August 2020 Round Up
August was a good month for reading. I read a lot of physical books, which I try not to do unless I know I want those books on my bookshelf. That being said, I enjoyed a lot of what I read this month so I don't feel too bad about it!
Olive by Emma Gannon
I loved and hated Olive. Olive is about a group of best friends, going through different stages of motherhood/attempted motherhood... Except Olive, who does not want children. I found Olive so intensely unlikeable, mostly because of her inability to just grow up and recognise the way in which her friends' lives were changing. But that was also the point of the book. I don't want children for a while, but I'm very much not someone who ever wants to be child-free, so reading a book entirely about, and from the perspective of, someone who is adamantly child-free was interesting. My inability to empathise with Olive was probably exactly what I was supposed to feel.
Rating: ★★★★☆
Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson
I am not ashamed to admit I hate anything supernatural. I am not a teenager anymore - this stuff does not appeal to me. So kids who literally set themselves on fire immediately struck me as a concept I would hate. But... I loved this book. The main character, Lillian, is pretty much aimless in life until she is called by a childhood friend to babysit 2 children. And obviously, the twist is that these children are able to set themselves on fire whenever their emotions get too ramped up. This book was so heartwarming. I loved Lillian, I loved the kids, I even love-hated Madison! I loved the twists this book took, and I loved how easy it was to love it.
Rating: ★★★★☆
Dark, Salt, Clear - Lamorna Ash
I have never been to Cornwall. In fact, I have never even thought about it. But this book has changed that, and now I am suddenly desperate to go. Lamorna Ash spends a year in Cornwall as part of her degree in anthropology, and accompanies different fishermen on different journeys, whilst also experiencing the other aspects of fishing and community. This book was a deep plunge into everything you needed to know about the fishing industry, from the effects of Brexit to the toll fishing can take on your life to the identity it brings a person. It had all the charm of a novel, and all of the facts of reality to remind you that these stories belong to real people. I loved the way this was written, and when it ended, I craved more.
Rating: ★★★★★
The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla
This is a series of essays written by various people of colour and their experiences. I found this hard to get into at first, but some of these essays really drew me in. I think discussing race and culture in Britain can be pretty difficult, and I immediately felt a bond with the authors of the essays in our surprisingly shared experiences of internal and external racism.
Rating: ★★★★★
Tennis Lessons by Susannah Dickey
Tennis Lessons follows the story of our main character from childhood to adulthood, detailing embarrassing moments at school and a complete sense of loss of our main character throughout. I wanted to love this so badly, I wanted to feel connected and I wanted to enjoy this as much as people had said I would. But I didn't. I could not connect to the characters at all, and as a result, this book felt dull. I expected to be gripped with a plot, but I wasn't. Going into this, I knew this book attempted to be profound, but I feel it failed miserably in its attempt. Having read Olive, I really didn't think I needed to relate to the main character to enjoy a book, but maybe I do.
Rating: A generous ★★★☆☆
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
I read The Vanishing Half in July, and I didn't think Brit Bennett could write anything better. And then I read her debut novel, The Mothers. This book follows the lives of 3 families and a connection they cannot shake off, following Nadia's mothers suicide and a relationship between Nadia and Luke. This book is well written, well thought out, and a delight to read. Brit Bennett is so skilled in painting out interpersonal relationships, to the point that you can feel the connection between the characters. I would recommend this to anyone and everyone (I would also recommend The Vanishing Half! Both books felt like they existed in the same universe, and I loved that.)
Rating: ★★★★★
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
I'm someone that believes strongly in therapy and its usefulness. And I've always wondered.... Where do actual therapists go for therapy? Gottlieb suffers a breakup, and subsequently finds herself in therapy as a way to cope with the sudden change in her life. Her sessions with Wendell then become a catalyst for many other realisations and thoughts in her life. This book was an insight into how therapists think, the TV industry and how it feels to be a patient. Gottlieb was funny, enlightening, relatable.... The list is endless. Throughout reading this book, I felt like I was having a conversation with a very good friend. I loved the different patients she described, their quirks and how she managed to break through to them.
Rating: ★★★★★
Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
My sister has been begging me to read this for almost a year. I always gave her some excuse about it. I had it on my Kindle and I couldn't get into it. So I bought a physical copy to motivate myself, and still couldn't pick it up. I decided to read it during a very rainy Sunday afternoon, and this was the perfect book to just sit and enjoy all at once. I loved the concept of being able to go back in time.... but you have to come back before your coffee gets cold. I loved the characters. I loved guessing what would happen, and feeling surprised when it didn't go quite how I thought. This book was another heartwarmer and one I would thoroughly recommend simply for the intrigue.
Rating: ★★★★☆
This Is The Story Of A Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
You'll know from my first blog post that I really do not like Ann Patchett's writing. But I do love essays, and I love memoirs and this felt a little like that. Some of it was uninteresting to me, but seeing Patchett write about her writing process, her graduate program in short stories, her marriage, the fact that she partly owns a book store, was pretty cool. This book actually inspired me to finally read The Dutch House. I wouldn't say this book added anything to my life and I did consider not finishing it after about 25%. But I continued to finish it and I'm somewhat glad I did. However, I'm not sure I would recommend the entire book.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
I wrote about this in a separate blog post, which you can read here!
Rating: ★★★★★