Books Read – August 2024

I feel like I read a lot of books in the first few weeks of August and then really slowed down for the next little bit. Eight books read in August.

The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham – This novel was on a list by Alexis Hall of romance novels that he likes. The Rakess takes the trope of the rake who is saved by a virtuous and upstanding woman and gender flips it. The book opens with the female protagonist, Seraphina Arden, in bed with someone and wondering how long she has to cuddle before she can kick him out. Seraphina embodies all the stereotypical rake behavior that one finds in romance novels – drinking, late night carousing, easy affairs. She meets Adam, a fine upstanding, morally uncorrupt widower with kids. Romance novel type things ensue. I was really intrigued by this premise, but ultimately the characters still felt like romance novel cliches with romance novel cliche trauma to justify the way they behave, and the writing was somewhat stolid and awkward. There are some intriguing side characters and progressive ideas about social reform, but ultimately everything was just kind of flat for me.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith – for Engie’s Cool Blogger’s Book Club. Thank you to Engie for organizing! I really liked a lot of this book, but I think the book kind of lost me with the whole “Lock Father in the Tower” bit and the resolution of the novel was kind of madcap. I also didn’t love the framing device of the journal – it seemed a little precious for my tastes. I did like the whimsy, the sense of time and young adulthood, the fantasy of being genteelly poor, Topaz – Topaz was great. So I put this book under, “Glad I read it, now can I watch the movie?”

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – When I was watching trailers for I Capture the Castle, youTube also brought up trailers for a 2020 movie version of Rebecca that came out on Netflix, and that sent me down a rabbit hole. You know, Rebecca, that novel about the young plain something who gets swept off her feet by a much older man and then goes to live in his manor estate and is haunted by the memory of his first wife. I don’t have Netflix so I couldn’t watch the movie, but I was transfixed by the clips I saw online. Then I decided to re-read the book. I remember reading Rebecca when I was in seventh grade and thinking it was the best book ever. I don’t know what it is with me thinking that lying manipulative men were romantic when I was a pre-teen/teen. (See: my obsession with Jane Eyre.) I thought it still held up as a creepy disturbing suspense novel, but I find it creepy and disturbing for different reasons now.

The Turnout by Megan Abbott – This is a suspense/thriller about sisters Dara and Marie Duront who run a ballet school along side Dara’s husband Charlie, a former pupil of their mother’s. There is a fire and a burly contractor comes to fix the damage, inserting himself into their lives and throwing off the delicate balance of the trio’s dynamic. All this against the backdrop of the annual Nutcracker production, which in itself is a high pressure situation. The novel is twisty and twisted as plot elements get revealed and unraveled. It’s not a genre I read much, but stories set in the performing arts world always attract me and I thought the writing was really spare and direct. It’s a page-turner for sure, and I liked the backstage glimpses, but ultimately, I was reminded that I don’t usually read suspense novels because I don’t like being tense all the time, waiting for (pointe) shoes to drop.

So Late in the Day: Stories of Men and Women by Claire Keegan – This is a trio of short stories, each in their own way about loneliness and inability to connect with people. I’d read Keegan’s Foster, and like that book, the writing in these stories is neat and unfussy, but also a little hard for me to grasp – things dance on the surface and I don’t ever feel like I know what is going on. I kind of feel like this is why people like Keegan’s writing so much – there is something very simple about it, but also it hides untold depths. I think what I liked about Foster, more than these stories, was that Foster had moments of genuine connection – in the stories in So Late in the Day, everyone just seems to want to be alone.

Blankets by Craig Thompson – autobiographical graphic novel about Thompson’s abusive sad childhood growing up in an Evangelical church, his struggle with religion, and his relationships with his family and his first love. So my first thought on reading this book was, “What a lot of work it takes to write a graphic novel!” Seriously, this book was like three inches thick and took me so long to read because it was to heavy to take anywhere. So there’s always a bit of awe and respect for the process behind a graphic novel and the skill involved to write, draw, and pace a story. The actual book itself was fine. It was kind of hard for me to get over the fact that even though his parents are strict Christians, 16 year old Craig was allowed to go visit his “girlfriend” Raina (the relationship was a little undefined) a couple hours away, and stay with her family for a week. I don’t know – maybe I had a super sheltered childhood, but that definitely wouldn’t have been something I was allowed to do. This book is often billed as a great romance, and I didn’t find it particularly romantic because Raina didn’t seem like a fully fleshed out character. The parts that were most effective for me were the parts about family and looking out for each other and letting them go. And the artwork was beautiful – the kind of stuff where I felt like I would never really see all there is to see in one picture because there was so much detail.

Drive your Plows over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones – I picked this book up from a Little Free Library, can’t remember why. Maybe I thought I should read some translated fiction by a Nobel Prize winner. I have to admit it took me while to get into this book, but then by the end, when it turned into a full fledged murder mystery, I was like, “Whoa, where did that come from??” It was like the book started out as something really cerebral and then in the last third switched genres on me. It took me several months to read this book, but I wish I had read this book in a more concentrated manner because by the time I got to the murder mystery reveal, I’d forgotten what had happened in the first half of the book and had to go back an re-read it. The main character, Janina, is a recluse in a Polish village who studies Blake and astronomy and teaches kids English and loves animals. She doesn’t use people’s names, instead referring to them by outstanding characteristics. People die. She gets involved in a meandering kind of way while interacting with other misfits. This book takes place in winter and the cold just comes off the page. All in all, I think this is book is way more accessible than I realized at first.

Funny Story by Emily Henry read by Julia Whelan: I hadn’t read any Emily Henry before, and I thought the premise of this one was cute – after Daphne’s fiancé runs aways with Miles’ girlfriend, Daphne and Miles move in together since she needs a place to live and he needs a new roommate. I listened to the audiobook. Also Julia Whelan. I really believe that Whelan can make any book absolutely riveting. So really, who knows if I liked this book or not! Actually I did like a lot of it – I thought the protagonists were adorable and liked the way female friendships developed in the book. There was some pretty typical romance novel BIG MISUNDERSTANDINGS and roadblocks, stuff that felt a little contrived, to be honest. Stuff of the, “Just pick up your phone!” nature. But I didn’t mind it. Over all there were several parts where I laughed out loud while driving, and both the leads were just so nice and earnest that I was totally rooting for them.

On my Nightstand – These books have all been in progress from my last book post – clearly September has been a slow month for reading.

The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors by Juliet Barker- Last chapter! Charlotte’s final book is published posthumously.

You Dream of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue – I really want to just sit down and read this book in one sitting because the chapters are short and I keep losing the narrative thread and forgetting who the characters are. But each chapter is really interesting – I just have no idea how the whole book is tied together.

The History of Women in 101 Objects by Annabell Hirsch- latest chapters: The dance card, Tupperware, the Bikini, Greta Garbo’s Ballpoint pen.

It’s Elementary by Elise Bryant – Overworked mom Mavis is guilted into heading the PTA’s new DEI committee. Then the principal goes missing. I’m only one chapter in, but this book is the lighthearted comedy I need right now.