Books
Finished reading: The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty 📚
“But the guilt of outliving those you love is justly to be borne, she thought. Outliving is something we do to them. The fantasies of dying could be no stranger than the fantastic of living. Surviving is perhaps the strangest fantasy of them all.”
Finished reading: The Sea Wolf by Jack London 📚
Finished reading: The Story Collector by Evie Woods 📚
Lovely and cozy while dealing with grief. Some difficult themes which are touched with a light hand. Magic, friendship, light romance, Ireland.
Finished reading: In the Woods by Tana French 📚
Gorgeous writing. Good plotting. It unraveled slowly, and I got impatient, but I don’t think the pace was wrong. It fit in with the main character’s own unraveling. Heavy themes, violence, trauma. Sadness bordering on bleak. I was frustrated with several plot choices, including the resolution, but saying more will spoiler it. I’m also not sure they were wrong choices. In terms of doing what fit with the characters and themes, they worked, perhaps too well; I just hated what was happening (or not happening) because I wanted better outcomes for people involved. I want to read the next book in the series, I think. I don’t trust French enough to know where she’s taking me and if I want to spend the time to get there. But the writing is so good I’ll risk it.
An easy sidestep from Louise Penny to Tana French but with French, the cozy element pulls you in so the subsequent shattering of it hits even harder and all is not necessarily restored to order. No neat bow and calm conversation in a sunshine dappled garden at the end. Instead you’re left with pieces of a mess too great to be undone and forced to see justice and closure and neat endings as fantasy; reality itself is something layered, darker, still beautiful, but grim.
Currently reading: The Story Collector by Evie Woods 📚
Sarah had grown weary of trying to make things palatable for everyone around her.
Enjoying this one.
🥾today’s hiking church.
Finished reading: The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny 📚
Can’t go wrong with Inspector Gamache.
Finished reading: The Warbler by Sarah Beth Durst 📚
Pretty writing, hometown magic vibe, slightly dark edges but happy resolution. No surprises, sweet characters. The emotional themes were hammered in about 40% more than needed, I felt. I skimmed a good bit.
Finished reading: The Valley of Horses by Jean M. Auel 📚
Well, hm. So I love how Auel describes the landscape, the scenery, the seasons, the slow but inevitable huge shifts happening in nature. And I enjoy the detail of “bushcraft” provided (even with the unbelievable coincidences that happen with finding just the right thing at just the right time). Beyond that, the characters are okay, the dialogue is so-so at best and absolutely awful at worst. And then there are the sexy times. Look, I don’t mind a little spicy action in a book, but I can only read “his manhood” so many times in one book.
Currently reading: If We Burn by Vincent Bevins 📚
“…they very quickly learned that mainstream journalism, embedded within a certain ideological framework and driven by the logic of capital accumulation, could rapidly reframe reality in deeply misleading ways.”
No kidding.
DNF: Neom by Lavie Tidhar 📚
Interesting world but just not the feel/mood for me right now. Couldn’t get into it. The writing is great. I might revisit this one at some point.
Finished reading: Be Not Far from Me by Mindy McGinnis 📚
Easy read, YA, teen girl main character. Set-up for our protag’s experience is annoying only because I myself am not a teenager. The survival parts (what I went for) are detailed and gritty, which I liked. Great? No. Enjoyable? Yes.
Finished reading: The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin 📚
Meh.
DNF: The Evolving Self by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 📚
A classic case of “This book could have been a blog post.” Or a series of articles, to be fair. Good points, but kind of basic and overworked. For me, not enough thought-provoking stuff to spend more time on it.
DNF: The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders 📚
The writing is fine and the world-building is interesting. It just didn’t grip me. Moving on.
Finished reading: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman 📚
Finished reading: The Long Way Home by Louise Penny 📚
Finished reading: The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny 📚
Finished reading: A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny 📚
Finished reading: Patternmaster by Octavia E. Butler 📚