installments of this particular series that I might want to try another attempt... definitely not at High Fidelity, though. 

It makes me wish that there were funny, thoughtful, and compelling reviews like this written in publications nowadays. I think I'll just have to stick to reading recommendations from my friends on the Internet, instead! 

Square: Book to Screen

Book: The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith

Let me tell you, I have had this book on my mind for a while now. I don't know why, but as soon as it hits July, the various aesthetically-oriented communities I'm a part of online sink into the unmistakable heat of a sepia-toned, vintage Italian summer, and this title floats around every single year. I finally picked it up at Barnes and Noble last July, but didn't have the breathing room in my TBR to slot it in... which means, of course, that I had to make room for it this year. 

The Talented Mr. Ripley follows Tom Ripley - described from jump as being a fairly unremarkable, but completely unethical person - as he is enlisted by a school fellow's father to travel to Italy, and convince his wayward son to come home. Tom figures he'll do his slight diligence, but otherwise, be afforded a premium trip at virtually no effort... until he meets the stylish and charismatic Dickie Greenleaf, and becomes determined to join his orbit. Murder, stolen identities, and lots of money ensue... all set against the backdrop of American high society in the Mediterranean. 

Wow! What a whirlwind. Between the sumptuous descriptions of European travel in the '50s, to the breath-takingly quick turnabouts in plot and pacing, to occupying the mind of a man of completely terrifying disposition, this entire novel took my breath away. Immediately engrossing, addictive, and intelligent, I finished this in less than 24 hours, and had I not been on vacation with my family, I'd probably have done so in less. 

Mr. Ripley is so much more than a 1990s Matt Damon would make him seem. Shrewd and calculating, emotionally fragile and desperate for love, with passion for learning and a curational sense of beauty, and an unconscious draw towards chaos and manipulation... truly a fully realized character, one who bizarrely captures your heart and attention, despite being established from page ONE as a bit of a sociopath, someone fully aware that what he most enjoys doing is wrong and illegal, someone nearly buckling under an already-established sense of guilt. And those feelings never really go away... Ripley feels the weight of his misdeeds acutely, intensely, sometimes immediately after they occur, and he predicts his own arrest and demise so regularly that you feel it would be a relief for him. The anger, fury, the draw to murder comes so suddenly; it's the self-awareness and self-flagellation that lasts for a long, long time. 

So, does it make at least a little bit of sense that you end up rooting for him?

Square: Most Recent Book by Same Author (paired with "First Book by an Author," read in June)

Book: Tempests and Slaughter (Numair Chronicles #1), Tamora Pierce 

Alright, I'd tackled the other Tamora Pierce title - Alanna: the First Adventure - back in June, at the top of the season. It makes sense, then, that the final book would be one I started reading in the last week of August. Did I finish it by the end of Summer? No. But I had gotten at least halfway through, and that's good enough for me. 

(Did I expect to not be able to finish it all the way in October? No, not quite... but that's a whole other issue.) 

Tempests and Slaughter travels back in time and across the sea, to the lands of Carthak, where a young novice mage named Arram Draper (who would someday become Numair Salmalin) works his way through the ranks at university. Alongside his best friends - the emperor's "spare heir," Ozorne, and the lovely burgeoning socialite Varice - Arram does battle against school bullies and rigorous academic training alike, finds his way to the gladiator games too many times for comfort, and interacts with his fair share of gods... and he's not even close to graduating. 

I kind of figured, right out of the gate, that this book wasn't going to hit as hard for me as some of Tamora Pierce's other series tend to do. For starters, Numair - though sweet, in his way - has never really compelled me like some of the other side characters have, and secondly, it's a prequel series: we already know how everything shakes out! We know what happens to Ozorne and Varice, we know how certain tables turn, and for what we don't, we still have a general idea (for instance, we know how Numair feels about more than a few issues and themes that pop up in later books, and there are more than a few introductions to other side characters you'd recognize, too). 

And while it may sound totally childish to say - which I recognize - I wasn't too interested in reading a boys' coming-of-age series, either... I mean, every other Tortall series has been about a girl! (And that awkward sense of difference is tangible when reading!) 

After reading, though, I do also recognize that I had fun. Don't get me wrong, it still very much took me the better part of two months to commit to finishing the thing, and out of Tamora Pierce's novels, this is the one that makes me think the plot definitely lags, for all they jump around with time. But I did end up enjoying Arram's voice, the ways the mage school and training was described, and how it managed to give Carthak a little more embellishment and nuance as a sociocultural touchstone in the greater shape of the world. After all, it feels like every other time we've interacted with them, they've simply stood as this monolithic "bad guy" complex; in this arena, the greater society is depicted with heightened care and empathy. 

That all being said, what I felt most at completing it was 1. I was glad that I had actually finished it at all, and 2. It made me want to go back and read Emperor Mage again. Not that I have time... there are plenty of Fall titles to pick up now! 

Thus concludes my recap of my successful Seattle Public Library and Seattle Arts and Lectures Summer Book Bingo Reading Challenge! (And the repetition of a whole lot of proper nouns in a row.) Huzzah for my three Bingoes! Which still isn't as much as some others have displayed, but it's a lot better than last year's zero! 

Believe it or not, this STILL isn't the total amount of books I read this summer... I have a handful of Romance novels read for an entirely different Reading Challenge to review here, too. And while that particular Book Bingo didn't result in a single straight line, it still introduced me to some new authors and content I might never have picked up otherwise. 

But you're going to have to continue being patient for that one, in a greater Romance recap. We may be in Fall now, and I'm still fixing to get the last of Summer set away, at a minimum, before November 1st... when NaNoWriMo has begun consuming my waking hours once more. 

And... you know. It's my birthday this weekend. Cut me some slack! ;) 

What were some of your favorites this summer? Did you take part in any reading challenges of your own? How unseasonably warm is YOUR neck of the woods? Let me know, in the comments below!