12/1: A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne (library audiobook, 1997) - Perfectly acceptable coming of age historical fiction book. 3.5/5 stars
12/2: No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder (library ebook, 2019) - A sobering look at progress (or lack thereof) in the prevention of domestic violence. Dense, but important and powerful. 4.5/5 stars
12/6: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (library ebook, 2017) - Multi-generational saga about a Korean family living in Japan. Good, but unrelentingly sad. 4/5 stars
12/6: The Round House by Louise Erdrich (library, 2012) - A boy on the Ojibwe reservation deals with the consequences of his mother's victimization of a violent crime. I know people love this book, but it felt like a preachy history book to me and I wasn't digging it. 3/5 stars
12/11: Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McColloch (university library, 2019) - Interesting look how our online behavior shapes language and culture. 4.5/5 stars
12/11: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (library audiobook read by Anna Fields, 2001) - What even is this book about? 3.5/5 stars
12/15: Daughter of the Forest (Sevenwaters #1) by Juliet Marillier (library ebook, 1999) - Very good. Noble daughter must save her brothers from an enchantment. Lots of physical and sexual violence. 4/5 stars
12/15: The Evening and the Morning (Kingsbridge #0) by Ken Follett (library, 2020) - What a luscious world Follett can build. 4.5/5 stars
12/16: The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston (library, 2022) - Ghostwriter who falls in love with a ghost. This book was silly. 3/5 stars
12/20: The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease by Daisy Hernandez - An important story about a rare disease, but I wanted the book to tell me a bit more. 3/5 stars
12/21: Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk (library 2022) - Short 133 pages sapphic noir set in 1930s Chicago. I really enjoyed this. 4/5 stars
12/23: Forgotten in Death (In Death #53) by J.D. Robb (library, 2022) - She's just recycling crimes now (oh, a skeleton found in a building that's undergoing renovations? we've already been here), but who am I to complain? Eve, Peabody, and Feeney are always good for me. 4/5 stars
12/24: My Name Is Lucy Barton (Amgash #1) by Elizabeth Strout (library ebook, 2016) - It's a good book, but it was as if I was reading about my own life and it hit so close to home that it made me sad and melancholy. Great observational writing, but I never want to read or think about this book again. 4.5/5 stars
12/26: D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding by Chencia C. Higgins (library, 2022) - What a terrible book. There's no conflict, the reality show plotline is as thin as rice paper, and I can't believe I managed to finish it. 2/5 stars
12/27: The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hill Cycle #1) by Nghi Vo - Beautifully written little fantasy novella. 4/5 stars
12/30: Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3) by Abby Jimenez - No. This author is permanently banned from my life. This book is terrible. I have so many beefs with it. So many. But it gets an extra half star for senior dog representation. 2.5/5 stars
Average star rating: 3.7/5 stars
Did Not Finish:
Kushiel's Dart (Phedre's Trilogy #1) by Jacqueline Carey - So, I have two main issues with this book. The first is that we have a teenager who is being physically and sexually abused (literally groomed!) because she is born with a red smudge in her eye, so she's destined to be a masochist. The second is that the political environs are so confusing and not related to our world and I just didn't care who was king or what noble was screwing another. Disappointment for sure. DNF at 29%.
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner - Grief memoirs are tricky for me to navigate. On one hand, everyone's experience is unique. On the other hand, grief is grief. Zauner's writing was not particularly strong, her mom was not very pleasant, and I just didn't have the bandwidth to deal with this during the holidays. I can't even say that I'll return to this book, though, because it's just not for me. Goodreads definitely disagrees with me on this, so take my anti-memoir stance with a grain of salt. DNF at 24%.
Inda (Inda #1) by Sherwood Smith - High fantasy at its absolute most boring with the second son of a powerful prince getting beaten up by his brother while the secondary storylines are about men making war. I know this is absolutely beloved in some circles, but consider me the rectangle on this one. DNF at 38.5%.
I've tried Pachinko more than half a dozen times, but I have never made it past the first quarter, I still have hope that someday I'll be in the right mood for it. I do enjoy sad books at the right moment - like A Little Life which was devastating and I couldn't stop reading and cried so many times. Bel Canto - I loved and might be one of my favorite books. Ann Patchett is a writer I admire. There was a recent essay she published called These Precious Days in Harper's that was very moving to me. Crying in H Mart is suppose to be so good and is on my list mostly because of the Asian-ness of it all, but I have not started it. I'm lucky to read a book a month, so I both admire and am daunted by the reading lists I often see from other people (I was a child that hid in the closet and read through the night, so I feel like it's in me, but it has not appeared regularly in my adult life - I do prefer sleep these days!), though I will always stop reading any book that I don't want to keep picking up, so lots of DNFs.
ReplyDelete1) I was immediately drawn into Pachinko, so if the first chapter or two didn't grab you, it's probably not the book for you.
Delete2) I do not understand Bel Canto. I still don't know what I was supposed to take away from that book, but I think about it all the time, so that's weird, right?
3) My opinion on Crying in H Mart is definitely in the minority, but I think most people could skip it.
"extra half star for senior dog representation" - this is how I feel too, unless the dog dies, and then I have to take off a whole star. I read Crying in H Mart and it was not for me at all. For one thing, the graphic description of the various seafoods was enough to turn my stomach. But also it was so so so sad. I am not too bad with grief memoirs, it depends on the grief and it depends on the memoir, but add that to a graphic description of buying squid and, no.
ReplyDeleteThe dog DOES NOT DIE. Sheesh. I'm sorry. I should have included that. The dog ends up in a happy place and that's all good news. I was just so happy it was about a senior dog because elderly pets need love, too.
DeleteLOL. I had a Korean roommate in grad school, so reading all the food stuff made me a teeny tiny bit nostalgic for the kimchi and random frozen balls of bean paste in my fridge, but I can see how some of the food descriptions might be repulsive.
I think I wanted Crying in Hmart to be more about HMart and less about crying.
ReplyDeleteLOLOLOL. Yes. Maybe. I don't know. I found the endless descriptions of food to be endless. *sigh* It just wasn't for me.
DeleteOh good- I don't want to read Crying in H Mart and now I don't have to feel guilty about that decision. Everyone else seems to love it, but it sounds depressing to me. Most of the time when you describe I book you didn't like, I know I wouldn't like it either. It shortens my reading list!
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know that I'm providing such a useful public service!
DeleteWe read Crying in H Mart for book club and nearly everyone loved it, but one person had to stop reading it early on. She lost her mom last year and it was just too hard. I really appreciated the memoir, though. I find it so fascinating how books can elicit such different opinions. Like I know you did not like that Becky Chamber Monk book and then I see it listed on others' favorite books of the year list and I wonder WHAT IN THE WORLD DID WE READ THE SAME BOOK?
ReplyDeleteYes. I felt this way about Hamnet, to be honest. Did I read the same book as everyone else? I get why people enjoyed the Monk book, but I do not get the O'Farrell love!
DeleteLife's Too Short is a book I wanted to throw across the room when it ended. IT WAS SO BAD. It made me want to swear off Abby Jimenez forever, but I did read her latest release and liked it, but I don't blame you for giving up on her.
ReplyDeleteAbby Jimenez's use of medical conditions and tragedy to move plot along is indefensible. I will never read another book she writes ever again. Compare what she writes to how Talia Hibbert writes about a chronically ill character in Get a Life, Chloe Brown. Hibbert never just waves a magic wand and makes the illness go away - she shows that people with disabilities still get a love story. I am irate at Jimenez and her absolute dismissal of legitimate health concerns. I BOYCOTT her forever.
DeleteI. Hate. Abby. Jimenez's. Books. (I can't really write that I hate *her* because, well, I don't know her...) But OMG, thank you for helping me figure out why - you're absolutely right about the delegitimization of people with chronic illnesses and/or disabilities. I only made it partway through one (the one with the woman who has, I think?, endometriosis? or fibroids? or something?) and nearly threw my iPad across the room. Gah.
ReplyDelete