Look at me, being all optimistic and stuff. May was a good month for reading. I took a week off, grabbed my mama, my knitting, and a fully library-loaded tablet, and hightailed it into the woods. Peace and quiet and easy-breezy company. It does wonders for one’s outlook!
What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall. Similar to I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai, this novel also focuses on a woman looking back with mature perspective at a traumatic event in her childhood. Central questions in each being, was the right person accused? And, if not, what is her culpability in his conviction? Another good read.
Happiness Falls by Angie Kim. A father disappears and the only witness is his non-verbal (violent? dangerous?) teenage son who was with him at the time and returned home without him. Narrated by Mia, the super-analytical 20 year old daughter and sister, tries to put the pieces together. It’s a mystery, and it’s also a meditation on the nature of language, our perception of intelligence, family, fitting in, standing out. It’s a really good read and a thinker!
I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman. Psychological thriller, I guess? Another middle-aged woman looking back on teenaged trauma and wrangling with her own sense of guilt (why didn’t she escape or get help when she had the chance?). Elizabeth had been been kidnapped and taken on the run for over a month when she was just fifteen. Now her kidnapper, a convicted murderer, has a last request for her before his execution. There’s a lot here to wrestle with but, unfortunately, I feel like this novel does more telling than showing. I never really felt immersed.
Mindful of Murder by Susan Juby. Lots of cosy murder mystery ingredients here – not one but three(!) butlers, quirky characters galore, food descriptions, flower arranging, an inheritance up for grabs – but this novel doesn’t feel formulaic. It’s got a great setting too, at a retreat centre on an island off the BC coast . I want to go to there!
My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren. A friends-to-lovers story arc that’s pretty solidly meh.
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. I felt trepidation starting this book, to be honest. Not really keen on books where animals suffer in any way, and because this novel includes an octopus in captivity I was concerned how it would make me feel. Well, as it turns out, it was wonderful. Yes, there is an exceptionally intelligent octopus who narrates some chapters alternating with an elderly woman who is a caretaker at the aquarium and a young man who doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere. What transpires is a beautiful, sensitive and gripping story that reveals how they are all connected.
You Have a Match by Emma Lord. I really appreciate that YA books like this – where straight and gay and non-binary characters are just part of the world and not a thing – seem to be becoming the norm. At least the ones I stumble across are, so maybe it’s more about my algorithm. Anyway, in the great tradition of young adult literature, this novel explores the eternal themes of identity and belonging and longing and friendship as well as today issues like living for the ’gram. Well done.
Dead on Target by MC Beaton, RW Green. This novel reads like M.C. Beaton’s beloved characters as puppets moved around by someone else. It made sense when I realized that the author had passed away and this novel had been completed by another writer. I wonder if in fact that it was entirely written by the co-author to Ms Beaton’s outline or notes. Anyway, it didn’t have the inimitable charm of all the others in the Agatha Raisin series, and that’s a bummer.
The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman. Book 3 in the Thursday Murder Club series, this is another delight. Highly recommend. I’ve been reading them in order, and I suggest you do too because they build on each other.
Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney. The twists and the turns in this one. They just kept coming! I enjoyed it a lot.
