July & August 2020 Reads

I didn't read nearly as much as I'd planned to... I had infections in both ears (it was so bad my left eardrum ruptured, and I was on 10 days worth of antibiotics). Immediately afterwards, my body decided, "Hey, you know how we REALLY hate doctors, and our insurance is all messed up this year??? How about we BLEED VAGINALLY for 26 DAYS STRAIGHT, to the point where we're leaving actual bloody footprints around the apartment? Have fun at the gynecologist (and paying those medical bills, and sleeping for 12+ hours at a time due to iron deficiency)!"

Anyway, enough about me oozing painfully from various orifices. I combined my July and August reading lists so they didn't look quite so pathetic.

I Killed Zoe Spanos exists as proof that SOMETIMES I DO READ NEW RELEASES ON TIME. That's right; IKZS came out THIS JULY and I READ it. Go me. And it's a perfect summer read... Very warm; very beachy; makes me crave ice cream. When wild party teen Anna is hired to work as a live-in nanny in uber ritzy Brooklyn, she seizes the chance to turn over a new leaf. Unfortunately, there's a missing college student, and more unfortunately, Anna may have killed her. Normally the words "YA thriller" would have me wrinkling my nose, but there was something mature and classy about this that kept my attention... I think it was just the author's good writing. Or the full-cast audio. Either way, four stars from me.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer was... Absolutely fantastic. We've got another fave for the "best of 2020" list. (And yet another translated work! Despite being set in 18th century Paris, Perfume is a German book.) In the purplest of "dark fairytale" prose, Perfume tells the life story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an unwanted orphan blessed (cursed?) with a sense of smell so keen it's practically supernatural. Much of this book tells Grenouille's story as an emotionless creep Terminator-ing his way through France to experience All the Scents. And occasionally killing pretty girls who smell Very, Very Nice in order to create the Perfect Perfume. It's... Weird. Five stars.

Oh, man... I wanted to like Mexican Gothic. I've been looking forward to it for ages! And it started out so promising... 1950s setting; haunted house; badass women of color with GOALS AND DREAMS looking out for each other... But it started to lose me about halfway through. I kept wavering somewhere between "I'm so tired of this," and "well, that was KIND of interesting," and then "oh no; THIS again?!" It wasn't particularly long, but it felt like it took forever to read because I just wanted it to end. Not a bad book (think Jordan Peele's "Get Out" meets Guillermo Del Toro's "Crimson Peak"), but not what I wanted.

Let me stress that My Lovely Wife was NOT a good book. It was borderline awful, actually, but it amused the hell out of me, and so I gave it a high rating. Our (unnamed) protagonist, a middle-aged father of two, wants to keep the spark in his marriage to the gorgeous Millicent. Date nights... Impromptu sexcapades... Kidnapping, torture, and murder... While their entire town is freaking out about what they think is a singular serial killer, they fit fun stalking dates between soccer practice and PTA meetings. This in itself is an interesting premise, and a better book might have explored it better... Serial killer couples aren't unheard of in real life, after all. But our protagonist is so STUPID that all credibility is thrown out the window. ("Wait... you mean my wife, who tortures and kills women, is a BAD PERSON?! SHOCK!!!" "Wow; who would've thought my children would be negatively affected by mass panic?" "Well I don't want to KILL people, kill people; that's MEAN.") I must've face-palmed twenty times reading this.

Mostly Dead Things… Hurt me. In a good way. (It's going straight to the "best of 2020" list, in case you were wondering.) It's not for the faint of heart (see a full list of trigger warnings on my full review here.) It's a novel about broken families and serious issues with intimacy and terrible coping mechanisms. It's darkly humorous (the sentence "my mother stuffed a butt plug into a taxidermized coyote" can never be erased from my mind); it's sad as HELL, and I'll always have a soft spot for books starring lesbians that don't make a big fuss over them being gay; it's just another piece of their identity, not their whole story. I can't gush enough over how much I loved this heartbreaking, sexual, painfully intimate little book about flawed and broken people wallowing in mud so deep they can scarcely remember the sky. Note: This book got very mixed reviews. It's not for everyone, but it's very on-brand for my specific, weird tastes.

Joyce Carol Oates's Zombie is quite short, at only 180 pages, and is told in fragmented stream-of-consciousness tidbits from our protagonist. Clearly drawing from the real-life horrors of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, Quentin is obsessed with creating a "zombie" to serve him sexually. He plans to do so through capturing and lobotomizing a man; any man. I picked this up because it was on a "most disturbing books, ever" list, but... It didn't disturb me? Honestly, the Wikipedia page for Dahmer himself is far creepier. I'm not writing Oates off yet, because I've heard her work is quite good, but this one was a dud.

The Girl with Seven Names was absolutely incredible, and everybody should read it. I've been low-key frightened of North Korea since we watched a documentary in high school about it (their intense hatred of Americans was particularly disturbing to me, an American), but now I see that it's just a country, a country full of all kinds of people, that just happens to be ruled by the iron fist of a dictator and kept in constant paranoia under threat of death. A country starving to death under their monstrous leader's arrogance. Human rights are nil, and propaganda is so constant that dealing meth and heroin seems a negligible crime, but failing to cry enough at a ruler's death could result in execution. Hyeonseo was an incredibly engaging narrator of her own life, and though I knew going in that things would turn out alright, the extent and risk of her journeys had me glued to the page (and reflecting on the disgusting way we abuse and dismiss immigrants where I live). 10/10, would recommend.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things had the opposite problem of My Lovely Wife. While both were thrillers about a couple experiencing turbulent times, this was meticulously written and plotted, and everything made perfect sense by the end. But I didn't enjoy it at all, and so it got a low rating from me. I honestly would have preferred if the twist ending were something random like "aliens" or "alternate dimensions" or "ghosts all along..." At least ridiculous is better than boring. I think it was meant to be creepy, but I felt nothing the entire time. The praises I can offer are thus: 1. The author clearly put a ton of time and work into this, and 2. It was very short. If you like twisty thrillers (which I don't) and short stories (which I also don't), then there's a 50/50 chance you'll love this.

Red at the Bone was beautiful. I've never read a Jacqueline Woodson novel before... Her style is so gorgeous and flowing. I swear, just listening to the audiobook on my drive home from work every day lowered my blood pressure and eased my stress. (Of course, that's also due to the excellent readers. They made the experience for me.) It's barely over 200 pages, but I feel like I've spent generations with this damaged family. It doesn't have much by way of plot... It's more of a character study, and a celebration of black history in America. I dig that. 4/5 stars.

Ask Again, Yes was, like, the anti Red at the Bone for me. Oh, I HATED this book. I didn't just dislike it; I wanted to burn it. It was a twelve-hour audiobook that felt like 40 hours. If I'd had anything else to listen to, I would've dumped it in a heartbeat. The writing was SO BAD... It felt like the author was just summarizing 60+ years of this family. "And then this guy immigrated from Ireland and became a cop and then he got married and then had 3 daughters and--" What kind of writing is this?! How does something so rushed take so long to tell? WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE LOVE THIS BOOK??? And don't get me STARTED on the BS "message" that actually had me snarling in my car. "ANYTHING can be forgiven over time and, maybe, your suffering was for the best!" Screw! You! Oh, just thinking about this disaster makes me so mad...

I ended the month with Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, which is a great and refreshing palate cleanser. In her collection of humorous and crass essays, Ms. West talks about bodily autonomy, misogyny and rape culture in the world of stand-up comedy, abortions, and the trauma of growing up fat in a world that encourages hatred and violence towards fat bodies. So much of this was painfully relatable to/directly relevant towards my life (I'm a fourth-wave feminist who's been fat all her life; heyyo!), to the point where some of this hurt to read. Too real, man! But Lindy understands. She cradles you with jokes and relatability, and draws reader attention towards the many injustices still plaguing our entertainment industry. She walks the walk. I loved this, and I'd gladly read more from her. 5/5.