So I tried Goodreads and didn't (for unarticulated reasons) care for it, but I'm suffering too much pandemic and blogging fatigue to post as regularly as I used to. However, I just finished my 75th book of this year and thought I might do some favorites so far (most of which, as I peruse what I have written) are somewhat depressing.
Fiction
Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam. A Brooklyn family of four arrives at their vacation AirBNB--a lovely home in the "wilds" of the Hamptons--it's a fabulous house and the mother Amanda is enjoying imagining the house is hers. But then one evening early in their vacation week, there's a knock at the door. It's an older African American couple who claim to be the owners of the house; Amanda and her husband Clay immediately suspect them of nefarious purposes, and you think you know where the story is going. But that's not really not where it's headed. The owners of the house, G.H. and Ruth, tell them they have come to their vacation home because there was a blackout in Manhattan and they had a vague feeling something serious was amiss--plus they didn't want to walk up to their apartment in a high-rise building. Amanda and Clay let them in, and the two families settle in, albeit not exactly comfortably. Strange things occur, and it's increasingly clear whatever happened was catastrophic and extended far beyond Manhattan--but it's never quite clear exactly what did happen. The book is creepy, sometimes funny, and not like other disaster or dystopian novels. I liked it a lot.
Short Stories
I am not a huge fan of short stories, but I really enjoyed Danielle Evans's The Office of Historical Corrections: A Novella and Short Stories. The idea behind the title novella--that employees of a government agency would travel around correcting historical misunderstandings and inaccuracies--intrigued me, and the novella lived up to the promise. Two historians, childhood frenemies, arrive in a small town in Wisconsin to try to uncover the true story behind a black man's death in a fire started by a white mob. The answer they discover is complicate and painful and causes them to reexamine their lives and how they place themselves in both history and the present. The short stories are also excellent, exploring African American lives and the racial tensions that simmer and erupt in the United States. In "Boys Go to Jupiter," a college girl's picture is posted on Facebook by a boy she barely knows; in the picture, she is wearing a bikini featuring the Confederate flag. Black students at her college are outraged, and Claire, angry, makes all the wrong decisions as the situation gets progressively worse. Well worth reading!
Mystery
I read a lot of mysteries, and I often quickly forget them. That might be why I picked the most recently read mystery as my favorite so far this year: A Nearly Normal Family, by M.T. Edvardsson. The book is narrated by three members of a Swedish family--the father, a pastor who knows his daughter has problems but believes they can be solved; the teenage daughter, who is accused of killing an "older man" with whom she and her best friend were involved; and the mother, an attorney who feels more compatible with her daughter's best friend than with her daughter. It's twisty -- some of the "surprises" you can guess, but others were unexpected. Different enough to be memorable (I think--one never knows at my age).
Nonfiction
Hidden Valley Road, by Robert Kolker, is one of those books that I have told numerous people about because I found it so fascinating. It is the story of a Colorado Springs family with 12 children, 6 of whom eventually were diagnosed as schizophrenic. The first 10 children (and all of the mentally ill members of the family) were boys; the two youngest were girls, who were subjected to various forms for abuse and violence from their brothers (some of the brothers were also victimized). One of the most fascinating parts of the story to me was how the two sisters, in adulthood, have dealt with their family: one, though she lives several hours away from her surviving brothers, has taken on a caretaker role, helping them access resources, making sure they have health care, etc. Meanwhile, for the sake of her own mental health, the other sister distances herself. The author also does a good job of tracing various "theories" about the causes of schizophrenia, as well as providing information on research and treatments. Fascinating.
As I did last year, I've found more nonfiction titles interesting than novels --Barack Obama's A Promised Land; Hood Feminism, by Mikki Kendall; and Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson are just some of the excellent nonfiction books in my first 75 of 2021.
Most Disliked Book So Far
Rodham, by Curtis Sittenfeld--ugh, ugh, ugh. This fictionalized account of what Hillary's life might have been like had she not married Bill presents her as a woman tormented by her inability to find a man who appreciates her. She makes a variety of stupid decisions based on her search for love/appreciation, but does end up as president. It's insulting and trashy--and I'm not even a particular fan of Hillary's. Don't waste your time!
Cleanness by Garth Greenwell is a close second in the disliked category, mostly for its protracted and overly detailed scenes of BDSM sex. And it was very positively reviewed in places like NPR and NYT! Again I say: Ugh!
Favorite Passage
Radical empathy, on the other hand, means putting in the work to educate oneself and to listen with a humble heart to understand another's experience from their perspective, not as we imagine we would feel. Radical empathy is not about you and what you think you would do in a situation you have never been in and perhaps never will. It is the kindred connection from a place of deep knowing that opens your spirit to the pain of another as they perceive it.
Isabel Wilkerson, Caste
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