Where has half the year gone? Already? This looks like it’s time for a reading update and also a Happy Canada Day to you too!
Last year at this time I was reading banger after banger after banger. This year hasn’t quite felt the same at all. There have been some really great books, albeit widely and sparsely spread out so far in my reading, but my overall feeling is that I have been plagued by (too many) mediocre reading experiences. The majority of the 31 books I’ve read so far have not rated higher than 3 stars. That is unusual for me.
But let’s just focus on the ones I have enjoyed so far, because it really hasn’t been all despair and disappointment, and there has been some very nice bright spots in my reading so far. I’m going to go in chronological order of what I read first to last here:
The first would be The God in the Woods by Liz Moore. I love Liz Moore and while this one may not have been her best for me, I did enjoy it quite a bit. Moore writes character studies, much like Ann Patchett, so I don’t go into her books expecting a propulsive plot. This is where I feel Moore’s publishers did her wrong and I feel a lot of rage about that. They labelled this book a “suspenseful thriller / mystery” and in my opinion it was none of that, so I feel too many readers were set up for disappointment, and if this was their first Liz Moore reading experience, I’m upset that they won’t look to pick up others by her. There are a lot of characters inside The God of the Woods, and a lot of good meaty ones too. That Barbara goes missing isn’t necessarily the main crux of this story, it only serves to situate the complicity and complacency of everyone in the sphere of the Van Laar men. A half-baked search for Barbara exposes the Van Laar men and how far they will go to ensure their power, prestige and reputation remains intact. Nothing will prevent this, and if there is collateral damage concerning their wives and children, so be it. Indeed, all those beneath them, including those that have been in their family circle for generations, are considered expendable. I will always look forward to a new Liz Moore book and I truly hope we’re aren’t waiting forever for that to happen.
Following The God in the Woods, my reading enjoyment seemed to have fallen off a cliff. I think there were about 6 or 7 books in between where I would consider my next read to be a great one. The mediocre book after book meant finally reaching for an author I knew would not disappoint. And that is Lesley Crewe. I have yet to read a disappointing Lesley Crewe.
Recipe for a Good Life definitely didn’t disappoint and it brought a much needed lift to my reading. As always, the characters in a Crewe story leave you sad to leave them behind. The story of Kitty and especially the ending Crewe gave her made it hard to close the pages and move on to another book. My advice is if you’re ever stuck wanting a book that will provide an excellent reading experience, reach for Lesley Crewe. Recipe for a Good Life was the start of a CanLit juggernaut of excellent reading for me. I’m thrilled that many of the books that were giving me the best reading experiences this year have been Canadian. (Elbows Up!)
I’m going to group all of the Canadian books together here because if I describe them separately, you’ll be reading this post into next week!
Pale Shadows by Dominique Fortier, Finding Flora by Elinor Florence, Island by Alistair MacLeod and The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson were all high 4-and-5-star reads for me. I loved each of these books! I highly recommend them all, Dominique Fortier wrote a gorgeously penned love story to Emily Dickinson. It’s also a beautiful story of grief. Elinor Florence wrote another excellent book seamlessly blending Canadian history (making it exciting) and the perseverance, determination and tenacity of women homesteaders. I was quite bereft to leave these remarkable women behind once I finished reading Finding Flora. When all felt lost with my reading I went deep into my shelves and reached for Canadian books that were published many years ago. Island by Alistair MacLeod just showed what a master of the short story he is. I loved so, so, so many of these stories. There isn’t a bad one in the bunch at all! Finally, oh Mary Lawson. I have so many of her books on my shelves because of how wonderful Crow Lake was. I finally grabbed this one from the shelf and I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish. There were parts of this book where my heart was ripped right from my chest, there were parts where the experiences and details of grief so powerful I was left breathless. This is an amazing story told in two timelines that connect into a devastating climax. Come to think of it – I have already written about all of these books so I’ll end it here.
Thanks to Hoarder Elizabeth, I downloaded TikTok after doing my very best to ignore it. Anyway, cutting to the chase and not giving you any details of how many hours I spend on TikTok, I will say there are plenty of “BookTok” people on there, and one of them, and I’m very sorry but I can’t remember which guy it was, mentioned how much fun Starter Villain by John Scalzi was. He also said it contained a great message. He said it was just all kinds of fun with talking cats and unionizing dolphins and he highly recommended it. So, with no real thought I quickly downloaded to my Audible library and started it immediately. Well, if this wasn’t the best boost to my reading this year! Starter Villain is nothing like anything I would normally pick up, and I could not stop telling everyone about this book and it’s excellent message and how highly I recommended it. There were so many moments where I busted out loud laughing. It was Wil Wheaton’s narration that provided the best experience – his reading with sarcasm, incredulity, and of the more thoughtful moments made this book an absolute winner, 5-star read for me!
The second audiobook to feature a cat on its cover was If It Bleeds. This story collection contained the next story in the Holly Gibney series that both Elizabeth and I love, so it was a must read. That story is the title story and it does set itself up nicely to lead into Holly, the next book in the series. But it was the first story, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone that I absolutely adored. Narrated by Will Patton it was simply fantastic. An excellent short story! I’m STILL thinking about it. There is another story in this collection that is now the movie, The Life of Chuck. I thought it odd that would be the short story selected for a full-length movie when you have Mr. Harrigan’s Phone sitting right there! Finally, my reading seemed to be taking off!
I’m starting to wonder if I should make this two parts? I have a few others to get to here. So see? My reading year so far hasn’t been all that bad. Focusing on the positives, there have been a good number of books read, it’s just truly not at the level it was last year.
Okay, we’re now getting to Lonesome Dove. Elizabeth has already written about her journey with it, now here’s mine. We started this one together because we were being absolutely bombarded with reviews on how this was the very best book, people’s very favourite book, the most awesome book ever. So we decided to embark on the journey of Lonesome Dove together (we have a few other buddy reads we’re planning on doing, that will definitely be written about in another post!). I made it to about 35% of the way through and decided to DNF – I hated it. If I had to read one more page devoted to biscuits, whores (sporting women) and beans, I was going to lose my mind. All these men could focus on was whores and biscuits and horses. I’m of the mind that life is too short to read books you’re not enjoying. So I put it away. I actually deleted it from my Kobo (I also own the paperback pictured above). Then as you may have read, Elizabeth’s co-worker told her to keep reading. Indeed, my trusted bookish friend also reviewed it saying, more than once, to “stay with it”. I didn’t want to – then Elizabeth gave it 5-stars and proclaimed it like sooooo many others have – it’s one of the best books she’s read. Sigh. Fine. I’ll restore it to my Kobo. Reluctantly I returned to Lonesome Dove and these men. Well if I didn’t experience whiplash from the point of where I stopped reading it to now being something I couldn’t put down. Here now was (finally) a story where these men had emotional depth and held soul and heart-searching conversations. Tragedy and adventure filled the pages. I shed tears. I did take a star away from my rating however because I didn’t think it should take so long for a reader to become engaged in the story, but I will say honestly – I need to start at the beginning and re-read this book. Those characters haven’t left my mind yet. I feel I need to go back and set aside my initial anger and animosity towards it and just turn myself over to it.
Okay, there’s only two more I’m going to talk about: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans and Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau.
I left Twitter and moved over to BlueSky. There is a hashtag there called #BookSky and I used that hashtag to ask for recommendations for books that would make me cry. I was just in the mood for that kind of book. I said preferably would want one that makes me go hide in the basement so my family doesn’t see me and weep uncontrollably. I received a few good recommendations but at the same time as putting out this call, the library notified me that (finally!) The Correspondent was ready for me to pick up. When I first heard this book was an epistolary novel I immediately added it to my TBR and very impatiently waited for my library to bring it in. (I would have bought it because I was sure I would love it, but it was a hardcover, slim in its page count, and full price at $40. I don’t want to pay that for one book. I’m sorry, but I just can’t.) Anyway, of course this book was absolutely wonderful ( and it’s a debut!), told all through letters, and it made me cry. A winner!
Finally, I listened to Mary Jane. There are just some books that sing in audio, are actually better in audio, and Mary Jane wholeheartedly fits that bill. Hoarder Elizabeth read this book years prior and said it felt a little too sweet and YA for her. I can absolutely see that had I read the paper version as well. But the narration by Caitlin Kinnunen perfectly, perfectly suited 14-year-old Mary Jane. Yes, the twee and repetitious voice of Izzy would certainly grate on my nerves if reading it in paper, but Kinnunen’s voice, and especially during the times when Mary Jane would reflect and contemplate on the differences between the Cones family and her own, and how much she was coming to love her time with the Cones and Jimmy and Sheba over her restrictive and oppressive home life, made this an excellent coming of age story. I only ever wanted to be listening to it because of that. You’re also treated to a recorded song about Mary Jane at the end. I just really enjoyed this one and for me a great deal of that enjoyment came because I listened to it as an audiobook.
I’m currently reading The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. This is an absolute monster of a book sitting at 724 pages. I still have 300 pages to go! While I am in awe of Verghese’s writing and incredible imagination at creating these vast and varied characters and connecting them all, I am weary of the extraordinary amounts of tragedy filling the pages and its excessive page length is also wearing thin on me. It’s an excellent book mind you, an excellent story, I’m just not sure of how much more I can handle should one more tragic occurrence cross the pages. I can’t imagine there won’t be countless more however, I do have 300 pages to go after all!
Another book far outside my usual genre to read is also due to the influence of TikTok. I’ve seen more than one review where people have said a book about a murderbot gave them such wonderful feelings? I recently watched the movie The Wild Robot which made me cry massive tears, but still highly, highly encourage you to watch this – yes, it’s a cartoon movie, but oh my goodness what a wonderful movie it is – and I’m thinking just maybe, perhaps, this quick little audiobook (3-hours long) All Systems Red by Martha Wells, will give me the same feelings? So far it has been quite enjoyable. So I’m guessing what I’m saying is if you need to reboot your reading, reach for something far outside your normal choices? You may just be pleasantly surprised! I have been this year!
How has your reading year been going now that we’ve reached the halfway mark?
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