3 Books That Defied My Reading Slump

My blogging absence has sort of felt like the elephant in the room - for me at least. Blogging was a big part of my life, so I admit that it does feel strange not to be doing it on a regular basis. The reality is that reading has been very difficult for me for almost a year now. Maybe I'll get into that more another time. While my reading has slowed to a mere fraction of what it was before, that doesn't mean that I've stopped reading entirely. Every once in a while there is a book that brings back that excitement about reading that I've missed. Here are three of those books that I've read in the past couple months.

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin
Publisher: Riverhead Books. January 2017.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Source: Library
Pages: 192



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Holy shit, this is my kind of book. If you like your literature short, tense, and deeply unsettling, Fever Dream is an absolute must read. The whole (tiny) book is a conversation between main character, Amanda, and a mysterious little boy named David. She is in a hospital. It's not clear why. David asks her to recall what happened that got her there from the very beginning, fixating on small details here and there. Once I picked this book up, there was no chance that I was going to put it down. They talk about children, worms, motherhood, dying horses, pollution, fate, weird spirit stuff, etc. It is all the scariest. Nothing explicitly horror-y happens, but the dread throughout is so so real. And some seriously weird shit goes down... or does it?? This book feels like a dream for sure, and it will not disappoint you. Highly recommended for fans of Helen Phillips, Clarice Lispector (sort of, in her very close focus & claustrophobic writing), or Jesse Ball. So beautiful! So amazing! Read it and be astounded by Schweblin's clarity of voice and vision in her murky and hypnotizing story.

Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel
Publisher: Del Rey. April 2017.
Genre: Science Fiction
Source: Publisher
Pages: 325



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Last year I read a book called Sleeping Giants, which was a glorious combination of Ancient Aliens and Pacific Rim in a a super fun and easy to read interview style. I had some problems with flat characters in the first book, but the sequel, which came out this year, really blew me away. It was action packed, the characters felt less forced and more confidently written, and it was an incredibly quick read. We also got to learn more about the nameless narrator who I thought was kind of cheesy as an idea in the first book. He's just like your general nameless spy dude who seems to have his fingers in every governmental activity (classified or otherwise). Part of me sort of didn't want any actual background, but I ended up really enjoying what we got. This book did not pull any punches AT ALL and it kept surprising me throughout. It is a great read, and it's worth checking out the first book to get here.

His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrea Burnet
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing. October 2016.
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Library
Pages: 300



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I've definitely been on a true crime kick these past couple months, and it was a delight to experience this fiction book that reads like bonafide true crime. His Bloody Project was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize in 2016, which I find to be a super interesting, and well deserved, pick. In it, we have a series of documents that all pertain to the case of Roderick Macrea killing a family in his village. There are neighbors' accounts, his own personal written account, and a transcript of the trial - all of which are biased. Roderick Macrae is such a fascinating guy to be in the head of - and to see from the outside after you know what's going on in his head. It's not a book where you come away knowing exactly what happened at the end of it. It's one that you'll keep thinking about, trying to puzzle out the details and decide who exactly to believe. Burnet places some amazing little hints throughout the book that close readers and true crime fans will be delighted by.

What books have helped you during a reading slump?

3 Dark & Weird Books of 2015

A lot of my January reading has been catching up on books that I missed in 2015. And I've also been in a mood of wanting to keep my reading strange and exciting. SO here are three mini-reviews of very peculiar and often dark books that I read this month.

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
Publisher: Crown. June 2015.
Genre: Fantasy?? Sort of??
Source: Library
Pages: 388


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For all intents and purposes, the power of the Library is infinite. Tonight we’re going to settle who inherits control of reality.

Ok, I listened to this as an audiobook and I HIGHLY recommend it. It was wildly exciting, nearly impossible to turn off. There were more "what the fuck" moments than I could even count. It is just the most bizarre craziness I've ever heard, and it was so much fun to get sucked into. I don't even know how to describe it, because there are so many facets in addition to it being so unpredictable.  Basically there's a group of twelve people who are raised by a cult-y leader named "Father." He takes them to a place called "the library" and they each learn a different discipline. So they're not really a part of the real world until all of a sudden Father goes missing and they're unable to return to the library. And then some crazy shit goes down.

I actually never had any idea what was going to happen. Sometimes it was high fantasy, then, wait a minute, it's a heist. No... a vet drama?? JK, it's just sci fi. BUT WAIT. And so on and so forth. It's funny, but it's also super dark. There's violence (be warned). Objectively, it is not the best book ever. But if you want to not know what to expect and have a really fun time in your confusion, The Library at Mount Char will totally make your week.

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Publisher: Penguin Press. August 2015.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Source: Library
Pages: 272



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Nowadays I often have to leave a room or walk away when a person near to me smells bad. I don't mean the smell of sweat and dirt, but a kind of artificial, caustic smell, usually from people who disguise themselves in creams and perfumes. These highly scented people are not to be trusted.

Eileen is a strange girl and this book is the story of how she disappeared. In her early twenties, she is still living with her father, a manic alcoholic, in their disgusting run-down home. When she gets out of the house, it's to go to her secretarial job at a boys' prison. We get to spend time in the head of this quiet girl where we see all sorts of disturbed thoughts and fantasies. And I LOVE THAT. If you're a fan of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, it's a similar first-person quirky/dark feel. Eileen's narration is startling and funny. It was exactly what I wanted to read.

Things seem pretty grim as far as Eileen escaping her present goes. That is, until she meets the beautiful new educator at the prison, Rebecca. Oh man, do I love the dark places this book goes once that happens. It's a sloooow burn and I would not describe this book as a thriller. The novel is probably overly long at the beginning. The tension that builds isn't really in a creepy atmosphere but in that there's so little going on and that makes you anxious. Because you know that isn't going to be forever. I would recommend this book to anybody interested in being trapped in the mind of a strange and dark character for a while.

Not Dark Yet by Berit Ellingsen
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio. December 2015.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Source: Used Bookstore
Pages: 115
First Line: Blue foxes are so curiously like stones that it is a matter for wonder.


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With the news reporting soaring food prices and shrinking crops on all continents, the project made sense, even good sense. But he nevertheless felt unsettled about it, like a warning he had received and then forgotten, the shadow of a Kraken passing beneath the surface.

I'll be real, I grabbed this book because of the pretty cover and the Jeff VanderMeer blurb on the back. Not Dark Yet is a new novella in the cli-fi (climate fiction) genre. The world's going to shit due to global warming. People are running out of food. The weather's all out of whack. And the main character, Brandon, just needs to get away from it all. So he moves to a remote cabin in the mountains somewhere, leaving his boyfriend behind. This novella jumps around in time a little bit covering a bunch of interesting plot points. An affair with a professor that goes bad, an agricultural project he joins in the mountains, applying to be an astronaut who will live on Mars, some random military stuff, AND MORE.

All of these things are SO interesting and the book had a lot of potential to do all sorts of stuff. Unfortunately, however, Brandon is just not that interesting of a guy. His character is so flat that it's hard to care about any of his (often briefly touched upon) plights. As much as I love concise books, I feel like Ellingsen could've done a lot with more pages. Anyway, I can't mention the other thing I didn't like because it would spoil the whole book. So in short, I really loved most of the stuff that went down in this story, I really super loved what the book was saying (it's so good), but I wasn't blown away with how it was done. If any of this sounds interesting to you, it's worth checking out, if only just to instagram the cover.