CONTENT #19

All the things she read

I quit my phone, and went on holiday, and got an ereader, and fell into a depression — which is to say, I read a lot of books this summer. Picture me in a cheap-sheeted bed at 3pm, hiding from the French heat, swiping the raspy surface of my Kobo.

How the Kobo works (if you, like me, struggle to spend money on ebooks when there are so many good ones moldering in libraries and charity shops): you link your library card, you see what's available, you borrow freely. You can place holds for more popular titles (but if you, like me, combine tightfistedness with a need for instant gratification, you won't). You choose from the grab-bag of books "available now."

My digital library curates a handful of shelves with a not-quite-infinite list of books. After too many independent searches ended with "no results," I gave in and stuck to its recommendations. I borrowed from the romance, book club, and "literary" shelves with gusto.

It was freeing, to read more or less randomly. There was something to like — or, at least, to learn — from every funny little book I read.

Romance

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi reads like the author has contempt for the romance genre, and has taken this as permission to self-indulge. The characters are sexy and sexual; they drip with wealth, cute outfits, and the occasional body fluid; they bask in Instagrammable settings and eat Instagrammable food. But do they fall in love? By the end, I was informed, but not convinced, that our heroine has met her match.

Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn competently colors inside genre lines. Two thoroughly sketched characters tackle a hooky premise. So far, so fine. What's odd is its setting: rural Virginia — or a fictional version of it. The male main character's environmentally-friendly dock business provokes eyerolls from his estranged brother — but not a full-on argument about climate change. A queer polyamorous professor dispenses relationship advice — our gruff, cishet hero doesn't blink. This is an open door romance with closed door sociopolitical divisions: present but obscured.

Dream Girl Drama by Tessa Bailey is about two adults who fall in love immediately before finding out their parents are dating. In the world of this story, that flips their budding relationship from "fine" to "forbidden love." This makes so little sense that I can only speculate the author started out with a much wilder plot before her agent talked her down. I'm tickled that you can find this at Walmart next to all the other books with cartoon covers.

Book Club

The Wedding People by Alison Espach is a well-crafted novel: unpretentious, moving, funny. To say more would spoil it! (Okay, I’ll say a little more: the fact that this ending is a happy one and all characters come out of it with the reader’s sympathy is an impressive achievement.)

I bear a grudge against Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin because its title and cover are far too similar to This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub, which meant I accidentally bought the former instead of the latter for my mother as a Christmas present. She very politely said she wasn't much of a video game person but still enjoyed it. (Mom, you would have loved This Time Tomorrow!) Anyway. I am a video game person, and I did enjoy this book — but did its ideas require quite so much space to be elaborated?

Probably Nothing by Lauren Bravo is an exploration of pathological people-pleasing taken to a cringing extreme. There are many neat exercises in empathy along the way, but it feels like a piece is missing from the conclusion. What was in the diary!?

Literary

Is Outline by Rachel Cusk one of those "wan little husks" I’ve heard so much about? Funny when it's mean but mean when it's funny.

I really enjoyed Tom Lake by Ann Patchett: the simple structure of a mother telling her daughters the story of her life, slowly closing the gap between the girl she was and the woman she became. Then I read “These Precious Days,” an essay by the author that involves an unlikely friendship with a cancer patient and, it pains me to say, quite a lot of name-dropping. (“Tom Hanks needs a favor? Happy to help. ‘Do you even realize your life isn’t normal?’ Niki said ... ‘You understand that other people don’t live this way?’”) Maybe this is just my longstanding grudge against Tom Hanks talking. Maybe the essay projected traits I dislike in myself — a smug confidence that I am God’s favorite and my life is a series of interesting anecdotes rather than, you know, life — and am reacting disproportionately against them. Anyway, once I read this essay, I saw the book in its light, and couldn’t unsee it.

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell is a very sweet, well-earned reimagining of one of history's tragic lives. Particularly moving if you were once a girl who escaped into creative pursuits, felt her life constantly threatened, had a special connection with a cat.