August 2024 Reading Round Up
The best and worst of my reading month
Welcome to the August 2024 Reading Round-Up. Each month I write about the books I’ve read and rank them from worst to best.
8. Mr. Texas - Lawrence Wright
Fiction, 315 pages
It feels a bit misleading to include on the cover of Mr. Texas the words “winner of the Pulitzer Prize,” when this book won nothing of the sort. Lawrence Wright did indeed win the Pulitzer Prize, but it was in 2007 for a non-fiction book about 9/11 and Al-Qaeda. The qualities that garnered him the prize for that piece of reporting were not present in Wright’s foray into fiction, which was filled with preachy expository paragraphs and stilted dialogue. Billed as a satire, Mr. Texas follows Sonny Lamb as he makes his improbable entrance into politics after he goes viral rescuing a cow from a burning barn and a lobbyist taps him to run for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives. The art of politics, particularly in the Texas legislature, is a lot for Sonny to adjust to as he navigates his own beliefs with the wheeling and dealing of ideologues and power-interested representatives. There will be scandal, (unbelievable) affairs, and moral reckonings, all of which could have made for an interesting book, but didn’t fully come together for this one.
Rating: 6/10
7. I Hope This Finds You Well - Natalie Sue
Fiction, 333 pages
Jolene hates her job working as an administrative assistant at the corporate headquarters of a superstore chain. She keeps to herself because she loathes her coworkers and counts down the minutes until she can go home to her apartment, drink herself to sleep, and avoid her mother’s attempts to intervene. When she gets in trouble for emailing a coworker an unkind message, her boss changes the monitoring settings on her computer so that they can keep a better eye on her, which unbeknownst to management, results in accidentally giving Jolene the ability to monitor everyone else. With newfound access to everyone’s private communication, including some decidedly negative messages about her, Jolene decides to use the information to her advantage to win allies and keep her job. Along the way, however, Jolene discovers that the preconceived notions that she had regarding her coworkers may have been unjustly formed when she realizes that everyone has problems beneath the surface.
I thought that the concept of the book had much more potential than its ultimate execution. What could have been a biting satire of workplace culture turned into a morality tale with less than stellar writing. In addition, I felt that the author was trying to do too much by adding in a potential romantic interest, a traumatic personal backstory, and unbelievable flashpoints to heighten the drama. I would have liked to see more use of Jolene’s newfound x-ray vision to move the story forward, which instead was underutilized as an ancillary device to the rest of the many plot points in this novel.
Rating: 6.5/10
6. Little Monsters - Adrienne Brodeur
Fiction, 304 pages
As Adam’s 70th birthday approaches, Adam prepares for the world as he knows it to change. A renowned marine biologist who lives with bipolar disorder, Adam decides that the only way for him to make the scientific breakthrough that he has been working on for his entire career is to gradually stop taking his medicine. His daughter Abby, an artist in her mid-thirties who lives nearby, notices the telltale signs of a manic episode almost immediately. Her warnings go unacknowledged by her brother Ken, who is too caught up in his picture-perfect life as a real estate developer weighing a congressional run. Each family member believes that they have been wronged by the others and tensions simmer over the course of the summer until everything comes to a head at Adam’s birthday party.
I picked up this book while in a bookstore in San Francisco expecting a slightly more literary novel, but instead got a book well-suited for vacation. While the themes are heavy, Brodeur keeps the story moving, resulting in a book that exists somewhat awkwardly between literary and commercial fiction. I enjoyed the book for what it was, but don’t think it’s going to stay with me for very long.
Rating: 7/10
5. Big Swiss - Jen Beagin
Fiction, 352 pages
After breaking up with her fiancé of nearly a decade, Greta, in her early forties, decides to move across the country to Hudson, New York, where she rents a room in the decaying home of her friend Sabine. Hudson, already a small town where everyone knows everything about everybody, becomes even smaller for Greta once she is hired by a local sex therapist to transcribe his sessions. Although his patients are only identified in the recordings by their initials, it is not hard for Greta to figure out who is who when she encounters them in town and hears their voices. One client, a young married woman attending therapy to prepare for the release from prison of someone who attacked her years before, sparks Greta’s interest. Greta nicknames her Big Swiss and quickly becomes obsessed, a feeling that is heightened after she recognizes her voice at the dog park and befriends her under a pseudonym. What was meant to be an innocuous friendship fueled by Greta’s insatiable curiosity turns into a romantic affair. In too deep to break it off, Greta struggles to keep track of the lies she’s told and the information she already knows from Big Swiss’ private therapy.
Greta is a singular character whose living circumstances and background border on the absurd. I believe this was, however, Beagin’s goal, and she writes Greta to tremendous effect. Fair warning that, in a book about a sex therapist, the scenes can be graphic. I also thought that the story could be about fifty pages shorter. Otherwise, Big Swiss was a unique story told with a unique voice and translated particularly well on audio.
Rating: 8/10
4. Women and Children First - Alina Grabowski
Fiction, 336 pages
When a teenager dies at a party right before the school year ends, the small, struggling town of Nashquitten, Massachusetts absorbs the loss in an effort to avoid collective culpability. Underneath the surface, however, questions remain as to how Lucy died. Did she jump? Was she pushed? Did her school fail her? Her friends? Her parents? The tragedy is told through the lens of ten different women in the community, starting with five perspectives leading up to the death and ending with five people coping with the loss. Not every woman was close with Lucy. For example, in one chapter a woman visiting her mother in the hospital happens to get in the elevator with Lucy’s father as he is deep in the throes of grief. Others, however, are undeniably affected, like Lucy’s best friend who thinks that if she had only been at the party she could have saved her. My favorite parts of the book were the descriptions of the decaying town and the elements of community. However, I felt like the drama was sometimes misplaced, such as a subplot involving a young teacher sleeping with a student that was never tied into the larger plot. I also thought that while the structure was creative, the author wasn’t fully able to pull off ten distinct narrative voices. Otherwise, I found the book to be a solid, compelling debut.
Rating: 8/10
3. The Alternatives - Caoilinn Hughes
Fiction, 352 pages
The four Flattery sisters are all in their thirties, all unmarried, and all possessors of PhDs in different academic fields. They have been a unit their whole lives, solidified by the tragic death of their parents that forced Olwen, the eldest, into a parental role before she turned eighteen. Now, however, they have grown apart, some by circumstance and some by choice. When Olwen, a geologist unable to close her eyes to damage wrought by climate change, suddenly drops off the map, her three sisters reunite to find her. While this could have been the central focus of the plot, finding Olwen does not take very long. Instead, the meat of the story takes place once the sisters converge on Olwen’s hiding spot: a cabin in a rural area of Ireland not far from the border. The sisters’ reunion is permeated by Olwen’s omnipresent sense of impending doom, forcing the four to confront their relationships with one another and the world around them.
It’s abundantly clear from the first page that Hughes is not just a talented writer but deeply smart in her own right. The fact that each of the sisters have a PhD is not just a detail, each degree is fleshed out and ingrained in the sisters’ personalities and thinking, which obviously required a lot of research and processing on the part of the author. Midway through the novel, the structure shifts to the script of a play, then back to traditional narrative, then back to the second act of the play. While I appreciated The Alternatives for its structure and the quality of the writing, it missed out on a perfect 10/10 because when I think about a book I will remember in detail by the end of the year, I’m not sure this one will make the cut. I will, however, recommend it now eagerly; this is a unique story told by an author with a tremendous amount of talent and a capacity to write about characters who I cared about deeply.
Rating: 9/10
2. Company - Shannon Sanders
Fiction/Short Stories, 190 pages
Company is a first-class multigenerational saga of a Black family told through thirteen linked short stories. Sanders provides a family tree at the beginning of the book that I referred back to as I started each story so that I could be sure I understood how everyone was connected in this near-genius work of family, friendship, and growth. In the first story, two brothers return home to evict their mother’s boyfriend. In another, the brothers’ aunt attends a party with her nieces to celebrate her appointment as university provost after she is unable to convince either of her children to attend. In another, a cousin hosts his cousin in his apartment in D.C. while he is in town for a drag show. Each of the thirteen stories adds a layer to the family’s narrative, creating a depth and beauty that sets this collection apart. The writing in this book is so good that it is hard to believe this is Sanders’ debut. It takes pure skill to give so many characters life in such a believable and compelling manner, but Sanders pulls it off in stunning fashion.
Rating: 9/10
1. James - Percival Everett
Fiction, 305 pages
Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an almost universally known story within America: Jim and Huck board a raft and ride the Mississippi River towards a nebulous idea of freedom after Jim hears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans and Huck learns his abusive father is back in town. James tells this iconic story from the perspective of “Jim,” a diminutive given to him by his enslavers that diminishes James’ intellect and humanity. Many of the adventures in Twain’s book remain within the pages of Everett’s, but this time they are recounted by a man who chooses to travel south instead of north with hopes of returning to free his wife and daughter, highlighting the agency and cunning required to survive in the antebellum era. While I think general knowledge of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is helpful, I don’t think it is necessary to have read the book to appreciate James and Everett’s talent. It certainly would add to the intellectual exercise of reading this book and one’s ability to compare and contrast, but the singularity of the story of James in and of itself allows James to stand firmly on its own. It’s crazy to make a prediction this far out, but I feel confident in saying that James will win the Pulitzer Prize in May. This book is too much of a contribution to American literature to not win.
Rating: 10/10
If you like what you’re reading, please consider spreading the word about The Book House Blog by sharing this newsletter with anyone you know who might enjoy. And, if you haven’t already, subscribe for free to receive new posts.
Want to see past months’ round ups? You can find those here. You can also check out my most recent posts below.
I would love for James to win the Pulitzer, such a fantastic book!