The Second Sleep, by Robert Harris: One million points for the concept and its relation to the title. A good deal fewer for execution, characterization, and resolution. I’m so into the idea here, but the plot dragged before fizzling out and some of the interactions felt very flat. For something similar in feel if not in much else, I would 1000% more highly recommend Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.

Scattered All Over the Earth, by Yoko Tawada: True to its title, this made me think of small bits rising and swirling, coming together and then separating again – not only the characters but the little moments of greatness and surprise. Many of those moments had to do with language, and I appreciated the book more for those than for the sum of its parts. There were a few characterizations that were baffling, and I will die on the hill that the word “anus” was used in translation where I’m certain “tailbone” would have been more accurate!

The Strange Case of Jane O, by Karen Thompson Walker: I really enjoyed this! The strange case is told from the perspective of Jane O’s psychoanalyst and from Jane’s perspective in letters to her baby son. An intriguing mystery box of a novel.

Come and Get It, by Kiley Reid: In the first half, it’s unclear what the story is going to be or if there will really be a plot. There isn’t much of one, but I will say that in spite of that this was enjoyable to read, with sharp observations of small moments and social and power structures. Unfortunately, the ending (after events finally started happening!) fizzled out where it could have benefited from lingering. Still – enjoyable.

Highway Thirteen, by Fiona MacFarlane: I really love Fiona MacFarlane. This linked collection of short stories – which I thoroughly misinterpreted as having been written in the years listed below their titles; the years are intended as the year in which each story is set – hangs from the throughline of an Australian serial killer responsible for at least 12 murders in the 1990s (based on a real case). Each works as a standalone piece, but they’re enhanced by their resonance with one another even though there are no repeated characters (other than the murderer, who is never the primary focus).

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Cue the Sun! by Emily Nussbaum: Such a fun and well-researched read on reality TV, its predecessors, its detractors, and its shifting eras. My only complaint is of the “what’s your biggest weakness? oh, I work too hard” variety – I wished it was longer.

The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley: This was a rollercoaster not in the sense that it had ups and downs or wild turns but in that after I read the last line, I felt both energized and excited and also like I might throw up (that is not a critique). I’ve since read wildly mixed reviews, some of which (from the negative set) seem to stem from having genre expectations (romance, sci-fi) that weren’t satisfied; I went in expecting “fiction” and nothing more delineated, so I had none of those complaints. I thought the dialogue and characterization was fantastic and charming, and the themes/questioning of power, racism, history, empire, and moral relativism perceptive without being didactic (for the most part – there were some brief sections that veered into over-explanation). I wished I “understood” the setup of time-travel better (the initial premise was no problem; later plot points left me lost). Overall, I thought both the writing and the content were excellent.

The Most, by Jessica Anthony: I love a good entry to the “I’m getting in and I’m not coming out” genre (see King Bidgood + bathtub, the Baron + the trees, etc). In this short novel (which also serves as a new addition to the “books that take place in a single day” category), a 1950s housewife gets into the swimming pool at her apartment complex and stays there.

The Other Olympians, by Michael Waters: Very informative examination about non gender-conforming athletes in the 1934 Olympic games (and the surrounding years) – universally, athletes who were AFAB and transitioned after competing in women’s sports – and the connections between the International Olympic Committee (who began the process of gender “confirmation”) and the Nazi party. It was interesting but dry, and I wished it had taken a longer scope and spent more time on modern sports and gender.

The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell: Mixed feelings on this; it was very intriguing, especially since I didn’t realize “Jesuits in space” was a micro-genre and this was my first exposure to it, but it was bogged down by implausible decisions (not even related to the science fiction elements), pacing, and characterization. The plot is unveiled from the beginning and the end, and I thought the book would have dragged less if the results of the mission (in which we learn that a team went to a far-off planet and only one member, Jesuit priest Emilio Sandoz, returned – maimed and traumatized) formed the prologue and the rest of the book moved chronologically instead of returning again and again to Emilio’s interrogation by Jesuit leadership. As for the characters…they felt a bit too perfect, especially Ann, the sorts of people whose “biggest flaws” in a job interview setting would be “I work too hard” and “I care too much.” There was enough that was compelling for me to want to read the sequel, but not enough to put me in a rush to do so.

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Carrie Carolyn Coco, by Sarah Gerard: This is a book with an identity crisis, or one that’s trying to be too many things. In theory, it’s the story of Carolyn’s tragic, seemingly random murder, and I want to weigh in and say I see no issue with the author being more of an acquaintance/distant friend of Carrie – she clearly had Carrie’s family’s support in writing it. But there’s so much backstory – about Carrie, about her sister, about St. Petersburg, Florida – that feels repetitive almost straight away, and isn’t ultimately that interesting. I was much more intrigued by Gerard’s examination of Bard College and its history of sexual assaults and murders, which initially I read about grudgingly (terrible, but not unique to Bard; surely/unfortunately these are issues everywhere) but which I ultimately concluded rose to a much more sinister level than most schools face.

The Last Murder at the End of the World, by Stuart Turton: I found this a bit, well, silly. It read more like YA or even middle grade fiction, with characters that veered into caricatures. The initial premise – an island is surrounded by a killer fog that has destroyed the rest of the world, leaving only ~120 people, one of whom is suddenly murdered – had me eager to begin reading, but this was ultimately not for me. The final few chapters, in particular, had me groaning with their attempts to provide shocking twist after shocking twist – oh! The murder was this person! No, wait – that was a red herring; it was actually this other person! Hang on…everything has just changed – and its saccharine conclusions (but, I think, it would be reasonable for YA or MG…)

The Hypocrite, by Jo Hamya: Ooh. Clever, eviscerating. No character is safe from skewering in this novel about a play about a novel, told in three timelines (perfectly executed, never confusing) and from the perspectives – mainly – of a father (novelist) and daughter (playwright). I felt so much pathos for both characters, unlikeable as they may have been.

The House of My Mother, by Shari Franke: I’m incredibly impressed by Shari Franke and her self-reliance, reflectiveness, and ability to free herself from indoctrination. I’ll be curious to see if her perception of events (not of her mother’s abuse, but possibly about her father’s role/lack of protection and about the LDS church) evolves as she gets older and has more distance from the events (I do understand the rush to publication – but I’d be interested in a Consent-style revisitation).

The Dark Lake, by Sarah Bailey: I’ll pretty much read any mystery set in Australia to chase the high of reading Jane Harper for the first time (The Dry). I did enjoy the small-town setting, but elements of the plot and the main character were awfully overwrought and occasionally offputting.

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The Night Guest, by Fiona McFarlane: Love. I felt protective over the main character, watching her slow-motion destruction in horror while alternately admiring her autonomy and engagement with the world and feeling embarrassed for her. McFarlane is incredibly skilled (I also loved The Sun Walks Down) and I have two of her other books on hold.

Same As It Ever Was, by Claire Lombardo: While this didn’t quite hit me the same way The Most Fun We Ever Had did (it felt more balanced, and also more, well, fun), I didn’t mind the narrator or other unlikeable characters at all, and I thought it was a great addition to the genre of “complicated and sprawling family novels.” It did read somewhat like two books welded together, though – halfway through I couldn’t imagine what the rest of the plot would be (it felt resolved) yet somehow the reveal, by the time it came, felt predictable.

Burntcoat, by Sarah Hall: I liked the premise more than the book – an artist who creates massive sculptures out of scrap metal and found objects cloisters herself inside of her giant studio/home with a lover during an outbreak of a deadly disease – and I loved the descriptions of her commissions. I could have done with 75% less description of all the sex she had during their quarantine; it got to the point of tedium.

Consent, by Jill Ciment: I haven’t read Ciment’s memoir, which this book interrogates, but there were enough excerpts from it here that I didn’t feel I lacked context. Consent is an examination of Ciment’s marriage to a much older man, which began as an affair when she was a teenager and which she wrote about positively in her mid-life memoir. I found Consent both provocative and generous; it was also unbelievably sad in its depictions of old age and death. I wished it was a longer, more detailed reconstruction of her earlier memoir – I would have read more.

Dengue Boy, by Michael Nieva: When I imagine describing this to someone, I find myself thinking What a romp. Climate destruction, body horror, the threat of destruction by machines and apathy…gross and hilarious and sometimes horrifying.

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(Read in the second half of January and most of February)

Hidden Pictures, by Jason Rekulak: Ugh. I’ve seen some criticism of this book as “well-written but problematic,” but…I also did not find it well-written. It felt very caricatured, random, and young. It also included an incredibly insulting portrayal of a woman who had struggled with infertility (I don’t want to spoil any good books, so I’ll just say that I know from past reading experience that it is possible to write about this – even to the point of having someone kidnap a baby – in a sensitive way. This was not that.)

Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera: This also read more like YA to me, and the voice was very cloying, but due to personal circumstances at the time, I didn’t have interest in something more serious.

We Used to Live Here, by Marcus Kliewer: Continuing with horror-lite…it was fine. Effectively creepy.

11/22/63, by Stephen King: I think the only other Stephen King novel I’ve read is the curséd car story Christine, which I picked up while traveling alone in Laos in the days before Kindles when the only sources of new books were hostel common spaces. This was very enjoyable, so it was nice that it was 800+ pages long. I looked forward to sinking into it every night.

Dark Wire, by Joseph Cox: I didn’t know this story – a multi-nation sting operation targeting drug cartels via their supposedly secure phones (which were secretly being not merely tapped but actually run by the FBI and other organizations after they arrested the owner of the phone company). I had a hard time staying engaged with it, but that may have been more a product of my mindset at the time than of the book.

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(Read during the first half of January)

Hum, by Helen Phillips: I would live inside Helen Phillips’ brain if I could. The Need was my favorite book of 2019, and how lovely to start 2025 with Hum. I feel this way even though the book is quite bleak, because every moment Phillips creates – and so often those moments add up to death by a thousand paper cuts – is so precisely accurate to the world today (or at least how I feel about it).

All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker: Epic, sweeping – not always plausible, sure, and at times I lost track of all the characters, but overall an extremely satisfying read. It flew by for being 500+ pages.

Hell Gate Bridge, by Barrie Miskin: It was harrowing to read about the symptoms of dissociation and suicidal ideation that Miskin experienced, which were related to but not directly caused by her pregnancy (in the sense that her symptoms likely arose from withdrawal of medication rather than from pregnancy itself). I cannot imagine going through something like that and felt very grateful that zoloft is not contraindicated in pregnancy.

Several People Are Typing, by Calvin Kasulke: A fantastic conceit, and often very funny, but for me it didn’t ultimately move beyond “fantastic conceit” into “fantastic book.” I kept thinking it must be under 20,000 words, but I think it’s more like 35,000 – just felt so slight.

The Devil at His Elbow, by Valerie Bauerlein: I had heard minimally about the Murdaugh murders (trailer on Netflix, etc) but I didn’t know much – good lord, what reprehensible people. Utterly terrifying to read about Alex Murdaugh and the outsize influence he had on every legal and judicial system in his county. Even more terrifying to know that there are others like him who wield even more influence over even more people.

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The Other Valley, by Scott Alexander Howard: Very lovely time-travel narrative that didn’t feel as if it relied too heavily on the conceit, even though the plot wouldn’t have existed without it. I’ve heard comparisons to The Giver and don’t disagree, though I don’t think it reads like YA. The setting felt very specific and complete even though we don’t know what continent we’re on (I kept feeling like we were in France or some kind of French outpost, given some of the language, descriptions of the trees, and characters names) or what time period we’re in. I will say that while the ending made sense to me, some of the initial descriptions of what happens when someone “meets” herself in a different valley felt like they contradicted one another, but it was easy to suspend disbelief in spite of that.

The Achilles Trap, by Steve Coll: A very in-depth look into Saddam Hussein’s rule, the question of whether Iraq had biological/atomic/chemical weapons, and the extreme messiness that can result from shifting international alliances, lack of understanding of what’s motivating someone, and proposing one thing publicly but another secretly. Glad I read it, but it did move very slowly and sometimes suffered from too much detail.

Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer: When I saw this recommended as strong apocalyptic YA, the author’s name tugged at my brain for a few days before I caved, Googled, and found that I had indeed read several of her (40+!) books from the 70s and 80s! April Upstairs, Darcy Downstairs, Kid Power…one of those authors who wasn’t ever a household name but was incredibly prolific (and, I would bet, did some ghostwriting for popular series). This was…bleak. I’m not sure why it struck me as so much bleaker than any other YA dystopia I’ve read; maybe it felt too realistic (the ensuing events, at least – less so the asteroid knocking the moon closer to Earth). Or maybe I would have loved it when I was an actual YA reader, but the events – outside of the inciting one – felt too plausible.

Poor Things, by Alasdair Gray: While its obvious antecedent is Frankenstein, this struck me as the (patched together, reanimated, etc etc) child of Tristram Shandy and I am Lucy Barton. Tonally, mostly – the earnestness of Lucy Barton with the sharp wit of Shandy. I found it wildly entertaining.

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What Happened to Nina, by Dervla McTiernan: This was extremely hard to put down at night – very propulsive. I thought the style – from the multiple perspectives to the short chapters to the spare prose – served the story well, although I was frustrated by the ending.

Some People Need Killing, by Patricia Evangelista: A must read – I didn’t know enough about Duterte or his regime in the Philipines, and Evangelista both crafts a strong work of journalism AND includes linguistic digressions that I am the exact audience for. Really devastating.

Big Swiss, by Jen Beagin: I was screaming in shock and hilarity half of the time I was reading this. I should note that I don’t read romance or “spicy” books so the sex scenes were A LOT to digest, but how great this was. Unbelievably funny and also sad, with truly unique characters.

Without You, There is No Us, by Suki Kim: I loved this memoir/journalism of a woman who taught English in North Korea for six months by posing as a missionary. The book is a case of great subject matter + great writing, a combination rarer than it should be. It was somewhat jarring to read this and then…

Nuclear War, by Annie Jacobsen: This is nonfiction but explores a hypothetical scenario in which North Korea initiates nuclear war by attacking Washington DC. It was both terrifying and hokey (which, unfortunately, didn’t make it less terrifying), and I probably shouldn’t have read it, but…I’m not good at self care? I kept thinking about Without You, There is No Us as I read.

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From October and part of November.

The Sleepwalkers, by Scarlett Thomas: I was aghast – generally in a positive way, for the book and writing if not the characters – by the events in this novel. Thomas does an impeccable job demonstrating how trapped the narrator feels and how easy it can be to question your own perceptions.

North Woods, by Daniel Mason: I started this, got bored, wasn’t ready to call it more than a conceit/excuse to write in different styles – but after restarting it I found it really took off after the first third or so. I’d like to read it again, actually, now that I know the scope of the whole story (though I might skip the hunting songs and odes this time).

Under the Bridge, by Rebecca Godfrey: I had tried watching this on Hulu, got distracted, decided I would rather read the book (definitely the right decision). I’m still curious about the entire plot-line they added to the show, but not sure I’m curious enough to keep watching. This was a baffling crime (or not, as Godfrey spends the book explaining the circumstances…nope, still baffling) and sad to read about.

Ascension, by Nicholas Binge: Alas, this was a dud on all counts – plotting, writing, dialogue.

The Singularity, by Dino Buzzati: This, on the other hand, is an amazing example of early science fiction dealing with artificial intelligence, deceptively funny and also incredibly modern feeling. The eeriness Buzzati captures is affecting.

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I am VERY behind on these – this set is from the end of August through early October.

Whalefall, by Daniel Kraus: So much of this was ridiculous, and the prose veered very purple, but damn I have to hand it to the author for coming up with this conceit – a modern-day Jonah, basically – and sticking with it in the most comparatively realistic way possible.

The Garden, by Clare Beams: I loved The Illness Lesson and read this with interest but was ultimately not blown away by the plot or ideas. I liked that the main character was prickly, but for a premise with so much potential the story didn’t really pan out.

The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore: Heard many things about this before reading it; I kept trying to figure out if the dual timelines were really necessary, but they also didn’t bother or confuse me, so why question it? The Judyta sections were the most compelling and I thought Moore generally stuck the landing (more so, in my opinion, in the 1970s storyline than the earlier one). I did question a few characters’ motives in framing people…

The Cemetery of Untold Stories, by Julia Alvarez: I expected this to literally be a set of unfinished stories, perhaps held together by some minimal framework (and I was already jealous of this concept), but it was much more developed than that, with the actual cemetery a part of a larger story. None of the “untold stories” felt incomplete or forced together.

I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman: This one gave me some existential dread. Very compact and also claustrophobic. I wished more had been explained, even though I know that wasn’t the point.

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