starfishstar (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
starfishstar) wrote2019-07-17 10:49 pm
starfishstar) wrote2019-07-17 10:49 pm
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Bookwormish, 2nd quarter of 2019
Very belated and maybe also a bit briefer than usual, because life is a rodeo right now, but here are my favorites out of the books I read in the second quarter of this year (April, May, June):
VERY TOP BOOKS
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith – I don't know how to describe this book except "delightful." I knew nothing about it except that I'd seen it recommended in places I respect, so I went into it admirably clueless. It turns out to be a wonderful, lively, often funny, always compassionate coming-of-age story, set in the 1930s but wonderfully fresh and relatable. Also: it's written by the same author as "The Hundred and One Dalmatians," how funny is that!
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo – Last quarter I loved Elizabeth Acevedo's The Poet X, so I snapped up her new book as soon as it came out. (...Literally. It was still on the shelving cart, newly catalogued and processed, when I arrived at the library in eager search of it.) This one, too, is wonderful, about a high school student who's balancing being a teen mother, and an aspiring chef, and part of a loving web of friends and nontraditional family.
On the Come Up by Angie Thomas – You know how, when someone's first book is as AMAZING as Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give, you worry that it's just not possible for the author's second book to live up to the hype? Don't worry about Angie Thomas, though. On the Come Up is excellent: equally hard-hitting topics, equally well-drawn characters, and different from The Hate U Give in some great ways, too. (Like: the protagonist here, Bri, is a lot less sympathetic in some ways, while still being totally relatable.)
MORE TOP BOOKS
Hey, Kiddo by Jarret J. Krosoczka – A moving memoir about growing up with an absent, drug-addicted mother and being raised by imperfect, but entirely loving, grandparents.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo – Oft-recommended, I finally read this! Not my usual genre (centered around a heist) but somehow totally compelling throughout. The sequel is sitting on the top of my next-to-read pile right now.
Behind a Mask by Louisa May Alcott (under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard) – Eeeee, I'd vaguely known that Louisa May Alcott (i.e., she who is known primarily for the perfect classic American girlhood portrayed in Little Women) also wrote thrillers under a pseudonym, but I finally looked one up and it was SUCH FUN. You can tell she loved cutting loose and writing about badly behaved women.
EVEN MORE GOOD BOOKS
Tiny Crimes, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto – I'm suddenly very intrigued by flash fiction, after attending a workshop about it at a recent writing festival; this collection in particular caught my eye because it contained an amazing story by the amazing Carmen Maria Machado. Fun to see many different people's highly varied takes on what flash fiction can be.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers – Another classic I'd long been meaning to read, though I think I did myself a disservice in this case by listening to the audiobook, because I don't feel like I got into it as much as I might have otherwise. Or maybe McCullers' 1930s Southern small-town settings are also just a little too far removed for me to easily empathize with? Probably another book I need to read in a literature class, to get the most out of it.
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire – A fun reread, in preparation for hopefully finally reading the sequels in the series. (First reviewed this back a couple years ago.)
A Festival of Ghosts by William Alexander – An equally sweet follow-up to William Alexander's wonderful middle grade ghosts-and-a-bit-of-magic novel A Properly Unhaunted Place, which I raved about last quarter.
Watson and Holmes, volume 2 by Brandon Easton, Lyndsay Faye, et al. – Just as everyone had told me: the stories in this second volume of the Holmes-and-Watson-in-Harlem comic are uneven, but the parts by Lyndsay Faye are great. Full of little true-Holmesian nods.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due – Intriguing if sometimes gruesome (and very, very slow to get started) story of an immortal trying to live disguised among mortals, always a fascinating topic. (Also, I read this as a clear parable of an abusive relationship (real world dynamics explored through fantasy setting)...though I can't tell if the author wrote that intentionally?)
The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton – An exploration of the harmful beauty standards of our own world, told through a fantasy world obsessed with beauty and those who can create it.
The Circuit by Francisco Jiménez – A collection of stories about a childhood on the migrant circuit, as part of a family of immigrants (Mexico to U.S.) always having to move on to find seasonal farmwork.
Egalia's Daughters by Gerd Brantenberg (translated by Louis Mackay) – I found this a bit of a slog to read, but it's an interesting concept, a Norwegian novel from the 1970s that raises feminist questions by imagining a world where women hold the power and men are struggling to be recognized as equals. (A bit like Naomi Alderman's The Power in concept, I suppose, but very different in execution.)
SIDE NOTE: I decided my goal for this year was to make an effort to read more books in translation. (I always read diversely in terms of country of origin, author's background, everything else...but yeah, they are all pretty much English-language books. It's such a publishing monolith!) Anyway, I was on track and very pleased with myself, with at least one book-in-translation each month through May. But then I was traveling all of June, with limited book access, and fell off the translation wagon. Which I guess is just to say: happily accepting recs of good books translated into English from any and all other languages! Or anything I'd be able to get my hands on to read in German, I suppose. I feel like anything non-English counts for this. :-)
.
VERY TOP BOOKS
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith – I don't know how to describe this book except "delightful." I knew nothing about it except that I'd seen it recommended in places I respect, so I went into it admirably clueless. It turns out to be a wonderful, lively, often funny, always compassionate coming-of-age story, set in the 1930s but wonderfully fresh and relatable. Also: it's written by the same author as "The Hundred and One Dalmatians," how funny is that!
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo – Last quarter I loved Elizabeth Acevedo's The Poet X, so I snapped up her new book as soon as it came out. (...Literally. It was still on the shelving cart, newly catalogued and processed, when I arrived at the library in eager search of it.) This one, too, is wonderful, about a high school student who's balancing being a teen mother, and an aspiring chef, and part of a loving web of friends and nontraditional family.
On the Come Up by Angie Thomas – You know how, when someone's first book is as AMAZING as Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give, you worry that it's just not possible for the author's second book to live up to the hype? Don't worry about Angie Thomas, though. On the Come Up is excellent: equally hard-hitting topics, equally well-drawn characters, and different from The Hate U Give in some great ways, too. (Like: the protagonist here, Bri, is a lot less sympathetic in some ways, while still being totally relatable.)
MORE TOP BOOKS
Hey, Kiddo by Jarret J. Krosoczka – A moving memoir about growing up with an absent, drug-addicted mother and being raised by imperfect, but entirely loving, grandparents.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo – Oft-recommended, I finally read this! Not my usual genre (centered around a heist) but somehow totally compelling throughout. The sequel is sitting on the top of my next-to-read pile right now.
Behind a Mask by Louisa May Alcott (under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard) – Eeeee, I'd vaguely known that Louisa May Alcott (i.e., she who is known primarily for the perfect classic American girlhood portrayed in Little Women) also wrote thrillers under a pseudonym, but I finally looked one up and it was SUCH FUN. You can tell she loved cutting loose and writing about badly behaved women.
EVEN MORE GOOD BOOKS
Tiny Crimes, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto – I'm suddenly very intrigued by flash fiction, after attending a workshop about it at a recent writing festival; this collection in particular caught my eye because it contained an amazing story by the amazing Carmen Maria Machado. Fun to see many different people's highly varied takes on what flash fiction can be.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers – Another classic I'd long been meaning to read, though I think I did myself a disservice in this case by listening to the audiobook, because I don't feel like I got into it as much as I might have otherwise. Or maybe McCullers' 1930s Southern small-town settings are also just a little too far removed for me to easily empathize with? Probably another book I need to read in a literature class, to get the most out of it.
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire – A fun reread, in preparation for hopefully finally reading the sequels in the series. (First reviewed this back a couple years ago.)
A Festival of Ghosts by William Alexander – An equally sweet follow-up to William Alexander's wonderful middle grade ghosts-and-a-bit-of-magic novel A Properly Unhaunted Place, which I raved about last quarter.
Watson and Holmes, volume 2 by Brandon Easton, Lyndsay Faye, et al. – Just as everyone had told me: the stories in this second volume of the Holmes-and-Watson-in-Harlem comic are uneven, but the parts by Lyndsay Faye are great. Full of little true-Holmesian nods.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due – Intriguing if sometimes gruesome (and very, very slow to get started) story of an immortal trying to live disguised among mortals, always a fascinating topic. (Also, I read this as a clear parable of an abusive relationship (real world dynamics explored through fantasy setting)...though I can't tell if the author wrote that intentionally?)
The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton – An exploration of the harmful beauty standards of our own world, told through a fantasy world obsessed with beauty and those who can create it.
The Circuit by Francisco Jiménez – A collection of stories about a childhood on the migrant circuit, as part of a family of immigrants (Mexico to U.S.) always having to move on to find seasonal farmwork.
Egalia's Daughters by Gerd Brantenberg (translated by Louis Mackay) – I found this a bit of a slog to read, but it's an interesting concept, a Norwegian novel from the 1970s that raises feminist questions by imagining a world where women hold the power and men are struggling to be recognized as equals. (A bit like Naomi Alderman's The Power in concept, I suppose, but very different in execution.)
SIDE NOTE: I decided my goal for this year was to make an effort to read more books in translation. (I always read diversely in terms of country of origin, author's background, everything else...but yeah, they are all pretty much English-language books. It's such a publishing monolith!) Anyway, I was on track and very pleased with myself, with at least one book-in-translation each month through May. But then I was traveling all of June, with limited book access, and fell off the translation wagon. Which I guess is just to say: happily accepting recs of good books translated into English from any and all other languages! Or anything I'd be able to get my hands on to read in German, I suppose. I feel like anything non-English counts for this. :-)
.