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?

Pull Me Under by Kelly Luce :: Review

Pull Me Under by Kelly Luce
Publisher: FSG. November 1, 2016.
Pages: 272
Genre: Literary Fiction
Source: Publisher



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Kelly Luce's Pull Me Under tells the story of Rio Silvestri, who, when she was twelve years old, fatally stabbed a school bully. Rio, born Chizuru Akitani, is the Japanese American daughter of the revered violinist Hiro Akitani--a Living National Treasure in Japan and a man Rio hasn't spoken to since she left her home country for the United States (and a new identity) after her violent crime. Her father's death, along with a mysterious package that arrives on her doorstep in Boulder, Colorado, spurs her to return to Japan for the first time in twenty years. There she is forced to confront her past in ways she never imagined, pushing herself, her relationships with her husband and daughter, and her own sense of who she is to the brink. -Goodreads

If you've been to Japan, you will enjoy reading this book. If you want to feel like you've been to Japan, you will also enjoy reading this book. At the beginning, you're immediately drawn in. Half Japanese, half American girl Chizuru kills her school bully - SO JAPANESE. We see her at that time and we see her later as a pretty well-rounded, stable adult. But when she learns that her father who abandoned her has died, she decides to go to Japan by herself. And that's when all sorts of pent up stuff bubbles up to the surface. Rio/Chizuru has a lot of stuff to figure out about herself that she has been ignoring. Even though this book is about someone who murdered their school bully, the vast majority of it felt like a road trip book (on foot). Luce is excellent at capturing how it feels to be in Japan. It was a complete delight for me, because I went there so recently. And there are some pretty interesting characters that are introduced once Rio arrives.

My mom hated the misogyny she witnessed in Japan. She'd ranted about Miura-san ogling her in his office to Hiro, who only shrugged. It didn't seem like a big deal to me at the time--I'd have loved to be thought pretty like my mom was. I noticed the stereotypes when I got older, for a different reason: people were always surprised when they learned that Tomoya's killer was female. As if a girl couldn't feel rage, couldn't be brutal.

Because I was having so much fun vicariously being in Japan again, I had to force myself to take a step back and see how the book was actually doing plot-wise. And, to be honest, much of it felt just like things were just happening for things to happen. Often there were strained interactions between characters that seemed unrealistic. Like a character bails on a planned dinner with Rio to go on a pilgrimage to different temples and Rio runs into her before she gets a chance to bail. What does she do? Insists she go with her. I get that the intent was to show how awkward and unaware Rio was being, but there are a lot of strangely motivated choices like this. Things sometimes felt like they were coming out of nowhere, because we didn't get as close to the characters as we could have.

I think Pull Me Under edged into some really important and interesting questions about personal identity and whether or not people can change - and what that change could look like. It dealt with some dark themes that I would've liked a deeper look at. I wanted to know more about Rio's mother's suicide. I wanted to know more about what was going through Rio's head during a death that happens halfway through the book. There were a ton of moments that looked like opportunities for big things to be revealed, but sometimes there was no follow through. Like we walked up to the gates of this potential new information, then we walked away randomly. It was a little jarring a couple of times. Though the pacing and plot structure were both a little uneven, Kelly Luce is quite a good writer and at no point did I want to stop reading. Not bad for a debut novel.

15 Exciting New 2016 Releases

Get your TBR lists ready, nerds. The fiction coming out in 2016 is going to be big, weird, wonderful, and I'm so ready for it. Some interesting ones have already come out (Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt, This Census-Taker by China Miéville, Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist by Sunil Yapa), but there's way more coming. This list has literary fiction, sci-fi, a little horror. I've got it all. Shout out to some of my favorite authors whose books I can't wait for: Don DeLillo, Helen Phillips, Dorthe Nors, and Jesse Ball. I have to go start reading now.


The Unfinished World: And Other Stories by 
Amber Sparks (Jan 26)

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"In the weird and wonderful tradition of Kelly Link and Karen Russell, Amber Sparks’s dazzling new collection bursts forth with stories that render the apocalyptic and otherworldly hauntingly familiar. In “The Cemetery for Lost Faces,” two orphans translate their grief into taxidermy, artfully arresting the passage of time. The anchoring novella, “The Unfinished World,” unfurls a surprising love story between a free and adventurous young woman and a dashing filmmaker burdened by a mysterious family. Sparks’s stories—populated with sculptors, librarians, astronauts, and warriors—form a veritable cabinet of curiosities. Mythical, bizarre, and deeply moving, The Unfinished World and Other Stories heralds the arrival of a major writer and illuminates the search for a brief encounter with the extraordinary."

Almost Everything Very Fast by Christopher Kloeble (Feb 2)

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"Albert is nineteen, grew up in an orphanage, and never knew his mother. All his life Albert had to be a father to his father: Fred is a child trapped in the body of an old man. He spends his time reading encyclopedias, waves at green cars, and is known as the hero of a tragic bus accident. Albert senses that Fred, who has just been given five months left to live, is the only one who can help him learn more about his background.

With time working against them, Albert and Fred set out on an adventurous voyage of discovery that leads them via the underground sewers into the distant past--all the way back to a night in August 1912, and to the story of a forbidden love."

A Collapse of Horses by Brian Evenson (Feb 9)

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"A stuffed bear's heart beats with the rhythm of a dead baby; Reno keeps receding to the east no matter how far you drive; and in a mine on another planet, the dust won't stop seeping in. In these stories, Brian Evenson unsettles us with the everyday and the extraordinary—the terror of living with the knowledge of all we cannot know.

Praised by Peter Straub for going "furthest out on the sheerest, least sheltered narrative precipice," Brian Evenson has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and is the World Fantasy Award and the winner of the International Horror Guild Award, the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel, and one of Time Out New York's top books."

Cities I've Never Lived In: Stories by 
Sara Majka (Feb 16)

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"In subtle, sensuous prose, the stories in Sara Majka's debut collection explore distance in all its forms: the emotional spaces that open up between family members, friends, and lovers; the gaps that emerge between who we were and who we are; the gulf between our private and public selves. At the center of the collection is a series of stories narrated by a young American woman in the wake of a divorce; wry and shy but never less than open to the world, she recalls the places and people she has been close to, the dreams she has pursued and those she has left unfulfilled. Interspersed with these intimate first-person stories are stand-alone pieces where the tight focus on the narrator's life gives way to closely observed accounts of the lives of others. A book about belonging, and how much of yourself to give up in the pursuit of that, Cities I've Never Lived In offers stories that reveal, with great sadness and great humor, the ways we are most of all citizens of the places where we cannot be."

Version Control by Dexter Palmer (Feb 23)

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"Rebecca Wright has gotten her life back, finding her way out of grief and depression following a personal tragedy years ago. She spends her days working in customer support for the Internet dating site where she first met her husband. However, she has a persistent, strange sense that everything around her is somewhat off-kilter: she constantly feels as if she has walked into a room and forgotten what she intended to do there; on TV, the President seems to be the wrong person in the wrong place; and each night she has disquieting dreams that may or may not be related to her husband Philip's pet project. Philip's decade-long dedication to the causality violation device (which he would greatly prefer you do not call a "time machine") has effectively stalled his career and made him a laughingstock in the physics community. But he may be closer to success than either of them knows or imagines."

Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett (March 1)

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"Furo Wariboko – born and bred in Lagos – wakes up on the morning of his job interview to discover he has turned into a white man. As he hits the city streets running, still reeling from his new-found condition, Furo finds the dead ends of his life open out before him. As a white man in Nigeria, the world is seemingly his oyster – except for one thing: despite his radical transformation, Furo's ass remains robustly black . . .

Funny, fierce, inventive and daringly provocative – this is a very modern satire, with a sting in the tail."

What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi
(March 8)

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"Playful, ambitious, and exquisitely imagined, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is cleverly built around the idea of keys, literal and metaphorical. The key to a house, the key to a heart, the key to a secret—Oyeyemi’s keys not only unlock elements of her characters’ lives, they promise further labyrinths on the other side. In “Books and Roses” one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers’ fates. In “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea” involves a “house of locks,” where doors can be closed only with a key—with surprising, unobservable developments. And in “If a Book Is Locked There’s Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think,” a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason)."

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel (April 26)

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"17 years ago: A girl in South Dakota falls through the earth, then wakes up dozens of feet below ground on the palm of what seems to be a giant metal hand. Today: She is a top-level physicist leading a team of people to understand exactly what that hand is, where it came from, and what it portends for humanity. A swift and spellbinding tale told almost exclusively through transcriptions of interviews conducted by a mysterious and unnamed character, this is a unique debut that describes a hunt for truth, power, and giant body parts."

Zero K by Don DeLillo (May 10)

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"Jeffrey Lockhart’s father, Ross, is a billionaire in his sixties, with a younger wife, Artis Martineau, whose health is failing. Ross is the primary investor in a remote and secret compound where death is exquisitely controlled and bodies are preserved until a future time when biomedical advances and new technologies can return them to a life of transcendent promise. Jeff joins Ross and Artis at the compound to say “an uncertain farewell” to her as she surrenders her body.

“We are born without choosing to be. Should we have to die in the same manner? Isn’t it a human glory to refuse to accept a certain fate?”

These are the questions that haunt the novel and its memorable characters, and it is Ross Lockhart, most particularly, who feels a deep need to enter another dimension and awake to a new world. For his son, this is indefensible. Jeff, the book’s narrator, is committed to living, to experiencing “the mingled astonishments of our time, here, on earth.”"

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer (May 10)

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"The first book of Terra Ignota, a four-book political SF epic set in a human future of extraordinary originality
Mycroft Canner is a convict. For his crimes he is required, as is the custom of the 25th century, to wander the world being as useful as he can to all he meets. Carlyle Foster is a sensayer--a spiritual counselor in a world that has outlawed the public practice of religion, but which also knows that the inner lives of humans cannot be wished away.

The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is as strange to our 21st-century eyes as ours would be to a native of the 1500s. It is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labelling all public writing and speech. What seem to us normal gender distinctions are now distinctly taboo in most social situations. And most of the world's population is affiliated with globe-girdling clans of the like-minded, whose endless economic and cultural competion is carefully managed by central planners of inestimable subtlety. To us it seems like a mad combination of heaven and hell. To them, it seems like normal life.

And in this world, Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destablize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true. Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life..."

Some Possible Solutions: Stories by Helen Phillips (May 31)

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"Some Possible Solutions offers an idiosyncratic series of "What ifs": What if your perfect hermaphrodite match existed on another planet? What if you could suddenly see through everybody's skin to their organs? What if you knew the exact date of your death? What if your city was filled with doppelgangers of you?

Forced to navigate these bizarre scenarios, Phillips' characters search for solutions to the problem of how to survive in an irrational, infinitely strange world. In dystopias that are exaggerated versions of the world in which we live, these characters strive for intimacy and struggle to resolve their fraught relationships with each other, with themselves, and with their place in the natural world. We meet a wealthy woman who purchases a high-tech sex toy in the shape of a man, a rowdy, moody crew of college students who resolve the energy crisis, and orphaned twin sisters who work as futuristic strippers--and with Phillips' characteristic smarts and imagination, we see that no one is quite who they appear."

The Girls by Emma Cline (June 14)

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"Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence, and to that moment in a girl’s life when everything can go horribly wrong."

So Much for That Winter: Novellas by Dorthe Nors (June 21)

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"Dorthe Nors follows up her acclaimed story collection Karate Chop with a pair of novellas that playfully chart the aftermath of two very twenty-first-century romances. In "Days," a woman in her late thirties records her life in a series of lists, giving shape to the tumult of her days--one moment she is eating an apple, the next she is on the floor, howling like a dog. As the details accumulate, we experience with her the full range of emotions: anger, loneliness, regret, pain, and also joy, as the lists become a way to understand, connect to, and rebuild her life.

In "Minna Needs Rehearsal Space," a novella told in headlines, an avant-garde musician is dumped via text message. Fleeing the indignity of the breakup and friends who flaunt their achievements in life, career, and family, Minna unfriends people on Facebook, listens to Bach, and reads Ingmar Bergman, then decamps to an island near Sweden, "well suited to mental catharsis." A cheeky nod to the listicles and bulletins we scroll through on a daily basis, So Much for That Winter explores how we shape and understand experience, and the disconnection and dislocation that define our twenty-first-century lives, with Nors's unique wit and humor."

The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis (June 30)

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"Everything Elka knows of the world she learned from the man she calls Trapper, the solitary hunter who took her under his wing when she was just seven years old.

But when Elka sees the Wanted poster in town, her simple existence is shattered. Her Trapper – Kreagar Hallet – is wanted for murder. Even worse, Magistrate Lyon is hot on his trail, and she wants to talk to Elka.

Elka flees into the vast wilderness, determined to find her true parents. But Lyon is never far behind – and she’s not the only one following Elka’s every move. There will be a reckoning, one that will push friendships to the limit and force Elka to confront the dark memories of her past."

How to Set a Fire and Why by Jesse Ball (July 5)

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"Lucia's father is dead; her mother is in a mental institute; she's living in a garage-turned-bedroom with her aunt. And now she's been kicked out of school—again. Making her way through the world with only a book, a zippo lighter, a pocket full of stolen licorice, a biting wit, and striking intelligence she tries to hide, she spends her days riding the bus to visit her mother and following the only rule that makes any sense to her: Don't do things you aren't proud of. But when she discovers that her new school has a secret Arson Club, she's willing to do anything to be a part of it, and her life is suddenly lit up. And as her fascination with the Arson Club grows, her story becomes one of misguided friendship and, ultimately, destruction."

What new book are you most looking forward to this year? 

Which of these looks best?

8 New Books to Look For This August

August is looking like it's going to be a great month for interesting new books. And, lucky for you, a bunch of them are coming out right away! There's China Miéville, one of the most original sci-fi writers out there. There's N.K. Jemisin, the author who turned me from vaguely anti-fantasy into a fan. There's new Murakami! And a bunch more! Now go extend your TBR list until it's alarmingly long. Feel no shame.

Three Moments of an Explosion by 
China Miéville (Aug 4)

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"London awakes one morning to find itself besieged by a sky full of floating icebergs. Destroyed oil rigs, mysteriously reborn, clamber from the sea and onto the land, driven by an obscure but violent purpose. An anatomy student cuts open a cadaver to discover impossibly intricate designs carved into a corpse's bones—designs clearly present from birth, bearing mute testimony to . . . what?

Of such concepts and unforgettable images are made the twenty-eight stories in this collection—many published here for the first time. By turns speculative, satirical, and heart-wrenching, fresh in form and language, and featuring a cast of damaged yet hopeful seekers who come face-to-face with the deep weirdness of the world—and at times the deeper weirdness of themselves—Three Moments of an Explosion is a fitting showcase for one of our most original voices."

Wind/Pinball by Haruki Murakami (Aug 4)

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"The debut short novels--nearly thirty years out of print-- by the internationally acclaimed writer, newly retranslated and in one English-language volume for the first time, with a new introduction by the author.

These first major works of fiction by Haruki Murakami center on two young men--an unnamed narrator and his friend and former roommate, the Rat. Powerful, at times surreal, stories of loneliness, obsession, and eroticism, these novellas bear all the hallmarks of Murakami's later books, giving us a fascinating insight into a great writer's beginnings, and are remarkable works of fiction in their own right. Here too is an exclusive essay by Murakami in which he explores and explains his decision to become a writer. Prequels to the much-beloved classics A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance, these early works are essential reading for Murakami completists and contemporary fiction lovers alike."

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (Aug 4)

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"Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries."

Make Your Home Among Strangers by 
Jennine Capó Crucet (Aug 4)

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"When Lizet-the daughter of Cuban immigrants and the first in her family to graduate from high school-secretly applies and is accepted to an ultra-elite college, her parents are furious at her decision to leave Miami. Just weeks before she's set to start school, her parents divorce and her father sells her childhood home, leaving Lizet, her mother, and Leidy-Lizet's older sister, a brand-new single mom-without a steady income and scrambling for a place to live.

Amidst this turmoil, Lizet begins her first semester at Rawlings College, distracted by both the exciting and difficult moments of freshman year. But the privileged world of the campus feels utterly foreign, as does her new awareness of herself as a minority."

The Girl Who Slept with God by Val Brelinski (Aug 4)

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"Set in Arco, Idaho, in 1970, Val Brelinski’s powerfully affecting first novel tells the story of three sisters: young Frances, gregarious and strong-willed Jory, and moral-minded Grace. Their father, Oren, is a respected member of the community and science professor at the local college. Yet their mother’s depression and Grace’s religious fervor threaten the seemingly perfect family, whose world is upended when Grace returns from a missionary trip to Mexico and discovers she’s pregnant with—she believes—the child of God.

Distraught, Oren sends Jory and Grace to an isolated home at the edge of the town. There, they prepare for the much-awaited arrival of the baby while building a makeshift family that includes an elderly eccentric neighbor and a tattooed social outcast who drives an ice cream truck."

The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips 
(Aug 11)

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"In a windowless building in a remote part of town, the newly employed Josephine inputs an endless string of numbers into something known only as "The Database." After a long period of joblessness, she's not inclined to question her fortune, but as the days inch by and the files stack up, Josephine feels increasingly anxious in her surroundings. When one evening her husband Joseph disappears and then returns, offering no explanation as to his whereabouts, her creeping unease shifts decidedly to dread.

As other strange events build to a crescendo, the haunting truth about Josephine's work begins to take shape in her mind, even as something powerful is gathering its own form within her. She realizes that in order to save those she holds most dear, she must penetrate an institution whose tentacles seem to extend to every corner of the city and beyond."

Slab by Selah Saterstrom (Aug 11)

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"On a slab that's all Katrina left of her Mississippi home, Tiger tells her story, and it is as American as Horatio Alger, Schwab's Pharmacy, and a tent revival. She was a stripper, but is she now a performance artist and best-selling author, and it is really Barbara Walters she's narrating this tale to? We're too dazzled to know more than that this is about how a girl ends up in the backwash of decadence and sin and how out of the flotsam and jetsam she might construct a story of herself and the South to carry her to salvation.

Serial killers, preachers, and prison flower-arranging classes. Bikers, bad boyfriends, and a stripper who performed as a Trans Am. Tiger has seen it all and as she sits on her slab, identifying anecdotes as they go by, we witness Selah Saterstrom at her greatest—funny, bawdy, and steeped in the landscape and all the devastation it has created and absorbed."

The Incarnations by Susan Barker (Aug 18)

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"Who are you? you must be wondering. I am your soulmate, your old friend, and I have come back to this city of sixteen million in search of you.

So begins the first letter that falls into Wang’s lap as he flips down the visor in his taxi. The letters that follow are filled with the stories of Wang’s previous lives—from escaping a marriage to a spirit bride, to being a slave on the run from Genghis Khan, to living as a fisherman during the Opium Wars, and being a teenager on the Red Guard during the cultural revolution—bound to his mysterious “soulmate,” spanning one thousand years of betrayal and intrigue.

As the letters continue to appear seemingly out of thin air, Wang becomes convinced that someone is watching him—someone who claims to have known him for over one thousand years. And with each letter, Wang feels the watcher growing closer and closer…"

What new book do you want to read this August?

6 Reasons Why The People in the Trees is Perfect

The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher: Doubleday. August 2013.
Pages: 384
Genre: Literary Fiction
Source: Publisher
First Line: March 19, 1995 Renowned Scientist Faces Charges of Sexual Abuse


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In 1950, a young doctor called Norton Perina signs on with the anthropologist Paul Tallent for an expedition to the remote Micronesian island of Ivu'ivu in search of a rumored lost tribe. They succeed, finding not only that tribe but also a group of forest dwellers they dub "The Dreamers," who turn out to be fantastically long-lived but progressively more senile. Perina suspects the source of their longevity is a hard-to-find turtle; unable to resist the possibility of eternal life, he kills one and smuggles some meat back to the States. He scientifically proves his thesis, earning worldwide fame and the Nobel Prize, but he soon discovers that its miraculous property comes at a terrible price. As things quickly spiral out of his control, his own demons take hold, with devastating personal consequences. - Goodreads

1. // It's a book within a book.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm delighted whenever this happens. If you're a little hesitant, fear not. This is no gimmick. There is no better way this strange story could be told. The book is framed as Norton Perina's memoir that he's writing from jail. The introduction, editing, and footnotes are done by his friend, Ronald. At one point, Norton Perina says about his life:

...I have found that contemplating the events of that year becomes tolerable only when I consider them as things that happened long ago and to someone else--some series of misfortunes and tragedies that befell someone I once admired and had read about in a dusty book in a grand, stone-floored library somewhere far away, where there was no sound, no light, no movement but for my own breath, and my fingers clumsily turning the rough-cut pages.

That's what reading this book feels like. And it's a glorious feeling.

2. // There are unreliable narrator(s).

Remember Ronald who edits the memoir? He admits to being biased toward Norton Perina, as they're friends, and he also says that he has edited things out that seem unnecessary. That paired with a main character whose only focus seems to be success and who is in jail for a horrible crime he says he didn't commit? You always have to be on your toes as you read this story. Not all is as it seems.

3. // There are some disturbed characters.

As Yanagihara proved this year with A Little Life, she can take you to some dark places in her books. And the darkest places are within the minds of her characters, which she creates so richly and thoughtfully. The complexity of these people is revealed so subtly, it feels like you're discovering secrets as you read. Every revelation about a character is well placed and well timed. Norton Perina is a troubling individual on so many different levels and I love that.

4. // Hanya Yanagihara's writing is so immersive.

I really don't know how she does it. I mean a lot of it has to do with the context of this being a memoir that you're reading, but you get completely immersed in the story and the characters she has created. Her written landscaping of this fictional island is so in depth and atmospheric, you can feel the heat and darkness and claustrophobia of the jungle. None of the weirder plot points took me out of the story at all; they only helped to suck me in. 

5. // It's also really beautiful. 

My arms cramped up from how many paragraphs I typed up. Because it's written as a memoir by a scientist with extensive footnotes, it looks and feels like it should be dense. I'm not going to say you can race through it in one sitting, but there was no point in this book that I was bored. Yanagihara's prose is so lyrical. I mean, look at this.

I stood periodically and listened to the dry palm fronds chattering against one another like bones, and to the ocean, its remorseless, lonely conversation with itself, a sound that—though I did not know it at the time—I would not hear again for months to come.

6. // Physical immortality is acquired through eating mystical turtles.

Ok, this isn't always criteria for me, but it's definitely a bonus. Despite how human the plot is, the fantastical elements really take it up a notch. The discovery of "The Dreamers" (the people who are 100+ years old, but incommunicable due to mental deterioration) is so intense. Not knowing how many more are in the jungle is more so. The tribe of islanders and their customs are fascinating. The folklore behind the turtles that provide physical immortality is so interesting to read. All of these strange elements adds a richness through its inventiveness and layering, and it only helps magnify the the real life issues: exploration, globalization, mortality, progress, ego, etc.



I don't want to say too much about Yanagihara's stunning debut novel. I just really want you to read it. Do you look for any of these things in the books you read?

Review: The Shore by Sara Taylor

The Shore by Sara Taylor
Publisher: Hogarth. May 26, 2015
Pages: 320
Genre: Literary fiction
Source: Publisher
First Line: When news of the murder breaks I'm in Matthew's buying chicken necks so my little sister Renee and I can go crabbing.


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We are one of three islands, off the coast of Virginia and just south of Maryland, trailing out into the Atlantic Ocean like someone's dripped paint.

The first chapter of this book absolutely blew me away and the rest of the book did not disappoint. If you're at all interested in dark, gritty Southern Gothic literature, or perhaps think you could be but have been put off by how male-dominated those stories tend to be, grab this immediately. And if you want a little dose of magical realism, too, you're in the right place. I waited a couple weeks to read this after acquiring it, and I regret it.

The Shore is an interesting book, in that each chapter focuses on a different character (though sometimes narrators recur) and each chapter jumps to a different year, sometimes up to 100 years in difference. But the common thread is that they all focus on families, and particularly the tough and fascinating women, who inhabit a group of islands off the shore of Virginia. And boy does Sara Taylor know how to evoke a sense of place. The marshland these families have populated for years is both desolate and enchanting. Taylor's writing is absolutely stunning and I loved just soaking in how real and rich her descriptions were.

Behind her, the marsh stretches silver and gray and bright lime green, veined with creeks the reflect the blue of the sky, out to the gold smudge of barrier islands and white smudge of breakers at the horizon.

Taylor is also extraordinary at writing characters. Each one was intriguing and different. Sometimes at the beginning of a story, you had no idea who you were watching, but you could begin to recognize people from earlier just based on how they felt. One character that was vaguely mentioned in one story could be the main character of the next one. It was a lot of fun taking notes and trying to keep track of how all these people were related, because they all were in some way, and it added a layer of depth and interaction that many books don't achieve.

It's worth noting that this book is really intense. Beautiful, but intense, and it goes to very dark places. Anything that you imagine might happen in a rural, isolated, run-down set of island towns does. There's violence, crime, drugs, domestic abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, and rape. I think all of it was important to read and it doesn't feel gratuitous, but it is worth mentioning.

I loved this book. Well, I loved all but the last chapter of this book, which felt unnecessary. But I'm fully behind every other chapter. Even if you think you don't need to read this book, you do. I'm beyond excited to see what Sara Taylor does in the future.

She'd reached out her hands, like he'd shown her, and felt the breeze between her fingers like long strands of dried grass, only this time she felt it in her mind, too, as if her head was an empty room with all the windows open and the breeze was wandering through it. She'd grabbed hold and twisted, and the breeze twirled in on itself, picking up the cut grass on the road, spinning a confused chicken around a few times, then straightening back out.

Outlandishness Rating: 8/10

Ok, I didn't really touch on much of the magical realism, but it is there and it is SO magical. I love how it's just kind of integrated without trying to explain it too much. Also, when I said there can be differences of 100 years between chapters? It definitely goes into the future a couple times. Those stories show a grimmer future. A little bit literary apocalyptic, akin to Station Eleven or Cloud Atlas. It's so good. Except for the last chapter, but we really don't have to talk about that.

Review: Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller

Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
Publisher: Tin House Books. March 17, 2015
Pages: 382
Genre: Literary Fiction
Source: Publisher
First Lines: This morning I found a black-and-white photograph of my father at the back of the bureau drawer. He didn't look like a liar.


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This debut novel was brilliant. I was nervous about reading a second book about an end-of-times survivalist after just reading Soil, which disappointed me. But I'm so glad I did, because this is one of my new favorite books.

Peggy Hillcoat, an 8-year-old girl, is taken away from her home by her father one day. He tells her that the world has ended and that the rest of her family is dead. They are the only two people in the world left. They live together off of very little in a completely rundown cabin in the woods. When she finally comes back to her mother nine years later, they both discover the truth about what happened out there in the wilderness and back home before they left.

The characters and the world that they build for themselves is so vivid. A story about two people alone in the woulds could easily become boring and get bogged down by details about surviving with very little (though I do love those kinds of details). Their situation shone, because we learned so much about them, their relationships with each other, and their previous relationships with people like Peggy's mother as time goes on. Both Peggy and her father are still wrapped up in the past and their own dreams, that they get very involved in certain projects like building Peggy a noiseless piano. It takes them a while to really learn how to take care of themselves and each other. But something is very clearly changing in her father. And once Peggy discovers a pair of boots in the woods, everything starts to unravel and fall apart.

I loved that the book jumped back and forth between Peggy's time as an adult back home with her mother and when she is a child with her father. The tension that's created is superb and everything is revealed with expert timing. I was too absorbed in the story to even think once about what Fuller was slowly doing.

This is a very quick, dark, and heart-wrenching read. Fuller's prose is absolutely exquisite. At so many chapter endings I felt completely blown away and ready to race into the next chapter. Her writing and pacing sucked me in entirely. I couldn't stop reading. And it's not a thriller or a mystery, really. It is well-written, unnerving literary fiction that feels absolutely human and real. And, wow, what an ending.



Some Quotes:

"I had no idea this wind-worn woman, creased and bag-eyed, standing outside her barn with her cow on a rope, would be the last person I would meet from the real world for another nine years. Perhaps if I had known, I would have clung to the folds of her skirt, hooked my fingers over the waistband of her apron, and tucked my knees around one of her stout legs. Stuck fast, like a limpet or a Siamese twin, I would have been carried with her when she rose in the morning to milk the cow, or into her kitchen to stir the porridge. If I had known, I might never have let her go."

"But here my memory slows, like watching an old cine film, jerky, with all the colours too bright."

"Dates only make us aware of how numbered our days are, how much closer to death we are for each one we cross off."



Outlandishness Rating: 6/10
The plot definitely gave it some points in outlandishness. As does where it all ends up. But, ultimately, this is a very human story.

Review: Soil by Jamie Kornegay

Soil by Jamie Kornegay
Publisher: Simon & Schuster. March 10, 2015
Pages: 368
Genre: Literary Fiction
Source: Publisher
First Line: The drought began in May and lasted three months.


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Soil should have been everything I've ever wanted. A young environmental scientist, Jay, is in dire straits after his farm in Mississippi floods and his wife and son leave him. His dreams of creating sustainable farming for the future/potential apocalyptic situations seemed ruined. And then, to make matters worse, he finds a dead body on his property. Naturally, he assumes someone is framing him. So he sets out to get rid of the body, and sinks deeper and deeper into self-perpetuating paranoia.

This debut novel impressed me with its no fear attitude; it dove into paranoid madness, weird sex, family dysfunction, and kind of race as well. My only problem with it was how it went about covering those topics. Right away at the beginning of the novel, Jay is already deep into his paranoia. It was definitely hard to understand where it came from, because we didn't see it develop. In that sense Jay became more of a caricature of a paranoid man. And, while this book is described as a dark comedy and perhaps that could have been part of Kornegay's intent, he just felt underdeveloped. There was a certain lack of motivation. Same goes for the sex addicted cop. The characters felt a little thrown together with little purpose. Granted, they were interesting and it was often entertaining to be in their heads. Jay's justifications for his crazy actions were winding in their logic and incredible to witness. Equally good: some characters didn't appear as major players until after a while and the way the chapters jumped around very slightly in time was brilliant.

The jarring character development and questionable purpose of the characters wouldn't normally have annoyed me all that much, but for some reason this book just dragged for me. It took me a week and a half to get through. There just wasn't enough driving Jay's paranoia for me to be able to race through it. It felt like I was constantly waiting for something to happen, which isn't a good sign.

Overall, this was a super original piece of gritty Southern literature. I had some qualms with the pacing and characters. The ending was a bit of a let down, but Kornegay is a talented writer with some interesting things going on in his brain. I'd be interested to see where he takes things next.

If dead animals or uncomfortable descriptions of sex aren't for you, maybe don't check this out.

Also, about the race thing. It was brought up several times, but never really explained. Or at least it didn't seem to factor into the end and it was never a large plot point? If anybody's read this book, please let me know your thoughts! It felt kind of thrown in, which is potentially troubling.



Some Quotes:

"The sun would rise and continue slurping up the lake, exposing the perception of a crime. Someone else had done this, but it belonged undoubtedly now to him."

"After society's collapse, men will be forced to do things that their civilized minds would never have imagined. Decency and decorum, the lives of others--all will be expendable in light of your own survival and that of your family."

"He burned it slow, a clue at a time, and then he'd sit back and stare off into the glow for a while, imagining that he'd always been destroying these things and that he would spend the rest of his life destroying them too, tending this sulfurous hell pit till kingdom come."


Outlandishness Rating: 7/10       Mud sex.

Review: Of Things Gone Astray by Janina Matthewson

Of Things Gone Astray by Janina Matthewson
Publisher: The Friday Project. February 3, 2015
Pages: 288
Genre: Literary Fiction with Magical Realism
Source: Publisher
First Line: Mrs Featherby had been having pleasant dreams until she woke to discover the front of her house had vanished overnight.


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Now this was a weird book. Of Things Gone Astray is a beautifully intricate webs of strange nonsense, that often hits surprisingly close to home. It definitely pushed every quirky and whimsical button of mine. It was fun and playful, but could be poignant and sad. And wow, this is some of the most fun dialogue I've ever read.

This is a charming novel following a cast of characters who have each lost things. Things you don't normally lose. The front wall of your house, your sense of direction, your place of work (like it's physically gone), your piano keys. But it's also about the power of relationships with other people. Oh and somebody turns into a tree. Not a spoiler. Trees take a long time to grow, ya goof. And the best part is that all of these stories intertwine, some lightly and some heavily. I love when that happens.

Overall, reading Of Things Gone Astray was a pretty good time. Each chapter switched to a new character, keeping me mostly interested in everyone's stories, and they were often quite short. And pretty funny or totally on point. If you need logical explanations for the weird magical whimsy that goes on, stop here and back away from this book. Of course, most of the characters needed to lose something to find something else, which appears in several beautiful ways. But like there's no scientific reason for a tree girl.

My only real qualm with this book is the lack of character and story development with a few characters, but specifically Marcus. Marcus is an old man and famous pianist who loses his piano keys. He's also grieving the loss of his partner/husband (not sure if the term was specified or what it would be in the UK) and a strained relationship with his college aged daughter. There was so much potential here, but most of the time he seemed like an after thought. His story was not as connected as the others and the ending to his story isn't completely satisfying.

I also had issue with the ending in general. Many of the characters had kind of rushed, frayed ends. But it was still charming. Perhaps I'm just one who either wants an ending wide open or very resolved. It's a personal problem that's hard to reconcile. But I did think, with how much layering and interlocking of characters there was, that it was going to build up to something bigger.

But it was sweet. It was soft and strange. It made me think about what's really important in my life.


Some Quotes:

"One simply cannot be a believable recluse when one is cursed with a transparent wall."

"Pfft. If you realized you do need help, you wouldn't need as much help as you need."

"'Morning Dee,' her mother trilled as she walked in the front door. Her mother had started trilling. Delia hadn't realised things had gone that far."



Outlandishness Rating: 9/10

She grows into a tree! What!

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Debut Novels For 2015

The Broke and the Bookish runs this business.

Oh man, I had to do some research for this one. Right now I'm kind of just catching up on reading the things from 2014 that I didn't get to, so I hadn't thought much of new books coming out. I'm glad I looked into it, though, because this stuff looks gooooood. All summaries are from the publishers! If any of these aren't actually debut novels, it's because I'm bad at doing research. I tried.

The First Bad Man by Miranda July (January 13)
Miranda July is perfect.
"Here is Cheryl, a tightly-wound, vulnerable woman who lives alone, with a perpetual lump in her throat. She is haunted by a baby boy she met when she was six, who sometimes recurs as other people's babies. Cheryl is also obsessed with Phillip, a philandering board member at the women's self-defense non-profit where she works. She believes they've been making love for many lifetimes, though they have yet to consummate in this one.

When Cheryl's bosses ask if their twenty-one-year-old daughter Clee can move into her house for a little while, Cheryl's eccentrically-ordered world explodes. And yet it is Clee--the selfish, cruel blond bombshell--who bullies Cheryl into reality and, unexpectedly, provides her the love of a lifetime."



The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan (January 13)

"Despite their many differences, Detective Rachel Getty trusts her boss, Esa Khattak, implicitly. But she’s still uneasy at Khattak’s tight-lipped secrecy when he asks her to look into Christopher Drayton’s death. Drayton’s apparently accidental fall from a cliff doesn’t seem to warrant a police investigation, particularly not from Rachel and Khattak’s team, which handles minority-sensitive cases. But when she learns that Drayton may have been living under an assumed name, Rachel begins to understand why Khattak is tip-toeing around this case. It soon comes to light that Drayton may have been a war criminal with ties to the Srebrenica massacre of 1995."





Weathering by Lucy Wood (January 15)

Author of The Diving Belles! 
"Pearl doesn't know how she's ended up in the river - the same messy, cacophonous river in the same rain-soaked valley she'd been stuck in for years. Or why, for that matter, she'd been stupid enough to fall down those rickety stairs.

Ada, Pearl's daughter, doesn't know how she's ended up back in the house she left thirteen years ago - with no heating apart from a fire she can't light, no way of getting around apart from an old car she's scared to drive, and no company apart from echoing footsteps on the damp floorboards. With her daughter Pepper, she starts to sort through Pearl's things, clearing the house so she can leave and not look back.

Pepper has grown used to following her restless mother from place to place, but this house, with its faded photographs, its boxes of cameras and its stuffed jackdaw, is something new. Fascinated by the scattering of people she meets, by the river that unfurls through the valley, and by the strange old woman who sits on the bank with her feet in the cold, coppery water, Pepper doesn't know why anyone would ever want to leave.

As the first frosts of autumn herald the coming of a long winter and Pepper and Ada find themselves irresistibly entangled with the life of the valley, each will discover the ways that places can take root inside us and bind us together."

The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac by Sharma Shields (January 27)

"Eli Roebuck was nine years old when his mother walked off into the woods with "Mr. Krantz," a large, strange, hairy man who may or may not be a sasquatch. What Eli knows for certain is that his mother went willingly, leaving her only son behind. For the rest of his life, Eli is obsessed with the hunt for the bizarre creature his mother chose over him, and we watch it affect every relationship he has in his long life--with his father, with both of his wives, his children, grandchildren, and colleagues. We follow all of the Roebuck family members, witnessing through each of them the painful, isolating effects of Eli's maniacal hunt, and find that each Roebuck is battling a monster of his or her own, sometimes literally. The magical world Shields has created is one of unicorns and lake monsters, ghosts and reincarnations, tricksters and hexes. At times charming, as when young Eli meets the eccentric, extraordinary Mr. Krantz, and downright horrifying at others, The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac is boldly imaginative throughout, and proves to be a devastatingly real portrait of the demons that we as human beings all face."



Of Things Gone Astray by Janina Matthewson (February 3)

"On a seemingly normal morning in London, a group of people all lose something dear to them, something dear but peculiar: the front of their house, their piano keys, their sense of direction, their place of work.

Meanwhile, Jake, a young boy whose father brings him to London following his mother’s sudden death in an earthquake, finds himself strangely attracted to other people’s lost things. But little does he realise that his most valuable possession, his relationship with his dad, is slipping away from him. Of Things Gone Astray is a magical fable about modern life and values."





City of Savages by Lee Kelly (February 3)

"It’s been nearly two decades since the Red Allies first attacked New York, and Manhattan is now a prisoner-of-war camp, ruled by Warden Rolladin and her brutal, impulsive warlords. For 17-year-old Skyler Miller, Manhattan is a cage that keeps her from the world beyond the city’s borders. But for Sky’s 16-year-old sister, Phee, the P.O.W. camp is a dangerous playground of possibility, and the only home she’d ever want.

When Sky and Phee discover their mom’s hidden journal from the outbreak of the war, they both realize there’s more to Manhattan—and their mother—than either of them had ever imagined. And after a group of strangers arrives at the annual P.O.W. census, the girls begin to uncover the island’s long-kept secrets. The strangers hail from England, a country supposedly destroyed by the Red Allies, and Rolladin’s lies about Manhattan’s captivity begin to unravel."

Find Me by Laura Van Den Berg (February 17)

"Joy has no one. She spends her days working the graveyard shift at a grocery store outside Boston and nursing an addiction to cough syrup, an attempt to suppress her troubled past. But when a sickness that begins with memory loss and ends with death sweeps the country, Joy, for the first time in her life, seems to have an advantage: she is immune. When Joy’s immunity gains her admittance to a hospital in rural Kansas, she sees a chance to escape her bleak existence. There she submits to peculiar treatments and follows seemingly arbitrary rules, forming cautious bonds with other patients—including her roommate, whom she turns to in the night for comfort, and twin boys who are digging a secret tunnel.

As winter descends, the hospital’s fragile order breaks down and Joy breaks free, embarking on a journey from Kansas to Florida, where she believes she can find her birth mother, the woman who abandoned her as a child. On the road in a devastated America, she encounters mysterious companions, cities turned strange, and one very eerie house. As Joy closes in on Florida, she must confront her own damaged memory and the secrets she has been keeping from herself."



Soil by Jamie Kornegay (March 10)

"When Jay Mize discovers a corpse on his property, he is sure his bad luck has come to a head and he is being framed. Were Jay in his right mind, he might have reported the body to the police at the very same moment they were searching for a missing tourist from Ohio. He might have not dragged the body back to his farm under the cover of night and spent hours disposing of it. But Jay Mize is not in his right mind. His mounting paranoia is accelerated by a hot-rod local deputy, nosing around with questions about the missing tourist and making dark comments about Jay's estranged wife Sandy. It's enough to make an honest man a maniac."

I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son by Kent Russell (March 10)

Not a novel, but I don't care. 
"Kent Russell's essays take us to society's ragged edges, the junctures between savagery and civilization, where solitary, philosophical, troubled men yearn for a more heightened form of existence. We meet a self-immunizer in small-town Wisconsin who has conditioned his body to withstand the bites of the most venomous snakes; NHL enforcers who build their careers on violence and intimidation; a former mogul who has retreated to a crocodile-infested island off the Australian coast; the fans at a three-day music festival ominously called the Gathering; Amish baseball players who push the limits of their cultural restraints; and, perhaps most memorably, Russell's own oddball, inimitable forebears. I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son, at once blistering and deeply personal, records Russell's quest to understand, through his journalistic subjects, his own appetites and urges, his childhood demons and persistent alienation, and, above all, his knotty, volatile, vital relationship with his father."

The Last Flight of Poxl West by Daniel Torday (March 17)

Apparently this is one of those books you can't talk about at all for fear of spoiling it. I'm into that. 
"All his life, Elijah Goldstein has idolized his charismatic Uncle Poxl. Intensely magnetic, cultured and brilliant, Poxl takes Elijah under his wing, introducing him to opera and art and literature. But when Poxl publishes a memoir of how he was forced to leave his home north of Prague at the start of WWII and then avenged the deaths of his parents by flying RAF bombers over Germany during the war, killing thousands of German citizens, Elijah watches as the carefully constructed world his uncle has created begins to unravel. As Elijah discovers the darker truth of Poxl’s past, he comes to understand that the fearless war hero he always revered is in fact a broken and devastated man who suffered unimaginable losses from which he has never recovered."



What debuts are you looking forward to this year?