I bought The Blood of Others during my trip to Paris last year from the Shakespeare and Company bookstore. It felt appropriate to buy a book written by a French author, and I choose The Blood of Others because it is about fascism in Europe before and during WWII, which feels like a timely topic given the current global political climate.
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If you like novels with a protagonist who is a narcissistic, mean, pseudo-Christian tradwife Instagram influencer, then Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear is for you. And even if that does not sound like your cup of tea, I think you should still read this book because it will suck you in and you won’t want to escape it until you have finished the last page, even with its absolutely terrible main character.
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There are two reasons why I bought Japanese Gothic: 1. The word “Gothic” in the title. 2. It is a dual timeline story supposedly involving a ghost. Japanese Gothic is an unexpected read. I think I like it, but it’s hard to tell with the melancholy I feel every time I think about it.
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My husband and I spent two weeks in the UK recently, and we spent a lot of time on planes and trains, so I had a lot of time for reading.
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Heather Marshall’s Liberty Street is one of those dual timeline historical fiction novels that I love. It also taught me something about my own country’s dark history in its treatment of women. Not really a win, but it is still interesting.
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Tall Oaks is Chris Whitaker’s debut novel. It is interesting to observe his progression as a writer from this novel to We Begin at the End and All the Colors of the Dark, but I don’t find Tall Oaks to be a particularly good novel.
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Iain Reid is the author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things, which I have not read, but I did watch the movie adaptation by Charlie Kaufman, which was surreal and confusing, even if I was able to parse together what was going on by the end. I let the movie put me off from reading the book, and I almost did not read Foe either, but I am glad I did because I got a kick out of the ending (Foe has also been made into a movie, as you can see by Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal being on the cover of the book, but I haven’t watched it and I am glad I read the book first).
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Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Beautiful Ones was originally published in 2017 and is the second to last of her novels that I need to read before I am all caught up on her bibliography. Unfortunately, The Beautiful Ones fell short of my expectations.
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Kate Quinn has appeared many times on my blog for her mid-twentieth century historical fiction, but The Astral Library is her first fantasy novel. The Astral Library poses the question, “Have you ever wished you could live inside a book?” What kind of a bibliophile would I be if I haven’t ever imagined living inside one of my favourite stories? I found the first couple of chapters of The Astral Library very difficult to get through, but once I did, this novel ended up being a fun read.
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In my review for Mona Awad’s Bunny, I had said that I thought the Bunnies (the clique of rich girls that the main character does not like but wants to be part of) are the more interesting characters. I take that back. I was completely wrong. We Love You, Bunny is a slog to read.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Bunny in case you plan on reading it.
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