It’s the end of March, I am oh so sick with COVID, my period started today, and I’m 75% done with my Storygraph reading goal. I set my goal way low this year (only 36 books in total, with the intention of reading three a month) to force myself to take my time, but I’m realizing that no matter how much I try to slow myself down, I’m always going to be the person who’s blazing through books, copious notes or no. A real daughter of the library and whatnot.
And, unlike last month, I actually managed to get to every book I planned on reading this month, whoa! Maybe there really is something to be said for making a plan and sticking to it!
Oh! One last thing before I start in with the reviews. I wanted to try something new going forward. I keep a pretty tight reading journal, and I thought it might be fun and engaging to share some of my moment-by-moment insights from the journal, along with scans for my Patrons. Lovers of my notes from Tender is the Flesh and Rebecca rejoice! More ramblings and stickers from me, yay!
If you’re reading this free on Substack, you’ll get the wrap + reviews of what I read and watched (and listened to!), but if you’re a paid member of my Patreon, you’ll get the scans. Whoa!
PLAY IT AS IT LAYS by Joan Didion; This is the first Joan Didion book I’ve ever read. To quote my reading journal, going in, I’ve always been curious about the work of Didion. I read two others of her books after Play it as it Lays, and I think, this one is my favorite of the three. It’s impactful, it’s thoughtful, it’s reflective and chewy.
FINAL THOUGHTS: I said on Storygraph that it was beautiful-written and gorgeous, which is true! Also, everything Maria has ever done has always been right and I won’t hear anything to the contrary.
THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING by Joan Didion, which came at a strangely perfect time. A day before I started this book my uncle Leon died. I wasn’t particularly close to him, and my dad and his siblings had a strained relationship with him, but reading Didion’s words, seeing how she processed grief and how she mourned, made me so watchful of my dad. It also reminded me of when my great-grandmother passed, the infinite sadness I felt, how even now, eight years after her death, the smallest thing can break me into tears at the memory of her. Very, very beautiful book.
FINAL THOUGHTS: Patient and contemplative. Reading this as I experience grand amounts of grief for the world at large and for my father, grief I’m borrowing from the future, made me think of how much America (or, western white society in general) rejects death and grief and mourning. We do not feel enough. We do not keen when we need it most.
LAMB TO SLAUGHTER by Roald Dahl. Read this on a whim! Just a little short story to break up the monotony of back-to-back novels. I really enjoyed it!
BLOOD ON THE TRACKS, Vol. 1-5 by Shuzo Oshimi. Also read on a whim as a bedtime treat! I didn’t know much about this manga before I started reading it, but now that I’m in it I’m horrified and intrigued and so many other words. I think I’ll keep on, but I’ll want to get a physical copy and come back to it with my glasses on/able to take notes, you know.
THE PIANO TEACHER by Elfriede Jelinek, and I’ve been so obnoxious about this book on my Tumblr and on Letterboxd, and honestly, I don’t even care, it was truly such a wild reading and viewing experience. My review for the book and film are mostly the same, with some differences here and there. There is nothing more for me to say than my review from Storygraph can’t say better! (I also have like, more to say though, like I think I might revisit my Filthiness is Next to Godliness essay, wait.)
FINAL THOUGHTS: I have many thoughts! This is almost the same as the review as I had for the film, but like…follow me. The film had a sexuality to it that I said bordered on the homoerotic, but the book is decidedly very slick and slimy way, not in an exciting way, but in a “oh my god this rollercoaster is about to go off the rails” sort of way.
Repression is so crazy, and Erika never stood the slightest chance, like her mother put her into this very specific mold and she could never leave it. She saw sex and relationships only at a distance, through peepshows and voyeurism and violence, and thought it was the only way to be, and the first time she tries to express some of that desire, it gets turned against her: the knife she wielded swapped hands, given to her attacker. Oh I’m gonna vomit.
ALSO. The way Erika couldn't have what she wanted on her terms, like everyone takes from her, and ignores what she's willing to give, like she showed him what she wanted, she showed him the ropes and the gag and what she desired, and he was disgusted until he could steal it/take it through force. UGH! THE LAYERS!
LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY by Bonnie Garmus, which I came at with such high expectations! I saw clips of the show and thought it might be interesting, but the book is flat and boring and a little cowardly. You can tell, at times, that it wants to be more than what it is, but it flinches away from it, a little too scared of being the real feminist masterpiece it could be. In the end, I was left feeling Nothing at All, which is the worst thing a book can make me feel.
FINAL THOUGHTS: This book is very...well it's not nothing, it's like eating something vaguely nutritious but it's drenched in a little too much oil so you feel it coming out your pores. I understand why it got it's cutesy cover. I think it could've gone ten times harder and been ten times more poignant, but as it stands, it's nice but a little empty. And the end was rushed! God, I can't stand a rushed end, like please take your time and say something rather than writing something flimsy and nothing for the sake of it. AUGH!
MANHUNT by Gretchen Felker-Martin, which blew my entire fucking mind. Like, my own thoughts about Felker-Martin’s loosey-goosey opinions about the romanticization and fetishization of incest/rape in fiction aside (and my own rejection of the idea that the romanticization of these abuses are inherently queer, like. The nerve to go ‘well some holocaust victims got off to the abuse and tortures they faced, aren’t they valid?’ like! PLEASE, but I digress!), this woman can fucking write. Delicious. Deadly. Poignant and fierce and disgusting and precise, it’s literally one of the best horror novels I’ve read in a good while. Cheers, and a huge win for Team You Have to be a Little Horny About Stabbing to make a Good Horror. (of which I am a card-carrying member, yes!)
FINAL THOUGHTS: Stunning, arresting, breathless, a chainsaw and a machine gun, and one minute your face is screwed up in horror and the next you're laughing and then you're crying. My God. Easily one of the best horrors I've ever read ever.
HOMEGOING by Yaa Gyasi, which disappointed me, because it petered out or I petered out, or anyways, I lost interested about a hundred pages from the end, and pushed through simply because I didn’t want to say I couldn’t finish it. I’m honestly surprised I didn’t like this book more because I really enjoyed Transcendent Kingdom. I wonder if I shouldn’t give it another shot and see if I wasn’t being too soft on that book. Um!
FINAL THOUGHTS: It's so disheartening when a book is just meh, especially after I've just had my head blown away by a really good book. Like oh. A disappointing churn-out from the Iowa writers workshop. Thanks.
THE PRIORY OF THE ORANGE TREE by Samantha Shannon, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for a year as I tried to figure out when I was going to read 800+ pages. Turns out, a road trip to and from a funeral + being bed-bound with COVID is the best time to get a lot of reading done. I tore through this book (no notes though, I didn’t bring my journal up north with me :/), and loved every single minute. The connection of the characters, the interrogation of religion and culture, the dragons, the magic! Ugh! I love a high fantasy and will always love a high fantasy. Perfection! Five out of five!