Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

3/5 stars

What's it about? Kaling's second collection of essays muses on fame, work, and love. A light-hearted, delightful read.

How’d I find it? I’m a millennial who has seen every episode of The Office more times than she can count.

Who will enjoy this book? The bottom line: if you like Mindy and celebrity memoirs, you'll enjoy this book. Looking for a read-alike? Try You Can't Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson.

What stood out? Kaling's essay on weddings (and why being a bridesmaid stinks) is a hilarious and touching reflection on female friendship. "A Perfect Courtship in My Alternate Life" imagines Kaling's life if she'd ended up as a Latin teacher at a Manhattan private school, told via email exchanges.

Which line made me feel something? A loud cackle escaped from me at the following description of a certain sorority: "Their finely toned arms replace a finely honed sense of irony."

The Singularity by Dino Buzzati

4/5 stars

What's it about? In this slim tale of horror, Ermanno Ismani accepts a government appointment to a top-secret research facility, so secret that no one seems to know where it is and what the scientists actually do there. When Ermanno and his wife Elisa arrive and realize the truth, it may be too late to save themselves.

How’d I find it? After seeing this incredible cover (drawn by the author himself), I signed up for the NYRB Classics Book Club. Hurray for book mail!

Who will enjoy this book? If you agreed with my review of The Invention of Morel or loved that “Be Right Back” episode of Black Mirror, you’ll enjoy The Singularity.

What stood out? This great little story feels modern, speaking to the uncertainties around artificial intelligence with which we’re currently grappling. The reveal of the research project delivers a shock, and Buzzati mounts the horror and tragedy with each page. I found that the narrative style lacked cohesion, but the plotting of this tale means I won’t forget it soon.

Which line made me feel something? From a long monologue by the mad, sad Endriade, lead scientist of military zone 36: “No spending limit, understand? Billions, tossed there in front of me like pebbles, as much as I liked. The old dream. But now…Now I was completely uninterested. That’s how we men are, wretched flesh.”

P. S. My curating skills must be improving, because I’m finding so many 4-star books this summer.

Long Island by Colm Tóibín

4/5 stars

What's it about? In the unexpected sequel to Brooklyn, we find Eilis Lacey twenty years later, living on Long Island with Tony and their two children, surrounded by the Fiorello family as neighbors. Tony has an affair with a married woman that results in a pregnancy, and when Eilis realizes she may be expected to accept this new child, she returns to Ireland for her mother’s 80th birthday and to decide her future.

How’d I find it? I recently listened to an interview with Colm Tóibín about the release of Long Island on The New York Times Book Review podcast and was sold, as I adored both the film adaptation of Brooklyn, with Saoirse Ronan’s outstanding performance as Eilis, and the original novel.

Who will enjoy this book? Readers of Elizabeth Strout and Ann Patchett will like Long Island. You don’t have to read Brooklyn first, but you really should.

What stood out? Colm Tóibín writes Eilis beautifully, this character who others find inscrutable but whose mind we get to pick through over the course of 300 pages. The complex interiority of her character is the novel’s best feature, as we don’t get far into the actual events of the story. Without spoiling too much, Tóibín leaves the reader wanting, and the place in the action where he chooses to end the book is abrupt and unsatisfying, almost as if he’d written the other half but wants to string this out into a trilogy. Either way, the writing is sharp, and I would revel in another installment.

Which line made me feel something? “Tonight would be the first time she would ever sleep in a house alone, when there would be no one in the bed with her or in the next room. In all her years with Tony, it was something she had often dreamed about, especially at the beginning of their marriage—slipping away, getting a train or even driving to some town and finding an anonymous hotel to spend two nights away from everyone.”

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

4/5 stars

What's it about? Half of a Yellow Sun takes place in 1960s Nigeria, when the eastern part of the country seceded to form Biafra. The novel follows beautiful Olanna, academic and activist Odenigbo, their young houseboy Ugwu, Olanna’s estranged twin Kainene, and her British lover Richard. A richly told account of the ravages of civil war.

How’d I find it? Adichie’s writing talents make me interested to read anything she’s published. This particular copy was a Christmas present my husband received.

Who will enjoy this book? For similar themes, check out the short story collection Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan or the film Blood Diamond.

What stood out? Adichie paints every scene painstakingly so that reading this novel is a transportive experience. Take just three sentences from a whole paragraph describing a dining table: “Master’s plate was always the most rice-strewn, as if he ate distractedly so that the grains eluded his fork. Olanna’s glass had crescent-shaped lipstick marks. Okeoma ate everything with a spoon, his fork and knife pushed aside.” And so on. This level of description bloats the novel by at least 150 pages that could have been trimmed to rev up the pace. Half of a Yellow Sun also suffers from occasional toggling between the early and late sixties, a device more successful in jarring the reader than in building anticipation.

The novel’s great success is its luxurious detail about Igbo language and culture and Nigerian politics. I enjoyed learning from the characters, so thoroughly lovable (yes, even Richard with his passive racism) that there’s always someone to root for amidst the violence and grief.

Which line made me feel something? This possible definition of hell gave me pause: “The bumpy ride lying in the backseat of the Peugeot 404 and the fierce sun that sparkled the windscreen made Ugwu wonder if he had died and this was what happened at death: an unending journey in a car.”

God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer by Joseph Earl Thomas

3/5 stars

What's it about? Former army medic Joseph juggles doctoral work, family demands and worries, and the workplace drama of a fast-paced Philadelphia hospital in this stream of consciousness novel that follows Joseph through one seemingly neverending shift where people in his life are constantly showing up as patients. Can someone please get Joe some lunch?

How’d I find it? I have yet to read a review of a book as sparkling as this one in Kirkus Reviews and requested a copy immediately.

Who will enjoy this book? Though Thomas showcases a style all his own, similar themes and approaches to humor can be found in Jamel Brinkley’s A Lucky Man and in Bryan Washington’s work.

What stood out? Thomas’s debut novel feels contemporary in a way so few novels do: the language, the disillusionment with military service, the way systemic racism infects who and how people are treated in our healthcare system, and the complexities of American family life. It’s all there, though God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer is more snapshot than investigation. I could read a whole book just about Joe’s relationship with his mother or his best friend Ray. While jarring, the dips in and out of Joseph’s present align with breaks in his train of thought and maintain the lightning pace set on the first page. The hospital setting didn’t read wholly authentic to me, but I’m a nurse in Portland, Oregon and recognize that things may work differently in Philly.

Which line made me feel something? If this gorgeous sentence doesn’t draw you in, nothing will: “Folks online always thought he was older, though I could never see what they saw, his text always sounding the way he looked as a baby, his avatar, an older black woman with white locs exemplifying the too-familiar and impossible amalgam of mother and lover most of us longed for, coaxing it out of the women in our sphere or otherwise overrepresenting our imaginations as reality, a consequence of our unfinished forebears and that necessary love, that forceful love, that elegant and deeply painful love otherwise foreclosed to us by the world.”

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

5/5 stars

What's it about? Tayo returns to the reservation after serving in World War II, barely surviving his battle with post-traumatic stress disorder. In connecting with his heritage and his people’s knowledge, he reconciles with the world around him and his place in it. A one-of-a-kind novel about the power of storytelling and the ignorance of human violence.

How’d I find it? I’ve long been reminded of my need to pick up Ceremony by displays at independent bookstores. Now that I’ve read it, I can affirm that it’s canon.

Who will enjoy this book? The writing is a blend of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Annie Proulx, visceral and visual and poetic. Those who enjoyed Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas should appreciate the themes in Ceremony.

What stood out? Leslie Marmon Silko wrote a perfect book. Ceremony is beautifully and creatively crafted, at times dreamlike and at others taut with the anticipation of loss. I loved the inclusion of Pueblo stories and descriptions of the rituals that encourage Tayo to heal. Tayo himself is a complicated character to inhabit for so many pages, and time in his mind provokes anguish that makes the novel immersive.

Which line made me feel something? “The silence was inside, in his belly; there was no longer any hurry. The ride into the mountain had branched into all directions of time. He knew then why the oldtimers could only speak of yesterday and tomorrow in terms of the present moment: the only certainty”.

Walkabout by James Vance Marshall

4/5 stars

What's it about? Thirteen-year-old Mary and her little brother Peter are the only survivors of a plane crash in the Australian Outback. Before the elements can overtake the unseasoned American children, they meet an Aboriginal boy completing a rite of passage. A smart novel that challenges prejudice and notions of civilization.

How’d I find it? I will read anything put out by New York Review Books, and I found this title at the ever reliable Powell’s.

Who will enjoy this book? Those who appreciated the classic Picnic at Hanging Rock or its film adaptation will like Walkabout. A close readalike is The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell, as Walkabout also happens to be an all-ages book.

What stood out? Rich descriptions of nature round out the simple story and create the feel of a journey as our characters seek water, shelter, and food. The book’s brevity—125 pages—serves it well, as Walkabout can be gobbled up in one sitting to allow the reader days (or weeks) to digest its heavier themes of intolerance and miscommunication. Culture and experience distance Mary from the stranger they meet; his nudity and dark skin offend her, and the boy interprets her horror as a bad omen.

Which line made me feel something? I won’t soon forget this terrifying forest: “But around them, choking them to death, coiled the dodders - the predatory vines, sucking the nutriment out of their roots, gripping the trees with tentacles like tightening tourniquets. And intertwined with the dodders were the jikkas: headless, tail-less, rootless, vegetable snakes; growing on and on, from either end, wrapping their vampire arms around anything they touched.”

Mistakes We Never Made by Hannah Brown

1/5 stars

How’d I find it? As a die-hard member of Bachelor Nation, I have been anticipating this book for months. Hannah Brown is one of the show’s most beloved Bachelorettes and gave the world some epic reality TV moments.

Why not 3 or more stars? Mistakes We Never Made was written with a ghostwriter, and when multiple minds are working on a text, I expect a certain level of mastery. I expect the protagonist to be bearable, even if obnoxiously self-deluded. I expect the two sex scenes in a romance novel to be more than a few paragraphs of missionary. I expect to be reminded only sporadically of the love interest’s signature odor of “woodsmoke and lavender.” I expect a mostly chronological story that takes place over three days to eschew chapter titles alerting the reader to the day of the week. I expect the unresolved plot points laying the ground for the next installment to be treated more elegantly.

The book delivers in one crucial way for Hannah’s fans by including Easter eggs from her time as the Bachelorette, like an homage to that iconic pedestal move.

I did not like this book, and Jesus still loves me.

Sharks in the Rivers by Ada Limón

4/5 stars

What's it about? U. S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón embraces the beautiful and ugly of our world in this collection about wildness and humanness. Poems of water, mouths, and wending one’s way.

How’d I find it? I read The Carrying in 2020, and it blew my socks off; I extol and weep over “Instructions on Not Giving Up” at least once a month. Sharks in the Rivers has been high on the list ever since. This copy came from the fabulous poetry section at Multnomah County Central Library.

Who will enjoy this book? Readers of Natasha Trethewey, Ross Gay, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil should like this one.

What stood out? Limón knows her voice, and the book has a cohesive quality that allows the through lines of the work to sing at just the right volume. I admire collections that manage to link all the poems without feeling repetitive or monotone. Limón excels at devastating turns in her shorter pieces, and “Crush” is a prime example.

Which line made me feel something? From “Fifteen Balls of Feathers:” “He was reading backward on the couchette / while the world went by and I was / counting the faces of sunflowers. 1,753,285 yellow fools / thinking they’re going to go on forever.”

Holly by Stephen King

2/5 stars

How’d I find it? One Tuesday last September, a customer rushed into the bookstore searching the shelves for this newly released Stephen King novel. Our copies had not yet arrived. A few months later, this most excellent cover enticed me from the shelves at Walmart, and I took it home.

Why not 3 or more stars? Holly takes place from within the firm clutches of COVID-19 tragedy and fear. It all felt forced to me and got in the way of the greater story at hand. Why did the specificities of pandemic America matter to this book? I’m not quite sure, but I am certain that the pace of the story warranted more speed, especially since the baddies are revealed from the outset. Hurry up, Holly!