Julie Chan is Dead is Liann Zhang’s debut novel and a recent release that I noticed on the Indigo website. I enjoy novels that satirize the society in which we live, and I did enjoy this novel for the most part, but I feel like Zhang’s message with this novel is going to be lost on those readers that could benefit from it the most.
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The Poppy War is a popular fantasy novel and one of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time. I am not a huge fan of the fantasy genre, especially fantasy stories about war, but I really enjoyed reading Kuang’s Babel, so I thought it was time to give The Poppy War, her first novel, a chance. I do not like The Poppy War as much as I like Babel, but I think it is an interesting story with a compelling protagonist.
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I decided to buy The Children of Jocasta because I have read Natalie Haynes’s other books, but I’ll admit that I am feeling fatigued with Greek mythology and took awhile to get around to reading this novel. I ended up finding Haynes take on the Jocasta/Oedipus myth very interesting, and I’m glad I decided to read it instead of letting it languish in my TBR pile perpetually.
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Not too long ago I was wandering around an Indigo store when I saw this author sitting at a table full of copies of her book. I wanted to be supportive of an independently published writer, so I bought a copy. Sarah Lane’s The God of My Art is a beautifully written novel, but unfortunately the story is not very interesting.
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A Great Country is an Indigo Heather’s Pick and has an interesting-sounding plot, which is why I decided to read it, but this novel ended up falling flat for me.
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The premise of Fruit of the Dead – a modern reimagining of the Persephone and Demeter myth – intrigued me, but I was worried that Fruit of the Dead was going to be too abstract for me to parse, or perhaps too pretentious to enjoy. This novel is neither of those things, but honestly, I do not know what to think of Fruit of the Dead. It is not bad, but I do not think it is very good either. It is interesting, but I was not really invested in the characters.
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Kristin Hannah’s novels get a lot of love online, so I have been thinking about reading one for awhile but have been hesitant to because I find over-hyped books do not live up to my expectations. Then I found this beautiful 10th anniversary edition of The Nightingale with sprayed edges in Costco and had to buy it. Damn, this book is good. It actually made me cry, which does not happen very often when I read books.
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Anita De Monte Laughs Last has an intriguing premise: in 1985, a rising artist is murdered, and her existence is all but erased from the art scene until 1998 when an art history student discovers her art. But this novel is about more then a sensationalistic murder; it actually examines the intersection of art, privilege and race. There is, however, an unexpected supernatural element to the story that kind of put me off, but I decided to go with it because I love petty acts of vengeance.
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When I first saw The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, I thought, Another book about an octopus?? Are octopuses a thing now?? (Remember, I read Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures not too long ago). The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is NOT about an octopus, and I knew that when I started reading this novel, but I spent the entire time while reading wondering if an octopus was going to make an appearance. It isn’t until page 326 of 368 that you learn what the title is about. Still, this novel wasn’t quite what I thought it was going to be, I think because I did not pay that much attention to the synopsis. I thought it was going to be a mystery story about uncovering family secrets, but there is a lot more to it than that.
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There is an author’s note at the end of This Time Tomorrow in which Emma Straub explains how the inspiration for this novel came from her relationship with her own father. At the end of the author’s note she writes, “I hope that you enjoyed the book and that it made you cry.” I did enjoy This Time Tomorrow, but it did not make me cry, which made me realize how much I do not relate to the protagonist of this story.
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