One Surprising Book (The Lioness) and One I Wish Had Surprised Me (Beautiful World, Where Are You?)

 It was another two weeks of mostly inane reading, but I'm currently in the midst of a 45-hour biography of Sylvia Plath, so I'm trying to redeem myself. Meanwhile, here's what I read as July wound down. 

Fiction

I have liked many of Chris Bohjalian's books and have always thought of him as a gentle writer (is that a thing?) who does a particularly good job depicting female characters. The Lioness is a total change of pace. Set in 1964, the book tells the story of a successful actress, Katie Barstow, and her new husband, a gallerist, who take an entourage of friends, colleagues (agents, publicists), and family members on the second part of their honeymoon (do people do that?)--a safari in Tanzania. Things go horribly wrong, and Bohjalian weaves the story of what happens with the back stories of the characters. Through the back stories, Bohjalian explores racism, exploitation of various kinds in the film industry, and child abuse, among other issues. But I found it hard to even remember who the characters were because the violence on the safari--human to human as well as animal to human--felt so overwhelming (and so not expected from Bohjalian). Not recommended.

I often do not understand why certain authors become darlings in the literary world, and that is the case with Sally Rooney, whose three novels have all received rave reviews. I didn't read her first book, and I didn't care for Normal People. As for her latest--Beautiful World, Where Are You?--I found the title the best thing about the book. At the center of the book are two young women--writer Alice and her best friend Eileen--and the men in their lives. Part of the book is presented in email exchanges between the two, while the remainder is standard narrative. In her correspondence, Alice waxes philosophical on writing, the novel, modernism, and aesthetics, which is the only part of the book that even approached being interesting to me. But nothing much really happens and what does feels prosaic. Perhaps I'm too old to appreciate what is clearly a millennial novel but I think I'm through reading Sally Rooney.

The Final Case, by David Guterson, has some similarities to Beautiful World. One of its major characters--the unnamed narrator--is a writer who thinks he's done writing but still thinks about writing quite a lot. The other major character is his father, Royal, an attorney in his 80s who needs his son to drive him around after he has a car accident that suggests he should no longer be driving. The titular case is based on a real Washington case, in which an Ethiopian girl adopted by a fundamentalist family is abused and dies; the parents are charged with death by abuse, and Royal takes on the mother's case because all the public defenders are too busy. There's a lot about the case and the court proceedings, but weirdly, the book doesn't really seem to be about the case. I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's about the good and the bad of families and the power of work. I liked it better than Rooney's book--the characters are old, like me, and the case itself, though not the point, was interesting--but it wasn't entirely satisfying either. 

Mystery/Thriller

Mysteries continue to be forgettable (and too numerous):

--The Sorority Murder, by Allison Brennan. A trifecta of tired tropes: a true crime podcast, a long-held secret among college friends, and a battle-scarred law(wo)man. Not Brennan's best.

--The Widow, by K.L. Slater. This was a freebie from Audible, so I don't feel too bad that I can't remember much about it except that a basic plot point seemed entirely unbelievable to me.

--Into the Darkest Corner, by Elizabeth Haynes. Another freebie from Audible focused on a woman who thinks she has escaped from an abusive relationship (but has developed OCD) . . . but has she? Rather predictable.

--Find Me, by Alafair Burke. Hope Miller, an amnesiac who has not known her own life story since being in an accident 15 years ago, disappears from her new home in the Hamptons. Her best friend Lindsay, a defense attorney, sets out to find her. A surprise at the end was really, really annoying.

--Insomnia, by Sarah Pinborough. This book portrays gaslighting (and the effects of not being able to sleep) really well, but I could have done without the supernatural element that Pinborough threw into the mix and the purported reason why the main character thought she was losing her mind was ridiculous.

--Blackout, by Erin Flanagan. This is a mystery with a science fiction element involving neuroscience that also deals with misogyny in academia, what constitutes scholarship in today's media landscape, rape culture, alcoholism...it's a lot. But it was good entertainment while at a water park with two 12-year-olds for the weekend.

--No Way Back, by J.B. Turner. Terrible book--wife gets killed in a complicated political scheme, estranged husband kills a couple people involved in the scheme, book ends. Obvious set-up for a sequel in which some more people involved in the scheme get killed.