What I've Read This Spring | 2019

Another season has come and gone and boy have I been reading a lot the past couple of months! Luckily, I’ve had some time off during the spring, which gave me a lot more time to read than I usually have when I’m in my usual work routine. I’ve read quite a variety of books over the past few months, some great some not so great, but overall I’m happy to keep my 2019 reading goal chugging along as planned!

Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life by Jenny Boully ~ I was at a point earlier this year where I was facing an intense bought of writer’s block and just generally feeling uninspired and not creative. Not only are these bouts of writer’s block annoying from the perspective of being productive, but they also coincide with me feeling like I’m not completely myself. Jenny Boully a writer and professor and while this book is about the writing process, it’s not a how to on being a writer. She explores so many different aspects of being a creative throughout the essays in this book, that I found incredibly inspiring, however, unlike a lot of self-help books, this collection of essays felt down-to-Earth and relatable.

China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan ~ While I was on vacation in Tahoe in March, I brought along the second book in the Crazy Rich Asians series, China Rich Girlfriend, for a fun, easy holiday read. I loved the first book in the series, however the second book left quite a bit to be desired. It included all of the opulence and humor that I loved in the first book, however the plot of this book was far less put together than the first book. I really liked most of the characters in the first book, but the second book, with its convoluted plot, made me really dislike certain characters. Despite the negative review of the second, I will definitely read the third book in the series, because I hear it’s much better than the second!

The Push by Tommy Caldwell ~ After reading China Rich Girlfriend I craved reading something with a bit more substance. Deciding to read The Push also coincided with my getting into rock climbing. Tommy Caldwell is by far one of the best and most accomplished rock climbers of all time. In the book, Tommy Caldwell writes about his childhood and his entire rock climbing career, throughout which he has experienced some major setbacks (including being held hostage while on an expedition and losing an index finger). The story culminates in Tommy’s landmark first free ascent of the Dawn Wall on El Cap in Yosemite, which was one of the most impressive feats in big wall climbing ever. I absolutely loved this book not only because of the inspiring nature of his story but also, because as an amateur climber, there’s a lot to be learned from Tommy Caldwell’s career.

Alone on the Wall by Alex Honnold ~ I obviously liked the climbing books this spring! After finishing The Push, my boyfriend recommended I read Alex Honnold’s book, Alone on the Wall. I was super excited to read this book because I had just watched Free Solo, which if you haven’t watched already, you must! I definitely preferred Tommy Caldwell’s book to Alex Honnold’s mainly because of the writing. Alex had a collaborator, David Roberts, who wrote part of the book. I understand the need to have another voice in this book, mainly because Alex is very cavalier about a lot of the things he’s climbed and you need another person’s perspective to portray the scope of his accomplishments. On the flip side, it wouldn’t have worked to have someone write about Alex’s climbing because free soloing is such an intensely personal experience that you need to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. I did like how clear they make it when it is Alex or David writing, however because it is two very different voices jumping back and forth, the book doesn’t read as smoothly as it would if it were just coming from a singular author.

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney ~ After hearing loads about Sally Rooney’s books, I finally found her first book in my local bookshop and promptly scooped it up. I really loved this book for a multitude of reasons. For one, there’s something about Sally Rooney’s writing that is both incredibly beautiful yet easy to understand. The book is about two friends with a somewhat tumultuous and complicated relationship. One of the girls, Frances becomes involved with a married man and conflict amongst the two friends arises. I absolutely loved how Rooney portrays female friendships with complexity and depth that is so often left out of novels with strong female characters.

Sex & Rage by Eve Babitz ~ I read this book while I was on a work trip to LA, and it was the perfect place to read it! This book is about a woman named Jacaranda, who grew up in LA and begins to run in a very artsy, influential group of friends. She gets tired of the vapidness of her friends, who are more interested in using each other for their own personal gain than anything else, and moves to New York to pursue a career in writing. While she tries to escape all of the toxic people in LA, she comes to find that they follow her wherever she goes. Overall I liked this book quite a bit, more for the writing than the plot though. The plot wasn’t bad but the book is written in a very dream-like stream-of-consciousness style, which isn’t always everyone’s cup of tea.

What I've Read This Winter | 2019

Although I somewhat neglected reading back in the fall, mainly down to being far too busy to read loads during my free time, I have taken advantage of this slower period of the year to really focus on reading more rather than just turning on the TV or watching YouTube endlessly. I have to say, although I’ve always been an avid reader, I haven’t enjoyed reading nearly as much as I have in the past couple of months. Technically some of these books that I mention in this post were ones I read during the fall, but there weren’t quite enough to warrant writing a whole blog post on.

A History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund ~ This book is all about a young teenage girl, named Linda, who is somewhat of an outsider at her school. The story is written from Linda’s perspective, as she is looking back on her adolescent years and the events that would go on to radically alter her life as an adult. The major plot line revolves around Linda befriending a young family who lives across the lake from her family’s home, which so happens to be on an abandoned commune. As she gets to know the family more, she uncovers secrets about the family that end up having serious negative consequences. Although it sounds like a thriller, this book is an amazing blend of genres and is definitely worth a read!

The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani ~ After hearing some rave reviews of this book I decided that this would be the perfect book to get my 2019 reading challenge started (I’m trying to read 30 books by the end of this year). The book is loosely based on a true story about a nanny in New York City who murdered the two children she had looked after. The Perfect Nanny is set in Paris, France and follows a young family who is going through growing pains. The mother, Myriam, decides to hire a nanny after making the decision to resume her career as a lawyer after taking a few years off to take care of her two young children. While the topic is incredibly gruesome, the majority of this book is spent exploring the dynamic of the family, the relationship between Myriam and the nanny Louise, and the complexities of being a mother trying to “have it all”. I read this book in about a day and it is a great one if you want to have something easy, yet compelling to read.

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates ~ After reading quite a bit of fiction, I was ready to break things up by reading non-fiction, specifically essays. I had read some of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ essays in The Atlantic, but had never read any of his books. We Were Eight Years in Power is a collection of eight essays, each one written during the eight years of the Obama Administration. While all of these essays were written during the Obama Administration, they are not all about Obama, but rather racial inequality and institutionalized racism in general. As someone who majored in history and who spent a great deal of time studying the various Civil Rights Movements as well as the structure of institutionalized racism within the framework of US History, I found this book to be incredibly well-written and researched. This is not a light or easy read by any stretch of the imagination, but it is an incredibly important book about a topic that requires so much more attention than it gets.

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan ~ After watching the movie, Crazy Rich Asians, I had to read the book! Part of the reason why I put off reading the book (and watching the movie for that matter), was because there was so much hype around it and I was skeptical if it was really that good, especially considering I’m not usually one to read romance-based books. I will definitely be reading the rest of the Crazy Rich Asians series in the next few months because the first book was so fun and so easy to read. It is definitely not a “romance” novel, but rather a story about family, relationships, money, and cultural differences.

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou ~ Last but certainly not least is Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, which is a book about the ill-fated blood-testing startup Theranos and it’s founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes. I have been fascinated with the story of Theranos, and since I live in the Bay Area, the buzz about the company was definitely palpable here. There were constant news stories about the company potentially revolutionize the health care industry and raising billions of dollars in the matter of a few years. Not surprisingly, it was all far too good to be true. The book was written by the journalist who wrote the Wall Street Journal article that began to create a lot of the speculation regarding the legitimacy of the company and its claims. The lengths Holmes was willing to go to make her company work are incredibly disturbing and make for a page-turning read. Although I know almost nothing about biotechnology or blood testing, the book was incredibly interesting and Carreyrou makes industry jargon easy to understand to the average reader.

What I Read This Summer

I have to admit, I wasn’t as good with reading a book every single month this summer. I’ve still managed to keep my promise of reading 12 books by the end of 2018, but there were definitely months this summer that I was just too busy to put my head down and actually get some reading done. I foresee myself reading a lot more as we get into Fall since the evenings will be longer and my daily routine will slow down considerably.

Eventide by Therese Bohman ~ I absolutely loved reading Eventide! It was a book that I had never heard of, however I saw that one of my friend’s was reading it, inquired about it, and was sold when she told me what it was about. The story follows Karolina Anderson, who is a middle-aged unmarried Art History professor in Sweden. The novel is narrated by Karolina, who has just ended an unfulfilling long-term relationship and who finds herself drawn to one of her PhD students. Although the premise is somewhat clichéd, the writing and the details of the story are anything but. So much of the book is spent on Karolina’s inner thoughts and flashbacks, which are then connected to her work as a scholar. Being someone who spent a lot of their degree focusing on both Art History and gender theory, this book was incredibly interesting, however I don’t think it would be an alienating read for those who are not as familiar with either topic.

The Multi-Hyphen Method by Emma Gannon ~ I have to say this book was a bit of a let-down. I really like Emma Gannon and the work that she does, however this book was not at all what I was hoping it would be. I thought it would be much more about how to construct a freelance career and the inner-workings of wearing different hats in your career, but so much of the book was spent regurgitating studies about how many people have side-hustles. So many of the points made in this book were painfully obvious and not original, that I don’t think I learned much from it in the end.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh ~ Ok, so I’ll admit I’m cheating a bit by including this book in this season’s roundup because I’m not quite finished with it. I thought I’d include it because I’m nearly finished with it and already formed a pretty solid opinion on it, and it’s hugely positive. The book is about a twenty-something girl who’s been left a hefty inheritance by her late parents, and proceeds to, as the book would suggest, spend a year “resting”. I use the word “rest” in quotation marks because she spends the better part of a year in a narcotics-induced hibernation as a way to escape from the stresses of dealing with the outside world. Although the premise sounds bleak, the book is peppered with a lot of dark comedy and nuanced commentary on both mental health and the struggles of being a woman in her early twenties.

What I've Read This Spring

I've been quite the reading machine the past couple of months. I've been trying really hard to cut back on my Netflix streaming and screens in general and been spending more of my down time reading. Making the shift away from scrolling through Instagram endlessly or mindlessly watching Netflix for hours on end has massively helped with my general mental well-being, as it helps me to decompress in a much more conscious way. Rambling aside, here are the books I've read over the last season. 

The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair ~ This one was definitely of a light, fun read, which was much needed seeing as the books I had read prior were pretty meaty. As a lover of history and color theory this book was super interesting. The book goes through some of the most famous and interesting colors produced and tells the story of how they were made and the historical significance they have. This is a really great book if you just want something to dip in and out of on vacation. I also loved that while it is a kind of nerdy book, it would be very easy to read and understand if you weren’t very well-versed in world history or color theory. 

Autumn by Ali Smith ~ I had heard a lot about Autum prior to reading this book and was thoroughly interested in the plot line. The book largely centers around the relationship between Daniel Gluck, an elderly man, and Elizabeth Demand, a 20-something woman, who have been friends and neighbors since Elizabeth was around 12 and how their lives are affected living in post-Brexit England. This is definitely a book I foresee myself re-reading in a couple of years time not only to have more perspective on Brexit itself, but also because Ali Smith writes in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way that lends itself to being re-read. 

Himself by Jess Kidd ~ I love true crime but can’t say I’m as much of a fan of mystery or crime novels. However I absolutely loved reading Himself by Jess Kidd. This book was definitely a bit of a slow burner for me, especially because I was reading it during a particularly busy month, but by the last 150 pages or so I was absolutely devouring the book, reading 50-60 pages at a time. The book is about Mahoney, an orphan, who makes his way back to his small west coast Irish hometown from Dublin as an adult to find out what happened to his mother. There is a strong likelihood that his mother was murdered shortly after he was born, but he has no way of knowing for sure. The book is not only a mystery, but also explores the inner-workings of a very old, tight-knit Irish community with a lot of secrets. 

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado ~ I heard about this book because of the Belletrist book club pick of the month several months ago. Every couple of months I like reading a book of short stories or essays just to break things up a bit and I’m really glad I finally got into reading this book. Some of the stories are somewhat futuristic and even take a slight surrealist tone. At their core though, every story revolves around the struggles women face on a day-to-day basis, especially those struggles related to female bodies and the trauma that female bodies often endure. This definitely isn’t a light read, but is incredibly rewarding.