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starfishstar) wrote2020-04-16 09:48 pm
Bookwormish, 1st quarter of 2020
My favorite books from the first quarter of 2020:
VERY TOP BOOKS
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates – All the brilliance and all the empathy you would expect from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ first novel. When I read Toni Morrison’s Beloved, I said I felt like it brought home the trauma of slavery to me more than anything else I’d read or seen, even though I’ve learned about American slavery my whole life. The Water Dancer felt similar in how powerfully it made real to me just how much the separation of families was one of the most unthinkably cruel and traumatizing aspects of slavery.
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds – Wow. Wow. Jason Reynolds is a master of the short-but-unforgettably-powerful form. The entire novel takes place in the time it takes the 15-year-old protagonist to ride the elevator down from his apartment, as he’s visited by memories of people from throughout his life and decides whether or not to find and kill the man who killed his brother. No description does the book justice. It’s slim (I listened to the audiobook, which is less than 2 hours total) but unforgettable.
MORE TOP BOOKS
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado – I knew Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir would be brilliant and innovative, because she (and her short stories) are brilliant and innovative, but I had no frame of reference for what form that might take. So, what form did it take? Every single chapter of this memoir is told in a different genre. Let that sink in for a bit.
The Secret Place by Tana French – Tana French’s books always take you so deep inside a character’s world. Here, it’s a portrayal of the intense, all-consuming friendships of teenage girlhood, on the cusp of adulthood but still caught in the magic of childhood, rendered in a way that is both dreamy and heartbreaking.
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown – I’ve liked what I’ve seen and heard of Brené Brown so far (TED talks & co.) and this is the first book of hers I read. I love the way she thinks and talks about vulnerability and its very human importance. I think I’ll need to read this book again at some point, to really absorb all she’s saying.
A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi – An excellent addition to the YA canon that’s both a sweet love story and a blistering account of what it’s like to live as a hijabi Muslim under American Islamophobia. It will seem like a strange thing to say, but the main character here kept making me think of Remus Lupin – both of them so certain they are such a liability in the world in which they live, simply by the fact of who they are, that the only way to protect the people they care about is to stay away.
Drama by Raina Telgemeier – This book is delightful! Raina Telgemeier comes up a lot as a hot name in middle grade fiction right now (e.g., she’s the one who’s been remaking the Baby-Sitters Club series – aka MY YOUTH – as graphic novels) and I’ve been meaning to read something of hers. So glad I picked this one, because it did not disappoint! It’s a delightful romp through middle school friendships and foibles, and I especially loved that it centered around putting on a school play – but unabashedly from the perspective of the stage crew rather than the cast. Made me feel so fond and nostalgic, because…that was MY YOUTH. :-)
AND! Whose Body?; Clouds of Witness; Unnatural Death; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; and Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers – Yes, the great Lord Peter Wimsey series reread has commenced, thanks to sanguinity introducing me to the As My Wimsey Takes Me podcast. It’s sort of hard for me to separate these books out and talk about them individually; I guess it’s a bit like Harry Potter for me in that way. :-) But the podcast is definitely showing me that there’s a lot more going on even in the early books of the series than I realized when I first read them. And I love the podcasters’ love for the characters! They pick up on so many lovely details.
EVEN MORE GOOD BOOKS
The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich – A very sweet story of a young Ojibwa girl and her family in the mid-nineteenth century, set across the course of one year. Just a warning, though, that in the middle of the book their community is hit by smallpox, and that part is a hard read. I should have known better – this is a story about an Ojibwa family during the period when white settlers were encroaching onto their land – but I hadn’t been expecting a children’s book to go that dark, and it hit me pretty hard. But ultimately, the book includes a lovely depiction of grief and of learning to continue to live even with grief.
It’s a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman – I was eagerly waiting for this book to come out! I think it wasn’t until Call Me By Your Name that I really felt just how powerful it is to see your own culture and experiences reflected in the books you read. I mean, I know that! I talk all the time about how important that is for other people, for teens, for kids. But I didn’t realize how much it would mean to me, too, until CMBYN made me want to seek out some Jewish contemporary novels. (Also until I read a book mentioned here that’s a collection of stories about teens with various disabilities, including one or two characters with chronic illness/chronic pain, and I felt seen in a powerful way I hadn’t been expecting.) Anyway, It’s a Whole Spiel, a collection of contemporary YA stories about Jewish teens, was a warm, fuzzy read for me. From stories about secular Jews I could relate to, to stories about modern Orthodox Jews I couldn’t relate to (but was interested to read about), I enjoyed the variety of experience here – even if it does pretty much reflect only Ashkenazi American Jewish experience, and not the rest of the huge range that is Judaism. Far and away my favorite of the stories was David Levithan’s “The Hold,” a story so powerful it felt like a piece of memoir, especially since the narrator is looking back on a formative youthful experience from the remove of adulthood. I also liked that several of the stories here addressed mental health issues (anxiety, OCD, trauma) in a realistic, sympathetic way, where it’s just one aspect of the character’s life.
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson – A tightly woven story of three generations of a Black family in Brooklyn. I remember an interview where Jacqueline Woodson talked about the impact of generational wealth, and how this book is an exploration of that. How it makes all the difference, when life throws you an unexpected difficulty, whether or not you come from a family that has resources to draw on. The audiobook of this is particularly well done, with different actors for each of the characters’ sections of the book.
Indian No More by Charlene Willing McManis with Traci Sorell – A thoughtful look at the experience of an Umpqua girl who moves to L.A. after her tribe is terminated by the U.S. government and her family has to leave their reservation. One of the books I heard of via this year’s list of ALA award winners. (Thanks, grrlpup, for being the one to point out when those were announced!)
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Bayou Magic by Jewell Parker Rhodes – A girl stays with her grandmother on the bayou for the summer, in a story that interweaves a lot of threads, from cultural memory to environmental damage.
Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire – Not as engrossing as the first in the series, Every Heart a Doorway, since this is basically just a long backstory to get the characters Jack and Jill up to the point where we first met them. But it was interesting to fill in that background, and I do want to continue with the series.
Bob by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead – A sweet story about a girl and a magical creature who just wants to find his way home.
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness – I am so mixed about this book! I was totally engrossed through most of it, then at the end all of a sudden I got fed up with the ceaseless violence and lack of resolution; it sounds like the rest of the series is more of the same, so I don’t think I’ll read on. (Though there’s a whole lot that’s really intriguing and engaging here!)
Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi – I always expect something wonderful and strange from Helen Oyeyemi, but this book is…really strange. I still don’t know if I liked it. There are flashes of brilliance and loveliness, and then there’s also a lot that makes no sense at all. But very intentionally so. It’s a strange book!
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I should prooobably get through the two library books I had checked out when they closed before I borrow other people's books. BUT. You know I love the YgAy, although I've read so much already I'd be surprised if you had any I haven't read on your personal shelves (I don't keep much on my personal shelves, even - I got tired of moving books and really pared everything down.) Then there's like really excellent fantasy, there's so much fantasy out there that the really excellent is hard to sort through. I also just read a really good narrative non-fiction book about the Troubles in Northern Ireland and it got me interested to read more really good narrative non-fiction. I think I tried Dorothy Sayers, but I could try it again? I would love a new series!
My other thing needs to be reading the ebooks that I check out from the library... the problem is that once they're due, they're due and they disappear! So I get very stressed trying to finish them!
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Yeah, I'm not sure how much I would have on my shelves that you haven't already read; but I'll do a little brainstorm of stuff I can recommend that either I have or the library has as ebooks – it'll be a fun challenge :-) Would you consider audiobooks at all if they're either 1) fun, short things or 2) stuff you can't get any other way right now? It's okay if not! Just checking my parameters. And just to confirm I understand my brief, sounds like you'd like:
-YgAy
-especially good fantasy
-especially good narrative nonfiction
And I do recommend Dorothy L. Sayers! If you started the series but didn't get far, then you had the same experience I did the first time I tried. Because people love this series with a deathly passion...but nobody told me that the deathly-passion-worthy elements don't come in until later in the series. The early books are fine, but if you're reading everything through in order, really it's so you can get to Gaudy Night and have it feel really, really earned. Bonus is that if you start catching up the series, you can listen along to the great podcast about it!
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I could give Sayers another try... OMG is Gaudy Night really when it gets good because the library says that's #12 and I don't know if I can wait that long! Or is just that that's the ultimate pay-off? OK I put a hold on the first book.
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It can be a good idea to start a little further into the series, and then go back and fill in the earlier books once you're already invested in the characters. (Peter is very, very good at his "silly ass" persona, and in the first book you can easily be fooled into thinking he really *is* just a silly ass – even though, having recently reread it, I now see there's much deeper character stuff in there than I realized. But you probably don't fully see it until you already know Peter.) Book 1 is not an ideal entry to the series, come to think of it. But I don't think anyone's figured out definitively where *is* the best place to start. You could google around about it – I bet people have very strong opinions!
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For now I've pulled Strong Poison and Have His Carcase off the shelf for you; if you like them enough to want to read the series, you can fill in before and around... I'm also still in the middle of writing up all my many recs for you, but I'll email you soon & we can arrange pick-up. :-)
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i just started my first Louise Erdrich book (The Plague of Doves, becuase that just happens to be what's available at my libary's ebooks). She's been on my list for years, and her writing is everything I thought it would be.
i am really into shorts lately, and i haven't heard of Reynolds before, so i will have to look him up.
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For short, powerful novels in verse (like the Jason Reynolds one) I very much recommend The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, if you haven't already read it. Anything by Jacqueline Woodson, too.
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Haven't read Jacqueline Woodson. Yay, something else to add to my list. :D