February CATWoman - Debut Books

For an author I imagine there isn't anything more thrilling than the publication of their first novel. February is the month where we celebrate the debut novels written by female authors. Where to start?

Modern
https://www.bustle.com/articles/174616-the-26-best-literary-debut-novels-written...

If you are interested in more modern novels, I recommend this website for some ideas for books published in the last five years by notable authors, including the couple of listed below.

The Girls by Emma Cline
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Classics

If you are wanting to travel back in time for your debut novel then you could start with these never to be forgotten books.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Other Recommendations

Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

As you can see the list could go on and on, so hopefully you can find something to suit your tastes.

Don't forget to update the wiki with your choices.

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/2017CC_CATWoman#2017_CATWoman_Challen...

My plan for this challenge is read Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty. I've read most of her other books and have enjoyed them all so am looking forward to see where she started.

I'm planning to read We Love You, Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge. It's on the shortlist for the Tournament of Books.

I have 3 on my list, I doubt I will get to them all, but will certainly be starting with Malcolm Orange Disappears by Jan Carson, and then for something completely different will probably go for The Island by Victoria Hislop.

I am hoping to read the 1950 debut book by Rosemary Sutcliff, The Chronicles of Robin Hood then head in a completely different direction with the 2013 debut book of Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice.

I will probably either read Carson McCuller's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, written when she was just 23, or Under the Net, Iris Murdoch's first book.

I'm leaning towards
Watermelon / Marian Keyes

I'm going to read The Two-Family House.

I plan to read Dark Road Home, a debut mystery I received for Christmas.

I just started Gil Adamson's debut novel, Help Me, Jacques Cousteau, so I will count it for this part of the CATWoman challenge.

>7 LibraryCin: Oh, I love Marian Keyes. I hope you like Watermelon!

I will read We Love You, Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge. Just picked this up a couple of days ago for Kindle (1.99) and it is on the Short list for Tournament of Books.

I'm planning to read something from my TBR books, probably either Lady Moses by Lucinda Roy or Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. Other possibilities include Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

Possibilities from my virtual TBR shelves are Village School by Miss Read and I Am Livia by Phyllis T. Smith.

I plan to listen to Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell. If I don't get to The Mothers by Brit Bennett this month, then I'll read it for this challenge as well.

ETA: I also have Birdie by Tracey Lindberg

I'm planning on reading Harry Potter and the sorceror’s stone by J.K. Rowling. I'm probably the last person on earth to read this.

Two other possibilities are To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee, that I first read a long time ago, or Still Alice by Lisa Genova.

>16 VivienneR: I envy you reading HP for the first time.

Still Alice will also count for the CultureCAT

>16 VivienneR: I've never read any of the Harry Potter books. I do mean to, one day, when Mt TBR is a bit lower!

>17 luvamystery65: Love that type of response! (As if I didn't know already that it's a winner).

>18 Jackie_K: So I'm not the last person on earth to read HP!!

Looks like Behind the Throne will work for this challenge.

>18 Jackie_K: & >19 VivienneR: - Maybe we're the last three people to read HP. :)

I think I'll go with Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich. It's one of those I meant to read last year, but didn't.

I'm planning on The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, which also works for the SFFKIT.

If a woman's first book was non fiction, would that count? I'm also thinking of Dava Sobel's Longitude.

>24 Robertgreaves: That is a great book. I don't see why it wouldn't count. It's a debut book.

I read Glaciers for this challenge, the debut novel (really more of a novella) by Alexis Smith. I didn't love it, but I thought her writing was promising enough to try another book by her in the future. I've got a full review over on my 75 Book Challenge thread.

I haven't started the book I had lined up for this category yet (although I fully intend to start it next), but I realised when I started it that my (non-fiction) current read for February's CultureCAT is also a debut book, so I can count it here too! Amy Brown's Breastfeeding Uncovered: Who really decides how we feed our babies? is excellent so far.

I just started History of Wolves.

I just figured out that The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is Rebecca Skloot's debut book, so it will work for both the CultureCAT and CATWoman.

I just finished The Chronicles of Robin Hood by Rosemary Sutcliff which was originally published in 1950. This is a great re-telling of the legend.

COMPLETED Longitude by Dava Sobel

My review:
The story of John Harrison and his invention of the chronometer, a timepiece accurate enough on shipboard to be used for calculating longitude.

Interesting, but scanty on detail. Pictures would have been nice. The Guardian has an article suggesting Maskelyne is not such a villain as Sobel makes him out to be.

I'm starting Someday, Someday Maybe by Lauren Graham today.

I just finished Full Tilt Dervla Murphy's debut book about her adventures riding from Ireland to India on a bicycle in the early sixties. What a trip! She is rarely put off by the many trials she goes through and documents that most of the people she meets are unfailingly friendly and helpful. During this time of major cultural transitions for the tribal people she meets she is conflicted on whether the modern methods found in the cities will really improve most of their lives. A somewhat romantic view of life but it fit in with what she was experiencing.

I've been reading a book I was sure would fit in this CAT, because the writing and plot are so not very good, but the author has written a few before this. The mind boggles. Now I'm just reading to see if it can get any worse. This entire book could have been avoided had the two main characters been marginally self-aware and had a conversation. They are married, after all.

I'm currently reading Stalin's Cows by Sofi Oksanen. The first 50 pages have been interesting, so I'm looking forward to the next 400 pages.

Just finished Harry Potter and the sorceror's stone by J.K. Rowling.

Now I know what all the fuss was about. I really enjoyed my first (and Rowling's first) Harry Potter book. I wish he had been around when I was a child.

>36 VivienneR: I wish I could erase the part of my brain that remembers anything about Harry Potter so I could read it again for the first time.

I have been having a hard time deciding what to read for a debut work. Now I'm reading and enjoying Stiff, the nonfiction debut work by Mary Roach who, of course, has written more nonfiction books since it. I know that a few other people are reading debut nonfiction, and I am going to count this one.

For fiction, I started Lucia Roy's Lady Moses, but find that the type is very, very small, and the book, although interesting is long. I also started The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, which was considered one of the outstanding debut novels in 2015 on one list. Then I discovered that Paula Hawkins had written four earlier novels under the name Amy Silver so that I no longer consider The Girl on the Train a debut novel.

Over the weekend I learned that yesterday was the 150th anniversary of Laura Ingalls Wilder's birth. Now I'm planning to reread and count her juvenile fiction debut, Little House in the Big Woods as a debut work.

I chose Ru as a debut work because it is a short book in a short month and because it also fits for the AwardCAT, having won the Canada Reads competition in 2015. This was a wonderful read.

>37 virginiahomeschooler: :))

The debut book of Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet received 5 stars from me. I loved this book!

I've just finished Amy Brown's Breastfeeding Uncovered: Who Really Decides How We Feed Our Babies?, which I'd pulled out for this month's CultureCAT but realised also fits this month's theme here too. I've put my detailed review on the CultureCAT thread and on my own thread. The short version: excellent, read it! 4.5/5.

History of Wolves
Linda lives with her parents in an isolated cabin in the woods of northern Minnesota. The three of them are the only ones left of a commune. Called Commie or Freak at school, Linda lives a lonely life. When people build a house across the lake from her cabin, Linda befriends the residents, Patra and her four-year-old son Paul.

Linda tells the story of the time she was fifteen from a distance of twenty years. She looks with regret at both a loss of innocence and of the forest that was her home.

A beautiful, haunting debut novel with a solid sense of place and an engaging protagonist, it reminds us that we need to do more to protect our children.

I can't wait to see what she writes next.

I finished The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Loved it! I started The Mothers by Brit Bennett.

Until I Say Goodbye: My Year of Living With Joy / Susan Spencer-Wendel
3.5 stars

The author was in her 40s when she was diagnosed with ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease). ALS eats away at muscles until a person can no longer walk, talk, or do pretty much anything for themselves. There is no cure and it is terminal. She was married and had three children. She quit her job as a court reporter, and spent time with her friends and family doing something she loved: travelling. In that time, she also met her biological mother (she was adopted) and found out her biological father had already died, but she went to Greece to meet his family, as well. She simply wanted to enjoy the time she had while she could still do things.

Susan had a great attitude and plenty of determination, as she wrote much of this book on her iPad, hunting and pecking the letters with one thumb. The book wasn’t nearly as sad as I thought it might be, but I’m sure that was due to her attitude. Of course, there were a few times where I teared up, anyway. I did know someone with ALS, though I hadn’t been in contact with her for a few years. I heard that she was also very positive and tried to enjoy life as much as she could for as long as she could, so I imagine she had a similar attitude to Susan. For anyone who likes inspirational stories, this is definitely it.

I read One Fine Day, which is Mollie Panter-Downes first and only novel (she mostly wrote short stories). The tale of one day in a family's life as they attempt to navigate the realities of post-war England, it is hands-down one of my favorite books.

I have read Agent of Change by Sharon Lee, which I think is her first novel…

I just finished a book which I had intended to read for March's CATWoman, but psychologically I needed a short read so picked it up, and realised it actually also fits here in February's as it is a debut poetry collection.

Now, I have to say that I am not really a poetry fan, so although this was short I did feel a bit daunted by it. The collection in question is Alice Oswald's The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile, which was bought for me as a gift by my brother-in-law (who is also a published poet). And to start with as I read I felt my usual misgivings about poetry - I wish I could get into it, I can see that it is beautifully putting into words things that us mere mortals really struggle to express, but so much of it goes over my head and I don't really understand what is going on. However, although most of the poems were only short (a page long at most), the final one was several pages long and the author did include an explanatory introduction, and that one I really did enjoy (probably thanks to the introduction meaning that I had an idea at the outset of what it was about, so I could appreciate her word-use more). So the final one has pushed up my ranking to 3 stars.

I finished The Mothers by Brit Bennett. I really liked it. I thought it started out okay but I did get invested in the story.

I've read We Love You, Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge. It was an impressive and ambitious first novel, but not without flaws.

Finished Behind the throne by K. B. Wagers. Really exciting space opera. Good job for a debut book!

I finished The long way to a small, angry planet and loved every minute of the voyage.

I finished three books for this month's challenge:
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George

Watermelon / Marian Keyes
3.5 stars

The day Claire has her first baby, her husband James tells her he’s been having an affair and he is leaving Claire. Devastated, Claire moves back to Dublin from London to live with her parents and two younger sisters while she tries to figure out where to go from here. Her youngest sister, Helen, is in college and one day brings home a friend, Adam.

Have to admit, I didn’t like Claire all that much, but there were humourous bits to the story and it was still enjoyable, overall. Actually, I’m not sure there were any characters I really liked much. Maybe Adam. Close to the end, it was a bit… odd and took some figuring out (as Claire was also figuring it out!). I did enjoy the book enough to put the next Walsh family book on my tbr.

Two days late, but I finished The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. While I've seen many rave reviews for this book by the 23 year old Southerner, I just didn't like it that much. A lot of it felt preachy about politics of the time (race relation, communism, fascism) and I only really liked one of the characters.

Thanks to being ill I got a bit behind with my reading, and the book that suffered most was my book for this challenge, Jan Carson's Malcolm Orange Disappears. However, I am still reading it and happy to report I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far (I'm about half way through). I'll post a full review when I finish, hopefully some time early next week.

>55 japaul22: Last year our public library book club read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter since it was our community's Big Read book. Many of our book club members viewed it rather unfavorably; we wondered why it was one of the books recommended for the Big Read program.

>57 sallylou61: that's interesting. I feel like I've seen more positive than negative reviews on LT. I'm still glad I read it. It has a good sense of place and time and it's interesting to read the work of a very young female author writing in 1940. I don't want to discourage anyone from reading it, but overall it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be.

It took me longer than I hoped, but I finished Jan Carson's Malcolm Orange Disappears and it was really excellent - 4.5 stars. A cast of misfits, magical realism, very funny, dark - thoroughly recommended, a very good debut.