A Look at September’s Reads
My Goodreads reading stats would tell you I read 15 books over the month of September, which isn’t quite correct. Included in that number was a fanzine and a short story. So technically 13 books for this month. That being said, I highly recommend both the short story, “As the Last I May Know” by S. L. Huang on tor.com and the zine, “Harry Potter and the Problematic Author” by Maia Kobabe.
For books this month I started with wrapping up my Hugos read through with The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley. I followed that up with the strangely cathartic The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. I picked up the next in the Binit series as well and polished off Okorafor’s Home.
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I rarely pick up thrillers, but Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn was a book club read. It had some raw and evocative language, but I overall found it exceedingly predictable and a tad trite. In reverse, I found P. Djèlí Clark’s The Haunting of Tram Car 015 a fun detective jaunt (the magic probably helped). I must admit that I am developing a deep fondness for novellas this year, novellas and graphic novels both. The Best We Could Do was a memoir and graphic novel both and easy to sink into.
Unpacking My Library: Artist’s and Their Books by Jo Steffens, Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby, and Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel rounded out the month’s nonfiction. All had their high points, although personally my favorite part of Irby’s book was the chapter on attempting to learn home maintenance. Unpacking My Library is simply a guilty pleasure at this point; I always want to see more personal libraries. As an English major the literature callouts in Fun Home felt like an in joke I had with the author. Of these three non-fiction, I would recommend Fun Home to almost anyone.
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The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi, The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu, The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho, and Heartstopper: Volume 1 by Alice Oseman finished out my fiction and were distinct works. The Silvered Serpents was a drama filled sequel to Gilded Wolves (full review to come) filled with thieves, lies, false goddesses, and of course, magical political intrigue and love…triangles? (shapes of some kind). The Grace of Kings felt a bit like reading a cultural reversed Game of Thrones. While Game of Thrones didn’t pique my interest, enough of Grace of Kings did that I may attempt the sequel, although I wouldn’t recommend it to very many other readers.
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The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water was fun to keep the description simple. Characters that made you smile and snort while shaking your head are always a treat. The world itself was promising as well, and it was a journey I was happy to take. The gorgeous cover art by Sija Hong definitely didn’t hurt either. Heartstopper I will reserve judgement on as I am still mulling over parts, but my first gut reaction was a bemused, “Cute.”
And that wraps up September! Aiming to read some thematically appropriate books for October, but we shall see what I end up procuring.
