Top Ten Tuesday: Thankful Freebie: Friends and Family

For That Artsy Reader Girl’s Top Ten Tuesday:

November 22: Thankful Freebie

If I had to choose what I’m most thankful for, it would definitely be the people I love. So this list celebrates friends, family, and friends that are like family.

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell – During lockdown, the TV show The Durrells in Corfu (or just The Durrells, depending on where you live) was wonderful comfort food for me, so I picked up one of the books by Gerald Durrell, the youngest child in the family. Like the show it was lovely and comforting. Interesting note: two others became writers as well. The oldest, Laurence Durrell is the author of a number of novels, and one of the middle children, Margo, is the author of a memoir.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman – First thing to note is that the family in this book is very dysfunctional! This actually gets pretty dark at some points, but I think the takeaway is ultimately about the transformative power of friendship (even if we think we don’t need it), and that’s a positive we’re left with after the tough stuff.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott – Yes, there is some darkness and sadness here too. But seeing people get through hard times with the help of loved ones helps me feel better about my own tough times. At different points in my life I’ve related to most to different March sisters, but I’ve “known” them all for so long that they all feel a bit like family to me!

A Little Life by Hana Yanagihara – I’m hesitant to include this here, because it is so dark and disturbing. If you have any issues around abuse, self-harming, sexual assault, drug use, or a host of other things, be warned! But the depiction of found family in this book is very beautiful. The book asks if that kind of tight knit bond can buffer someone against years of trauma. The answers are always comfortable, but I think at the end we’re still left with something beautiful.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan – This book incorporates family, but also strong, tight friendships that last for over forty years, from one generation to the next. It’s these friendships that help the main character of this novel better understand her mother (with whom she’s had issues in the past). I love that the lines between “friend” and “family” in this book are so indistinct.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – Yes, some of the Bennetts are easy to mock. But I do think that Mrs. B gets kind of a bad rap. As ridiculous as she seems, her family has a very real problem. Five girls and no son to inherit means that they’re all homeless when Mr. B dies, unless the girls get married before then. Even though Mr. B doesn’t seem to want to deal with this, the family still pulls together in a crisis. They still support one another and celebrate with each other. While Lizzie is closer to some family members over others, she cares for them all very deeply.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith – You have to love the Mortmains! They live at a strange point somewhere between rich and poor (they live in a castle with servants but don’t always have enough to eat.) and definitely crazy, but loving nonetheless. When their family comes into contact with another family, everything is thrown into flux.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune – This is another book I had reservations about including on this list, for the reasons described here. But in spite of those reservations, this book does have a beautiful depiction of a rather unusual found family.

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin – A fortune teller tells the four siblings the dates of their deaths. As they move forward with those dates in their minds, they must figure out how to balance their family bonds and obligations with their desire to avoid that predicted ending.

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett – This is the story of a blended family over the course of several decades. Six children (siblings and step-siblings) spend the summers together and form a family bond. When they grow up, one of the kids writes a book about their family, which forces them all into uncomfortable positions. I like that this book depicts stepfamilies in a way that’s not positive or negative per se. Like any other family it has its pluses and its minuses.

My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite – Korede’s sister, Ayoola, is… difficult to say the least! But I found Korede’s devotion to her kind of moving, albeit morally questionable. What are the limits we go to to protect family? What factors influence that decision. The is a satirical novel, that poses some interesting questions

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Top Ten Tuesday: TBR Progress Update

For That Artsy Reader Girl’s Top Ten Tuesday:

This was this week’s topic:

June 15: Books On My Summer 2021 TBR (or winter, if you live in the southern hemisphere)

But since I’m trying to read through old TBRs before making new ones (I doubt I’ll be able to stick to this resolution for long!) I decided to revisit some old TBRs and do a progress update. If you’re interested, I did one of these in the past, and I’m trying not to repeat books:

• Majesty: American Royals by Kristin McGree (on my Fall 2020 TBR) This was silly and soap opera-ish but enjoyable for those times when that’s exactly what you need. I made a mental note (that I’m just now remembering) to check out more of McGee’s work for that purpose.

• The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin (on my Winter 2017 TBR) this one was far from perfect: it was told in four parts and the first two were, by far, the most engrossing, so my interest waned as the story went on. But it was still definitely worth a read.

• How to Stop Time by Matt Haig (2018 TBR) This was a disappointment. It had a really compelling premise, that I really wanted to like, but it was turned into a just OK book. It wasn’t bad, but it was good enough for me to wish it were better.

• Tangerine by Christine Mangan (2018 TBR) I remember liking a lot about this one, but I don’t remember much about it! I think it had sort of an “old Hollywood” feel that I liked. It felt like a mashup of elements of Agatha Christie, Daphne DuMaurier, Patricia Highsmith and Alfred Hitchcock.

• The 7 and 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (2018 TBR, Apparently I read a lot from this list!) This was another one that I was really excited for based on the premise, but the execution fell flat for me. I think the Groundhog Day-eque premise needs to be really done well, in order for the book to work. If it’s not, it just feels repetitive. In this case I’d start to get interested in where it was going and then I was frustrated to be sent back to the beginning again! Again, I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

• Hearts and Bones by Margaret Lawrence (Backlist TBR) This lived on my shelf for many years. I wasn’t in the mood for it, really, for one reason or another. During lockdown, I finally read it, and didn’t much like it. Once again, not bad, but I liked it less than I liked some of the other books on this list that disappointed me! Here, the problem was that I didn’t like the characters or care about the plot. I really need one out of two!

• The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard (Backlist TBR) I liked this one, but I didn’t love it. So I’m sort of torn about continuing with the series. There are four more Cazalet books out there, and I’m on the fence about whether or not they’re worth reading. I did enjoy the first book, but a five book series just feels like quite an investment!

• An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear (TBR Procrastination) This was my fifth, and I think, final (for now, at least) book in the Maisie Dobbs series. Jacqueline Winspear is a talented author, and It’s not that I don’t like them, but I feel that each one covers mostly the same ground. If the tone were slightly different that might work. For example if these were cozy mysteries I might find the same thing charming, over and over. But these are really depressing. Like they take place in during the Great Depression, with characters traumatized by WWI. And of course they’re working with crimes all the time, so it gets pretty bleak. None of the characters have grown on developed enough to make me feel like it’s worthwhile.

• The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James (Upcoming Releases for the 2nd Half of 2019) This was an enjoyable dual timeline thriller. I do wish that Simone St. James would return to the historical, gothic, romantic mysteries where she started out. Her last two books have had more contemporary settings, at least in part, (though they’ve had dual timelines as well) and while they’re good, my personal tastes tend toward to historical. I’ll keep reading her books though, because they’re still fun.

• Milkman by Anna Burns (Winter 2018-2019 TBR) I read this after it won the Man Booker Prize. I was a bit nervous going into it, because I’d heard mixed things, but I ended up liking it more than I realized at the time. It’s not an easy read in terms of understanding what’s going on, so it required some mental effort to read. But looking back on it, I appreciate it in a way I didn’t quite “get” while I was reading it. So this one is a bit better in retrospect.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Lived Up To The Hype

For That Artsy Reader Girl’s Top Ten Tuesday

July 31: Popular Books that Lived Up to the Hype

When a book is really hyped I tend to get nervous. There have been many times when a book resonates with the public a lot and just falls flat for me (Think Twilight, The Notebook, The DaVinci Code…).  But that said, these lived up to the acclaim

1. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern– When this book came out it got a lot of praise, but I think that my expectations going into it were still low. I expected it to be overhyped. I was pleasantly surprised for the most part. Yes, there were some elements of the plot that didn’t completely work for me, but I found the writing lovely and the atmosphere wonderful.

 

2. Room by Emma Donoghue– Fortunately I read this pre-hype, not long after it was released. I think I read the whole thing in about a day because I couldn’t put it down! Not long after that, it started getting a lot of acclaim, which I felt like it deserved.

 

 

 

3. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Hadden– I forget what made me read this book. I was in college at the time and in my own little campus bubble, so I wasn’t all that aware of the hype around it. But that allowed me to come to it fresh and appreciate it for its own merits.

 

 

4. Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding– I was skeptical of this one for a while. It had been popular for a while before I read it. I think I initially held off based on my general aversion to popular things. But the thing that made decide to pick it up was when I heard it was an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

 

 

5. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss– Several people had recommended this to me before I finally picked it up. I had low expectations in spite of the hype because I tend to be fussy about fantasy as a genre and the fact that it was very long made be a bit wary. It was also compared to a few books that I didn’t really enjoy. But I was pleasantly surprised.

 

6. Go Tell A Watchman by Harper Lee– I’m probably one of the few people who did feel like this was worth the hype. Maybe it was a greedy move by the publisher but I found it an interesting companion piece to To Kill A Mockingbird. I think they way that Atticus was depicted makes sense. A lot of people’s racism comes out when they see a marginalized group leaving the niche that they once had, and becoming part of the mainstream discourse. And Scout’s awareness of her father’s racism also made sense because as an adult, she’s able to see him as a fallible human being rather than a hero.

7. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin– My biggest problem with this books was the way it was structured. It’s about four siblings who are told the date of their deaths by a fortune teller. The rest of the book is divided into four parts: one per each child. The problem was that the first two parts were by far the most interesting! But in spite of that, I liked the way the book suggested that the deaths of some of these characters were a self-fulfilling prophecy.

8. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak– By the time I got around to reading this one, it had been praised very highly. I was sort of expecting it to be the kind of emotionally manipulative thing that I often resent. But instead, it was poignant and heartbreaking.

 

 

9. Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon– I started reading this series in college. I’d seen it recommended in a lot of places, for fans of other books that I’ve enjoyed, but I was always a bit skeptical. One of my friends in college said that I’d like it, so I finally decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did!

 

 

10. Harry Potter series by JK Rowling– I think the first Harry Potter book came out when I was a pre-teen, but I didn’t read it then. I actually held off on the series until college, based on the logic that something that popular had to be total crap. But I finally decided to give it a shot and was surprised to learn that popular books can (sometimes!) be good.

I’ve Been…

• Loving every second of my summer vacation
• A published author for about a week now. It still only feels semi-real. Most of the feedback that I’ve gotten so far has been good. I know that negative feedback will come sooner or later (it does to everyone) but at least I can balance it out with some of the positive.
• Checking Beautiful on Amazon at least twice a day for any change in review status, ratings, sales, etc.
• Working on the paperback release of Beautiful. It should be ready by early next week. Maybe holding an actual, physical copy of my book will make it seem more real? 
• Included in New York’s Emerging Writers: An Anthology of Fiction.  The story they’re using is the same flash fiction. that was posted in Toasted Cheese Literary Journal last year.
• In what might be the opposite of a reading slump. What do you call it when you’ve read several really good books in a row? In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been really impressed by The Immortalists, The Changeling, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter and Margaret the First. I’m currently reading and enjoying The Stolen Child.
• Pleased to hear that Jane Austen’s final, unfinished novel, Sandition, will be adapted for television. As much as I love Austen’s finished novels, I don’t think that we need another TV adaptation of the same old thing. I look forward to something a bit different.
• Continuously shocked and horrified by the actions of my government. Writers for Families Belong Together has a number of auctions and lotteries for prizes from book sets, ARC’s of highly anticipated books, manuscript critiques from agents, editors, and authors, and much more. All proceeds go to reunifying families. Check it out, before it ends on July 15, and participate if you can!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’m Looking Forward to in 2018

For the Broke and the Bookish’s Top Ten Tuesday:

December 26: Top Ten Books I’m Looking Forward to In 2018 (These could be new releases, or books you resolve to read, ten debuts we are looking forward to, etc.)

1. Florida by Lauren Groff– I’ve been reading as much Groff as possible. Her writing is intelligent, poetic, and has flashes of humor or cruelty or love. I still haven’t read her other volume of short stories, but this is going on the TBR anyway!

 

 

2. Sharp: The Women Who Made An Art of Having an Opinion by Michelle Dean- We all have opinions, regardless of our gender. The women featured in this book (including Dorothy Parker, Nora Ephron, and Joan Didion) are notable, not for having an opinion, but for sharing it publicly in an effective way.

 

 

3. The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror by Mallory Ortberg-  I liked Ortberg’s other book, Texts From Jane Eyre a lot. This seems very different, but still right up my alley. It’s a collection of stories based on classic fairy tales and folklore, with a feminist spin.

 

 

4. Unbury Carol by Josh Malerman- In keeping with my obsession with fairy tales reimagined in interesting ways, we have a twisted take on Sleeping Beauty, about a woman who can revive herself after death.

 

 

 

5. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig– This also seems just right for me. It’s about a man who ages really slowly and thus, has been alive for centuries. It seems like it’s in the line of Forever by Pete Hamill, Replay by Ken Grimwood,  or Time and Again by Jack Finney, all of which I enjoyed.

 

 

6. The Lost Girls of Camp Foverevermore by Kim Fu- A kayaking trip leaves a group of camp kids stranded on an island without adults. Sounds a bit Lord of the Flies. But I recall that when we read Lord of the Flies in high school we read an interview with Golding where he said that he could have never written it about girls, because girls wouldn’t revert to savagery like boys. I’m interested to see if that’s what happens in this novel. Interestingly it also traces the lives of each of these girls after that experience to show how it shapes the people they become.

7. Tangerine by Christine Mangan– This novel, set in Tangier, is the story of a friendship between to women that becomes obsessive. Early blurbs have compared it to everything from The Talented Mr. Ripley, to Donna Tartt and Gillian Flynn. There are also some Hitchcock references in reviews. Sign me up please!

 

 

8. Sick: A Memoir by Porochista Khakour- This is a memoir of the author’s experience with chronic illness. It looks at the US’s problematic healthcare system and how untreated or improperly treated illness can have an effect on society as well as the individual. As someone with a chronic illness, I have my own experience of this, and I’m curious about how it compares to the author’s.

9. The 7 and 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton- A man must live the day of socialite Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder over and over again until he can solve the murder. But each day he relieves it from the body of a different guest at the event where she died. It sounds like Agatha Christie meets Groundhog Day meets Quantum Leap, which, to me anyway, is a good thing!

10. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin- Four children are told the day of their death by a psychic. Do they believe her? Do they share the information? How does this information impact their future decisions?  The book follows each of the children as they grow up and come to terms with their knowledge.

 

Top Ten Tuesday: My Winter TBR

For The Broke and the Bookish’s Top Ten Tuesday:

This week’s topic is pretty self explanatory!

1. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton– This has been on my TBR for a while. It’s about a young man who goes to New Zealand in 1866 to word in the goldfields, but he and his coworkers get caught up in a series of mysterious events. It definitely seems like the kind if thing to tackle over many a cold evening, curled up in my pajamas with a cup of tea!

 

2. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin– I like the premise of this one: if you knew the date of your death, how would that inform the choices that you make in life? This book is four siblings who learn when they’ll die. It follows them as they try to live the rest of their lives with that information.

 

 

3. The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman– This is a prequel to Practical Magic. Enough said! Actually I think of Practical Magic as a “fall” book but I can imagine reading this on a snowy day and getting a warm magical glow.

 

 

 

4. The Revolution of Marina M by Janet Fitch-  This is another one I’ve really been looking forward too.  I loved Janet Fitch’s White Oleander, and I’m very curious to see how she does with historical fiction. Plus, the Russian setting seems very wintery to me.

 

 

5. The Cage-maker by Nicole Seitz–  This novel is about a 21st century blogger who inherits an exquisitely detailed birdcage from an unknown relative. In a hidden compartment in the birdcage she finds letters, journal entries, and newspaper articles that tell the story of her family. It’s a bit love story, a bit gothic thriller, a bit historical fiction, and it definitely seems like the perfect read for a cold night.

 

6. A Column of Fire by Ken Follett– This is the third Kingsbridge book, and a follow up to Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. It’s set in  and around the same Cathedral in the sixteenth century. At 927 pages, this seems like a good book to take into hibernation.

 

 

 

7. The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone  by Olivia Laing- I think more attention is being paid to being alone lately, which is good. In some ways it’s a new thing. I don’t mean feeling alone. That’s existed for about as long as people have! But more people are opting not to marry and have families, or putting that off for the future. That leads to more young people physically being alone. This book looks at loneliness through the lives of iconic artists. It also addresses how technology factors into all this. Does it allow us to connect to the outside world, or trap us behind our screens, and keep us from interacting? To me winter has the potential to be a lonely season. You’re indoors keeping warm, rather than in public space. So this seems like a great read to keep me company.

8. Idaho by Emily Ruskovich– A friend of mine recommended this very highly. It’s told from multiple perspectives and is about a woman whose husband is losing his memory. As his mind fades, she becomes increasingly interested in finding out what happened to his first wife. In some ways I see winter as a season where things fade or are buried by snow. For that reasons it’s also a time when people don’t see things or only see parts of them. So it seems like this would be an appropriate book for a season where things are so uncertain.

9. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden– This is a retelling of Vasilisa the Wise, a Russian fairy tale. It’s set in Russia in the 1300s, which I definitely picture as a sort of deep winter world, where people huddle together to stay warm. I imagine them telling stories to pass the time by the fire as they do that (I’m sure the real fourteenth century Russia was a lot less pleasant than I’m imagining it!). This would be one of the stories that they tell.  It’s the first in a trilogy called the “Wintersnight trilogy” so I think I’m on the right track here.

10. Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey– This series has been recommended to me over and over again. The initial trilogy (later books continue the story in another generation) is made up of three big books set in a vivid, complicated world. Perfect for a season when you’re trapped inside by a snow storm and want to escape somewhere else.