Reading, Writing, and Me

Let's Dance  by Lucy Sweeney Byrne Overview: This collection of short stories is described on the back of the book as being about, "women on the brink," and that summarizes the uniting theme pretty well. While the majority of the stories will appeal to fans of Rooney or Naoise Dolan showing women grappling with the realities of modern life, there are also stories that play with the absurd, taking challenges women face and using magical or otherwise other-worldly elements to make a larger point. While I preferred the stories the hued closer to real life, there's interesting ingenuity throughout this collection. Overall: 4  The stories vary in length quite a bit, which I did enjoy. I generally found the flash length pieces more successful in providing a satisfying slice of life that built an effective story with economy. The central story the collection is named after is referred to as a "novella" on the back of the book. I'm not sure if that's what I...

November brought a lot of hibernation but also a lot of change, or the imminent possibility of it. I spent the thick of off season soaking in being home after my trip to Europe in October. I get depressed if I spend too long holed up in the house not getting out of my pajamas or seeing anyone, but for a small period, there is truly nothing better than spending day after day reading, writing, and getting in a bit of gentle exercise as the only activities for the day. Naturally, that meant I got a record amount of reading in.  I finished writing the first draft of my manuscript and started re-writing it from scratch, which has been a journey. I also prepared a number of grad school applications within the course of two weeks. I already have an acceptance on the books and more scheduled interviews, so the future is looking brighter too. That got me thinking in the short story world, though, and I sent more stories out this month, leading to three set publications. So let's start this ...

What It's Like In Words  by Eliza Moss Thank you to Henry Holt for providing an advance copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own. Overview: Enola is a writer, though she hasn't turned in work to her writing group in a year. She works at a cafe with her best friend, Ruth, who is always going on interviews for short-lived new jobs. When Enola meets "him" at one of the writing meetings, there's an undeniable chemistry, and Ruth feels magnetically pulled in. Though the relationship is clearly toxic from early on, Enola's complicated family past and struggles with self-esteem keep her coming back. The novel traces Enola's journey as a writer, as a person, and as a friend over around a two year period.  Overall: 4 Characters: 4 Enola is that quintessential sad girl "unlikable" heroine that you'll know well if you read these types of books. She struggles with self-esteem and unresolved questions from her past. She feels abandoned by her...

The Alternatives  by Caoilinn Hughes Overview: Four sisters have existed in each other's orbit for nearly four decades, falling in and out of touch. But when their oldest sister, Olwen, up and disappears one day, the sisters feel compelled to close ranks. They reassemble from across Ireland, England, and the United States to find their sister and figure out why she wants to detach from society. Back together, they're forced to confront their past, their individual struggles, and what it means to be sisters. Overall: 4.5 Characters: 5 The texture and genuine life of the sisters is undeniable. They're all so specific and unique, and that makes the book feel rich and alive. Olwen is the oldest sister and the one we meet first. She's living in Galway with her boyfriend and his two children, nursing them all back through their grief about his wife's death. She's an earth science expert and teaches undergraduate seminars under the curtain of climate doom that lingers ...

Heartbreak Is The National Anthem  by Rob Sheffield  Overall: 3.5 I guess I'll start by talking about me—particularly me in the context of Taylor Swift. My first Taylor concert was the 1989 Tour when I was 12. I loved Taylor, had a burning desire to go, but was just at the very start of being old enough and having the tools (thank you Apple Music) to form my own music taste. By the time the Reputation Tour came around, I was a full blown Swiftie. I made a costume, a replica of the You Belong With Me pajamas, and touched Taylor's hand as she ran between B-stages. I was priced out of the Eras Tour. By then, Taylor had gotten astronomically bigger than I could've ever fathomed, and the culture of being a Swiftie shifted with the influx. I pulled away a little. But Taylor Swift has inevitably shaped who I am. I made way too many life decisions spurred on by my own parasocial version of Taylor in my head. She's shaped my worldview and my personhood and my writing and my rela...

Service  by Sarah Gilmartin Overview: Chef Daniel Costello is on top of the world, his name on the restaurant that he's built to be a long-running two Michelin star spot. After coming this far, he's confident that nothing can slow him down. But then the online letter comes out accusing Costello of sexual assault, signed by four of his former employees. The trial that follows dredges up long buried memories and reshapes Costello's family forever. Told from the perspective of Hannah, a former employee, Julie, Costello's wife, and Daniel himself, this novel takes a fascinating, human look at a sexual assault trial and the restaurant industry. Overall: 4.5 Characters: 5 The characters' different voices come through with such clarity in this novel. It's infamously difficult to write a multi-POV novel (especially in first person) that's truly well balanced, but Gilmartin executes this effortlessly. Hannah opens the novel and acts as the guide through the restauran...

Monsters: What Do We Do With Great Art By Bad People by Claire Dederer Overview: Monsters is part memoir, part criticism, part almost history of artistic monsters that society grapples with. The thesis of the book comes in the subtitle. What are we meant to do with the great, acclaimed, beloved works by artists who turn out to be horrible people in their private lives (which are public by virtue of their celebrity). In the wake of "cancel culture" and the great debate about the validity of all of that, Dederer attempts to look at the question through a variety of angles and through the lens of a number of "monsters." Dederer also offers chapters on the validity of the term and idea of a monster, thoughts on art critics and who gets to hold that title, and the place that women artists have in this conversation and in society in general. This is a captivating read that truly does meld beautifully written memoir and reflection with pieces of art history you might learn...

Evenings and Weekends by Oisin Mckenna Overview: Evenings and Weekends follows the full web of a friend group across the expanse of a sticky London summer in 2019. It feels nearly impossible to summarize, though, because of the immense number of plot threads. Every named character is given a perspective, their own story, at one turn or another. Most centrally, there’s brothers Phil and Callum. Phil is losing his precious warehouse rental while Callum is getting married. Their childhood neighbor, Ed, just found out that his girlfriend, Maggie, is pregnant. They’re not in much shape to have a child, though. Maggie is also Phil’s best friend. Then we delve into the lives of Phil and Ed’s parents, their more extended friend circles, Maggie’s extended circle, and Callum’s as well. Then there’s the random subplot about the whale in the Thames. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 Books don’t tend to have a million characters for a reason. Those that do become about breadth over depth at a certain p...

I wasn't going to buy books on my trip to Dublin, Edinburgh, and London. I had a 35 liter backpack to hold two weeks of clothes, journals, and toiletries and, as such, had to carry everything I acquired on my back. But I should've known myself better than that. Just having a Kindle was never going to cut it, and with so many fantastic bookstores on the trip, I was going to lose willpower at least a few times. I will say, I went to far more bookstores than the number of books I purchased, and most of these were bought at the very end of the trip when I returned to an indie I absolutely adored and wanted to support. It turns out, I could fit far more books in my bag than I thought, and it helped that I bought a tote bag from Books Upstairs early in the trip (that mostly proved integral for my writing trips in London so I had something to carry my laptop in). One of the biggest things I learned from my book shopping is that I'm a huge believer in the paperback first or early a...

You Are Here  by David Nicholls Overview:  Marnie and Michael are both sad, alone, and going through divorce. Cleo sees them both as deeply in need of saving, and she pulls these two friends from different parts of her life together on a hiking trip. While Michael just wanted to make his walk from coast to coast in peace, Cleo inserts herself into his school-break trip and invites a whole crew of her friends to help him reconnect with the world. She fancies herself a match-maker, but her pairings might not go the way she expects when they all set off down the trail. Overall: 3.5  Characters: 3.5 The only words that come to mind about this book is that it's aggressively fine. There's nothing glaringly wrong with it, but there's also nothing here that inspires any feeling, characters and the romance at the heart of the story included. Michael and Marnie might as well be the same person beyond their genders and the fact that he's from the North and is scared of the city, a...

I seem to write these posts every two months or so lately. But today, I felt like it was the right time to reflect back on my reading over both September and October. It's going to be more freeform than some of my past wrap-ups and include less stats, but I trust you'll be okay with that. I've had a wildly busy two months. September was busy at work, and then October felt like two entirely different months. One wrapping up my season at work and trying to get in as much hiking, hanging out with work friends who are scattering into the wind, and planning a whole spontaneous trip. The other taking said trip to Dublin, Edinburgh, and London for the last two weeks of the month. Let me tell you, the trip felt like its own month, even its own world in itself. Honestly, be stuck on planes and trains so often in the last two weeks is the only thing that's saved my reading progress.  September was actually a good reading month in the beginning. I was determined to get through som...