fiction

The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden

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Started: 11/12/19
Finished: 11/19/19

Recommended by Jo Walton (an author I like and whose recommendations I trust), it’s a somewhat quiet story about a British family who goes to France for a vacation, immediately lose their mother to hospital convalescence, and hang out for the summer in this hotel pretty much on their own, over the objections of the women who run the hotel.  The oldest is 16 and is sick for the first half of the book, so basically not a character until later, and the narrator is the next oldest, at 13.  There are shenanigans going on the background that the narrator doesn’t understand completely.  It’s good, it’s disturbing at times – I think I liked it.  It definitely makes me want to go to France.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

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Started: 9/28/19
Gave up: 9/28/19

I’m sure this book is really funny, but I am not its audience: Part 2.  Or I was not in the right mood: Part 2.  The man climbs out the window right away, but I don’t know why.  He leaves his own party and I don’t know why.  He STEALS SOMEONE’S SUITCASE at a bus station on, like, the third page, and that just seems really cruel AND I STILL DON’T KNOW WHY, so I gave up.

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

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Started: 9/23/19
Finished: 9/27/19

I almost put this book down several times out of, not boredom, but kind of a “this isn’t what I want to be reading right now” feeling.  I kept convincing myself I wanted to see where it was going.  It won the Pulitzer Prize by being about an author who dated a man who won the Pulitzer Prize  and who was trying to get his third book published.  It got rejected because no one wanted to read another book about a man wandering around his city coming to terms with his life.  What was this book about?  A man wandering the world coming to terms with his life.  I suppose I appreciate the lampshading, but at the same time, it’s kind of disgusting.

So…it was good, but not for me.  I finished it anyway.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

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Started: 5/8/19
Finished: 5/10/19

I’ve heard so much about this book while also learning absolutely nothing about it, so I really didn’t know what to expect.  It’s an interesting story, but I think I was looking for more to come out of it.  More…plot.  So I’m left feeling unsatisfied. Sort of “that’s it?”  I’m pretty sure that’s the fault of my expectations, though, and not of the book itself. I need more distance from it.

The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo

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Started: 4/24/19
Finished: 4/25/19

Overall, I don’t think I liked this book.  I read it quickly, it drew me in pretty well, but it’s written from the point of view of this woman who never seems to have matured past college age.  She’s telling the story to someone, and her voice is irritating.  And her two great loves?  Also irritating.  I would not be friends with any of them, and oh my god, she’s just wrong.  I don’t think I felt this strongly about that when I finished it.  Given a week to let it sit, and yeah – I didn’t like it.

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe

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Started: 4/18/19
Finished: 4/19/19

This is a movie waiting to happen, and I’d happily watch it.  It’s the story of a lonely, sarcastic, black French Canadian teenager transplanted to Austin, Texas in the middle of high school. In some ways it’s predictable, in other ways it isn’t, and I flew through it.

When You Read This by Mary Adkins

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Started: 4/18/19
Gave up: 4/18/19

I couldn’t get into this one.  It’s the story of a woman who died told via the emails of the people who knew her (and one person who didn’t know her but started working for her boss after she died).  It might be depressing, it might be uplifting, I think it’s supposed to be funny, but I didn’t stick around to find out for sure.  I wasn’t learning enough about the characters to care, and the intern really bugged me.

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

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Started: 4/7/19
Gave up: 4/7/19

This is hard to admit, but I gave up on Dandelion Wine.  I love Ray Bradbury, but I couldn’t read this.  It’s an ode to small-town life before the Great Depression.  Remember when boys were boys and men were men and small towns were great and aren’t little brothers wonderful and gosh, summer lasts forever, and MAYBE if there had been a plot!

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

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Started: 4/6/19
Finished: 4/7/19

The writing in this book was painful, but also felt painfully real and accurate for a coming of age/coming out story told from the perspective of a teenager.  I have diaries from around then (a little younger, but still), and MAN are they painful to read now in exactly the same way.  I got over the wincing discomfort and enjoyed this one.

The Last Thing She Told Me by Linda Green

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Started: 3/21/19
Finished: 3/22/19

I’m not sure who recommended this book, but whoever it was, I don’t trust them anymore.  It’s not bad – the writing is better than the last one I read – but it’s disturbing and it really hammers you over the head with the “men are horrible and it’s women who bear the brunt and feel shame their entire lives” message.  I’m not arguing the point, but goodness some awful things happen, and I wasn’t really prepared for that when I started reading.

One Day in December by Josie Silver

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Started: 12/12/18
Finished: 12/14/18

A British love story that references Love Actually and Bridget Jones liberally.  The beginning was difficult, but it got better largely because the friendship between the two women was well-written.  The man was two-dimensional, boring, and not worth the angst thrown in his direction.

Digging In by Loretta Nyhan

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Started: 9/11/18
Finished: 9/12/18

I don’t remember where I heard about this one, but it was a nice read about a woman trying to recover from her husband’s tragic death a year before.  She has a teenage son and a job in advertising, and it was funny and sweet and light, despite the tragic background.  (I do occasionally read and enjoy non-SFF books.)

A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan

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Started: 4/29/18
Gave up: 4/29/18

Supposed to be in the vein of Where’d You Go, Bernadette, which I LOVED, and Today Will Be Different, which I strongly disliked (both by Maria Semple).  This one fell into the strongly dislike category.  The main character and the overall situation should be relatable, but I just can’t with her character, her decisions, her choices.  So I quit halfway through.