My Review: We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen
Yes, I decided to go crazy and start off my month with a 600+ page book. But it was really good, even if it did drag in the middle. This book spans 100 years in the small shipping town of Marstal, Denmark, and is about the men who just can’t resist the call of the sea, much to the dismay of the women at home. And the only thing I can say about this book is that I loved it, plain and simple. Highly recommended if you have enough time on your hands.
My Review: Mosquitoland by David Arnold
I don’t know why I ever thought I would like this book. Even the summary sounds pretentious as hell- a girl who gets on a bus to Ohio to go find her enabler mother, running away from her father and stepmother and “finds herself” along the way. With a grating voice and a terminal case of Special Snowflake Syndrome, Mim even managed to surpass HazelGrace Lancaster to make the top of my Most Annoying Characters Ever list. Burn this book.
Yes, this was the month I finally read this book. In case you’ve been living under a literary rock, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is made up of a collection of letters written by a 14 year old boy over the course of his first year of high school. His best friend has killed himself during the last year of middle school, so he has no friends until he meets a group of seniors who get him into drugs and drinking and there’s lots of subissues and the whole thing is just really complex. While I did kind of like this book, overall the choppy writing and overabundance of undeveloped issues made this book feel tired to me, and I couldn’t love it. For a better issue book I’d recommend Speak, which in my opinion is more focused likely due to its concentration on just one issue and how it affects the main character.
My Review: Beautiful Broken Girls by Kim Savage
One of those YA mysteries that tries to be all mysterious and haunting but just doesn’t work. Kind of like the cover, which on one hand looks really interesting and intriguing but at the same time also kind of looks like she’s bathing in milk. This book is about a boy who’s trying to figure out why these two sisters have drowned themselves because he loves one of them, and there’s also some Catholic mysticism and magical realism and sexual abuse (because we can’t forget about that in a YA book nowadays). Perhaps this book didn’t work for me because I didn’t do the required reading before going in- The Virgin Suicides- but this book didn’t work and felt like Savage was trying too hard.
I didn’t like this book, mostly because of Edna. I felt as if she was just a bored housewife who always wanted what she couldn’t have. Even her feelings towards her children felt disingenuous, and obligatory. So many of the issues in this book could have been solved she and her husband sat down and had a conversation, like civilized people, where they acknowledged how unhappy they were and either made an effort to fix the marriage or just let it become a marriage in name only, something was common in the late 1800s, early 1900s. The ending was also horribly selfish. The book was well written, I’ll give Chopin that, but overall, it wasn't my favorite.
This book was just what I wanted to read at the time. I picked it up kind of on a whim, ready for something I’d be sure to like. And this book, about a girl who develops an eating disorder after a new girl moves to town and seemingly steals away her boyfriend’s attention, as well as some other factors, like her desire to make Nationals in barrel racing like her deceased mother. I just liked this book. It’s not one of those books I think everyone will like, but it just worked for me.
My Review: Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Marina is basically about a boy, Oscar, who on a late night venture into Barcelona meets a reclusive painter, German Bláu, and his daughter, the beautiful Marina. She befriends him, taking him on a Gothic adventure through old Barcelona, before the (Spanish) Civil War, in order to find out why a woman veiled in black drops a rose on an unnamed grave on the 4th Sunday of every month at approximately 10 am. Think Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera, Edgar Allan Poe, and Bioshock all rolled into one really fantastic book. This was easily my favorite book of this month. Seriously, read it right now.
My Review: On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
The oversized page count is because my copy was short and thick, so the actual page count was doubled. This book is about the war between the townies, cadets, and the students at Jellicoe School, where the main character goes to and is the leader of the students. There’s also a subplot about these kids from the 80s who were on the road, and it gets pretty complex after that point. While I liked this Aussie YA classic, I wasn’t as in love with it as a lot of other people were. I think there was a great story in this novel, but the execution was lacking.
My Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
This is the book that took my paranormal romance virginity, and, to be honest, I would like to ask for it back. In the defense of this book, I was never really that into the idea of paranormal romance (paranormal okay, I like aspects of it in mysteries, but romance not so much) as a genre anyway. But in defense of me I expect to love this book, about a girl who was raised by demons and who can’t remember any of her past. But it ended up just being Twilight with angels substituted in with vampires. Don’t trust pretty writing, kids, you’ll just end up disappointed.
My Review: The Good People by Hannah Kent
Another fantastic Kent novel, this one taking place in 19th century Ireland, The Good People was just a really good book. It’s about a woman whose daughter and husband are both dead and she is forced to care for her young, disabled grandson alone. She, along with the rest of the villagers, becomes convinced that the grandson is a changeling. It shows the clash between the old Irish Gaelic folklore with the Catholic Church, and is fantastically atmospheric. If you loved Burial Rites, you will be sure to love this book too.
My Review: The Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry
One of those feminist historical fiction books that are all the rage nowadays, this book managed to take an interesting idea and make it into every other YA historical fiction book ever written. The book is about a Catholic mystic named Dolssa who apparently has the power to heal people. The Church thinks she’s a heretic, so they’re pursuing her. What could have been an interesting plot was instead choked by Botille, a stereotypical historical fiction female protagonist with little actual bearing on the plot and just annoyed me. I suppose this book didn't work for me as much as it worked for other people.
My Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Another book I read for the first time this month, and thought it was only okay. In case you’ve never heard of The Lunar Chronicles, this book is the first in that series and is essentially a science fiction retelling of Cinderella. Like Daughter of Smoke and Bone, there was a reason I was never inclined to pick this book up. I’m not a science fiction or a retelling fan. I mean, this was fun to read, don’t get me wrong, but the writing was only okay and Cinder wasn’t a protagonist I could root for, mostly because I knew she’d get out of any situation based off her sheer specialness. The plot was also predictable. But, again, I didn’t hate this book because it was mostly fun fluff.
Honestly, I can’t say anything bad about this book. It was well-written and short, and about an interesting topic- a cellist who plays for 25 days in a crater where 25 people died during a bombing in some Serbian war in the 90s- but honestly just wasn’t holding my interest. I began this book before The Sky Between You and Me, but I didn’t feel much like picking it up whenever I went to read, and then got distracted by The Sky Between You and Me. I kept telling myself I would go back to it, put it on my nightstand with a bookmark hanging out of it ready to pick it back up, but just never got around to it. Then my library books were due back, so I just returned it. Maybe someday I’ll attempt it again. But not soon, I’m afraid.
My Review: Faithful Place by Tana French
Not my favorite Tana French book, mostly because it felt less like a Dublin Murder Squad book and more like a domestic family drama. This book follows Frank Mackey as he goes back to his home at Faithful Place because a suitcase is discovered that belongs to a girl named Rosie who he wanted to run away with back in the 80s. The writing and the characters were excellent, as usual, but, again, if you wanted a Dublin Murder Squad book this one wouldn’t be the first I’d recommend. But if you like family dramas with some mystery elements, pick this one up.
My Review: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
I was excited to pick this book up after Marina. It seemed interesting, too, another Gothic novel, this one following a boy who goes to this place known as the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, and is immediately drawn to a book called The Shadow of the Wind. When he tries to search out more books by the author, he discovers that someone is systematically burning every single copy of every book he has ever written. While this book was still pretty good, at times it felt like a more dragged out version of Marina, and it didn’t really work for me the same way Marina did. I might continue on with the series, but not right away.
My Review: Splendor by Anna Godbersen
Splendor, the final book in The Luxe series is one I’m more than happy to be over with. I don’t know what I can say in the summary that won’t be a major spoiler, but shit goes down in the last book. Or rather, it should go down, when you can find it in the plot. This was easily my least favorite book in the series, and was just overall very boring to me. I couldn’t really get into it and really just finished it because I had to. I didn’t want to drag this series out another month or leave it unfinished.
I’m in lust with this cover. Seriously. Anyway, I had only ever read The Lottery by Shirley Jackson back in like 8th grade, but the story always stuck with me. So I decided to pick up We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I don’t regret it at all. I was engrossed in this story, especially in the character of Mary Katherine- Merricat. She seemed younger than her 18 years- locked in some state of perpetual arrested development. She slightly unnerved me, and as the story progresses it becomes clear that there’s something wrong with her. It was dark and gloomy and creepy and I enjoyed it immensely. Just an aside, though- don’t read the introduction before starting, since it gives away major spoilers. In fact, don’t read any introduction before any book. I never do. I also went into this book almost completely blind, which was in my opinion the best way to read it. I don’t know if I did this book justice with my short little review, but I need more time to think on this book.
I’ve made it one of my life’s goals to read everything F Scott Fitzgerald has ever written. I feel as if that’s a doable goal- F Scott Fitzgerald wasn’t an overly prolific writer, and his novels are typically very short. It’s not as if I’m reading every single play Shakespeare put out or something. And I love the way Fitzgerald writes, his sentences are perfectly put together. But this book is something else. I noticed that a common criticism of this book is the lifestyle shown, especially the egotistic main character Amory Blaine. The thing is, this book is meant to be a scathing critique of the Jazz Age lifestyle, as with all of Fitzgerald’s work, including Gatsby. It’s an unflinchingly honest portrayal of the era that grew up to find “all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken”. Like all Fitzgerald novels, it’s semi-autobiographical. Amory Blaine is F Scott, albeit a very, very negative portrayal. And the Rosalind he lost is likely Zelda, since he wrote this book after Zelda rejected his proposal because he was unpublished. In fact, he begged the publishers to publish this book earlier so that Zelda would accept his engagement without question. The writing is very eclectic, often changing. We have letters, plays, even some poetry interspersed. It’s also pretty funny, something I was surprised about because Gatsby wasn’t particularly funny. Even if this book wasn’t an F Scott Fitzgerald novel I still would have loved it, and it’s an interesting first look at the author who would soon write one of the greatest of the Great American Novels.
My Review: Night Film by Marisha Pessl
I’ve always been attracted to the dark side of fiction- the strange, twisted, and mildly deranged. So Night Film seemed like it would be perfect for me- it’s got a cult classic horror director, a girl who kills herself, and a mystery with supernatural elements. And while I did like this book, the writing wasn’t the best, with the author having what seems to be a case of italic Tourette’s, and interchangeable characters. But the plotline was what ended up pulling this book through to me, so it got an 8.
My Review: The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum
My first nonfiction book this year, about the birth of forensic toxicology in New York along with a bunch of poison-related murders. The science in it was easy to understand, but the bits about murder were a bit lacking, with too much time devoted to the Prohibition. Overall, though, I liked this book just fine. It wouldn’t be one of my favorite nonfiction true crime books, but it was pretty damn good. And a quick read, too.
Page total: 7,189
Average rating: 7/10 (rounded down)
Genre breakdown: 8 historical fiction
4 contemporaries
3 mystery-thrillers
2 horror
1 paranormal
1 science fiction
1 nonfiction (true crime)
Of those, 10 were adult and 10 were YA
So it was a pretty good month for me- got 20 books read in total, more than I thought I did, and my average rating was higher than I thought it was. Like I said above, I doubt April's going to be a good reading month, but we'll see how it goes.
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