Anika’s Comments (group member since Dec 25, 2011)

Anika’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

C-Y Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, Good Company
D-N David Levithan, Two Boys Kissing
F-I Franny Choi, Soft Science
L-R Lauren Oliver, Rooms
M-E Molière, Don Juan
P-H Phoebe Damrosch, Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter
T-O Tuomas Kyrö, The Beggar and the Hare
V-G Victoria Chang, Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence and Grief
W-A Wisława Szymborska, View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems
Z-S Zibby Owens, Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature

20.7 Cervantes

Gypsy Ballads by Federico García Lorca

+20 Task
+10 LiT
+10 Oldies, pub. 1928
+10 Combo: 20.5 (on pre-approved list), 20.9

Task total: 50
Season total: 1610

20.10 Birthday

Fly Girl: A Memoir by Ann Hood

Back in 2014, I was at a book festival where I heard Ann Hood speak about her most recently published novel. She happened to drop a tidbit about her early writing life: as a flight attendant, she'd be on the ground in the back galley with piles of notecards plotting out her first novel. I loved that story and so much wanted to read a whole book about her experience as a TWA flight attendant. Recently perusing my library's audiobook catalog, I saw that she'd come out with just the thing so I immediately downloaded and devoured it. It was as delightful as I'd hoped.
We get tidbits about the birth of commercial aviation, insights into what it took to be a flight attendant in the '70s (the requirements haven't changed much, except for the weigh ins which disappeared in the '90s thanks to a years of legal battle), and one very personal story of a girl from small town Rhode Island and her ticket to the world.
I related to this on so many levels and especially enjoyed when she'd talk about JFK Terminal 5: the iconic Saarinen TWA terminal...every day that I'm at work, I walk through that terminal and enjoy the feeling of walking through time. Now I'll be thinking of a very specific time and the experiences of a very specific flight attendant.
Enjoyed this a great deal.

+20 Task, pub. 2022
+10 Review
+15 Combo: 10.2 (born in RI, USA); 10.7 ("Adventure" is on MPG on my phone and ipad since they still use the old format, though with the new *horrible* format on my computer browser you have to hit "...more" to get to that listing, but it's in the top 10 which are historically listed as MPG); 20.9

Task total: 45
Season total: 1560

15.10 EotP Redux

Matrix by Lauren Groff

+15 Task, Andrew Carnegie Medal nominee, 2022
+50 All books/authors awarded in a ten-year period (2014-2023)
+100 Finisher Bonus
+200 MegaFinish

Task total: 365
Season total: 1515

15.9 EotP Redux

The Wife and the Widow by Christian White

+15 Task, Ned Kelly Award for Fiction, 2020

Task total: 15
Season total: 1150

15.8 EotP Redux

November Road by Lou Berney

+15 Task, Hammet Prize Winner 2018

Task total: 15
Season total: 1135

15.7 EotP Redux

The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman

(This is one of the best books I've read this year--highly recommend! Don't let the "magical realism" tag dissuade you if that's not your thing...it's so artfully handled that it doesn't even register as it once you've surrendered to the gorgeous story.)

+15 Task

Task total: 15, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, 2020
Season total: 1120

20.4 Saramago

Mozart's Last Aria by Matt Rees

OMGEEEE! This was so painful! At the halfway point I started seeking out alternatives for this task but couldn't find anything available so suffered through the rest of it. Blech.
You've got Mozart, you've got Masons, you've got murder conspiracy theories, and you've got royal intrigue--should be fantastic, no?
Well....no. Told from the point of view of Mozart's sister, Nannerl who was also a prodigy but one overshadowed by her younger brother's astounding talent, we traverse the darker sides of Vienna to seek out the truth of Wolfgang's death--despite the doctor's verdict of a natural death, she has reason to believe that he was poisoned.

I think this *could* have been interesting if any of the characters were well drawn--but they were the blandest, most two-dimensional characters I've been subjected to in recent memory. And the "mystery" fell so flat. And the fact that there's a love interest!? EYE ROLL.
I'm so disappointed...I love Mozart and was hoping for so much more. Sigh.

+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo: 20.9; 20.10 (first pub. 2011)

Task total: 40
Season total: 1105

15.6 EotP Redux

We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory

+15 Task, World Fantasy Award 2015

Task total: 15
Season total: 1065

20.9 ABCs

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

This was one wild ride...

Ted.
Ted has lived on Needless Street his whole life. He is a single dad with a daughter and a cat, he takes care of the birds who comes to his yard, he is open and unassuming and a good guy.
Or is he?
Olivia is his cat. She has a lot to say about what happens in the outside world. She notices what her Ted does, but also notices all the other "Teds" and we get parts of the story that Ted doesn't see.
Dee's sister disappeared eleven years ago. Her mother left soon after the disappearance and her dad died not long after. All Dee has left is the hope that her sister is still out there somewhere. And she has reason to believe that Ted has something to do with it.
NOTHING is as it seems.
You're constantly questioning what is true, what is real, and where in the world things are going.
Right when you think you know what is going on, something happens to prove you entirely wrong.

The story is told from alternating points of view, switching regularly between Ted, Olivia, and Dee. The way this unfolded was perfectly paced and understated and the way it ended was wild.

+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo: 10.2 (born in Washington DC), 10.6

Task total: 40
Season total: 1050

20.2 King

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

A University club devoted to mysteries takes a vacation to a deserted island where an awful murder happened the previous year. They stay in an abandoned manor which had recently been purchased by the uncle of one of the students in the club. The decagon house, where everything inside--down to the dishes--is decagonal. One by one, the students are killed. Is there a madman on the island orchestrating their deaths? Is it one of them? And why?!
This read like a Japanese version of And Then There Were None. It was a little hard for me to remember who was who--the characters were so poorly drawn that they felt more like game pieces on a Clue board. And the dialog was painful. I don't know if you've seen that commercial that makes fun of people pointing out, "The leaves are changing color," because *duh*, Captain Obvious...yeah. That's what this entire book felt like.
But: it was decently intriguing enough that I didn't hate-finish it, I really wanted to know what happened and why.

+20 Task
+10 LiT, translated from Japanese
+5 Oldies, pub. 1987
+10 Review
+15 Combo: 10.4 (#1 in a 15-book series); 20.1 (all Japanese characters); 20.8 ("...Agatha, who, having tasted the soup, was looking around with a small plate in her hands."

Task total: 60
Season total: 1010

10.8 House

The Widow's House by Carol Goodman

Every season, I find myself gravitating towards a certain task over and over and this season it has definitely been this task (though I've been able to use the books in other categories, so this is my first time actually claiming this task). House-as-character is always so atmospheric and usually unsettling/unnerving and that is my favorite type of book for gloomy autumn days!

I remember reading The Lake of Dead Languages back when it came out and loving it...but never really picked up anything else by the author, until now. I have been missing out! She's great.
In The Widow's House we get a familiar story (think 1944's noir Gaslight) with new ghosty twists. There are multiple references to The Yellow Wallpaper and The Haunting of Hill House and their influence on the story is definitely felt (including peeling yellow wallpaper that appears to have things moving under it). The ending had me properly questioning whether the main character was delusional or truly under threat and *that* to me is the sign of some great mystery writing...makes you question everything right up until the author spells it out for you.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+15 Combo: 10.2, born in Philly; 20.8, "I'll go warm us dinner. There's that soup you made last night--and some bread. You need something warm inside you."; 20.9
+50 Half-way Finish, completed 10-point Tasks

Task total: 85
Season total: 950

15.5 EotP Redux

Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong

+15 Task, T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry winner, 2017

Task total: 15
Season total: 865

15.4 EotP Redux

Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken. by Angela Yuriko Smith

+15 Task, Winner Bram Stoker 2021

Task total: 15
Season total: 850

Rebekah wrote: "Has anyone started reading a book, and it gives a date, which happens to be the very date you started reading?
It seems to happen frequently but understandable when you pick a haunted house book t..."

I’m def with you…it happens to me all the time! It always makes me happy inside and i feel like it’s the universe’s way of saying, “Yep, you picked up this book at the exact right time.”

20.3 Vonnegut

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

While reading this, I kept asking myself: why is it shelved and listed as "anti-war"?! These are just horrible people--racist, misogynistic, self-involved--doing not much of anything while doing a whole lot of drinking...
I had to read a few essays explaining that each of the characters is what they are as a direct result of their experiences in WWI, that they are representative of the post-war "age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution...and vanishing illusions", that the drinking and awful behavior would have been shocking to the reader of the late '20s, highlighting the effects the war had on the characters. Okay. Sure.
I just know I really hated this book. Everything about it. I hated the characters. I detested the writing. It was ultimately one of the most boring and forgettable books I've ever read. Blech.

+20 Task
+10 Review
+35 Combo: 10.2, born in Illinois; 20.2; 20.5; 20.6, #17 on the list; 20.7; 20.8, "The girl brought in a big bowl of hot vegetable soup and the wine. We had fried trout afterward and some sort of a stew and a big bowl full of wild strawberries."; 20.9
+5 Oldies, first pub. 1926

Task total: 70
Season total: 835

10.10 Group Read

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

I've only read a few Christopher Moore books...sometimes I get the feeling that he's a little too manic with the humor (a la The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) which is fun and all, but I can only take it in small doses.
So glad I chose this group read! It was the perfect mix of Halloween-feel and hilarity.
Charlie finds out he is a "death merchant"--he collects souls of the soon-to-be-dead and makes sure they get in the hands of people in need of souls. Charlie is a pretty basic guy and an okay character: it's the surrounding cast that makes this book so good! His sister Jane who steals his best suits and wears them better than he ever could; his gourmet goth employee Lily; his daughter Sophie and her hellhounds, Alvin and Mohammed; his fellow death merchant, Minty Fresh, a seven-foot-tall black man who wears a distinctive chartreuse suit; and Sophie's babysitters, "the Eastern Bloc"--a Chinese grandma who steals all of Sophie's dead pets to add to her soup and a Russian babushka who ends pretty much every sentence with, "Like bear" for emphasis.
I listened to this one, as read by Fisher Stephens, and it was an absolute delight--especially when he was reading a conversation between the babysitters, slipping from a Chinese accent to a Russian accent with ease and hilarity.

I enjoyed this book. Like bear.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+20 Combo: 10.2, born in Ohio; 10.9, set in San Francisco; 20.9; 20.10, pub. 2006

Task total: 40
Season total: 765

10.6 Bless the Animals

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Marcellus, a crotchety yet remarkably endearing giant Pacific octopus, has a few problems: he has been in captivity in the Sowell Bay Aquarium for most of his life and he knows that his days are numbered...he'll most likely never see the open ocean again; he has a penchant for sneaking out of his aquarium to snack on other exhibits at the aquarium (Sea cucumber? Yes, please. Snow crab? Scrumptious!) but was recently busted by the night cleaning lady; and he is remarkably bright, understanding things about the people who visit the aquarium that they don't even know, yet he has no way to convey his knowledge.
Back to the night cleaning lady, Tova. She has her own set of problems: a dead brother, a dead son, a dead husband, a shrinking group of friends, a lot of decisions to make with her impending retirement. As previously noted, she busted Marcellus in the act of trying to return to his watery home. He was struggling--he'd been out of the water for a little too long--and Tova helps him back in. Thus begins the most unlikely of friendships.

The wind up of the story was a little too tidy, but it was a lovely book overall...and I really loved Marcellus.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+15 Combo: 10.2, born in the USA; 20.2; 20.10, pub. 2022

Task total: 35
Season total: 725

OMG. Just opened goodreads after a while away and saw the new page format for the first time. GAG. It is soooooo bad. I might have ranted--a lot--in the feedback section. What a giant disappointment.

15.3 EotP Redux

Goddess of Filth by V. Castro

+15 Task, Ladies of Horror Fiction award for best Novella 2021

Task total: 15
Season total: 690