I'm about 10% in to The Unmaking of June Farrow on audio (Libby).

Somewhat slow start, but I'm intrigued. Seems like maybe a bit of a ghost story or a time-bending novel connecting multiple generations of women in a somewhat rural town in the NC mountains near Asheville. Touch of magical realism, which is not always my thing, but so far so good.

On deck is Principles of Emotion, by Sara Read. I loved her previous book (Johanna Porter is Not Sorry), which was a story of about a middle-aged mom who gets pulled back into her complicated, pre-kid life in the art world. I loved that the plot moved quickly and the character (and plot points) seemed a bit zany at times. Yet the themes underneath were thought-provoking and substantive. Lots about our multiple identities - who we are in our youth vs. middle age, who we are pre and post parenthood, our talents/passions/ambitions vs. our day-to-day lives. (Plus a few other themes I don't want to mention in case they're spoilers). Not your average "mom fiction." Highly recommend!

Anonymous wrote:I am reading Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. About 60 pages in, but having a hard time really getting into it.

Has anybody read it? Does it get better?

I really liked this one but if it’s not clicking with you yet, it just may not be for you! I was immediately pulled in and identified a lot with the narrator.

Anonymous wrote:I am reading Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. About 60 pages in, but having a hard time really getting into it.

Has anybody read it? Does it get better?

I liked it, but I remember thinking it would not work for everyone. I think you have to enjoy the quirky voice of the narrator and be interested in the townspeople as characters. The mystery/story felt secondary to the characters, though the plot gets more engaging towards the end. It's a pretty different style than I'm used to reading and was definitely a little odd.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just finished God of the Woods...a little long but I really enjoyed it and read it quickly. I'm now reading The Wedding People and really liking it so far!

+1 I just finished this as well and really enjoyed it. I couldn't put it down at times.

All right well that's enough of a rec for me - just downloaded this one onto my kindle.

I'm reading An Elderly Woman Is Up To No Good now - recommended by someone here on DCUM in another of these monthly reading threads. I'm just a bit into it but I love it so far.

Just finished the Kevin Kwan book Lies and Weddings - it had its pleasures but overall wasn't a success, I don't think. There were parts that should have been edited out; Eden, the main female character, was just too *good* to be real; the ending worked but was a little too deus ex machina to give any real satisfaction.

Anyway, it was a quick read and it's KK's usual fun stuff (brand names, b**chy rich people, etc) but it felt kind of underbaked. Needed another couple of rounds of edits, I think - and an editor willing to rein KK in a bit more/push him more.

Anonymous wrote:Just finished Tom Lake. I thought it was slow. And I’m not a person who needs an overly plot-driven, well, plot. But somehow stuff both happened and didn’t happen in that book? It was well-written and I liked a lot of the author’s language and how everything is slowly revealed over time. But still. In the end it was like (vague spoilers) “oh we got married somehow and xxx died in a yacht accident ain’t that crazy, anyway back to the farm!”

Agreed. This is somewhat similar to Commonwealth. A lot of words and things happen and yet not much happens. I felt the same way about The Most Fun We Ever Had. Very long book, and yet still somehow very light on plot or actual development. Of the three I liked Tom Lake the best though, but that's possibly because I listened to the audiobook and it was done by Meryl Streep.

I am reading Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. About 60 pages in, but having a hard time really getting into it.

Has anybody read it? Does it get better?

In honor of October spooky season, I finished an ARC of “The Unworthy,” by Agustina Bazterrica. She also wrote “Tender is the Flesh,” which was kind of a runaway lit horror success. This latest book will be out in March.

I’m not sure what to say about “The Unworthy” because I have such mixed feelings. It’s very compelling and well-written. It’s well-structured and well-polished; I have no criticism at all of the narrative itself. It’s more of a novella in length, which is good because…it’s one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read. I like horror but more “creepy vibes” horror (Shirley Jackson), not violent or grotesque horror. The violence and cruelty had a point but a few times I thought, what would make someone want to write about this?!

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I think the style is just not for me. (I had a similar reaction to Stephen Graham Jones, another fabulous writer, but the amount of violence/animal deaths in one of his book was too much.)

What is everyone reading this month?
I just finished listening to "My life with the Walter boys".

What is it about?
It is a book for teens. It is about a 16 year old girl whose parents and older sister all died in a car crash. She had been living in a penthouse apartment in NYC and attending a private school for girls. After her family died, she went to live with her mom's childhood BFF on a horse ranch in Colorado. The family she moves in with has 12 kids, plus her. There are 11 boys and one other girl.

What do you think of it?
I thought it was dumb, from beginning to end. It was not at all what I was expecting. I had expected it would be about the girl's adjustment from city life to rural life, and from being part of a small family to being part of a big family. Instead it was mostly about teenage horniness and her trying to decide which of the teenage boys she most wanted to date. The author wrote the book so that there were sets of twin teenage boys, and teenage boy cousins living there.
I looked up the author at some point while listening. She wrote it on wattpad when she was 15. It has been made into a netflix show.

Why did you pick that particular book to read?
I thought it was going to be like a Little house on the prairie type of book.
Boy was I wrong. I kept listening to it mostly just because it was already downloaded and kept playing while I did yardwork.

How did you acquire the book?
Downloaded it from my library website.

Anonymous wrote:I just started God of the Woods by Liz Moore and it has sucked me right in. It takes place at a summer camp in the Adirondacks and one of the girls goes missing, bringing up a plot line from 8 years previous when her brother disappeared as well. I'm loving it -hope it stays good through the end.

This is at the top of my list! The hold wait is long; the recs here may have convinced me to just buy it.

Anonymous wrote:Just got back from a trip and read 2 books: Demon Copperhead (Barbara Kingsolver) and A Fever in the Heartland (non fiction - Timothy Egan). Both were fabulous! I usually read a bit lighter fare, but they were super timely, readable, and meaningful. The parallels between the political milieu of the early 1920s (Egan book) and today were eerie!

Next in my queue is the latest by Liane Moriarty (Here One Moment) - she wrote Big Little Lies.

What did you think of Here One Moment. I saw it on the lucky day shelf and grabbed it.

Anonymous wrote:Just finished God of the Woods...a little long but I really enjoyed it and read it quickly. I'm now reading The Wedding People and really liking it so far!

+1 I just finished this as well and really enjoyed it. I couldn't put it down at times.

I am going to start The White Book by Han Kang once I can get it

I just finished Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. I am a Sally Rooney fan and I enjoyed it, but I have some complaints. Most of the book is from the perspectives of two brothers, mourning after their dad’s death, and I appreciated the complicated relationship between the brothers. But somewhat weirdly for a female novelist who on the past has written interesting complex female characters, I really had a problem with the women characters in this book, especially the two involved with the older brother, Peter. One is an ex girlfriend of his; they were deeply in love but broke up after she had an accident that left her with chronic pain and (somewhat mysteriously) unable to have penetrative sex, though she is still beautiful, independent, without apparent physical disability, works, presents as basically fine except she goes to the hospital for “treatments” from time to time. The almost Victorian nature of the unexplained “no more sex” dimensions of her condition was bothersome to me as was the mostly unexamined acceptance of the idea that if you can’t do penetration you can’t have a sex life/can’t be in a relationship because it would not be fair to Peter. Plus she was saintly, in ways that seemed a bit ridiculous to me by the conclusion. The other woman in his life is super hot and also fairly saintly in a manic pixie dreamgirl way. I admit that if it were a male author, I might have given up on the book out of annoyance at how these two women were portrayed. So, I enjoyed the book—Sally Rooney is good at what she does—but I want to write a sort of cranky review of it.

Just finished “James” by Percival Everett. I liked it a lot— except I thought the pace sped up a little too wildly at the end. I wanted to sit a little more with some of the happenings at the end of the book and then the plot really sped up and then it was over (trying to be vague here)! Overall, very good, and a cool twist on a classic. But I wanted more.

Trying to decide what to read next.

I am reading Demon Coppwrhead by Barbara Kingsolver. David Copperfield is one of my all-time favorite books ever, and I am loving it so far.