Mid-Year Reading Review
I feel like doing a mid-year reading review just get a pulse on what I have been reading, how I have been feeling about the books I’ve chosen, and what I am wanting to read next.
That is a big one - what do I want to read next?? Anyone else have a never ending TBR that just keeps growing because nothing on it gets read due to only reading your impulsive purchases? My nightstand book stack is craving to be opened but I keep going to Half Price Books and buying new books and reading them instead.
Overall, I feel pretty good about my 2024 reads so far. It is a bit unfairly weighted towards audiobooks at the moment, however, it makes sense since I have a total of a two and half hour commute everyday. I have to squeeze in my story time when I can. One of my favorite audio books I listened to so far this year was The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. The story and purpose was simple, the flow was easily paced, and Carrie Mulligan reading the story just added to the tranquil feeling surrounding this book, which is surprising since it deals with a pretty heavy subject. However, as someone who often asks herself, “what would have been different if?” I really enjoyed it and found it relatable.
Least favorite book so far? Well, let’s just go down the list, shall we?
Spiritual matches
The weird world building that Vandermeer is able to pull off in this book is worthy of a standing ovation. The premise: the main character Rachel, while exploring a ravaged and ecologically destroyed city, stumbles upon a blob of sentient goo on the back of a large bear named Mord who rules the city. Mord, like the rest of the bio-tech weapons, disasters, and marvels in this world, was created by the mysterious group known only as The Company.
A bear ruling over the city, alcohol minnows as an after dinner treat, and an evening spent inside while is rains red salamanders - a few times I had to just pause and accept what I was being told. By far, the weirdest book I have read however, the weird doesn’t interfere or distract from Vandermeer’s clear objective on the criticism of corporate inaction to climate change, bio-engineering, and questioning humanity’s belief of our authority over our planet especially when it comes to animals.
A Pale View of Hills - Kazuo Ishiguro
I read When We Were Orphans as well this year but I think at the moment, and maybe because it is fresher in my mind, I feel more emotionally drawn to A Pale View of Hills. This book centers around Etsuko, a woman in England who after the suicide of her daughter starts to remember one summer in Japan. Her memories surround herself, a then pregnant Etsuko, who befriends another mother and her young daughter in post-war Nagasaki during the rebuilding efforts. This book focuses on memory, truth, and familial relationships built after the trauma of war.
It is a peaceful read that keeps you on your guard because you can’t help questioning what the narrator is telling you the entire time. I finished this book in a single day and needed several days for it to just sit with me. Ishiguro is brilliant and his debut novel was no exception.
Loved
I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman
This is a story I discovered through the BookTok review web and based on the premise I was very intrigued. Read in a single day laying side ways on my couch, I was consumed with this short little book and all of the comfort and stress it gave me. Taking place in a bunker, there is a cage of 39 women and one girl who the women just call “Child.” They are not allowed to touch or be out of sight of the three male guards who patrol around their cage 24/7.
It is best to know next to nothing when starting this book. It is fast-paced, full of anticipation, and while the protagonist “Child” struggles with the concept of loving the other women, it is full of love. The world-building is confusing unnerving and while I wish there were more questions answered through the book however, I accept that I know as much as “Child’ and neither of us know anything.
When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro
Another Ishiguro book, and yes I love it. When We Were Orphans is about a man named Christopher who is a well known detective living in London. As is reputation builds and is sound, he builds the confidence to return to Shanghai, China and look for his parents who went missing during their time there when Christopher was still a small child. This story, in classic Ishiguro fashion, is immersed in Christopher’s memory and how he perceived events unfolding during his childhood and how they affect him as a grown man.
The Sino-Japanese war hovers as a backdrop to this stressful story that brings up issues such as colonization, personal responsibility, and the complexities of memory especially from a child. Absolutely beautiful.
Assassin’s Apprentice - Robin Hobb
Thank you Robin Hobb, for letting me slowly wade back into a fantasy series. I loved big and complex series growing up but I would become so consumed with reading them I would not do anything else. Therefore, they got pushed to the back burner for a bit, while I was getting my degree. Starting with this small trilogy as my first experience with the Realm of the Elderlings has been exactly what I need.
This series is the perfect blend of anticipation, betrayal, classism, myth, magic, royal intrigues, and and a cozy glimpse into a cozy every day life in this world. The characters are lovable even though I wish they would communicate more. Royals -what are you gonna do. No matter what book you read, the royals never share their feelings.
Liked
Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card
Ender’s Game takes place in a world where after the Earth was attacked by aliens the Earth responds by sending the brightest young children to battle school in space. Ender is a little boy who is trained to become the commander of an army to fight the alien invasion. The story revolves around his experience in battle school and dealing with peers, commanders, and the complex relationships of his family. The story takes a turn and is surprisingly thought-provoking towards the end of the book. It touches on themes of colonization, war, and xenophobia. Card purposely makes the child soldier aspect of this book uncomfortable yet still finds a way to make it enjoyable.
The portrayal of girls in this book is poor, making a point to say that they don’t make it to battle school because “generations of evolution are working against them.” However, Ender’s sister Valentine is a genius and political revolutionist so I guess girls can do anything boys can do, except fight?
Also, the battle scrimmages are confusing to understand. Watching the movie starring Asa Butterfield helps set the battle school scene!
Enjoyed it with a good chance I’ll finish the next two books. We will see.
Waters has a way of writing that made me suspicious she was a time-traveler. How else would she know all of these intimate details of Victorian English life? She has a way of transporting you through time with words alone.
Fingersmith centers around two girls who live very different lives and meet under false pretenses. You will need to sit down after all of the twists in this book. This fun and well-paced Dickensian heist story makes you feel like you are in London and at Briar.
My only complaint, it is about 100 pages too long. There is so much anticipation built up through this book but when you finally get to the end, it falls flat because it takes too long to arrive.
Amazing writing - long story - would read another Waters’ book, for sure.
Meh/No
Dead Astronauts - Jeff Vandermeer
No. It hurts to say after loving Borne so much but, no. Dead Astronauts is a story set in the universe of Borne and is stated as Borne #2. Told almost like a parable, this story begins with three astronauts who explore different versions of Earth and timelines to defeat the elusive Company. There are callbacks to Borne, such as monsters or locations and similar themes such as human entitlement to the natural world regardless of the negative effects we can prove and see.
It doesn’t read like the easy first-person narrative we are used to in this world. Instead, readers are able to decipher this literary experiment that, bless me, I tried three different times to read. I finally listened to the audiobook version and, while I finished it and I’m counting it, it didn’t help much. I will try again. One day.
I worry this might be a controversial opinion but I listened to The Goldfinch on Audible and enjoyed it, up to a point. The story starts strong when Theo as a little boy goes to an art museum with his mother the same day a terrorist attack occurs. His mother dies and he lives with guilt surrounding her death, PTSD, and a painting called “The Goldfinch,” which he smuggles out of the museum after the bombing. The twist - he doesn’t tell a sole he has the painting and keeps it hidden away.
I couldn't tell if this story was supposed to be a mystery/thriller with stolen paintings or a coming-of-age novel about drug addiction and PTSD. If it’s supposed to be both, they don’t blend well. Anytime anticipation was building in this novel, it was watered down by emotional and depressed inner thought ramblings from Theo that were repetitive and lengthy.
I still have high hopes for Tartt’s A Secret History which I have not read yet but The Goldfinch was not for me.
Where now?
Reading: Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb
Listening: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
