Shannon Keeps It Simple in 2022 (sturlington)

Hi, everyone. Well, like this roller coaster of a year, my reading was sometimes up and sometimes down in 2021. But I felt I was enjoying my reading most when I was following my desires, reading what I want when I want, and putting down what I was not enjoying.

So for next year, I've decided to just Keep It Simple Silly and not try to set myself a lot of goals, challenges, or categories. My hopes are to read a few books that have been lingering on my shelves, to check out some new books that have caught my attention, and to perhaps revisit older books of authors I want to read in more depth. As always, I'll participate in ScaredyKIT and BingoDOG, but I doubt I'll do any other CATs/KITs with the possible exception of RandomKIT.

Even though I don't have an elaborate setup this year, I hope you'll still join me in my reading journey and maybe catch a book bullet from time to time.

ScaredyKIT

✔January: Haunted Houses - The Good House; The Last House on Needless Street
✔February: Spiders, Snakes, and Other Creepy Crawlers - Gory Details
✔March: Switched - Bone China
✔April: Serial Killers - My Heart Is a Chainsaw; The Final Girl Support Group
✔May: Anthologies, Short Stories, and Novellas - Ring Shout; Nothing but Blackened Teeth
✔June: Out in the Wild - Empire of Wild
✔July: The Living Dead - The Lesser Dead; This Dark Earth
✔August: Children's/YA - Down a Dark Hall
September: It's All in Your Head--Or Is It? - The Patient (did not finish)
✔October: Witches, Evil Spirits, and Black Magic - Weep, Woman, Weep
✔November: Stephen King and Family - Fairy Tale
✔December: Holiday Horror - The Twelve Terrors of Christmas

SFFKit
✔January: Morally gray character - Native Tongue
✔February: Time travel - Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach
✔March: Historical fantasy - Miranda in Milan
✔April: Lifespans - Far from the Light of Heaven
✔May: Invasions - The Seep

BingoDOG



1. pub year you joined LT: The Pleasures of Cooking for One
2. modern retelling: The Hollow Places
3. a gift: The Last House on Needless Street
4. features a dog: This Thing Between Us
5. set in another country: The Hunting Party
6. about sisters or brothers: The Shape of Darkness
7. children's or young adult: Down a Dark Hall
8. silver or gold on the cover: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
9. nonfiction: Gory Details
10. character shares a name with a friend: Wild Fell
11. pub year ending in 2: Sundial
12. weather word in the title: Perihelion Summer
13. read a CAT: Native Tongue (SFFKit)
14. a book club read: Between the World and Me
15. a long (for you) book: The Good House
16. set in a capital city: Reprieve
17. LGBTQ+ author: Miranda in Milan
18. title contains a month
19. title contains a z
20. award winner: Empire Falls
21. flowers on the cover: Bone China
22. you'd love to see this movie: My Heart Is a Chainsaw
23. travel or a journey: Telephone
24. by a favorite author: Sea of Tranquility
25. in translation: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (the stories were in translation, anyway, and Saunders has some things to say about translation in the book

Where in the World Is Shannon?
I have updated my maps. These are all the places I've visited in the world and US states through reading since 2020.* I'm trying to keep a record of how many different places I go, but I'm not going to bother listing each book since I'm using tags for that.

*Plus a few older books that I'm tracking for personal reasons.


visited 39 states (78%)
Buy Douwe's Machine Learning Book


visited 13 states (5.77%)
Buy Douwe's Machine Learning Book

Award winners/nominees
I'm introducing this again as a regular category. My goal is to read each year the Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction; the 2 Pulitzer Prize finalists for fiction; the National Book Award winner for fiction; and the 6 Shirley Jackson Award finalists/winner for novel from the previous year.

Pulitzer Prize
✔Winner 2021: The Night Watchman

Pulitzer Prize Finalists
✔Finalist 1 2021: Telephone
Finalist 2 2021: A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth

National Book Award
Winner 2021: Hell of a Book

Shirley Jackson Award Nominees 2021
✔My Heart is a Chainsaw
✔Nothing but Blackened Teeth
✔Hummingbird Salamander
✔No Gods, No Monsters
✔All the Murmuring Bones

Simple is generally better! Good luck!

Enjoy your 2022 reading, your reading plans make a lot of sense!

You've made a good choice to keep it simple. I look forward to following along. Happy reading.

Happy reading in the New Year.

Wishing you many, many books you like in the new year!

Hope you have a good reading year!

Have a great reading year!

Good luck with your 2022 reading!

Enjoy your 2022 reading!

Hello! Wow, everyone gets organized so early! I will do so, but probably closer to the end of the month.

Am admitting to following along on threads for not only people I recognize, but ones that don't look like they'll be quite as busy!! :-)

Looking forward to following your reading in 2022.

Happy new year to all my early visitors! I hope this year brings good things for us all.

My first book of the year was a reread of a short novel:
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (2013)
Read for: SF/F Book Club selection - February | also fits RandomKIT: Home theme & BingoDOG: Gold or silver on cover


I reread this for a book club, and I liked it much better the second time around, I think because I was reading a beautiful illustrated hardcover edition instead of the Kindle version this time, and also my expectations were adjusted. My original opinion still stands, but Gaiman's writing is so evocative, especially the description of being inside the ocean. I've also come to appreciate short books more as I get older.
--
My original review follows:

When a man returns to his family home, he is caught up by memories of a period in his childhood when his family was threatened by a dark force but saved by the ageless girl who lived down the lane.

Neil Gaiman provides some beautiful imagery in this slight novel. His imagination is unique, and it is a pleasure to fill my mind’s eye with his bizarre creations. However, this is still a very slight novel, with not much of a plot, and it didn’t really satisfy me, like eating cake for dinner. This could almost be a children’s book, except for some brief adult content, and one very frightening scene when the boy’s father nearly drowns him in the bathtub. To me, though, it reads like a children’s fable, and I was left wanting something more substantial.

Gaiman started out writing this book for his wife and intended it to be a novella. I think it still is a novella, for all intents and purposes, so keep that in mind when shelling out the $10 asking price (at least for the Kindle). Some of the events were drawn from memories of Gaiman’s childhood, such as the theft of the car and the thief’s subsequent suicide. All in all, this is a very childhood-nostalgic book.

>18 sturlington: I love that one!

The Good House by Tananarive Due (2003)
Read for: ScaredyKIT - January - Haunted Houses | also fits RandomKIT: Home theme and BingoDOG: A long (for you) book


I had been wanting to read this for years, as I had heard so much about how scary it was, and I was happy to find a copy of it in my local bookstore. My feelings after finishing were decidedly mixed, though.

First, this is not a book so much about a haunted house--although the house does play a prominent role--as it is more about demon possession. It is possession filtered through the lens of vodou (voodoo), which I found different and interesting. I used to be fascinated by vodou, and it was good to read a horror book where the author had obviously done her research. However, many elements of the plot confused me, even for a book that was so long and had so much back story. How was the demon (baka) tied to the land, and how did Marie become cursed in the first place? Despite that, I did mostly enjoy the story, and there were many evocative scenes, particularly the ones that took place in the house.

Second, the book is very long (almost 500 pages with very small font) and takes about 150 pages to really get going. It reminded me of 1980s horror, with its small-town setting, lots of crazy things happening, switching between multiple points of view. I used to love those kinds of books, but I felt there was a lot of repetition here, and some scenes could have been cut or whittled down, in my opinion.

And there is a lot going on here--maybe too much. I read a lot of horror, but with (triggers galore) suicide, gruesome child murder, animal abuse, and lots of graphic sex, including sexual assault, it feels like piling on. The sex scenes especially would throw me out of the story. I hate to say it, but I think Due could have won a Bad Sex in Fiction Award with this one.

I probably would have been fine with all this. Once things got rolling, the book was suspenseful and hard to put down. And then I got to the end. I saw that several other reviewers noted their disappointment with the ending. For me, the ending was completely unbelievable. It simply broke the rules of the world Due had created and felt like a cop-out. There were other endings I would have accepted, and I would have been happy if the book had simply closed on her walking away from the dance with her ancestors, but this... It felt like Due chickened out on everything she had done in the previous 480 pages. I probably would have given this 4 stars if she had just stopped writing 20 pages sooner.

>20 sturlington: Sounds like a book I will avoid. It's funny but the house pictured on the cover looks very much like the haunted house in the book that just disappointed me, Kill Creek.

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (2021)
Read for: ScaredyKIT - January - Haunted Houses | Also fits RandomCAT: Home theme and BingoDOG: A Gift


This was an excellent book to mess with your head. I tore through it in two days. I enjoyed the ambiguity of it, the twists and turns, the slow cultivation of empathy for the characters, as well as their different and distinct narrative voices. I also loved the setting of the house--both real and metaphorical--how it changed, was sometimes a comfort and sometimes claustrophobic. There is a mystery, suspense, and a satisfactory resolution. The author handled often-misused horror tropes well and provided compassionate insight into the trauma of abuse.

I realized that I have been tracking every book I have read since 2001, or for 20 years. Wish I had been doing it longer, but still...

I started out using notebooks, now I use librarything.

Update: Here is the first book I tracked--Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark, finished on January 8, 2001. My review is still on the first page (although I added that in 2012, it looks like). All I really remember about it is it was a mystery set in the 1930s, I think in St. Paul or Minneapolis.

Perihelion Summer by Greg Egan (2019)
Read for: Local SF/F Book Club (although I missed the meeting!) | Also fits: BingoDOG -- a weather-related word


This is a short book in which climate change is greatly accelerated by Earth's near miss with two passing black holes, which adjusts the Earth's orbit so that summers become much hotter. It's an interesting concept that kept me reading; much of the story takes place on a floating fish farm that starts heading to Antarctica with a bunch of refugees once the global warming starts. However, I found all of the characters to be flat and very same-same, distinguished only by their nationalities, and the conflict outside of survival wasn't terribly exciting. The end was also very abrupt and felt like just putting off the inevitable extinction of the species. So this was just okay for me.

>23 sturlington: Wow, that's amazing! And it must be neat to look back and see what you were interested in at the time.

>23 sturlington: Wow that's pretty cool!

It is kind of fun to look back and see what I was reading and what I was interested in. I was a lot less choosy about books back then. Many of them I don't remember the plot at all.

>23 sturlington: Wished I had done that. I started in 2011, but by then I was over 50 years old and surely can't remember all that I had read.

>29 Tess_W: It was the one New Years resolution I ever made that actually stuck!

I wish I had done it too. It would be interesting to see now what I used to read.

This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno (2021)
Impulse read found on the library's new books shelf | Also fits: BingoDOG - Features a dog


Really imaginative, creepy, suspenseful horror. It's got a bit of everything: ghosts, possession, zombies (people and dogs), rogue technology, creepy woods, folklore, cosmic angst, nightmares, mindfuckery, insanity. And it's short! I could not stop reading it. The ending was... not sure exactly what happened there, but I liked it. I will be watching for more from this author.

>32 sturlington: Definite Book Bullet!

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher (2020)
From the ALA Reading List recommendations - Horror | Also fits: BingoDOG - modern retelling


I liked this novel much better than Kingfisher's previous novel, The Twisted Ones. For one thing, the story made a lot more sense, the plot is more straightforward (if not all that deep), and she crafts some deliciously creepy imagery in her alternate universe where the willows live. This novel was inspired by the Algernon Blackwood story, "The Willows," but also gives off strong vibes of both Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy and the TV show "Stranger Things." As in The Twisted Ones, there is a cute pet who plays a large role. Kingfisher's flippant, snarky writing style with multiple pop-culture references places this just above the fan fiction she's always referencing in terms of literary merit, but for an entertaining popcorn book, you could do a lot worse.

Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin
Read for: SFFKit - Morally gray character

This is a feminist dystopia written in the 1980s, set in a future in which women's rights have been taken away and they are completely subservient to men. In this future, linguists are very important as they communicate with the many, many alien species that have been encountered to negotiating trading contracts and space colonies. The main events of the story take place 200 years in the future and follow the household of one of the 13 linguist families, whose children are trained from birth to acquire alien languages.

I had such mixed feelings about this book. For one thing, it took me so long to get into it, for two reasons. First, I didn't think it was plausible that all of women's rights would be taken away in the 1990s by constitutional amendments just because one paper was published positing that women were biologically not as intelligent as men. As someone who was alive in the 1990s, this just does not seem feasible. I can't imagine that even if 38 states had ratified these amendments, that our country would have remained whole after that.

Second, everyone talks like someone in a parody of a stiff 1950s television show. Sometimes, it was laughable. And the men are so ridiculous. I kept getting angry every time I picked this up to read and had to take breaks. Granted, there certainly are men who think this way about women, but in this book, it's ALL of them. And there is no romantic love, or even lust. Really? I get tired of misogyny too, but this goes against everything I know and have experienced of male-female relationships.

But I started getting more into it as I read. The baby-exploding caught my attention. That was a bit of horror I wasn't expecting. Too bad that plot line wasn't developed much more, but I gather that was probably left for the sequels. Then the character of Michaela, the one woman who's mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore. I really liked her and all the bits of the book she was in. This story required an outsider character to give it some perspective, and she was it.

Overall, the writing was stiff and awkward and aggressively feminist, of its day. It did remind me a lot of The Female Man in that sense. But it has interesting ideas to present in the guise of science fiction. Overall, I'm glad I read this, if not for the plot or characterization, but rather for the ideas and for it being a kind of artifact of a very particular time in the feminist movement (again, like The Female Man).

>32 sturlington: You got me with this one - onto The List it goes!

Gory Details by Erika Engelhaupt
Read for: ScaredyKIT - February - creepy crawlies; Also fits: BingoDOG - Nonfiction


This is a selection of expanded blog articles on a variety of topics, all of them macabre, taboo, or disgusting. I didn't read it straight through but rather jumped around based on what subjects interested me. I thought the essays were interesting, but once I became intrigued by the subject, I was often left wanting more depth and detail than the short essays could provide. A fun book for dipping into but not much more than that.

The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell
Read for: A new book by an author I have enjoyed in the past; also fits: BingoDOG - About sisters


Set in Bath during the Victorian era, The Shape of Darkness is about an older woman, Agnes, an artist who cuts silhouettes, and Pearl, a young girl, an albino who works for her sister as a medium and has a father who is dying horribly of phosphorous poisoning from working in a match factory. The two are brought together by a series of deaths, murders of people whose silhouettes Agnes had recently cut. They hope to find out who the murderer was through seances. There is a twist, which I guessed early on, but I did want to keep reading to see if I was right. As in Purcell's previous books, she has infused this novel with rich and unusual historical detail centering around that era's craze for spiritualism and mesmerism. I didn't find this novel quite as affecting or as layered as the previous two by Purcell that I have read, but it held my attention and had several creepy scenes. The reader is left to wonder whether or not the supernatural has really been at work or whether it was all in the characters' imaginations.

Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Read for: Pulitzer Prize winner; also fits: BingoDOG - an award winner


Some stories, once told, become an indelible part of the landscape. That town has always been there. Those people have always lived there. Such is the case with Empire Falls, a small, dying mill town in Maine. Empire Falls is peopled with a broad cast of characters whose lives all touch each other in some way, but mainly it is the story of Miles Roby, who runs the Empire Grill, and Francine Whiting, who owns most of the town and also Miles, and how that came to be. There is so much going on here, and the story takes its time to unfold its secrets, bringing the reader on a leisurely stroll through the lives of Empire Falls's inhabitants until they become as familiar as our own neighbors. Quite often, this book is laugh-out-loud funny, and in a few places, it's unspeakably horrible. But mostly it's a clear-headed and largely affectionate view of small-town American life and people who are largely doing the best they can with the little they've been given to work with. This book fully absorbed me while I was reading it, and now I'm feeling melancholy that it's all over.

Goodnight Stranger by Miciah Bay Gault (2019)
Read for: Shirley Jackson Award shortlist


I feel like this book had a lot going for it. It's about a brother and sister living together in their parents' house on an island off Cape Cod. One day, a strange man comes into their lives and captivates them both, but the brother believes the stranger to be the reincarnation of their triplet, who died as an infant, and the stranger comes to invade their lives in a very disturbing way. I really liked the island setting; it had a strong sense of place. The family story is just weird and dysfunctional enough, and the two siblings themselves just quirky and damaged enough, to catch my attention and want to know more about them. But something fell flat for me. Perhaps if this weren't positioned as a "thriller" so much as a late-in-life coming-of-age story, I would have liked it more. I also found the writing style to be somewhat clunky and disorienting. All in all, this book just fell flat for me.

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley (2019)
Read for: Impulse buy | Also fits: BingoDOG - set in a foreign country


Well, I pushed through and finished it, but this book got tedious. I really am going to have to stop being seduced into reading these thrillers by the promise of an intriguing setting. They always end up being more or less the same. This one features alternating points of view, first person, AND present tense--it all becomes quite tiring to read, and it doesn't help that the characterization is so shallow that it's difficult to tell anyone apart or care about what happens to them. The mystery is also not that great because it's quite obvious what is going on--see the previous shallow characterization. And how do people in these books always drink so much without passing out or giving themselves alcohol poisoning? That's the real mystery to me. I regret buying this.

PS This was a small thing, plotwise, but it really bothered me--I have a hard time believing that any parent of a 6 month old would bring their baby on a holiday to a remote location where they may be snowed in, much less leave that baby alone for hours at a time while they partied. Wouldn't it have made much more sense to leave the baby with grandparents? It made absolutely no difference to the story.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (1961)
Read for: USA road trip challenge


Frank Wheeler may seem as if he is the main character of this tragic story, but it really is his wife, April. And isn't that perfect? Because Frank thinks he's the hero of his own life, when really he is dull, unimaginative, bombastic, a person who talks instead of acts, desperate for constant ego boosting, an adulterer, a wife abuser, completely clueless, and desperately frightened. The book opens on the first performance of an amateur theater company for which April is the star, and that's what April is: an actress at all times, and often not a very good one. She grew up wanting only someone steady she could count on who would tell her that he loves her, and in return she tells Frank what he so desperately wants to hear: that he is great, the most interesting man she's met, that he deserves it all. The men in her life put her on a pedestal, but if she at all challenges them, they knock her right down; Frank tells her that he knows what she feels, and when she disagrees, he decides she must be emotionally damaged. Along the way, April has completely lost her sense of who she is and what she wants. She has become an automaton who feeds children and cleans house and smokes cigarettes and hosts vacuous cocktail parties. This is a horror novel, a portrait of a suburban dystopia from which there is no escape.

Telephone by Percival Everett (2020)
Read for: Pulitzer Prize finalist; Also fits: BingoDOG - travel or a journey



Knowing going in that this book is mainly about a father who loses his young daughter to a horrible disease, I thought it was going to be heart-breaking or difficult to read, but it wasn't. This is because the narrator and father, Zach, seems so disconnected from what is happening. So the story is less about the death of a child and more about the strange ways we have of dealing with grief. I also knew there were three different versions of the book, although I didn't know which version I was reading until I finished. And that again reinforces the disconnectedness--is the story we are getting the right one? Because depending on the version, the reader gets a slightly different version. But that happens with everything we read, doesn't it? The message is always filtered and changed by its recipient. And I think that this novel is ultimately trying to convey how grief, extreme grief, is a singular thing for each individual, just as reading a novel is a singular thing for each reader. Even trying to express grief will result in a garbled message, like in the childhood game Telephone; no one else can truly know what that griever is experiencing. Is grief then, ultimately like dying, which is also a singular and unknowable experience?

Ok, I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to say here. I found reading this book to be an absorbing and also puzzling experience. I'm sure I will be thinking about this book for quite some time.

Bone China by Laura Purcell (2019)
Read for: ScaredyKIT - March - Switched; Also fits: BingoDOG - flowers on the cover


I quite enjoyed this gothic historical mystery set during the early 1800s in a creepy house that overlooks the wintry Cornwall coast. The story takes place in two different timelines, one narrated by an alcoholic lady's maid who has assumed the name Hester Why and taken a position in the remote location to escape the tragedies that have befallen her previous mistresses. Hester finds the house's occupants quite unusual. Her elderly mistress spends all her time in an icy cold room staring at china. There is a young woman who seems to have the mind of a child and who is kept confined to her room. And there is another elderly maid who pours salt into doorways and talks of protective charms. As the mystery unfolds, the story goes back in time to when Hester's new mistress was a young woman assisting her father, a doctor, with a radical treatment for tuberculosis after the loss of the rest of their family members to the disease. And perhaps the supernatural is at work--the mischievous little people that Cornwall is known for--or is it just madness? Creepy and atmospheric, this novel reminded me a lot of Purcell's first novel, The Silent Companions, which introduced me to her and made me a fan.

The Push by Ashley Audrain (2021)
Read for: Impulse buy


This did remind me of Baby Teeth although much better written. Still, I have issues with these "bad seed" stories. First, I was not clear why Blythe, the mother, was writing the story to her ex-husband, addressed as "you," which was fairly annoying. At least she wasn't obsessed with him like the mother in Baby Teeth, but she didn't seem to see what a gigantic ass he was. Second, I know this is meant to be ambiguous, but if I am to believe Violet was born bad, then I need more evidence. The ultra-short chapters probably didn't help in this regard. I never got a sense of what she was like as a baby, other than she threw tantrums and bit Blythe once. That doesn't seem like enough to pass judgment on her. And as Violet got older, I feel there would have been other people who might have noticed something--someone at school, perhaps. Unless, of course, it was Blythe who was the one who was insane, which was implied, and her family history seems to bear that up. But that presented a bigger problem for me. Blythe clearly loved and bonded with her second child, who was a boy. It was only the girls in this line who were "bad": bad mothers, cold, abusive, prone to depression. Well, Blythe's mother and grandmother had no other children, so there's no telling how they would have been with a boy. Both had mental health issues, and I think they wouldn't have treated boy babies any differently. Blythe doesn't have that excuse. She never had the issues with Sam that she had with Violet. Why? It feels gendered. Sexual jealousy? Rivalry? There's nothing more evil than a bad mother? I'm not sure what the author was getting at, if anything, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Finally, the ending was way too abrupt and not at all satisfying. Either leave it ambiguous or give a clear resolution, but don't try to have it all. Another meh thriller.

Wild Fell: A Ghost Story by Michael Rowe (2013)
Read for: Shirley Jackson Award finalist; Also fits: BingoDOG - character shares a name with a friend


Wild Fell is a ghost story that starts out well with a scary scene right out of an '80s movie involving two kids late at night on the shore of a lake. Those kids will go on to become part of local ghost lore as the book moves forward in time. The setting involves a creepy old house, an isolated island, remote wilderness, and a small town--all of my favorite horror-story settings, so that all seems promising. There then follows an extended section about the main character, Jamie, as a child and the creepy little girl in the mirror who befriends him and takes care of bullies on his behalf. There is a scene with a turtle that will disturb animal lovers. I enjoyed this exposition and was looking forward to seeing how Jamie would connect back to the house on the island. He does as an adult but first there is quite a bit about him dealing with his father's Alzheimer's disease. By the time he does get up to the lake, after having bought the house unseen, we are running out of book. Jamie spends one frightening night in the house, does some research in town--again, all very standard for a ghost story. And then there is the end. Abrupt, bizarre, and unsatisfying. It feels like after doing all this work to set up the characters and setting and ghosts, the author just decided not to continue with the story. At the very least drop the illusion and show Jamie the ruined house. And I'm not really sure how I feel about the incest. Half a star deducted for the ending, but most of the book was very engaging.

By the way, I think Jamie's best friend, Hank, is meant to be a trans character, not a butch lesbian. Pronouns are wrong, but even though this book was published not that long ago, people were still figuring all this out at that time. It's hard to believe how much the culture has changed around trans people in such a short time. I wish Hank had played a larger role in the end as well.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)
Read for: real-life book club


Ta-Nehisi Coates writes with a rhythm and a lyricism that is like poetry or song, and that makes this book about a very difficult subject very easy, and almost pleasant, to read. I did not agree with everything he said, but more than once he made me think differently about a subject--race in America--that I already thought I was fairly well educated about. And from the start, he challenged me, in an uncomfortable but ultimately rewarding way. This book was published in 2015, but as the backlash to Black Lives Matter continues to whip itself into a frenzy, attacking imaginary demons like "critical race theory," I think it's more important than ever that we are made to feel uncomfortable, because people who are comfortable do not change.

The Pleasures of Cooking for One by Judith Jones (2009)
Read for: Personal interest | Also fits: BingoDOG - published year I joined LibraryThing


Lovely cookbook, well presented. I often cook just for myself and usually resort to an omelet or leftovers. I got some nice ideas for other things I can do from this cookbook, which I borrowed from the library. I also enjoyed the author's tone, which is gentle, encouraging, and reassuring. I may buy myself a copy because I'd like to have the sauce and baking recipes, particularly. (Unfortunately, I see it's out of print, but I may be able to find a used copy.)

Death in her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh (2020)
Read for: Shirley Jackson Award finalist


This novel opens with 72-year-old Vesta finding a note pinned to the ground with rocks: "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body." Except there is no dead body. Pretty early on, the reader is alerted to the fact that there is something meta going on here. Vesta observes more than once that no one would publish a story that begins in exactly the same way as this one begins.

Vesta lives only with her dog in the woods in a small town in an unnamed state. She seizes on this note, setting out to solve the "mystery" by getting onto the Internet. She starts to spin out a back story for her murder victim, even using a character development form she has found on a writing website. Vesta reminds me of me. This sounds like something I would do. She lives entirely within her own mind, and what happens in her mind is more real than what happens in the so-called real world. As the people Vesta makes up start to actually take form and interact with her, the reader realizes either Vesta is crazy or she's a character herself in a story with an off-stage writer. Either way, we question everything she reports. Does she really live in an old Girl Scout camp building? All the town names sound exaggeratedly made up. Maybe she's stuck in an old folk's home, spinning stories, like my grandmother was. I also realized that Vesta is very funny, and I like her. The only thing I trust about what she says is that she was in a very bad marriage, her husband is now dead, and she's not as unhappy about that as she first let on. Neither am I. This is a story about loneliness and the power of the mind to create worlds when the real one is not worth all that much, and it gradually drew me in. Of course the ending is ambiguous--no one would publish a story with an ending like that, Vesta might say--but it was not unsatisfying for me.

With this novel, I have finished reading the backlist of Shirley Jackson Award winners and finalists. I haven't read all of them, of course. I skipped books by authors I don't care for, that seemed way too long (I no longer read 600-page books unless it's by an author I really like), or that I couldn't get a hold of easily, which was surprisingly quite a lot of them. I may occasionally read another from the backlist if I happen upon it in the wild, but for now, I'll focus on reading through each year's shortlist as they are announced.

I have found the Shirley Jackson Award to be a great source for "literary" horror and psychological suspense. I have enjoyed a high percentage of the books I've read from the shortlists, so I'd recommend it for anyone who likes to read dark fiction beyond the usual airport-thriller fare.

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson (2018)
Read for: SFFKit - February: Time Travel (a little late)


A lot going on in this short book. It felt like a prologue to a longer story, and given the way it ended, I think it probably is. It took me a bit to get into it because there is so much going on here--the long-term effects of climate change resulting in different survival-based habitats, a critique on economics and banking, interactions between the generations reminiscent of today's generational clashes, lots of biopunk, and of course, time travel. Once the characters did travel back in time to early Mesopotamia and the story was a bit more compacted, I got a lot more invested. I would like to see how these characters handle their situation given that they were stranded in ancient history--although if the rules of time travel established in this world hold, I guess it's all kind of moot. I don't think it's that cut and dried, though; that would be disappointing.

Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett (2019)
Read for: SFFKIT -- March: Historical Fantasy; Also fits -- BingoDOG: LGBTQ Author


A continuation of The Tempest after Prospero and Miranda return to Milan. This read quite a bit like young adult to me. The plot and characters are not terribly complex, I don't think it comments much on themes of the original play, and there is a lesbian romance. For me, it was just meh--not terribly engaging, insightful, or memorable, but designed to please a particular audience, I'm sure.

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones (2021)
Read for: ScaredyKIT - April: Serial killers; Also fits - BingoDOG: I'd like to see it as a movie


Seventeen-year-old Jade is stuck as the town bad girl in her small-town life in Idaho, but she escapes through slasher movies. When the new pretty girl in town discovers a body in the lake, Jade fixates on her as a "final girl" in the slasher she is convinced is finally coming to real life in her town. Jones has a quirky writing style that's turned on full force here, since the point of view is a teenage girl who drops movie references as much as she possibly can and likes to end her sentences with question marks. This gave the novel something of a frenetic quality that prevented me from fully connecting with it at first. Those references do fulfill a purpose, though, as becomes clear in the book's final over-the-top, gore-filled, cinematic scenes. It did seem like pretty much everything got tossed into this book, though, and I would have appreciated some more layers to it beyond the abuse angle. Or maybe it did, but they weren't delineated enough to have the impact they should have. Jones, as usual, is an exciting writer, but I thought this lacked the emotional weight or cultural insight of The Only Good Indians.

Reprieve by James Han Mattson (2021)
Read for: Bookstore purchase; also fits: BingoDOG - set in a capital city


I would call this well-written novel an experiment in literary horror that trips over itself a bit in the last act. The story centers around an "extreme" haunted house attraction in Lincoln, Nebraska--the Quigley House--and is set in the late 1990s (the time is important). Contestants vie to make it through the house's cells and win a cash prize while being terrorized and even physically assaulted by the actors. From the outset, we know that something horrific has happened during one of these tours, and there is a trial going on as a result.

The three point-of-view characters all have ties to the house. Kendra is a teenage Black girl who moved to Nebraska with her mother to live with her aunt after her father died. She feels out of place there and gets a job at the Quigley House at the urging of her boyfriend back home, who is a horror fan. Jaidee is a young Thai man attending the University of Nebraska but really stalking his former English teacher, a white American man with whom he is in love. He ends up becoming a contestant at Quigley with his former English teacher as well as his college roommate (and Kendra's cousin), Bryan--don't worry, the book makes sense of this eventually. And Leonard is a white man who works at a Lincoln hotel and befriends the charismatic owner of Quigley House, John Forrester. Besides the house, each of these characters have other things in common: they feel isolated and lack belonging; they latch onto a love interest who likely isn't all that into them; and they make bad choices in the name of "love."

The Quigley house is really a metaphor for the horrorscape of modern American life, especially for people on the outside. Mattson makes this point in many different ways and from different viewpoints. Seeing Jaidee try and fail to become American is painful. Watching Leonard get twisted into a prototype incel is frightening. The scenes in the house itself are both exciting and shocking.

I think it kind of falls down at the end. It gets a bit too heavy-handed, too much on the nose. Maybe Mattson is trying to juggle too many themes at once. But by that time, we've already been through the ride, which I enjoyed. I appreciate it when writers try to do different things in the horror genre and when they use horror to shine a light on the horrors we all live with everyday.

>54 sturlington: I liked this one, despite being bored with slasher movies.

>56 RidgewayGirl: I couldn't help but compare it to The Only Good Indians, which I loved. I also read Night of the Mannequins last year, which has a similar premise but is shorter, so I compared to that too. I think there is a sequel planned.

>57 sturlington: It's going to be a trilogy, which reconciled me to the ending. I choose to believe that things will get better for Jade.

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix (2021)
Read for: ScaredyKIT -- April: Serial killers


I don't even like slasher movies, but this is the second book that I've read in close succession that was basically a love letter to the genre, and I thought it was great fun (the other book was My Heart Is a Chainsaw, and certainly these two novels make a good double feature). Hendrix's books have been hit or miss for me, but I appreciate how he plays around with well-worn tropes and humanizes the stock characters of the horror genre. In this case, the trope is the final girl: the last survivor of a slasher movie who kills the baddie--but no one knows or cares what happens to her after the police arrive. In this novel, slasher-type massacres were an actual "trend" during the '80s and '90s, and all of the well-known films were based on real-life cases (you won't have to be a slasher-movie fan to recognize the references--these movies are embedded in the culture now). The survivors of these massacres, two decades older now and coping (or not) with their trauma in various ways, meet once a month in a church basement as a support group. The narrator is Lynette, who is obsessively paranoid, convinced that the Monster will return and there will be a "sequel"--and when one of the other final girls doesn't show up for group, it seems like she may be right. After being shot at in her apartment, Lynette goes on the run, which turns out to be a cinematic, plot-twisting, page-turning ride. I tore through this book in two days. I thought it was fun, clever, campy in all the right parts, and fairly feminist (if maybe a bit heavy-handed in that department). A good follow-up to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires.

Near the Bone by Christina Henry (2021)
Read for: on the ALA Reading List - Horror


This was a monster story with two monsters. Mattie and her husband William live off the grid in a small cabin in the mountain wilderness. One day, Mattie is checking the rabbit snares when she discovers a dead fox and some very alarming, very large paw prints. That's one monster. The other one is William himself, who is much older than Mattie and keeps her submissive with brutal abuse. Of the two monsters, William scared me more. Soon after finding the prints, some strangers arrive, also looking for the creature. This sets things in motion, and the rest of the book is high suspense, as Mattie makes her escape attempt while learning who she really is, William keeps coming for them like the Terminator, and the monster is out there unseen and picking off its victims. What I really liked about this book is how Mattie comes into herself, discovering her spark of inner strength and defiance that had all but been extinguished by years of horrific abuse. Even without the monster, that would have made for a good story--although the monster storyline did provide some relief (?) from the real-world horrors. I felt the end left me hanging, though, as we never really find out what the creature is exactly. Overall, a gripping read.

Sundial by Catriona Ward (2022)
Read for: New fiction by a writer I'm enjoying | Also fits: BingoDOG--published in a year ending in 2


This is the second book by Ward that I have read over the last few months (the other was The Last House on Needless Street), and can I say that I think she is my new favorite horror writer? The first 30 pages of this novel alone managed to do what all of The Push could not. But this is not merely a "bad seed" story. It has ghosts, family secrets, and a very entertaining story-within-a-story modeled on old-fashioned girls' boarding school novels. In addition to some unexpected plot twists, Ward has given us complex and flawed characters, a very evocative setting in the Mojave Desert, and multilayered themes that include an examination of how our childhood experiences shape us and the power we have inside us to overcome (or not) that initial "programming." I am so excited to have discovered this writer, and I look forward to seeing more work from her.

Horror is not my thing. But I zipped over to your thread from 2016 to look at your thoughts on The First 15 Lives of Harry August. Perhaps a bit of a spoiler in the first paragraph, but I thought some of your comments were interesting and will be looking to see if they help me as I read further. The person who is supposed to lead the discussion for this book has already told me she won't be there, so I'll have to find some discussion questions and I think some of your comments have given me a few ideas. (plus what I can find on the internet)

>62 dudes22: Well, it's been a while (maybe pre-spoiler tags?) since I read that one. I just reread my review and it seems a bit harsher than my memories of the book would warrant. I'm glad it's giving you some ideas for discussion, though.

>61 sturlington:, So glad to hear that Sundial lived up to Last House on Needless Street! It's high on my TBR :)

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (2020)
Read for: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2021


Previous books by Erdrich that I have tried reading didn't really connect with me, but I was drawn into this novel right away by the precisely drawn two main characters, Thomas and Patrice. They led me by the hand into this novel about life on the reservation in the 1950s, which was desperately poor but also simple, beautiful, and deeply spiritual. Erdrich makes this last point when she brings on two Mormon missionaries who are flummoxed to find that Indians were neither as simple nor as easy to convert as they believed, that their beliefs were so tightly interwoven into their identity they could not be separated. The overarching story is about the tribe's fight against termination, but this is a portrait of Indian life to counteract the stereotypes as well as tell the truth about their experiences in relation to the white world and the US government. Sometimes I lost track of who all the side characters were, but I never lost their sense of humanity that Erdrich so deftly endows her characters with. Erdrich's prose is simple but resonant, and her short chapters have a rhythm of stories told round a fire. This book was definitely worthy of the Pulitzer Prize, which it won in 2021.

Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson (2021)
Read for: SFFKit - April: Lifespans theme


This is an enjoyable locked-room mystery, except the locked room is an interstellar spaceship. Thompson throws a lot in here--AIs and wormholes and such--but I think it works, mainly because of the light, buddy-cop-movie tone. I particularly liked the cultures of the colony planet Bloodroot and the space station Lagos as well as the presumably alien Lambers. There are engaging characters, a fair amount of grisliness and lots of action.

You got me with your Near the Bone review.

I really enjoyed The Night Watchman, too.

Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx (1999)
Read for: 50 State Reading Challenge


The theme running through all of these stories is the hardness of the place where they are set, how it takes lives--either violently and unexpectedly, or slowly wearing them down over years into tough, bitter nubs. Yes, the stories are bleak, and a couple even border on horror (or Western gothic?), but Proulx's writing is so precise and evocative and such a pleasure to read. The final story is "Brokeback Mountain," a heart-breaking love story and Proulx's writing at its finest.

Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark (2020)
Read for ScaredyKIT: May theme - Short stories & Novellas; Also fits: 50 State Challenge


An entertaining short novel set in 1920s Georgia about a Black woman monster hunter fighting interdimensional creatures disguised as Ku Klux Klan members. There's more than a touch of Lovecraft to this, but I enjoyed it as an action-packed horror story and a commentary on the history of racism in America. I also believe it paid homage to A Wrinkle in Time - nice.

The Seep by Chana Porter (2020)
Read for: SFFKit: May theme - Invasions


An odd little novel about a "soft" invasion of mysterious aliens that gradually become symbiotic with humans and relieve us of our suffering, our scarcity thinking, our violence, our mortality, possibly our purpose. Of course there are philosophical questions of free will and if we need to suffer to be fully human. I thought it started out fairly strong, and the aliens intrigued me, but for me it got all mushy toward the end and lost its thread.

Black Widows by Cate Quinn (2021)
Read for: 50 State Reading Challenge


On a remote ranch in the desert scrub near Salt Lake City, a man is violently murdered. His wife is most likely the killer--but which one? Yes, this is a story of Mormon polygamy in rural Utah. Blake has three very different wives, all of which may have had reason to kill him, and one of whom has a dark secret regarding her childhood growing up in a cult with an evil "prophet" at its head.

First, I do need to say that the structure of this novel is one I've seen more and more lately in thrillers and that I find tiresome to read--that is, very short chapters, alternating point of view, all in first person and present tense. In this case, it alternates among the wives. I was thinking about giving up on it for that reason alone, but I got drawn in by the story and the characters. Quinn's writing is very cinematic, which makes the ping-pong structure not as tedious as it could be, and she did a good job of making her characters distinct and more and more sympathetic as the story went on. Did I see the twist coming? No, but that's because I thought it was just nuts. I accepted it, but it was like I was reading about alien beings, so strange were their beliefs. I very much liked the ending and the underlying feminist tones, but I do think the plot is kind of a ripped-from-the-headlines, throw-in-every-shocking-thing-that-comes-to-mind potboiler.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw (2021)
Read for: ScaredyKIT - May theme: Short stories and novellas


Five friends take an expensive trip to a haunted mansion in Japan to hold a surprise wedding and ghost hunt. I have read a lot of haunted house stories over the years, and this one unfortunately did not do a lot for me. I agree with several other reviewers that it seemed overwritten, yet at the same time, not meaty enough. I would have appreciated a deeper dive into the Japanese folklore underlying the plot; at times, I felt I was floating in a sea of Japanese words without any context. More problematic for me were the characters. There was such an air of simmering animosity among them that it was hard for me to accept that they had agreed to take this trip together. More back story was needed to explain why they felt the way they did and help me care more about them. I also felt that the ending was a bit too on the nose, a self-congratulatory and all-too-obvious twist on a horror trope that one of the characters had helpfully just explained to the readers. Overall, I didn't think this was bad, just meh, but unfortunately, it has gotten so much buzz at this point that it can't possibly measure up.

2022 Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists were announced, and I am not familiar with any of them.

Winner: The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen - Unfortunately not currently available at my library, although maybe now they'll get a copy.

Finalist: Monkey Boy by Francisco Goldman - Autobiographical fiction, is available at the library, only two reviews on LT, neither of them great.

Finalist: Palmares by Gayl Jones - Historical fiction set in Brazil, is available at the library, is much longer than I prefer, one bad review on LT.

My goal each year is to read the winner and the two finalists, although sometimes I opt out. I'm not feeling too excited about these selections, unfortunately, although I appreciate that the Pulitzer continues to focus on diversity. I'm sure I'll at least read the winner, which seems like an interesting concept and is short.

>73 sturlington: - Thanks for that info. I'm wondering if I should place a hold on the winner at the library before the hold list gets too long - yeah - I think so.

I'm headed to the library to pick up a couple of holds so I think I'll check with my sister and see if my home library is planning to order it. That means I'd get it earlier than if I have to wait for another library to send it as an ILL.

>74 dudes22: I look forward to seeing what you think of it once you get hold of a copy!

If, Then by Kate Hope Day (2019)
Read for: 50 State Reading Challenge


This is a quiet literary novel with a speculative premise. It is about three rather typical families who live on a cul-de-sac in a small town in Oregon underneath a supposedly dormant volcano. As the novel alternates among points of view of four different characters, they begin to catch glimpses of a world that doesn't exist: a dead mother come back to life or alternate versions of themselves. These visions spur each character to make choices that will alter the course of their own lives. Yes, this is a novel that uses the multiverse as its premise, but it's really a meditation on the choices we make and those we don't, the possibilities we create for ourselves. In the end, it seems to say that it's not too late to choose something different for ourselves, that our lives are not necessarily random outcomes of fate (although that does play a part). I liked that, but I think anyone expecting something more science fictiony will be disappointed.

The Shining by Stephen King (1977)
Read for: My son expressed an interest in reading this, so I bought him a copy and then thought I should revisit it. It stole my weekend, but I'm not sorry.

Reread. I can't really write an objective review, as this is one of my favorite all-time books, and I just read all 600+ pages of it again in a little over two days. There may be a few spoilers here.

I love and feel for these characters: Wendy, Danny, and Dick Hallorann. You can say what you will about stereotypes--King was still a young writer at the time--but these are real people, and when the shit comes down, they hold their own. And Jack: what a perfect portrait of an alcoholic and of male rage. The scene that I didn't remember, of Jack's father suddenly and with no provocation savagely beating his mother at the dinner table, was such a chilling portrayal of mundane, human horror that seems so much worse than any ghosts. But then when King revisits it, when Jack starts to understand his father and empathize with him--that really sticks the knife in, so to speak. Then there's the Overlook itself, such a thoroughly American place in its evil driven by bare, naked greed. There are so many touchpoints of terror before everything cuts loose: the hedge animals, the fire hose, Danny in the tunnel in the playground. Let's not forget that the Torrance family becomes trapped there because of the trap of poverty that strips away choice. King writes these themes--poverty, abuse, alcoholism--so well but never loses sympathy for his characters. Even the minor ones, like the guy at the gas station or the woman sitting next to Hallorann on the plane, come alive in just the few pages we get to know them. King is my favorite writer, and even though I love so many of his books, I think this has to be his best one.

Better Luck Next Time by Julia Claiborne Johnson (2021)
Read for: 50 state reading challenge and real-life book club


A very light read - something of a palate cleanser, if you need that. This historical story is set on a Reno ranch during the 1930s. The ranch is where rich women go to wait out their time before they can divorce (six weeks' residency in Nevada is required). The ranch employs handsome cowboys to keep the ladies amused--generally the innocent kind of amusement. The narrator is one of these cowboys, a 24-year-old trying to figure out his life. He befriends Nina, a feisty lady who seems like she stepped straight out of a Lauren Bacall movie to be in this book, and her roommate, Emily, who Nina is bringing out of her shell. Of course he falls in love. It ends up about how you'd expect. My main quibble is the author giving us a totally adorable horse named Dumpling and then killing him to bring about the resolution. Seems like a cheap shot. My favorite bit was the other cowboy having an affair with one of the estranged husbands. I don't think this book will be particularly memorable, but it was an easy read.

>77 sturlington: - Since you put the year in, I realize that I must have read this soon after it came out when I was in my 20s. I was living in the first apartment i lived in without a roommate and I can still remember some of the terror I felt reading this book. I would actually close the book periodically when I got too scared. Of course, I reopened it to continue after a few minutes (or the next day). Still say this is one of the scariest books I've ever read. (not that I read a lot of scary books. Maybe that book is why.)

Palace of the Drowned by Christine Mangan (2021)
Read for: Shiny and new!


Shades of Patricia Highsmith in this thriller about a writer and her possibly obsessive hanger-on in 1960s Venice. The setting is the star here, a luscious depiction of a chilly, wet bygone city culminating in a climactic storm and flood. There is much drinking going on. This novel is a slow burn, and the twists are not too surprising, but it does have great atmosphere. I don't think I liked it as much as Mangan's first novel, Tangerine, but it was plenty dark, and I prefer this old-fashioned style of thriller to all the frenetic ones that seem to be the fashion right now.

You can probably tell from my last two reviews that I do love covers with black-and-white photos on them.

>80 sturlington: I've just picked up a copy of this. I'm with you on the atmospheric black and white covers.

>81 RidgewayGirl: I'll be looking for your reaction!

Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline (2019)
Read for: ScaredyKIT: June theme - Into the wild


This is the story of a Métis woman whose husband disappears without a word. Several months later, she spots him as the preacher at a tent revival, but he doesn't recognize her. This leads her on a quest to find out what happened to him and bring him home. The story brings First Nations folklore into the werewolf story. For me, it was a bit hard to connect to, and the meaning of certain events was often slippery or elusive--but I have learned that this is true of many stories I read outside my culture. Because I do want to read diversely, I no longer take this elusiveness as a critique of the author's ability but as an encouragement that I need to keep reading, that I am moving out of my comfort zone and challenging myself, as I intended. And that's what I take to be the case here. I don't know very much about the spiritual and cultural beliefs underpinning this story, but I appreciate the author sharing it with me, and I'd like to learn more. All that being said, though, there is a fair amount of graphic sex that I could probably have done without.

>83 sturlington: One of the things I liked best about this book was how much she loved that man of hers. Sort of a Tam Lin kind of retelling.

>84 RidgewayGirl: That's interesting and something I hadn't thought of. The relationships among Joan and all her family members were well done.

So I corrected my review to specify that she was Métis. Reflecting that, the author was mixing folklore from a few different cultures, including European ones.

The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison (1970)
Read for: 50 state reading challenge

It's incredible that this is Toni Morrison's first book, and even more incredible that she would criticize her own use of language and structure in her afterword, as those were exactly what I thought made this so astounding. Morrison approaches the story of Pecola Breedlove from many different directions, spiraling in on her tragedy, so that readers can understand how many facets of oppression collude to result in the poverty, abuse, rape, and self-loathing portrayed here. Morrison does not flinch from the realities she is portraying but neither does she make them melodramatic; this is how her simple use of language and the vernacular serves her and the story well.

>86 sturlington: - I haven't read this in a long time and I don't remember an afterword and I can agree that her use of language is what makes her books so good. I wonder if she felt she "had" to address her language use? People get upset at the drop of a hat these days. I try to always be mindful of when a book was written and the predominant feelings of society at the time.

>87 dudes22: I think the afterword was added to the 1993 (?) edition. I felt like instead of responding to public opinion, she was being overly self critical, as artists tend to do. She was basically reflecting on what she felt didn't "work" in this highly regarded literary work.

>88 sturlington: - Aaah!

>73 sturlington: - >74 dudes22: - I got this from the library, but just not the book for me. After 50 pages, I just couldn't care.

>90 dudes22: Good to know. I haven't been all that excited to seek it out.

Devil House by John Darnielle (2022)
Read for: New book by author I like


This is a book, divided into several subsections, about a true crime writer trying to write his latest book that becomes a meditation on storytelling in general and retelling true stories in particular, on what makes us do the things that we do, and on why we as an audience are drawn to "true crime." Is it a bit of a mess? Yes, a bit--I think it devolves at the end, and I am with most reviewers here on that middle section--what was that even all about? But Darnielle writes in a way that just pulls me along, and i devoured this. Truly, I was with him up to the end, where I think the theme he had going about so-called losers and their childhood friendships didn't quite gel. Also, I can kind of see what he was doing with all the knights-and-their-castle imagery, but overall it didn't work for me. The part that was most affecting for me had to do with abuse, the wasted potential of young lives, and what the victims of crime have to live with--perhaps that's the note I wanted the book to end on. As with Universal Harvester, I don't think I quite understood all of this, and there is a lot to mull over, but it was still a great read.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (2022)
Read for: New book by author I like


Emily St. John Mandel's writing has a quality to it that makes any scene interesting. This novel stretches both into the past and the far future, encompassing the mundane and the fantastic. In one scene, a woman at a party realizes she has fallen out of love with her girlfriend. A writer experiences the tedium of a book tour in a series of motel rooms and snippets from her standard talk. The same writer then experiences the tedium of lockdown during a pandemic in her home in a settlement on the moon. A man, a time traveler, remembers his childhood growing up near that writer's house but two hundred years later, the edge of the dome under which he lived, the strip of overgrown wildness near that periphery.

Her writing is so detailed, so quiet and lovely, so transporting. I just fall into her books.

This book, as I mentioned, has to do with pandemics, moon colonies, time travel, and some interesting ideas about time and reality and the experience of life. It is strongly connected to her previous novels, Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel, and this novel will have more resonance if you've already read those. There seems to be an autobiographical element to it as well, the experience of a writer suddenly thrust into best-selling status, and also some musing on why we are fascinated by postapocalyptic literature. And of course, there is commentary on the pandemic we are currently experiencing. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, which I read in a little over two days, and while nothing yet has quite lived up to the emotional power of Station Eleven, I think Mandel is probably one of the best writers working in that nebulous realm where science fiction and literary fiction merge.

>93 sturlington: - This is already on my radar although I haven't read The Glass Hotel yet. Maybe this summer. I really liked Station Eleven so your comments have me wanting to get going.

>92 sturlington: While I can see why Darnielle chose the olde timey English for those sections, I didn't enjoy them at all. But as a whole, the novel was fantastic and gave me so much to think about.

>95 RidgewayGirl: What did you think of that last section? I was so moved by that section told by the POV of the mother that the last section seemed like a comedown.

>96 sturlington: It was an entire new thing! The mother's letter was the best part of a very strong book -- I'm impressed that he described life as a battered wife so well, but I do think that the final section was the point the entire book built to and something I'm still thinking about. It all becomes somewhat meta when I think about how the entire book is fiction, so should how should the reader feel on discovering that the story was fiction?

>97 RidgewayGirl: I didn't really know how to feel about it, to be honest. It certainly made me doubt pretty much everything I'd read before it, which made me feel uncomfortable--and maybe that was the point, as well. I very much liked the book, but I think it might benefit from a second reading with the ending in mind.

A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight (2021)
Read for: Selection of the ALA Reading List


This was a decent thriller. I was hooked in by the dead woman at the bottom of the stairs at the beginning--shades of Michael Peterson (since I just watched the HBO series about him starring Colin Firth). That's where the resemblance ended. I liked the contrasts of the different marriages with secrets, although whoa, there are a lot of bad men in this book. Perhaps the surprise reveal was a bit too neat. I'm not sure I bought all the details that came together so nicely. But it was entertaining and kept me reading to find out what happened, so in that sense, it was a successful mystery.

Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon (2022)
Read for: New book by an author I like


This is a road-trip novel set in a near-future (or possibly alternate) America in which society is slowly collapsing but you can still find people willing to pick up a hitchhiker or break your nose for a hundred bucks. Billy travels across America in his RV, the Guiding Star, with his strangely endearing dog, Flip, rescued from a dog-fighting outfit. Billy does odd jobs of a criminal nature for a vague corporate entity, who make use of the fact that in a world where everything about everybody is in the cloud somewhere, Billy technically doesn't exist and is thus invisible. However, he did donate sperm back in the day, which was used to make babies, one of which calls him on his untraceable burner phone and starts the whole convoluted plot rolling. The story is part long-distance chase, part mystery, part techno thriller, part bizarro dystopia, and we bumble through it with affable Billy, as he remembers scenes from his dysfunctional childhood, gradually comes to question everything he just accepted in the past, and starts losing/shedding vital parts of his previous life. While this novel paints a grim picture of the world that's waiting for us just around the corner, it does so with dark humor and a sense of grim optimism.

The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman (2014)
Read for: ScaredyKIT - July theme - Living Dead


A contemporary vampire tale, set in 1970s New York City with a perpetually 14-year-old narrator and a lot of gruesomeness. I don't want to say much more, as this one is prone to spoilers and probably better enjoyed without knowing too much going in. Buehlman manages to find a fresh way to tackle the well-worn vampire trope.

>101 sturlington: Well this sounds interesting...

The Lesser Dead and the author in general is a favorite of mine, so I'm glad you enjoyed it! I've got Sleepwalk high on my TBR, too, and I think you just sent it higher!

This Dark Earth by John Hornor Jacobs (2012)
Read for: ScaredyKIT - July theme - Living Dead


"Grab your headknocker and get ready for some wet work in the murderhole."

A zombie novel, with nuclear apocalypse to boot. The zombies are pretty gross and well, they're zombies--they just keep coming. There is lots of head-bashing and limbs falling off and guts squirting everywhere. Many of the survivors are pretty bad as well: slavers, rapists, torturers, idiots. Things seem very bleak and hopeless, but this is the apocalypse after all. If it's not zombies that get you, it's radiation sickness. I myself would put a bullet in my brain.

So what sets this apart from the bazillions of other zombie novels? First, it has an unusual structure. It is a novel, but the chapters read like stories, each one describing a specific incident and told from a different point of view, although they are connected by characters and proceed along a linear timeline starting from Day 0.

Second, I thought the characterization was very well done for this type of novel. Each character seemed unique, nonstereotyped, flawed, and relatable. The varying perspectives kept the story fresh, and it was a fast and entertaining read. But still, zombies. I may have had enough of them.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders (2021)
Reason to read: Interest in writing and to spark creativity


This is an excellent book if you are interested in the technical craft of writing, or if you want to become a better reader, or just if you want to learn more about the short story form or Russian literature. It does feel like taking a class. Saunders's style is conversational, with plenty of funny bits and personal anecdotes, but his insights into both writing and life based on these stories are clearly presented, and there were plenty of aha! moments for me when reading it. I had not read any of these writers before except Chekhov, so this also was a great introduction to 19th-century Russian literature. Highly recommended.

>105 sturlington: I'm waiting to buy a paperback copy as it seems like a book I'll want to take my time with and possibly make notes in.

>106 RidgewayGirl: Definitely a book worth owning. There were lots of sections I highlighted.

Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze (1953)
Reason to read: NYRB Classics edition

I keep going back to these crime noir classics reissued by NYRB Classics. They're usually good reads--undiscovered gems.

>108 sturlington: And they are such well-designed books. I have a small collection of them together on a shelf and they look fantastic.

>109 RidgewayGirl: I really love a pretty book. Even better when it's also a good read.

The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welter (1972)
Read for: US road trip

This is a beautifully written quiet little book. The descriptions especially are very evocative, and certainly I know these people, having grown up in the South myself. I'm not sure how much I connected to the story or these characters, though--I felt, as I read, like a disinterested observer, admiring the craft but not getting emotionally involved. Perhaps it is because I feel like I have read the Southern novel so many times over that it has become too shopworn for me by now, which is probably more a fault of mine than of this author's.

Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan (1974; updated edition)
Read for: ScaredyKIT Theme for August - YA

I believe this is an updated revision of a book originally published in 1974. This is a story that my preteen self would have loved. It is set in a spooky isolated boarding school and involves ghosts and ESP. I thought the story was pretty good and appropriate for younger readers, but the ending seemed abrupt to me. I would have appreciated an epilogue of some sort. I also have to respect Duncan for having the cojones to pass her own poetry off as being written by Emily Bronte, but I wasn't quite buying that. I found the potential romance, with its age difference, a little off-putting, but it remained only potential and was never developed, so I guess that's okay.

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (2016)
Read for: USA Road Trip


I had no idea what this book would be about when I started it, but it captivated me from the first scene. It's an understated but powerful novel about family--the ones we have, the ones we choose, and the ones that are forced on us. Patchett treats her characters so humanely and with great compassion. I think we need that every once in a while.

>113 sturlington: - This was recommended to me back when it came out and somehow I've never gotten around to it. I think I need to figure out how to fit it in.

>114 dudes22: It would likely be a quick read for you, as it's not long and very engaging, if that helps!

I've been in a reading slump lately. I can't tell if it's because I've been working so much, and all I do for work is read, or if it's because I'm just feeling down in general because of the news and other things. Either way, I keep starting books and not finishing one.

Here's one I did finish.
Hide by Kiersten White (2022)
Found on library's new books shelf


A perfectly fine popcorn book, obviously inspired by the Minotaur myth. It reads like a screenplay more than a novel--not much depth, but entertaining. I guess that's what I needed right now.

>116 sturlington: Ugh. Reading slumps. And they usually come at a time when it would be useful to fall into a story. A popcorn book is a good way to tread water until you're reading with enthusiasm again.

Still in my reading slump. My eyes are just so tired at night that it's hard to focus on reading. But I did manage to finish another short book.

Weep, Woman, Weep by Maria DeBlassie (2021)
Read for: book club + ScaredyKIT: Witches theme


This short novel is a mixture of magical realism, folktale, romance, and feminism. Set in small town New Mexico, it is about a woman who must overcome the curse of La Llorona, the weeping woman whose touch dooms her victims to lives of sorrow, usually at the hands of an abusive man. The author created a main character, Mercy, with a compelling and unique voice and used fairy tale tropes effectively to tell the story of a woman overcoming the cycles of abuse and poverty to craft her own life. The romance was also nicely done: Mercy does not need to be saved by a man but saves herself, then chooses a man to partner with. She always has agency. I both enjoyed and was inspired by this short novel and hope to read more of this author's works.

So sorry to hear you're in a reading slump, but short novels are a good way to go. I really appreciate a well-crafted novella.

Fairy Tale by Stephen King (2022)
Read for: ScaredyKIT: Stephen King theme


Pretty much true to its title, this King novel is a lot closer to fantasy than horror. It reminded me a bit of Eyes of the Dragon and The Talisman, and of course there were references to The Dark Tower series with its interconnected worlds. The characters were endearing, and the fairy tale allusions were fun, but I felt it could have been a great deal shorter than it was and would have packed a stronger punch.

Lapvona by Ottesa Moshfegh (2022)
Read because I enjoy this author


Like all of Moshfegh's novels, Lapvona has a way of making the reader (at least this reader) feel pleasantly unsettled while reading it. Lapvona is a village that doesn't seem so much like a real place as something out of a (very dark) fairy tale, and this is the story of a year of misfortunes that befall its inhabitants. The people of Lapvona are all wrapped in complex webs of delusions of their own making, which enable them to cope with the dismal realities of their lives. When someone's delusions begin to unravel, it does not go well for them. There are not many who either want to give up their delusions or can successfully do so. Grigor seems to be one, an enlightenment perhaps brought on by smoking a little weed, which leads him to turn his back on the village as a whole and take to the woods as a hermit. And perhaps Agata is another, although she has absolutely no agency in her life and, with her tongue cut out, cannot even express whatever it is that she believes. Moshfegh tells Lapvona's story plainly and flatly, hiding none of the depravities of this world. It's easy to draw parallels between Lapvona and our own society, but what are we to do with that? Moshfegh offers no answers to that question.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (2016)
Read for: Book club


A Japanese woman who cannot understand the feelings and behaviors of other people finds an identity and place for herself as a convenience store worker. But society cannot accept that she is happy and fulfilled in this nontraditional role and presses her to become "normal." This short book had an unusual perspective and narrative voice. It deftly portrays what it's like to be an "outsider" while subtly poking at conformity and its perceived value.

It's the time of year for lists, even though the year's reading isn't done yet. But who can resist making a top 5 list?

My top 5 books are ones that have continued to stick with me, provoking thought and emotion, since I've read them. They are:
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Sundial by Catriona Ward
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

I don't include rereads in my top 5, but this year I reread favorite books The Shining and The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

Honorable mentions: The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward; Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh; My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones; Reprieve by James Han Mattson; The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich; Devil House by John Darnielle; Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel; The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison; Close Range by Annie Proulx; Fairy Tale by Stephen King; Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh; Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

And there's still time for an upset!

Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer (2021) 3.5★
Read for: Shirley Jackson Award shortlist

Trying a new review format. Also no need to put covers in the post as you can mouse over the title to see the cover.

What is it? A hard-boiled detective novel with a vaguely apocalyptic near-future setting.

Where is it set? Unnamed location in the Pacific Northwest, but context tells me it's mostly set in Oregon.

What I liked: The hard-boiled detective is a middle-aged female ex-wrestler who's not that great at detecting (though she gets better). Interesting ideas about the environment and our relationship with it.

What I didn't like: The plot was convoluted and sometimes hard to follow, but I find that's true of all hard-boiled detective novels. There were a lot of fight scenes.

What it compares to: It didn't move me as much as either the Southern Reach trilogy or Borne. Reminded me of 12 Monkeys.

End of the Year Meme

Describe yourself: My Heart Is a Chainsaw

Describe how you feel: Sleepwalk

Describe where you currently live: The Good House

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Palace of the Drowned

Your favorite form of transportation is: Revolutionary Road

Your favorite food is: Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach

Your favorite time of day is: The Shape of Darkness

Your best friend is: Convenience Store Woman

You and your friends are: The Final Girls Support Group

What’s the weather like: Perihelion Summer

You fear: This Thing Between Us

What is the best advice you have to give: Hide

Thought for the day: Better Luck Next Time

What is life for you: Near the Bone

How you would like to die: Death in Her Hands

Your soul’s present condition: Reprieve

What was 2022 like for you? Far From the Light of Heaven

What do you want from 2023? Sea of Tranquility

All the Murmuring Bones by A. G. Slatter (2021) 3★
Read for: Shirley Jackson Award finalist

What is it? About as gothic as you'd want it to be, but also with mermaids

Where is it set? A fantasy country whose mythical creatures are mainly drawn from British and Irish folklore

What I liked: A plucky heroine with agency and a whole-hearted embrace of gothic tropes.

What I didn't like: Like most novels these days, it's a bit too long and could use some editing. The language becomes too flowery in parts and thus can come across as artificial. The plot is meandering and draws from so many sources that it seems all over the place. And I guess every book has to be in present tense these days.

I think this might appeal more to young adult readers than it did to this middle-aged lady.

Last book of 2022: I finished just before midnight on New Year's Eve!

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull (2021) 3.5★
Read for: Shirley Jackson Award finalist

What is it? An urban fantasy in which monsters such as shapeshifters and magic users are revealed to be living among us via viral video.

Where is it set? Mainly around Boston, Massachusetts, but also in St. Thomas and the prologue near where I live (hello, Cameron Village).

What I liked: Complex, multilayered plot involving conspiracies, secret organizations, and the multiverse. Relatable and distinct characters, especially a trans character who did not feel like a checked box. Makes points about oppression and human rights without being didactic or heavy-handed. This is *not* the X-Men.

What I didn't like: Characters' emotions are sometimes unnecessarily overexplained. I knew this was the first part of a series going on, but I hoped it would still stand alone--nope, it is clearly a part one. The multiverse aspect particularly is pretty vague.

>127 sturlington: I finished one just after midnight, but I always count it as finishing the day "before" since I haven't gone to sleep yet. So, I am counting my last one, finished just after midnight last night, as done on Dec 31. :-)

>128 LibraryCin: Yes, that definitely counts!