Auntie’s Annex: October Books
Somewhat Spooky Reading Slump
My reading this month started out strong and then came to a grinding halt. I picked up one book after another only to set them aside and never return. When I catch a free moment, I find myself turning to music, crosswords, and coloring with my 3-year-old instead.
I went to the OBGYN for an annual and as I lay akimbo, silver implements of torture poised to strike, she asked her obligatory exercise questions so she could check off on the sheet that we “talked” about “health.” I am on a downswing, an exercise slump. Could she tell while she was down there, poking and probing my lady bits? Was my pelvic floor lacking tone? I told her I tried not to stress too much about it because I always come back to exercise, I know I feel better when I am doing it, and I will find a way to get inspired eventually. It ebbs and flows.
When I find myself out of sync with the activities I usually love, I try to give myself grace, and I try a lot of different approaches until I find one that sticks. Last year in the fall I got into strength training for a bit. When my enthusiasm waned for that, I started training for a 5K. Currently, the weights are collecting dust alongside my tennis shoes until I find my next bout of inspiration. I know I feel better and can “life” (it’s a verb now) better when I exercise, no matter how impressively my mind is trying to convince me that it doesn’t make any difference and I should just quit and sit on the couch and eat all the Halloween candy and bread and never move again.
Maybe I have shoved too many books in my mouth and now I don’t like the taste anymore but if I give myself a while with no reading I’ll find I do like it when it is next plopped on my plate.
Maybe I need to permit myself to try something “easy” so my reading picks up and, work my way up to the more ambitious books. Though I’ve been feasting on easy fare, so maybe I am in a slump because I need to be reading something a little more challenging. TBD.
Maybe I need to revisit the book Bingos I signed up for to see if reading to check off a category will find me an unexpected treasure.
Much like I told my OBGYN, I am not going to stress out too much about it. I know reading is something I love to do, and I will come back to it when it feels right. For now, maybe it is OK to embrace my inner borfin and just shlump for a bit.
What helps you get out of a reading (or exercise) slump (or shlump)?
MY OCTOBER TOP PICK
AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES by John Green
Let’s admit it, I am becoming a bit of a John Green fangirl. Colin is a child prodigy who fears he may, at the ripe old age of 18, be past his prime. Dumped by Katherine the XIX (because she is the 19th Katherine he has dated) he is heartbroken and waxing existential. His best (and only) friend takes him on a road trip to get him out of town and out of his funk.
Once again, Green gets into the heads of his characters and creates a wonderfully complex, flawed, and loveable handful of individuals. Plus there is this pulse of adolescence, of that confounding age where the world seems to slip and shift around you, where you have to find your footing all over again, and it is instantly formidable and familiar. I love the struggle of becoming. A story about finding yourself, accepting and celebrating what you find, and also about maths.
FROM THE STAX
A HANDFUL OF ROMANCES
HAPPILY NEVER AFTER by Lynn Painter
Sophie is saved from her doomed wedding by a paid objector, Max. Max and Sophie meet again (I forget how TBH…maybe he took her number down?) and she decides to become his sidekick in objecting to weddings. Just a couple of friends who don’t believe in true love doing their best to keep people out of unhappy unions. Until, of course, they fall in love.
I was immediately sold on this premise. It is quirky and fun. There is a whole bit where each character uses the other to convince their coworkers and family that they are truly balanced people that was a little…off balance, but overall I liked the classic denial of obvious feelings trope with a twist. I read a lot of this while camping, so imagine me in a hammock while the kids play in the dirt hoping they don’t interrupt me at a particularly steamy scene.
ONE DAY by David Nicholls
Dex and Em. Em and Dex. They meet on the very last day of university, a bit of a whirlwind affair, and then we follow their lives through just one day (hence the title) a year for the next twenty years. Watch them drift apart, together, further apart, closer together, fully together, and then…til death do us part.
Honestly, I was surprised by how problematic parts of this book were. Em is written with such negative body image issues — where everyone else says she is pretty but she is constantly described as chubby or frumpy or fat. She is practically virginal in her relationships — portrayed like the scholarly cat lady in juxtaposition to Dexter and his wild coke-addled girl shagging ride. And then after she pines forever for a guy who doesn’t seem worth it, throws away her first potentially happy suitor for him, and they actually get together, she (SPOILER ALERT) dies?! And the guy who did so many drugs and partied his life away just gets to keep on existing?
DONE AND DUSTED by Lyla Sage
Clementine (Emmy) is going back home, perhaps forever. Her family owns a ranch and although they weren’t expecting her home they accept her, no questions asked. What Emmy wasn’t expecting was her brother’s BFF, Luke Brooks.
This read like a bar fight I didn’t want to watch. Mostly, my problem is with Luke Brooks being written as this dual character that is all macho man, troubled youth, wrong side of the tracks, but with a heart of gold. When he and Emmy get involved but then Emmy gets hit on at the bar and he practically starts a bar fight? Then picks up Emmy like a sack of potatoes and takes her to his back office, locks her in, and then somehow Emmy finds she can’t be mad at him and goes down on him instead of saying hey, don’t start fights and pick me up against my will? No thanks. I wrote that he called her a slut during one of their sexy scenes…which I am finding hard to believe, but if it is true, you get the gist. I don’t find jealousy and rage a sexy combo IRL or on the page.
BRIDE by Ali Hazelwood
Misery is a vampyre with a complicated relationship with her family and a human best friend recently gone missing. Lowe is a werewolf who just became the Alpha of a powerful pack. When the two are joined in a collateral marriage to broker peace between the vampyres and werewolves, things get a little…heated.
Burn burn burn yes. Vampyres and Weres sucking and biting on each other in sexy ways? Sign me up. This book was a delight to read even if Misery, a very smart vampyre, was painfully stupid about the very obvious truths that were right in front of her eyes the entire time. A bit of a whodunnit, the end still managed to surprise me with the turn it took and the amount of gore. The language was a little too “I own you” for my liking, but the hot was still hot. Except for the one not hot thing, which is decidedly very not hot and I will never be able to unthink it. Leaves a bit of an unwanted aftertaste. IYKYK.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF SERIAL KILLERS by Alicia Thompson
Phoebe is back home for the summer, but only for the summer, while she finishes her dissertation on serial killer stories, to help clean out her estranged recently departed dad’s house and get it ready for the market. Sam is the boy next door who may or may not be a serial killer in Phoebe’s overactive and murder-focused mind.
I wish I would have read this book instead of listening to it because when I listen I am easily distracted and can miss entire sections of the story. I think I would have enjoyed this more on the page. I was a bit disappointed that there weren’t more elements of murder or mystery, and it was basically just a story about a woman floundering in the aftermath of grad school, and a kinda cute but kinda boring man next door. What I do like about it is how enduringly sweet and good the humans are at their core. Nobody owns anybody in this romance and I am here for it.
MIDDLE GRADE AND YOUNG ADULT
ALANNA: THE WOMAN WHO RIDES LIKE A MAN (#3) by Tamora Pierce
Alanna has left the kingdom of Tortall to seek adventure as a knight. Soon she is living with a clan of Bahzir people and must prove herself worthy.
I love Alanna for her stubborn and inflexible being and for her desire to learn and better herself. She is a balance of both wisdom and strength, a tangle of emotions and logic. She is willing to sometimes back down, but also finds herself in trouble in the times when she does not. In this book, we get to see Alanna learn from a culture very different from her own, and through this knowledge, become an even greater and more complete person. I love that Alanna steps away from the complicated love triangle she was in and we get to see her find her way back to her magic.
ALSO, in the afterword, I learned that Tamora Pierce wrote this book when she was 22!! Holy what?!? She was a young adult! When she wrote this?!! Amazing. I also love that when she was a child she wrote to the FBI to figure out how she could become an agent. I hate that she was told, “Haha, no but we will let you know if there are secretary positions for you.” Not cool, FBI
I love that she then wrote the Alanna series, about a fierce warrior woman who defies gender stereotypes, and now I get to read it in a time when women can be FBI agents, even if they are still told “haha, no” more than they should be. So many things have changed for the better because women like Tamora Pierce dared to write stories with strong female characters willing to break the mold.
EXIT, PERSUED BY A BEAR by E.K. Johnston
TW: This book is about sexual assault.
I can’t really figure out how to sum this one up. Hermione is at her very last cheer camp before her very last year of high school, and she is determined to make it great. But then she gets handed a drink at a dance, follows a boy down a hallway, and everything goes blank.
A book about living through the aftermath of a rape you can’t remember happening, and how to wade through the alienation, the whispering, the physical consequences, and the fear. This book took me a long time to read, not because the subject matter was difficult (it was) but more because it felt like a book that was event-centered and not character-centered, but the event happened (and remained) in the dark. So it was kind of like a book in shadow.
THE ODD ONE OUT
THE WORD IS MURDER by Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz is a writer (he wrote this book, see?) approached by Daniel Hawthorne with an odd proposition. Hawthorne wants Horowitz to write a book about him solving a murder that has just happened. Horowitz takes the bait and we follow along as the pair learn to work together to figure out whodunnit.
This was a weird and wild ride. When I first realized it was doing the self-referential bit I was worried it would be too tricksy for my taste, but instead, I found it both funny and intriguing. It has a heavy Sherlock-inspired vibe (no shock there as Horowitz is the only author approached by the Conan Doyle estate to write sanctioned Sherlock stories). I did NOT guess whodunnit, I did very much like the storyline, and it made me want to go read my old copy of Sherlock Holmes stories. Kudos!
ON THE NIGHTSTAND:
in hand: Alanna: Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce and The Last of the Moon Girls by Barbara Davis
in ear: Glass Houses by Louise Penny. Still.
on kindle: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
ON DECK:
Can’t stop thinking about re-reading Sherlock Holmes. Especially since I just started watching the BBC’s Sherlock with old Cucumberbunch back when he was just a wee lad.
ADULTING
I was trying to avoid everyone at the park the other day because I am me.
The other moms found me despite my best attempts, and then I got invited to a book club in the neighborhood(!) proving that I should not always hide from people and that saying hello has its perks.
Now back to my hovel of alone with the hordes of Halloween candy leftovers. BYE.
Until next week! Happy reading y’all!
Book clubs can be wonderful. Hope you like it! I loved the book club “BBC” that I was involved with years ago. Lots of interesting people and great discussions! Not always about the books!
Have so much fun at your new book club!