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Author: Josie

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

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Victoria Schwab (or V.E. Schwab) is a popular writer of supernatural and fantastical YA fiction. I read her Shades of Magic trilogy a few years ago because it was well received, but I was not particularly impressed by it and thought it was just okay. And then I read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which leans more into adult fiction, and I absolutely loved it. This made me decide to give Schwab’s other books another try, and so I read This Savage Song. Like the Shades of Magic trilogy, I thought This Savage Song was just okay. I think I need to move on from reading YA supernatural fiction.

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Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

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Bewilderment is a novel that I think everyone should read, but I know they will not. For some people, it may seem like a strange book, but it tackles important subject matters, such as raising a child on the autism spectrum, raising a sensitive child who is very much aware of the problems with our world, climate change, mass extinction of animals, the erosion of democracy, and our bewilderment in the face of all this. It would seem like Richard Powers is prophesizing our future in Bewilderment, if it were not for the fact that what he writes about is very much happening right now.

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Family Trust by Kathy Wang

Family Trust by Kathy Wang

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If you have read and liked Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan, then you may like Kathy Wang’s Family Trust. I have read Crazy Rich Asians and I thought it was just okay. I really wanted to like Family Trust because it sounds like an interesting novel, but I thought it was also just okay (I guess I should not be surprised). My biggest problem with Family Trust is that nearly every single character, except maybe one, is not likeable and therefore I did not enjoy reading about them (the quote on the cover is a lie; this book was not a joy to read from start to finish).

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Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

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If you have not seen it yet, I highly recommend you watch the TV miniseries Dopesick. It is about the opioid crisis in the US and how it was started by one family, the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma which is the maker of Oxycontin. Dopesick the TV show is based on Dopesick the book by Beth Macy. I decided to read Patrick Radden Keefe’s book Empire of Pain instead because it came out just last year and has been well received, and its focus is on the Sackler family rather than the opioid crisis in general. I was curious to know what has made the Sackler family so ruthlessly greedy that they do not care at all that they have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the US alone since Oxycontin was introduced in 1996.

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My Top Five Reads of 2021

My Top Five Reads of 2021

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I cannot believe that 2021 is already over, and that 2021 turned out to be just as bad, if not worse, than 2020. But at least I got to read some great books last year. These are my top five books of 2021:

5. The Rose Code by Kate Quinn – another riveting WWII mystery by Quinn. I really enjoyed this one!

4. Matrix by Lauren Groff – completely not what I was expecting from Groff, but this novel was mesmerizing.

3. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr – fantastic novel with three intersecting timelines, this one will be a reread.

2. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro – I will never forget Klara’s story. The world does not deserve her.

And number 1 is…

Fight Night by Miriam Toews! I cannot believe how much I enjoyed reading this novel. I actually laughed out loud, which does not happen that often when I read. Toews is a great writer!

There are reviews for all five of these books on my blog. Hope I have inspired you to read some of them!

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen

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The last book of 2021! I was pleasantly surprised by Rivka Galchen’s Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch, so I am glad to finish up the year with a good book. Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch is based on the real-life Katharina Kepler, mother of famed Imperial Mathematician Johannes Kepler, who was accused of being a witch in early 17th century Germany.

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The Light of Days by Judy Batalion

The Light of Days by Judy Batalion

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It took me a long time (yes, two weeks is a long time for me) to finish reading The Light of Days for two reasons:

  1. I have been very tired this December. I do most of my reading before bedtime, and lately I have barely made it through one chapter before I fall asleep on the couch with the cats.
  2. This book can, at times, be difficult to read. There are some passages in this book that depict the most inhumane, depraved human behaviour I have ever heard about, that it was nauseating for me to read. I almost did not finish reading The Light of Days because of this.
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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

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Infinite Country is a heartbreaking portrait of living undocumented in the US and of a family living in separate countries. The novel tells the story of 15-year-old American-born Talia, who has been raised by her abuela and her father, Mauro, in Colombia, and who must escape from a correctional facility so that she can fly to the US to be reunited with her mother, Elena, and her older siblings, Karina and Nando. Infinite Country also tells the story of how Talia’s parents ended up in the US, why her mother and siblings are still there, and why Mauro and Talia are on their own in Colombia. It explores why people immigrate to the US and how (white) Americans are so callous in their treatment of immigrants.

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Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

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I have read two of Curtis Sittenfeld’s previous novels; the first was American Wife, which is based on Laura Bush’s life (the wife of George W. Bush), and Eligible, which is a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in Cincinnati. I enjoyed reading both of those novels; they are both character-driven, interesting reads, although Eligible ventures into absurdity towards the end. I had been very interested in reading Rodham since it was first published last year, not so much because I am a fan of Hillary Rodham Clinton, but because by now I trust Sittenfeld to write a good book. And Rodham is a good book. I cannot tell you how close Sittenfeld’s Hillary Rodham is to the real Hillary Rodham Clinton, but it is a super fascinating “what if?” novel that I highly recommend. The premise of Rodham is this: What if Hillary Rodham had never married Bill Clinton?

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Indigo 2021 Reading Challenge

Indigo 2021 Reading Challenge

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Believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve done a reading challenge. I decided at the beginning of the year that I wanted to expand my reading horizons, and the Indigo 2021 Reading Challenge certainly helped with that. I read genres that I never read before (self-help and true crime) and genres that I don’t read enough of (memoirs). I’m really glad I did the reading challenge, but I think I’m going to take next year off and focus on my TBR pile (which keeps growing, and growing). Here are the books that I read, you can find my reviews for almost all of them on this blog:

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