Bookwormish, 2nd quarter of 2018
Jul. 7th, 2018 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarVERY TOP BOOK:
Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman
It is so rare that I’m able to pick just one favorite out of the 30 or more books I read in a quarter (!), but this time there’s no question: It’s Tess of the Road, by the ever-increasingly brilliant Rachel Hartman.
Tess is a very traumatized, very angry person, forcing down every single one of her desires for the sake of her family. This is the story of how she finally breaks away and starts walking, coming to know herself as she just keeps walking down the road. It’s an amazing portrait of grief and healing, of friendship and family ties and how to balance them with the needs of the self. And because it’s Rachel Hartman, it’s often funny too, and the world-building is as flawless as ever. (This book falls under fantasy, probably YA fantasy, but I’ve been recommending it even to people who normally never touch fantasy, because it’s just that good.) What also blew me away was the compassion that keeps unfolding throughout the book – every minor character gets a chance to be seen as more than just what the protagonist first thought of them. Truly astounding. Such a beautiful and necessary book, I could write about it for pages and still feel speechless.
MORE TOP BOOKS:
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado – Machado combines vivid, visceral realism with a twist of fantasy and a touch of horror to tell powerful stories. And she’s very, very good.
Chime by Franny Billingsley – Another beautiful Franny Billingsley story of learning to outgrow past beliefs that are hurting you, in a beautifully realized folklore-based setting. Also, Billingsley practically creates her own language for her character’s inner voice. (Warning, though: this otherwise beautiful book includes a very negative portrayal of an autistic secondary character, so proceed with caution if that’s upsetting!)
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson – A book that is impossible to describe. A nonfiction portrait of love (both as partner and parent) and of making a nontraditional, queer family. Nelson’s writing draws deeply on poetry, philosophy, sex and everyday domesticity and – as one reviewer said – turns every one of those things on its head.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid – Hamid’s Exit West was another rare case of a book that won my clear favorite of a whole quarter, quite possibly a whole year. So I wanted to read more by him, and this didn’t disappoint. A seemingly simplistic set-up (a friendly local tells his life story to a visiting tourist, as they drink tea at a local market) twists more and more complexly, as you increasingly wonder who is telling the truth and who, if anyone, is what they seem.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston – Another classic I’m so glad I finally read: Hurston’s portrait of a woman coming into herself and her own narrative voice.
The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson – Recommended to me, of course, because of the Iceland connection and the folklore connection (thanks to gilpin25 for being the first to mention it!) but why it captured me was Magnusson’s gentle, compassionate portrait of long-ago people bearing unbearable horrors, bringing vivid life to people who are otherwise just names in a historical record.
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward – Ward weaves together the small incidents of daily life and the heady themes of mythology to tell the story of Esch, her brothers and their dog, surviving extreme poverty and neglect in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli – Wait, wasn’t this already one of my top books in a previous quarter? Why yes, it was, but I recently reread it and it’s still a favorite. :-) I reread this after seeing the movie; because I’m very, VERY glad the movie exists – it was good in many ways and so important in many more – but I found it only middling as an adaptation of the book. A lot of the things that are cringe-worthy in the movie (or just underdeveloped) are beautifully handled in the book. One to read and reread!
EVEN MORE GOOD BOOKS:
A Time to Keep by George Mackay Brown – Quietly moving stories of the struggle to survive in the harsh conditions of Orkney in the past.
Toning the Sweep by Angela Johnson – Slim but powerful tale about a daughter, mother and grandmother coping with love and grief, as they pack up the grandmother’s house that she’s moving out of due to illness.
Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo – A weird but quite wonderful story that is yes, a love story, and yes, involves a troll, but probably not in any of the ways you’re thinking.
Orkney Folk Tales by Tom Muir – An excellent collection of traditional tales, told with humor and the eye of an avid historian. I was very interested in reading up on the folklore of Orkney while I was there, and found this book an excellent route in.
Venus as a Boy by Luke Sutherland – Another Orkney author, telling a magical realist tale of racism and ostracism in a small town.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – A classic I wanted to reread now that I actually know some things. :-) It fascinates me how Brontë is this combination of so traditional to our eyes yet so radical for her time.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling – Working in a library in the UK seemed like a very good opportunity for access to the Harry Potter audiobooks, specifically the Stephen Fry audiobooks. I noted down so many thoughts during my reread that I’m going to add them as an addendum at the bottom of this post, rather than filling up space here!
The Likeness by Tana French – Another intricate and deeply character-driven mystery from Tana French, whose In the Woods I raved about last quarter.
Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson – The more time I spend in Scandinavia, the clearer it is what an important piece of the culture I’m missing by not having grown up with the Moomins. Working to rectify that!
A Separate Peace by John Knowles – A thoughtful exploration of war, childhood, innocence and the sometimes devastating effects arising from small moments of anger and jealousy.
The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – I’ve read every other single thing by Adichie, so I needed to complete the canon! I don’t love these short stories as much as I love her novels (and nonfiction!) but they still bear her trademark insightful explorations of the places where people – and cultures – overlap.
Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde – Aww. It’s that story about three best friends falling in love at their first fan con, and it’s just as charming as expected. Yes, the characters’ dialogue sometimes reads like a how-to manual on How to Be the Best and Most Supportive, Perfect Friend at Every Possible Moment, but the overall story was so charming that I didn’t even mind the sometimes unrealistic dialogue (and unrealistic dialogue is usually my biggest hard no).
The Great Shelby Holmes Meets Her Match by Elizabeth Eulberg – Nine-year-old Shelby Holmes and 11-year-old John Watson continue to be an utterly charming addition to the wide world of Holmeses and Watsons, in this sweet retelling of the events of A Scandal in Belgravia through the lens of middle school friendships and dramas.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde – Wanted to reread this now that I know more about British history, culture and literature (as compared to when I first read it and knew nothing!) and it’s still delightful.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
I feel like damning these books with faint praise by putting them into this section, but even making it onto my quarterly books post at all means I thought they were worth recommending! I just had way, way too many books this quarter, and had to subdivide them somehow…
Magical Folk: British and Irish Fairies: 500 AD to the present ed. Ceri Houlbrook and Simon Young – A comprehensive survey of folktale traditions from all parts of Britain and Ireland; another piece of my folklore research while in Orkney.
A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas – The plot is a little overly convoluted, but Charlotte Holmes is an intriguing contribution to the Holmeses of the world. And I love seeing a Holmes and Watson so different from the original (here, both are women, and they’re divided by a significant gap in both age and class) nonetheless form that immediate bond we love so much between these two.
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon – A fairly straightforward YA romance, but with the very welcome addition that both protagonists are first-generation Indian-Americans, the children of immigrants, and both are navigating family expectations, though in very different ways.
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater – Stiefvater’s writing is as good as ever, and Blue and her houseful of clairvoyant aunts are great characters, so I’m not sure why I wasn’t able to get fully into this. I think I’m just at a point where I cannot bring myself to care about the travails of a group of rich white boys (no matter how much they remind me of the Marauders!) But the book is good, so I’m sure I’ll circle back to the rest of the series at some point.
Seconds by Bryan Lee O’Malley – A fun graphic novel about going too far in using magic to correct your mistakes.
Cinder by Marissa Meyer – Another fun and well-written series starter that I just don’t seem to be in the headspace for at the moment, but I would definitely recommend it to any teen. A futuristic retelling of Cinderella!
The Case for Jamie by Brittany Cavallaro – Um. Wasn’t even sure whether to include this (the third book in Cavallaro’s Charlotte Holmes series) on this list – it was neither good nor bad, but apparently the plot was forgettable…because I’ve already forgotten it. But it at least rounded out the series in an okay way; the first book in the series was one of my favorites and then the second was so bad, so I guess “okay” is all I could hope for in the third one!
AN ADDENDUM: REREADING OOTP!
For all that I think about the Harry Potter world constantly, I don’t actually reread the books themselves all that often. I picked Order of the Phoenix because it was the first Stephen Fry audiobook I hadn’t yet listened to, but there’s also great pleasure in revisiting a section of the canon timeline I’ve written about deeply and extensively for years. (Which is a weird and pretentious way of thinking about someone else’s novel, through the lens of my fanfic about it – but fanfic and writing has been my main mode of engagement with Harry Potter fandom for, what, 7 or 8 years now? I’ve written Harry Potter more than I’ve read it, weird as that is. Even though I have also read it a lot.)
So it was super fun to revisit these characters with an eye to how my own take on them has changed over time. There are characters who didn’t register much on my radar when I first read the books, but I now care about deeply after having explored them in writing for so long. Sirius is the obvious one: I didn’t like him much in the books, because as much as he loves Harry, he’s often not actually a good parent figure to him, encouraging him to do risky things and failing to untangle his own excellent principles from his petty jealousies. But, as I’m sure you all know, I’ve fallen completely for Sirius the more I’ve written him, and I now read even his bad moments with more sympathy. Also, the Crookshanks and Sirius friendship makes me so glad! And Harry losing Sirius breaks my heart anew every time.
Also, Ginny! I didn't pay as much attention to her the first time around, but the more I've written about her the more I’ve come to love and admire her feisty strength and determination, and now I cheer her every appearance.
And of course Neville. Always, always Neville.
As for JKR's writing, as always she's brilliant at how she subtly sets up hints that will later turn out to be important: like Grubbly-Plank’s throw-away mention of “thestrals” by name (before Harry’s made the connection about what they are), or Draco’s mention of the “Closed Ward” at St Mungo's, before we then end up seeing Neville’s parents there. Or a very clever way of slipping in how long Trelawny has been at Hogwarts (i.e. this will prove relevant to the Prophecy, which was made shortly before Harry was born) during Umbridge’s inspection.
JKR’s little bits of stage business are always excellent, too, like the random charms they’re practicing in class while also having important plot-developing conversations.
“Have a biscuit, Potter”!!! Truly one of the most iconic lines in all the books.
And I will never, never tire of the British pronunciation of Dark Arts as “dahhk ahhts” ;-)
“Fools who wear their hearts on their sleeves…” – a beautifully succinct summation of Snape’s life philosophy (and so opposite to Dumbledore!) Nope, though, I still don’t like Snape. He’s an interesting character, he’s an important character, but I don’t like the person. People have been surprised in the past that I’m not drawn to writing about Snape, when I like similarly complex characters such as Remus. But the difference to me is that Remus has suffered and been broken down by life, over and over, he’s been left with so little, yet he still strives to be kind to the people around him. Snape, for all that he ultimately does the right things in the larger picture, spends the rest of his time deliberately being nasty to people less powerful than him, cutting down and insulting his students. Nope, nope, nope. That will never be okay.
Harry and Cho: an object lesson in How Not to Date.
Fred and George’s departure is epic and perfect, always. And Neville as the other one the Prophecy could have been about intrigues my brain so much. I love Neville more every time I think about him.
“He would never forgive Snape” (a line of Harry’s thoughts near the end of the book) – ouch. But also, what an amazing arc Harry is going to embark on, from this point until the end of the series when he names his son after Snape! (As much as I personally dislike Snape, I’m certainly not saying Harry has to dislike him.)
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Re: best books!
Date: 2018-09-28 06:03 pm (UTC)Yes, it is me Bets! I use emily-in-the-glass as my username on AO3, so it gets confusing.
Exit West has me thinking a lot about structure first and foremost, and then viewpoint. How does Hamid hold the narrative together, thematically rather than through plot? How do you use such an unconventional framework and yet have it feel perfectly logical and natural? That is what is fascinating. I also love how the voice moves from omniscient storytelling to an intimate third person viewpoint.
I know, Seraphina is one of my favourite beings in literature. I am also very rational, and she is one of a few heroines I've met who help me understand myself. Hartman's writing in Seraphina felt really "fresh," in that I felt like she was writing to please herself, especially with her use of humour.
I just picked up my copy of Her Body and Other Parties from the library (I've been on the waitlist)! I am really inspired so far. I have only read the first two stories and my brain feels like a rabbit jumping around with ideas and inspiration for how to play with form. And then thematically ... I just want to copy out quotes from the book and post them everywhere.
Re: best books!
Date: 2018-10-02 02:34 pm (UTC)Yeah, I should reread. :-)
I hope you enjoy Carmen Maria Machado! And you've read Shirley Jackson, yes? :D