“Five Tuesdays in Winter” by Lily King

Here’s another one from my recent buying spree. I read and enjoyed King’s Euphoria a while back, and bought (but inexplicably still haven’t read) her Writers and Lovers, so it wasn’t a leap to assume I would also like her new book of short stories. And there’s a statement at the top of the front cover that confirmed it for me: “I loved this book.” Who said it? None other than Anne Patchett!

This is a book of 10 unrelated short stories that showcase King’s range in their wide variation of characters and setting. Whereas typical short stories may be like a full novel in compressed form, most of these stories seem as if they could appear as a chapter in a novel. With the exception of the last story (“The Man at the Door”) they all feel vividly real; the last story is still vivid, but adds shades of the surreal. I love this sort of book, where the writing is impeccable and I can disappear into the story (or stories). 

“Brood” by Jackie Polzin

Remember how I said I’d recently gone on a spree and ended up buying about 11 new books? It was kind of Sam’s idea. Sam wanted something new to read for our upcoming vacation (which has now become our current vacation). What he really wanted was something like Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, or Bellman & Black (the connection not the ampersand in the title, but the bigness, awesomeness and fun. Not exactly how Sam described it, but close enough).

How do you go about finding big, awesome, fun new books? Here was my method. I wrote a list of our favorite authors, then looked online to see if they had any new books out. Most of them did not, but the internet is nothing if not good for “if you like this, then you’ll like that” suggestions, and while I don’t specifically remember what led me to Brood, the internet was right. I liked it. 

Polzin’s writing reminded me of several authors I’ve read (and enjoyed) recently. It was like Sarah Moss, or like Rachel Cusk (albeit without the intelligent and soul-baring conversations with strangers). It was like Nell Zink, but more The Wallcreeper than Nicotine.  It was simple, calm and quiet, but also powerful. 

Brood is narrated by a married woman with a flock of four chickens. (I have chickens, so this drew me to the book, but for Sam—who appreciates the eggs but not the hens—a storyline involving chickens was not a plus.) The chickens, and the narrator’s quest to keep them alive, are a major thread throughout the book, but other parts of her life (her relationships with her husband Percy, her mother, her best friend Helen, her non-existent children) are woven in as well. 

Here are four random things I want to mention about this book. 

1. I love its size. This is one of those smaller-than-usual books that fit so nicely in my hand. 

2. All of the writing was great except at the very beginning. In the first three pages we are introduced to Helen, who asked such odd questions about the hens that the only explanation that made sense to me was that Helen must be a child. (She was not.) This, to me, was the only false step, which kept me outside of the story, but not for long. The rest of the writing was great.

3. This was not a funny book, but it made me laugh out loud at least three times. However, when I read these things aloud to Sam, he did not even crack a smile. Hm.

3a. One of these three things was about the raccoon with a briefcase. Percy prefaced the scene by saying, “You’re not going to believe this.” And he was right. I didn’t believe it. It must have been intended literally, since everything else in the book was as well, but it was a little too fantastic. Could it actually have happened to the author? If it didn’t actually happen, I can’t believe it would happen.

4. About 3/4 of the way through this book, the author bio caught my eye, and I saw that she has children. Sam says this was an overreaction on my part, but I almost felt betrayed, having assumed that the book was heavily autobiographical and thus that the author was as childless as the narrator. Looking at this in a positive light: I love when authors are able to make books seem so real that I believe they are real. 

“Notes on an Execution” by Danya Kukafka

I found this book through one of those Buzzfeed articles that so often convinces me to waste time. The article in question was a compilation of the best first lines of books (see here, if you're curious), which means it was an article more worthy of reading than is typical for Buzzfeed, although most of the lines mentioned were either from books I'd already read, or they did not grab me. This one… well, tbh the lines quoted seemed more inscrutable than amazing, but they did pique my curiosity, and I recognized the author's name from when I read and enjoyed her previous book, Girl in Snow. So I gave this new one a go.

And it was definitely a good choice! This is the story of Ansel Packer, abandoned by his parents at the age of 4 and raised in the foster system, who at age 17 goes through a brief stage of killing girls before settling down to a more acceptable existence with his future wife. The story leaps nimbly from death row to Ansel’s childhood and everything in between, told mostly from the perspective of Ansel’s mother and wife, plus the detective working the case of the murdered girls. While at times the story was unsettling, it was always very compelling.

Despite my enjoyment of the reading experience, I do have one complaint about the book. While I am aware that conventional wisdom disparages the use of adverbs in writing, surely this doesn’t mean we need to eschew them entirely? The first few times an adjective was conspicuously used where tradition indicated an adverb, it seemed quirky and experimental (in a good way), but the more often it happened, the more annoying and pretentious it seemed. Like, if it had only been done two or three times, it would have seemed like a positive, even impressive, thing. Or maybe if it was only used in relation to a single one of the narrators? But by the time I noticed it was happening every ten pages or so (fingers twitching nervous, dangling graceless, averted uncomfortable, the air tinged lavish…) the lack of ly was sticking out like a sore thumb and was definitely rubbing me the wrong way. 

But that’s the worst thing (in fact, probably the only bad thing!) I have to say about this book. 

“What Alice Forgot” by Liane Moriarty

The spell has broken. After having enjoyed the Nine Perfect Strangers TV series and the books Apples Never Fall and Big Little Lies, this one missed the mark for me. It was just so . .  . silly. I mean of course I like to have fun while I read! But this book felt like it was firmly in the Chick Lit category which I always suspected Moriarty's books belonged in, and which I typically can't stomach (even if I can't explain why). 

What Alice Forgot is the story of Alice Love, a soon-to-be forty-year-old mom of three, who comes to on the gym floor thinking it is 1998 instead of 2008. She remembers her first thirty years of life perfectly normally, but it's as if the bump on her head knocked the past decade right out of her memory. Her children are strangers to her, and what's this? She and her husband have separated? AND she's in charge of Mega Meringue Day, which will put the local school in the Guinness Book of World Records? Ahahaha lol blech. 

I think I have reached the point where I’ve read enough of this author’s books. To be fair . . . I really enjoyed her other stories, and possibly my enjoyment increased with their chronological releases? (Like, I've enjoyed the newest one the most, etc.) I could be wrong but it seems like the books have become more clever as they've gone along, and it's the cleverness that draws me in and that makes me more accepting of the Chicky-Litty aspects. Also, maybe I had some personal issues with this book? For instance, the thought of getting back together with my ex makes me gag. And the idea of my best friends being a couple named Mike and Gina is laughable (inside joke). But my gut instinct is currently telling me to move on. 

And part of the reason I need to move on is because I have too many other books I want to read more. Actually I know just exactly how many unread books I have in my house at the moment (and I think I might possibly have ordered eleven more yesterday . . . ?) thanks to something super cool: my favorite new app, BookBuddy. (And I don't even get any kind of compensation for telling you about it, but I'm telling you about it anyway. That's how much I love it.) I have scanned all of the books I own into this app, and it's like my own little super-useful digital card catalog. I can see how many are read, unread, or being read; I can view them by author, or by title, or by genre (and then some); I can mark books as favorites or "loaned out"; I can search for books by key word, title, author. Using this app I even discovered I unintentionally had a half dozen or so duplicate copies of books! Anyway, if you are a reading this blog I assume you are a reader, and I just thought you might appreciate this app as much as I do. 

“Big Little Lies” by Liane Moriarty

During our most recent foray into Half Price Books, Sam discovered two more Liane Moriarty books for me. (I really enjoyed watching her Nine Perfect Strangers TV series, and I had fun reading Apples Never Fall. Both stories were suspenseful and engaging and tightly plotted and peopled with interesting characters and maybe a little bit fluffy but so much fun that the fluffiness was entirely palatable.) So Sam was right in suspecting that I would like more Moriarty books. 

And Big Little Lies was just as fun! I’m not sure what sets Moriarty’s stories apart from the women’s fiction or Chick Lit or beach reads that I typically scorn (maybe nothing?) but somehow they go down easy and don’t leave me feeling ill and remorseful. 

BLL has a huge cast of characters, most of whom have a kindergartner starting at Pirriwee Public. There’s a lot of drama going on, both among the kids and their parents, and from the very beginning we know that someone is going to die on Trivia Night, but we don’t know who or how or why. 

Moriarty really manages to balance the lighthearted and the serious in a way that the novel I read just before this one, which I can now see was heavy-handed, did not. As I read BLL I became interested in the characters; in the previous book I felt like I was being forced to care, which did not work. 

We just started watching the BLL TV series last night. So far it's not as good as the book, but it's good enough that I plan to keep watching.