Wrap Up July 2021

I am back on track for my reading goal!

While this was not my best month ratings wise, I do feel like I am a bit back in the groove of actually choosing to pick up a book rather than mindlessly scroll through social media.

Books I read in July:

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The first book I finished this month was Neon Gods (Dark Olympus #1) by Katee Robert (2.5 out of 5 stars) – a fake dating retelling of Hades and Persephone which happens to be my exact catnip. But the world building is flimsy at best and the romantic and emotional beats did not always work for me. I also finished Pure Gold by John Patrick McHugh (3 out of 5 stars), a short story collection blurbed by and compared to Sally Rooney and Colin Barrett. McHugh’s prose is incredible (a stunning blend of more colloquial Irish English and super interesting descriptions and metaphors) and the way in which he structures his stories impeccable – but this was so very, very bleak, featuring many sad and unlikable characters, many of which where teenaged boys. Afterwards, I went on a bit of a romance kick having recently renewed my Kindle unlimited subscription because it was free for three months. I first read Twisted Love (Twisted #1) by Ana Huang (2 out of 5 stars) which I thought was fun but unfocussed. A jumble of tropes (brother’s best friend, only one bed, grumpy and sunshiny one, I hate everybody except you, morality chain) and sub-genres (small town romance, darkish romance, New Adult) meant that some parts worked better for me than others. I did not expect this to go this dark and I kind of wish it hadn’t. To counteract the darkness of this romance, I went to an author whose work I often enjoy and read Claire Kingsley’s Marrying Mr. Wrong (Dirty Martini Running Club #3) (3.5 out of 5 stars) which was just what I needed. I like how fundamentally kind Kingsley’s characters are and how competent the women are at their jobs. I particularly like the friendship at the heart of this series. Still feeling like this exact kind of romance, I reread Claire Kingsley’s Cocky Roommate (4 out of 5 stars) which is probably my favourite of her books. I then finished my audiobook of The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold (4 out of 5 stars) – which I found very clever and interesting and heartbreaking. I loved how the murderer is incidental to the story and that Rubenhold does not linger on the gruesome details, choosing rather to tell these women’s lives to the best of her abilities. The prose is effortless but effective, the research is impeccable, and Rubenhold manages to fill the gaps in a way that I found mostly satisfying if sometimes a little bit too convenient. I learned a lot about Victorian London and I really appreciated the structure and the humanity of the venture. I then finally finished an ARC – Pop Songs by Larissa Pham (3.5 out of 5 stars) was a wonderful reading experience for the most part. I found it clever and stimulating (I kept googling all the art and artists she refers to), but sometimes rather sentimental. I enjoyed her musings on art more than I enjoyed her post-mortem of her unsuccessful relationship with the unnamed “you” she kept refering to. I then finally finished Big Bad Wolf by Suleikha Snyder (2 out of 5 stars) which took me four months to read because although I liked the world building and the secondary characters – the romance did not work for me at all and Joe was not my favourite. I think if this had gone harder for the fated mates angle with the accompanying compulsion, this could have worked for me better. But most of all, I found this boring which is something I cannot deal with in urban fantasy.

I also finally DNFed a couple of ARCs that I had started ages ago (but never even added to my Goodreads currently reading shelf), both because they were just too dark for me. After the Silence by Louise O’Neill I could not read because it stressed me out very badly. A combination of new motherhood and a pandemic made reading stressful books impossible for me. I felt claustrophobic reading this – from the very first page. O’Neill’s writing had this effect on me before in the only other book of hers I’ve read (Almost Love) but where I loved that one, this time around I could not get myself to read this. I am sure this book will work beautifully for other people who are not as anxious about reading as I am. In the Dark by Loreth Anne White was different to what I anticipated. I expected something less tense and more along the beats of a romantic suspense (heavy on the romance, light on the suspense) but from the 15% I read, this was not the case. I am sure this will work better for people who actually can read thrillers without being stressed out but I am not that reader, especially not anymore.

I also moved the books I hadn’t picked up to my “on hold” shelf to return to them when I am more in the mood for them. This helps me for some reason.

Favourite of the Month:

I really appreciated The Five’s project with its focus on the victims of Jack the Ripper and their lives and I am very happy to have listened to my friend Jill (the Book Bully on Youtube).

Stats(ish):

I finished 8 book, 7 of which were written by women and one written by a man. Five books can broadly be categorized as romance, two non fiction, and one short story collection.

Currently Reading:

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What I should be getting to next:

I am mostly feeling like reading non fiction and speculative romance, so this is what I will be picking up I think. Or, I could actually try to read the books I am currently reading and have the lovely feeling of a clean slate.

Two of my pre-ordered books cme out this month: Battle Royal by Lucy Parker and The Devil You Know by Kit Rocha and I am so vey excited for both of them.

Recommendations: Books with “unlikable” female characters

I adore books with difficult female characters – unlikability really works for me when it is done interestingly. I also think that judging a book as lacking because a character is unlikable is a boring critique. I am the first to admit that I need to find characters compelling but compellingness can come from characters being really awful. Weirdly enough, I am way more interested in difficult women than in difficult men – although thinking about it, maybe it’s not so weird after all.

Medea by Christa Wolf

One of my absolute favourite books of all time, I adore Wolf’s interpretation of Medea. While she is not as difficult as she is in the original myth, her problems are very much of her own making. She is unapologetically herself and frustratingly so. Wolf tells this story from different perspectives but anchors it in a pitch-perfect characterization of this infamous woman. (in case anybody is looking for more books to read during WiT-month, this one would be a brilliant one to add!)

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney

I adore Frances – but she has been called unlikable by numerous reviewers. She is pretentious and incapable of talking about her feelings, she pursues a married man and lies to her best friend. But she is also clever and hurting and I just felt for her. I don’t think I have to tell anybody here how much I loved this book. (review)

Almost Love by Louise O’Neill

This book gutted me, not least of all because Sarah, the main character, painfully reminded me of myself when I was in my early twenties. Told in two time lines, the Sarah from the present is an awful friend and a pretty terrible partner. But it is past-Sarah, the one who is in a toxic relationship that I related to, too much maybe. My review got a lot more personal than they usually are.

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

One of my all-time favourite books, one I practically adore every thing of, is made even more brilliant by how difficult Jemisin lets her main character, Essun, be. She is abrasive and single-minded, she feels no need to smooth her edges, and I loved her for it. The series is, amongst other things, a rumination on motherhood and growing up. Essun is horrible towards her daughter in a way that she thinks is necessary – and the inevitable conclusion to the trilogy broke my heart and made me a life long fan. (review)

The Pisces by Melissa Broder

This book. I have not been able to stop thinking about it since reading an early copy last year. I adore everything about this – but most of all Lucy. She is pretty horrible a lot of the time but I also couldn’t help but root for her. It helps that she is super funny in her meanness and really lost underneath her swagger. I also loved reading Broder’s memoir So Sad Today (review) which gave me a whole different appreciation for Lucy, who definitely, at least in parts, is based on Broder herself. Another reason why dismissing the main character simply as “unlikable” doesn’t work here. (review)

The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley

I only recently finished this but I want to keep shouting from the rooftops how brilliant I thought this was. Told from different perspectives, I personally most adored Willa’s third person narration. Willa is prickly and awful and so very very brilliantly drawn. Her mask of the perfect suburban wife crumbles pretty quickly but her layers are revealed in a perfectly measured speed. (review)

What are your thoughts on unlikability? Do you have any recommendations for me?

 

 

 

The Mid Year Freak Out Book Tag 2019

I cannot believe the year is halfway over.

Question 1 – The best book you’ve read so far in 2019

Easy answer: Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney. Everything about that book speaks to me. It is not only my favourite book of the year but one of the best books I have ever read. Rooney is my hero.

Wrap Up: February 2019 or I keep forgetting how short this month is.

My life is still too much and I am still not reading anything complicated or challenging. But the coming month will be Women’s Prize month and hopefully this will change my reading habits back to something normal.

Books I read in February:

1. Kiss of Snow (Psy-Changeling #10) by Nalini Singh: 4 out of 5 stars
2. Tangle of Need (Psy-Changeling #11) by Nalini Singh: 4 out of 5 stars
3. Almost Love by Louise O’Neill: 4 out of 5 stars (review)
4. Archangel’s Storm (Guild Hunter #6) by Nalini Singh: 2,5 out of 5 stars
5. Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff: 4,5 out of 5 stars (review)
6. Mother Winter by Sophia Shalmiyev: 2 out of 5 stars (review)
7. Written in Red (The Others #1) by Anne Bishop: 3,5 out of 5 stars
8. Murder of Crows (The Others #2) by Anne Bishop: 2 out of 5 stars
9. Vicious (Sinners of Saint #1) by L.J. Shen: 2 out of 5 stars

Favourite of the Month:

My favourite book of the month was Stacy Schiff’s incredible biography of Cleopatra. I listened to the audiobook and enjoyed every minute of it, while learning a whole lot of things I did not know and improving my knowledge of things I did know.

Review: Almost Love by Louise O’Neill

Verdict: Harrowing.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Genre: General Fiction

Published by Quercus Books/ riverrun, March 7th 2019

Find it on Goodreads.

When Sarah falls for Matthew, she falls hard.

So it doesn’t matter that he’s twenty years older. That he sees her only in secret. That, slowly but surely, she’s sacrificing everything else in her life to be with him.

Sarah’s friends are worried. Her father can’t understand how she could allow herself to be used like this. And she’s on the verge of losing her job.

But Sarah can’t help it. She is addicted to being desired by Matthew.

And love is supposed to hurt.

Isn’t it?

This book broke me, quite literally. I have rarely had such a visceral reaction to a book as I had this time and I am quite unsure how to talk about it. For this very reason, I feel the need to start this review with a disclaimer: I saw so much of myself in the main character and her experiences and behaviours that I cannot be objective about the literary merit of this book but I can say with absolutely certainty that the emotional core of this book was intense.

Told in two timelines, then and now, this book traces Sarah’s twenties. The past is told in first-person and tells of her increasingly destructive relationship to Matthew Brennan, a man many years her senior who treats her abysmally. The present is told in third person, Sarah is in a new relationship but still as ever self-hating and increasingly horrible to everybody around her. We closely follow Sarah, who is in no way an easy person to spend time with, and are always privy to her self-destructive thoughts and tendencies in a way that I found highly effective and extremely claustrophobic. Sarah is, for lack of a better term, a mess. For me the past narrative work better; the intimate first person narration made it a difficult but rewarding experience; present day did not quite hold my interest at all times but managed to show just how broken Sarah is in a way that made my heart hurt.

Louise O’Neill shines an unflinching light on why a person might stay in a toxic situation way longer than they would have ever thought beforehand. Matthew is a horribly disinterested in Sarah as a person except for brief interludes when he wants sex. The sex scenes are uncomfortable to no end, Matthew showing less than zero interest in making the experience pleasurable for Sarah who does not feel like she can tell him to stop. He belittles her and makes her feel bad for being the person she is. These scenes hit me incredibly hard: In my second and third year of uni, I dated this gorgeous, brilliant, funny Norwegian with the most beautiful accent when he spoke German with me – and who never let me forget that I am not the kind of person he wants to spend the rest of his life with (too feminist, too vegetarian, too not blond enough, too abrasive, too not feminine enough and so on) or maybe I never let him forget that he was not the person I wanted to grow old with (this might very well be true as well, relationships are rarely as one-sided as I would like to make this one seem). O’Neill captures the particular heartbreak that comes from a relationship like this incredibly well. While this made for a very difficult reading experience for me, it also impressed me to no end. I am so very glad to have read this.

I received an DRC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Quercus Books in exchange for an honest review.