June Reading Wrap-up
I’ve been between drafts this month and so took the opportunity to get lots of reading done. Here are my thoughts on what I read, along with links to where to buy the books from one of my favourite indie book shops:
A Spring of Love, Celia Dale: A compelling, dark, slow burn, A Spring of Love follows a young woman, Esther, as she leaves behind her destiny as a spinster to marry the seemingly perfect man. On the surface this novel appears to follow the characters (Esther, her Gran, her neighbours and the shopkeepers of her business) through the mundanity and ordinary frustrations of their lives, but moments of danger flash at just the right time to keep your stomach in knots. It doesn’t read like a modern crime novel but is paced like one of the best thrillers I’ve read in a long time. The characters are so incredibly well observed, each of them giving deeply (and sometimes guiltily) relatable insights into their lives. These vignettes made it all the more satisfying as each character stepped up and took their specific place in the unravelling plot. I don’t know what, exactly, I was expecting from this book, I just know it exceeded them. It’s the kind of book I feel will settle on me and that I’ll think about for a long time after.
Maeve Fly, C.J. Leede: Maeve Fly follows Maeve, who lives with her Hollywood Legend grandmother and works as a princess character at Disney World, as she grapples with her darker urges. A great premise and so many fascinating elements, but ultimately I did not enjoy this book as much as I wanted to. The pacing felt scattered; it seemed to set itself up as linear, then abandoned this, only to return to a build at the end that started slightly too soon. The setting was rich and layered, with LA represented in a twisted but irresistible way, and the very thinly veiled Disneyworld element was enjoyable. By comparison, the characters were lacking in depth or development. Possibly Leede did intend for the people who occupy Maeve Fly’s world to be shallow, but it wasn’t executed in a way that felt deliberate. At a certain point it became obvious that this book was an homage (successor? peer?) to Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, but it just didn’t work for me. The deep dives of songs and matching scenes of violence felt a little cheap and contrived, not entirely natural to the book Maeve Fly could have been. There were elements to Maeve and to the story that could have been deep and interesting, but were abandoned.
On the Savage Side, Tiffany McDaniel: This is a beautifully written book, showing the lives of a young woman in Ohio as her friends are slowly picked off by a suspected serial killer. Don’t confuse it for a thriller, though, this is more a character study of modern, rural America and McDaniel’s poetry background shines through. It gives an unflinching and endlessly bleak picture of rural prostitution and addiction. Overall, it does humanise the fictionalised versions of the Chillicothe six, as it asks us to. It elevates them from junkies and prostitutes, poor women in forgotten pockets of Ohio, to beautiful, mythological philosophers. But in doing so, it strips them, a little, of truth. The characters seem to constantly be speaking in metaphors and legends, which wears a bit thin and stops them from ever feeling truly authentic. Because of this, the only grit and reality we’re given comes from the violence of the men in these women’s lives, which in my mind takes away an opportunity to show the beauty and humanity of these women as they would be in reality, and attributes those things to completely made-up versions of them. The men - awful as they are - are allowed to be themselves. I also guessed the twist in this book quite early on, but found by the time it was revealed in the last couple of chapters, I didn’t care anymore. I think that is the main thing that took away from my enjoyment of this book; it’s length. The power and suspense gets lost at over four hundred pages as does the skill of the writer.
Bear, Marian Engels: A woman, Lou, who lives an isolated existence takes an assignment on an island in Northern Canada, only finding out when she gets there that the historical house she will be staying in comes with a bear. I’ve had this book on my shelf for a long time, and took it down to read in one sitting as it’s only about one hundred and sixty pages, which I overall enjoyed. The depictions of loneliness, and how we self-impose it on ourselves, were excellent, as were the surprising details dropped in about the character's life throughout, changing slightly our perception or beliefs about her. It’s also an unsettling book, and that’s also done quite well. Just to be clear, I knew going in that the woman was going to get with the bear, but from previous reviews I’d seen, and the blurbs on the cover, I expected it to be a bit more folk-tale, bear-but-not-really-a-bear scenario. It’s not. The woman has genuine sexual relations with a real, animal bear. I found these scenes deeply uncomfortable and disturbing, but never gratuitous. The main discomfort lay, for me, in the power dynamics and agency between Lou and the bear, and this was deftly managed in the wider context of Lou’s life and the undercurrent of mystery that remained about how she came to be the woman she was. I was also left queasy by the potential implications of why the elderly neighbour had such a vested interest in the bear. This book was written in 1976, and very much reads like a book written at that time (unlike A Spring of Love, which despite being originally published in 1960, reads like it came out fresh this year). That style may not be your cup of tea, so expect that.
Animal, Lisa Taddeo: A woman flees New York after the man she’s having an affair with kills himself in front of her at a restaurant, and heads to Los Angeles in search of something that will help her understand her deepest trauma. This is firmly a weird-girl lit-fic book, and I liked it even if it didn’t blow me away. The air of mystery in the beginning draws you in, and the main characters insights and admissions into the way she thinks and feels are cuttingly true. In that way, Animal is similar to Taddeo’s non-fiction book, Three Women, which I would recommend all day long. The setting in this book adds to the off-kilter way the character is and in some ways has always lived her life, and we’re so imbedded in it that the more disturbing scenes towards the end don’t feel over-the-top or off-putting. The main character is not a good person, or a likeable person, but I still didn’t find myself turning on her. Every time she revealed more of her flaws it was done with such an air of honesty, like she was, genuinely, trying to be better by getting it all out in the open, that it drew me towards her rather than turning me away. I didn’t pity her, but I understood her.
Bright Young Women, Jessica Knolls: Based on Ted Bundy’s final spree killing, this dual-timeline novel looks at the aftermath of his crimes, from the perspective of the President of the sorority he attacked and one of his victims. The two perspectives work really well; we get both the build-up to a crime, and an aftermath, feeling the agony and tension of both. The characters are rich and incredibly likeable (which is unusual for me, now that I think about it) are drew me in immediately. I was frustrated, and angry, and sad, and the way the book was written had me on edge, waiting for some kind of extra twist that I knew in my heart wasn’t coming. There are some reveals throughout, but the real horror of this book is that there is no major twist, what happens is exactly what you know from the start happened and in that way Bright Young Women gets right to the crux of the serial killer issue. Namely, that the victims we hear about in podcasts, movies and documentaries, whose names we don’t remember, died for boring reasons, at the hands of fundamentally boring people. Bundy, or any other serial killer, is never named in the book and gets no oxygen. The women he hurt get all the air time, and they exist as fully formed, normal people, never straying into tropes. I flew through this book, and really enjoyed it.
Jawbone, Monica Ojeda: This book opens with a teenage girl awaking to find she’s being held captive by her teacher, Miss Clara. In my opinion, that’s all you need to know going in. The story unfolds in a relatively unique way, with past and present blending in scenes in a way that should be difficult to follow but isn’t. I’ve read quite a few weird girlhood books, but this was one of the most effective in capturing just how disgusting and weird and overtly sexual teenage girlhood can be. The characters were matter-of-fact about the insane things they were doing, while also carrying that underlying current of anxiety about the wrongness of it all. The contrast between the teenagers and their teacher was fantastic. Miss Clara is deeply unwell (her life-long anxiety disorder is really well portrayed) and also engages in bizarre and “shameful” behaviour, but she is also clearly much more in control of her narrative than the girls are. I found the power dynamics in this book very subtly and deftly laid out. The further into the story you get, the more we quietly move from how the characters see their place in those dynamics, to how they really are. I also found the way trauma was discussed to be very clever and so fitting with how the characters would think and speak about them in real life. This isn’t a book everyone will enjoy, but I really liked it, even if it was not quite what I was expecting.
Crooked Plow, Itamar Vieira Junior: This book, translated from Portuguese, follows two sisters from a tenant farmer family on a Brazilian plantation. It starts with an act of violence in the girls’ childhood and follows them through to middle age, charting the changes in their lives, community and attitudes towards their indentured servitude. Full transparency - I bought this book because of the cover, but I’m glad I did. This book is split in three parts, each with a new narrator and it shows a way of life I was not familiar with, but fascinated me and drew strong parallels with Irish history. The characters in it straddle the old and new worlds in every aspect of their lives: Catholicism and old beliefs, slavery and “freedom”, traditional suffering and new revolution. Not only is it beautifully written, but it led me to confront some of my own prejudices and attitudes towards ways of life that are stigmatised and fall outside what we consider “normal” modern life. Throughout the book, there is never a year or a specific era referenced, and I found that a really effective way to highlight how timeless this story of exploitation and perseverance is. While part of this was obviously down to my own ignorance of the history and labour landscape of Brazil, the story also seemed to exist outside of time, and could be happening in any country, in any century, where the people are trapped in cycles of exploitation.
Waiting for Ted, Marieke Bigg: Such a weird book with such a weird narrator, but in the best way. Our main character, Rosie, is all dolled up and waiting for her husband to come home as she narrates the dissolution of their relationship to us; starting with her purchasing a chaise lounge that Ted has specifically told her not to. One thing I loved about this book was that neither Rosie nor Ted were beautiful. While Rosie comes from an incredibly wealthy background, and is pursuing her dreams of being an Instagram interiors influencer, she’s also clearly an ordinary looking woman who doesn’t look after herself that well, and Ted, who she is so obsessively preparing herself for, is also just a normal bloke with a big gut. It was nice to read a weird romance novel in which the characters weren’t driven by the fact that one or both of them were impossibly beautiful. Throughout the book you also flip flop between which of the people in the relationship are “worse” or to blame for its end, rather than wading through clues and unreliable narration to some big reveal of who is the real bad guy. Rosie is bizarre and difficult, but so enjoyable to spend time with. Waiting for Ted is short, only about 180 pages, so you could technically read it in one sitting like I did. Either way, it’s a quick, bananas and fun, but also sad in its own way.
Fun and Games, John Patrick McHugh: Wow. Fun and Games follows 17-year-old John Masterson through the summer after his Leaving Cert, as he tries to get the ride, start for the Senior team and dealing with his parents' separation. This book is so quintessentially Irish, so purely adolescent and so unerringly true that I felt like I was back in that period of my own life. I have read so many great books recently, but it has been a long, long time since I felt so instantly excited about how good a book was from the first page. I have since given the book to my fiance, who has been giggling to himself in recognition every few paragraphs. I don’t have much more to say except read this book.
Sky Daddy, Kate Folk: A woman is sexually attracted to planes, and hopes to die in a plane crash so she can be “married” to a plane. June really was the month of the weird sex book, but this one was definitely goofier than Bear. I’d seen people rave about Sky Daddy online, so I was disappointed that it took me a little while to get into it. When I did though, I was very much along for the ride. It’s funny and a little sad; full of lonely characters who you want the best for despite them being annoying or strange. Observations about the bizarreness of modern life were very good and the ending was unexpected.
When the Reckoning Comes, LaTanya McQueen: In deciding to come home to attend her high school best friends wedding - held on a former plantation - a young black woman must reckon with her own past and that of her town. I listened to this while training for a half marathon (just had to throw in that I’ve done a half marathon) and it was the perfect running audiobook; atmospheric, rich, creepy and tense. As the book progressed and the veil between the living and dead thinned, so too did our certainty of which characters were modern day wedding guests and which were ghosts from the past. That was the real power of the book for me, how it told us what we should think and then showed us the truth to make sure we believed it.
The Lagos Wife, Vanessa Walters: Claudine travels to Nigeria to try and get answers about the apparent disappearance of her estranged niece Nicole. This story is told in a dual timeline; following Nicole in the weeks leading up to her disappearance and Claudine in the aftermath, looking for clues among Nicole’s in-laws and “friends” in the Niger wives community in Lagos. I liked how the chapters were long, and each of the women were given equal weight, allowing you to sink into their respective worlds as they moved through Lagos. Nicole, in particular, was a fascinating character. Through her chapters she showed herself not to be just the doting wife of a commandeering husband suffering the isolation of being far from home and out of her culture, but as a dissatisfied young woman chasing excitement and satisfaction away from family life. Claudine too, surprises towards the end of the book with a side to her we hadn’t seen throughout. While this book does initially read like a run-of-the-mill “domestic” thriller, it has a lot more to say about family trauma, the immigrant experience and how deeply entwined those two things often are. I thought the ending was very clever.
Never Flinch, Stephen King: Another Holly Gibney mystery, where Holly, her detective friend Izzy have to contend with a serial killer taking revenge on jury members, and a crazed stalker attempting to murder a prominent women’s rights activist. Like all the Holly Gibney books this is a brilliant whodunnit, that reads like the kind of TV series that you can’t wait to throw on each evening and miss when you’ve finished it. Holly herself is such an endearing character and King’s writing style in this series is also endearing, while still managing to cast a searingly critical eye over modern life. The character’s are complex and full-bodied, the reveals are well-spaced and clever. Even as we follow the clues, Agatha Christie style, to the finish, there remains that horror-novel atmosphere that King is so adept at. This book can be read on its own, but the call-backs to previous books made me feel embedded in the lives of Holly and her friends. If you’d like a crime thriller that is easy to read, but also has bite, this is the book for you.