Four stars, read in January 2017. There is sort of a dreamlike quality to this whole book, even the scenes you know are taking place in real life. It’s a little vague at times, but coalesces in the end into something like relief. Maybe contentment. Kawakami has a beautiful way with words, describing feelings I’ve…
Category: Fiction
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
Four stars, read in January 2017. [There are going to be spoilers in here, because I think the statute of limitations runs out at 150 years.] I consider the fourth star as belonging to the audio production, which is absolutely outstanding. Anna Bentinck is the narrator, and I was continually impressed by how well she…
Juliet Takes a Breath, by Gabby Rivera
Four stars, maybe five. Read in December 2016. I’d been excited about this book for a while, and there was a surprise right up front because for some reason—because of the glorious cover design—I had thought it was a graphic novel. It is not. It has a very self-published look underneath that fabulous cover, which was…
Fear of Flying, by Erica Jong
Four stars, read in December 2016. This was fascinating, though slightly different than I expected. I’d had the impression that the protagonist leaves her marriage and goes through a process of sexual liberation meeting many men—but it’s actually just one man, and that sort of changes the dynamic. It’s also surprisingly heavy on the Freudian psychology…
The Girls, by Emma Cline
Four stars, read in December 2016. This book has a good plot, but the amazing thing was how much it really is about girls. Emma Cline remembers so well, so specifically, the embarrassing agony of being a teenage girl. Oh, the scene where Evie pushes over Henry’s motorcycle; I felt that scene. I’ve been in…
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, by Helen Oyeyemi
Four stars, read in November 2016. This ended up being my choice for fiction for the Goodreads Choice Awards. I am still a little torn because I loved this book, and I didn’t understand it—not all of it, anyway, and it’s hard for me to not be able to understand completely. It took me until…
Shelter, by Jung Yun
Five stars, read in November 2016. This book was my choice for fiction in the first two rounds of the Goodreads Choice Awards, but it was eliminated from the final round. I read for two hours past my bedtime because that’s how long it took to find a place I could bear to put this…
If Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin
Five stars, read in October 2016. This was incredible. I’d read excerpts and quotes that were enough for me to tell James Baldwin was a writer I needed to know, but this is the first of his books I’ve read. I was taken aback almost every few pages by yet another piece of gorgeous text,…
Kokoro, by Natsume Soseki
Four stars, read in August 2016. I found this just lovely in a very quiet, no-frills way (which is the usual, I suppose, for the Japanese writers I’ve been reading). It’s the story of a young man’s relationship with his mentor, and I particularly appreciated the exploration of Sensei’s inability to trust people, including himself. Somehow…
Kojiki, by Keith Yatsuhashi
Three and a half stars, read in August 2016. The cover on the left is the one I read, but I think if you look for it now, the cover on the right is the one you’ll find. I actually really like them both. This was very enjoyable with mostly-small problems here and there. I…
Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories, by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Four stars, read in July 2016. This was gorgeous. Each story is full of imagery, fascinating characters, and an examination of the time period (early 1900s). I can’t believe how closely I relate with the autobiographical stories. “Spinning Gears,” especially the ending, was amazing—sort of hauntingly visual—it almost felt like a movie. I’m not sure…
Black Rabbit Hall, by Eve Chase
Four stars, read in August 2016. Spoiler warning, as this was a review I couldn’t write without them. The first and last paragraphs are safe; everything else mentions specific details. Maybe it’s the fact that this is a debut novel. I’ve read so many brilliant ones, and I really did love this, too. But maybe…
The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Five stars, read in July 2016. This is a book about a Communist spy during the Vietnam War. That premise was intriguing enough for me to pick it up, but while it continued to be an engaging plot throughout the book, for me the plot became secondary to the smart, insightful narrative voice. We never learn the narrator’s…
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
Three stars, mostly because that’s an easy compromise when in fact I don’t know what rating to give. Read from March to August of 2013. I think the only other book I’ve ever spent so long reading (without abandoning it) was The Red Badge of Courage, required reading my freshman year in high school. This took me nearly five months…
Dumplin’, by Julie Murphy
Four stars, read in June 2016. I’ve been considering whether to change this to a five-star rating . . . Can’t quite decide. I already know I want to read it again, and I’m thrilled to see that Goodreads has given it a series page, meaning at least one sequel will be happening. These are…
Out / Real World, by Natsuo Kirino
Out: Five stars, read in June 2016. Real World: Three stars, read in June 2016. I read Out first, and it was really fantastic. It’s cataloged as a mystery, which I suppose it is, but it isn’t the usual format: In this case you’re following along with the people who committed the crimes, and they’re certainly not…
Speed Reviews (Catching Up)
I haven’t been exactly sure what’s going on here lately. I’ve been through some reading slumps and revivals and slumps again, and I think the same is true of my blogging. But in the past couple months, a lot of really great books have come through for me. The Vegetarian, by Han Kang Five…
Top Books of 2016 So Far
It’s June, so it feels like we’re halfway through the year, but also it’s only the beginning of June, so really only five months have passed. If this post is any indication, I am going to have a hard time narrowing down my “best of” lists when January 2017 rolls around. Despite my falling into…
The Fever, by Wallace Shawn
Five stars, read in April 2016. After reading his interview with the Paris Review, I knew I wanted to start tracking down Wallace Shawn’s work. I was so surprised by the connection I felt with his ideas in that interview, and it was the same with The Fever. It was written as a kind of one-act play,…
The Casual Vacancy, by J.K. Rowling
Four stars, read in November 2013. I don’t know if it’s true, but I imagine the reaction to this book is what caused Rowling to adopt a pseudonym for The Cuckoo’s Calling. I’m irritated both that she had to do it, and that it was too late for The Casual Vacancy. This book deserved, and did not…
Honor, by Elif Shafak
Four stars, read in September 2015. I definitely liked this better than The Bastard of Istanbul by the same author, although I’ve been wanting to reread that one and see if I still feel the same way about it. This is a book about an “honor killing” (a phrase I use with scare quotes not because…
Silas Marner, by George Eliot
Three stars, read in December 2015. I remember starting this book in seventh grade, though I didn’t get far. (It was around the same time I attempted the unabridged Les Miserables, so maybe I was just overwhelmed by my own ambition.) It took me almost twenty years to pick it up again, but I’m so glad to…
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
Two stars, read in March 2015. I almost don’t want to try and sort out exactly how I feel about this book, because I don’t want to give it that degree of attention now that I’ve finished. If the book is hard for me to process, the reviews of it are maybe even worse. Yes,…
The Interruption of Everything, by Terry McMillan
Two stars, read in January/February 2016. So . . . I enjoyed this, until the end. I liked Marilyn, but I feel annoyed with how it turned out, and I am going to tell you about it with spoilers. The ending was a pretty big let-down. Marilyn’s children are in college, and with this new…
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce
Four stars, read in January 2016. The thing Rachel Joyce did so well here is capture the particular agony of wanting to talk to someone, to fix something, to explain, to say you’re sorry—and just not being able to say words. When you can feel what’s wrong, and maybe you even feel like you can…
The Lake, by Banana Yoshimoto
Four stars, read in January 2016. Chihiro is a young artist dealing with the recent death of her mother and the change in her relationship with her father, now that she no longer lives in the small town where she was raised. She meets Nakajima, who I can’t help thinking of as the Yoshimoto version of…
The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell
Four stars, read in January 2016. There is significant potential for David Mitchell to be one of my favorite authors as I continue reading his books. I didn’t love this quite as much as I did Cloud Atlas, but it was a book I relished reading nonetheless. I gave it four stars on Goodreads; for the…
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Three and a half stars, first read in fall 2001, read again June 2013. It seems like most people have strong reactions to this book—they either love it or hate it. (I actually didn’t know anyone hated it until I reread it last year, but apparently they do. I suppose this makes sense, for the…
Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell
One star, read November 2015. Well. I hated this. So cliche, so many stereotypes. Suffocating mother, nagging older sister, listless mid-twenties man living with his mother, flighty and shallow ex-girlfriend, woman obsessed with Marriage supporting the long-term emotionally distant musician boyfriend who just won’t propose. The gentle Midwestern “farm boy” who’s gigantic so all the…
The Wild Girls, by Pat Murphy
Four stars, read in March 2012. I liked this book so much. The wild girls, Newt and Fox (Joan and Sarah), are so lovable, and their story is lovely to read. It deals with serious issues but is neither too heavy nor too lighthearted in its treatment of them—just right, I think, for the age group….
Meanwhile the World Goes On 