I read 11 books in May. This just sort of happened, I did not set out to have such an ambitious reading month. But there was travel, and some freed up time, and the books were mostly REALLY, REALLY good and I couldn’t stop turning the pages, and here we are.
I also know there is a finite amount of book recommendations one can take in a season (and just the Summer Reading Pt. 1 and 2 are enough to keep us all going for months on end), so I promise to spend most of June newsletters in a more existential / navel-gazing / general culture observing mode (or something).
But for now, BOOKS:
For starters, this month included ZERO (0!) thrillers/mysteries in the traditional sense - I felt I needed a small break/palatte cleanse because I was starting to get grumpy with the genre I love the most, and want to come back to it when I am craving it/missing it.
I did instead read some really dazzling, mind-expanding, ambitious books and for that I am grateful:
Shark Heart - Emily Hebeck - OK, so bear with me: in this book, a practical woman and a dreamer of a man fall in love, and then he proceeds to mutate into a Great White shark over the course of their first year of marriage. If this doesn’t sound like something you’d be into, trust me, I felt the same. But the writing is beautiful (almost to a point of being poetry), the themes are universal (love, loss, and everything in between), and while fantastical in premise, it feels incredibly human.
Audition - Katie Kitamura - I have been buying and not reading Katie Kitamura novels for years, and I mean … what was I thinking? “Audition,” which starts out with a beautiful middle aged actress and a beautiful young man having lunch, and ends with a complete perception shift in terms of power and roleplay and ties that bind us, feels almost metaphysical, but can also be stripped down to the bare bones of human insecurities and performance. It is structurally inventive, flawlessly precise in language, and it made me want to see it as a play (which was maybe the goal?).
Stag Dance - Torrey Peters - “Detransition, Baby” is etched in my mind as the book that maybe/probably saved my life when it first came out. My brain at the time was stuck in this one-way street and while I was surrounded by grief, I had no way to even start processing it. And I distinctly remember getting a hotel room in DC so I could be by myself with my broken body and my single lane brain and bringing this book along and finishing it in a single day. These characters took my entire perception of the world and friendship and romantic love and family and cracked it open and re-aligned it and then scramble itd again, and all of a sudden I was not afraid of being afraid, which is the greatest gift literature can give you. Torrey Peters is one of the most fearless writers (humans?) out there and her sophmore outing “STAG DANCE” (a novella and 3 short stories, all done as genre exercises: post-apocalyptic sci-fi, teen romance, horror) confirms that. Gender, identity, performance, society, pain of existence, and (most painfully) hope are all laid bare and you are constantly terrified and can’t look away because Peters is a genius. Full stop. This is NOT a book for everyone, but it should be.
Two terrific books about sisters that are also books about ideas:
I’m Sorry You Feel That Way - Rebecca Wait - I got this because the cover told me that I would like it if I liked “Sorrow & Bliss” (and I loved it) and they were write. A multi-generational story of hope and disappointment, with two (sets of) sisters and a mental health crisis at the center, it is sharply funny, unflinchingly brutal, endearingly awkward, often charming and a true page turner.
The Alternatives - Caoilinn Hughes - Ok, so I feel if this book was written by a man (I don’t often/ever start book recs with this, so please bear with me) it would have been a HUGE hit - think “The Bee Sting” by Paul Murray type hype. It is out in paperback now, so it is a perfect time to fix that. It takes a mythological/fairy tale premise: 4 beautiful, smart, sisters orphaned as children, each now in their 30 and with a Doctorate in something that can help us understand the state of the world a little better (Geology, PoliSci, Philosophy and an honorary phD in Food) who come together when the Geologist just walks into the night (she left to pick some rhubarb for her gin from the garden) and disappears. This is an Ambitious (capital A on purpose) novel - with phD levels of global crisis ideas and anxiety, but it is also incredibly funny (those Irish writers!) and super human (sisterhood! the best! the worst!) and just deserves a little more of a word-of-mouth bump out there.
Three Summer-ish Reads (for summer read newsletter research, obviously)
Every Summer After - Carley Fortune - I needed some lightness after the books above so there was a summery interlude that I also surprisingly loved. In this one two kids fall in love between the ages of 12 and 17, and then something terrible happens/they break up, and now at 30, they get a chance to make it all better. It was charming and sexy and I am excited for more Carley Fortune.
Nora Goes Off Script - Annabel Monaghan - This was up there with “The Bodyguard” by Katherine Center as my favorite famous-person-regular-person romance. Nora lives in upstate NY and writes 25k-a-pop formulaic romance scripts for the equivalent of Hallmark Channel. But then her terrible husband leaves her with 2 adorable kids and she writes her first REAL script, and a handsome, notoriously bachelor-y star shows up to star in it. The rest is pretty much what you think it will be, but executed with charm and humor. In short, I’m excited for more Monaghan too.
The Women - Kristin Hannah - It feels weird to mention a book about Vietnam nurse trauma in this section, but I feel Kristin Hannah takes BIG topics and packages them for mass consumption, so it IS a summer read? (we can discuss this further if need be). This was my neighborhood book club pick and prompted some great discussion (several nurses in my book club, plus we have people born in 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s AND 90s and to hear the interpretation of the Vietnam war across generations is a thing to behold) but I found myself both swept up in it and frustrated by the story constantly getting wrapped up in men. Anyway, this was my first Kristin Hannah, and I am a little on the fence about doing more.
Three Books Set in Vacation Destination That Bring MORE To What Could Have Been A Simple “Summer Read”
Rental House - Weike Wang - I have been buying and not reading Weike Wang novels for years, and I mean … what was I thinking? “Rental House” is the slimmest Great American Novel out there. It tells the story of a single marriage over the course of two vacations (one interspersed with in-law visits in Martha’s Vineyard, one solo but with interruptions in Upstate NY) and it dissects themes as big as class, privilege, race, partnership and money in these incredible, precise exchanges and place-making set-ups that are, frankly, genius.
Sandwich - Catherine Newman - If “All Fours” is the first great perimenopausal novel of our time, “Sandwich” is the first great menopausal summer read. Taking place over the course of a single week as a family vacations in Cape Cod, it involves laughter, sadness, secrets, lots of communal food decisions and lines like “if menopause was a substance, it would be oozing out of my eyeballs”
Bombshell - Darrow Farr - This was pure cinema. Clearly inspired by Patty Hearst, it follows a privileged teenager who gets kidnapped by the socialist guerilla in 90s Corsica, only to become taken by their politics. It is filled with the kind of delusional idealism of youth, action, terror AND BIG teenage girl energy and while it mainly did make me want to read “Flamethrowers” again, I feel this one has the potential to be a big summer hit.
That was a lot.
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See you all on the other side