2023 Monthly Reading Wrap-Up: September
Hi friends. I don't talk much about my personal life in these recaps, other than just a quick check-in, but on September 12, my mother-in-law, Renee, lost her four-year fight with cancer. My husband and I, and his family found out that she had been diagnosed with stage four colon cancer in September or October of 2019. At that point she had already gotten it removed from her colon but it had spread to her lungs. She fought so incredibly hard, but even with intense chemo and radiation, the cancer eventually spread to her bones with tumors popping up in her hip and knee. Those tumors were painful and severely limited her movement, and after about two and a half weeks on hospice, she passed with her husband at her side.
In her absence, the grief has been immense. She was such a kind and accepting woman, a mother of five children and two children-in-law, a wife, a sister, aunt, and daughter. She made friends with just about everyone, and so had quite the list of friends and acquaintances who all loved her dearly. She was fondly and lovingly remembered at a beautiful memorial in her home church, absolutely packed to the seams, on September 24. I've spent the majority of the month being present for my husband, supporting his siblings, and reconciling with my own feelings for such an incredible person. It felt (and still does at times) feel weird to pick up a book or make a video on TikTok discussing what I'm reading, but I know she wouldn't want me to feel sad for too long. An impossible ask, but still one I'm trying to answer. To everyone who has reached out since I even mentioned that she was going on hospice, thank you. Your words and support and love have meant so much, not only for me, but for my husband as well.
So, with all of that said, I read eight books in September. Here are my stats and reviews.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Shelves: Fantasy, Favorites, Young Adult
Review: I really loved this story, and the strength that was displayed by our main character, Bree. She was strong in her own right, stubborn, but overcoming very deep trauma and grief and I loved the exploration of that grief. I was a big fan of the story overall and its re-imagining of the King Arthur myth and stories. I liked that it was reframed as a secret society on the UNC campus, and that Bree's presence shook up the systemic racism within it. I liked our other characters, and I thought the true love triangle was fun. I was invested in each person involved in it!
Deonn's world building was pretty heavy-handed throughout (a glossary would have been helpful), but it was a complex world so I understood and actually appreciated that she spread it throughout the book as Bree learned things rather than info-dumping in the beginning. It felt more natural and flowed better (in my opinion!). The only other qualm I had was the convenience of some outcomes within the book. Scenarios were too easily resolved sometimes, lol.
The ways Deonn incorporated and discussed root magic and other practices as a means of empowerment for Bree's enslaved ancestors were brilliant, though. I loved how that all tied into this secret society too. Definitely can't wait to get into the sequel and see how this story continues to develop.
Vladimir by Julia May Jonas
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25
Shelves: Favorites, Modern Literature
Review: This book was not what I was expecting. It's touted as being an erotic novel about an older woman who lusts after a younger colleague, and while that is an underlying subplot, it's mostly following this unnamed woman as she grapples with aging, her sexuality and desirability, vanity, feminism, and finding joy in one's work/career. This was slow and understated, deliciously descriptive, and fascinating to read. If you like books in an academic setting about messy professors and their relationships, this book is a winner.
I thought the dilemma of this character's husband and her struggle with how to feel about it was super interesting. We don't get much from the character herself as far as inner monologue, but the way she acts publicly and privately about this scandal says a lot about her as a character.
Vladimir won't be a book for everyone. I can understand why a lot of people have given it lower reviews. Our main character is pretentious, vain, and slowly gets more and more unhinged as the book progresses, but I enjoyed this book overall. And it was a quick read, and a good time to read it around the start of college. Just be aware of the content warnings, and approach with caution.
Shark Heart: A Love Story by Emily Habeck
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Shelves: Modern Literature, Romance, Science Fiction
Review: Shark Heart: A Love Story is really profound in its overall message, lyrical in its prose, and creative in its approach to terminal illness. Even though it's just over 400 pages in length, it can be a quick read because of the way it's formatted. There are a lot of quotable passages in this one because the writing is well done, and because the topics surrounding losing a loved one to a terminal diagnosis are soul-crushing and world-changing. Reading this around the time my mother-in-law was dying of cancer and as my grandmother struggles with Parkinson's, it was heavy and hit home in a lot of ways.
However, I was definitely more invested in the first half of the book than the last half. When the cover says, "A Love Story," go in knowing it's not just about the main couple, Wren and Lewis. Wren is the common character throughout, and we follow her through three very important relationships in her life. I think, depending on your life experiences, age, and relationship status, you'll garner different things from this book and I love that.
The experience surrounding this book also helped. I buddy read this with two other women who were fantastic for not only letting me join them last minute, but for helping me hold and allowing me to feel the strong feelings and emotions and surfaced while reading this. If you've experienced terminal illness in loved ones, make sure you're in a good headspace before picking this one. Although, I do see this being really healing in how it portrays those diagnosed with terminal illnesses. It allows readers to see that the illness and the person are two different creatures altogether.
Shark Heart: A Love Story is definitely a book to approach with an open mind but it's a beautiful literary story nonetheless, and I think one that's worth a read if it sounds appealing to you and you like these kinds of books--you know your tastes best!
Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Shelves: All-Time Favorites, Historical Fiction, Horror-Thriller, Romance
Review: I read The Hacienda by Cañas last year and fell in love with her language and the historical research she put into her novel but I thought her character development only scratched the surface of getting deeper into them and the story. So I was thinking about those things going into this one. However, I didn't find those issues from the first book to be present in this one. This isn't a perfect book--there aren't as many vampires as I expected given the title (they're the underlying plot, but the romance is the main focus)--but I really enjoyed my time with this one. I loved my time with this one. I also loved the twist she used for colonialism, disease, and how vampires tied into that. I listened to the audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Cañas has a wonderful ability of writing really beautifully descriptive places, and there is such a great romance to the things she writes as well. Not just in relationships between people, but in relationships between people and place, people and tradition, and people and duty. Yes, there is a romance between our two main characters, which is also very romantic and sweeping, but man. The beauty of her words was really special. She has definitely become an auto-buy author for me now!
That being said, horror is not my usual genre (so I don't know how this book will resonate with diehard horror fans), but I will read anything this woman writes from now on. I loved this story! It was also great that this was a buddy read with a friend who also loves the friends-to-lovers trope as much as I do, so we gushed together about that.
If you're a lover of poetic prose and descriptive writing, but make it spooky and add a cast of lovable characters, YES THIS 100%.
House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25
Shelves: Fantasy, Favorites, Horror-Thriller, Young Adult
Review: Other than hearing that House of Hollow was spooky and creepy, I didn't know much else about it and I'm sort of glad I went in that way. For being a young adult horror, this was a lot darker and gorier than I anticipated, but it really worked for the overall story. There was campy fashion, unsettling and atmospheric writing, a mystery to find a missing person, and an overall plot that kept me mostly guessing (I did figure a few things out, but I didn't think it detracted from my enjoyment or investment in the story). I also appreciated the concept of the Halfway and how it tied in to how we process grief. It had an interesting twist in that perception that opened the floor for good conversation around the topic.
I thought the inspiration to write a modern day fairy tale was done superbly: this felt like the old school, OG Grimm fairytales and sources of lightened, cartoonified Disney movies. I told myself I wouldn't be affected by this if I read it before bed, but the one night I did, I had probably the creepiest nightmare I'd ever had in my life. This book is super dark, especially around child death, so please prepare yourself for that. The darkness and spook maintain themselves throughout the whole book.
But this was another fun buddy read with good conversation and a great group of women to chat about this with. Another spooky book recommendation perfect for fall/Halloween season.
The Cloisters by Katy Hays
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
Shelves: Modern Literature
Review: The Cloisters is another book for the Dark Academia bookshelves!
This was dreadfully slow at times, and I don't think the plot was nearly as strong as it could have been given the material. I enjoyed the aspect of historically significant tarot cards playing a part of the plot, but there was so much to work with that ultimately wasn't utilized. The whole discussion around tarot could have been stronger. Same with including a garden full of poisons that visitors walk through every day (how intriguing!), or the art they're working with, or the research they were doing. And so I often found my mind wandering while I read and realized that, by the time I found my way back to what I was reading, it didn't feel like I missed much. It felt like the author didn't do the kind of research needed to take this book to the next level.
I always enjoy books set in academic or museum-like settings, so some of the issues other readers seem to have with those pretentious aspects didn't bother me. This is also an example of a book with characters that I'm not particularly fond of, but that I'm invested in. I wanted to know what happened with Ann, why she was running so fiercely from her hometown, and what would happen by the end of this. I got most of that answered, which I was happy about. She felt like a good unreliable narrator in, by the time I got to the end, I was curious how much I really believed.
The Cloisters certainly wasn't groundbreaking for the subgenre, but I think it's a decent addition to it and I enjoyed my time with it overall.
Death Valley by Melissa Broder
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Shelves: ARCs, Modern Literature
Review: Death Valley started out really strong for me. We follow an unnamed narrator who has left her hospitalized father and ailing husband to spend a week in a Best Western in the desert outside of Los Angeles to get some writing done on her novel. She's grappling with the possibility of loss and death, coming to terms with her grief and depression, and trying to navigate strong emotions while also making time for herself. When the receptionist suggests a hike out in the desert, our narrator surprises herself by actually going, and while out on this hike, she comes across a towering Saguaro, which in and of itself is not supposed to exist outside of Arizona. The cactus is large enough for her to fit inside, and while inside this cactus, she has really beautiful moments of clarity about her husband and father that brought me to tears. In my mind, if the novel kept going in that direction, it would have easily been a 5-star book.
But what I wasn't prepared for was the last half of the book, which essentially turns into a survival story. Our narrator checks out of the Best Western early and decides to go home, but makes one last stop to this hiking trail to visit this cactus one more time. She ends up getting lost and stuck out in the desert, and a lot of craziness ensues. There are delusional visions, monologues with inanimate objects, and a lot of moments where I wanted to reach through the pages and shake our narrator by the shoulders. All of the promise that the book started out with didn't end with it, in my opinion. In fact, the ending left me wanting, hoping that there would be more of the insight and exploration of grief that we had started so strongly with.
So while this started out with a lot of promise, it fell off for me at the end. However, is this another sad girl lit fic? Yes (even though it's categorized as sci-fi and fantasy). I haven't read other books by this author, but if you have and enjoyed them, you'll probably enjoy this one too. Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. This title publishes today, October 3, 2023.
Dead Poets Society by N.H. Kleinbaum, Tom Schulman (Original Work [Motion Picture])
Rating: ⭐️⭐️
Shelves: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Modern Literature
Review: I was pretty disappointed with this one. I knew that it had been written from the movie, and that had not existed before it, but I really hoped that this wouldn't be a scene-by-scene recap of the movie. Spoiler: it was. Outside of one scene that was added, which I thought was poorly done, there was nothing extra. Given Keating and the boys' dynamics with their families and each other, there was a lot of potential to expand and enrich this world, and nothing was done. I don't know if there are legal repercussions for doing something like that when the original content is a movie, but then the question begs to be asked: why write this at all?
If you wished that you could actually read the movie, then read the script rather than this. The writing was poorly done, cheesy in its delivery, and lacking any sort of flourish or polish. Unfortunately, I felt like I wasted my time with this one.
Did Not Finish
In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead
Shelves: Modern Literature, Mystery
Review: DNF at 53%
I just really didn't find any of these characters enjoyable. I don't mind reading unlikeable characters, and am used to them in books categorized as "dark academia" or mystery/thriller, but there was nothing intriguing or redeeming about our main character. She seemed vapid and self-obsessed and so exhaustingly worried with getting approval from other people. And the characters who were supposed to be likeable (i.e. Caro, Frankie, Jack, even Minter and Coop) didn't engage me at all. They all seemed desperate or underdeveloped, glossed over in a hurry, and I didn't care about any of them. With seven or eight people in this group, I would hope to care about at least one of them (and maybe it was Coop if you dragged it out of me), but I didn't care enough. Not really.
In the end, I could not have cared less about the outcome, who killed Heather (also, completely underdeveloped), or the journey we were taking to get there. Just not it for me!
Maybe Once, Maybe Twice by Alison Rose Greenberg
Shelves: ARCs, Romance
Review: DNF at 28%.
After reading a sentence, "My eyes were pointed together in confusion," I gave it another couple of pages before accepting that I didn't really care about this character or this story. The writing style doesn't feel natural although some of the descriptive language is well done.
Overall, I thought the main character and at least the first love interest introduced made some pretty questionable choices with pretty obvious red flags. While the premise of this sounded interesting, once I actually got into the story, I wasn't a fan of the way things were shaking out. I'm sure someone else will enjoy this one, but it just wasn't for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me advanced reader access to this title in exchange for my honest review. If this premise and title sounds interesting to you, it publishes October 3, 2023.
Mudflowers by Aley Waterman
Shelves: ARCs, LGBTQIA+, Modern Literature
Review: DNF at 31%.
I should have known in the intro when the author said her mentor was Sheila Heti that this might not be the book for me. But unlike Pure Colour by Heti, this book didn't involve turning into a leaf or incest (thank goodness).
I was intrigued by the stream-of-consciousness writing style and was following along for a while, but something in the development of our main character, Sophie, was missing. I didn't get a sense of who she was. So as the story progressed, she felt like the hollow center that everyone else slotted into. And even still, the other characters introduced felt like the shells of humans rather than fully fleshed out characters.
Unfortunately, I wasn't enamored enough with the story (actually quite bored by it) to continue on to the end. Thanks to NetGalley and Dundurn Press/Rare Machines for giving me advanced reader access in exchange for an honest review. This title publishes October 17, 2023.
