It is no secret – or is it? – that I have a true addiction to books, with all of its nerdy stereotypes including but not limited to: reading through recess, alone on a bench; reading through the night, exhausted by day; and that old chestnut of packing approximately seven hardbacks into a suitcase for a long weekend trip to a place that most certainly has bookstores within five miles.

I think I can say for most of my fellow readers that, like our passions for all things as a kid, we find our addictions to things we actually love waning as we grow older – time as a cure, for the only things that matter – due to lack of time, lack of energy (physical, emotional, mental), etc. I myself found a change in location (going from riding the subway for at least an hour and a half per day, ample reading time), as well as going to grad school the main time sucks that prevented me from delving into the written word these last few years.

However, a couple of things threw me into another direction: The first is that my family opened a bookstore, and the second is this lil’ pandemic we’ve got going on. I’ll never not feel a hard twinge of guilt when I discuss any personal benefits to these horrible circumstances, but I also don’t know that I shouldn’t be grateful for them either. Time to read relieves my anxiety like nothing else except rewatching the greatest television series of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

It was nothing for me to read 30 – 40 books/year in the Before Times – the way before, when I had the aforementioned subway time as well as just general . . . time. The only thing that stood in my way was the discomfort of not finishing a book I started, no matter how much I hated it. So it’d languish, taunting me on my nightstand, in my backpack. And while I was avoiding meeting its eye, I’d eventually have to turn my back from the accusatory glances of the tens of books that waited for me. I’m much better now at just tossing something aside when it doesn’t do it for me (I’m growing!), and especially so now that I’ve been able to dive back in and accept nothing less than a total escape.

In celebration of time’s continuation and expansion, I thought I’d throw out which books I’ve read in the last nine months, time in which I could have actually grown a human being in my body (or so science tells us, seems suspicious – a whole baby? It has to take three years at least). Spoiler alert, they were mostly incredible, and at least two have a permanent place in my heart and will be given as a Christmas gift to as many people as can stand me. I copied a lot of these from GoodReads, some I wrote specifically for this blog entry . . . and then copied back into GoodReads. Arranged in no particular order, and there is a PART TWO coming, aren’t you glad? Especially because each entry features one of my two absolute favorite books of the year (I couldn’t pick just one). But if you lurve books like me, you don’t care the format or how long we go, right? Let’s get readin’!

My Dark Vanessa (Russell)
This was an incredibly hard read. Russell has done something next to impossible: described a villain so utterly evil yet so unbelievably ordinary. What made “My Dark Vanessa” hard to get through was the realism; we all have known this man. There were times when Strane’s gaslighting was so utterly chilling, you just want to reach into the pages and rip that poor girl out of that world. The horror extends to her own conclusions based on the events. We’re all so familiar with her hatred of herself, her self-blame, her total commitment to the idea that all of this is her fault. Once in a blue, there were tears, and they always welled up at a piece of Vanessa’s dialogue as she desperately tries to justify it all, both his behavior and the results of it that she lives with. It’s all so common, and so awful.

I had trouble picking it back up at times, but the writing is so unbelievably perfect I couldn’t stay away for long, and the ending was pitch-perfect and well worth the dive into dark waters. It’s a Very Important Read, though I fear that a lot of men (honestly, and some women too) reading it truly would be blind to how deeply, viscerally disturbing every word out of that predator’s mouth really is. I guess that’s the most disturbing part of this book: A lot of people probably won’t find it disturbing at all.

Saint X (Schaitkin)
I waffled a bit between three and four stars, but truly, the writing in this is exceptional. There are some incredibly beautiful, unique lines in this that will stick with me. Mainly, I think Schaitkin’s first-person perspectives of Claire were the most chilling; she describes this deep descent into obsession and madness really, really well. But – she also keeps the tragedy prevalent too. It isn’t just some bonkers privileged girl going after her sister’s killer. Instead, Claire comes off as so empty, just adrift. There isn’t anything sensational in this, it all feels quite realistic.

I think that there may be disappointment in the ending for people. A whimper and not a bang, not to spoil, but I also think that that adds to it overall. There’s a real mood here, and anything other than the given conclusion would have spoiled it. It was strange to read such thorough descriptions of Brooklyn and specifically Flatbush – they act as additional characters, as does Saint X. Schaitkin knows and describes people so, so well, and at times it’s a bit jarring to read her (though, I guess technically, her characters’) sharp assessments of them.

I won’t lie, I fell out of it for a bit because it doesn’t “move” as quickly as you may want a thriller to, especially one taking place on a beach, especially in the summer of the year of our Lord 2020 during which we so desperately need an escape! But, I was glad when I returned to it that I finished it, because there’s something haunting about it, and the realism I mentioned earlier would have been put on hold if it Schaitkin had tried to put the pedal to the floor. I’ve already flipped through it looking for some of those striking lines, and that says something. I’ll be eager to pick up the author’s future novels, for sure; this is her first, and it’s a pretty big bang of a debut overall.

Little (Carey)
Oh, wow. What a weird, wonderfully awesome book this was. I think that Edward Carey is one of the most underrated authors today, truly. I devoured the “Heap House” books and can’t believe they haven’t manifested on every little goth kid’s shelf like Harry Potter. They were so unique and original and world-building, I was so excited that he wrote a book geared toward adults.

And it only took me til oh . . . halfway through? To figure out that this was a fictional version of the life of Madame Tussaud? Lord. And when I tell you that I read through the Wiki pages for every character, I am not kidding. I am also not lying when I tell you that the attention to detail in this, while still retaining Carey’s totally singular voice and writing style, is incredible. I really need to learn more words, but I can best describe his work (“Little” included) as “Tim Burton-y.” Sort of cartoony, wide-eyed magical goth, even when, as in this book, the story is all based in fact (or, at least, what Madame Tussaud presented as fact; there are questions as to whether she, uh, was a bit of a storyteller herself).

It reads like a fairy tale bashed with sack of gravel and covered with dust. There’s dirtiness to it, lots of the grotesque, but always still elegant and treated matter-of-factly. I don’t know how a writer can be so realistic yet so fantastic at the same time. It’s a tone that I can’t put my finger on, but is consistent the whole way through and absorbing. There really isn’t anything all that “fantastic” in it, so why that word to describe it? I think because what is magical to Carey is just . . . people. And that wonderment at everything about us, our visceral feelings and actions – an objective description of humanity by, say, an alien would probably be a bit marvelous, right?

And I love his clear love toward Little; even if her autobiography wasn’t exactly truthful, Carey never, ever treats it as anything but. He takes every supposed happening (told from her perspective) and gives it depth and heart. His illustrations throughout are haunting, sometimes gross, and very often sweet. I don’t know that anyone can write ugliness and just general yuck in a way that’s almost charming.

I really loved this book and you should read it. 

Mexican Gothic (Moreno-Garcia)
Good Lord, was this a lot of fun! I read it in two days, and I haven’t read a book that fast since pre-grad school, a.k.a., two years ago. It really brought back the whole “voracious reader” facet of my personality that I had thought long since gone. Turns out I just needed a roller coaster like this one, with that perfect alchemy of both familiarity (it’s gothic, after all), fresh perspective, and a plot that moves-moves-moves to get me back into losing whole days to books.

I think that often we don’t believe “fun” and “meaningful” are a happy marriage, and I tend to disagree; like a happy marriage, the combination of the two traits might be somewhat rare, but when it hits, it hits. Moreno-Garcia weaves aspects of colonialism just enough into the story to add a weight of creeping fear. There are no long lectures; she uses a horror part of history totally aptly in her horror novel, driving home its destructiveness through the plot, not alongside it. The White Man as the Other is tickling (in the creepy way) and smart. Noemí’s gaslighting, self-doubt, and guilty assessment of herself are written to exactly reflect how the manipulations of men – and those who think themselves superior in any way to others – slowly and effectively break a person into acquiescence (don’t be alarmed – I won’t tell whether it worked or not!).

And of course, as I said, it moves. It’s not often that even the most thrilliest of thrillers doesn’t have a dull point, but I was absorbed and anxious throughout. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about when I could sit down and read more of it. As a bonus, it has lots of gross stuff and a unique “monster” idea that involved plenty of delightful surprises. Lots of bursting and leaking of fluids, if you’re into that – I’m typically not, but truly, that’s also an element that’s very well-balanced, the gross and the plain creepy. 
**Please note that after I wrote all about how much it moves I realized a lot of GoodReads disagreed with me and said it did not, in fact, “move” and they didn’t like that lmao. [shrug emoji]

Hollywood Park (Jollet)

I was completely undone by this. A visceral, rattling experience that zapped me right in the heart. Jollett writes perfectly from the perspective of childhood – when describing his earliest memories, he resists the urge to assign adult explanation and context, making it feel like you’re experiencing in the exact headspace this child occupied. I was blown away at the writing, especially for this particular ability. Keeping his memories, and his recall of these memories, pure and without the desperation to tell the reader what to think about them, makes it a true memoir in every sense of the word. It all comes directly from him, and it’s impossible to justify or write anything off. Instead, you’re filled with the same sadness, anger, and confusion at being totally adrift without a life raft.

The shift to adulthood, both in perspective and events, is slow, subtle, and precise, like suddenly realizing the bathwater you’ve been laying in is cold. The reader is only permitted access to insight as Jollett has them, and it’s an incredibly powerful creation of connection and relationship to the reader. You can’t help but share every disappointment, tragedy, and triumph – you’re in the front row, figuring it out as the author does. The conclusions he comes to, the final pages I read in the bathtub sobbing, might be conclusions we’ve always smugly thought we knew were right all along. But they hit differently, and more true, when you wallow in the grit it takes to find them.

Florence Adler Swims Forever (Beanland)
This such a beautiful book, a patient and thoughtful tone matched with total sympathy for its characters. Such sympathy that you’re unable to make any sort of judgment as a reader, and are permitted to simply be with them, along for this unique and yet utterly common journey they’re on.

I tagged this as “world war II,” but truly, it isn’t even remotely a “world war II” book at all. Beanland uses the build up of the second world war as an incredibly sharp, pointed backdrop – the wide angle lens of history framing the extremely personal, individual, specific story of one tiny glimmer of humanity. What a time in which to read this book; we’re saturated with information about that broader view, and in a way that’s a gift. But then, to imagine the infinite tragedies and struggles that we have no idea of, happening concurrently and a short distance from us, is so overwhelming. We go inward and create more of this, concentrate more on our own individual timeline, and Beanland implicitly describes this strange paradox perfectly in this book.

A book that starts with a tragedy, and the dealing (or not) of its aftermath is always intriguing to me, but I find it’s rarely done well. It takes a delicate hand that avoids straying into the maudlin or predictable; becoming maudlin is, actually, easier when an author tries too hard to be unpredictable. But there’s a patience here, and a set mood. Despite everything, it feels like a very peaceful book, another paradox: the beauty of the ocean and a summer that was supposed to be full of possibilities, juxtaposed against nightmares near and far. But the peaceful tone comes from the treatment of the characters, the lack of judgment from Beanland and the inability, due to their three-dimensional nature, for the readers to judge them either. It’s a book set in your lap, and nothing more is required of you but just to experience it.

Ghosts in the Schoolyard (Ewing)
A must-read, especially for those in education. I can’t believe how much of a punch this book packs, and only a little over 150 pages. Ewing dissects school closings in Chicago through various methods, most significantly through the collection of perspectives of those in the surrounding Black communities affected by said closings. I appreciated her immediate address of that myth of “objectivity” in higher education and data collection, and how often such a context is used to dismiss the very real lived experiences of actual people. That framing guides a reader to better understand what, exactly, is happening before, during, and after a school closes. I hate to quote a bumper sticker, but I can’t help it: If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.

Reading the beautiful history of Bronzeville’s public schools is moving in that this dream of the Ideal Public School was actually a possibility, if not actually in existence. Schools reflective of the surrounding community, and more importantly, celebratory of it. Students who had a place. The systematic destruction of these systems is, as you find out when you read about, oh, everything, not an accident, and Ewing does an incredible job of breaking down the order of events practically, succinctly, and devastatingly.

There’s a great balance in this book between the “hard” facts and data some readers may expect, and the heart that is necessary to analyze those facts in a way that is equitable. How is an eighth grader whose school is closing – their feelings about it – not also a fact? To say they’re not is to erase humanity, to push aside the underlying pulse of an educational system that keeps it in existence at all. But it goes further than students, and all stakeholders, including teachers, are described as taking part in an institutional mourning that occurs when schools close.

It’s never just one thing, or one time, or one decision. It’s an avalanche, and there are people at the bottom who have been historically ignored, and all of us in the system are complicit.

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places (Dickey)
It’s a bit cheating to post a review of a book you didn’t finish – I admit this, I own it, I embrace it. But, I also think that if you find yourself thinking you have a similar taste to mine, then you most likely would want a heads up on things that you may also very well pick up, and may also very well not be as into as you thought.

There’s some griping on GoodReads that Dickey goes out of his way to disprove hauntings, and I absolutely do not see it that way. Yes, I have a deep love of ghosts and the stories that go along with them, but I didn’t take his approach to said stories as being rooted in “party pooper” mode. I really appreciated what he was doing – essentially, framing spooky tales woven into the fabric of American lore and framing them historically. The concept is one I can absolutely get into, and what I read (before the library snatched it right back from my Kindle) was definitely interesting and I am likely to pick it up again at some point in the future.

The difficulty for me was just the style. Although, again, the point is historical, the tone was a bit dry for any book based upon ghost stories. Truth is stranger than fiction, and Dickey is certainly proving that, but the semi-academic tone takes away from it. It was hard to stay engaged, even though the information I was reading was certainly gripping. In essence: I wish the author had had just a bit more fun with it. Now, to be fair, the firm grip of reality – especially American history – is decidedly not fun for the players. So perhaps, instead of calling it “fun,” call it “evocative,” or “plot-driven.” Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns, one of my all-time favorite books, comes to mind. While certainly what she was describing was not a rollicking tale of joy and mischief, there was a solid storytelling element that held to the truth while also flowing for the reader. There are, of course, numerous examples in popular nonfiction that manage that balance of detailed historical significance and storytelling. I guess I just thought that when ghosts are your starting point, that balance may be a bit more manageable to strike.

Long story longer: I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for this one, not because I didn’t “like” it, more that I was craving something richer and more vibrant in tone. However, for a person who regularly reads nonfiction history, this could be taken as much more of a diversion.

Rebecca (du Maurier)
Uggghhh another five star book I don’t know how to write about because it’s so fucking good I don’t know where to start and also I don’t have an English degree so I don’t know what terms to use ugggghhh.

Anyway.

I started this several times over my life and never finished it, but Mexican Gothic was what really pushed me to it. I don’t believe I’ve read a lot of gothic lit in my life in general, and after MG I was very much like, “Oooh yes, more of this please!” and decided to just go straight to what seems to be considered THE book of the genre. You’d think due to my love of ghost stories and everything spooky, I’d be well-versed in the genre, but alas that was not the case.

What do you say about a book that has had thousands of PhD theses written about it? Yes, the writing is gorgeous, the happenings creep so slowly and scarily, as you get a front row seat to madness or whatever. That’s what I, personally, found brilliant in a way: I kept realizing that outside of the narrator’s head, very little was strange. Manderley kept going as usual, Mrs. Danvers was pretty much a jerk but maintained her level of jerk for the majority of the book, and Max and (the current) Mrs. DeWinter’s relationship seemed to be going downhill for, honestly, the typical reasons a relationship does when the honeymoon is quite literally over. The fear and suspense are myopic for most of the book; honestly I don’t even think that fool DeWinter was even that nervous about shit, I think he was more just like “Why is my wife being weird?”

I did the cursory lit crit review for this book, because I genuinely wanted to dive even more into it, I was so astounded by it. And it’s fascinating to me how prevalent the idea is that the narrator has no identity, mainly due to her, of course, not having a name. I could write my own thesis about my feelings about it, but I’ll try to summarize it relatively briefly. The narrator, despite not being identified by name, is the person we know the best in the book. We’re inside her head the entire time. We know every thought, every reaction; no other character gets that benefit. And it’s due to her actually being a person that we can have all of that. Rebecca comes off like a sociopath. She’s evil, she feels nothing for anyone and lives solely within reacting to the external and manipulating it to suit her whims, while our definition of the narrator is based solely on the internal. It made me think about what we consider to be a “person.” Is it having a name? Is it what we do? Our relationships with other people? The drive the narrator has to make her marriage work doesn’t even remotely come off as pathetic to me and honestly? It’s a bit sexist to say that. Wanting your marriage to work, wanting your partner to be happy with you, isn’t sad or “unfeminist” or whatever, it’s deeply, deeply human.

Especially human for a very young woman with nothing marrying a very rich, very much older dude. That particular age (I mean, we have to guess, but I’d say very early 20s), in any era, is so fraught for women. I saw it discussed a lot that she didn’t have hobbies/interests, that she didn’t have an opinion when Mrs. Danvers would demand she pick out a tea towel color or some shit. And, like – would you have an opinion about that? Especially at, like, 22? Hell, I can barely pick out the font on my grad school papers at the age of 35 without hyperventilating and just going with Arial. Again, I’m not a literary expert. I don’t know what du Maurier was thinking (though my version suggested that the narrator and Rebecca represented two sides of her, which is verrrryyy interesting). She very well may have intended for the narrator to come off as simpering, pathetic, too pleasing, a symbol of the patriarchal institution of marriage, a symbol of – of – of who knows what. But while I struggle to articulate what exactly I love about Books I Really Love, I know this for sure: I found her to be the most thoughtful, developed, interesting and sympathetic (not pitiful!) character of the book. And I was completely blown away not only by the writing overall, which is I think actually perfect, but du Maurier’s ability to create a character so common and also particular.

Now, of course, Rebecca and Danvers were the most entertaining, I’m not a total nerd. And all of this falls apart when you start to totally mind fuck yourself and consider that Max could’ve been lying about everything and Rebecca was a saint and he murdered her for giggles because he’s evil. Cuuzzz then that would suggest that regardless of women being motivated internally or externally we’re all pawns in the patriarchy’s bullshit and oh God my head hurts forget I said anything. Again, a lot of talk about him being the epitome of like Bad Dude but honestly he just came off like a typical Dumb Dude to me. To bring it all back around, that was the key for me: There’s so much of this book that’s benign, and yet written and set up in a way that’s so extraordinary and frightening and deep and layered. It barely even rolls, plot-wise, until like 2/3 of the way through and yet I gobbled it up. How does a writer do that?! Magic?

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