First Few of 2024!

New year, new TBR list! Let’s do this!

–Marissa

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer is a re-read for me… I read his memoir of climbing Everest during the disastrous 1996 season (when 15 people died during the season) yeeeeeears ago, and thought I’d read it again. It’s still fascinating and sad and amazing and scary, though less “shocking” than the first time I read it, when I knew nothing of what was to come.

The Woman Inside by MT Edvardsson is the second Edvardsson audiobook I’ve listened to (the other was A Nearly Normal Family, which is now a new Netflix series) and again kept me engaged throughout though not as breakneck-y as the previous title. We have a cash-strapped widower raising his daughter, who takes in lodger Karla, who cleans the house of uber-wealthy (and deeply odd) couple Regina and Steven, who’s having an affair with Jennica. The ties between the characters get tighter and tighter and weirder and weirder, but I was engaged throughout. Another solid suspense novel from this author (though I did think it could have done with editing down the length a bit!).

Look Alive Out There by Sloane Crosley is an essay collection I found on my shelf shortly after reading Grief is For People, her memoir. These essays are just that… a disparate collection on everything from hiking a volcano in South America to her role on Gossip Girl to fertility treatments. The volcano essay is the clear standout… the rest were fine to eh to skippable, depending on mood and length! A good one for picking up and putting down if you’re into personal essays.

Midnight by Amy McCulloch is her latest novel after the entertaining Breathless, but she lost the magic of this one in her sophomore attempt. I loved the premise – a cruise to Antarctica, art, friendships and *murder* – but it just didn’t hold up. Weird pacing, a lotta characters to keep track of with no distinguishing traits, it took me longer than it should to get through this one. Bummer.

The Fury by Alex Michaelides is a suspense novel set on a (nearly) deserted Greek island of famous movie actress Lana Farrar and the close companions who join here there over Easter break… until someone is found dead. Told by an admittedly unreliable narrator (Lana’s confidant Elliott), I LOVED how this was structured and written from his point of view, and though I felt the ending stuttered a bit and went on a bit, I was eager to return to this novel every chance I got – praise indeed!