goodbye 2023!

New year, new attempt at staying online. I have goals! I have intentions! I love the fresh start of a new year, so here’s a little recap of my 2023 reading before I abandon it all in the name of new and exciting 2024 things. I’m hoping to jump back into reviews imminently and be much more present with bookish content and friends this year, but a broad roundup of my 2023 reading seems like the best place to dive back in.

In 2023, I read 42 books. I continued to struggle with migraines and fatigue so that total number is still lower (as it has been for about 3 years now) than what I would call “normal” for me, but it is increasing and I hope will continue to do so.

I mention the struggle with health because it directly impacted my reading plans for 2023: cover color tbrs! Because I was reading less regularly, I didn’t want the pressure of monthly tbrs/deadlines, and needed to refamiliarize myself with the books that were readily available to me as well as reassess what sorts of genres/topics I was going to be interested in reading after massively scaling back both my bookish input and output the 2 previous years. So I spent 2023 picking color sets (with a couple of book prize list exceptions), collected books that fit the prompts, and read 6 from each set. It was silly, but it absolutely worked. I scoured my shelves, found unread books I’d forgotten about, purchased some new books for the first time in a while, thought about categorizing and critiquing books in new ways, and gave myself the time to read at whatever pace I needed to with each set. Even after I fell off the wagon with reviewing here again, I brought reviews back to my bookstagram (which wasn’t the plan for 2023) because I was engaging naturally again with what I was reading and I did want to keep pushing myself to think through what worked or not, why, and write something coherent about it all. Sometimes doing as much as we can isn’t the same as doing as much as we would like to, but it’s still better than doing nothing. Without that silly year of color reading I wouldn’t be here today, fully ready to dive back in, be creative and critical, and read without constraints.

My top books for the year were:

1. Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy; my very first read of 2023 and my favorite all the way through December. This is a poignant near-future literary novel about grief and climate change, as one woman runs from a difficult situation with her husband in order to follow the last migration of Arctic Terns with the eclectic crew of a fishing ship, a found family under increasing duress. It’s a moving and accessible read that pays wonderful homage to the natural world. 5 stars.
2. Pod by Laline Paull; shortlisted for the 2023 women’s prize, this aquatic tale narrated from the perspective of sea creatures (primarily a spinner dolphin) took me entirely by surprise. Though not usually a fan of animal stories I found myself constantly Googling for more information about real sea creatures, habitats, and incidents that caught my interest in the book. It’s an emotional read that, like Migrations, confronts the reader with the devastating impact humankind is wreaking upon world environments. 4 stars.
3. Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll; a crime novel that investigates the damage one well-known serial killer left in his wake in the 1970s by highlighting the lives of the women left behind. The Defendant goes entirely unnamed here as Knoll focuses her multi-timeline multi-POV masterpiece instead on the grief, the social impacts, and the police incompetency that plague two women who make it a personal mission to bring him to justice. Deftly done, gripping, and leaves one rethinking media portrayal of “popular” criminals. 5 stars.
4. Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley; up for the Booker in 2022 (among other prizes), this absolute gut-punch of a novel depicts the struggle of a teen girl who turns to prostitution in order to pay her climbing rent. The nightmare goes from bad to worse when she’s caught and exploited by the local police force. Not for the faint-of-heart but it is very smart and eye-opening, written impactfully and memorably. 5 stars.
5. Prophet Song by Paul Lynch; winner of the 2023 Booker prize, this lyrical novel started very slow for me but has proved unshakeable ever since. In this near-future dystopia, a change in government has upended legal rights and life as we know it for one (Irish) family vying for safety as all hell breaks loose. It feels hauntingly timely and reflective of the global situation these past months; also not a story for the faint-of-heart but an absolutely necessary novel, especially in light of recent events. 4 stars.
6. The Daughter of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai; an Egypt-inspired fantasy featuring elemental weaving. The ages, themes, and accessibility do suggest this is an appropriate book for younger (maybe 14-18) audiences, but the twisty plot, feminist characters, and utter lack of patronizing or overly simplistic tone in the writing keeps it fun for adults as well. Cannot wait for the sequel. 5 stars.
7. The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff; it’s hard to imagine getting tired of satirical stories about women murdering their husbands/boyfriends, I love them every time. Here we have a loan group comprised of Indian women frenemies, some of whom would like to kill off their husbands to escape abuse and enjoy the freedoms of widowed life. It’s funny and serious at the same time, conveying stories of trauma in a palatable way that also emphasizes how desperately a realistic solution is needed. 4 stars.
8. Western Lane by Chetna Maroo; a slip of a book, this Booker shortlister follows a teen who becomes a competitive squash player in the wake of her mother’s tragic death. Though squash is a main focus here, an interest in the sport is not a prerequisite; instead this is moreso a book about navigating grief and coming of age, and the sometimes-fraught relationship between children and parents trying their best. 5 stars.
9. Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou; dark academia following one Asian American woman struggling through a PhD; this examination of yellowface in academia captures the drudgery of school, the wildness of amateur sleuthing, and the horrors of real social injustice. A great compare/contrast piece to Kuang’s popular Yellowface, I liked Chou’s ability here to instill some wackiness to the plot to keep the story light on the surface without sacrificing the seriousness of its subject matter. 4 stars.
10. Trespasses by Louise Kennedy; an Irish Troubles novel in which a young schoolteacher begins an affair with a married man. Already a controversial pair, Kennedy also invites us to consider with these characters the tension in this time between differing religious and political stances, and the harm in the name one bears or the group one belongs to mattering more than a person’s character. Of course we can’t expect this relationship to end well, but somehow the ending still came as a surprise for me. 4 stars.

Though I’ll limit the standouts to those 10, almost all of my reading was enjoyable this year! 5 stars were sadly limited BUT I read only three 2-star books n 2023, my “worst of:”

• The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King; this was the second book in King’s Dark Tower series, which I am (slowly) buddy reading with a friend. The buddy chats were the only enjoyable part of this experience, really. I’m reading all of King’s work for… reasons, but his books do tend to be hit or miss for me at this point. This one was very episodic and quest-like, which is a framework that doesn’t tend to keep me engaged very well (it feels too meandering and directionless); most of the characters felt stereotypical and unimpressively handled, coincidences and conveniences kept piling up, and my eyes rolled painfully far into the back of my head every time the word “lobstrosities” (lobster monstrosities) was used, which was far, far too often.
• Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney; I picked up my first Feeney novel to satisfy a thriller mood, but this one totally missed the mark. I normally enjoy closed-room mysteries, and didn’t mind the central conceit here, but every single character was so insufferable that I didn’t mind anyone dying- and a thriller is not thrilling with no stakes! The writing felt very adolescent to me, and packed with trite generalizations about life, family, love, etc. in place of depicting any actual characterization through actions or reactions on the page. I couldn’t stand the style, which I suppose at least confirmed that this author is not for me.
• The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa M. Matlin; another case of me being too picky with thrillers, perhaps. I picked this up off the premise that a young couple buys an old fancy house for cheap to renovate and upgrade, as it’s been sitting neglected for years after a murder spree happened inside. Unfortunately the MC does very little hands-on work with the house herself (what a missed opportunity when the house is such an important character to this tale!), and seems to be intentionally sabotaging her life then looking around in surprise when things fall apart. I found the writing choppy and repetitive, and again just didn’t have anyone to root for which made it hard to stay engaged. I actually loved the final reveals of this story, but was too frustrated with the execution to enjoy them properly.

Without many extremes to note, most of my 2023 reading fell into the “enjoyed it”/”enjoyed it a lot” 3- and 4-star range. My average rating for the year was 3.5, which is slightly low (3.6 is more typical for me) but close enough to “normal” to satisfy.

In the name of avoiding reading deadlines (among other excuses) I did not visit the library in 2023; instead almost all of my reads were either pulled from my own physical tbr shelves or purchased new, with just 2 books borrowed from friends/family. Getting back into book prize reading this year was definitely a factor in purchasing more new books, as without the library I had no other way of attaining those. (Nothing against audio or ebooks, they just aren’t my jam!)

I’ll be honest, I also bought a lot more books I haven’t read yet, and I don’t feel even a bit bad about it or inclined to investigate that number at all. I spent a solid 2 years pretty well entirely out of the book world, including almost zero purchasing, so it felt good to get my cravings back! I also am just not a person who feels the need to work down to a zero tbr; apparently we never know when we’re going to need to quarantine or survive a world collapse (I am so into climate crisis fiction lately) so at least I will be well-stocked! Even with life proceeding as usual I enjoy having plenty of choices and feeling like there are always more worlds available to delve into.

Speaking of delving into places near and far, I read from x different countries this year, not my best but not bad considering I was reading for cover color without really making a conscious effort to read diversely. Without taking that active effort my reads definitely skewed toward US-based stories and authors, but even so those more “local” reads only accounted for about half of my reading volume. I also read at least a little about: Ireland, Jamaica, England, Canada, India, Australia, Mexico, Vietnam, France, Scotland, Egypt, Iceland, Russia, and the Netherlands.

I read surprisingly more male authors than usual in 2023, which I don’t foresee that being a trend (aside from continuing my trek through Stephen King’s work). 1/4 of the books I read by men last year were from Stephen King, and 1/3 were Booker shortlisted authors (meaning 1/4 of my men writers this year were named Paul! lol) Sadly though I don’t think I read a single book by a nonbinary author this year, nor a single translation, both of which are unusual stats for me and I do intend to change again going forward!

As for genres, literary fiction takes the cake for me as usual. Historical fiction was a bit higher than expected this year, nonfiction maybe a bit low but a decent showing. No real surprises in the genre chart this year imo.

Any stats I seem to be missing? I think that’s everything from my list but I know others track many more things! Lmk if you’re curious about any more of my reading year, and I may be interested enough to dig a bit deeper. I am *hoping* to still catch up with some more reviews from my 2023 reads, especially since I did keep some notes and info on each read as I went and would like to at least do a little roundup for each of the color/prize categories that I read since that was something interesting about my 2023 reading that I won’t be carrying into 2024.

How was your reading year? Above average? Below, like mine? Status quo? All’s fair, and we trundle on 🙂

where am i

This is an in-between post, to catch up a bit with reading and posting plans, and life events 🙂

First off, it took me longer than I would’ve liked, but I have finally completed my first round of reading by color- you can catch my reviews of the six snowy blues books I read here in part 1 and part 2. If you’re looking for a shorter version of my reading reactions, check me out on bookstagram where I’m trying a new shortform reaction style this year to highlight my reads and occasionally talk more about books and life. As I had hoped, it’s been very visually pleasing (for me at least) seeing the matching covers all lined up! The Goodreads cover for How High We Go in the Dark is yellowed in the image a lot more than it is in person but I’m still getting the lovely blue vibes from this first batch of reads.

I’m enjoying the adventure/challenge of reading by color so far, although I am also already coming up against some of the limitations. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have gained any valuable insight yet into whether cover color has any deeper meaning for content or reading experience lol. The biggest unexpected coincidence was simply discovering that the two historical fiction books I picked up for snowy blues both (unbeknownst to me going in) took place in the same historical decade- the 1680s. I also read 2 futuristic books featuring some fallout of climate change, but I did expect that from my choices going in.

I managed to find two 5 stars out of six blue reads which I think is a pretty good showing of successful reads, but I might have expected even a little more from my favorite color? I actually think I’ve learned more about my buying habits and what sort of books I’m more or less likely to read promptly once they hit my personal shelves than about cover color vs content. Historical fiction, for example, often sounds appealing to me in the bookshop, but it does seem to be a genre that gets backburnered on my shelves and often ends up being lower-rated reading for me than I expected. I’ve also realized that I tend to fare better with YA when I’m able to get to it while it’s new. And I am drawn lately to futuristic books and especially those dealing with climate change- they tend to have a much shorter turnaround time between buying and reading as of late.

But maybe one color just hasn’t been enough yet to really delve into color vs content trends- perhaps I need to compare a bit more widely. Which brings us to round 2 of cover vibes reading! I am excited to announce that I’m already well underway with my second batch of color reading, and so I give to you:

pinky purples!

As with the first round, I’ve pulled everything (unread) from my shelves that I think fits the aesthetic I’ve got in mind; I’ll choose 6 books as I go and share reactions/reviews of each as I move through the challenge. I am aiming to wrap this one up more promptly because I’m already getting excited about the next set I have in mind as well… but I won’t spoil the surprise yet 😉

Part of the reason my reading and posting hasn’t kept up pace as well as I hoped is that my fatigue came back with a vengeance in February and I’ve been having a hard time again pushing past it. But I’m getting there.

In better news, my reading/posting delay has also been partially due to an opportunity to travel- one of my best friends was married in March in Mexico, so I had the chance to be a bridesmaid for the first time and also get my first stamp in my passport! I’ve made some effort in recent years to see more of the US, but Mexico has now been my first trip abroad, and I absolutely loved it. The wedding was in Merida, on a beautiful estate outside of the city, but I stayed with the wedding party in an amazing airbnb right in the city center. The weather was pretty much perfect (aside from a little rain on wedding day), so I was able to spend a lot of time exploring the city, hitting the beach, checking out lots of restaurants, bars, and shops, and hanging out poolside with friends old and new who’d also made the trip for the wedding festivities. I was able to stay for 5 days, and took lots of pictures!

But now that the stress of preparing for travel and a wedding is behind me, I’m able to manage my health a bit better and get back into the swing of things; I’m actually halfway finished with my pinky purple reads already, so I’m working on posts to catch up with those and carrying on with my final reads; I’m also very much hoping to get back to some proper blog hopping this month! I feel out of the loop and am disappointed with myself tbh that I’ve not gotten back into reading posts again yet and engaging more with this community that’s so important to me. Trying not to be too hard on myself for not being able to juggle everything as well as I used to when I felt better, but it is constantly frustrating. One step at a time is progress though, and I do feel like I’m (slowly) getting there.

So that’s where I am currently. More reviews coming soon! And a big thanks to all of my patient readers who are still here, you help more than you know. ❤

~

a lit-el forecast

5.1.21

I have a lot to cover here, so this might run a little long. Feel free to skip around for whichever pieces of the post catch your interest. I generally try to bold the subject of each paragraph/section of these weekly updates so that it’s easier for you to pick and choose what you want to read- hopefully it helps!

It’s been a busy week, and either I’ve overexerted or am still adjusting to the vaccine or not quite as healthy post-covid as I thought because I’ve had a flare up with a lot of headaches and fatigue again. I’m lining up yet another appointment to make sure it’s nothing new going on, but other than needing to rest my brain a lot I don’t feel like I’m dying or anything, which truly feels like something to be grateful for these days, so I’m coping all right.

Even though it’s been a bit of a struggle (and my reading has definitely suffered for it but I’ve made my peace with that), there’s been a lot else going on, too. Planting season is in full swing on the farm- all of the corn is in the ground now so we’re onto soybeans. There’s a picture in this week’s 365 updates of the planter being refilled, with my dad making a little bonus appearance.

Also in The 365 is a puzzle I’ve been working on for a while and finally finished this week. It’s a cool concept- the specialized ‘birthday edition’ New York Times puzzle, depicting the NYT front page on the day I was born. I love the idea but unfortunately I got some pretty disappointing content on my front page. The articles include: US effing up in Iraq and fatally attacking own helicopters, mismanagement of a railroad line that left thousands stranded in bad weather, tobacco companies testifying in Congress that cigarettes aren’t addictive, a hospital settling on insurance fraud and patient abuse charges, and a Navy top admiral granted full pension in a 20 to 2 vote after a sexual harassment scandal (only one woman was on the panel). This last one was actually pretty grim to read in 2021; apparently something happened in 1991, when naval aviators sexually assaulted “scores of women” and then the investigation was bungled thanks to this admiral; this article goes on to say that “it was not clear” why the one man against giving full pension voted no. (Like, it couldn’t possibly be that he didn’t want to reward a man for allowing a lot of women to be violated without recourse for justice, right?) There’s also not a single woman in the bylines at all. One piece about the Vatican approving altar girls might seem like a victory, but then the article goes on to note that while the Vatican officially accepts them, many churches still oppose allowing girls this role and ultimately each bishop gets to make the choice for his own diocese. We are also reassured that women are still banned from priesthood. So. It was a thoughtful gift and fun to assemble at least, if not to read. I hope others who try this ‘birthday edition’ puzzle have better luck.

Cat of the Week is actually not my cat anymore; Fran(cis) was born on the farm, and is a brother to Heath (who featured in last week’s update) and Fuzzbutt (who featured several weeks ago), but I gifted him to an irl friend in need a few years ago (he’s 4 and a 1/2 now). They’re a perfect fit and I’m so glad they have each other. I don’t get to see them in person often so when I made contact this week I had to get a picture!

I had a bit of a TV binge while my brain was mush this week; I downloaded all 8 of the Shadow and Bone episodes from Netflix so I could even watch while I was waiting in the fields away from wifi, lol. I’ve actually watched the whole season twice already and can definitely foresee revisiting it again. And thus…

My week in film:

• Shadow and Bone ssn 1 [2021] – I just loved this. It’s a great watch. It’s not flawless, but it is possibly the best YA fantasy adaptation I’ve ever seen. The acting. The filmography. The plotting! Combining Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha trilogy with her Six of Crows duology was the absolute best idea; I liked the Grisha books but loved the SoC duology so I initially wanted to watch this mainly for the crows, but I ended up enjoying every single minute. I was a little disappointed we don’t get to see more of Kaz as an individual yet (he’s my fave character), but Inej and Jesper are absolutely fantastic and so many hints are dropped for deeper characterization and plotting to come that I’m already so excited for season 2! Yes, Alina is still naive and annoying and self-centered, but I do not have a problem with unlikable characters and I find her believable enough that it works for me. She fits the story. And…I’m team Malina, apparently against the grain. To be clear, Malina has nothing on Kanej for me, but I’ve always liked Mal and I think the show does him more justice than the novels. I also (please do not cancel me) like his actor better than the Darkling’s. Sorry, Ben Barnes stans. Barnes is a great actor! And the Darkling is such a fascinating character! I’ve been going around saying “make me your villain” all week! But I have no desire to see Darklina as endgame. Anyway, the first watch was a fun binge and the second time through cemented this adaptation as a real favorite for me. Milo and the crows and Malina (in that order) gave me life this week. I need more. If you do too, you should check out Hadeer’s review, which is more coherent and detailed than my ramblings here and hits the nail on the head about the show’s racism.

My week in books:

• How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones – 4 stars. I thought I’d finish this like, last Sunday, but Ive barely been able to read at all and just managed to wrap it up before the end of the month. It’s a tragic historical fiction tale set in Barbados, very focused on generational trauma and class divides on an island populated by impoverished locals and wealthy tourists, with a huge wage gap between the two groups. I’ll have a review coming very soon, but the tl;dr is that while the characterization could’ve used a little work, the writing is sharp and compellingly readable. I think it’s an apt fit for this year’s Women’s Prize shortlist.
• Consent by Annabel Lyon – ongoing. I’ve barely made a dent, but I already love the way Lyon writes about sisters and I have a feeling I’m going to love the character dynamics and prose going forward.

My week in posts:

• a review of Amelia Pang’s nonfiction Made in China.

Another thing you might have noticed happening this week was the announcement of the Women’s Prize shortlist! In case you missed it, the six books on the shortlist are (with links to my reviews where applicable): The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller, Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones, and No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. That’s 3 titles from my wishlist, and a shocking 5 of 6 from my prediction list! The title I guessed wrong was Ali Smith’s Summer, which I haven’t read yet, though I did include the title I missed, Unsettled Ground, as my runner-up guess, so I came very close! This was especially surprising and exciting for me after also guessing 5 of 6 shortlist titles correct last year– apparently I’m on a lucky streak! (Watch me tout this record as proof of my abilities next year only to get every guess wrong, haha.)

In any case, I’m actually pretty pleased with this year’s shortlist. Unsettled Ground is the only title that made the cut that doesn’t necessarily feel like shortlist material to me, though that’s based on reviews as I haven’t read the book yet myself, so that assessment may change. I didn’t especially like No One is Talking About This but I didn’t hate it either and I think it makes a decent, topical addition to the group. I’m thrilled for Transcendent Kingdom and Piranesi and even more eager now to get to The Vanishing Half. I’m disappointed Detransition, Baby (by Torrey Peters) didn’t make the cut as it sounds excellent, though I’m still planning to read and review it regardless. Exciting Times was a longlist favorite for me, and I would perhaps have rather seen it advance than Unsettled Ground, but that may be down to personal taste. Exciting Times didn’t quite make my prediction list either so while I stand by my high rating I can’t say I’m surprised by the snub. I’ll likely have more to say once I’ve completed my shortlist (and longlist) reading, so I’m aiming to continue through the list in May and share a wrap-up post to conclude the whole experience when the time comes.

Speaking of wrap-ups, April ended this week, which means it’s time to do a quick round-up of my April reading. It was another low month for me, unfortunately. My April stats from Storygraph (you can follow me there @ literaryelephant):

I read 5 books in April, 3 literary fiction and 1 historical fiction all from the Women’s Prize longlist, as well as 1 unrelated nonfiction book. Storygraph is still showing about 100 pages more in my page count than I’ve marked in my bujo page tracker, and I do count the afterword and acknowledgement pages and whatnot if I read them, which I usually do, and I check that I’m logging the correct edition every time, so I’m not sure how Storygraph is coming up with so many more pages than I am. It will be interesting to compare the difference at the end of the year.

The books I’ve completed this month (linked to reviews where applicable) are:

• Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan – 4 stars
• Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers – 2 stars
• No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood – 3 stars
• Made in China by Amelia Pang – 4 stars
• How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones – 4 stars

No 5 star reads this month, although Made in China came close.

I completed only 1 book from my April 5-book TBR, though I don’t feel I was off track, exactly. I read three library books this month, which don’t always make it into my TBRs if they aren’t in my possession at the start of the month though I still need to prioritize them, and even though I didn’t stick to my 5-book TBR exactly, it was filled for April with Women’s Prize books and I was definitely reading along that theme so it wasn’t exactly that I lost focus. I still intend to catch up with my outstanding TBR books as soon as I can.

Speaking of catching up…

Because I’ve read only about half as much as usual the last two months, I am now considerably behind on my reading goal for 2021. I’m not too worried, because I’m still hoping my brain health will even out in the not-too-distant future and give me a chance to binge some great reads. Ideally, over the summer. Of course, the number of books anyone reads isn’t isn’t really important for its own sake, though I’m very competitive with myself and would be frustrated to miss my reading target for the first time since I started setting a yearly goal. It’s only May though so it’s too early to get stressed about it, and I won’t beat myself up about failing a target I’m just not capable of hitting at the moment. All we can do is the best we can do.

Looking ahead…

For the upcoming week, I should have at least two posts coming up, and this week I say so with more certainty. I very nearly finished a book tag I wanted to post yesterday, but then was called away to help deal with a flat tire before I could answer the last prompt; expect to see it on Monday. I’ll also have my review of How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House coming up very soon, because I borrowed a library copy and generally prefer to write my reviews before sending back my library books, which helps keep me prompt with those. Whether I manage to post more than that will likely depend on how much reading and writing my brain is up to the challenge of completing. I’ve given up trying to guess what will happen, it’s proven impossible. I’ll do what I can.

As for reading, I’ll ideally be finishing Consent and continuing on with my Women’s Prize reads– I’ve got Unsettled Ground, The Vanishing Half, and Detransition, Baby left, and I’ve not yet decided what order I’ll be reading them in so this week’s reading could include any of the above.

I’ve also not entirely decided on my May TBR, because while I am prioritizing my final Women’s Prize reads those have featured in previous 5-book TBRs (or in the case of Unsettled Ground I just don’t have a way of photographing the eARC into my usual TBR photo setup and am petty enough to omit it for that reason) so I won’t be including those books in this month’s list, and won’t start reading this month’s list until I’ve completed those reads anyway.

Furthermore, May is AAPI heritage month so I want to prioritize some books by AAPI authors in my TBR; I’ve chosen my two May BOTM titles to fit this goal, but of course they haven’t arrived yet, and I’ve got another AAPI-authored title on hold at the library that also isn’t in yet. So while I do have some titles in mind, and a few others on hand if these new ones don’t show up in a timely fashion, my list isn’t finalized yet; I’ll aim to sort this out before my next weekly update (this one’s gotten quite long anyway) and share my May TBR then.

Are you reading or posting about any books from Asian American authors for May? If you’ve read any recently or have an exciting title on your TBR, I’d love more recommendations!

The Literary Elephant

a lit-el forecast

4.10.21

Hello! It’s been a weird two weeks; I ended up taking a break from reading and blogging that I hadn’t really been intending but nevertheless found very helpful. For those waiting on an update, sorry for the delay and thanks for being patient with me; my family members are all doing pretty well and I am feeling much better. I am being kinder to myself though about letting things take the amount of time I need for them rather than trying to push through to keep to a schedule, so my presence here may still be somewhat sporadic for the next few weeks as I (hopefully) continue to improve.

But on the plus side, after struggling for a few weeks with my second bout of Covid in March and into April, I think this turn of events has actually helped clear out some of the lingering symptoms I’ve been unable to shake for the last year. I am feeling physically better this week than I have felt since pre-pandemic days, have gotten back into reading and writing, and have been taking long walks and appreciating my health. The good thing about having felt slightly under the weather for a long time is that on my best days now I feel absolutely gleeful about just feeling “normal;” I don’t think I’ll ever again take for granted just waking up and feeling like myself. Even though my fatigue and brain fog have been mild compared to most accounts of them that I’ve seen, I just haven’t felt fully present since I had Covid last spring, and getting a more complete recovery this time is pretty exciting in the wake of all that. Also exciting- this past week my state finally made me eligible for the vaccine! I called the first day the call center was open, and even though it took seven tries to get through I did in the end get an appointment for both doses, the first of which will be coming up this week. Yay! Unfortunately my family seems to have taken their recent illness as further reason not to get vaccinated, but I’m trying to make peace with the fact that there’s only so much I can do.

Since I missed last week’s update in order to rest and recharge and care for my family, I have two weeks of photos to share today from The 365. I’m so grateful that the weather is finally nice enough to be spending time outdoors, so most of these photos are from walks I’ve taken since my last post. Sorry they’re so gray, but even though it has been warmer out my walks seem have doubled as a game of chicken with perpetual rain clouds. Luckily, I only got wet once, and it was a drizzle rather than a soak.

In addition, two weeks means two Cats of the Week. First up is Shrill (first cat photo, closed eyes) who is two years old and aptly named for his voice, his one fault. Otherwise, he’s such a dainty snuggly boi and will sample every available lap to find the best sleeping spot. It is an honor to be chosen. Next (second cat photo, eyes open) is Robin, ten months old and named after Batman’s Robin because he’s such a little sidekick. Whatever you’re doing, he’ll be right there to “help.” (This is sounding uncharitable toward the original character, but cat Robin definitely has a knack for getting his nose in the way.)

In my absence last week I also missed sharing my March reading stats, so I’ll add a few here. I’m sure no one will be surprised to hear that March was a low point for me reading-wise. According to Storygraph, I read nearly 2,000 pages, but actually I keep my own record of pages read day to day and my bullet journal shows closer to 1,200 pages for March. The difference, I think, is A Court of Silver Flames, which I read the bulk of at the end of February but finished in early March, so Storygraph counted those 700+ pages toward March even though I didn’t. Interesting to note, I think, but I’m sure by the end of the year those month-to-month fluctuations should even out. Now that I’m doing weekly reading updates instead of monthly wrap-ups, I no longer feel like I have to finish whatever I’m reading on the last day of the month and start a new book on the 1st to keep things neat, but I do always start as fresh as possible on Jan 1st.

And honestly, maybe I would’ve read more throughout March if, while ill, I hadn’t been trudging through such *checks notes* dark, mysterious, challenging, and emotional reads. Lol.

It was necessary to make one particular adjustment to my reading in March, though: no nonfiction. I started one but just didn’t have the brain power to keep it up.

Unfortunately, my ratings took a hit last month, as well. While I only actively disliked one of the books I read, I had no 5-star reads and struggled with a couple of books that definitely suffered for how unusually long it took me to finish them. And while I would say a 3-star rating is still good, it’s not… inspiring. It’s not a rating I tend to aim for, and thus always feels slightly disappointing even if I would still recommend those books to the right reader, so seeing 2 and 3s make up more than half of my reading shows a lack of excitement for me, even if most of my reading wasn’t particularly “bad.”

Here’s what I finished reading in March:

• A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas – 2 stars.
• The History of Bees by Maja Lunde, translated by Diane Oatley – 3 stars.
• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke – 4 stars.
• The Butchers’ Blessing by Ruth Gilligan – 4 stars. (review pending)
• Luster by Raven Leilani – 3 stars. (review pending)

April has also been off to a slow start for reading but I am picking up speed and gaining optimism. I’m behind on my reading goal for the year, but not too concerned about it at this point. I’m more frustrated that the shortlist date for the Women’s Prize is fast approaching (April 28th) and I’m lagging behind in reading and reviews for that, but it is what it is.

Here’s how my April reading has been going so far:

• Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan – 4 stars. I really liked this Women’s Prize longlister. Dolan’s prose is incredible, the messy MC shockingly relatable, and the complex three-way relationship tense and fun. Full thoughts coming soon (hopefully), but I’ll say for now that the book is divided into three sections, one of which worked much better for me than the others, my only real complaint here.
• Made in China by Amelia Pang – ongoing. I’m mentioning this nonfiction read about forced labor in China related to US’s imported goods just to keep it on the record, even though I’ve hardly touched it in the last two weeks. I am looking forward to getting back to this soon.
• Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers – ongoing. Another Women’s Prize longlist read, though I’m less enthusiastic about this one. I’m about halfway through and so far it’s just… fine? I’m discovering that stories set in the 50s just do not really work for me. It was a bad time for women. The plot is slow-going in this one but in its favor it’s undeniably easy to read, which is what I needed this week.

As for posts, I haven’t shared a review in weeks and can’t guarantee exactly when they’ll start cropping up again. I have been working on my Luster review and have notes started for my other pending reviews because I forget things too quickly not to jot down some immediate starting points. Hopefully I’ll get something finished this week and fall back into the groove of it. I am also very behind in blog hopping, and I feel bad posting new stuff without looking at anyone else’s so that’s a priority as I catch back up here.

That’s all for me for now, I think. Drop your current Women’s Prize thoughts below if you’ve been reading any of the longlisted titles- I am eager to jump back in and see where everyone’s at!

The Literary Elephant

a lit-el forecast

3.6.21

Only 6 photos for The 365 here this week, because last week’s bonus pic of Chip, who you may remember took an unauthorized drive off the farm and has fortunately been well-behaved ever since his lucky return, ended up being my 365 photo for last Saturday. You can follow this link to last week’s update if you missed it, but I’ve decided not to repeat the picture here just to avoid redundancy.

I did have another cat photo this week though, so Chip is sharing the Cat of the Week title with Patch, who took an adorable floppy-pawed nap beside me a couple days ago. He got his name from the eye patch marking over his left eye; as a kitten he and his sister looked very much alike, except her eye markings match and do not look like patches, so the two of them were named as a duo, Patchy and Matchy. The names were cuter when they were tiny kittens, but I’m around them enough that these are two who get all kinds of nonsense nicknames so it’s fine. I’m sure Matchy will come up later in The 365, and Patchy has already appeared because he likes to nap nearby, but he’s just too cute to pass up imo, though I’m definitely biased- he’s one of my faves.

Also in The 365 are my brother’s chickens enjoying the warmer weather this week, some Stranger Things Funkos I love (don’t judge the non-organization of the books in the background too harshly, it’s my overflow shelf where books that are the wrong size to fit where they actually belong live temporarily), and a monthly bujo spread for March. My bullet journal is definitely functional rather than fancy; my spreads look similar all through the year with a different color to help differentiate each month; March’s color is a bright mint, and it’s already improving my mood this month.

In other news, I think I’m re-entering reading mode! I hate to jinx it too early, but the weather has finally been nice enough to melt most of the snow and make being outdoors actually appealing again; it seems to have been just the boost I needed. I struggled through most of the week until temps finally rose above freezing, so I ended up sticking with ACOSF to be able to keep turning pages even when I couldn’t really engage my brain. But I also read half of The History of Bees in one go yesterday and am getting generally excited about books again this weekend, so I’m optimistic! Here’s a quick run-down on my reading week specifics:

• A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas – 2 stars. I was neither planning nor planning not to read this book, it just happened to be shiny, new, and ubiquitious at a time when I needed something low-stakes, and it fit that bill. I have no doubt Maas fans are going to continue to love this series, but I think my reading taste has changed enough since I started ACOTAR that this was never going to be a top-tier read for me in 2021. I probably won’t do a separate review, so I’ll just touch on my main complaints now. 1) There are more cringe-worthy sex scenes than plot points in these 700+ pages so it just reads like thinly veiled porn. I don’t mind a few explicit scenes but personally I’d rather have angst than excessive smut. No shade to others who may be looking specifically for this content. 2) I swear the sexism just gets worse with every volume of this series. I think a drinking game based on phrases like male pride, arrogance, smugness, etc. would be deadly. I know Maas uses ‘male’ and ‘female’ as nouns as a way to show these characters aren’t human men and women, but it is… awful to read. She would’ve been better off making up new terms, but either way there should be more than two genders in play. Even beyond terminology, misogyny seems to be what makes this whole world spin, so enter with caution. 3) The rules of operation in this world are too fluid. So much of the plot is driven by characters accidentally using magic in ways they didn’t intend and don’t understand, not to mention new world-changing magical items somehow appearing 4 books into the series. Maas is clearly improvising as she goes rather than building on what’s already in place, and it’s all a little too convenient and unbelievable for my taste. And 4) Nessian’s relationship is basically Feysand Take 2. I was hoping that fresh character perspectives might push this series in some new, interesting directions, but instead it just feels like a repeat. If Feyre had been the eldest of her siblings and Rhysand had been born Illyrian rather than High Lord, this would have been their story. The personalities are… exactly the same. It’s boring. And far too long.
• The History of Bees by Maja Lunde, translated by Diane Oatley – ongoing. I’m past the halfway point now and this is… fine? It’s an environmental dystopian story with a focus on multi-generational family issues, and I don’t have any complaints about the plot or the prose so far. I’m just not finding it particularly inspiring. It seems to be lacking that necessary attention-grabbing spark. Even though I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this book (so far) I think it’ll end up being something I end up appreciating more in theory than execution, but am hoping for a little more excitement with the ending.

Before I move on from the bookish wrap-up, this past week was the end of a month so I want to share a few stats. As usual, February was a slower month for me. I want to say that’s because it’s a short month, but in all honesty I think I just get sick of winter around this time of year and become less productive until the seasons start looking a little less bleak. I’ve definitely been in a slump, but fortunately feel that I’m finally on the mend now, mentally. Hopefully February will have been my worst reading month of the year, so I can keep going up from here!

In February I finished 6 books, and surprisingly 3 of them were YA- a little out of character for me! One of those was a borderline MG reread that didn’t live up to my past appreciation, but the others were books I was perfectly happy to read as an adult and are series I’m planning to continue (ACOSF I finished in March and would call NA so it’s not featuring in these stats. I am not adding the next ACOTAR book to my TBR, but to be fair ACOSF never made it to my TBR either). In adult reads, I completed a true crime/memoir, a “romance” (or sports book, as Melanie and I have decided reality dating should be categorized), and an antebellum LGBTQ+ historical fiction novel. 5 of my February reads were written by women, and 2 were written by Black authors, featuring Black History. Here are a few visuals courtesy of The Storygraph!

It seems I’ve logged my reads as slower than usual in February, and I’m wondering now whether the slump and winter blues might have influenced how I was categorizing my reads last month…

But I’m not going to let myself feel bad about “only” reading 6 books when all but one of them were over 300 pages, and one over 500!

The full list with rating breakdown (and links to reviews where applicable) is as follows (watch my reading mood deteriorate here as well):

1. Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford – 5 stars
2. One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London – 4 stars
3. The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. – 4 stars
4. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn – 4 stars
5. Anna K by Jenny Lee – 3 stars
6. Avalon High by Meg Cabot – 2 stars (reread)

The end of the month put me at 15 books read so far in 2021, 1 book behind schedule for my reading goal of 100 books this year. I’ll take it.

It was a slow month for me with blog posts as well, and once again I’ve had no posts between weekly updates. I believe my only posts all month have been these lit-el forecasts and the three review-type posts linked above.

Looking ahead, I am planning to post a Women’s Prize longlist reaction including tentative reading plans after the list announcement on the 10th, and if all goes well I should have at least one review coming up this week also. As for reading, I expect to (finally) finish The History of Bees this weekend and move on to Ruth Gilligan’s The Butchers’ Blessing, which I need to finish before it’s due back at the library. I have a good feeling that I’ll be able to start and possibly even finish a third book this upcoming week too, and will probably aim for something else tbd from my March TBR.

Was February a slower reading month for you too? If so, do you think it’s the length of the month for you, or something else? I’d love to chat!

The Literary Elephant

a lit-el forecast

2.6.21

It’s been cold and snowy and dreary again this last week (unsurprisingly, I suppose) and going into next week we’ve got what I call the “deep freeze” part of winter digging in its teeth in Iowa. Where I live, we get about two weeks every winter of consistent temps right around 0 F with windchillls dipping well below. Today, for example, as I’m typing this in the middle of the afternoon while the sun is out, the temperature is 1 F, and the windchill is -18 F. The low for overnight will be an actual -18 F, and I shudder to think what the windchill will be by then.

In better news, my sourdough starter had a great week! I’ve mentioned a few times on the blog that I’ve been keeping one since last July, but I don’t talk about my journey with it often. The truth is, it took MONTHS for my starter to mature and become reliable so it’s been a frustrating experience at times trying to troubleshoot and coax it along. (What’s amazing here is that I’ve never much liked cooking but have somehow summoned the patience to tend to home-grown yeast.) But this week everything was going right with it so I made two batches of sourdough soft pretzels (I use this recipe) and one of sourdough cinnamon rolls before calming down my starter enough to put it back in the fridge. I’ve tried the cinnamon rolls (I use this recipe) once before, but my starter wasn’t getting enough rise at the time so they came out tasty but flat. This time, they were perfect! They were actually gone before I could make the icing, so we just ate them with powdered sugar for a bit of extra sweetness.

Also, in the last week, a month has ended and another has begun, so I thought I’d share a few book stats from my January reading, in lieu of a full monthly wrap-up!

Last month I read: three seasonal mystery/thrillers, a literary translation, a non-fiction true crime, a historical fiction, a prize winner, a western, and an eARC – 9 books! My 2020 average was 8.5 books per month, so it looks like I’ll probably be continuing around that same pace.

Every time I finished reading a book, I logged into my Storygraph account and filled in their fun rating info, so now I can look back and see:

Apparently I read a lot of dark and mysterious books to kick off the year! That sounds about right. I believe that if you don’t fill out the rating info yourself the site uses the most-chosen answers from other readers to generate these charts. I was not asked to choose genres for my read books, so I found this next one particularly interesting, and fairly accurate to my own notes on genre from the month!

One more, because I’ve been practically ecstatic about my good luck with high ratings for January:

The Storygraph does allow decimals in ratings, but I find it works best for me to make myself choose from a more limited range, so I stick with whole numbers out of personal preference (though it’s still an exciting feature to see after years with Goodreads’ more rigid system).

For the curious, my exact ratings:

1. The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley – 4 stars
2. Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes – 5 stars
3. We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper – 5 stars (review pending)
4. The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld – 4 stars
5. One by One by Ruth Ware – 3 stars
6. Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden – 4 stars
7. Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu – 5 stars (review pending)
8. Outlawed by Anna North – 4 stars
9. The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey – 3 stars

And now, back to my week. Most of the rest below comes from early February, which is why I shared the month wrap-up first in this case.

Since my last update, I’ve watched:

• Ready or Not [2019] – This requires some suspension of disbelief, but its theatricality makes the gore and death feel fun rather than truly disturbing, so I actually really liked this criticism of the rich and found it quite an entertaining ‘survive the night’ murder-fest.
• The Haunting of Bly Manor [2020] – I watched the last 3 episodes this week. I loved the first 6 wholeheartedly but sadly as we progressed toward the finale here my enthusiasm dwindled a bit. There’s a sort of secondary story thrown in last minute, the explanations become a little too neat and convenient for my taste, and it feels like an altogether different sort of show in the end than it did in the beginning. I still liked this season of Haunting better than the first even though I didn’t find the ending quite as strong, and I hope someday we’ll see a third season released.

The week’s reading:

• The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey – 3 stars. I managed to finish this eARC that I’ve had on the go for a while just before the end of the month. It did improve for me the farther I got, but unfortunately the writing style just wasn’t a good fit for me, nor did I feel the book delivered on the sort of pacey story it purports to be in its synopsis. So, while this isn’t a bad book by any means, it didn’t quite fit my expectations.
• Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford – 5 stars. This is a nonfiction true crime about a woman whose sexual assault as a teen was covered up to protect her school’s reputation. It’s so intelligent and thorough and reflective, and easily one of the most infuriating books I’ve ever read. A perfect companion to Chanel Miller’s Know My Name, though the insight into boarding school culture here and the conversation around inherited wealth and privilege sets it apart. I’ll have more thoughts on this book and on silencing literature more generally coming up soon.
• One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London – 4 stars. This is a fantastic body positive romance modeled on The Bachelor franchise. I loved the format and the MC, but my distaste for ethically-questionable reality dating shows could not be overcome. The romance tropes used here were also not a great fit for my preferences, so I didn’t actually find it a very romantic read though I did enjoy guessing who would get kicked off the show next, and the multimedia fandom aspect woven in between episodes kept things lively. Review to come.
• The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. – ongoing. I’ve just started this yesterday and let myself have a slower reading day so my commentary is necessarily limited for now. I’m still meeting characters but I don’t have anything to complain about in the first 25 pages so… off to a good start.
• Anna K by Jenny Lee – ongoing. I grabbed this one on a whim thinking it might be an interesting romance to review along with One to Watch, but I’ve got a better idea for YA retellings of classics I’m going to run with instead. It’ll be a bigger project that probably won’t land until next month. But I’m excited about it! I’m only about 15 pages in but I can say it reads like a direct cross between Anna Karenina and Gossip Girl, which is amusingly creative. Also, I originally added this book to my TBR after reading a short sample that I actively hated (yep, you read that right); I have now pinpointed what I didn’t like about the writing in that brief excerpt: it feels (imo) like it was written on someone’s phone. There are acronyms and popular slang used in the exposition, in the dialogue- outside of text messages and such. Yes I have been known to say irl and lmao out loud on occassion but there’s so much of it here that there’s a sort of forced sense of informality, which juxtaposes oddly alongside high-end brand-name dropping and the general excess of the exorbitantly wealthy. I think I could maybe learn to like it, but it’s been jarring in small doses.

I had only one post this week, a double review featuring my first two 2021 releases of the year:

• cowboys, clones: my first brushes with 2021 lit

I had another post tentatively planned, my reviews of Notes on a Silencing and We Keep the Dead Close along with some thoughts on silencing in literature, but as my post ideas get bigger my output becomes less frequent, so to even out my schedule a bit I decided to hold it back for next week. That’ll be coming up in the next few days, and after that my review of One to Watch.

As for reading plans, I’m a bit uncertain. I’ll focus on The Prophets this week, and I have Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn due back at the library before long as well so I should probably pick that up. I think I might read Anna K pretty slowly or even set it aside for a little while so I can keep generating a few things to post instead of sabotaging all of my ongoing projects for this one future idea on YA classics retellings, which is going to take a bit of work yet. I might have to do a bit of juggling with books and posts to work out a reasonable schedule with the various projects I’m in the midst of, so I guess my only real certainty offhand is The Prophets, which has the nearest deadline.

These weekly posts keep running longer than I originally envisioned, so thanks for sticking with me this far, to anyone who’s still here. Now that I’ve wrapped up January and am underway with my February TBR I think I should be able to manage brevity a bit better in the next few weeks!

The Literary Elephant

2020 Reading Wrap-Up

In 2020 I read a total of 103 books, beating my goal of 100 in the final weeks of December successfully but without much surplus. It’s the smallest total I’ve had since 2016, but it’s also the first time since 2015 that my total has taken a dip at all from the year before instead of increasing. We all know 2020 has been… a whole year, so I don’t think I need to explain why I’ve had some significant reading slumps in 2020 unlike anything I’ve experienced in years.

I’ve addressed in this post the 2020 goals that I’ve met and failed, and my plans for 2021.

I adopted monthly 5-book TBRs in 2020, of which I managed to complete 54/60 reads.

Titles still outstanding (to be read in 2021):

• The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngoze Adichie
• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

I took part in a couple of personal bookish ‘projects’ in 2020 worth mentioning:

I read the entire Women’s Prize longlist, which was incredibly disappointing but nonetheless I enjoyed chatting with friends new and old about all of the books. I still have a review of Mantel’s longlisted The Mirror and The Light forthcoming, but I did manage to complete it before the end of the year, which was an exciting victory! The Women’s Prize has been further lowered in my esteem, however, by an unfortunate ruling a few months ago that allows only ‘legal women’ to compete for the prize, thus making it even harder for gender noncomforming writers to receive prize recognition and wide readership for their work. For this reason I’m less confident about continuing to follow the prize in the future.

It was a rough round for me with the Booker Prize as well; by the end of the year I capped off my journey through the Booker longlist with 11 books read out of the ‘Booker dozen’ of 13 (again, thoughts on The Mirror and the Light are still forthcoming). This experience was even worse overall, partially because I had such lukewarm responses to most of the nominated books that I read, and partially because it was a busier time of year for me so I wasn’t able to connect with other readers as much to talk about the books, which dampened my enjoyment further.

But a group of blogging friends and I teamed up to create an alternate Women’s Prize longlist this year, the Women’s Prize Squad longlist. I managed to read all but one of our 16 books before the end of the year, had great experiences with ALL of them, and will have an update post coming later this month featuring longlist final thoughts and which way my votes will lean for our upcoming shortlist!

2020 was also the year of a new blogging project for me- I started a Spotlight series focused on genre, and by the end of the year I managed to complete 11 of my 12 planned posts (my classics spotlight is still forthcoming), which generated some great discussions about why we read what we read and how we classify books. They’re also a sort of catalog back through my own eclectic history with reading, so I know I’ll enjoy looking back on these posts after some time has passed and seeing how my reading continues to grow and change. I may also expand the series to cover more genres in the future. If you’re interested in checking out any of these posts, I’ll link here the genres/categories I’ve covered so far: science fiction, romance, historical fiction, literary fiction, fantasy, mystery, thrillers, translated literature, nonfiction, YA, and horror.

Something I started focusing on more earnestly about halfway through the year, thanks to national and world events, was to increase my purchasing, reading, and reviewing of books by Black authors. I want to seriously increase the amount of diversity in my reading going forward but decided to pay particular attention to Black-authored books for 2020, and ended up reading and reviewing 22 books to fit this goal, with additional titles bought and as yet unread that I’m excited to read going forward.

Throughout the year I read primarily but not exclusively US settings; I’d like to work more on branching out in the future, as reading a lot from my home country is typical and once again comprised around half of my reading. But I do think that this year more of my US-based reading involved criticisms of the status quo and featured marginalized characters, which I think is a more thoughtful and valuable consumption than some US-based reading I’ve done in the past. And I have been making more concerted efforts to read books by authors who’ve lived in or had some significant experience with the countries they’re writing about than I have in the past, the one exception this year being Women’s Prize longlisted Girl by Edna O’Brien, a Nigeria-set book by an Irish writer that did feel unsettlingly like an author looking in on someone else’s pain.

I read 82 books by women (including three translations, two of which were also translated by women), 19 books by men, 2 books by an author who identifies as non-binary (yes, the same author twice), and no collections, anthologies, or collaborations from multiple authors. I do want to work on increasing my trans and non-binary author reading representation, but even these 2 books in 2020 are an increase from last year’s zero, so I’m (slowly) moving in the right direction. If you know of any great trans or non-binary-authored books (especially but not limited to fiction) feel free to mention them in the comments below!

It’s typical for me to read mostly books by women, but notable that 2020’s ratio skews about 15% higher toward women authors than it did last year. (Worth noting that I’m counting each individual book, not each individual author, some of which I’ve read more than one book from in all three of these categories.)

I read 88 adult books, 12 YA books, 1 middle grade book, and 2 books appropriate for any reading age. It’s typical for me to read mostly adult books, but my YA reading has increased from last year, partially because of a few Sarah Dessen rereads- the five Dessen novels I reread this fall marked my only rereads of the year, which is more rereads than I’ve had in other recent years but it is typical for my rereads to be YA books.

I read 31 debuts this year (though they weren’t all 2020 debuts); including that number I read 74 total books from new-to-me authors. Thus, only 29 of my reads this year came from authors whose work I’d read before.

I participated in 10 buddy and/or group reads in 2020, which was a record high for me and an all-around enjoyable experience! These partnerings included John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies with Gil, Her Body and Other Parties with Donna, A Crime in the Neighborhood with the Women’s Prize Squad (or more specifically Sarah, in this case!), and a month-long trek through The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor led by Melanie, among other reads.

My ratings this year included 20 5-stars, 41 4-stars, 33 3-stars, 8 2-stars, and 1 unrated read (Stephenie Meyer’s Midnight Sun). This is a pretty typical ratio for me; I’ve rounded up my favorite and almost-favorite reads of the year from my most memorable 4- and 5- star reads, and because I didn’t get around to a ‘disappointing reads’ list this year I’ll round up my 2-star titles here in case you’re in need of a rant review to peruse:

• A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne
• Girl by Edna O’Brien
• Dominicana by Angie Cruz
• Nightingale Point by Luan Goldie
• Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
• Different Seasons by Stephen King (including my first-ever 1-star rating, for one of the stories within this collection, “Apt Pupil.”)
• That Summer by Sarah Dessen (review and full Dessen ranking forthcoming)
• Life and Death by Stephenie Meyer

My genre reading was, as usual, all across the board. I decided at the beginning of the year to select one (the most prominent, ideally) genre under which to mark each book I read, so the percentages here are accurate to my 103 books read, though I’ve already decided for 2021 to mark all applicable genres for each book, which I think might feel more accurate to overall genre representation- I tend to enjoy and reach for genre-benders!

My literary fiction percentage looks a bit low this year, but I think while only choosing one category for each book I’ve had to be choosier and some titles that were perhaps literary have been categorized according to their other elements (like fabulism or historical fiction, the latter of which does seem much inflated this year). Also, I’ve lumped anything that just didn’t feel accomplished enough to call literary in the contemporary column (also inflated), including some of this year’s prize nominees which did not seem to play with structure or form in a way that I would classify as literary, though other readers might. And I’ve divided my nonfiction reading into proper genres this year; true crime, history, essays, medical, memoir, and guidebook percentages below were all parts of my nonfiction reading this year, for an overall 10% of my reading, a bit higher than I was expecting.

I read largely books published this year and last, with 37 titles newly released in 2020 and 34 from 2019, making up well over half of my reading. Additionally I read 17 other books from the last decade (between 2010 and 2018), 5 books from the decade before (2000-2009), 4 books from the 90’s, 5 books from earlier in the 20th century (1900-1989), and 1 book from the 19th century. I’ve been trending toward newer books for a few years now, and this year’s stats indicate I’m reading even more recent work than last year.

As for where my books came from, I read an unprecedented amount of books from my own shelves this year, as my local library was closed for a few months and I’ve limited how often I go out for anything at all even now that it’s opened up again. Unfortunately, I also bought way more books than I should have this year; I’m not going to count up my total haul because it will just depress me as far as undoing the impressive dent I could’ve made in my own-unread TBR this year.

I read 75 books from my own shelves this year, 27 books borrowed from the library, no books borrowed from family or friends, and 1 eARC.

Of the books I read from my own shelves, just 30 were titles I owned prior to 2020, while 45 were newly purchased/acquired in 2020 (this includes a reread of a book I originally read from the library and purchased my own copy of this year). Unfortunately no, the 45 new books I read were not the only new books I bought and I’m pretty sure I haven’t actually decreased my TBR at all, in fact probably the opposite. Let’s not talk about that, it was a hard year.

And as long as we’re talking about what I’ve acquired and read (or not) this year, I want to take this opportunity to wrap up my year with Book of the Month. In case you don’t know, BOTM is a US-based subscription service (only delivering within the US for now, though they’ve made a few comments about working toward changing this in the future) from which members can choose month-by-month payments or opt for yearly renewal. I joined BOTM in 2017 and have since that time been renewing yearly (it’s slightly cheaper in the long run).

2020 started particularly rocky with BOTM because it seemed there were a lot of thrillers, romances, and the kind of book-clubbish contemporary and historical fiction titles that just doesn’t really grab me. I was having a hard time choosing from among selections that just didn’t seem to fit my reading taste. But then, three months before I ran out of credits, my yearly subscription automatically renewed. This was my first year with BOTM that renewal was manditorily automatic, and one of my biggest complaints this year was not getting any warning that their renewal policy had changed and that they were about to take a chunk of money out of my account in coordination with my last renewal instead of when I ran out of credits (I’ve been manually renewing when I run out of credits, which can take slightly more than a year if I skip a couple of boxes).

To make matters worse, this was in early May or so, just before BOTM was getting a lot of backlash for their lack of diversity. I had to consider whether this was a company I still wanted to be involved with at all, and while a horde of members cancelled their subscriptions I decided to give it one more month to decide whether backing out entirely was the right move for me. In that time, they shared a great response post to the criticisms they were receiving, with actionable plans for future changes, so I remained cautiously optimistic. I posted a little about the mid-year BOTM controversy here, in case you missed that and want to read more.

In the end, I am glad I stayed with BOTM, and I’ve been happier with the company these last six months than I have been in any of my other years with this service. I have no idea how the situation with deleting comments from a Black Instagrammer turned out; I’m cautiously hoping that a genuine mistake was made, and/or a private apology was issued- all I know is that the complaints abruptly stopped, which seemed to me to indicate some sort of resolution. And BOTM has indeed been more diverse in their selections, as well as somewhat less commercial. Every month since June, their selections have included at least one (and often three or more) book(s) that I’m really excited to read and happy to be able to grab with BOTM’s cheaper pricing.

Since June, every month’s selections have included 2-4 (out of 5) BIPOC authors for the main selections, and more in ‘extras’ each month as well. A Black author won the Book of the Year title, and another made the top 5 nominees. There are still the token romances and thrillers, but even these have been less whitewashed lately.

I wouldn’t say BOTM is perfect yet, but they are looking much more like a subscription service I’m happy to support; there’s something to be said for making the effort toward positive change while being closely scrutinized and criticized. I heard of a lot of people quitting their BOTM subscriptions in May- some in protest at the lack of diversity (prior to June, BOTM tended to include only 1 BIPOC author out of 5 selections), and some (if the bookstagram comments are to be believed) who argued that BOTM would lean toward focusing on author skin color over the quality of the books. *eye roll* The quality of the selections has improved apace with the increased diversity, imo. BOTM is in a perfect position, being so commercially popular, to help introduce more marginalized authors in all genres to a wider readership, and it’s worth celebrating that they’ve headed in this direction these last few months, I think.

Additionally, it’s been fun taking part in BOTM’s inaugural reading challenge this year (in which I received two badges and missed the third by only half of a book), and I’m pleased to report they seem to have finally adopted some fancy effects (namely, gold foil) for a few of their covers! Any improvement in quality is nice to see.

For the books, here are the BOTM selections I’ve picked up throughout 2020 (mostly in the order I acquired them, except for three on the far left which were 2019 selections that I added to 2020 boxes):

And here are the BOTM selections I actually managed to read this year, some from 2020 and a few from previous years that I’d not gotten around to reading before, shown in the order that I read them:

All right, I think I’ve touched on everything bookish that I wanted to (shoutout to my New York City trip back in early March, my one non-bookish highlight of the year); this post is long enough already, so I think it’s (FINALLY) time to say au revoir to 2020!

The Literary Elephant

wrap-up 12.20 + TBR 1.21

I’m still gathering my stats and drafting my reading year wrap-up post for 2020, but in the meantime here’s a look at how the last month of the year went for me. I started with an impossible goal of catching up on 18 books from various TBRs throughout the year, and as expected, didn’t quite make it, though I’m happy with the progress I made!

This was my final monthly TBR of the year:

I had a great victory in the end, and one frustrating loss; first, with much dogged determination, I did finally finish Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy! I managed to fit both Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light into my December reading schedule, reading a little bit of the series almost every day of the month. But my other big goal, to complete the BOTM reading challenge, I ended up missing by half of a book- I finished The Hunting Party in the new year. I didn’t realize when I was setting this goal that BOTM was actually sending free candles out as a reward to readers who completed the challenge, but now I know I missed out on that. No big deal really, but all the more irksome for the fact that I had actually read more than 12 BOTM books in 2020 (the only challenge category I missed), they just weren’t counting backlist titles toward the challenge. Fortunately they do seem to be counting backlist books toward the 2021 challenge (having already accepted The Hunting Party for me), and with my goal of catching up on my BOTM stack this year I expect I’ll complete the challenge early this next time around!

Here’s the full rundown on what I finished reading last month:

1. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara – 5 stars. A captivating and tragic true crime narrative about the Golden State Killer. It’s been a little while since I’ve read true crime but I was quickly swept up in this one, with its careful attention to detail and thoughtful presentation of crimes in a way that doesn’t glorify the criminal. I’m eager to watch the corresponding documentary series.
2. Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake – 5 stars. Contemporary YA following a teenage twin whose brother has been accused by her friend / his girlfriend of rape. This is one of the most nuanced and deftly delivered YA novels I’ve ever read on this topic, or on any topic, really. It’s a very character-driven story with a heavy focus on trauma and morality, and a great read even as an adult.
3. Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour – 3 stars. A sapphic YA contemporary romance that’s glamorous (set in LA and focused on film-making) and sweet; I can see why readers like Nina LaCour’s writing and stories, and as a teen this might have worked better for me, but this just was not the right fit for me as an adult. I prefer my novels (especially YA) a bit more hard-hitting and gritty rather than escapist and heartwarming. *shrugs*
4. Life and Death by Stephenie Meyer – 2 stars. This tenth-anniversary gender-swapped edition of Twilight is a total flop. My review turned out as more of a rant, and writing it was the most enjoyment I got out of this whole experience. The main problem is that Meyer changes enough behavioral details along with the character pronouns that she doesn’t escape any of the Twilight sexism she argues that this story is meant to combat.
5. Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel – 4 stars. This second volume in Mantel’s acclaimed Cromwell trilogy is a bit shorter than Wolf Hall and more condensed: it follows just a couple of weeks of Cromwell’s life, focusing primarily on one looming event, and this degree of narrowing in really helped boost my enjoyment after a lukewarm response to the more meandering Wolf Hall. Cromwell’s struggles with morality and ambition reach some great levels of tension at last. Series review coming soon.
6. The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison – 4 stars. A horror presented as a mystery, though the driving force of the novel is not any burning question about what happened or who did it or why, but rather a long string of traumas recounted retrospectively along the way. I wasn’t entirely sold on the structure of the book or its ending, but found it a compelling read on the whole with some solid commentary on physical and psychological trauma.
7. The Deep by Alma Katsu – 3 stars. Marketed as Titanic horror, I found this novel instead more of a YA-friendly historical fiction with mystery and supernatural elements; there’s some light ghost content, social commentary that doesn’t really go anywhere, and a monster presented with none of the lore to anchor her. My preexisting interest in Titanic helped me through; it’s not a bad book, but not dark or sharp either, and in the end I’d recommend it to an altogether different audience than the jacket copy seems to suggest.
8. A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley – 4 stars. A short story collection that offers a very balanced look at the relationships of Black children and their fathers, and the devastating effects of that relationship being broken. That Black men are so often divided from their families for one reason or another was not an issue very high on my radar but Brinkley examines it with depth and subtlety and the lessons I’ve learned here will stick with me.
9. Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi – 5 stars. A beautiful and heartbreaking look at a Ghanaian American family- the father driven back to his home land as a result of racism, the son dead young at the hands of addiction, the mother a victim of deep depression, and the daughter a neuroscientist just trying to make sense of the uncontrolled behaviors of her family and their tragic affects. There’s not a lot of plot to this one, but the narrative voice is exquisite and the protagonist’s interior struggles alone are worth reading for.
10. Memorial by Bryan Washington – 4 stars. A contemporary novel following the relationship between two gay men and their respective families, as one travels back to Osaka to care for his dying father. This is a quick read highlighting the intersections of culture in modern life and the struggles of marginalized people in America. Washington is fantastic with detail and characterization.
11. The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel – 4 stars. The finale to Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy; though this volume looses the close focus I loved in book 2, it keeps the dedicated attention to characterization as it wanders through the last few years of Cromwell’s life. It’s expansive, it’s tense in places, it’s incredibly layered and obviously well-researched, but I still found it hard to stay engaged this long and grew tired of Mantel’s tendency toward repetition. I can see why readers are calling this book a masterpiece, and I do think Mantel’s rendering of this history is worth reading, but I have some conflicted thoughts about the reading experience. Again, series review coming soon.

Not quite the best-case-scenario of 18 books that I was hoping for, but I read over 4,100 words in December, the most I’ve read in any month all year, and I’m really pleased with how much I did get through. The Mirror and the Light alone was 875 pages, and finishing it at last on the 30th was so exciting that I’m completely ready to let the rest go for now. I am using the second half of my 2020 bullet journal for 2021 so I expect I’ll still have those uncompleted TBR books lingering on my radar going forward, and I’d like to finish those last six books in the new year.

Some stats:

Average rating – 3.9

Best of month – Transcendent Kingdom

Owned books read for the first time – 11. No library checkouts or borrowed books or eARCs at all this month. Even so, with Christmas in there, I added more books to my physical TBR than I read (this includes a box set though, and even counting each book in the set individually I really wasn’t too far off!).

Year total – 103. I met my reading goal of 100 books for the year!

Additional posts this month:

• Reviews of The Body Lies and My Name is Monster
• Reviews of The Fire Starters and Call Down the Hawk
• Review of The Death of Vivek Oji
• Spotlight on YA
• Review of Between the World and Me
• 2020 almost-favorites
• Spotlight on Horror
• Anticipated 2021 releases
• 2020 Goal Reflections and 2021 Plans

And something I want to try this year is combining my wrap-ups and TBRs into a single post each month, so I’ll end here by sharing what’s on the top of my January stack:

1. Outlawed by Anna North – An LGBTQ+ Western in which a woman who has trouble getting pregnant joins a gang of outcasts who run heists and endeavor to carve a space for those that their society doesn’t accept. I’m aiming to catch up with as many of my BOTM titles as I can in 2021, and part of that goal means keeping up with new books I’m adding to the stack; this is one of BOTM’s January selections.
2. Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden – “A groundbreaking thriller about a vigilante on a Native American reservation who embarks on a dangerous mission to track down the source of a heroin influx.” A backlist BOTM title to keep the ball rolling, and it’s got winter in the title, so it feels seasonally appropriate. I’ve got a few other winter-y books on hand as well if I can find the time to fit them in!
3. Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu – 2020’s National Book Award winner for fiction, featuring a man who views himself as generically Asian; he’s got a small role in a procedural cop show, but stumbles into his dream of becoming Kung Fu Guy, which changes his perspective. Last January I read 2019’s NBA fiction winner, and it turned out to be one of my favorite reads all year, so I’m hoping for a repeat!
4. We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper – Nonfiction true crime in which a Harvard student investigates an infamous, silenced murder in the campus’s history. I’ve heard great things, and I want to increase my nonfiction reading this year so I jumped on this one as soon as my library got a copy.
5. Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes – In a Mexican village full of seemingly irredeemable characters, the death of the local Witch sparks an investigation through several narrators all with their own connections to violence. I’ve already started this one, as you may notice with my bookmark in the picture (sorry for the low quality photo by the way, the light was going by the time I took it so it turned out a bit dim and pinkish) and am enjoying it immensely. I want to up my intake of translated fiction this year, and was hoping to start my year off with a bang, which this title seems sure to deliver!

How’s the switch from one year to the next treating you? Any great milestones reached or big plans ahead? What are you reading in the transition? Let me know below!

The Literary Elephant

Wrap-Up 11.20

Time this year has really been a strange creature; I feel like the months have flown by faster than I could accomplish half the things I wanted to, but also that 2020 has lasted at least five years already, despite starting in March. (Things that happened pre-lockdowns feel like a whole different era already, don’t they?) There’s still plenty I’m hoping to finish before the end of the year, and I’ll have my final monthly TBR for 2020 coming up later this week, but now that we’re close to the end of this hell year it’s time to start getting excited. ‘Tis the season for all the lists and wrap-ups and anticipations- but I’ll start off with closing out November.

At the start of the month, I assigned myself this 5-book TBR:

And for the first time since February, I actually completed the entire list within the appropriate month! I started out strong, and unfortunately ended up flagging about halfway through November, but nonetheless felt very satisfied to be crossing things off lists instead of falling farther behind. Here’s the full run-down of what I read:

1. Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen – 3 stars. I am in the midst of a Dessen reread project, though I’m trying to take it easy until the end of the year so that I can meet more pressing goals. This title was a favorite of mine when it first came out, but those were my Dessen heydays and sadly I discovered this time around that characterization, plot, and theme all felt subpar. It’s a YA story of parental abuse and neglect, but could have been handled better in several regards. Review and ranking to come.
2. Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi – 3 stars. A Booker Prize shortlister set in India and focused on the difficult relationship between a grown woman and her ailing mother. I found this a perfectly acceptable story with interesting themes and admirable characterization, but there’s little plot and I’ve read far too many motherhood books this year to be wowed by them at this point.
3. That Summer by Sarah Dessen – 2 stars. Dessen’s first publication, and one I remembered very little about aside from not liking it much the first time around. It’s very short though and I’ve decided to tackle the rest of Dessen’s work as close to pub order as I can, so I gave it a go one afternoon and disliked it even more as an adult. This is a YA book about a teen girl’s struggle through her parents’ divorce and her older sister moving out. I found the MC far too whiny and immature to sympathize with and everyone around her felt like a cardboard cutout. Review and ranking to come.
4. The Fire Starters by Jan Carson – 5 stars. One of the last books I had left to read for the Alternate Women’s Prize longlist, and another highly rewarding experience. This is an Irish tale of fatherhood with a magical realism element and a hint of Greek mythology, following two men who worry that their children have the power to destroy the world- or at least Belfast. Review to come.
5. Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward – 3 stars. A Booker longlist title that falls somewhere between novel and short story collection. This is a philosophical thought experiment of a book, opening with a woman who believes an ant has crawled into her eye and spiraling out to include the friends and family whose love for each other may or may not have the power to save humanity. It’s wonderfully inventive and fascinating, but I found the work too emotionally cold to win me over completely.
6. The Beauty in Breaking by Michelle Harper – 4 stars. A powerful medical memoir in which a Black woman describes her experience as an emergency department physician. She argues that the ways in which she has been broken and has seen others being broken has helped her find her own peace and purpose. It’s a bit disjointed, but the chapters read like Grey’s Anatomy episodes and Harper’s commentary on race in medicine (and America at large) is unflinching and necessary.
7. The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi – 4 stars. Far more commercial than Emezi’s debut (Freshwater) was literary, but no less engaging. I saw through the mystery aspect straight off and found the characters a bit simplistic, but nonetheless I loved spending time with them and seeing Vivek’s path of self-discovery and -expression. That the setting is full of unaccepting folk gives Vivek’s encouraging upward trajectory a heavy counterbalance, acknowledging the real pain of people who feel they cannot be themselves in their own homes, among their own family. Review to come.
8. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates – 5 stars. Coates’s The Water Dancer didn’t quite fit my reading taste earlier this year, but I’ve been excited about trying his nonfiction- and for good reason, it turns out! This personal account of racism in America, written from a father to his teenage son, is incredibly intelligent and emotional, and adds a unique perspective to the conversation around racial injustice. Review to come.
9. Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater – 3 stars. Another title from the Alternate Women’s Prize list. I read The Raven Cycle a few years back, and thought my interest had waned enough that I wouldn’t pick up this spin-off (Call Down the Hawk is the first volume in a related trilogy), but since it was on our list I decided to take the chance. And I’m glad I did! I’ve missed YA fantasy. It uses a few writing tactics I don’t like, but I was nonetheless entertained and expect to continue with the series. Review to come.

Bit of an eclectic month again, but hey, that’s typical for 2020, and especially toward the end of the year it’s normal for me to be in the middle of too many goals and lists and projects all at once. I’m just happy to be reading. 🙂

Some stats:

Average rating – 3.6

Best of month – This is lazy, but I have a hard time pitting fiction against nonfiction because they do very different things for me, so I’m calling it a tie between my two 5-stars of the month, The Fire Starters and Between the World and Me.

Owned books read for the first time – 8 out of 9, plus one library book. Even the two rereads were technically new copies on my shelf that I acquired after my initial readings, so I’m counting them.

Year total – 92 books read. I am on track to read 100 books before the end of the year. Since I’m so close I really want to hit that goal in December, and I do have more than 8 books left that I ideally want to wrap up before the end of the year (more on that in my upcoming TBR post) so I’m doubly motivated. And those days between Christmas and New Year’s are always productive for me, so I feel like I have a decent chance.

In case you missed it, I posted some thoughts and a ranking of the Booker Prize this month right before the winner announcement (congrats to Douglas Stuart with Shuggie Bain!); and a little late but relevant to the month I’ll include here also the link to my Spotlight on Nonfiction. I’m going to have a couple of spotlights to catch up on in December so I figure might as well tie at least one in here even though it did technically go up on the 1st…

And I managed a few catch-up reviews throughout the month in addition to what I’ve linked above, so I’ll add here as well my posts on Tsitsi Dangarembga’s This Mournable Body, Anne Tyler’s Redhead by the Side of the Road, Stephen King’s Different Seasons, Daisy Johnson’s Sisters and Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X, and Garrett M. Graff’s The Only Plane in the Sky. Reviews for my November reads are either linked above or pending.

Have you read any of these books? Have any more Booker thoughts to share? Read some great nonfiction this month, or any of the other themes associated with November? Let me know below!

The Literary Elephant

Booker Prize 2020: Wrap-Up, Ranking, and Winner Prediction

The winner announcement for the 2020 Booker Prize will be upon us in a matter of hours, and as I’m mostly finished with what I wanted to read in relation to this prize, I want to share some concluding thoughts. I still have Mantel’s longlisted The Mirror and the Light on my schedule for next month, but am planning to include any Booker or Women’s Prize thoughts about it along with my review, so I’ll forge ahead here. There are also two other longlisted books this year that I’ve skipped entirely and don’t currently have any plans to read, so this round-up is slightly incomplete but I’ll do my best.

For more info on this year’s Booker Prize and my thoughts on the books, I’ll link here the official Booker website, my initial longlist reaction and shortlist reaction, and my reviews for each of the individual titles will be included below.

The shortlist, ranked in order of personal favoritism:

1. Real Life by Brandon Taylor – 5 stars. A gay Black man in a Midwestern biochemistry grad program wrestles with the choice of leaving an area of study he enjoys in order to escape the pervasive racism that plagues his experience at the school. Over the course of a single weekend, the main character’s interactions with fellow students and friends take a large toll and expose numerous injustices.
2. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart – 4 stars. One woman’s troubling experience with alcoholism in (recent) historical Scotland affects the lives of everyone around her. Hit hardest by her inability to hold onto sobriety and also by the harsh judgment of their surrounding society, her youngest son Shuggie clings to innocent love for his mother while trying to keep her afloat and battle bullies of his own. An exceedingly tragic read.
3. The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste – 3 stars. This historical fiction tale depicts the Italian invasion of Ethiopia just prior to WWII; with sometimes brilliant and sometimes beautiful prose, Mengiste brings the plight of a nation to life, highlighting individual experiences. Though feminist in intent (and indeed featuring particularly strong female characters) the book’s tendency to focus as well on male experiences diluted the woman warrior theme for me.
4. This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga – 3 stars. A suitable end to an impactful trilogy, this volume follows the same Zimbabwean main character as the trilogy’s previous installments, this time as she approaches middle age. This woman is struggling to find meaningful work and a reasonable home for herself in the wake of a postcolonial education which has negatively shaped her life view and sense of self. A heavy and important read (just as the rest of the trilogy), I simply did not appreciate this volume as much as Dangarembga’s first, and felt that the similar themes addressed here had by this point become somewhat repetitive.
5. The New Wilderness by Diane Cook – 3 stars. A woman and her young daughter leave the City to live in the Wilderness as part of an experiment to determine whether humans can live in raw nature without harming it. An engaging if unsurprising dystopian, this book compensates for a lack of social commentary and fast plot with indulgent landscapes and detailed world-building of its Wilderness.
6. Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi – 3 stars. An Indian artist reflects on her past and sense of morality as she must provide increasing care for her carefree mother, who is losing her memory. The two women share a complicated relationship filled as much with judgment and disappointment as with love, and struggle to help each other even as they are also desperate to save themselves.

As you can see, this wasn’t my year for high shortlist ratings. The only real favorite for me was the title I’d read prior to the longlist announcement. Most of my Booker reading after that point failed to excite me, though I didn’t have any strong dislikes either, which may be a first.

All in all, though I was initially happy with the shortlist, now that I’ve read all of the books I find it a bit…stagnant and stuffy. While I think the themes and concepts on display here are worthwhile and interesting, and all of these writers succeed in laying out stories that are engaging and coherent, there seems to be a lack of innovation here, of playful inventiveness, of inspiring form and wording. Real Life is the exception for me, in that I think it manages to convey quite a lot without saying any of it directly; Taylor tells his story on a slant, where the surface level reads like an eyebrow-raising drama while a lot of powerful implications and emotions ride underneath. The rest, however, struck me as straightforward, long, wandering, and perhaps just a bit too focused on being called Literature to accomplish enjoyability. Perhaps I’m being too harsh on a collection of books that are indeed admirable each in their own way and simply don’t cater to my reading taste. I prefer my literary fiction a bit more raw and biting, which is not what I found here, and while that’s unfortunate for me it does not mean these are necessarily bad books or that anyone who finds more to enjoy in them than I did is wrong to do so- I do hope someone’s having a better time of it than I did.

With that in mind, if I were to pick a winner, I’d say my favorite for that slot all along has been Taylor’s Real Life. It’s a bit disappointing to have read nine other books from the longlist now and still feel that my top choice is the only title I read independently beforehand, but here we are. I think Taylor and his intelligent, emotional writing would make for a deserving Booker win this year, but in all honesty, I don’t think the judges will lean in this direction. Real Life doesn’t quite seem to match the rest of this shortlist for tone, and though its themes are just as heavy and important as any of the others highlighted on this year’s Booker list, there’s a lightness to the delivery that I suspect doesn’t appeal to the judges as strongly as it does to me, if the rest of this list is anything to go by.

Thus, my actual winner prediction is instead Mengiste’s The Shadow King which, while not quite fitting my expectations based on the synopsis and jacket copy, is a commendable piece of fiction that reveals an overlooked piece of history and whose corrections of that historical record feel timely and important. The judging panel this year is wonderfully diverse, and I suspect those judges will lean toward supporting an author, a country, and a story of a sort that has been underrepresented with the Booker in the past, which makes Mengiste’s Ethiopian epic an appealing choice.

Here is a not-quite-accurate shortlist photo, excluding two titles I didn’t have on hand at the time- Burnt Sugar and The Shadow King and instead including the one longlist title whose absence on the shortlist hurts me most- How Much of These Hills is Gold.

For a bit more fun, here is my current longlist ranking, along with brief recaps for the titles that missed the shortlist.

1. Real Life by Brandon Taylor – 5 stars.
2. How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang – 4 stars. In the dying days of the American gold rush and westward expansion, two Chinese-American children are orphaned after the death of their prospector father. Instilled with a love of the natural land from him and with Chinese traditions from their mother, the siblings set off to build lives of their own, rooted in their pasts and dreaming of better futures, all while facing rampant racial discrimination. It’s beautifully told with an interesting chronology, and Zhang is expert at playing on readers’ assumptions about character. An astute and heart-wrenching read.
3. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid – 4 stars. An overly dramatic and not entirely believable soap opera of a novel about modern racism and performative allyship. It revolves around a young Black woman accused of kidnapping a white child that she’s babysitting, and the harmful ways that the people closest to her try to “help” with the situation. I wouldn’t call this a literary masterpiece, but I found it great fun to read. I appreciate that it brings timely and important topics to a wide audience in an accessible way.
4. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart – 4 stars.
5. The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste – 3 stars.
6. Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward – 3 stars. An incredibly intriguing format and plot centered around an ant that may or may not have crawled into a sleeping woman’s eye. The book, a cross between a short story set and a novel, is a sort of philosophical thought experiment in itself. UnfortunatelyI found it far too emotionless for a story rooted in love that’s meant to be strong enough to save humanity, despite loving the book’s structure and unpredictability.
7. This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga – 3 stars.
8. The New Wilderness by Diane Cook – 3 stars.
9. Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi – 3 stars.
10. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler – 3 stars. This was just too incredibly benign for my reading taste. It’s the story of a man going on middle-aged who’s a bit misunderstood, and must change his solitary ways for the sake of important relationships in his life. It’s a brief and competent contemporary story that I’m sure will please readers who enjoy slice-of-life character studies.

Additionally, at this point I have not read these titles from the longlist:

• The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel. This book is still on my TBR; I’ve read the first book in Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy and have fit books two and three into my December reading schedule, so my reviews will still be forthcoming. I’m determined to read this before the end of the year and expect it would rank in the top half of this year’s Booker list for me, based on my experience with that initial Cromwell novel.
• Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze. I was not particularly drawn to the synopsis of this book from the start, and it was too challenging for me to get a copy in time for the winner announcement at a price that I was willing to pay for my interest level. I’ve not seen any reviews thus far convincing enough for me to add this book to my TBR, and now that I’ve missed the optimal timing to read it I doubt I will ever get around to picking it up.
• Apeirogon by Colum McCann. I have no interest in reading this one, and have actually made plans to read a different book with a similar setting as an alternative read (Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa). McCann has been accused of sexual assault and so I do not want to read or support this book or author even though I have heard positive things about the story itself.

Though I can’t give reliable stats for the titles I didn’t read, over half of the longlist titles that I did complete ranked only 3 stars for me. Which is not a bad rating, but it can be a frustrating one, especially when beginning with high expectations (which seems reasonable when approaching a prestigious prize list). 3-star reads are often difficult for me to review, and difficult for me to care about their advancement within the prize ranks or lack thereof. 3-star reads can also (regrettably) be forgettable, which is not a reaction I want to have for top literary reads of the year.

And so, my overall experience has been somewhat subpar. Even the books I rated higher, like Such a Fun Age and Shuggie Bain, I would not have minded leaving behind on the longlist, which is not a great sign. But despite this Booker season turning out to be an off year for me, it was not such a negative experience that I regret following along, nor do I plan to abandon reading along in the future. But I have learned along the way this year that it can be helpful to trust my first impressions, and that neither the world nor my blog will end if I don’t manage to complete the entire list- and so going forward I think I will be making an effort to be choosier about which Booker titles I will pick up instead of pushing myself through titles I’m less intrigued about for the sake of greater completion.

As usual, the best part of this prize season has been following along with other readers, comparing thoughts, making guesses about the upcoming announcements, and finding a sense of (virtual) community in discussing topical titles. I’ve very much enjoyed chatting with everyone who’s commented along my 2020 Booker journey whether having read the books or not- being able to share the experience is the part that makes sticking with sometimes difficult reads worth the effort.

Have you read any of this year’s Booker longlist, or have thoughts about the winner announcement?

The Literary Elephant