Happy New (Reading) Year!
Even though my reading faltered a bit over the holidays, it’s a new year with lots of shiny new books to get into, so let’s do it!
–Marissa
They by Helle Helle is a Danish translation, and is just *different* from the fiction I read. Presented in blocky, text-heavy sections, this details an unnamed mother and daughter going about their regular days, even as the mother receives a grave cancer diagnosis. At only 128 pages, this is short, but took *concentration* to read, and even then, I’m not sure I caught it all.😕
The Reader’s Room by Antoine Laurain was another translated novel (this time from French), and how I ended up with two back to back, I don’t know! This author is apparently well liked by Queen Camilla, but again, I found it… odd and tricky to read. It’s considered a mystery set in the Parisian publishing world in which an author remains a mystery, murders begin happening, there’s a plane crash.. this was one of those where a lot happens and also NOT a lot happens. It was… eh to me. Maybe I need to skip translations for a while!
The Family Next Door by John Glatt details the horrific story of the thirteen Turpin siblings who were help captive by their parents for years, malnourished, uneducated, and finally rescued due to the daring of one sibling. This was so hard to read, just how easily the abuse and isolation and torture came to these parents. Hard, but important.
All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker was a *commitment*. It got great reviews back when it was released, but it took me a while to get to this doorstopper, which I ended up listening to (a 16 hour audiobook!). In 1975, Patch and his best friend Saint are forever changed when Patch saves a girl and sacrifies himself to a madman. What follows are years and years (and years!) of searching, sadness, revelations, art, belief, prison and more. Yes, this is a solid novel, but I found the book waaaaay too long and super slow in the middle. This is definitely a character study, not a chase-scenes-and-pulse-pounding kind of thriller. I liked it, but I didn’t love it.
Greenwich by Kate Broad was an audiobook listen that I went into pretty blind, but got pulled in straight away. Rachel, age 17, is spending the summer with her rich aunt and uncle while her sister undergoes cancer treatment. Immediately, Rachel becomes enamored with the older nanny, Claudia, as well as Rachel’s young niece, Sabine. This novel pairs up tragedy, race, class, privilege, secrets, friendship, obsession, you name it! This has been name checked as similar to Celeste Ng or Liane Moriarty, and I think those are apt – you’ll like this if you like those authors!
Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash is one of those impossible-to-summarize novels that I absolutely devoured and LOVED! If I was going to try and find buzzwords, though, they would be madcap, comic, open marriage, 3 precocious teenage girls, conspiracies, darkly humorous, family saga, and the infamous quote: “every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. Short, snappy, funny, cringey, family-driven… this had it all and hit it out of the park!
I also read Dom Com by Adriana Anders, a spicy contemporary romance with rivals-to-lovers, office mates, and kink vibes. Steamy, smart, funny and swoony!
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