Happy new year, friends! Regardless of anything else that happened in the last year, you can say you made it into 2023.
Today we are wrapping up this year's reads with December's list. I had more time for reading last month, and had several books that I really enjoyed! Take a look and see what you think.
In case you missed it:
(79) Game Changer by Neal Shusterman (2021, 400 pages) (YA sci fi). Audiobook. Neal Shusterman has written some of my top favorite YA, and I think his success rate is pretty high for writing books that feel relevant and interesting to The Youths but also work for adults who might not typically pick up YA, which is pretty impressive actually. In this one, 17-year-old defensive lineman Ash discovers that a particularly violent smash on the field has the power to literally change his life--over and over and over again. With each hit, he finds himself sliding into a different world--at first just slightly different than the one he remembers, then stranger and stranger. He soon learn he has a critical role to play in the universe, and if he screws it up, the whole thing could blink out of existence. I was pretty amazing with how brilliantly Shusterman pulled this one off, and how he made the entire book so powerfully relevant in so many ways.
(80) My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (2018, 226 pages) (domestic literary drama). Paper book. Korede's younger sister Ayoola has always been the favored child, the most beautiful, the most charming. She is also now on her third dead boyfriend, and once again Korede is the one cleaning up the mess and coaching Ayoola through not attracting undue attention. This is all bad enough, but now Ayoola is interested in Korede's long-time crush, and the interest may be mutual. It's enough to send a loyal but fuming sister right over the edge with impossible decisions. This was a solid, multi-layered read, dark but peppered with deadpan humor. I'm not sure I totally get why it got SO much attention (I found it much more dark than humorous) but I still enjoyed it.
(80.1) Delirium by Lauren Oliver (2011, 441 pages) (YA dystopian sci fi). 17-year-old Magdalena can't wait until she turns 18 and can get "the cure" -- a mandatory surgical procedure that precents adults from contracting the dreaded amor deliria nervosa. After uncured activists disrupt Lena's pre-cure evaluation appointment, she suddenly finds herself entranced by an uncured young man living under the government's radar. From there....you can probably guess how the first 260 pages played out, which is all I can tell you about because that's when I gave up. This book had such a fascinating, promising premise and the author preceded to do nothing even remotely surprising or interesting with it. I can handle a few boring dystopian/YA tropes but at some point there has got to be something more interesting and original to grasp onto.
(81) Something in the Water by Catherine Steadmean (2018, 342 pages) (mystery/thriller). Audiobook. Erin and Mark seem to have a perfect relationship; then on a diving trip on their Bora Bora honeymoon, they find something in the water. Something that will test the strength of their relationship and commitment to one another. Soon they find themselves in a compromising web of complicated decisions that could end their marriage, and who knows, maybe their lives. I love Catherine Steadman and this was intriguing and well written, but I felt it lacked any real oomph/punch at the end. I kept waiting for a twist but it never came, which was too bad because I feel like I could imagine so many twisty possibilities!
(82) The Book of Etta (The Road to Nowhere, Book #2) by Meg Elison (2017, 341 pages) (post apocalyptic literary sci-fi). Audiobook. After Something in the Water, I decided to clean up my Audible queue & listen to a bunch of the stuff I’ve downloaded then sort of forgotten about. This is the sequel to The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, which I read back in 2014 when it first came out, about a fever that kills a massive percentage of the global population–and kills women 10 times as often, and also makes pregnancy and childbirth fatal for mother and child more often than not. Etta takes place about 100 years later. A raider for the enlightened colony of Nowhere, led and managed by women, Etta’s job is to travel around to abandoned cities to collect useful relics and other materials–and also to free enslaved women and girls and bring them back to Nowhere where they can live free and full lives. On the road, Etta dresses as a man and goes by Eddie, which if she’s honest, has come to feel more authentic than living and dressing as Etta. The rare post-apocalypic sci-fi offering that also gets pretty deep into gender diversity territory, with Etta/Eddie and other characters as well.
(83) Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking by Christian Rudder (2014, 304 pages) (nonfiction, data). Audiobook + re-read. Another one that showed up in my Audible queue as “not started”, but about halfway in I was like, “Uhhhh this sounds awfully familiar…” Turns out I listened to this one back when it first came out in 2014. But it was still interesting to listen to again eight years later in light of all that has happened with the world and technology. The author is one of the co-founders of OKCupid whose job is collecting, handling, and analyzing the data & at least for a while was publishing fascinating blog posts about it. The theme is how so much of what people say in terms of their beliefs, attitudes, preferences, etc. is at odds with how they behave, starting with OKCupid data & then branching out to other caches of Big Data (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and the immense power of all that data and how it can be (and has been) used for both good and evil. An interesting read if you’re into data & sociology/human behavior.
(84) The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (240 pages, 1922 - domestic literary). Paper book. Four women, all mostly strangers and all somewhat disenchanted by their lives in dark, dreary 1910s England, rent a magnificent Italian castle together for the month of April, and over the course of the month, all their lives are changed. A short, fun little classic that’s as hilarious and entertaining as it is well-written.
(85) Today Will be Different by Maria Semple (259 pages, 2016 - domestic fiction). Paper book. 49-year-old Eleanor Flood knows she needs to make some changes in her privileged yet unsatisfying life. Every so often she declares to herself that today will be different, that she will shower and get dressed, be a patient and with-it mother, an attentive and loving wife, a productive and organized member of society. Alas, she is only barely holding it together when an old coworker brings up a secret family artifact, and soon everything is spiraling desperately downward while she frantically tries to hold her marriage and mental health together. I really liked Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, and while I don’t think this one was quite as good, I still enjoyed it. Bridget Jones’ Diary meets Fleishman is in Trouble will get you most of the way to the feel of this one.
(86) Still Life by Louis Penny (293 pages, 2005 - mystery/crime/thriller). Paper book. I didn’t realize when I picked this one up that it was from the middle of a series, but it stood on its own just fine. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec (Quebec police force) finds himself in a small town investigating the suspicious death of a beloved town fixture. As Gamache and his team investigate, we get all kinds of little windows into the life, history, and relationships of the town and its denizens. Was Miss Neal’s death a hunting accident? A case of petty revenge? Or someone covering up a decades-long secret? And how does Miss Neal’s amateur painting and the recent death of another septuagenarian figure in? This was a smart, well-written murder mystery that was a nice break from some of the darker fare I’ve read this year.
(87) Girls & Sex by Peggy Orenstein (336 pages, 2016 - nonfiction, sociology). Audiobook. Another entry in the cleaning-out-the-Audible-queue project. I first learned about Orenstein (one of the foremost experts in adolescent sexuality) when I was teaching high school sex ed back in the aughts. When this book came out, I downloaded it but never got around to it. Listening to it in 2022 is a mix of “Yep, there’s some depressing stuff I already knew,” “Oh, look, more depressing stuff I already knew,” and “OK I didn’t know that exact fact/statistic, but it still fits right into the general storyline that I already knew.” I’d say it might be a good read for parents, but to be honest it probably needs some updating to be truly relevant. (I also have her Boys & Sex in my queue, which came out in 2020.)
And that's all, folks! I already have a 'to-read' list going for 2023, so definitely let me know if you have recommendations!
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