Reading, Writing, and Me

Lost Lambs  by Madeline Cash Lost Lambs is what happens when you don't trust the book you have and decide you have to graft a plot on it later that is big and flashy and makes no sense for the original story you were trying to tell. Which is to say that this is not a fatal error to make as a writer considering the book garnered a marketing push of sufficient magnitude to make it the first big book  of the year. That, in itself, is an interesting place to approach a book from as it inherently makes you read the book from a slightly different angle. Instead of wandering into a novel and letting it tell you about itself, you're trying to excavate from page one what makes this book so good . And there are many things that make Lost Lambs  unique, fun, engaging, and worthy of attention. All of those things make the spot where you can see Cash lost faith in the wealth of amazing things she already had more disappointing.  The novel centers on the Flynn family—three daught...

In December, on the day of the Dublin premiere of Hamnet, I took a trip over to the IFI to see a conversation between author Maggie O'Farrell and director Chloe Zhao talking about adapting O'Farrell's novel for the big screen. This is somewhat unique because they didn't show us the movie, and it wasn't out yet, so aside from a few film executives in the audience, no one had seen it yet. Still, it was an interesting conversation about the film as well as the process of taking a beloved book and translating it to a new medium.  Now that the movie has been out for a while, I thought I would share my notes from the talk with everyone. Particularly, I finally typed them up for Zoie because she loved the movie so much.  Maggie O'Farrell was introduced to Shakespeare at age 11, after which, she learned a new play in school every year. Shakespeare made her "feel really grown up" when she started to understand the plays with more depth. Hamlet  first came into ...

The Lodgers  by Holly Pester  The narrator is returning to her hometown to see her mother. Except, she gets a sublet that comes with a perpetually absent roommate and spends every day thinking about how she should go see her mother but finds herself unable to. She spends her days walking past without stopping. Or letting herself in the back door without making contact. In the other portion of the novel, the narrator imagines a "you" who is a lodger living in the place the narrator used to live with her former roommates, a mother and a child and eventually a professor. It is unclear how separate this "you" is from the narrator's own past experience, and the narrator seems to build this "you" and her personality and experiences as she goes.  This is a disorienting novel in plot, in language, in form—in every possible way. I read the first page and wondered if I was going to read the second, but I kept turning the pages, kept wanting to push forward. The ...

Sense and Sensibility  by Jane Austen Jane Austen loves to gossip. And I love that for her. And I also love it for classic literature, that we've canonized a book that comes through with a gasping, can you believe this happened?  tone. Like she's clamoring over herself to get to the next wild twist in the story of these two sisters and their complicated romantic entanglements. Once you strip away the regency language, this is just some lady telling you about the romantic pitfalls of two girls and some wildly audacious men. I haven't read Pride and Prejudice  in almost a decade (and have been meaning to read more Austen ever since), but in my recollection, it's a much more buttoned up narrative, much more shaped, and while still voicey, more precisely contained. I like both modes, but I'm not surprised Sense and Sensibility  was her first novel. I always find it funny that Austen, in some circles, is held up as a precursor to modern romance novelists, that i...

The Ten Year Affair  by Erin Somers The affair starts in a baby class where Sam and Cora bond over being the only sane parents in the room, or maybe the only sane parents in their small New York town. They've both recently moved from the city; they're young parents with fake-feeling, soulless corporate jobs. There's plenty to bond over, and Cora feels an immediate attraction. It doesn't take long to find out the feeling is mutual.  But maybe it's wrong to say the affair starts in the baby class. The emotional affair certainly does, but there's many years before the thought of truly crossing the line calcifies. The book is titled The Ten Year Affair  for a reason. They both love their spouses, love their families, and love and loathe stability in equal measure. There's a lot at stake for a rush of passionate feelings. Still, the idea that the other person is out there is often enough to cope with the respective pitfalls of their lives—the isolation of parenta...

ARCs I Don't Have But Desperately Need/Books I'm Looking Forward To I Want You to Be Happy by Jem Calder - I've seen this all over bookstagram, plus there's the Rooney blurb of it all. I mean, navigating modern love between a copywriter and a barista full of "anxiety, listlessness, and precarity"... sign me up.  Please, please, please, please Faber. This is me begging for you to send me an ARC of this novel.  Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash- This one is out already, so the only thing standing between me and this book is all the other books I'm supposed to be reading and am already behind on. But I have competing holds on Libby and Dublin Libraries to see if I'll get there.  Vigil by George Saunders - I've never read a Saunders besides the craft book he wrote (that I bought recently to read again). But I fear it is time. I Could Be Famous  by Sydney Rende -  This is out now, and I have it downloaded on my Kindle from Libby. It's just a question of ...