I have no excuses about my very long hiatus but please know that my reading has not suffered as my blogging has. Because I don't want this to turn into yet another unpublished draft, I'm going to do a few mini reviews of some of the books I've read while I've been gone that I absolutely loved just so I can publish something!
Gah, I haven't updated since June??? Oh dear. Well, it's nobody's problem but mine! Here are the faves I've read since I quit updating you!
1. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter (2017) by Erika L. Sánchez: This is the book I'd been waiting to read my entire life. This is the story of Julia, a first generation daughter of two Mexican immigrants. She's an angry, annoying teenager who thinks nobody understands her and whose parents confound her. How could I not relate? This book made me cringe with its spot-on adolescent voices and experiences, but there was so incredibly moving about truly seeing myself in the main character of a successful mainstream novel.
2. Stay with Me (2017) by Ayobami Adebayo: What a beautiful book! So heart-wrenching and wonderfully written. This book had both excellent style and technique along with a moving story and complex characters. A must read. This book was easily in my top 3 books of 2017. It's set in Nigeria and spans several decades. There is family strife and heartache and drama.
3. The Power (2017) by Naomi Alderman: Everyone was talking about this book last year. President Obama even listed it as one of his favorite books of 2017. I was sooo excited to read it and I really do think it was a fantastic story. The book suffers greatly in the third act but that doesn't negate the great beginning or originality. It's a whirlwind, international journey with diverse voices.
4. American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West (2017) by Nate Blakeslee: A non-fiction read??? I know, I know. It's shocking. However, I've been on a total nature book kick so look out for future reviews of those books. This book is another entry in my Top 5 Books of 2017! It has the pacing and intrigue and excitement of a wild frontier fiction novel, but it was written using extensive research and eyewitness accounts of Wolf Watchers, a group of people who live at least part time in Yellowstone and who devote their lives to watching the now-thriving wolf packs of Yellowstone National Park. It also tells the fascinating history of the park itself and of the wolves within it. The wolf population of the Wyoming/Montana/Idaho area was eradicated by the early 20th century, but they were reintroduced in the 90s. Since then, their ever-growing population has proven to be a better custodian of the national park far better than humans have ever been.
5. Goodbye, Vitamin (2017) by Rachel Khong: A short, poignant read full of sentences that start off with clever witticisms that have you rolling on the floor but end with heartbreaking twists that leave you with tearful eyes. It's emotional whiplash packaged in pithy prose! Khong is truly #writinggoals. Her protagonist is an aimless 31-year old who moves back home to be present as her father's mental health deteriorates. Being back at home at that age proves to be as frustrating as it sounds but the main character is able to enjoy the company of her father before he is ravaged by Alzheimer's.
6. Rebecca (1938) by Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca is one of those books that you always see on those Books To Read Before You Die lists and the type that might be assigned reading in an undergrad lit course. I, however, went through life never having read until a few months ago. My best friend had it on her bookshelf, often citing it as one of her most favorite books, but I still did not read it. Finally, for some reason I decided to pick it up. It reminded me immediately of Jane Eyre, unsurprising to many, I'm sure. A lonely orphaned humble girl falls for the mystique of an older, brooding gentleman who owns a vast and desolate estate in the English countryside but the ghost of his past haunts their relationship, threatening to ruin them both. I ripped right through it, finding it thrilling and complicated and heartbreaking and contradictory. It's easy to point fingers and say just who exactly the villain of the story is and the hero/heroine, but I think it's not that simple.
7. His Majesty's Dragon (2006) by Naomi Novik: I can't have a update post without mentioning The Temeraire Series I've been reading for the last year. It's incredible and I'm shocked that I'd never heard of it before this past year. Again, I have a draft of a standalone review of the first books but now that I've read the whole set, I'll have to update it. This book, the first of the series, is INCREDIBLE. It's thrilling and exciting and hilarious and touching and so fucking original. I could not shut the fuck up about this book for months after I finished reading it. I was recommending it to anyone with a pulse. Here's the gist: it's a series of book set during the Napoleonic Wars, and Britain, in addition to having a land army and a navy also have a third branch of the armed forces: an aerial corps. What makes up the aerial corps, you ask? Early versions of planes? NO. It's DRAGONS. Ugh, it's such a good book. The first book is like Alexandre Dumas + Jane Austen + Tolkien all rolled into one. Please read at least this one book. The main characters are Temeraire, a Chinese dragon hatched on the high seas who has a major predilection for reading and shiny things, and his handler, Captain Will Lawrence, an English gentleman who grew up in the Navy is at first devastated to have to leave it. The friendship that ensues between them is amazing and basically the only thing that kept me reading into what turned into an insane globe-trotting fantasy series. They go up against the world and on many wacky adventures. I really do recommend reading at least the first book.
Ok, guys, thanks so much for hanging around! I am going to try to be so much better about posting this year. Read or riot!
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