fiction

The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano by Donna Freitas

Started: 3/23/22
Gave up: 3/25/22

I just couldn’t with this book. I read an article by the author, and her description of this book was intriguing, but it didn’t work for me. We see alternate futures for this woman, all starting from one moment in time, as she makes minor changes in that moment for every iteration. Fascinating! I love Sliding Doors-type stories! Why only nine? I don’t know. I didn’t make it through all nine because the story was about a married couple who, when they got together and then married, always agreed they didn’t want kids. The woman had NEVER wanted kids. Then the husband changed his mind and basically bullied her into trying. The decision point (very beginning) is when he finds a full bottle of prenatal vitamins, vitamins he bullied her into taking, and proof she’s not taking them and not trying to get pregnant. How she reacts, in major and minor ways, drives each one of the lives.

To start, that’s infuriating. Her reasons for not wanting kids are valid and thought-out, and she has to defend her decisions to EVERYONE. That felt real, legitimate. But THEN – hang on.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

In at least two of the lives, she has a baby and never looks back, thinks to herself “how could I ever not want this baby?”, never thinks she should have stuck to her principles.

INFURIATING!

So I gave it up. Maybe she sticks to her principles in lives I didn’t get to, but I stopped caring. I don’t need to read books that make me angry.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Leave a Comment

Started: 8/9/21
Finished: 8/14/2021

I saw this while browsing in Powell’s over four years ago, so I think I can be forgiven for not remembering anything about it by the time I actually read it. I went in thinking it would be like Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, a book I loved when I read it, although I’m afraid I won’t like that one if I read it again.

It was not like Where’d You Go, Bernadette. I did like it immediately, particularly after giving up on two books in a row the day before. The first few pages were funny, and then it took a dark turn but was still funny, and then it was less funny and I started wondering if I had been supposed to think it was funny – was I laughing at a mentally ill person?

I was unsure the whole middle of the book, and I was afraid it was going to be predictable and have an unearned ending, and then it kicked me and I cried and I liked the ending very much.

I don’t know if you should read it.

Can You Keep A Secret by Sophie Kinsella

Leave a Comment

Started: 8/8/21
Gave up: 8/8/2021

Light read, supposed to be a fun romance, and OH MY GOD I DON’T CARE. The main character is not relatable, the situations are not funny, and I gave it up the same day I started it. Jo Walton, an author whose books I like and whose recommendations I often enjoy, is WRONG about this one (she thought it was terrific and funny).

Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi

Leave a Comment

Started: 6/1/21
Gave up: 6/2/21

I like my fiction weird, and I’m happy to be dropped into an unexplained or unexplainable situation right off the bat, but this was incomprehensible to me. Two seemingly normal people dropped into a situation that immediately got super-weird, and they’re barely questioning it. Certainly not panicking like anyone else would. Am I supposed to be reading into it? Probably. Did I have the patience? I did not.

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Okinyan Braithwaite

Leave a Comment

Started: 3/3/21
Finished: 3/6/21

I wasn’t sure, using the title as my only clue, if this was going to be about actual killing or not, and I’m not going to tell you. But I will tell you that this was really good. I have plenty of sympathy for the main character (not total, for reasons), and I both hate and understand her sister. Sort of understand. Enough to understand the main character’s actions. Anyway, it’s good. You should read it.

One Second After by William R. Forstchen

Leave a Comment

Started: 2/12/21
Gave up: 2/14/21

Ugh. Retired military, super-capable, gentlemanly know-it-all has to save his town after an EMP takes out all modern amenities. I have read this book before. I have read better versions of this book. This one feels like a non-writer decided to fictionalize his What To Do In Case Of An EMP report, hoping it would get his point across better. It’s all tell, no show, and Mr. Only I Am Making The Right Decisions is going to be proven right. AND it’s the beginning of a series, so he’s probably going to end up saving the world. I’m sitting this one out.

Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear

Leave a Comment

Started: 1/22/21
Finished: 1/30/21

Book 2 of the Maisie Dobbs series. She’s still mostly perfect, but her detective work has a woo-woo element that I’m not sure I’ll like long-term. I was expecting pure investigation and deductive reasoning, with maybe some insight, but she practically has visions and gets feelings about things. I’m interested, but I’ll have to see where this goes.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Leave a Comment

Started: 1/23/21
Finished: 1/26/21

I’ve been meaning to read this for years, but I guess better late than never. This book is so good. Young adult can be hard to read. If it’s bad, it’s cringe-y bad, and I’ll usually put it down. This is good. And it’s hard. I cried, I got angry, I felt helpless, I cried some more, and I got angry some more. And then I cried again. I was so emotional, nearly the whole book, that I stopped reading it in bed. I switched to a friendly murder mystery before going to sleep because I’d be more able to wind down and fall asleep. I’m not going to tell you the plot, even the beginning – it’s easy enough for you to find that. And as awful as it is to know what prompted this book to be written, it’s so much worse knowing how much worse things have gotten since this book was published not even four years ago.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

2 Comments

Started: 1/19/21
Finished: 1/22/21

I’d heard of this series, but I didn’t start it until Jess recommended it. I LOVED this book by the time I was only 30 pages in, and I raced through it (as much as I can during the work week these days). I’m thrilled there are 15 more books so far. She’s a private investigator of sorts in England in the period between the world wars.

The only thing I’m hoping gets addressed later on is that she’s kind of perfect. Like, she has no flaws, she has lots of useful skills, and everyone loves her. I mean, I love her, but she needs to have SOMEthing to improve on, right? She did one not great thing, but a) we only find out about it at the end of the book, and b) we find out about it as she’s doing something to correct it.

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

1 Comment

Started: 12/26/20
Finished: 12/27/20

I can’t remember where I heard about this book, but it starts out HARD.  A twenty-something black woman babysits for a white family, and one night, the mother calls her unexpectedly to take the toddler out for a little bit so they can deal with an emergency at home.  The babysitter tells her she’s not dressed like she normally is (she was out with friends), and the mother says that’s fine, so she takes the toddler down the street to a local expensive grocery store to just kill time.  A shopper calls security on her, implying that she kidnapped the little girl, and it’s a REALLY tense scene.  It turns out fine, and the rest of the book talks about the aftermath, but in a very anticlimactic way.  Well, until the climax.  Anyway, it’s about how all these characters see each other and how they react and think about themselves, and it’s pretty funny and enjoyable, which I did NOT expect after that scary beginning.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

2 Comments

Started: 12/15/20
Finished: 12/19/20

I’ve been a little off Ann Patchett for a few years.  I’m afraid to re-read Bel Canto, which I read several times years ago and LOVED and gave as gifts to many many people.  What if I have changed enough that I don’t love it anymore?  Anyway, I picked up The Dutch House.  First, it’s good.  When I couldn’t read it, I wanted to read it.  Second, turns out that in order for me to LOVE a book, I need it to have a plot.  It’s not that nothing happens – it’s a family saga, plenty happens – but it’s a family saga, so there’s no mystery to solve, no murder to avenge, no THING to DO.  And I have learned that I prefer books that have a THING the characters need to DO.

The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

Leave a Comment

Started: 8/22/20
Finished: 8/24/20

This was a good book, YA, and a hard read.  The teenagers all feel very real, even though I was nothing like them in high school, and neither were most (if not all) if the kids I knew, but hey, times are different.  It’s emotional and disturbing, and I couldn’t put it down.

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Leave a Comment

Started: 8/6/20
Finished: 8/9/20

Molly recommended this book to me.  She likes thrillers, I like thrillers, but I think she only recommends to me the ones she’s not sure she likes because she needs to talk about them.  This is the second time I’ve read one from her that I felt I had to push through.  It was interesting, and I don’t NOT recommend it, but it’s one of those where the narrator starts to make decisions that YOU know are wrong, that even HE knows are wrong, and it’s hard not to get frustrated.

Old Lovegood Girls by Gail Godwin

Leave a Comment

Started: 8/2/20
Finished: 8/6/20

I thought about putting this down shortly after starting it.  Not because it was bad, it’s very much not bad, but because it wasn’t grabbing me.  I wasn’t positive I was in the right mood for it.  But I kept reading, and I kept reading, and I kept reading, and I couldn’t stop reading, and I stayed up late two nights running because I couldn’t stop reading, and then it ended, and I’m a little sad.  It’s about two women who meet in college and then separate and how their lives went on.

Would Like To Meet by Rachel Winters

Leave a Comment

Started: 5/16/20
Finished: 5/19/20

It’s a book, not a movie, so while I would call it a rom-com, I suppose it’s more correctly chick lit.  It’s totally a rom-com, and it name-checks every rom-com out there because part of the plot is that it steals the meet-cutes from them.  And just like a rom-com, it was SO OBVIOUS who the love interest was that it was infuriating that no one else seemed to think so.

It was light, it was mostly cute, but it seemed to go a little longer than it had to.  I’d watch the movie, but I wouldn’t re-read the book.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

1 Comment

Started: 5/2/20
Finished: 5/6/20

This book started out really cute, turned absurd, got serious, took a dark turn, and ended on the cute side again without taking into account the darkness.  The second half, especially the last little bit, felt like an exercise rather than a novel, so I can’t say I fully recommend it, at least not as an immersive novel.  On the other hand, it was a really interesting exercise in use of language, and the made up months and days made me laugh, especially toward the end.